30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Monday, February 7, 2022

Blue Tape Group

I'm not a statistician, nor do I have any hard evidence outside of my own experience... but I'd estimate 9 out of 10 bloggers utilize blue tape when preparing care packages for shipment.  And at least some of the credit goes to Gavin over at Baseball Card Breakdown.


Every summer he reminds all of us to put down that Scotch tape and pull out our blue painter's tape during Blue Tape and Pull-Tab Awareness Week.  It's all about improving the hobby and making things easier for the cardboard recipient.

Gavin has another blog that's dedicated to the 1991 Pro Set Superstars MusiCards.  Over there he does a fantastic job breaking down each card and musician featured in that set... as well as going above and beyond to make custom cards that relate to the artist.  If you're a fan of music, you should definitely head over there right now:  1991 MusiCards Blog.

Last month... he held a contest and rewarded four of his top commenters.  And for the first time in my life, I got to shared the podium with the Blogfather himself:  Night Owl Cards.  We shared the title of "top commenter" and each received a generous prize packageBilly Kingsley (author of Cardboard History) and Brett Alan (avid blog commenter) also were the other two winners.

The two cards I received were shipped in the two top loaders shown above... and both were double collection cards...


#12003 Donruss Signature Series Century Signatures #69


This card will obviously go into my Oakland A's PC, but if you flip it over and look at the bottom of the card you will see something special about the serial numbering:


Yup.  First card in the run... which means it's also part of my Prime Number PC.

The other card he sent me is also serial numbered #1...


#22016 Donruss Significant Signatures Blue #SIG-SC


This card also slides right into my Steve Carlton PC.

Thank you Gavin for both of these very cool autographs!  You are the president of the Blue Tape Group, an amazing custom card creator, and I can't wait to one day head back up to Portland and hang out with you and the Portland blogging crew.

Happy Monday and sayonara!

14 comments:

Dennis said...

Wow, those are nice! Yep, Gavin's awesome. And blue tape/tabs are the best (though I don't usually put in the effort to do tabs myself)

Elliptical Man said...

I feel attacked.

Crocodile said...

Nice cards. I really like that Carlton.

Matt said...

Nice!!

bbcardz said...

Congrats on getting some really nice cards! Blue rules!

cardstacks said...

Great cards! Always a nice bonus to have serial # 1.

Definitely a fan of the blue tape.

Jon said...

I prefer the green tape myself :)

Nick said...

Really cool of Gavin to send those autos! I shudder to think I used to use Scotch tape when mailing stuff - I've been a blue-tape convert for a while now.

defgav said...

Glad you like! Those were card show finds from a while back. I know you're generally not into stickergraphs, but the price was right, and I figured the numbering would help you forgive the non-on-cardness of the signatures.

Fuji said...

dennis - nobody's perfect. i don't use pull tabs all the time either. but i try to only use blue tape these days.

elliptical man - because of the blue tape? if so... you'll be glad to know that i appreciate any card i receive... whether or not scotch tape or blue tape was used.

crocodile - me too. i don't target steve carlton cards as much as i should.

matt - totally agree

bbcardz - dodger blue or blue tape? ;D

cardstacks - i know some people don't value specific serial numbered cards, but i totally do. gavin does too

jon - i just bought a roll of that, but haven't tried it out. saw that it was for delicate surfaces, so i'm eager to test it out. the problem is... i stocked up on blue tape a while back.

nick - i used to use scotch tape back in the day too. i think the main thing that made me switch was seeing all of the top loaders that were destroyed by it.

defgav - i've started to dump my stickergraphs, but don't worry... these aren't going anywhere because they're part of my team/player pcs. the numbering was a nice bonus. thank you so much gavin!

Nachos Grande said...

Cool auto, though the mathematician in me does cringe a bit when you say "prime number" for the number 1 (by the mathematical definition of prime, a prime number is a number greater than one with only itself and 1 as its two factors). :)

SumoMenkoMan said...

It took me a long time to switch to blue tape, wish I would have learned my lesson a lot earlier.

arpsmith said...

Sweet prizes, congrats on a well deserved win. I finally made the switch to blue tape about a year ago. Most of the cards I send are from sales these days but I will apologize to those of you that had to suffer through my scotch tape care packages in days gone by (at least I used tabs!).

Fuji said...

cardboard ones - i was out of the hobby from 2001 to 2007, so i'm always learning new things about that era

nachos grande - lol. i take heat for that every time i write about my prime number pc. i know 1 isn't a prime number in regards to primes vs. composites. but in this case, i use prime to mean "important".

sumomenkoman - i wish i had made the switch sooner too. now if i could only create pull tabs for every single care package

arpsmith - i used scotch tape for years. i'd rather receive a care package with scotch tape, than no care package at all :D