The Antique Store Road Trip

Last month, I packed my bags and drove up to Ashland, Oregon to see one of my best friends and her family.  It's become an annual vacation that involves a lot of eating, shopping, and catching up.

One day is dedicated to shopping in downtown Ashland where the girls enjoy looking for sticker books, plushies, and clothes.  This is usually pretty painful for me, but I have found a few shops on the strip that I'll hang out in to kill time.  Plus that's usually the day we grab pretzels at Skout Taphouse & Provisions:

If you're a fan of pretzels and you are in the area, I'd highly recommend this place.  It's one of our favorite places to grab lunch.

The following day we drove into Medford.  This is my favorite day, because it revolves around a bunch of antique stores that are much more appealing to me.  We went to four shops that were located within a two mile radius.  One of them had a solid variety of trading cards.

Main Antique Mall had two display cases dedicated to cards:

I've seen this card display in this store the past three to four years.  However this one was new to me:

The vendor has some cool sets for sale, including some 80's O-Pee-Chee baseball:

I was very interested in the 1982 and 1984 O-Pee-Chee sets, but $300 for the pair was too rich for my budget.  Unfortunately, I didn't make any purchases that day.

However, I did purchase some cards at Timeless Treasures Hub on the day I arrived.

The first day we were in Ashland, I arrived early and had a few hours to kill,  I knew that we would eventually go to Medford to check out the four antique stores mentioned above, but one was located a little out of the way.  I decided to check it out on my own.

The shop is owned by a couple and has everything from furniture to LP's.  Plus there were three display cases with sports cards.  I ended up talking to the husband about cards for close to thirty minutes before spending another thirty minutes walking around their store.

In the end, I walked away with these two cards:

1996 Fleer Ultra Series 2 Diamond Dust Mail-In Offer

Sometimes you find good deals.  Other times you don't.  This card is an example of the latter.  I thought it was a redemption card for one of these Cal Ripken Jr. game-used infield dirt cards:

1996 Fleer Ultra Diamond Dust #NNO

However after reading the card this morning, I realized it's actually just an advertisement card Fleer inserted into 1996 Fleer Ultra Series 2 packs.  They weren't inserted into every pack, but they're not rare by any means.  The box break I watched on YouTube had six or seven of these mail-in cards.  In other words, I paid $5 for a card that's worth 5¢.

At least it'll go well with the actual Diamond Dust card I purchased years ago, which by the way is an under-appreciated piece of history.  Back in 1996, Upper Deck won the hearts of collectors when they produced the first game-used jersey cards of baseball players.  This might not be a piece of Ripken's jersey, but it is the first game-used dirt card ever produced.

The other card I purchased was this sticker auto for my Green Bay Packers PC:

2015 Donruss Signature Series #216

My parents were Green Bay Packers fans back in the late 50's and into the 60's.  Forrest Gregg was one of the hall of famers who played on that team.  I paid $20 for this card, but prefer to think that I paid $25 and received the Ripken mail-in card for free.

There's one more card related item from this trip, but before I get to it... I wanted to share the final purchase I made in Ashland.  On the final full day there, we went back to downtown Ashland.  The girls wanted to go back to a few stores, while I wanted to check out Shattered Music which was closed earlier in the week.

Recently, I've been looking to rebuild my cassette tape collection and wanted to see if they had any from my childhood.  They did, but their prices were a little steep.  But I did find a few LP's for my collection:

The Police: Ghost in the Machine  (1981)

The Police: Reggatta de Blanc  (1979)

Blondie: Autoamerican  (1980)

The GoGo's: Talk Show  (1984)

Bruce Hornsby and the Range: The Way It Is  (1986)

The sticker price added up to $43, but he gave me a three dollar discount.  I probably wouldn't have bought these had I come across them at a flea market.  However I like to support small businesses whenever I can.

Was going to comment on each of these albums, but this post is already way too long.  Let's just wrap things up with a present from one of my nieces:

Fairfield Baseball Jumbo Box

She saw this at either Walgreens or CVS and asked her mom to buy it for me.  Here's a scan of the back of the box:

And a peek at the contents:

It came with a stack of cards that were packaged loosely in the box and a pack of 1991 O-Pee-Chee Premier baseball.  The pack is headed into my rainy day pack stash.  And here are the highlights from the box:

The oldest card was the 1983 Topps Dennis Lamp, while the newest were singles from 2025 Topps flagship.  A few made it into my A's box, but everything else will be taken into my classroom in a few weeks to be used as examples for a project I do with my students.

Well that wraps up another Ashland, Oregon road trip.  A special thanks to Tito for talking your mom into buying this box for me.

As for the rest of you, thank you for being patient and taking the time to check out this extremely long post.

Happy Thursday and sayonara!

A 70's Set Build & an 80's Project

The Sunday Sort took place.  Set building and scanning did too, however I wasn't able to hammer out a post.  Until now.

This week's sort involved three care packages revolving around a 70's set build and an 80's project.  Let's start with my Topps Glossy All-Stars collection build.

Collectors who bought Topps rack packs from 1984 to 1991 were treated with a bonus white bordered, glossy card featuring all-star players, managers, and honorary members, captains, or team photos.  These are commonly referred to as Topps Glossy All-Stars and each year the set was exactly twenty-two cards.

A few years ago, I decided to build or buy the entire eight year run of sets and house them in one binder titled "The Topps Glossy All-Star Collection".  

Tom over at Batting Out of Order sent me half of the 1984 set:

1984 Topps Glossy All-Stars

These eleven cards have me four cards away from completing the 1984 set:

As for the entire Topps Glossy All-Star project, I'm still forty-two cards away.

John over at Johnny's Trading Spot sent me three of the Schmidt Glossy All-Stars:

I actually already had all three of these sitting in my binder, but this is a great way to see that Topps used the same design for the run of these sets.

John hit a home run with one of my other projects though.  He sent me ten cards for my 1977 Topps Star Wars set build:

While I hope to complete the Glossy All-Star project by the end of the summer, I'm in it for the long haul with this set build.

I'm not in a rush with this set, because I already own a complete set that I purchased years ago.  This particular set build was inspired by this flea market find and will be a source of entertainment for years to come.

Steve at 1975baseballcards.com also sent me some cards for my set build:

Like the blue and red series, the yellow is also slowly coming along:

While the green and orange series are nearly complete.

Steve included a few other cards for my collection.  One of them was this Red Schoendienst error card that actually depicts Whitey Herzog:

2024 Topps Heritage #149

Getting back to those Topps Glossy All-Stars, Herzog has the honor of having the most appearances (3) among managers.  In fact, the only other manager with multiple appearances is Tony LaRussa with two.

Thank you Tom, John, and Steve for you help and support with these set builds and projects.

Happy Monday and sayonara!

Extra Innings

I'm assuming most of you who write on the Blogger platform are experiencing delays on getting their posts added to blogger feeds.  Has anyone found a solution to this?  Last week, one of my posts didn't pop up on my feed until over 24 hours later.  I've also noticed that there are major delays with fellow blogger's publications on my reading list.  I try and go back at least one or two days each morning to see if I missed anyone's posts, but I'm sure a few have slipped through the cracks.  Hopefully Blogger fixes this issue sooner than later.  Until then, if you have any personal tricks, please let me and others know down below in the comments.

A Special Holiday

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." -Declaration of Independence

Two hundred fifty years ago, Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence:

2009 Topps American Heritage #103

On August 2nd, 1776... John Hancock... the President of the Continental Congress... was the first person to sign the Declaration of Independence.  This date has been debated by historians, since some people and trading cards argue that it was signed on July 4th, 1776:

Whatever date you want to go with... we celebrate The United States of America's birthday each year with delicious food, entertaining parades, and gorgeous fireworks every 4th of July.

1956 Topps Flags of the World #1

Happy 250th Birthday USA!

I hope all of you enjoy this special holiday.  Be safe and responsible.  And have fun.

Happy 4th of July and sayonara!

Rickey Loves Relics & Retirement

Back in early April, I received a text message from Greg over at The Collective Mind.  His LCS had recently acquired a huge Rickey Henderson collection and he shared a pair of photos with cards that were available for purchase.

The collection was very impressive and I could have used almost everything in the pictures.  However at the time, I hadn't done my taxes... so I decided to shop conservatively.  I ended up picking two $25 cards:

2010 Topps Sterling Legendary Leather Relic #5LLR-5 (#'d 09/25)

2010 Topps Sterling Stats Relic #SSR-5 (#'d 08/25)

I don't usually spend $25 on relic cards, but these two took me on a trip down memory lane. 

Watching high-end breaks on YouTube in the late-aughts lured me back into the hobby and Topps Sterling was one of my favorite products to watch.  Boxes were usually player or statistically themed and 2010 was the final year of the initial product run.

That year each box cost collectors around $250 and contained only two packs: a mystery pack (with one framed parallel or a cut signature card) and a themed pack (with three base cards and two hits).  In other words it was a high dollar gamble and not a product I would ever consider opening.

On the other hand, I was very excited to add these two game-used jersey cards to my Rickey Henderson PC for about the same price as two 2026 Topps Series 2 value boxes at Target.  I also offered to send him $25 to cover shipping and reward him with a finder's fee, but he insisted on only accepting $10.

As a bonus, he tossed in this Rickey relic card:

2021 Topps Tier One Legends Relic #TTLR-RH (#'d 019/149)

2021 Topps Tier One is another high-end product.  These one pack boxes were also originally $250.  However instead of six cards, you only received three: 2 relic cards and 1 autograph/autographed relic.

In May, Greg sent me a few more Rickey Hendersons.  Two were for my Topps Base Card Run:

1995 Topps #559

2001 Topps Traded #T77

I'm down to these six:

Technically I already own copies of his 1980 and 1981 cards.  However the second year card is part of my 1981 Topps set and the rookies fall into one of three categories:

#1:  Part of my 1980 Topps baseball set

#2:  Graded Rookie Card

#3:  Signed Rookie Card

He also tossed in a pair of 2013 The National promo cards:

2013 Leaf National #N-RH1

It looks like this year's National Sports Collectors Convention will be held in Chicago again.  I'm not going.  In fact, I've never gone.  Not sure I ever will, but never say never.

The final cards in Greg's care package were customs created by his friend Eric (EricD3043 on TCDB):

I'm super jealous of collectors with the ability to create custom cards like these.  

My personal favorites are the 1965, 1978, 1979, 1980, and both of the 1960 customs.  Great job Eric!

Thank you Greg for going out of your way to grab those two high-end Rickey relics... and for giving me a bonus one to boot.  And congratulations on your retirement!  After dedicating the past 22+ years to that school district, you've earned some rest and relaxation.  Hope you get to spend some quality time with your girlfriend, cars, collection, and card room!

  

Happy Thursday and sayonara!