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!

Back in Time

This post is a few months late.  I originally wanted to publish this back in early March when some of us shifted our clocks one hour forward for Daylight Saving Time.  

1989 Topps #70

The contents of this post feature two oddball Oakland A's items from the Junk Wax Era that have one thing in common.  They both keep track of time.

Let's flashback to 2016.  A local sports fan reached out to me and donated a few boxes of newspapers, books, media guides, pins, ticket stubs, cards, and other oddball items.  One of those oddball items was this San Francisco Examiner Dot Racing wristwatch:

According to the paperwork included with this watch, it was part of a special giveaway sponsored by the San Francisco Examiner and the Oakland Athletics:

He even tossed in the newspaper clipping that featured his name in the list of recent winners:

This watch is one of the most unique memorabilia items sitting in my Oakland A's collection.  I couldn't find another one on the internet.  But it's uniqueness isn't the thing that makes it special.  Dot Racing was part of every A's home game at the Coliseum for as long as I can remember and this watch will forever keep those memories fresh in my mind.

Back in December, I added another wristwatch to my Oakland A's collection:

1989 Nelsonic MLB Card Watch

Ryan (@ SumoMenkoMan) sent me this watch in his 2025 Holiday Haiku Advent Calendar.  Here's the haiku clue he wrote for it:

I couldn't find a lot of information on this watch, but I did find a checklist and other interesting facts in a Sport Card Info blog post.

Nelsonic used a similar image from McGwire's 1989 Topps card.  When compared side by side, it's easier to see the the differences:

At first glance, it looked like this was the same at-bat, but McGwire is wearing a black wristband in the watch photo... plus not all of the fans in the background match perfectly.  If I had better detective skills and more time, maybe I could narrow down when and where these pictures were taken.  But I don't.

Regardless... both of these items are fantastic additions to my Oakland A's collection.  Thank you Bruce and Ryan!  And sorry it took so long for me to sit down and hammer out this thank you post.  Time sure flies by.

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!