Collecting This 'n' That

  I had high hopes for yesterday. The day to myself as I was the only one with the day off in this household. Go get a haircut, perhaps research and write a little, do some card stuff. The haircut happened alright. The internet was spotty when I left the house but upon my return I learned it was a full-on outage. Somebody somewhere cut a fiber optic cable. No research was gonna happen. Let’s do card stuff, surely they'll get it fixed quickly.  So, I grabbed a 3200-count box of mixed baseball cards from the card storage room. We label the boxes as “NP”, Not Processed, and the date they enter the house. I thumbed through and pulled the pre-1994 cards out first. The stack of 1995 Bazooka was an easy pile to extract to get them out of the way.  Yes , I do have a few - not many - “junk” sets still not completed. I don’t really care for the term junk. I prefer Over Production Era but OPE hasn’t really caught on. Ok, I'm ready to check my collection and add missing cards t...

This final mail day post of 2024 was slated to be more Sportlots vintage non-sports. But the mail delivery today brought something way more exciting! 2018 Topps Gallery inserts!! With my COMC shipment request going back to early November and the postal strike I was getting antsy. There may have been a key card or two involved.  These 12 put the Masterpiece set of 30 to bed!  Next target is the Heritage inserts. These 2 get me within 2 to complete. The Ohtani is going to set me back a few bucks but I will get it before the season starts. The other is Molina.  The Hall of Fame Gallery set was completed last September.  I am undecided on chasing the Impressionists set. I am at 7 of the 30. If I can get the Ohtani for a decent price I just might go for it.  The other goal for 2018 Gallery is the Wood parallel. I'm at 120 of 150. This should be fairly easy. The one big card on this want list is the  Ronald Acuña Jr.

  Why?? What would possess me? If Mrs. TnT had been with me this would not have made it through the checkout. Let's see if I made a bad decision or I hit on some gold.  Here are the three packs, How much of this Score was produced? It seems that it is in every repack. Here are the cards from these three packs.  2012-13 Score 2021-22 Upper Deck 2022-23 Upper Deck Maybe the graded card can salvage this... Hmm. A future HOFer? Likely not but a decent player nonetheless.  This is my first WCG slab. I was expecting the usual BCCG.  Who is WCG? Well,  Only Greats  had an excellent article about them. This entombed card is a nine at best. The top left corner is not perfect.  It was a bad decision with the expected outcomes. Since these cards really don't fit my collection...👇

Our big box store re-stocks the card aisle on Thursdays, so as, ahem...luck would have it, 2024 Prizm was on the shelf.  What used to be a product that lovers of shiny enjoyed has become a re-hash of designs and inserts with only prospects and retired players.  Please excuse the lazy photos. Our scanner struggles with chrome-y cards. Let's have a look shall we...  Box & pack front. Pack One, the top three are base, bottom row we have one silver and one retail blue. The top three in all of the pics are base cards. Pack Two, same breakdown as pack one. Pack Three, ditto. Pack Four, now it gets a little interesting. The Evan Carter Prizmatic is a parallel that I will need to identify. It is serial numbered out of 399. Not too bad.  Pack Five, three base, base Hype, and non-numbered green parallel. Pack Six, three base, a silver, and retail blue.  It turned out to be a typical retail Panini box.  No buyer's remorse, but I am a one and done on this. Thanks f...

I hope everyone had an excellent Christmas, full of family, friends, and food.  Cards can be difficult gifts to buy. Unless the giver knows exactly what you collect or you have dropped the right hints. So being gifted cards from the family is a very nice surprise. When we were opening our stockings I reached into mine and, hmm, this feels like a familiar type package.  A hanger box of 2024 Topps Update.  Our town's retailers received very little of this product, and at the time I ignored it, and then it was gone. So I'm not sure how long they have had this stashed away for me. Thoughtful children I must say! So, let's see what it held.  The Wacha is a serial numbered out of 50 Yellow Crackle.  Base card rookie of Jackson Merrill, and Rookie Debuts of Paul Skenes of Merrill also appeared. 

  Merry Christmas  & Happy Holidays  To the readers, my friends at the Trading Card Database, Vintage Non-Sports Cards, Bluesky and your families I wish you all the best during this festive season.  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.