What I Collect

I'll be honest ... I haven't spent money on baseball cards since Thanksgiving last year.

Since I put my old blog, Cardboard Clubhouse, on ice last fall due to family reasons (aka new baby), baseball cards were the last thing on my mind. I did, however, purchase quite a few cards during the annual COMC Black Friday sale last fall.

Over the past few months while my collection grew dust, I could count on one hand the number of times I thought about these cards I'd ordered. Now, since I'm getting re-acquainted with everything and getting this organized again, I thought I'd start with these since that's about where I left off last year.

Along with the super shiny Hank Aaron card above, I purchased a number of other baseball cards, along with miscellaneous cards for my other collections. Seeing as I'm trying to keep this blog (and my collection) limited to just baseball, that's all that I'm planning on covering.

My collecting interests are really varied. I don't really focus on one thing in general when it comes to baseball cards as I'd get pretty bored of that pretty quick. I'm not really a team collector either. I mean, if I had to pick one team to collect, it'd be the Reds. I had a lot of fun watching Nick Senzel play center field last year and that's why I nabbed this Donruss Rated Rookie card. I can't really say that the Donruss designs this year and last year are all that enticing but I felt this was worth picking up.

Another thing that I like collecting are "unfamiliar uniform" cards as I call them. These typically fall into one of two categories ... "short-term stops" or "zero year" (trademark to Dime Box Nick) but on this blog they'll be referred to as "unfamiliar uniforms" because that's what they are. Take Steve Carlton here for example. Most everyone will think of him as a Cardinal or a Phillie but I'll bet you didn't know he pitched for the White Sox as well. The South-Siders were one of three stops of a whirlwind tour Lefty had in 1986. 

I know I mentioned that the non-baseball content will be next to nothing. I intend on sticking to that but it's cards like this from Allen & Ginter that fall into that grey area. Technically, this is a baseball card as it came from a baseball product but obviously Tiger Mask is not a baseball player. Along with baseball, pro wrestling is another big interest of mine and to see the legendary Tiger Mask featured on a card is pretty cool. On this card, it says "1st Tiger Mask" and that would be Satoru Sayama who portrayed the character until 1983 when he left New Japan Pro Wresting. Since then, several other wrestlers have portrayed the character, the most notable being the legendary Mitsuharu Misawa.

This card certainly checks off several things I like to collect ... oddball? Yes. Defunct retail? Yes. Defunct team? Yes. Hall of Famer? Yes. There's just something about these types of cards which is just fun. Maybe in the future I'll do a blog post on cards from defunct retail chains. Not sure yet but it's an idea I'm kicking around. 

Here's another card that would qualify as an "unfamiliar uniform" card. When I first got into collecting as a kid, I always thought it was weird to see former Reds players in a different uniform. That's exactly what's happening here as Hal Morris is shown in a Royals uniform. Despite being the first baseman for the Reds from 1990-1997, Morris left as a free agent and signed with the Royals for the 1998 season. He would return to the Reds the next season (1999) and stayed with the team until midway through the 2000 season when he was purchased by Detroit. I'd always found that one year in Kansas City a curiosity and now I finally have a card to document it.

Another big thing I like to collect is vintage cards. Typically if I'm at a show or browsing online, if I can find cool vintage cards for a reasonable price, I'll jump on it. This 1961 Topps card shows the Reds outfield trio of Vada Pinson, Gus Bell (grandfather of current Reds manager David Bell), and Frank Robinson. That trio, along with fellow outfielder Wally Post (shown in the 1962 Topps card), would help the "Ragamuffin Reds" get to the World Series in 1961 where they lost to the Yankees in five games.

One of the last big things I enjoy are cheap relic cards. I'll be honest, I'm not a the kind of person who would buy packs of cards and get disappointed there was no relic or anything. If I get one, great! If not, fine too. Products like Topps Tribute, Museum Collection, and all that are way out of my price range and I'm fine with that. It's not like I'm exactly their target audience anyway. That being said, if I come across cheap relic cards from those sets or just cool looking ones in general, I tend to jump on them. Take this Bruce Sutter card for example, it's a dual-jersey card of him with both the Cubs and Cardinals and it was a steal at under five bucks. 

I'm in the process of updating my want list to be posted on the blog soon after I update my lists for Pilots cards and 1984 Topps along with several other random things. 

Winnings From Wes

I'm pretty sure I just hit the motherlode.

As everyone is aware by now Wes of Area 40 (and various other blog names) has gone into blogging retirement but went out with a bang. In addition to the crazy box busting and pack ripping he did, he also ran a contest, that being to guess the number of hits (relics, autographs, and otherwise) he'd get in the mega-break and that person would win a prize pack. I believe the final number was 352 or thereabouts and on a whim I guessed 350. 

Well, wouldn't you know who won the pony.

It turns out I was pretty much right on the money so in addition to the cards from the break, I won the prize pack. I'll get into that in a bit, but first, the cards from the break.

Before the break, Wes announced that he'd only be sending out the hits and I believe donating the base cards. Serial numbered cards count as hits apparently. I'd forgotten that I'd claimed the Flames in the break so I was a bit surprised to see these. The Joel Otto card is my first hockey buyback.

The Bengals were the one team I remember I claimed in the break. I was expecting the Peter Warrick card but the Akili Smith relic was another nice surprise. I'm actually excited for the Bengals next season as they'll have a new coach and hopefully some new tricks up their sleeve after they (finally) parted ways with tired old Marvin Lewis.

That does it for the cards from the break and if that's all I would have gotten, then I would've been fine. But there was more .... oh, so much more ... and that's where the cards won in the contest come in.

First, there's this Jimmy Garappolo booklet card. I've never owned a booklet card until now and I have to say, it's pretty neat. It's a pain to store though. It came in a small case so I think I'll keep it in there until I figure out a way to store it.

However, this is a card that's easy to store ... and probably a sought after card, it being a Tom Brady rookie card. To be honest, I'm not a Patriots fan, however this is a card that I'm happy to add to my football collection. It's in good shape too. 

The majority of the cards included in the prize pack were rookie cards. This is a duplicate as I broke a Pro Set set last summer and donated the commons. For now, it's in the football binder next to the other one.

A few other rookie cards here of two top quarterbacks. I always find it interesting to see cards of Brett Favre as a Falcon, considering he only played 2 games for them as a backup quarterback before being traded to the Packers for a first-round draft pick.

Lastly, at least for the world of football, there's this. A 1968 Topps Bob Griese rookie card. Sure, it's miscut and looks like maybe it was trimmed or cut a bit? Not sure. Also, the back is a little beat up. However, it's still an awesome card and one I'm now lucky to have in my collection.

I'm not really one for basketball but I will admit, these are some pretty cool cards. I'm always down for vintage cards and the Robert Parish card fits that bill. Him and LeBron will go into my miscellaneous binder where all the random cards I have reside.

This was included in the prize pack as well. I've never bought any Benchwarmer cards and to be honest, it's not really my thing. I'm still not sure what to do with this as it doesn't fit my collection. (Update: This has already been claimed in a trade.)

Here's something very interesting, a 1/1 Dean Prentice game used stick printing plate. Prentice isn't someone I'm familiar with but it turns out he had a 22-year career in the NHL with primarily the Rangers but also with Boston, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Minnesota.

I still collect UFC cards even though I don't really follow the product anymore. It's more of getting the cards of the stars I remember from when I actively followed the product. I think I've seen a few Kendall Grove bouts back in the day but I don't really remember them. I did the swatch on this card though.

This would be my second Archives Signature Edition card. Personally, I think these cards are pretty neat and I guess they could be considered buybacks. Bour had a pretty good run as Miami's first baseman and finished 5th in Rookie of the Year voting in 2015. His power dropped off a bit last season and Miami shipped him off to the Phillies as a waiver trade. He's since signed with the Angels as a free agent.

Here are a couple unique cards. The first is a 1985 Chong Mark McGwire card of him with the single-A Modesto A's (now known as the Modesto Nuts). If I had to guess, I'd say it's his first minor league card but not sure. Also, I'm not familiar with the card maker itself. The Craig Kimbrel card is  a 1/1 game piece celebrating a career saves milestone. As of this writing, Kimbrel is still a free agent.

The rookie cards just keep on coming here with Ozzie Albies, Aaron Judge, Rhys Hoskins, and Shohei Ohtani. I've made it clear before that I didn't like Donruss last year but it chromes .... ahem, "optics" ... up pretty nicely.

The Mike Trout card is definitely not a rookie card, one of the few in the pack that wasn't, but it's a 2014 Bowman blue parallel numbered to 500. Pretty cool card and a nice add to my Trout collection. The Stephen Strasburg card is from the 2009 Upper Deck USA National team set. It took me a minute to realize that the multi-player card is a David Ortiz rookie card. It's still amazing to me that the Twins cut him loose.

Rookie cards weren't the only thing included, there were also these cool autograph cards. The Archives Snapshots brand is something I'm not familiar with but I guess they're going for a Polaroid picture design? It reminds me more of the basic design most promo pictures of boxers and wrestlers use with the wide white border at the bottom and the thin borders on the other sides. The Paul Konerko card is really neat as it appears to be a minor league card. At first I thought it was probably a TTM signature but there's a tiny little logo on the side that says is an "authentic" autograph.

I'm nearing the end of the package here and I'm closing out with my favorites. First, this well worn and well loved 1953 Topps Jim Fridley. Sure, the corners are rounded, it's creased, and there's some paper loss in the bottom right corner but that's a sign that it was well loved. It's vintage, it's not meant to be perfect.

Next, three of the top baseball rookie cards of the 1980s, that being a 1983 Donruss Tony Gwynn, a 1985 Topps Kirby Puckett, and a 1983 Topps Wade Boggs. I'd been eyeing the Gwynn and the Puckett on COMC for a while now but now I can take them off my want list.

This card, though, is my favorite card that was in the package. As those who have been around here for a while can probably tell, I'm a big wrestling fan. I grew up a WWF fan but when I discovered classic WCW, Sting quickly became one of my all-time favorites. He was also one of the sole reasons I watched TNA/Impact Wrestling on a weekly basis. When he finally showed up in WWE in 2014, I was excited. However, he only had a handful of matches and his career was ended in a match with Seth Rollins when he suffered a neck injury. This card instantly becomes one of my top five favorite cards in my collection and I can't thank Wes enough for including it in the prize package.

This has to be one of the most epic mailers I've ever received from Wes and since he went into retirement, it's most likely the last. Thanks for sending these Wes and I appreciate your contributions to our humble little community.