What I Got For Christmas

Happy Christmas everyone!

I hope everyone had a fun holiday with their family and loved ones. Here at the CCHQ (Cardboard Clubhouse headquarters for short), my family came over last night for Christmas Eve and we exchanged presents with them. I would share what I got but I've already put all of that away. Plus, my mom was sick so they didn't stay but a few hours. It didn't help either that the kids were sick, my wife was sick, and I was starting to get sick as well. 

Anyway, this morning the kids woke up to a giant haul from Santa complete with Paw Patrol toys, Peppa Pig toys and other things that we'll have to find room for. My wife then went to the kitchen and starting making lunch which consisted of a giant ham, mashed potatoes, roast potatoes, corn, baked beans, dressing, mac and cheese, carrots, and gravy. It was a good thing too because my stepmom and her friend/neighbor/handyman came by to visit for an hour or so. We hadn't seen them in a while so it was good to catch-up.

After lunch we did presents amongst ourselves (me, my wife, and the kids).

This may seem a bit odd for a Christmas present but my son actually picked it out for me from the Santa Shoppe at his school. He knows how much I like breakfast sandwiches so while I'm off work for the holidays, him and I will give it a try.

I always lump my blogger Secret Santa package in with the family gifts. I won't give away who my Secret Santa was quite yet but it was a very neat haul with a very nice notes which I'll devote a post too soon.

Now I'll dive in to what my wife got me ...

I got a new blu-ray player from my aunt so naturally I asked for some blu-rays to add to my collection which I'm trying to build up. These six should definitely keep me entertained for a while. 

I ordered some cards from COMC over Black Friday weekend which I saved for Christmas so I could have some cards to open up under the tree. I could have opted to have gotten blasters and packs from Target but I figured it'd be a better idea to use the money set aside for that to use on cards I actually want. Again, I'll cover these in a separate post later.

Pop Funkos!! The Big Boy Funko I wanted because in the Cincinnati area, Frisch's Big Boy is an institution. Some Big Boy chains do theirs with red relish but Frisch's does theirs with their own trademark tartar sauce. The Lindor Funko was on my list because he's one of my favorite Indians players to watch. It's nice to see MLB getting into the Funko game finally.

I got these awesome new shirts as well from the Cincy Shirts website. I was kind of amazed they had a Cincinnati Stingers shirt. The Cincinnati Gardens shirt I just had to have because of my love of that historic arena.

I told my wife about the $9 DVD sale at Cornette's Collectibles so she told me to order what I wanted from there. So I did. These were the DVDs I wanted most from the sale (and yes, the 5-disc set was included in the sale) and they came autographed which is super cool as well! I'm really looking forward to diving into these.

Finally, I got some more books to add to my library. I've already read "Up Up and Away" and I highly recommend it if you haven't read it before. The "Nitro" book was voted the best wrestling book of 2018 by the readers of the POST Wrestling website and "Death of the Territories" was runner-up (I think, regardless it's new as well). The Golden Seals book I heard about during an episode of a podcast I listen too and I thought it'd be a fun read.

So that's what I got for Christmas. What about you? 

Blog Bat Around: What I Collect - An Addendum

A few months ago there was a blog bat around topic brought up by Night Owl about what you collect. There were a number of things, card wise, that I listed in that particular post that I talked about, however, sitting at the office last weekend on a rare Saturday that I had to work, I looked around my cubicle and realized there were a number of things I had there that I collect that I failed to mention. So, here's a quick addendum to that blog post from a few months ago with more stuff that I collect ...

Starting Lineup Figures

If there's one thing I love to get if I can get a good deal on them, it's Starting Lineup figures. I haven't added more to the collection in about a year though but if it's a player I like from the past or a cool figure from any sport, I'll add it to the collection. I've only got two baseball ones right now but these four hockey ones are my favorite. I think the one that wins for most awesome is the Gretzky/Messier double pack with the Stanley Cup floating between them. 

Bobbleheads

Oh how I love bobbleheads. While they definitely can be expensive (and I flat out refuse to pay $25 or more for one), I've always liked them from when they first became popular again in the early 2000s. These two above are an old Joe Nuxhall one and next to him is Howler, the Coyotes mascot. While he got damaged somehow, it's still a pretty cool piece to have a sometimes mascot bobbles aren't all that easy to come by. Also, there's a Chris Sabo Starting Lineup figure hiding in the background.

Speaking of mascot bobbleheads, here's my newest addition ... it's my high school mascot, a cougar. I got this from the school registration office when we signed my five year old up for kindergarten a few weeks ago. It was sitting on a shelf in front of some framed high school team photos of the past season. I made a remark about how it was neat and the registration lady said "take it if you want, I think we've got a bunch of them". Well, she didn't have to tell me twice!

And here's the last of my current collection, Tony Perez and Mat Latos. While I'm not a big Mat Latos fan, he was a pretty decent pitcher when he was with the Reds and was part of the awesome rotation we had at the early part of the decade with Cueto, Latos, Bailey, Leake, and Arroyo. 

Funkos

Ok, I'll finally admit it .... I collect Funkos. These crazy little things finally got me to start buying some en masse and while the typical going retail rate of ten bucks is enough for me to go crazy, I have to actually be interested in something to buy a figure of it. Case in point, the Big Lebowski figures. It's one of my all time favorite movies so I just had to get a figure of both The Dude and Walter. Mr. Redlegs came from the flea market and the mascot line is the only baseball Funkos I know of that they've done. Also, while I'm not a huge fan of the Penguins, the Sidney Crosby figure was a Secret Santa present from a co-worker last year.

I don't always keep them in the box either. That's the nice thing about the Funkos is that they look good both in and out of the box. I forget the name of the tall Ghostbusters figure of Ray at the left but it know it's made by the same people who make Funkos. Plus, of course there has to be Ecto 1 and Winston nearby.

I do like the fact that Funko has a line of figures from horror movies and I just couldn't resist taking them out of the box. Previously, these had been part of my annual Halloween "mood display" at home but I took a different route to that display last year, so I made these part of my Halloween decorations at work. They were such a hit with co-workers I decided to leave them up the whole year round.

And since they all didn't fit it one picture, here's the rest of them. I've really got to find some more of the Universal Monsters figures and I hope there's one of Dracula floating around out there somewhere.

So, that's a quick addendum to the "What I Collect" blog bat around from a month or so back. While I know this stuff isn't exactly card related, it's still some pretty neat and fun stuff that I probably should have included in the original post.

Card Shop Chronicles: Lebanon Candy and Sports Cards

It's not often that a new card shop pops up these days so when I heard about Lebanon Candy and Sports Cards at the most recent Nutter Center card show, I knew I had to stop in and check them out. 

Situated right off the main drag through downtown, the place reeks of nostalgia, right up to the signage on the windows. If they were going for a rustic feel, then they definitely nailed it. There are actually two doors as you walk in, the one on the right goes to the card shop, the other to the candy shop.

Here's the view of the main counter. Suffice to say it's absolutely loaded with packs, boxes, blasters, and all kinds of stuff. The shop itself it very small but they've made really good use of the space. According to the guy behind the counter, the place used to be an antique shop and judging by the old display cabinets and the polished hardwood floors, I can see how that would be. 

Besides sports cards, they have tons and tons of gaming cards like Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, etc. They even carry the big Pokemon boxes that Wal-Mart and Target carry.

Here's more boxes and packs. This is more recent stuff including loads of Series 1.

But wait, there's more! You want board games? They got 'em!

Here's a really cool thing right in the middle of the shop. It's an old fire call box that was used to alert the local fire departments. Seeing that Lebanon is an old historic city, it makes sense. As you can see, hidden behind the box is part of their Funko shelf.

Here's just a portion of the Funko's that they carry. They've got everything from Street Fighter to Dr. Seuss to Walking Dead figures. 

I nearly missed these old school motorcycles when I walked in. They definitely add a touch of character to the place, as if it didn't have enough already.

Next door is the candy portion loaded with anything and everything you could think of candy wise. There's a complete wall full of Jelly Belly dispensers, the counter is loaded with chocolate candies of all sorts and there's even a section full of pop culture candies.

Of course, it can't be a candy shop without having pop (or soda if you will) by the bottle. There's craft sodas such as Avery's and Jones Soda along with other brands such as Ale-8-1, IBC Root Beer, and Virgils. The other refrigerator has your standard Coke products but they're in glass bottles!!

Speaking of Coke, look at this awesome old school vending machine. I'm not sure if it's operational but the price on it says 25 cents. Too bad I didn't have a quarter on me to try it out.

As for my purchases, I grabbed three more packs of Donruss racing, two packs of Opening Day, and two packs of the new Pokemon for my son. 

Here's what I got out of the racing packs. I did manage to get two of the nickname variations including a Bill Elliott gold. The best of the packs was the Chase Elliott press proof numbered 23/99.

These were the first packs of Opening Day I think I've ever opened. These Reds cards came out of the first pack. I really, really like the picture on the Billy Hamilton card.

The inserts from each pack, a Brewers Opening Day card and a Jayson Werth Superstar Celebrations card.

This card will go towards my throwback uniforms collection. The 1970s style Pirates uniforms are always a hit with me.

I know this is a parallel but I'm not quite sure what sort of parallel this is as it's not numbered on the back. Regardless, I'll set it aside for my "shiny card" collection.

This is a shop I'll definitely be back to, despite the fact that the card shop portion felt a little bit cramped. The pack prices are more than fair and I love the nostalgia factor and the uniqueness of a card shop and candy shop all in one. 

The Real Cardboard Clubhouse

Something I've been meaning to do for a while is show off how I have my collection is stored. Finding the time to do it though was another matter. Luckily, the "Card Cave Contest" that is being run by Judson at My Cardboard Habit was enough to give me some motivation to finally take some pictures and write about my card room.

The primary room I use for my card collection is our spare bedroom. Never mind the Pikachu comforter on the bed, it belongs to my son as this room will one day be his once we get a few minor electrical things fixed up in here. He has his own room currently but he's starting to outgrow it. As of now, we share the "blue room" as we call it, he plays with the trains in the floor or other toys he brings in and I sort, scan, and organize cards. It's a win win and also gives us some "boy time" as my wife calls it.

Any card room must have a TV right? Normally I'll have hockey, baseball, or an old pay-per-view show from the WWE Network on. However, sometimes I'll put cartoons on if my son wants to watch them. Oh, and yes, those are rabbit ears you see behind it. That's because we don't have cable hooked up in the room. Behind the TV we have a Roku hooked up and we can watch stuff on cable that way. Under the TV is my trusty scanner that I drag out and sit in the floor next to my laptop whenever I need to do a mass scanning session, which has lately been on Sunday afternoons.

I keep all my binders on the shelf in the closet along with my trade/supply box and a spare 600-count box for whenever I need it. Here are a few close ups.

As you can see, nearly each binder has a card or sticker on the side of it. The ones with cards I know have been gone through and organized. The ones with the paper labels still need to be gone through.

The Topps binder is where I keep all my pre-1980 cards. The binder with the Biggio card on it is my 90s binder and the one with the Rollie Fingers card is my 80s binder. The other two as I mentioned earlier need to be gone through to weed out duplicates and any other cards that don't fit in the collection.

Here's the trade box. As of right now it's pretty light but as I've been going through my binders and plucking out cards that don't really fit, if they fit with someone on my trade list, then in the box it goes. The box on top of that is empty and I keep it for whenever I need it. Mostly it's the box I take with me when I go to card shows.

The bed I showed earlier has three cubbyholes in the headboard which I use for quick storage, mainly of stuff that needs to be scanned. The empty Pokemon packs belong to my son. He's really gotten into  Pokemon cards and loves opening new packs.

The bed also has two sliding drawers in the bottom of it. Sometimes they're not the easiest things to pull out but they provide some much needed extra storage. What you see above it the left side drawer with my Starting Lineup figures, extra pages, and a bunch of misc stuff. Under the figures is where I've got my 1984 Topps set at. It's all paged up and just needs a binder right now.

The right side drawer is where I keep my football/misc binder and my wrestling binder. Eventually I'll combine them into one. The random stacks you see there are just that, random stacks of cards that either need to be put away or gone through. As of this writing, I have done just that.

The other half of the the drawer is were I keep any boxes or packs I'm waiting to tear into, a freezer bag full of top loaders and penny sleeves, and my old Reds programs from when I was a kid.

This box is a liar. It says it's the "to be filed/organized" box but currently, it's where a lot of my cards from 2010-present are as I really don't have any binders to put them in. So I guess the organized part is right. There's also a good sized stack of 1993 Donruss in there as I don't have any place currently for those either.

Not only are there cards, but it's also where I store my wrestling VHS collection along with a few random wrestling DVDs. The Headliner figures on the top of the shelf came as part of a trade last winter.

On the walls I've got my Reds banner, a certificate from my son's first Reds game, and a pennant I bought when I visited spring training back in 2011.

Here's the other pennants that adorn the wall. The blue 1988 All-Star and the white Reds one I had in my grandparents basement when I spent summer days there as a kid. The others are ones I've added over the years but the Devils one belongs to my wife.

That's it for the "blue room" but there is one more area to show off.

The giant bookcase in our master bedroom. It's filled with my wife's Funko and Pokemon collection. Some of the Funkos are mine but they are mostly hers.

Here's the bottom portion of the bookcase. My blu-rays and our video games are towards the bottom where you see the jack-o-lantern box. Look closely, you see that Reds box? That's where all my good stuff like relic cards, autograph cards, and misc cool cards are housed.

A close up look, lets peer inside ...

Just like I said, relic, autograph, and other misc neat cards live within. To be honest, the box is almost full, but there's always room for more.

Hope you enjoyed this tour around the actual cardboard clubhouse. I definitely enjoyed showing off how I store and organize everything.