I'm A Sucker

I'm a sucker.  I'm a sucker for new types of card collections.  I'm a sucker for one of a kind accomplishments in sports.  And I'm a sucker for combined shipping discounts.  Like I said... I'm a sucker.

Two weeks ago, I decided to start collecting autographs of athletes who are the only person to ever accomplish a feat within their sport.  A few days later, Jay over at Card Hemorrhage reminded his readers of Rennie Stennett's once in a generation feat of going 7 for 7 at the plate during a nine-inning game.  Although the achievement has happened before, Stennett is the only modern day MLB player to do it.

2012 Leaf Cut Signatures #NNO

When I finished reading his post, I ran over to COMC and eBay to see if I could find a certified autograph.  I was surprised to find out that he only has two certified pack pulled signatures available.  One is a one-of-one In The Game cut signature from 2014... and the other is the cut signature you see above.

There weren't any copies of this card available on COMC, but I found one on eBay with a BIN price tag of $8.  Now normally, I wouldn't spend this much money on a plain looking cut signature of a living athlete, but according to Beckett, this card only has a print run of 22.  In other words, if I didn't purchase this right now, I might not have the opportunity again.

The only problem was that it wasn't only $8.  The seller was also charging $4.99 for shipping and when you factor in tax... the final price was going to be about $14.  I began having second thoughts on the purchase.  Then I scrolled down and noticed that each additional item shipped for only 25¢ each.

The hunt was on.

After sifting through his store for over thirty minutes, I had added ten more autographs to the shopping cart.  Actually there were more, but I trimmed things down because I didn't want to spend that much money.  At the time of checkout, the eleven cards totaled $62.35 (+ $13.50 shipping and tax, which my eBay Bucks almost covered).

The bulk of the purchase contained fan favorite autographs from early 2000's products like this:

2004 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites Autograph #FFA-DST

This card is a nice addition to my Hometown Heroes PC.  Stieb is one of a handful of professional athletes that attended the same high school as me.  I was tempted to show off the entire purchase here, but I have a feeling that some of the cards will eventually end up receiving their own post.

However... since I don't usually write basketball card posts, I'll go ahead and show you all the latest addition to the Los Angeles Lakers PC:

2018-19 Panini Impeccable Lakers #LA-ACG

A.C. Green is probably best known for abstaining from sex until he got married, which is pretty cool accomplishment.  However I didn't buy this card for that reason.  I picked it up because he was an integral part of the Showtime Lakers during the second half of the 80's and continued to play with them into the early 90's.  He's also made his mark in the record books by playing the most consecutive regular season games in NBA history.

Well that's it for today.  I have a few more autographs that I'll be writing about and adding to my Unique Accomplishments PC in the upcoming weeks.  I'm also trying to hunt down a few others that were suggested by some of you.  Stay tuned.

In the meantime, here is today's question of the day:

Do you ever get sucked into buying additional cards from a seller because of their combined shipping policy?

Please tell me that I'm not the only "combined shipping" sucka out there.

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

All Hits No Fluff

Today has been a little crazy.  My brother stopped by and hooked me up with two huge bottles of hand sanitizer along with some startling news.  Then within fifteen minutes after he left, my best friend called and told me she lost her phone.  She was pretty freaked out... and rightfully so.  I've been in her shoes and it wasn't fun.  Thanks to the Find My Phone app, she was able to track it down.

After that... I settled down and began writing this post.  Ever since my summer break started, I've been dedicating Monday mornings to writing at least one or two blog posts.

The good news is that I have plenty of stuff to write about.  I've been using my eBay gift cards at least once or twice a week... and making at least one Sportlots order every other week.  There are also cards from my recent COMC order that I'd like to write about as well.  Plus a few of you gave me topics to write about last week.  And if that weren't enough...  I also have a stockpile of care packages that I need to write posts for.

The bad news is that I'm so backed up... that some of these packages are approaching the two to three week mark.  So before I go any further, I apologize to Rod (Padrographs), Alex (Chavez Ravining), and Bob (The Best Bubble) for the delay in publishing "thank you" posts.  I've already scanned and uploaded Rod and Bob's packages.  I just need to sit down and write.  Alex's contest package is sitting on my desk waiting to be opened.  Had planned on opening it up this weekend, but it didn't happen.  It does give me something to look forward to though.

Head is killing me.  Gonna lay down and take a quick nap.

Okay.  I'm back.

Today's post covers a care package from Mr. Scott over at Bob Walk the Plank.  He retired from blogging a couple of years ago to spend more time with the family, travel, and live life.  Rumor has it that he's active on Twitter, but I'm one of those old guys who has an account, but doesn't really know how to use it (although I did have a nice chat with Dennis @ Too Many Verlanders while typing up this post).

That means the only communication between us usually takes place within the comment section of each other's blogs.  However last month, he emailed me to confirm my address and a week or so later, a fat padded envelope was sitting in my office.

Inside there were five cards.  All hits.  No fluff.  See for yourself...

2014 Topps Tribute Autographs Sepia #TA-JC (#'d 09/35)

This is the sixth autographed Canseco card I've added to my collection.  This card pairs up nicely with the pink parallel that Collecting Cutch sent me last year.

2010 Bowman Chrome Prospects #BCP113

I miss Josh Donaldson and those early 2010 A's teams.  I'm always happy to add another rookie card of his to my collection. 

2002 Leaf Certified Mirror Red Materials #118

2006 Flair Showcase Autographics #SC-MK

A pair of "hits" from an era when I wasn't collecting.  Even though I wasn't buying cards, I still attended games and rooted for both of these guys.

2014 Topps Tribute Autographs Gold #TA-DST

The final card is this shiny card of Stew... who was a stud.  He just celebrated the 30th anniversary of his no-hitter against the Blue Jays back on June 29th, 1990.

Thank you Matt for this very generous care package.

Well that's it for today.  I'm hoping to write at least one more post after publishing this one.  Then I'm going to lay down and take a nap, because my head is still killing me.

Happy Monday and sayonara!

Slurpees, Baseball, and Lenticular Discs

7-Eleven and I have a history dating back to the late 70's when my mom would drive me there after baseball practices and games to grab a Slurpee.  By the time they started inserting coins into the bottom of specially marked cups, I was riding my bike to practice which meant grabbing them on my own... or with friends.

In high school and college, nachos covered in chili and jalapeños were added to my personal menu along with the extra pounds.  Life was good.

But then... I grew up.  7-Eleven became more of a novelty.  Something my friends and I would grab once or twice a year... usually after playing a few pickup games of basketball at the local park.  By the mid 2000's, I stopped going there altogether.

A few years ago, I decided to stop by the one down the street from work to get a cup of coffee.  It was a lot cheaper than Starbucks, more convenient, and believe it or not... pretty good.  Starbucks took a back seat to 7-Eleven and a new tradition began.

I haven't been back since March when the pandemic started.  There's a chance that my school district starts the 2020-21 school year with full distance learning.  If that's the case, it might be a few more months until I go back there.

But that's okay.  I still have these Slurpee discs that I've picked up over the years.  I don't think any of them are actually from my childhood, but that's what memories are for.

Every year, 7-Eleven celebrates their birthday by giving away free Slurpees to their customers.  However this year the promotion has been cancelled.  I'm impressed with this decision since it would only encourage people to gather... which isn't really working towards the greater good.  Instead, they'll be donating one millions meals to Feeding America, which is a nationwide network of over 200 food banks that fed 4.2 billion meals in 2019 to people in need.

If you have the 7Rewards app downloaded on your phone then you still can go in and redeem a coupon they gave you for a free Slurpee today or any other day this month.

Hopefully next year the world will be in a better place... and Free Slurpee Day will be back.  Who knows?  Maybe they'll bring back these awesome lenticular discs since our hobby is in the midst of a boom. Until then...

Happy Saturday and sayonara!

Blog Inspired Purchase and an Awesome Hobby Trend

Another day.  Another blogger inspired purchase.  Back in December, I saw a pair of 2000 Pacific Crown Royale Proofs over at Cards My Mom Didn't Throw Out (which has since disappeared) and immediately headed over to COMC and picked up a pair of my own:

2000 Pacific Crown Royale Proofs #30

2000 Pacific Crown Royale Proofs #5

These very cool die-cut parallels are made from an acetate-ish material that resembles the stuff used to make 35mm film.  Although there are 144 cards in the regular base set, Pacific chose to produce proofs for only 36 players.

These cards were inserted into 1:25 packs, which is approximately one per box (boxes contained 24 packs).  In other words, they were challenging enough to pull a specific player... yet are easy enough to make most singles reasonably affordable.  I managed to add this pair to my collection for $4.90.

There are also serial numbered versions of these cards, which are much tougher to pull... thus more expensive.  A Gwynn popped up for auction back in April, but the opening bid of $19.99 was more than I'm willing to spend.  Maybe one day another one will show up at a more reasonable price.

Until then... I'd like to thank JayP and JayP's Secret Santa (Jon @ A Penny Sleeve For Your Thoughts) for bringing these to my attention.  I'm always on the lookout for interesting, yet affordable cards to add to my collection... which is why I enjoy reading card blogs so much.  I'd say the majority of my eBay purchases these past few months have been stuff I discovered on card blogs.

Speaking of reading card blogs, one of the only positive things to come from this COVID-19 pandemic has been the number of people blogging on a regular basis.  I have at least one to two hours worth of reading material on any given day.

So for my final submission to Tim B's 7 Day Trading Card Challenge, I'll go ahead and say that the return of some retired bloggers and the arrival of several new blogs have been one of the best hobby trends of 2020.  Originally, I was planning on writing about how the hobby has boomed this year.  That's still really cool, but the blogging community definitely impacts me more on a personal level.

Here are a few card blogs that have either recently came out of hibernation or just arrived on the scene:

Cardpocalypse

Sports Cards Ate My Brain

.394 The Tony Gwynn Baseball Card Blog

Wax Pack Wonders

Comatoad on Cards

Card Hemorrhage

The Diamond King

The Epic Baseball Card Adventure

Cards Over Coffee

These are just the ones that published a post and popped up on my Blogger reading list during the past 7 days.  If you know of any others I should add to this list, leave a comment down below and I'll revise this post as soon as I can.

Oh and before I forget... thank you Tim B. for creating the 7 Day Trading Card Challenge.  It was a lot of fun... and gave me something to write about for seven consecutive weeks.

Anyone else have any Blog Bat Arounds?

I'm in need of some writing material.  So if you have one or if there are any specific topics you'd like to see on this blog, leave a comment down below.

Happy Thursday and sayonara!