Finally Got Some 2020 Cards

 2020 has been, eh, you know.  Let's just say I haven't been a fan of it.  When all this began, I wasn't too upset about people staying in more, because I don't go out much.  As the months passed though it made me realize that even though I stay in a lot, I still like the chance to get out some.  The last month has kind of hit me hard just because I want to get out and do something but at the same time, don't want to put myself or my family at risk, and don't feel comfortable being around people.  So once a month, sometimes a couple times, my mom and I will take a trip to Walmart to get groceries for the month and maybe take a trip to Dollar Tree and our closest second hand store.  Though that trip isn't always guaranteed and just the Dollar Tree and Walmart suffice.  We've been blessed this year because of friends and family giving us food they had extra of and didn't want to go to waste, or food we couldn't find while out so 1 trip a month works out pretty well.  Sometimes a quick trip to the local Dollar General which is about 1000 feet from our apartment makes it easy to grab a couple things until our next trip.

Sorry for boring you all, but I have good news.  On my recent trip I made a stop to my local second hand store, Savvy Seconds, and found some cards which I will show off today.  In addition, I have other cards to show as well.  One of the most generous members of the Trading Card Database shot me a message a couple months ago asking how detailed my Mizzou collection is.  He had a card of a journalist who went to Mizzou and wanted to know if I was interested.  It was a new card to me and he was willing to just pay it forward so I let him.  A day or two later he also offered more cards, but this was different.

C2Cigars on TCDB for the last few months has been buying spots on a couple Youtube card breaks and offering them up for members who claimed them.  It just so happened that on the day I looked, one of the teams was the Royals, and I made it in time to claim them.  We will look at those today as well.  Depending on how much time I have, I may also show off some movies at the end of the post, but we'll see.  For now let's dig into the cards

*First let me say since my posts have been sporadic, I'm still trying to get use to the hang of the changes Blogger have made.  Not a fan of them, but maybe it will grow on me the more I use it.

Let's start with the Allen & Ginter card on the bottom.  Derrick Goold was the card Chuck first offered to me.  I didn't even know a card existed but I was intrigued so it now has a nice place in my collection (which I have to work on the Mizzou collection some, but there's always next year, I think I'll have time).  The next scan will show the back of the card, and why he got to be on one in the first place.

The Royals cards are all those I won in the box break.  The breaker opened 4 boxes I believe, and the Royals weren't prominently featured in any of them, so I thought getting four cards was good enough.  To be honest getting 2020 cards at all made me happy.  I haven't focused too much on newer sets especially ones that aren't the main Topps set so not only were the cards new to me, so were the designs.  I like the Gallery cards a lot and if I decide to work on a team set of current cards, I might work on those next.  In fact only the Salvador Perez and the short print of George Brett are all I need to finish the base set.  Maybe I can find them on COMC at some point.

It's not everyday a journalist gets their own card.  I was really happy Chuck reached out to me about this card for no other reason than to be aware it existed.  I hope in the next year I will work on my collections a bit better, but this year besides having less focus on my blog, I've also focused less on my cards.  Will 2021 be any different?  I hope I get a passion for it even if I don't plan on adding a lot of cards next year.  I don't plan on making goals but if I do, I want to cut my collection in half, getting rid of cards I don't want, and maybe in return getting a few more I do.  I doubt I do that, but on the bright side, at the end of last month I did update my Royals collection, so that is a start.

The Ryan Howard card I'm pretty sure I won on Listia.  It's been awhile its been sitting on my desk, but if I did I got it cheap.  I have a love/hate relationship with Listia, but right now I'm loving it.  They switched from whatever they called credits to points, so I don't have a lot to mess around with, but the last month I have been able to add a few cards to my collection.  If you follow me on twitter you'll see a lot of posts saying I won something.  Everytime I win, Listia posts it for me, I don't like to brag about it.  It also kind of suck if you were to win a card to give to someone, because it would spoil the surprise.  As for the Howard card, not only do I collect Mizzou cards, but people from or associated with Missouri and Ryan Howard played for the Missouri State Bears.  While I don't plan to start a full collection of Bears, as a result of this "Missouri association" collection, I have in essence start to PC Ryan Howard.  Its one I don't try to hard to build, but if I get them cheap enough, then I'll get them.  Winning cards on Listia is as cheap as it comes.  In all the years I've been on there, I've only paid in $1 and that was to verify my account (which I didn't have to do, but back then I thought it would be an alternative to Ebay and become huge).  So any card I've ever won has been pretty much free.  My biggest win on there was winning a set of Simpsons cards.  While I was supposed to get the stickers with it, I only got the base set but still for a buck total a full set made me happy, and the 200 or so other wins meant they were all free.

Speaking of Listia, I won a few other auctions on there recently, and have more on the way.

All four cards I won on Listia in separate auctions.  We'll start with the Quisenberry card.  I hope to one day get all of his cards because he played at a time there wasn't an overabundance of cards.  Since most are Royals cards, most of his cards will be in that collection, but he also played for the Cardinals, and I have a few of them.  In total according to TCDB, he had 229 cards total, some as recent as 2015 and 2017.  I have 28 of his cards, so still quite a ways to go, but 200 is certainly reachable.  Just imagine he he played today, he'd have 229 Donruss cards alone from this year.

The other cards all fit into my Mizzou collection.  The Kelly Bryant card is my first of him, and in all likelyhood my last.  I don't follow Mizzou as much as I did around 2014 or so, but I still try to collect players.  Bryant went undrafted and I don't think he'll have many more cards made.  In total, he has 224 cards, which surprises me a bit, but a lot of inserts, so maybe not too surprising.  Then again, only 5 short of all the cards Quisenberry has.

The bigger surprise was the Ziggy Hood card marks the first card I have for him.  How this is possible I don't know.  What I do know is that I was a big fan of his when he was drafted and really hoped he'd have a big career.  To show how different 2009 and 2020 is, Hood has a total of 74 cards, one from a set that I can't find if it really exists from Panini in 2017 (Its a Mizzou set I never heard of until last week).  Recently Evander "Ziggy" Hood made the pages of Wall Street Journal, in a story of how he and his wife took care of their son who has autism after the help they'd been receiving halted due to the coronavirus.  Here is a link for those interested- https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-a-boy-with-autisms-world-turned-upside-down-when-pandemic-shut-school-11604408402

Yet another surprise was that was also my first Rickey Paulding card.  I don't have a ton of basketball cards, but I was stunned to see that was my first of Paulding.  I figured when I built my Kim English collection I would have at least got one of Paulding.  I know I did for Arthur Johnson and Linus Klieza, and older players like Jon Sundvold and Steve Stipanovich, so how Paulding was left out in the cold, I'll never know.  Paulding has 52 cards total, so if I decide to pursue it, I only have 51 more to go.  I should say that for my Mizzou and Missouri collections, my goal isn't to get EVERY card of every person, just a single card, and then maybe more depending on how interested I am.  Since I am a bigger fan of the basketball team than football (despite my focus for a few years being on football, its always been the case), I believe if given the chance, I'll add more cards to my Paulding pile.  One more card ties me with the most among TCDB users, and 2 more moves me to first.  I'M COMING FOR YOU BILLY KINGSLEY! AH HA HA HA!

Next let's look at cards I actually spent money on... kinda.  Some cards I won on Ebay.

First, the Salvador Perez was another Listia winning.  It was a card I need to finish the Royals off, which I think I still have a couple to add, but it was cheap enough that I couldn't resist.

Speaking of couldn't resist, I've been looking at random auctions on Ebay lately.  I still have money on a gift card my sister gave me last Christmas and honestly been looking at DVD and Xbox 360 game collections to buy cheap.  When not tickled my fancy (not even sure if I'd want my fancy being tickled) I looked at card lots.  I had my eye on a few cheap ones, and this one popped up.  I've had my eye on a few cards in this set for a while and no real interest on building the set, but I was quite happy to see this one show up.  The two cards I wanted in the set were Burt Reynolds and Kenny Rogers.  Even the Rogers I didn't need a whole lot because shortly before his passing, I bought it fairly cheap on COMC.  This listing was after shipping $2.49.  I thought a very good deal for the two cards I wanted, and a couple others I wouldn't complain about having (Jimmy Stewart could be shown off during Christmas thanks to It's A Wonderful Life, and Bela Lugosi could be shown off at Halloween, because... well it's Bela Lugosi).  As it turned out, nobody else bid and I won.  Shortly after I won, the seller sent me a message offering me a discount if I would buy the other cards from the set he was selling.  It was 5 more cards and would tack on an extra buck to the 2.49.  It was a good deal, and while I pondered it, I decided to pass because I wasn't too interested in the other cards.  So a few days later these showed up, and I was happy.  I've wanted the Reynolds card for years, and the same for the Rogers.  The Rogers card means a lot to me because both photos on the card are from his movie Six Pack, which my family loves.  Because of COMC's delayed shipping of 2020, I haven't had cards shipped from them in almost 2 years (not enough bought in 2019 to have them shipped last year).  Luckily that means I can sell the Rogers card I have on there, and not only make more than what I paid, but possibly make a bit more to cover what I paid to get them on Ebay.  I still have money on the Ebay gift card, and I plan to buy something on there soon.  Too bad I didn't get that $25 off that quite a few did earlier this year, or I would have went to town.

So at this point I've shown cards I've gotten across the interwebs.  Next I'll show some cards I actually bought in person.  My most recent trip to Savvy Seconds was the first in at least 3 months, and the card selection there didn't look much different.  In fact at first I almost skipped over it until I saw a couple random cards I knew I hadn't seen before there so I figured I'd take a look.

The CFL cards caught my eye, but as I looked I realized I didn't know most of the players aside from the Rocket!  I almost gave up until I saw a checklist card (I don't remember these sets off the top of my head) and realized I could find a few people I did know.  So I started looking for the Warren Moon, and was glad I got it.  Then I spotted the Flutie card, another PC so I grabbed that.  I then debated on if I really wanted the Theismann card because I don't really PC him, but before I could decide I found it, so I held on to it.  Cards were 10 cents each, so I like to get multiples of 5, so I could always put it back. I wasn't sure what to look at next, but the Justin Smith card jumped out at me.  It was one I didn't recognize before so I was 95% sure I didn't have it, and it was a great addition to my Mizzou collection.  Then I started to find other NFL cards, ones that I wasn't too interested in but still they were new to the store so I looked.  First I found the Tommy Maddox, which I don't PC, but I thought it would be cool to have an NFL card and maybe one day an XFL card.  Turns out I already have an NFL card of him, so I have more of his cards than I have of Ziggy Hood.  Next If saw the Trent Dilfer card.  In the 90's I was a Bucs fan, and at first I was hoping this would lead me to find some Mike Alstott cards, which it didn't.  But I held onto the Dilfer in case I needed another card.  Then I found the Ryan Leaf card.  I chuckled at first but then figured its not like I'd find too many of his cards so decided I'd get it, plus I liked the design of that Ultra set. Finally I saw the Frank Reich card.  Besides the Chiefs and Bucs, I also rooted for the Bills.  I guess that's why I PC Jim Kelly, Doug Flutie, Frank Reich, and other Bills players.  I think the biggest reason is because I still say the greatest game I ever saw was the Bills and Oilers on January 3rd, 1993.  It really got me more into football than any game I'd seen at that point, and made me a fan.  I also long for the days when the Bills wore those red helmets.  C'MON ENOUGH WITH THE WHITE HELMETS, BRING BACK THE RED ONES!

I wasn't done there though, I found a stack of older cards, and they caught my eye.

Holy cannoli those are some old cards.  I loved finding these but as I grabbed them I wondered how they'd fit into my collection.  None are really PC guys and I'm not set building 70s sets.  Then I thought about Diamond Jesters blog and his Time Travel journey.  For those unaware, in 2019 he bought a pack of 2019 Topps cards.  One pack.  What he wanted to do was trade all those cards to get older cards.  If you were interested in say and 2019 Topps Max Kepler, maybe you'd trade him a 1993 Leaf Don Mattingly.  Or if you wanted a 2019 Topps Ronald Acuna, you'd trade a 1997 Topps Scottie Pippen and a 1989 Fleer Mark McGwire.  Any type of card he'd trade for as long as they were older.  It has been fun to watch the journey and as 2019 started to dry up trade offers, he decided to buy a 2020 pack and continue the journey.  Since he began I've wanted to join in, but either before I'd get a trade organized the cards I'd want would be traded, or I wouldn't have cards to give in return.  So when I saw these, I thought, these may not be top quality, but still in good shape, maybe a 4 for 1 trade or the like could net me a couple cards in return.  I haven't offered a trade to him yet, but I hope to at the start of the new year.  From this batch the one that popped out at me was Davey Johnson which I had to look and make sure that really was him or another guy named Dave.  

A couple more I could through in as well, but I might keep the Pilots cards just because I don't have many.  The ones I do have came from my dad's collection.  Though Marty Pattin would fit into my "Once Royals" collection and odd collection I haven't worked on in a while.  It is basically a card from a player who once was on the Royals but in a different uniform.  This would be before he joined Kansas City, but it would be one of the oldest in that collection.

Another Quisenberry card for my collection, however when I finally got around to adding it to my collection, I realized I already had it.  Oh well, a ten cent mistake isn't so bad.  In fact this is the first time in a while that I had one or less cards that I already had.

As for the Ian Kennedy card, I was torn on if I should get it.  It looked like it was left out in the rain and paper on the front and back started to come off.  It wasn't until I turned it over that I decided I would get it.

This was part of a police set.  A very odd police set might I add.  I knew I didn't have it and that was the only reason I got this card.  When I got home and later catalogged it, it took a while to find anything about this card.  I believe it was a 2018 set, but the front design was from a 2012-ish Topps set.  Why they would use a 5 year old design still confuses me, but I'm glad I found it.  I seriously doubt I will finish this set, but at least having one card from it made me happy.

Since I wrote a bit longer than I planned I'll hold off on the movies for another post.  I'm not sure when I'll post again, or if it will have cards, so it might be about movies.  I have won some Listia cards, and hope to make one more trip to Savvy Seconds before the end of the year, so I might be able to squeeze in one more card post this year.  I have quite a few cards waiting to be shipped from COMC, but I seriously doubt I'll have them shipped until at least April and even then it won't be more than 30-50 card I'd imagine.  When I won the gift card from them a year or two ago, I still have about 30 bucks left in my account, so I plan to probably drain that a bit before I ship any.  A couple cards on there I hope to flip, and some I hope just to break even on (dumb purchases or doubles).  The rest will fill out some of my Royals and Mizzou collections, and maybe even build my Damon and Maddux collections some.

At any rate, thanks for reading and if I don't post again, have a Happy Holiday season, and a Happy New Year.

Adding New Cards To My Collection!

 To say 2020 has been crazy would be an understatement.  I could say anything like "I've been busy" or "Where does the time go", or anything else, but the truth is- I just haven't felt like writing.  I may or may not have stated on here before that I used to write poems a lot.  None were that great but I improved each time and they were getting better.  In 2006 my father passed away and around the same time I started to develop writer's block.  I just couldn't write anymore, and I believe it was around this time in 2006 that I wrote my last poem.  After my dad passed I gained possession of his card collection, a collection that sit dormant since the MLB strike of 1994.  I myself sold my collection in around 2003 or so and was out of the game.  Even after gaining my dad's collection, I didn't have a real desire to collect again, though I did have fun sorting the cards he did have.  He was a set collector, and for the most part his collection was pretty complete among the sets he collected.  Fast forward to 2011 and I lost my job due to a back injury and while I recovered I bought a pack of cards here and there.  I wasn't full into the card game again, but it gave me something to do to pass the time.  It was around that time that one of my sisters (who would have turned 43 today) was diagnosed with stage 4 cervical cancer.  All of that going on really needed me to get a hobby to take my mind off things.  When she passed away, I really needed something to do.  What started as finding a way to catalog all my cards to find their value or even unload them off turned me into wanting to collect again.  A year or so later I began to try out this thing called "blogging" for a second time (the first time was through a site called Xanga around the mid 2000's, and I wrote a few movie reviews besides using it as a journal).  For a couple years, I wrote a lot, then I set a goal of writing more than the previous year, and I believe because of that, I got burnt out of blogging.  To best experience blogging I think you should write when you feel like it, not to meet a quota.

This year I could have written more, maybe some of it was writer's block, but to be honest, I just didn't feel like it.  No sports for a while, then when it came back, I still had no desire to watch.  Since March I think I've watched 5 NFL games, maybe 3 MLB games, and a handful of NASCAR games.  My TV viewing has been mostly on free streaming apps like Pluto and watching wrestling and movies.  Anyways, during this time I've also spent very little time on my card collection.  My desire just isn't there much.  I've gotten a few cards and in the last month or so have gotten back into it a little more.  So I figured today I would post some cards I've gotten in 2020.  I have enough for two posts, but I'm not going to say when part two will be wrote, lets just enjoy this for now!

Let's begin with some cards I've had for a couple years.  These were inside an unopened Starting Lineup I got of Barry Bonds at my local second hand store Savvy Seconds, but the plastic was starting to yellow so I decided to free the figure and take the cards and add them to my Bonds collection.  I have no regrets and the figure looks nice near the Johnny Damon one I have as well.

On a trip to Savvy a couple months ago I snagged these cards.  Not a bad day when you can get a Gehrig, Feller, or Niekro.  I'm also a sucker for Post cards, so while Bagwell isn't a PC player per se, I can still be happy to get it.  Same with the Dairy Queen cards.  I would like to work on that set a bit more and I imagine it shouldn't be too hard to find more.  The Bobby Thomson card is similar to the top row but from another set.  A set I have a feeling I'll get more cards from soon.

WOW that was quick!  In fact on the same trip I picked these up.  I know these I guess are um... vintage modern vintage (I mean made to look vintage but are modern, but now old enough to be classified as vintage) but I'm still happy getting a Ted Williams, no matter the age.  This was a pretty good day of picking cards.

This was on another trip a few weeks later.  An odd mix of cards, but ones I wanted nonetheless.  A pair of Balboni Royals, a Long John Silvers card, and a Hakeem Olajuwon card are a pretty nice addition to the collection.  The two top left cards are well loved, but that was what made me like them and they will be nice additions to the collection.  The Alan Trammell card is a PC as well so I can expand that collection a bit too.  The Mark Einhorn card doesn't really fit into any collection, but I've never seen a Canadian Greats card before and for a dime I couldn't pass it up.  Overall I was happy with these pick ups.

Most exciting on the trip was pulling these Royals cards.  I never expect to find a team set complete or not so getting a few of the Police cards were really exciting.  I'm not sure when I'll be able to finish that set but for now just finding them was good enough.  The same goes for the Quisenberry sticker.  I have no idea when or how I can finish that team set, but it will be fun to try.  I think the main difference between the way I collect and the way my dad collected was I am more of a team collector and he was a set collector.  It's not that I don't want complete sets, I just don't know if I have the room for them and figure it might be easier and cheaper just to get the Royals cards and if I want build from there.

The Danny Tartabull I was worried I already had since I have a few from that set, but I didn't.  The other great part about scanning these cards recently was I also was able to put them into my collection and update my have and want lists.  I've been able to complete a few team sets as of late and expand my want lists as well.  A set doesn't go into my want list until I have at least one Royals card. That way I don't clog pages with sets I don't have any cards of and also I can crosscheck sets I either have finished or none at all and maybe can get a full team set.  It's been working good so far, but in the future I hope to find a way to keep a checklist on me when I go places.  I don't have a cell phone, so its tougher to check.  Though I did find my sister's old Nook which I might see if I can put checklists on there and carry that with me.  We'll see.

Before I wrap things up, I thought I'd share one more card.  I admit I don't read as many blogs as of late, but I sometimes find some and read.  One I recently read was giving away cards, and I asked for one, and it arrived a few days ago.

If you've never read Jon's blog, A Penny Sleeve For Your Thoughts, you are really missing out.  Besides being a great blogger, Jon is a nice and generous guy too.  When he posted this card at first I felt guilty since I don't blog as much and other people may want it.  Though I noticed it had been a few days and I felt if someone really wanted it by then, they would have claimed it.  One of my pet projects is collecting cards (not everyone, but at least one) of people from Missouri.  They can either be born in Missouri, grew up in Missouri, lived in Missouri at one point or went to college in Missouri. College ones are really a different collection, but just giving you an idea.  I also want to collect at least one card from every team who ever played in Missouri.  Anyways, Carl Hubbell was born in Carthage, Missouri in 1903.  While I can't say I've been to a ton of Missouri towns (though I have a list somewhere where I list every town I've been to), I can say I've been to Carthage.  I went in 2002 and stayed the night there as I made my way to a Music Festival just outside of Joplin.  Carthage isn't too far from Joplin, and is headquarters to Precious Moments the little Christmas ornaments.  I didn't do much in Carthage but at least I can say I was there. While I haven't catalogged my Missouri collection much outside of Mizzou I believe this is the first or second Carl Hubbell card I have and am really glad I have it.  Thank you so much Jon for the card.

So that will wrap it up for today.  I hope you enjoyed reading it and I hope to have another soon, but I won't say I will.  As for blogging, its tough to get back into after being away for a bit, but I've noticed changes on Blogger, and I'm not sure how I like them yet.  Maybe writing more will get me more comfortable in writing and the site.  Anyways, thanks for reading and have a great day!

Busy Month, Time For Some Cleaning

I've been working on a few things this month and to be honest, haven't touched my cards much.  In fact aside from buying a few cards a couple weeks ago, I haven't touched any cards in over a month or two.  I'm in the process of cleaning up my storage unit, and deciding what to bring home and what to take to storage.  At the same time, I'm working on rearranging the apartment, so its kept me pretty busy and my mind isn't on cards much.  Despite all that, I've managed to find time to take some pictures and even scan a few things, so today this will be showing off some of those pictures and scans.  I'm not sure what I'll show off until I start to upload the pictures, so let's dig in!

While cleaning I found this static cling.  It's used, but I'm trying to straighten it up and will display it somehow.  It really pops on the white background of my scanner.

I think part of the reason I haven't messed with cards lately is partially being burnt out from sports, and because I don't really care if they play any sports this year.  I haven't watched any sports aside from NASCAR and maybe a minor sport or two since March, and I haven't been too upset.  I have watched wrestling, but more sparingly and usually pretty vocal with some of the stuff they do.  So with that, I just kind of ignored sports the last few months.  That makes for a sad blog, so its also why I haven't posted much either.

Anyways, today I will show you some scans from a baseball magazine I got a few months ago at my local second hand store.  It has some interesting things, and some not so interesting (at least to me), but when I cross post some of it to Pinterest, it really gets noticed.  Who knew John Madden in a beer ad would create so much interest?

I know nothing about this magazine, but I think it was 10 cents, and honestly the idea of scanning the ads was enough for me to grab it. 

I have to admit some of these scans turned out GGGGGGGGRRRRRREEEEEEEAAAAATTTTTT!

I think my favorite of this bunch is the Payday one.  I like how it looks like its coming out of the page.  The others are good too, its just that one caught my attention more than the others. 

Let's get those Pinterest folks excited!  I'm not sure why beer ads are popular on there, but many people have boards for them, and if it gains me some exposure on here, then I might do some randomly in the future.  No John Madden this time, but the Sharp's one I like because of the burger in the back.  I guess beer and alcohol advertisements aren't as prevalent these days so that's why they are popular.  Then again, I'm not sure how many people still read paper magazines anyways.  I figure most people don't or just read e-editions.  I can't get behind e-books or magazines but I understand why they are so popular.

Let's look at some baseball card ads.

I believe I have cards from all those sets except the last one.  I do wish I collected more of the Conlon set, but at this point I can't see myself every devoting much time to doing it, and I'm not sure I'd want to at this point anyways.  Maybe when Publisher's Clearinghouse comes to my door with the grand prize I will look into it more.  Until then, its a far along set I'll never try to work on because I have other's I'd rather do first.

Let's see what else I have.

We wrap it up with a few more ads that I scanned.  I find it funny for years I'd see ads for "illegal golf balls" that fly for miles, yet you never actually saw stories of golfers getting better because of them.

It's also weird to think that magazine subscriptions for the most part aren't a whole lot higher than they where 25-30 years ago.  I know some went up a ton, and on the newstand they have too, but $20 for a year may have sounded high back then, not I find plenty for that price (I even get a few for free).

Inside the magazine were these two items.  One is an ad for Sears carpet cleaning, which I scanned mainly for the Sears logo.  The second appears to be a ticket to um... an event.  I mean I guess it would be an interesting topic to hear from a survivor's point of view, but this had to be within a year or so of the Waco Massacre, so I'm not sure I'd really want to go around telling my story so soon.  Plus I'd imagine if I was a survivor of something like that, instead of going around talking about it, I'd rather just write a book, so I wouldn't have to discuss the details all the time.  Write it once, and be done with it until people would ask you about it daily I guess.  Either way, an interesting find inside of a magazine.

I figured I'd wrap it up with this photo.  In the last post or two I showed off a doll I've had since I was a baby.  Earlier this month was the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, and I thought I'd dress her up.  The shirt is a relic and one I found in storage about a month ago and was so excited to find.  It was actually one of my shirts when I was a baby.  It might be tattered but I'm so glad I found it.  It was a little big for my doll, but I still thought it would be cute to put on her.  I sent a picture to my sister and she liked it.

So that wraps it up for today, I know it wasn't much, but as I stated, I've been a little busy on other stuff.  I'm hoping in the next couple months I'll get a few of those other projects done and I'll spend more time working on my cards a bit more.  In the meantime, I guess we'll just see when and what I post next.  Thanks for reading and have a great day.

Dollar Tree? Can It Be?

Thought I should write a post to show I'm still kicking.  I didn't realize its been over a month since my last post, but I haven't wanted to write anyways.  Today however this post will have cards featured.  Also movies, but the focus will be on cards.

On a June trip to Dollar Tree, I was beyond shocked to find a pack of baseball cards.  My local Dollar Tree hasn't had any sports cards in maybe 4 or so years, but I still look.  This is the first current year pack of cards I've bought since I think 2017, so it was exciting to open them up.

I like the look of the cards, but I don't get why they don't spell out the city name on the cards.  It's the least they could do since they can't name the team.  None of these scream keeper to me, and good thing.  A few days ago I went to move something on my desk and it hit the cards and bent one of the corners to bits on all the cards.  Luckily the other cards on my desk were safe, but still was upset by it.  Especially the Kepler since the was the only real keeper I considered.

Since I'm showing cards, I'll show some others I got recently.  A couple packs from my sister which was a few months ago.  I'm sure I haven't posted them, if so, sorry.

My first pack of either, so again it was fun to rip these open.

I was pretty happy with the baseball cards.  I got a Royal card, so anything else is icing.  However I've been working unofficially on a Frankenstein set of Stadium cards, so getting the Oakland and Houston cards were good.  Plus who would be disappointed to pull an Acuna or Yount card.

As far as the football cards, I don't really collect too many anymore, but this was also a good pack.  In fact most of these cards I do plan on keeping.  I'm not sure why but I collect a few Sam Bradford cards, as well as Eli Manning.  My favorite is the Alex Smith card though.  Most Chiefs fans may have been tough on him, but I always liked him.  I understood why they traded him and it worked out for Kansas City, but I wish it would have worked out better for Alex.  I still haven't watched him get injured yet.  I've seen what his leg looked like on the ESPN documentary though, and that was enough to cringe, so I don't need to see the play.

Since I had more cards on my desk, might as well show them too.

I feel bad for not remembering how I got these, but these are all keepers.  I liked the Studio sets, and maybe one day I will build them.  But not until I clear out a lot ones I don't want first.

I apologize for not writing much on these, I'm just not sure what else to say.  Also upset at blogger right now for being slow and moving my pictures I just uploaded, so I am speeding this up a bit.

So that's it for the cards, but while on that trip to Dollar Tree, I found some movies.  Anymore my trips to Dollar Tree are in hopes of finding movies, and this trip didn't disappoint.  So let's see what I picked up.

The top two pictures are movies I got for my mom.  She was excited to find The Amityville Horror, and I was excited that it was on Blu-Ray.  The others were movies she hasn't seen before, but for a buck its hard to pass them up.  I figure if you watch it once, its like renting it.  If it's good you can keep it, if not you either hang on to it or give it away.  Maybe put 50 cents on it at a garage sale and hope for the best.

To me, Goldmember was the worst of the 3 Austin Powers movies, but I was happy to upgrade it from the DVD I have, now only if I can get the second one either on DVD or Blu-Ray.  The Journey To The Center Of The Earth I got because of the hopes the digital code worked, which it did.  I haven't seen it, but I have Journey 2 for some reason, and never seen it either, so this way I could watch both.  Plus Brenden Fraser is good in some movies (probably can't beat Blast From The Past though).

Spider-Man 3 I was happy to get because I have the first two so this will finish it up.  Though I've never even watched the second one, so I guess I have a night to watch stuff.

I never heard of of American Wrestler, but it was a blind buy, and I figure I'll watch it soon.  The one that made me happiest to find was Money Monster.  I know its not the most exciting movie, but I really liked it and have wanted to get it for some time.  I figure I could watch it by the end of the month if I get bored and nothing else to do.  If not I might do a movie challenge next month and it will be on my list.

Before I go I wanted to show a couple screenshots.  Last month I got bored at like 4 AM and I googled myself.  Well, my screen names.  I've known a few websites and social media that has retweeted me or showed a tweet of mine, but I stumbled upon one I had no idea I was mentioned.  Here is a couple websites that have shown my tweets on their site.

The first one is from ESPN, and I've known about that one for quite a while.  It my be one of my favorite tweets.  For context, the Royals started off bad one year, and I made a joke about selling off the team.

The second screenshot I had no clue I was mentioned.  To be honest I don't even remember the tweet and vaguely remember the incident.  The lottery announced a winner of a jackpot and then a few hours later announced it was the wrong location.  I guess I tweeted that, making a joke about Steve Harvey, which was the cool thing to do at the time.

So anyways, I guess I'll wrap it up for now, thanks everyone for continuing to read my blogs, even though I don't post as much anymore.  I hope everyone has a great rest of the summer, all things considering.

Savvy Loot Box- The Return!

While most people have been working hard to organize during quarantine, I hardly touched my cards.  In fact only 3-4 times I dealt with them and that was to move them for the bug man to visit and a couple times to find something or put something away.  A lot of my "free" time was working on converting VHS tapes to DVD.  Some of which I hope to upload to Youtube at some point.  I can't decide if I want to embarrass myself enough to post some of my high school communications video (I doubt I do).  Most will be historical stuff like when my town demolished most of the downtown building due to fire and "progress".  Or when the next city over imploded their 70 year old bridge to build a much better one.  Local history, but stuff my dad filmed and I would like to show off.  I also found some old home videos as well and I need to make copies for family members.

Not all was home videos, some were converting odd tapes to dvd that again I might add to Youtube because they aren't on dvd elsewhere or on digital.  Is anybody interested in what you should do if you find a dead bald eagle?  In the 90's the Wildlife foundation made a tape, its boring, but I hope to upload it soon just so I can have content for my pages.  I have two Youtube accounts, one will be used for stuff my family filmed and I'll show, the other for random stuff found on VHS or maybe stuff I filmed that I don't want to put on the other account.  At any rate I hope to have some stuff up soon.

Last month I got caught up on all the VHS tapes, and I stored the VCR and DVD recorder away until I got more.  I won't keep them out or even get them out everytime I get a new one, but when I get about 20 or so, I'll pull them out if I'm bored.  Now that I'm done with home movies, I'm not in a rush to convert much more.  However my local second hand store had been closed anyways until recently so it wasn't like I could get more tapes.  With the virus still around I don't like going out in public unless I really need too and really don't want my mom going out either, so unless necessary we try to stay at home.

After a while though you need to get out and do something, and we finally made our way back to Savvy Seconds, my local second hand store, and we did what we always do- mom gets books, and I get movies or CD's.  No CD's this time, but enough movies to warrant a post, and one I like to call, the Savvy Loot Box!

Since its been a while, here's a refresher- instead of spending 20-40 bucks a month on a subscription box off the internet where I might like half the items, I spend under 20 bucks (usually under 5 or 10) at my local second hand store on items I want or will use.  Most of the time its movies of CD's but I do usually find other stuff as well including baseball cards.  This time I didn't buy any cards, but there were plenty there. Also on occasion I will throw in random items I bought at Dollar Tree, but not this time since I have enough to show.

With that being said, let's dig in.

I will say I ended up going twice within a span of a week and this is from both trips.  I'll start with books.  I've always liked Grumpy Cat, even so much as to buy the Christmas movie that otherwise would be unwatchable (unless you're an Aubrey Plaza fan, which I'm not one way or another).  This copy is a little torn up, but books are 25 for a quarter, and finding 25 is usually a chore, so you take some that you are on the fence about.

Speaking of being on the fence, on the first trip I spotted the Hill Harper book but passed because my mom was well on her way to finding 25 books, and it wasn't a must need book.  On the second trip though we struggled to find 10 so I added it with slim hopes I'll ever get around to reading it.  I like Hill Harper though I heard he was in a bit of a situation on Twitter recently but I didn't see what happened.

The Katrina book I got on the second trip as well.  I didn't see it the first time but my mom did.  She doesn't like seeing stuff that brings back memories of sad stuff and passed on it.  I explained to her that her interest in WWII and war documentaries are some of my interests as well to an extent.  I'm not big on war stuff, but I told her that people always talk about the wars and all that stuff from the 40-60s and such, but I wasn't born until the 80's.  So more modern history is stuff that interests me to some extent, and I feel since everyone live tweets now and emphasis is on "NOW" people tend to pass it over after it ends.  It may be brought up in a conversation, but people move on.  My point is you don't see as many retrospectives on more modern history because honestly, news channels have changed from presenting news to discussing news and it takes a hit on current events.  I got this book because in the future someone may want more information on Hurricane Katrina and this will be something that will be sought after.  I may not display it, but it will sit right next to my "What We Saw" book about September 11th.  I can't say I'll ever sit down and read them completely, but I have gone through that book many times as it has many good pictures of such a horrible event.

So 3 books, so far, and technically I've spent 3 cents, but I'll say a nickel a book since they use to be 5 for 25 cents, so I'm out 15 cents so far.  Let's keep looking.

This was on the 50 cents or under table and while I'm not a big space person, I thought it looked interesting.  Inside were photocards, which I thought were postcards at first.  The pictures are nice so I got the after looking at a couple.  A quarter is a nice price and maybe I'll display these somehow in the future.

My least favorite one is the last one, I'm not sure why you'd include a photo of a sign as being one of the better choices, but whatever.  I was actually surprised to see all twelve were included, I figured it was so cheap because 1-2 were missing, but the pricing is sometimes all over for items, so I was happy either way.  My favorite is actually the overhead view of Florida.  I like seeing satellite images of Earth from space.  Too bad more of the Florida Keys couldn't be shown but I still like it.  Overall I was happy with each photo aside from the sign one.

Total so far: 40 cents.  Not bad for 4 items.

VHS tapes are 5 for 50 cents, despite what they say on the box.  The first two are of Dennis Swanberg who I've mentioned before, and a family friend was a big fan of his.  When I started converting my tapes I've already done, I had one of Swanberg's other tapes and I actually enjoyed it, so when I saw these I went ahead and got it.  Sometimes I struggle to find 5 or 10 tapes so I also grabbed them in case I needed one or two more.  I'm pretty sure tapes are just 10 cents each and you don't need to buy quantities of 5 but I still do.  Not only because it gives me something to watch, but clears the shelves so hopefully others can get the stuff I don't want (like 18 copies of Apollo 13).

My mom like Willie Nelson, and I thought the box cover was nice so I got that one too.  As mentioned before, I try to stay away from stuff I could find on DVD so I like the oddball stuff.  Music tapes usually never get transferred to other media so if I have any interest I usually get it.

The last two I was on the fence about.  Well, I like A Prairie Home Companion so the Garrison Keiller one was an easy choice, but the Donut Man one seemed a little too out there for me.  What is it?  I had to flip it over to read about it...

Before I could read it, I was met with this!  This is either stuff of dreams or nightmares, and now there's no way I'm not getting it.  MMM, DONUTS!

I got 10 VHS tapes on the first trip, here were the rest-

For someone who has never been to Branson, I sure do like tapes of Branson.  One day I'll go and be unimpressed and likely never get anymore.  Until then I hope to find a Shoji Tabuchi take since I've found many of the other performers.  Honestly though, I'm positive this never made it to DVD and since it is part of Missouri history (for better or worse), I want to check it out.

Speaking of Missouri history, I was elated to find the next two tapes.  There is a local filmmaker/documentarian that films a lot of local history for my area.  I can't say I'm his biggest fan for some reason, but I still would like to see his footage.  The St. Joseph hospital is no longer around in the next town over (Boonville, MO) much like the hospital that replaced it but it may soon come back, I don't know.  Anyways I don't really know anything about the older hospital, so I'm excited to see that one.  However excited I am to see that one, I'm more excited to see the one on the Flood of 1993.  I've never seen how he shot it, but I've wanted it for a long time.  Whenever you look for the Flood of 1993 on the internet, all you can ever find is flooding on the Mississippi River or how bad the St. Louis area was hit.  They were hit bad, I've watched many of them, but more locally in Mid-Missouri not much is said.  When it is, it talks about Cedar City just north of Jefferson City, which was wiped out, and from Jeff City onto St. Louis.  Nothing is mentioned about Boonville, Wooldridge, Glasgow, or towns big and small toward Kansas City.  It's always bugged me and this might be the best footage that I'll ever find.  I'm not sure if I will upload this to Youtube because of the copyright on it and not sure if he is still selling these or not or his family even).  Other stuff I plan to put on Youtube are things my family filmed or things that you can't still buy.  I still might put bits of it up with credit going to him, we'll see.

The next film was a made for TV film about a flood.  It was made for Family Channel I think and I figured why not.  I've seen worse films that whatever this may be, so we'll see what happens.  I doubt I upload it either, but there's a good chance somebody else already has, kind of like how Night of the Twisters is on Youtube.

The last one is a random tape of movies recorded off television.  I like finding these because I hope they are network versions with commercials still in it.  At worst they aren't and I might actually watch the first two despite having no real desire to in the past.  At best, I can find some commercials or maybe something else on them and the label is wrong.  At any rate I've never seen a GE tape before and rarely do I find that hard plastic type cover for them, I guess soft plastic.

On my second trip I laughed at the movies I got, and for good reason.

The first four movies were ones I put back on the first trip.  I didn't want to buy more than 10 on one trip so I put them back.  I didn't hide them, I just put them on a shelf at eye level.  When I went on Saturday it was about 2 hours before closing.  The didn't open again until Wednesday and we got there about an hour after they opened.  We wasn't trying to get anything in particular, we just wanted to look.  Finding these in the same spot meant they unlikely moved any or added anymore so I just grabbed them and then I saw the last one was still sealed and grabbed it.  Will I open it, likely not, but I remember that being our go to brand when we bought blank tapes so it reminded me of my childhood.  As for the other tapes, I got Funny Farm because its a film I don't own, and figured at worst if I could convert it to a dvd, I can watch it whenever instead of trying to find it for free on a streaming service.  If I find it cheap in store to buy, I'll probably get it.

The Chonda Pierce tape is a Christian comedian.  I usually get them because they are clean humor, though I have to admit, I've seen a previous one of her's and I didn't laugh a whole lot.  I figured for ten cents it worth it.  The Stallions tape seems like one that wouldn't be made for DVD, so I got it.  Lastly the Fatal Beauty/Bugsy tape I got because I hope to find commercials on, but if not its always a random tape to check out.

In total 15 tapes for 1.50, bringing my total to $1.90.  Not bad so far.

On the second trip I spotted this pin for 10 cents.  I actually got it for my cousin who is the biggest Hanson fan ever.  I'm for real, she still goes to meet them in concert whenever they make it to Missouri.  Even if she wasn't a fan, there's a lot that I like about this pin that I might have kept for myself.  I like how it has Walmart on the pin and its the old logo too.

Total: $2.00

We're not done yet, but we almost are.

At .75 cents this was a gamble.  One you may ask WHY?  But I have a good reason.  When I was a baby, I got this stuffed baby, and 30 plus years later I still have it.  However with time, she has started to fall apart (I named my baby Yahtzee, odd I never wrote it out before).  Anyways, the last few years my mom and I have tried to think of ways to fix he because she's starting to get really torn and tattered.  She doesn't look like this, but when we saw this, we thought maybe we could wrap it around most of her body leaving her head and hands exposed which seem to be fine for now.  If this works we will find clothing to put on her (which we actually do find in this store from time to time) so she can last another 30 plus years.  At the end of this post I'll find a photo of her.  *You guys never thought you read about this on this blog did you?

Total: $2.75

This I didn't buy, it was in the free cart out front.  This is the second free trophy I've found in the last few months and this one is much better.  That's real marble.  I looked up anything I could about this race but could only find the track is in California, and around this time (former) NASCAR driver Kyle Larson raced at the track.  He didn't race in this particular race (according to his old website), but he was around there at the time.  I'm in the process of downsizing my dad's trophy collection (my mom's idea), and one day I took the top piece and connected it to the base (taking the tower part off), and it looks really nice.  Now they can be used as book ends and even just to display.  I figured if I found a trophy like this I could do that with other trophy's as well.  For now I've kept this one in tact but its not on display.  Even the topper is cool enough if I just want to eliminate the tower part.

One item left I believe but there's not much to see.

Blind bags or mystery bags are always a gamble, but also fun to open.  With it saying "rags" on it I didn't expect much, and honestly I could use some rags sometimes saving washcloths for when I need it for other stuff (not so much dusting).  I was hoping to find some screen printed shirts in here maybe to cut out or something, but no such luck.  I won't bore you with what was inside, but they were all shirts that had stains (small not big ones), and ones that I figure they could sell this way instead of tossing (but then again they also have a recycling facility).  At any rate, there were 15 shirts in the bag, 1-2 were screen printed but nothing to write home about.  Maybe if we tried a bit we could get the stains out, and resell them.  One had a H&M logo inside the back (where tags used to be), so it might have some value who knows.

So in total on two trips I spent a total of----- $3.75.  Not bad on getting mostly stuff I wanted and a few surprises.  I got more then what could be put in a box and shipped to me, so I'm not complaining.

So with that I'll end it here, I hope you enjoyed reading this, and next time I "should" have some cards to post about, I have them scanned and photographed ready to got.  But before I wrap it up, let me find a picture of my doll I've had for 30 years.

In the first photo is how she is falling apart, the second one is how we sometimes dress her up.  I guess she is like my security blanket, but I'm still glad I have her after all these years.

So anyways thanks for reading and have a great weekend.