Blog Bat Around: What I Collect

A week or so back, Night Owl made a post about some of the items he collects and just recently followed up on that by officially declaring a blog bat around on the subject. Typically, I don't usually participate in these "Blog Bat Around" type subjects, mainly by the time I have a chance to write about a subject, I'm about 2-3 weeks behind everyone else. However, I'm at a rare point where I'm pretty much caught up on everything (except for a few trade packs I got in the mail recently) so I figured I would jump in on the fun of this particular topic.

I've really enjoyed reading the posts others have done on this particular subject, especially those of my regular trade partners, and it's provided me more ammunition to add to my trade box. Reading want lists and such is nice but really, when it's broken down simply in a blog post, it's much easier to keep track of.

At first I decided to split my collecting interests up into three different posts, however trying to focus on my collecting interests by sport turned out to be a pretty lengthy task, so I decided to summarize my collections in the different sports and other areas I collect.

1. Baseball

Baseball is the primary sport I collect and as far as teams go, the Reds and the Indians are the primary teams I collect. I also go after defunct teams such as the Expos, Browns, Senators, Pilots, Brooklyn Dodgers, Milwaukee/Boston Braves, and the Philadelphia/Kansas City A's. As far as player collections go, there's just too many to list. On my want list page, I did put down a pretty extensive list of players that I quote "collect" but it's just merely a guideline. If I had to pick though, probably my top player collections would be of Barry Larkin, Bronson Arroyo, and Dennis Eckersley.

In terms of sets, the main set I'm trying to complete currently is 1984 Topps, which is my birth year set. I managed to score the Don Mattingly rookie card in last year's Secret Santa package and I'd say I'm probably about 50% complete on the set, but I need to update my want list on that to be sure. Another set I'd like to get started on would be 2002 Upper Deck Vintage, as that was the only set I managed to complete during my initial foray into collecting. I haven't really started on that at all yet though.

Some team sets I'm currently trying to track down are the 1969 and 1970 Seattle Pilots cards from those particular Topps sets. The Pilots to me have always been a curiosity to me, being the only "one and done" team in modern MLB history, and so I thought it'd be pretty cool to have all of the Pilots cards from the two Topps sets to feature them. Also, in the vain of curiosities, I'm trying to piece together all the Washington Nat'l League error cards from the 1974 Topps set. I've already got the Willie McCovey and a handful of others but that's been a collecting mission of mine for as long as I can remember.

Of course, there's other stuff beside just teams, team sets, and players I stay on the lookout for and that would include things such as buybacks, cards of "short term stops", cards of players on teams they never actually played for (aka "zero year cards"), oddballs of defunct retail chains such as Hills, KB Toys, and I guess now Toys R Us could be included in that), card of players in throwback uniforms, vintage team cards, and pretty much any random vintage cards as long as they're in decent shape.

2. Hockey

Over the past few years, I've become a pretty big hockey fan, so much in fact that I buy the NHL.TV all access subscription every year so I can watch the teams I follow and because trying to find a hockey game that's not on NBC is a major chore. The current NHL teams I tend to collect are the New Jersey Devils, Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers, Columbus Blue Jackets, and the Arizona/Phoenix Coyotes. Both the Cincinnati and Dayton areas have a rich minor league hockey history so if I can track down cards from Cincinnati teams like the Cyclones or Mighty Ducks or former Dayton teams like the Bombers and Gems, then I go for those too.

As I mentioned previously, I collect defunct baseball teams and hockey certainly has it's share as well, heck there's even a whole defunct challenger league (the WHA). I'm always on the lookout for cards, mainly vintage, for teams such as the Quebec Nordiques, Hartford Whalers, Cleveland Barons, California Golden Seals, Atlanta Thrasher, and Cincinnati Stingers to name a few. In fact, just like the Seattle Pilots cards, it's one of my collecting missions to get every Stingers card from the O-Pee-Chee WHA sets that were produced in the 70s.

Just like baseball, there's too many player collections I have going on to list, some I actively seek out cards for (Jaromir Jagr, Shane Doan, Martin Brodeur) and some I've yet to officially declare that I'm collecting their cards (Braden Holtby, Ilya Kolvachuk) but if it's a star player or even a player I recognize from watching a game on TV, then I'm pretty likely to pick up their card. I also collect a lot of the players that were popular when I was a kid (Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Joe Sakic, etc.) or are in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

I also collect any vintage hockey I can get my hands on, any of the WHA O-Pee-Chee cards, and any oddball cards as well.

3. Pro Wrestling/UFC

I've been a wrestling fan since the mid 1990s and to be honest, the wrestling cards back then and even into the late 90s were pretty pitiful. Once Fleer got the rights to WWE cards in the early 2000s, things really starting getting better. Since then, I've been into wrestling cards. I usually get cards of wrestlers I enjoy watching on TV both past and present. I'll buy a few packs of Topps WWE cards here and there as well, but I mostly focus on singles.

As far as UFC cards go, my interest in that has definitely waned over the years. I'm more of a fan of the original UFC stuff from the 90s but I will still watch the TV fights here and there if I have time. Topps usually includes cards from old school fighters like Ken Shamrock, Dan Severn, and Royce Gracie in some of their releases. Also, Jessamyn Duke (a distant cousin of mine) was on the Ultimate Fighter a few years ago and had a few UFC cards produced of her, so I try to get those when I come across them.

4. Football

I'm not a big football collector but if I find older cards, I might snag a few up here and there, especially of Hall of Famers. I do like the cards that Panini puts out in some of their sets of retired stars and Hall of Famers, so if I stumble across those in a dime or nickel box, I'm apt to potentially get those as well. I'm also on the lookout for USFL and XFL cards, since I'm big into that sort of thing, but that about the only thing I'll grab in the way of that sort of stuff.

The only cards I really actively seek out in terms of football are Cincinnati Bengals cards, and even there I'm pretty selective. I won't buy just any Bengals card, it has to be of someone like Andy Dalton or A.J. Green or older stars from the 80s and 90s like Boomer Esiason, Anthony Munoz, Jeff Blake, Corey Dillon, Cris Collinsworth, Ickey Woods, Ken Anderson (not the wrestler), etc.

5. Basketball

I'll admit it, I don't really watch basketball at all, not even when the NCAA Tournament is happening. I've tried. I played some youth basketball at the local YMCA in grade school, and couldn't get into it. I even tried to watch a little bit when the Cavs were in the the Finals the past few years and it's just not for me. However, that hasn't really stopped me in terms of collecting. I'm always on the lookout for Cincinnati Royals cards and ABA cards, plus cards of Oscar Robertson and Jerry Lucas.

6. 1988 Topps Fright Flicks

I don't remember exactly when or where I heard about these cards but when I did, I knew I had to try to build the whole set. I found a dealer a few years ago at the HorrorHound convention who was selling packs of the stuff for five bucks each. I bought one pack just to try it out and, as a fan of classic horror and sci-fi, I was hooked. I've only got about 16 of these in my collection currently.

7. Racing cards

I got back into racing cards last year thanks to Panini's Donruss set. I really enjoyed busting open packs of it and trying something new. I just recently went back and thumbed through some of the cards I got from those packs and I forgot how neat they were and I'm planning on getting a handful of packs again this year.

8. Pokemon cards

Even though it's not officially listed on my want list, I have a five year old son who is in to everything Pokemon. I managed to get him into collecting Pokemon cards and he's already got a half a binder full of cards. While I don't understand the whole concept behind the show, nor do I understand how to play the official game, it's still a fun father/son activity that we share every so often.

So there it is, my collecting habits in a nutshell ... well, almost a nutshell as this got a bit more wordy than I thought it would. I hope this provided everyone some more insight into what I collect and, in some cases, why I collect certain things. An also, as I said in the beginning, a big shout out to Night Owl for introducing the topic and declaring an official "Blog Bat Around".

Getting Things Organized

While I was on my blogging hiatus back in the fall and early winter, one of my goals before the baby was born was to finally get my collection organized in a decent manner. The fact that it wasn't organized completely drove me nuts. I tried binders but that got too expensive having to buy pages and the binder itself. Finally, I finally just said "forget this" and I bought five 3200 count boxes to go with one I already had from the card shop. Over the course of two weeks, I emptied the binders organized the cards by team, and started loading them into the boxes. As you can see by the picture above, I filled up all five.

I took a bunch of top loaders I had laying around and used them as dividers. I bought a pack of cheap index cards to use as labels and I cut them to fit in the top loaders. Once I finished sorting everything, I labeled the boxes on the front as to what's in them. I'm pretty pleased with the way I turned out, although I've got one extra 3200 count box and in order to get some extra room, I'm going to split the teams up into American and National League and have two boxes for each league. 

For my Reds cards, I sorted them by decade (80s, 90s, etc.) into their own box for easy sorting and the ability to quickly go through them at a later date to pull out duplicates and cards for my player collections, which might get put into a binder at a later date.

For my non-baseball cards (hockey, football, wrestling, etc.), I managed to get them all into one box with room to spare. The hockey cards are again split up by team, football are split by Bengals and "other", wrestling and UFC cards have their own row, and miscellaneous stuff has some space as well.

Here's my trade box. It's a 1600 count shoebox style box. Again, I used top loaders and index cards for dividers. Although you can't see it, underneath each person's name is a brief summary of what they collect so I can quickly reference it without getting out my master list. The empty space in the box is usually occupied by a Ziploc bag that has cut up binder pages in it that I use for PWEs and a print out of my "trader address book" with everyone's addresses.

That's the majority of my collection organized. There's a few more minor things I have to work on such as sorting and paging up some sets and going through the handful of cards I have in storage in the garage. I'm really happy that I was able to get everything organized mostly and there is a semblance of order with everything..

2009 Upper Deck Series 2 Value Box

The card section at my local Walmart is an absolute mess. To imagine this, think of everything you see in the card aisle, throw it all into a giant pile, and shove it back on the shelf. Or, maybe even more accurately, think of the Springfield tire fire ...

Actual picture of Walmart's card aisle

Anyway, I was trying to find a rack pack or a jumbo pack of anything interesting since I was in the mood to buy cards. But, alas, it was to no avail as the only things I could find were a few rack packs of basketball cards. I should've stopped there and called it a day. As I was about to give up my search, I looked down to the discount bin and amongst packs of Magic the Gathering and Pokemon strewn about, I saw a value box of 2009 Upper Deck baseball. "How in the heck did that wind up here?" I thought. I saw the price, $3.48 for 75 cards plus a "Starquest" pack, whatever that is. I felt that was justification enough for me to warrant getting it and I tossed it in the cart.

Once I got back home and tended to a few things before the in-laws visited, I had just enough time to tear into it. The 75-card brick was vacuum sealed I guess to prevent damage, not that damage would've hurt 99 percent of them. I thumbed through twice, found a few interesting cards, and put the rest in my sorting box to be paged up.

Here's a handful of the better of the base cards from the brick. The Montero card was the only horizontal card in the batch but I really, really dig it. 

Some cards from the award winners sub-set. I forgot about Cliff Lee's stint in Cleveland so I guess that's one thing that these old value packs can provide, cards of players with teams I'd forgotten they were with.

Three Reds were included in the 75-card brick. Bill Bray was a serviceable reliever for the Reds for a handful of years. I still think the Reds giving up Edison Volquez was a horrible idea.

These "sports" inserts of Derrick Lee and Nolan Ryan. were pretty much the only kind of inserts of any kind in there. 

My favorite base card of the entire box. It's not often that I come across a late career Ken Griffey Jr. card, and it's even less than that when it's a Mariners card. This, right now, becomes my favorite card of Griffey I have in my collection.

So, those are the highlights of the 75-card stack. There was also a three-card pack of Starquest cards. Let's see if I get anything good.

Yep ... just as I feared. Three minor stars. On the back, these are all labeled as "turquoise commons", not exactly best way to close out this box.

So, was this worth the $3.50? Probably not and 95% of the cards in the box I could've lived without but still, it was kind of fun to go back in time and gain some new cards for the collection.

You've Got Mail #26: Play at the Plate

To help kick off the #Supertrader festivities, the co-chair of this wacky little group, Brian from Play at the Plate, broke into a box of UD Ultimate Collection and shared his findings with the group. My stuff from the break showed up in a nice little PWE along with some friends to accompany them on the journey.

My haul from the UD Ultimate Collection break. This is my first experience with that particular brand at it's pretty cool. I'm pretty happy that I got a Homer Bailey RC autograph.

Some 2008 UD Documentary cards. In theory, this is a good idea and I give Upper Deck credit for thinking outside of the box but I can't imagine anyone putting the set together of who knows how many cards. No wonder this was a one and done product.

Brian also threw in a nice assortment of Bengals cards for my Bengals binder. The nice thing about doing this blog is that not only has my Reds collection ballooned to epic proportions, but my Bengals collection has seen a nice sizable bump as well.

Thanks to Brian for the great PWE and for busting the box of Ultimate Collection for the group!

Christmas Goodies!

I hope everyone had a good Christmas! My in-laws came and went, Christmas Eve was a blast with 14 people at the house and my uncle and I making and emergency run to the liquor store for Limoncello. Today was the day that my wife and I exchanged gifts to ourselves and judging by the above pictures, I'd say I made out pretty good.

First off, I got this box of 10th Anniversary Allen & Ginter from my family. It came along with two bonus packs. I'm really excited to crack into this soon.

My wife got me a bunch of packs and blasters from Target, including Allen & Ginter, WWE Heritage, two of the Topps Update holiday boxes, and two jumbo packs of Panini Prestige football.

With some of the money my in-laws gave us, I picked up this Panini Contenders blaster during a post-Christmas Target run.

Finally, to store all of my "good stuff" (autographs, relic cards, vintage, and stuff I just generally like), my wife got me this awesome Reds themed storage box.

I go back to work tomorrow and am working 8am-11pm for the next three days but I'll be breaking into this stuff soon. Stay tuned!

Cleveland Indians Fan Pack

Another quick post today about a nice little surprise that came in the mail, a goodie bag from the Cleveland Indians!

For a free fan pack/goodie bag, this was about what I expected. Just random trinkets and a form letter thanking me for being an Indians fan (which I am ... along with being a Reds fan). Here's everything the package contained ...

As I mentioned, there was a the "thank you for being a fan" form letter. There was also a 2016 pocket schedule, an Indians lanyard, and a Cleveland Clinic perforated, tear off thingy.

Thanks to the Indians for sending this stuff. It's good to know that there are still teams out there that will send goodie bags out to fans. Hopefully I'll be able to make it to a game next summer!

More Stuff From the Scrapbook!

As I work on trying to figure out my next card post, I wanted to share some more items that were in my old scrapbook that I found last weekend. So here is a bunch of random stuff from the scrapbook that I though would be of interest. Enjoy!

 

 

First up, we have a scorecard from 1995. Looking at the front of it, I think I was a little ambitious thinking the Reds would win the pennant. Perhaps I was thinking of the NL Central pennant as I know the Reds got swept in the NLCS that year by the Braves. The inside is blank so I'm not sure which game this is but the Dodgers were the visiting team. Also, take a look at the September 1st promotion under the "Riverfront Happenings" section ... yes, National Packtime Baseball Card Night featuring a free collectors set from each of the six major card companies. Wait, there were six major card companies? Topps, Upper Deck, Donruss, Score and Fleer are the ones I can think of ... would Pinnacle be the sixth?

This is a program from Brian Pillman Memorial Show I went to back in high school. For a few years in the late 90s and early 2000s, our local wrestling organization, HWA, put on a memorial show and fundraiser for the family of Brian Pillman, a former Bengals players and pro wrestler who passed away at age 35 in 1997. These shows would always feature talent from the three top national companies (WWF, WCW, and ECW), local and regional outfits such as HWA and Ohio Valley Wrestling, and retired stars from different regions. This particular program was signed by local wrestler Shark Boy. There is another copy of this program that I have framed and hanging on my wall that has autographs from a number of people who appeared on the show such as Ricky Steamboat, Sean Casey from the Reds, referee Scott Dickinson, and Race Steele. 

A completely random team picture of the 1996 Cincinnati Bengals. I'm not sure why I have this, where I got it from, or why it was folded into quarters. I've only been to one Bengals game in my life so I'm guessing that's probably where it came from. Some of the players I remember on this team are Jeff Blake, Carl Pickens, Doug Pelfrey, Ki-Jana Carter, Joe Walter (who has an awesome sandwich named after him at Izzy's), Darnay Scott, and Dan Wilkinson. 1996 was also Dave Shula's last year as head coach as he was canned about halfway into the season after a 1-6 record in favor of Bruce Coslet who lead the team to a 7-2 record the rest of the way. 

Finally, a couple newspaper clippings to close this out.

The Reds getting Ken Griffey Jr. in the trade from the Mariners in February 2000 was one of the biggest news stories in the last 20 years. Hard to believe that was over 15 years ago and Griffey had one good year in 2000 before injuries started getting the best of him. The article above is from our local newspaper at the time, the Middletown Journal. Interesting to note though too that Griffey's jersey is number 24.

Finally, one of the biggest things to ever happen to the local mall, an autograph signing featuring WWF stars Jeff Jarrett, Owen Hart, and Debra. This was when wrestling was at its peak in the late 1990s and these three were doing this appearance right before the matches that night in Cincinnati. I'm in that picture somewhere, in the mass of humanity at the back. I remember pulling up to the mall from the main road and seeing the autograph line wrapped around it twice. Going in, standing by the record shop, the place was just jammed with people and I could barely see anything but I was able catch a quick glimpse of the wrestlers. Sad to think that a month after this, Owen Hart died in a tragic accident during a live pay-per-view broadcast. Currently, this mall is a ghost town with only a few stores remaining in the mall itself. However, on the bright side, new anchors are opening up in the mall and will hopefully help it start to come back.

I wonder, does anyone else out there have a scrapbook like this? If so, what do you have in it? If not, and you were to start one, what would you put in it?

Oh, and Happy October to everyone! It's the most awesome month of the year, filled with playoff baseball, horror movies on TV, haunted attractions, and fall festivals! Go out and make the most of it while you can.

The Mystery Box!

Last weekend, I posted about my visit to Mavericks Cards and Comics. As I mentioned in that post, the shop owner was generous enough to let me have this box of extra cards he was trying to get rid of for his friend for free. Included in the box were a bunch of singles from 2014 Topps football, 2015 Allen & Ginter, and 2015 Topps Series 2.

Random football singles are fine, but considering I didn't know half the players in there it was what it was for a box of free cards. I picked out cards of guys I know and scanned in a few below.

These and the other commons I pulled out are going into my football binder. Not a big fan of these in general since you really have to work to read the name and position on the bottom of the card. I'm working on a trade list for the rest and I'll have them posted up shortly.

Moving on, there was a good batch of stuff from Topps Series 2. Here are a few highlights:

Carlos Martinez and Dellin Betances. Martinez just had a season-ending injury but it looks like he'll be OK for the post-season. Betances has had a good season for the Yankees as well.

A few more "future stars" cards here. To me, Betts is the highlight of this bunch.

Finally, two former Reds that are still kicking around the league.

The rest of the Series 2 batch was mainly commons but with a few stars such as Verlander, Cano, etc. but nothing overly exciting. There were some duplicates as well, so look for those on the trade list that should be up hopefully in the next few days.

Finally, the cards that turned this into a great haul ... 2015 Topps Allen & Ginter! I'll admit, I wasn't a fan of Allen & Ginter when I first saw it this year as I felt it was overhyped from the start. However, the saying "don't knock it 'til you try it" definitely applies in this situation as these cards are great! As with the rest of the box, there were some commons but there were also a bunch of short prints ... as in 18 of them!

I was wanting the Val Kilmer card anyway as he is probably one of the best parts of the movie Tombstone so that's a win for me.

There were also some minis in the box, three different kinds of minis to be exact ...

As you can see, the Tanaka is a no-numbered Ginter back, the Cuddyer seems to be the standard backed mini card, and the Puig is a Ginter back.

I'd say my tune has definitely changed on Allen & Ginter so if I see anymore singles anywhere for cheap or if any of my local shops have some decent prices on packs, then I think I'll definitely pick up some. 

This was a fun box to dig through. For a free box, I wasn't expecting much but with the Allen & Ginter, I feel like I got more than I bargained for. As I mentioned in my Mavericks article, I did offer to purchase these instead of just taking them, but the owner insisted they were free. So, to Jack at Mavericks, thank you for the cards. I appreciate it very much.