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.