Opening Yay!

Yesterday was the day baseball fans waited for, Opening Day.  Well, besides the series in Japan a week earlier but still.  The last couple years I haven't opened new baseball cards so I have to admit its a bit sad starting the season and not having cards in your hand.  In full disclosure though, I haven't got to watch much baseball the last couple years either and without a regular radio in the house, its been tough to even listen to a game.  While I don't like the MLB blackout rules, I somewhat understand them.  However I hate the fact that you have to jump through hoops just to LISTEN to a game online.  I can't listen to the local broadcasts online because they can't broadcast the games, so I'm stuck listening to country music when if I had a radio nearby the game would be on.  Though enough complaining because I do like the fact TuneIn let's you listen to a ton of Minor League games and soon I'll be listening to the Royals farm teams, and also the Gwinnett Stripers, largely because of how Tony Schiavone calls the games.

However, yesterday after a couple hours of rain delays and a couple hours of searching, I found a stream to listen to the Royals game from the 5th inning on... then I fell asleep in the bottom of the 6th.  I'm happy the Royals won though, so I can't complain.

Speaking of not complaining, I got out yesterday and went to my local second hand store.  WAIT!  This isn't random stuff.... IT'S BALL CARDS!

Whew, hope I didn't scare you off.  I was browsing and hit the area where cards have been displayed lately, but hey, I'm not in the market for 1991 Fleer picked over and 2 bucks for 10 cards.  But I didn't see those this time.

This time I saw three boxes.  Two boxes of what appeared to be complete sets, and one box which was more of a plastic tub that had cards tossed in, corner damage be damned.  I looked at the prices first, because hey, its gotta be cheap, or at least interesting.  10 cents a card, or 25 bucks a box.

Hmm, 25 bucks for a box of cards?  Wait, I can just open these?  Welp, that means they aren't complete sets, so no need to buy a whole box of 1990 Bowman slightly picked through.  Plus I could probably find them online cheaper (I don't know I didn't look, and don't want to).  To be fair, I spent a good 10-20 minutes going through the other two boxes that I didn't look at the Bowman cards but long enough to see they were pretty curved.  I might go back Monday and see if they are still there, but this time with a checklist to see what I have so I don't buy dupes.

All in all I found 50 cards, and spent 5 bucks.  I even bought some from the tub, but you'll see why in a bit.  First let's look on what I bought that I already had.

As you can probably tell, the other box was Upper Deck Collector's Choice.  I really liked these cards, but I liked the 1994 set better.  It was almost a full box, but realized no Cardinals cards were in it, so it was either picked through already or the donor kept them back.  It didn't bother me either way, because I would have likely just got a couple- Ozzie Smith, and maybe Ray Lankford or someone.  As for these cards, I knew I had the Ventura card, but it was his rookie card, and figured it was worth 10 cents, plus I saved it from worse damage in that tub.  The Chen card I thought I had but wasn't sure.  I like Chen anyways, so I didn't care.  The UD cards I wasn't sure on, but no big loss on getting 4 doubles.  In total I got 6 doubles out of picking 50 cards, I think I did really good.

So what else did I find?

Holy cow, a George Brett AND Robin Yount card?  Don't mind if I do.  It seems odd to find in a 1995 product though, but I guess the baseball strike likely got them worried they needed as much star power as possible.  Also seems a bit odd to have a best of the 90's cards when the decade is half over and the two depicted on the card only played 3 of those seasons.  Oh well, I own it now.  I also own pretty much the rest of the Royals set, which I actually didn't have.  1994 I have I think all of them, but the 1995 set I had pretty much just the ones I showed earlier that were dupes. 

More amazing in that box was a couple Gold signature cards of Royals Mike Macfarlane and Vince Coleman.  I know the Coleman card has a big crease in it probably from other cards crammed into the box sitting on it, but I don't care.  I didn't have any of the Gold signatures, so I was happy to find them.  There was another on in the box too, but not a Royal and I forgot who it was.  It wasn't a hall of famer or anyone so I didn't want to spend 10-20 bucks on cards, so I didn't get it.

In the tub I found two more Royals cards, the Clinkscales I was pretty sure I had, but turns out I didn't.  I have one of his other Classic cards though I think.  The Karns card was a huge surprise to me because it shows that while the two other boxes are 90's cards, the tub has potential to have modern ones I didn't have.  I think this was the only 2018 card in the tub, but still a good find.  I'm thinking the tub was a kids collection a mom donated or something do to the carelessness of the cards, plus you'll see why later they might not have been dumped just to clear space.

Even if the Collector's Choice box was picked through, I still found plenty of other non Royals cards to make me happy to find these.  On the surface the Pat Mahomes card seems out of place with these others, but for those not in the know, he is the father of current Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.  I have a couple of his cards already, but for a dime it was hard to pass up another. The rest are guys that I like or wanted to expand my collection of.  If I think I don't have it, I will rarely pass up a Lou Whitaker, Alan Trammell, or Kirk Gibson card.  Its hard to believe I like so many Detroit Tigers being a Royals fan.  The Schilling card I think I had at one point but I don't now, so its good to have it (possibly) again.  I picked the Jack Morris first because I have a small amount of his cards, but I don't think I have any with him on the Reds.  Lastly I found Pudge and knew that was a keeper.

At this point I'm worried I'm going to spend a lot of money so I did actually put some back, but forgot who they were.  My next trip I might get some more, but we'll see. 

Let's start with the first three.  More from the first box I looked at, all former Royals.  It's good to build up my Bo Jackson collection, and even better its one without him wearing a White Sox uniform.  I was happy to find all three.

So in the tub I found the rest of these in this scan.  In fact I think the rest of the cards I show came from the tub.  The Joe Crede I got because he went to school fairly close to where I live, and if I ever resume work on my Missouri collection (not to be confused with the Mizzou collection), it will be a good card to showcase.

I never saw the Mattingly card before, but I really like it, so I couldn't pass up for a dime.  The Joe Morgan card is a bit plain, but since I don't have many of his cards, it was a good one to add.  The Yadier Molina card I was reluctant to get.  The corners are dinged pretty bad, which is why if the Cardinals collector dug through passed it up.  I'm also not a big fan of Yadi.  I mean I think he's a really good catcher, but I just don't care for him.  The reason I got him though is despite that, I think he'll go in the Hall of Fame, and this card will be a good card to display if I ever start a Hall of Fame collection which I've wanted to start for a while but never have.  The Robin Yount card I got because... IT'S ROBIN YOUNT!  Plus its a smaller sized card so I had to get it.

These next card were dinged up, but still shocked I found them and got them.

Mike Trout and Bryce Harper?  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  Sorry, just had a Don West Shop At Home flashback.  Anyways, sure, dinged corners, but I don't care.  I'm not planning on building a PC of them, but having a few of their cards won't hurt.  Recently I did some sorting of cards and saw that I have a Bryce Harper rookie.  Just sitting in a random box with other cards.  So I have that going for me.

The bottom row is more Cardinals, but I ones I liked.  First the Wainwright card I might have.  I haven't looked all the way, but remember a similar card my sister got when she bought me some cards from Saver's in St. Louis that had quite a few Waino cards.  Either way, its still a nice card.  The Matheny one though was one I was a little more excited to find.  I love oddball cards and this one fits that bill.

Christian Day at the ballpark card is pretty cool.  I went to Christian Day at the K in Kansas City a few years ago, and it would have been cool to get a card or something from it.  Someone on the TCDB already asked if I found others and wanted to trade, but this was the only one I found and I'm happy to hold onto it for now.

I also found another oddball, but this was a hockey card.  In fact, the only hockey card in the entire tub.

I was happy to find a Blues card to add to my somewhat small collection, and might be one of a couple Adam Oates cards.  When I got home I noticed the banner on the side indicating it was from a card show.  That made it an oddball card and made me happier.  After some TCDB sleuthing, they found out they had four cards given out, and at some point they should be added to the database.  I think my Blues collection is somewhere around 50-60 at this point, and no real desire to expand it.

Before I go on, I realized I left out another scan of baseball cards.  So I'll show them here.

Two things I take away from this scan.  First, its good to have another George Brett card.  Second, David Cone must have been pitching on a St. Patrick's Day themed night or a tribute to the Kansas City A's game because his hat is green.  Seriously though, I think there are only at most 1-2 Royals from the base set I might not have, so COMC or a trader on TCDB should help finish it at some point.  That makes me happy.

Okay, so back to the tub.  This tub had it all, even basketball.  Possibly half the tub was basketball.  I don't have a high interest in NBA cards because I hardly watch anymore, but looked anyways because I hope to find a former Mizzou player or two.

No Mizzou guys, but still happy with what I got.  I want to build up my Otto Porter collection little by little so finding this one was great.  He went to high school near the bootheel of Missouri and his team won the class 1 basketball championship.  I know this because in either the final or semifinal he played my high school (a few years after I graduated as you all likely know), and he crushed us.  I mean it wasn't pretty.  By then there had already been NBA talk, so I knew I had to get at least a couple of his cards if he had any.  I might have about 5 now, so its a start, but no rush to add more.

When I did watch the NBA, I was a Kevin Garnett fan.  This was during his T-wolves years and I always hoped he'd win a title for them.  When he went to Boston, I still followed the NBA but to a lesser extent.  I was happy when he and Paul Pierce (yes I like him despite his Jayhawks roots) won a NBA Title.  By the time he went to the Nets and eventually back to Minnesota, I hardly ever watched the NBA so I didn't care, but its good to add a new Garnett card to the collection.  Also glad to find an Allen Iverson insert card.  I liked him too, even before he was talking about practice.  As blah as the NBA Hoops base cards are, their inserts I always liked.  Overall some nice pickups.

To be honest though, after seeing the first handful of cards from the tub being so dinged I was about to stop looking and pretty much all but maybe one of those cards would still be in that tub.  However I found one of these cards in the next scan, and knew it was time to dive in.

I just about gave up and got to the end of a short second stack of cards and already shifted my weight to pick up what I had when I saw the Anthony Rizzo card.  Some may not be a fan of these manufactured patch cards, but I'd never imagine I'd find one in a dime tub.  It has some serious dinging issues, but I figured at worst I could always use it to make a custom card of a Cubs player if I wanted.  But I doubt I do that.  Rizzo isn't a PC yet but if I decide to keep it it will be displayed nicely.  If not, I'm sure a Cubs fan or two would be interested.

As I got to one of the last stacks of cards in the tub, I started to notice dirt on my hand.  It was when I pretty much decided that these came from a kids collection.  He probably laid these out in his front yard or something.  Before deciding if it was worth it to finish going through them or stop and check out so I could get to the car and use some wet wipes I came across the Markieff Morris card.  First let me say I'm not a germaphobe to the point of Howie Mandell, but I will say I keep my hands clean.

Anyways, the Morris card was a nice finish to the tub.  I don't know a lot about him, but do remember the name.  Again a card like this for 10 cents is a no-brainer.  If I wasn't ready to go at that point I might have looked at the Bowman box, but since I already had 5 bucks worth of cards, I was happy to leave.  As for the rest of the store, I didn't see much like I usually do, so finding the cards was a nice salvage of a trip.

Before I wrap it up I figured since I scanned them, I'd show off the newest SI For Kids cards I got in the mail recently.

I got a Lebron card with the Lakers, so there's that.  Not much more though.  The Mookie Betts is good too, but this months didn't do much for me.  Still glad I get them though, and I still like the variation of sports.  I thought they'd have an extra baseball player this month though since MLB was the them of the issue. 

So with that its time to wrap it up.  Overall I think I did a pretty good job finding cards, and being able to get new cards on Opening Day.  I don't think I'll open much 2019 product this year, so days like these will be fun.  Thanks for reading everyone, and have a great weekend.

I Still Collect Cards... And Other Stuff

So with sporadic posts the last few months, you may have noticed I spend a lot of time talking about movies, or other random stuff I find at thrift stores.  I'll be honest, that takes up more of my time these days, but it doesn't mean I've abandoned card collecting.  In fact I have some to show today.  I have more to show from thrifting and gifts, but I figured I needed to show some cards off or else I might be kicked out of this social club of card bloggers.  So let's dive in.

One of the great things about the Trading Card Database is the fact that members are so nice and friendly.  These cards represent what is an ever going forum posting entitled Pay It Forward.  I've been fortunate enough to get a couple PWE's from very generous members and I never even asked for them.  The idea is members will see cards on your wantlist and will just send a card or two to you for free.  As always on this site or on the database, I never solicit cards and state my wantlists are mainly for my own use so I can see what I don't have.  However if people are kind enough to want to send me cards, I'm not opposed to it.  Having said all that, I feel bad because though it was back around November or so, I don't think I've added them to my collection on there or even sorted them into my own collection yet.  Maybe I will soon.  My focus last time I did anything with cards was sorting my cards I either don't intend to keep or will if I have enough of the set.  That's been a couple months too, so progress is quite slow right now.  I need to get motivated.

All these cards are great additions though, the Memphis Chicks on the top are ones I likely would have never thought about seeking out, while the Steve Busby might have been a while to go after.  The Maclin the same way especially since I haven't been working on my Mizzou collection in quite some time.

To show you where I'm at, I'm not sure when I got these cards, but I guess I bought a pack of Heritage at some point last year.  I might have even shown them on here, but since I didn't delete it off my computer here they are (for the first time or the 47th, I'm not sure).  Anyways, not a bad bunch of cards.  While I never actively seeked out Ichiro cards, its nice to get some in the past year.  I've also I guess become a Kendall Graveman collector since I've been collecting some of his cards.  A few more and maybe I'll become an unknown supercollector of his.  Overall I guess I did good on this pack.

This one I remember a bit more clearly, but not much.  When I go to Walmart I look for the clearance packs of cards hoping to find some 2016 Topps.  At this point I should just search ebay for lots just to finish the set, but if I find cheap packs I'll get them.  I've slowed down on building some sort of master set of the 2016 cards, but until I start buying current cards from Topps, the search continues.  I will say the 2019 Topps cards look somewhat nice, but I still doubt I buy any.  These are more cards I'm not sure I've cataloged yet.  I guess I really should check into that.

My favorite card in this lot is the Ozzie Smith.  It's been a while since I've gotten any of his cards, so it was a nice addition.  It was also nice to pull an Ichiro Chasing 3K card I didn't have yet (pretty sure I didn't at least).

This Karros cards I think I've shown like 4 times now, but this is the first time I've shown them since I opened the Starting Lineup package they came in.  I wanted to get good scans of them to add to the database, but still haven't done it yet.  Oh well.  The Griffey was a surprise find after going through stuff from storage.  It was the lone card which has seen better days, but its still a great oddball card to find, and my Griffey Reds cards are quite minuscule at the point, so a great addition.

Even better is its from Ritz and Oreo, which I have no memory of ever finding cards in either, but if I had to guess it came from a box of Ritz crackers because despite liking sweets, I hardly ever buy Oreo's unless I get a sudden urge.  The Karros cards look pretty nice on the back, though a bit... white!  I like the middle one better since it has stats on it, but do wish it had the Starting Lineup logo on the back like the other one.  It's not like they didn't have room.

So with that, let's see some other stuff I found recently.  Some I've featured before, but hey baseball season is almost here.

The top one came in a pack I got a couple years ago, forgetting all about it, but remember I got it after starting the blog since I remember talking about it once.  I still haven't displayed it, but maybe I will.

The other three are from boxes of cereal.  Someone on the Trading Card Database was talking about them a couple months ago and I went looking for them.  They are a little sunbaked since I set them in front of my window at my old house, but still look nice.  It is nice I have the Ichiro one, but I have no real attachment to them.  I miss the days of finding good stuff in cereal boxes, but at the same time these days I'm more of a Cheerios guy then a sugary cereal gut.  Though I must say if I hear of a new or unique cereal I will try it.  Last year I tried Nilla Wafers cereal and OMG they were good.  I ate them up so fast I got sick, so I never bought another box.  Last trip to Walmart I went looking for Chicken & Waffles cereal I heard about from Impulsive Buy website, but I think I missed out on them.  That site btw, Impulsive Buy, is a great site if you like to see and try new foods.  It seems Unicorn themed food is the new hip thing right now.  Think of the Pumpkin Spice craze and that's whats going on.  Also it seems Heintz is trying to make everyone sick by combining Mayo with Mustard, Ketchup, and/or BBQ sauce.  So now I'm sick, let's move on.

TNA Wrestling, now called um... I'm not sure I don't keep up anymore, I think its Impact Wrestling still, had a great wrestling product.  The problem with most of TNA's run has been marketing and advertising, among other things.  One thing I thought they did right was the action figure line which this Kevin Nash comes from.  Besides just bending at the knees like most, they also bend at the waist, arms, fingers, and even the toes!  They are a little stiff, but it was fun getting this one and a Petey Williams one many years ago.  They are some of the last figures I've actually taken out of the package.  I'm glad I did too.

Speaking of packages, I kept these two in their packages because they look nice on my wall shelf that way.  Not much more to say really because I think I've talked about them before.  Wrestlemania is coming up, so I have some of my wrestling stuff displayed, and since I don't have the WWE Network, I got out some wrestling DVD's and plan to watch some soon, including the Best of AJ Styles in TNA, which is a few years before he left, so most of his earlier stuff.  Also have some ROH with matches with Daniel Bryan, Nigel McGuinness, and maybe even Tyler Black (Seth Rollins).  Also have some documentaries from the likes of Mr. Perfect, and Dusty Rhodes.  I should have fun with that.

So down to the last item to show.  This was kind of odd to find, and the stuff I found with it I'm saving for another day, and hopefully that day is soon.  It will be a LONG post with TONS of pictures though, so I need to figure out how to format it.  Anyways, here was an outlier to the rest of the stuff.

My dad loved mowers.  I remember mowing every summer with him until he got sick.  We not just mowed our yard, but mowed at the local nursing home for a while, other people's yards, and even a church and a cemetery.  He also started garden tractor pulling as well.  He started with a Dynamark mower and a Wizard.  He named them Little Red and Wizard of Oz.  The Wizard was possibly the slowest puller I ever saw, but it was consistent and he did well with it.  As time went on he upgraded to Cub Cadet's and started doing better.  While it was fun to watch him pull at times, even at the Missouri State Fair, I never got the passion to pull like he did.  At times I wish I did, but also glad I didn't because it would be another hobby I'd spend too much money on.

What is odd about this piece though is he never used a John Deere.  Not for pulling or mowing.  When we mowed, we ran Craftsman mowers, and even when he would plow snow he had a Case to do it.  So I was a bit perplexed to find this cast iron John Deere in a box a couple months ago.  That's not to say I don't like it, but I haven't displayed it yet, and not sure if or when I will.  I do want to clean it up nice though but haven't done that yet.

So with that I guess its time to wrap things up.  I haven't mentioned it, but I'm sure you've noticed I've done a site redesign.  I like to change every couple years, and when Blogger recently did away with the Google + or whatever and mentioned possible conflicts with comments on here, it reminded me I needed to fix my comments section that I never did after the last redesign.  I I wanted an older style look to the blog and I'm quite happy with the look.  I figured since I haven't exactly done Royals posts as of late, the gold background was a nice change.  If you notice any issues arising from the change let me know and I'll see what I can do.  I'm most happy that I can reply to individual comments again and look forward to doing that.  So I guess that's it for today.  It felt nice to show off some cards again, but I'll be honest, the next few posts might be without cards, but they will have a bunch of cool stuff to show.  Thanks everyone for reading and have a great weekend!