Yesterday's pack of random cards turned out pretty good. Here we go again!
I still enjoy Donruss. I'm not happy about the lack of logos, but that has been out of Panini's hands. I don't think Donruss was ever my favorite set, though I do have some great memories. The Andruw Jones card is numbered to 150, which is a great find in this pack!
Giolito threw a no-hitter last year, but I don't need this card anyway. Urias may be an RC, but I don't need it, either.
A couple 2016 Topps Update. Nothing really of note here.
Here are two Bowman prospect cards which both worked out. Wilson is the first card in this stack that I need for my collection - the Archives!
Two more nice-looking cards that aren't needed.
The best thing about Topps Gallery is that the cards actually feature art! Remember when Diamond Kings used to have actual art, instead of photos ran through a filter?
I need that Ponce de Leon card. Nice! Two cards in this pack.
So begins a mass of Bowman. Let's play need-it, got-it, shall we? Got it.
Got it. Got it.
Need it. Need it.
Need it. Need it.
Got it. Need it.
Need it. Need it.
Got it. Need it.
Need it. Need it.
Need it. Need it.
Need it. Got it. (Second Renfroe in this pack!)
Don't got either, don't need either - neither Ramsey nor Davis have made it to the Majors.
Need it (Ray made his debut in 2021). Medeiros hasn't made it to the Show yet, though there was another player with his last name who played back in the 1940s. Could that be his grandfather?
Neither Jordan has played in the Majors, so I don't need either of these. Despite finishing the run of Bowman cards on a low note, all those 2019 rookies really upped the value of this particular pack.
And we'll finish with these two from 2005 Skybox Autographics. Mora is a part of the regular set, has a silver signature and isn't serial numbered. Gibson, though, is numbered out of 750 and has a black foil signature. It isn't a parallel, though. Nearly half of the Autographics base set (55 of 115 cards) is serial numbered to 750 copies, and could be found 1:6 hobby packs.
If you're curious, that means somewhere around 250,000 packs were issued. I don't know the odds for retail packs, but since hobby packs usually end up with better odds, I think the 250k number is on the low end.
And by the way, I didn't need the Gibson, but Mora is off to the Archives. In the end, this pack netted me 17 cards for the Archives collection, which is nearly half of the stack. And that Gibson above might find a home somewhere else.
Okay, it's getting late again. So, until next time... enjoy the Olympics! Or not. Who am I to tell you what to do? Like, what's up with "Have a nice day"? Why are you dictating how my day should be? What if I want to have a miserable day? What if sadness feeds my soul and inspires my art?
This is a long intro. Just scroll down to the first picture if you want the TLDR card haul.
I'm back again after quite a while! Did you miss me? Of course not. You have lives beyond my blog. At least, I hope you do. Otherwise, what have you been doing for the past month? What a sad life that would be, just endlessly refreshing my blog hoping to see the newest post, day in and day out, never bathing or seeing sunlight. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
But as always, I haven't just been sitting around myself, either. I've had a good bit of luck finding cards online in the past month, so I will (hopefully) get around to sharing many of them with you.
First thing's first, though it's not the first thing I received in January. In fact, these came over the weekend. Someone here in Japan listed four small boxes of random cards for about $7 each. There were pictures of about a dozen of the cards that could be found in each box: two boxes had NPB cards, seemingly all from BBM. The other two showed MLB cards. Both of the NPB boxes had already sold, as had one of the MLB boxes. But the unsold box flashed two cards which, right off the bat, would make this a worthwhile purchase for me. And there were some other appealing cards as well!
So I paid my $7 and waited just a day or two (Japan Post is amazing) before the box showed up. When I said "small box" before, it was about the size of one of those Disney clamshell VHS boxes. Am I dating myself here? There were twelve bags, each with about 35 cards. I'll do the math for you. That's about 400 cards for $7.
"Okay," you say to me, "how much 1989 Topps did you get?" Well, the answer is one card. Most of the stuff is from the past few years, though a lot of it is base flagship Topps and Bowman. There are some inserts, a couple parallels, and a couple nice cards in the final bag.
I've already flipped through the twelve bags. In each bag, I sorted the card by set and then scanned the cards, mostly in pairs. Then I put the stacks aside, and as I write this post, we'll see how many cards fit somewhere into my collection.
Despite seeing a lot of base, I think I'll do okay. I saw some familiar names which I might need for my awards collections, and there are my archives (one card for every player, ever) and live game (one card for every appearance of every player I've seen at an MLB stadium) collections. And I'm hoping for at least half a dozen cards tossed into the type collection.
Here we go.
Oh. Wait a second. I have to rotate the scans. There we go... Now to upload. And they're in reverse scanning order. I guess it doesn't matter, eh?
Two decent stars, but two cards I don't need. Why does Bowman's Best always look so good? Especially the refractors, so much better than Topps Chrome. Finest also looks pretty good a lot of the time. Not here, though 2007 Finest isn't the worst design. But I digress. I like Rizzo; I've thought about doing a mini player collection for him. And on to the next pair.
Lucas Giolito has yet to become a household name. Machado is pretty well-known, but I can't stnad his crybaby, selfish attitude. I do love me some Topps Gallery, though. I don't need either of these.
Vanilla Ice has not reached the Majors. And never will - he retired in early 2020. Magglio Ordonez did much better, retiring with a career .309 average. Two more cards for the scrap pile.
Brandon Phillips as a Brave! I saw him play with the Reds when they would come to Atlanta. I always enjoyed watching BP, seeing him practice turning double plays. And say what you will about the Astros (I don't care about the team), Altuve wasn't a cheater, and I've been a fan of his since his minor league days.
It's nice to see Brandon Phillips on the field, having fun. And this card of Daniel Nava will fit into my Archives collection! Finally, a card I really need!
Two Topps designs I've never really liked. The 2017 Topps layout might have been better with a different font, or even if the italics leaned the opposite direction. Ten years prior, 2007's design used silver foil on a black background, which can be really hard to read, as you can see in these scans. Two more strikes.
I saw James Loney play for the Dodgers in 2011, so his card has a home! Zito
Ahh, 1959 Topps rip off. As much as I enjoy Topps Heritage, I don't really enjoy Topps Heritage too much. (Figure that one out.) But what's really worse, in my opinion, is Topps Archives. Because Heritage already exists. I'm not the first one to make this complaint, but it still bothers me to this day. It has some merits, but this post is already long enough... Piazza wasn't half bad, but I don't need any cards of him. Garcia's Topps Archives card, on the other hand, is welcome in my Archives.
Chrome doesn't scan well. Corey Kluber pitched a no-hitter last year, so he's off to that collection. Wil Myers didn't do anything last year, so I don't need him.
Who? Despite having some good stats under their belt, I don't recall these pitchers at all. Iglesias was a pretty successful relief pitcher in Cincinnati, and Wood had a great 2017 season. Don't need either of these guys, however.
Woah, I'm getting sleepy. I discussed last year the fact that Gypsy Queen should probably be retired. Eleven years ago, it had a beautiful design with some interesting insert sets. Now, the design is still appealing, but the set itself is quite stale. Polanco is off to the Archives. Gray isn't. If you can't tell, this is a Rainbow Foil parallel. Gray's card back says "He's aware of what's happening around him." I guess that means he's off the drugs? "He's doing a much better job of maintaining composure." Perhaps the road rage is finally under control.
I enjoy combination cards, especially if the image is interesting. I guess looking at a scouting report is fairly unique for a card. Mengden is sideways. But I need him for the Archives.
More 2020 Topps. Max Muncy and Andres Munoz both fill spots in the Archives.
There's gonna be a lot of 2020 Topps. Thornton was a rookie in 2019, so unsurprisingly, he is another needed card. David Prize has been playing for over a dozen years now. Can you believe it?
I have a Joc. Now if only I had a Ner. The other Dodger is needed! Welcome, Verdugo.
Riddle me this, riddle me that. Who's araid of the big black bat? I need both of these! Somehow, I never got a Justin Shane Bieber card.
How did these Future Stars turn out? Someone let me know in a few years. Meanwhile, I don't need Nick, but I do need Jeff.
Okay, last of the 2020 Topps. Two horizontal team cards. The Phillies celebration is pretty cool, but the backs don't give any detail on the photos. I get that the card reviews the season as a whole, but both backs have enough white space that a small blurb would fit near the top.
Okay, one last card to finish this off. What you see is a 1997 Topps Stars Future All-Stars insert of Vladimir Guerrero. While I don't need this card, I think it's the best card in this pack. A great player in a defunct team's uniform, with that weird logo prominently featured on his helmet. And a flattering-turned-critical blurb about his prospects.
Well, that's one pack down, and it's basically 2 AM. I gotta get to sleep. What did you think of this pack? There are 11 more to share! I did pretty good here, needing 13 cards. I also pulled out the Altuve, Phillips Braves card, and the Guerrero. I might do something else with those sometime.
I only had seven goals last year, though I was only able to fully meet one of them. This year, some of those will be adjusted, some might be removed, and others might be added. Let's see what I hope to accomplish in the next twelve months.
Have you seen this card?
1. Player Collections. I need one card for Charlie Hough, one for Zack Greinke, two for Tony LaRussa. I'd love to find all of those. There are only about a dozen Japanese cards I need for my player collections, but they are not easily obtainable. I need three autographs, three jersey cards, and one or two bat cards. If I can get everything but the Japanese cards, I'll be quite happy.
2. US Sets. There are 79 sets on my want list. Let's try to get down to at least 70. I still need several mini cards for the frankenset, so I want that completed. I'd like to finish one vintage Topps set this year, as well.
3. Japan Sets. I have 58 sets on that want list. This won't be easy, but I'd love to get down to 50. Even finishing three sets would be quite the accomplishment. I need 225 Pokemon cards; I'd like to get that down to 100. I would also like to get one BBM and one Calbee set I'm missing.
4. Theme Collections. I still need one card each for my hometown and knuckler collections, though they are rare tobacco-era cards. There are seven relics for that collection. And as I mentioned recently, I've been starting up a few new collections. It would be great to finish the three existing collections, and of course I want to knock out a large chunk of the new ones.
5. Custom Cards. Again I'll carry over the goal of creating and hopefully printing some custom cards. I'm not looking to do any professional printing right now, just testing out to see what I can accomplish. I also don't really want to print out a full set of anything, as that would take up a lot of space, which I don't necessarily have these days. Perhaps just a few single cards.
6. Management Goals. I have several tasks on my to do list relating to cards, mainly managing lists and scan data. I want to get those taken care of. I also want to finish properly naming my type collection scans and possibly getting the set scans renamed.
7. Blogging. Six months with no posts isn't a good thing. I really want to post on a regular basis. Let's see how that goes.
8. If I'm Home Goals. There's a strong chance I'll spend this year living away from my home apartment. But if I actually do end up living at home, I'll have more free time to work on physical things. I need to do some more scanning; cards won't take too long, but there are several other things I want to digitize. I also have some non-sport cards I've neglected to deal with for a long time. They need to be sorted and cataloged. Finally, I want to complete the labeling system I started about a year ago.
One extra goal this year brings me to eight! Although, if you count all the little pieces, there are 18 subgoals plus four tentative at-home goals. Will I stay focused enough (and open up my wallet enough in some cases) to get everything done?
So begins a mass of Bowman. Let's play need-it, got-it, shall we? Got it.
Got it. Got it.
Need it. Need it.
Need it. Need it.
Got it. Need it.
Need it. Need it.
Got it. Need it.
Need it. Need it.
Need it. Need it.
Need it. Got it. (Second Renfroe in this pack!)
Don't got either, don't need either - neither Ramsey nor Davis have made it to the Majors.
Need it (Ray made his debut in 2021). Medeiros hasn't made it to the Show yet, though there was another player with his last name who played back in the 1940s. Could that be his grandfather?
Neither Jordan has played in the Majors, so I don't need either of these. Despite finishing the run of Bowman cards on a low note, all those 2019 rookies really upped the value of this particular pack.
And we'll finish with these two from 2005 Skybox Autographics. Mora is a part of the regular set, has a silver signature and isn't serial numbered. Gibson, though, is numbered out of 750 and has a black foil signature. It isn't a parallel, though. Nearly half of the Autographics base set (55 of 115 cards) is serial numbered to 750 copies, and could be found 1:6 hobby packs.
