Presents and a second attempt score

Happy New Year to all! A quick recap of the holiday season acquisitions is in order. 

The news of Non-Sport Update magazine being discontinued by Beckett at first seemed surprising but then the other shoe dropped. Collectors Universe Inc. buying Beckett. All part of their master plan I reckon.

The folks at Vintage Non-sports Forum were reminiscing about the magazine and catalog that had been issued in the past and how well put together they were. After some digging I did find the 2006 edition for a decent price as an early present to myself. 



The late Roxanne Toser was still the publisher at the time, and with her decades of knowledge, she and Todd Jordan did a great job on this 530 page volume. 

The Secret Santa event on the Trading Card Database was a huge hit with over 200 participants this year. My generous Santa, JoesCards, sent 27 nice cards. A good number of ultra-modern Blue Jays, which was great for filling in the voids of the insane amount of parallels out there, and a few other needed set fillers. Thank you again Joe. 




The big pick up of this holiday season started back in July of 2025. I reported on the first attempt to acquire this collection here. 

Since last summer the collection had changed hands. The guy who declined my offer off-loaded the three 4-row boxes to a friend of my brother. Knowing that I would be in town to visit our mother, bro set up a post Christmas meeting to try this again. 
It played out like a low budget episode of Chasing Cardboard, which I think is a fantastic show btw.
A knock on the door, quick introduction, down to a family room with a table set up, and boxes to go through fairly swiftly. The box from July was off to the side so I dug into the two new boxes. Similar, yet different stuff. One row of Ohtani, a row of Judge and Yankees, and whole lot of mixed bag modern stuff. The cards I pulled out for these pics do not represent the rows entirely, just some interesting cards. 



I went back through the July box to get a sense of whether it had been stripped of the good cards. When I was comping last summer I had things organized so it was easy to see that it had not been pillaged. The key cards were present. 

Quickly looking at about 2500 toploaded card to get a sense of what's here and identify the top 50 or so cards while bro and buddy chatted didn't take as long as I feared. 


Just a little bit of wrestling, some football and basketball in the mix, but not one single hockey or non-sport card. A bit of baseball Topps Now and Project 2020 or something as well - both products I don't know much about. 


The row on the right is all vintage. Quite a few early Bowmans in there. The sticker prices were all double current comps in July which has me believe this was a COVID era dealer that has hit the end of the road and wanted to get out. Glad I could oblige. 
There was no negotiation needed, unlike the show, this guy just wanted the cash for my first offer. 
This was a really sweet deal for me is how I will leave it. 

Thanks for reading and keep collecting!
A collector since my early years. Sometimes a collector without focus. If it piques my interest I may collect it.

Comments

  1. FujiJanuary 4, 2026 at 12:03 PM

    a. I didn't realize Non-Sport Update was being discontinued. That's a bummer. I was never a subscriber, but I'd buy an issue here or there for the promo cards and updated pricing (which was more for entertainment).

    b. That collection looks sweet! It's always fun going through a collecting and figuring out what to keep for myself, what gets tossed into the tradebait, and what gets donated to other collectors. Have fun!

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