A quick break from the 1980s...

 I had to make a quick, 3-day trip to Albuquerque. It really wasn't that quick because its a 10-hour drive. While I was there I looked up card shops on Google and found 5 shops. I was only able to visit 2 of the shops before I had to return home. It would've been 3 but the other one was closed. 

The first one I visited was kind of small and really wasn't very organized. All of the sports were mixed together. It was difficult to find anything. The graded cards and the ungraded cards were in the same display cases all mixed together and in general, I thought the prices were kind of high. I did find a $1.00 box and went through about two stacks of cards, but it was difficult to find anything. Once again everything was mixed together and the cards were facing forwards, backwards, upside down...you name it. Plus, some were in penny sleeves, some in top loaders, but most weren't in anything. I'm not saying that a $1.00 box has to be divided by sport in numerical order by year, but some semblance of order would be nice. The guy working the store was pleasant enough, but all he would do was try to get me to buy the expensive stuff, even when I let him know several times that I couldn't afford it. When I get back to Albuquerque, this store will be marked off the list. 

The second store wasn't really a card store it was an autograph store that had cards. The card section wasn't very big, but had some nice cards. I was pressed for time, so I only went through a couple of rows in a $1.00 box. I got a few cards, so my trip wasn't a total loss. 

I'm starting a player collection of Jim Abbott. I'm not sure why I haven't already done that because I think his story is awesome. The Trout cards, Acuna Jr. and Witt Jr. are also for player collections. The Ryan is not a 1984 card, but a 2012 reprint. I have a friend who loves everything Nolan so I picked it up for him.

I asked the guy at the store if they had any room on the prices of the cards and he said that their margin was so low that the price is what it is. It wasn't my best purchase at card store, but it wasn't bad either. The store, All in Autographs, had some really great autographs, pictures, helmets and some baseballs. I found a nice picture of Hank Aaron in his blue Braves uniform in a follow through of his swing that was autographed, or so I thought, that I was prepared to buy, but the guy working the store pointed out that it was a reprint, so I put it back. Thought that was pretty cool that he did that though. I know that if I'm ever in the market for an autograph or have some time to kill, I'll go back for a visit.

I had some mail waiting for me when I got home...

All three of these were Ebay pick-ups for my player collections.

Well, that's all of the quick break from the 1980s. I'll get that second post on the '80s up real soon!

Peace, 

Michael

Isaiah 40:31

The 1980s

 I thought I'd write a little bit about my 3 favorite sets from the '80s and my 3 least favorite sets. 

This won't be a deep dive into the sets like my friend Night Owl does, but will hopefully be a little informational and more opinion than anything else. The 3 favorites are not ranked in any order, just like my 3 least favorites aren't either. I'm also sticking to Topps. If I included any of the other ones, there's no doubt that 1989 Upper Deck would be in the top 3 and 1981 Donruss in the bottom 3. 

The first of my favorite sets of the '80s is 1980. Now, like everything else in life there are things about this set that aren't my favorites, but overall, I really like the look of these cards.

               

The 1980 set released in April and contains 726 cards. 66 of those cards were double printed. I am a fan of the design of the card. It's a clean look with the name on the top, the position ribbon on the upper left and the team name on the ribbon in the bottom right corner of the card. The cards also have a facsimile of the player's autographs. I know there are some out there that don't like those, but I don't mind. Kind of gives you an idea of what their autograph might look like. There are 74 rookie cards led by:

This was the first "big" card that I got when I started collecting cards. They were selling for $1.00 in 1981. Should have loaded up on them for a $1.00 a piece. If I only knew then, what I know now. This is still one of my favorite cards. I was a big Rickey Henderson fan. He was a game changer leading off the game. If he walked or got a hit, it was like a double because he was swiping second. A few of my favorite cards from the set...

Of course I pick my Texas Rangers team card. The reason for this card though is the scoreboard in the background. The state of Texas scoreboard was a significant characteristic of the old stadium and it's fitting that it made it onto a baseball card. 

                

I like the All-Star designation on the cards. It's enough that it shows who was an All-Star but it's not overbearing either. I also like that it's on the player's regular card without having a separate card in the set. 

                

I've always been a fan of the action shots on cards. I love the Gary Carter card. I wasn't a huge fan of Gary Carter, but I think that's a cool card. As far as Nolan Ryan goes, 60 feet 6 inches drops down to about 55 feet with that stride and then the ball is coming a 100 mph. Wow!

   

I think the Joe Niekro card is a great picture of him showing his knuckle ball grip. I included the victory leaders card because I thought it was pretty cool that both Joe and Phil led the National League with 21 wins that season. Obviously, it was a good year for the knuckle ball. Does anyone still throw the knuckle ball? The last one that I can think of was R.A. Dickey who reinvented himself throwing it.

My last card is Ozzie Smith's 2nd year card. Known for his glove I think this card of him swinging the bat is pretty cool. Ozzie has a career .262 average to go with that glove.

That's it for this one. I'll have the next one out soon!

Leave me a comment about your thoughts on the 1980 Topps set.

Peace, 

Michael

Isaiah 40:31

Ramblings of an old collector

 It's been a long time since I've posted. It's been a long time since I've read any of the blogs I follow too. I've got some catching up to do. Here's just some random thoughts...

National Sports Card Convention

Another National has come and gone without me attending. I'm pretty sure there will be many others that share the same fate. I really would like to go at least once. Watching the Youtube videos from the convention makes it look really fun. I was going to say cool, but from what I understand it definitely wasn't cool!

Autographs

I really don't collect autographs. I have several autographs, but its not something that I'm hunting down and really chase after. I will pick one up when I find one for the right price and of the right player. I'm always a little leery if the autograph is real or not. The majority of the autographs I have I got myself. That being said, I have bought some from some very reputable people that I trust. I did pick up an autographed card the other day on Ebay. 

I have really become a Marcus Semien fan. I just love the way he plays the game. 

TCDB Inventorying

I haven't gotten real far since my last post. I have added a couple of sets and some insert subsets, but other than that not much else. I just haven't been in the mood. I'm more interested in doing other things, like acquiring more cards!

TCDB Trades

When I started putting this post together I had just completed my 20th trade on TCDB. It was nothing earth-shattering, but moved me closer to completing a couple of sets. 

I'm already up to 24 completed trades with 3 more in transition. I finally initiated a trade. I messed up though because it ended up being an international deal to the UK. It cost me more to ship the cards than what they were worth. It's nothing against the guy I'm trading with, its just not worth it because of the shipping. Lesson learned...check where the trader is from before initiating a trade!

Buysportscards.com

In my last post I talked about maybe shutting down my "store", because there just wasn't enough movement. I'm not looking to make a ton of money(though it would be nice!), but would like to recoup a little bit to help fund the collecting. Well, in the last 3 weeks I've more than doubled what I had made in the first 5 months. 

I will put it out there again; here's the link to my "store". If you go out and give it a look and find something that you'd like to trade for instead of buy, let me know and we'll see what we can work out.

Semien and Seager

     

Is there a better one-two punch in baseball right now? Seager is unbelievable. Sprains his thumb, comes back and his first at-bat hits a home run. 

Grading cards

I've been following, reading, watching videos, etc...about grading and I have to say that my stance has not changed. Grading is good for one thing and one thing only...authenticating that the card is real, the auto is real and if the card has been altered. By the way, from all that I've seen its not even a for sure thing either. 

2023 Topps

I've finished my set and my grandsons' sets of Series 1 and 2. Trying to decide if I'm going to do the update series too. I have a ton of doubles if anyone is in need of anything. 

Random Act of Kindness

I've continued to send out at least one RAK a month. There is no system or plan on how I do it. I just find a card that I've got and that someone needs and off it goes. I'm trying to build a pretty good address book so I don't have to ask for addresses and the cards can just show up. Now let's be real here, it's not like I'm sending anyone a 1953 Mantle, Aaron or Mays, but if I've got something that's not too pricey then why not do something nice for someone. We need a little more nice in the world.  I'm not making any promises, but let me know what you're looking for and I'll see if there's anything I can do!

Peace,

Michael 

Isaiah 40:31

Showtime!

 No, I'm not talking about the best LA Lakers teams from my childhood. I'm talking about the Dallas Card Show.

Like most of us in the blog world, I'm not going to the National in Chicago as much as I'd like to. I told Dr. Beckett, when I ran into him at the show, that this was my National. In reality, it wasn't that either. I was on a time crunch and didn't really make my rounds all of the tables like I normally do. 

Normally when I'm at the show, I look for vintage cards and cards needed to complete my older sets. This time, I decided that I was going to spend my time scouring the $1.00 boxes and see what I can find. Now, all in all, it I felt as if it was pretty productive. It was a slow process and it really limited my time walking around looking at other tables. I found all of these cards in the 5 for a $1.00 or the 3 for $2.00 boxes. 

The Yordan Alvarez completes the Stars of MLB set. The Luis Robert goes to the Topps player collection and the Chapman goes into the set. 

All of these cards goes into my player collections. I already had the Seager and the Betts, but I needed to get two more cards and I figured I could give them to my grandsons or my nephews. 

While I was going through the boxes, I ran across the All Aces cards. I wasn't going to collect the subset, but I really like these cards and they were only .20 each so, I guess I'm going to put the subset together.  

I don't know if you can tell, but I'm a Bobby Witt Jr. fan. I got to see him play in high school when my oldest son was coaching against him. He seems to be a really nice kid and boy can he play. If I can come across his cards and can afford them, I'll pick them up. I do think that I'm going to stick to Topps products though. I'm not a big fan of the unlicensed products. Can't go wrong with a rookie Corey Seager either. 

These are just some players that I like and have player collections of them. Anything that I double up on will go to the grandkids or nephews. 

I think these were my favorite pickups for the day. I got all of these for $4.00. Felt like a pretty good deal to me. 

I'm debating what to do with my cards that no longer fit in my collection. 

I have listed over 2,000 cards on buysportscards.com and so far, in 5 1/2 months I've sold 41 cards in 13 different orders for a net of about $67.00. Every time I start to think about shutting it down and just moving everything to TCDB for trade/sale, I'll sell something. $67.00 isn't much, especially spread over 5 1/2 months, but its still $67.00 that I get to spend on cards. 

I've also listed over 11,000 cards for trade/sale on TCDB. The cards listed here are not listed on the buysportscards.com site. In about 3 1/2 months I've completed 19 trades with 3 trades in progress. I've gained over 350 cards for my collection and traded away over 150 cards that weren't fitting in with my collection. There's no doubt that trading on TCDB has been a positive for me. I've interacted with some really nice people and have only had one issue and it was worked out without any problem. The trade offers have dwindled quite a bit. I'm still adding cards to my collection and to the trade/sale list, but there hasn't been much action lately. I still haven't initiated a trade yet and I need to do that. 

I think for now, I'm going to keep things the way they are and keep listing cards for sale on buysportscards.com and keep listing in the for trade/sale in TCDB and see how it plays out. 

Peace, 

Michael

Isaiah 40:31

Thoughts of an old card collector

 More random thoughts...

- If I was just starting out in collecting cards, I'm not sure that I'd know where to start. It is absolutely amazing to me the sheer number of cards that are out there in any given year. The choices that a newbie collector faces could be and would be, for me, overwhelming. It's understandable why set collecting is not as common as it was back when I started collecting.

- I'm still in the inventorying of my collection. I think I'm about a 1/3 of the way done. Probably closer to 1/2 when it comes to my Topps sets. I've got a ton of non-Topps cards that I haven't even touched. If I wasn't a teacher with time off in the summer I doubt I'd be as far along as I am. 

- It's really sad about the cards from the '90s that turned into bricks. There were some decent designs that got screwed up. It's going to be a challenge to complete those sets with cards that aren't messed up.

- Still in the process of figuring out TCDB, but all-in-all it's going pretty well. I've completed 10 trades, including one with Nacho Grande. Here's some of the cards I've gotten in trades.

- Question for those who care to answer in the comments...What's your favorite card, set, or grail card that you're chasing? For me, the grail that I'm always on the lookout for is 1957 Roberto Clemente. Every time I go to a show, that's the one I've got my eye out for. 

- Speaking of shows, anybody going to the National in Chicago? I want to go to a National one day just to say I went, but not  this year. 

- The Texas Rangers are playing really well. Hope they can keep it up!

- I've been blessed to be able to be able to send some random cards to people that I read their blogs. I've gotten some shout outs on their sites and it's appreciated, but that wasn't the intent. I just like doing it. I think its something that I'm going to try and do at least once a month. So, if you've got a blog, let me know in the comments and I'll check it out. If you don't have a blog, let me know your want list or where I can find it. Who knows? You might get a card or two in the mail.

It's late and that's all I've got tonight. 

Peace, 

Michael 

Isaiah 40:31

What to do, What to do?

 What do you do with the cards that don't fit your collection?

When I first got into collecting back in 1981 with the release of Fleer and Donruss to go along with Topps, I wanted everything! I was accumulating a bunch of cards. I really focused on Fleer because, not only was it their reintroduction to baseball cards but the error cards were a big deal. I wrote about my business prowess (actually lack of business prowess) back in my first post. Anyway, I collected everything when it came to baseball cards until college, marriage and kids became my focus. I still bought a little of everything, but not like I had before. 

When I got back into collecting baseball cards around 2018, I started looking around at what was out there and quickly became overwhelmed. I had to make a decision on what I was going to collect and how I was going to do it. I came up with Topps base sets from 1972 to present and certain players, focusing on getting all of the players' Topps base cards. I'm not locked in to just Topps. If I find something that I really like the look of then I'll collect that too. There are a few of older non-Topps sets that I like that I'm going to look for once I get everything in order.

I'm still in the organizing phase of my collection. When you've bought all kinds of baseball cards from all different years and basically, just put them in boxes, you create a mess. I've come a long way in organizing everything, but have a long ways to go too. I'm still a long ways away from getting everything counted and on TCDB too. It's a process.

All of that brings me to my question...What to do with the cards that don't fit your collection?

The majority of my collection came from opening packs. I still like opening packs. My original thought was open the packs, get some doubles and trade or sell them to get what I needed and raise money to open more packs. Well, until recently, it hasn't really gone that way. What little of my collection that's on TCDB has led to several trade offers. I've actually completed 6 trades, have 3 trades processing and one in the works. 

So far, I haven't initiated any trades. I'm kind of wimp. I don't want to insult anyone with what I offer for their cards. What's funny is I don't think (at least I haven't been so far!) that I'd be insulted with whatever I'm offered for my cards. I'd just decline it or send a message that said appreciate it, but it's not enough. I would love to hear any of your trading stories. Being a newbie in the trading world, I only have one story so far. 

I made a trade with a guy on May 10th, mailed the cards on the 11th and received my cards on the 17th. The guy I traded with still hasn't received the cards. I feel terrible about it and have sent him a couple of messages trying to figure out if I need to do something. Return the cards he sent, find the cards and resend...something. I don't know. All I know is that I feel bad about it. The guy has been real nice about it and doesn't seem worried about it, but I hate it.

Another way I've tried to move some cards is to try selling them on buysportscards.com. I think I've had about 9 sales for about $50. It's been about 6 months and I know that $50 isn't much, but it's $50 I wouldn't have had! I've got about 2200 cards listed. Obviously, buysportscards.com doesn't get near the traffic that Ebay does, but there are no fees and most of what I'm selling is not very expensive, so its better than Ebay...if it sells. I know that collectors sell on TCDB too, but I haven't seen or heard anything about it. I wonder how often it happens?

Here's my link to buysportscards.com https://www.buysportscards.com/Seller/c827e50ba1/mpdillard25. 

If you decide to look at it but would rather trade for something posted there, contact me and we can work it out. 

Random act of kindness!

Probably the coolest thing about writing this blog is meeting new people. Two of the coolest people that I've met online is Nacho Grande and Night Owl. It's nice to make new friends even if its only online. I want to give a shout out to Night Owl for the random act of kindness of sending me some of the cards I need to move forward on my 2018 Topps set. Thank you!

I think that's all for now. Please leave a comment and let me know how you move the cards that don't fit your collection or some of your trading stories.

Peace, 

Michael

Isaiah 40:31

Ramblings of a card collector

 Just some random thoughts...

YouTube

I enjoy watching YouTube videos on baseball card collecting. When I first started watching, it was to get caught up and hopefully, learn something about the hobby. I think I was really trying to get a grasp on grading cards. I still haven't grabbed hold of the whole grading cards thing. Not much has changed since I first wrote about it back in February. I did hear on a video the other day when two guys were discussing the grade of a card being a 9 versus a card being raw and one guy said a 9 was a raw card. I quit watching all of those videos where they reveal their grades because people either do one of two things; they freak out over a really good grade or complain about a bad one. I'll be honest, I'm not sure that I can tell the difference between a 9 or a 10, so why pay the extra money? I'm always open to comments and someone explaining it to me. 

Garage sales and Flea markets

The YouTube show I enjoy the most is Chasing Cardboard. If you haven't seen it, check it out. The thing that gets me about that show is when they come across someone who picked up all of these amazing cards or collections from a storage unit, garage sale or found this box loaded with vintage cards at a flea market for next to nothing. Every time that I've ever found cards at a garage sale or flea market, people asking the world for the cards and 99% of the time, its from the late '80s and '90s. Now don't get me wrong, I still have an appreciation for the those cards. As a matter of fact, there are several of those years I still need to collect, but man, why can't I ever be so lucky to find that hidden Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron, or Willie Mays in a box that's $20.00? 

That of course brings up the moral dilemma, do you let the person know what's in the box or do you just buy the box? Maybe that's why I haven't found one yet, because God knows that I couldn't sort that out!

I did go to a Flea market the other day and picked up this nice 1972 Topps Brooks Robinson 

Case/Box Breaks

I've been hearing/seeing a lot about case/box breaks on YouTube, from card shops and other collectors. I've never done one. I've looked into it and even put a couple of them on my watchlist on Ebay, but still haven't done it. I'm not sure that I ever will. Maybe if I can get into one really cheap, but even then if it's cheap would it be worth it? Would love to hear back from some of you that's done one or even if you haven't why so.

TCDB

Thought I'd give an update on the inventorying of the collection. I've actually uploaded onto TCDB my complete sets and 4 years of baseball cards. I've also uploaded most of my current player collection. I've inventoried 7 more years worth of cards, but haven't gotten them uploaded yet. 

I'm listing all of my duplicates as for trade/sale and that has led to 4 complete trades and 4 that are in progress. Juggling 3 or 4 trades at once has been fun and a bit nerve-wracking because, I really don't want to mess it up. Everything has been low end cards, but its been fun and I've closed the gap on completing some sets. 

There's been a lot of activity for just 4 sets being uploaded. It's going to be interesting to see what happens when I get the rest uploaded. 

Here's just a small sampling of what I've received back in trade. 

Mailing cards

I've struggled with how to mail cards when I'm trading with someone. 1 to 4 cards is not the problem. The cards are in penny sleeves, in top loaders, the top is blue taped, top loaders taped together, in the envelope with the sides of the envelope packing tape sealed and off it goes. My problem is the mailing of more of 9 or more cards. 

I've received all kinds of packaging when it comes to getting cards in the mail. Every time (so far!), the cards are fine. Plastic sheets with the binder holes cut off, folded in to thirds, surrounded by cereal box cardboard in a plain white envelope. Me? I put all the cards in penny sleeves the better/most expensive cards in top loaders, no more than 6 cards in between two toploaders, blue taped together surrounded by cardboard cut up from an amazon box (See? even the wife contributes to my collection!) and put into a bubble mailer. Am I overdoing it? Once again, more input please!!!

I guess that's enough rambling for one post. I'll have another in a few days because, I've got a few more things to ramble about! 

Peace, 

Michael

Isaiah 40:31