Not Your Ordinary Boring Monday

Mondays usually suck.  Today was a huge exception.  First up... no work in honor of Cesar Chavez.  If that weren't amazing enough... I became the proud owner of the above 1951 Bowman Philadelphia Athletics team set.

Last week, I received a padded envelope from David over at Card Boredom.  If you're not familiar with his blog, he's a collector who built the 1993 Finest refractor set and is currently working on the iconic 1952 Topps set.

He sent me two custom wax packs.  Each pack contained ten cards and a stick of bubble gum just like the good old days.  He had given me some clues as to what he sent my way, but obviously I had no idea he was sending me a complete A's team set from my favorite Bowman set of all-time.

I'll stop writing now and let the scans and photos do the talking...

Pack #1:

1951 Bowman #8

1951 Bowman #9

1951 Bowman #33

1951 Bowman #57

1951 Bowman #82

1951 Bowman #83

1951 Bowman #84

1951 Bowman #114

1951 Bowman #119

That's the first half of the team set.  Bowman used color reproductions of actual photos on these cards and paired them perfectly with white borders and the black name box.  Definitely not boring.  In fact, they truly belong in a baseball museum.

If you look at the wax wrapper carefully, you'll notice that he included one glossy parallel in every other pack.  Here's the one I received:

1991 Topps Tiffany #390

You can't tell from the scan, but Canseco indeed has glossy borders to go along with this bubble gum pink card back:

Definitely not boring.

Pack #2:

Here's a closer look at these beautiful Bowmans...

1951 Bowman #120

1951 Bowman #154

1951 Bowman #191

1951 Bowman #226

1951 Bowman #227

1951 Bowman #261

1951 Bowman #262

1951 Bowman #297

1951 Bowman #298

According to TCDB, there are only eighteen cards in the Philadelphia Athletics team set.  However David tossed in the Lou Brissie too:

1951 Bowman #155

On April 30th, 1951... Brissie was traded to the Indians as part of three team deal that involved Minnie Minoso going to the White Sox and several players in this team set arriving from Cleveland and Chicago.

I was so excited to get these scans up onto my website and into this blog post that I only had time to scan one card back for all of you to see:

Not exactly the most exciting card backs of all-time.  But these were introduced to collectors almost seventy-five years ago, so I think it deserves a free pass.

Thank you David for this very generous care package and for helping me kick off the week on the highest note possible.  It's not every day that I get the opportunity to add a vintage team set to my A's PC.

Happy Cesar Chavez Day and sayonara!

Big, Bigger, and Biggest

Opening Day has come and gone.  I've been working on a post related to it for about a week.  Hope to finish it up over the weekend and publish it in a few days.  Until then I have a quick post with some big things to cover.

Let's start with a pair of really cool oversized cards that John over at Johnny's Trading Spot sent me:

1995 Bowman's Best Jumbo Refractor #21

This shiny Gwynn is approximately 4" x 6" (slightly larger) and absolutely gorgeous.  Unfortunately my scanner doesn't do it justice.  Here's a peek at the back:

According to Baseballcardpedia, these cards were distributed in Treat repacks.  There are ten cards in the set.  With this Gwynn, I now have four in my collection.

John also sent me this Stadium Club box topper:

2020 Stadium Club Oversized Box Topper #OBHM

This card is slightly bigger than the Gwynn and measures approximately 4.375" x 6.25".  It looks like this photo was taken either right after the Yankees beat the Phillies to win their 27th World Series Title.

Unfortunately, the Topps didn't mention anything about this on the back of this card:

It does talk about him being the all-time MLB home run leader among Japan-born players.  He held this crown for over a decade until April 21st, 2024:

2025 Topps Greatest Hits #GH-8

Shohei Ohtani is now the all-time leader.  Topps produced a pair of Topps Now cards for him back in 2024, but I don't own either of them.  I did however pull this insert out of a jumbo pack I purchased back in February.

The next card is not big in size, but it sure was a BIG disappointment:

2019 Topps Clear Travel #CP-60

This Mullins was suppose to get me one step closer to completing my 2019 Topps Clear Travel set build.  Unfortunately it's in pretty rough shape.  It's hard to see from the scan, but I took some photos which reveal the damage a little better:

There's some serious surface damage with some edge and corner issues, so this card will be headed into my Damaged Card PC.  It was part of an eBay purchase with the regular flagship version:

2019 Topps #318

This card is far from mint too.  It's extremely off-centered.  I actually think it's kind of cool, because you don't see miscut cards in current products very often.

If you're wondering if I reached out to the seller, I didn't.  It's totally my fault.  When I looked back at the listing, the photos showed that neither of the cards in this lot were mint.  Thankfully this big mistake only set me back a few bucks.

Finally I wanted to quickly share a purchase I made this morning.  My buddy has been trying to sell me his 2011 Topps Update starter set for almost a year.  It's missing a little over 100 cards, but all of the big rookies come with it, including the big fish:

2011 Topps Update #US175

This is my BIGGEST card purchase in a long time, but I was helping him out and he gave me a decent price.  I paid $300... which is way more money than I want to spend on cards these days.  But considering the Trout alone sells for more than that, I'm at peace with the purchase.

I have a bunch of boxes of cards that my buddy gave me two years ago that are sitting in my classroom.  He says some of the missing cards should be in those boxes.  Hopefully they are, because I don't want to really spend a bunch of money on commons.  We'll see when I get back into my classroom on Tuesday.

Until then...

Thank you John for these two big cards for my Gwynn and Matsui PC's!  Thank you Ben for selling me this iconic card!  And thank you to everyone who took the time to read this post.

Happy Saturday and sayonara!

A 90's Set Building Kit

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to clean out my office and organize a bunch of card related stuff.  That's when I discovered a box from John (over at Johnny's Trading Spot) that I originally opened up last year.  Yup.  That's not a typo.  Last year.

According to the postage label, it was shipped back in August... but I think I opened it up in November.  Don't really have a good excuse or explanation on why it sat in my office other than that it was sitting under some other stuff.

Well it's been sitting in the back of my mind the past few weeks and yesterday I opened it up and started organizing the contents.  Now if you've ever received one of John's flat rate boxes, you know he packs a lot of cool stuff into them.  This time around he sent me several starter sets that I'll be sharing on this blog over the next month or so.

Today's post is going to focus on the 1997-98 Upper Deck NBA sticker starter set that John gave me.  Out of the 228 stickers in the set, he sent me 223 of them.

Plus he tossed in seven unopened packs to help me find the final five:

Each pack contained six stickers, so I had thirty-six chances.  I ended up pulling one of the stickers I needed:

Not sure if anyone is interested, but here's a closer look at the front and back of the sticker packs:

Depending on where you look, this set goes by a bunch of different names:

COMC:  1997-98 Upper Deck European Stickers

TCDB:  1997-98 Upper Deck NBA Stickers (European)

Beckett:  1997-98 Upper Deck Italian Stickers

The bottom line is they're stickers designed to be placed in a sticker album like the ones Topps produced in the 80's.  I don't have one of those albums, but thanks to John... I'm close to having a complete set of stickers.

The good news is these stickers aren't very expensive.  I've already picked up one of the Jordans on COMC and it only cost me a buck.  I'll be putting together an order on Sportlots in a few weeks and hopefully I'll be able to cross off the other three for a buck or two.

Thank you John!  I'm always looking to add new sets to my collection... especially when they're oddball issues like this one.  I look forward to writing about the other starter sets you sent my way in the very near future.

Until then...

Happy Monday and sayonara!