One of Those Perfect Days

This past week I've been on my February break and the plan was to spend several hours each day doing hobby related stuff like sorting cards, working on sets, opening care packages, reading blog posts, and writing a post or two myself.  Gotta admit, with all of the other things going on this week... I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to stick to the plan.

I'm not nearly caught up on sorting cards.  Honestly that's a never-ending project.  And there will always be sets to build.

As for care packages, I still have two large flat-rate boxes and four PWE's from John (@ Johnny's Trading Spot), a medium size box from Chris (@ The Collector), two padded envelopes from Kenny (@ Torren' Up Cards), a padded envelope from Eric (@ The Snorting Bull), and PWE's from Kevin (@ The Diamond King), Gavin (@ Baseball Card Breakdown), and Tom (@ The Angels, In Order).  Plus I still haven't finished reviewing items from Woody (@ Sports Card Forum) and Reader X.

I apologize to everyone above for the delay.  It's one of those things I prefer not to rush... because I want to enjoy and organize the contents of each package, while also writing a thoughtful post for each.  In a perfect world, the posts coincide with something currently going on within sports or the hobby.

Well... today is one of those perfect days.  It's sunny outside.  It's cool, but not freezing cold.  And I had the opportunity to walk around a card show.  But that's a post for another day.  Today's post follows up one of those feel good hobby stories written by one of our very own:  Zippy Zappy over @ Torren' Up Cards.

It would be hard to pinpoint what he's better known for: his Zippy Zappings or his very impressive Luis Torrens PC.  Well I won't spoil anything, but he made a pretty big announcement over on his blog yesterday.  If you have no idea what I'm talking about, please stop reading this post and click here.  You won't be disappointed.

Pretty awesome, right?  I'm not surprised.  Pretty sure anyone who is familiar with him... is familiar with his generosity.

I've been zapped by him on several occasions.  As mentioned above, I've been sitting on two padded envelopes from him.  One arrived in September and the other in December.  Yesterday afternoon I opened up both.

Let's start with the box topper of his first package.  He included a nice handwritten note and this very cool postcard:

Next Manga Awards Postcard

In regards to manga, I'm pretty much a newbie... but it is something I've had around me since my childhood.  When I was a kid, my parents would go up to San Francisco's Japantown a few times a year and one of my favorite stops was Kinokuniya which is a large bookstore.  I'd plop myself down in front of the manga books and magazines and keep myself entertained without being able to read a single word.

This postcard is somehow related to the Next Manga Awards which honors the best print and web manga titles each year.  The two characters featured are from the manga Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You.  According to their website, it won first place for top web manga in 2022.

Now if you're not familiar with a Zippy Zapping, Kenny creates his own packs using old wrappers which look like these:

In an effort to keep this post reasonable in length, here are the highlights from each pack.

Pack #1:  2013 Bowman Chrome Mini Lot

2013 Bowman Chrome Mini #311

The first pack contained a bunch of New York Yankees prospects from the 2013 Bowman Chrome Mini set.  Aaron Judge stood out.  I knew he had cards from a few years before his rookie card year... but had no idea they dated all the way back to 2013.  Holy cow this is a very nice addition to my collection.

Pack #2:  BBM Baseball

2017 BBM 2nd Version First Pitch #FP03

2019 BBM 2nd Version First Pitch #FP05

2019 BBM Dancing Heroine #77

The next pack featured a handful of BBM cards.  And it wouldn't be a proper zapping without some beautiful ladies.  Not sure which one is my favorite.  First pitch cards are always cool, but who doesn't love baseball cheerleaders?

2009 BBM Touch The Game Gold Signature #PS05

2010 BBM 1st Version Silver Signature #258

2012 BBM 1st Version Gold Signature #112

There were also three Masahiro Tanaka Japanese parallels in the pack.  The one on the far right is numbered out of 100:

2012 BBM 1st Version Gold Signature #112 (#'d 061/100)

Another huge addition to the card collection.

Pack #3:  Four Ladies & The Big Unit

2021 Parkside NWSL #70, 130, 159, & 194

Yup.  More ladies.  This time they're all Japanese women playing in our very own National Women's Soccer League.  But the coolest card in the pack was this baseball card:

2003 Topps Kanebo Japan Silver #15

This card looks like the 2002 Topps flagship, but it was actually released in Japan as either a food or store oddball issue.  This particular card of Randy is a silver parallel.  How cool is it to see one of his cards with the text written in Japanese on the back?

Pack #4:  Star Wars Cards

The fourth pack was filled with Star Wars cards from two movies:  The Force Awakens and Rogue One.  I picked a favorite from each:

2015 Topps SW: The Force Awakens Stickers #11

2016 Topps SW: Rogue One Montage #NNO

Pack #5:  The Heavy Hitters

There were only three cards in the final pack... and two of them featured signatures from some heavy hitters:

2020 Epoch Chunich Dragons Stars & Legends

Legendary Signature #LS-MU (#'d 13/38)

I had never heard of Masaru Uno before seeing this card yesterday, but I stumbled across this article which stated he's part of the NPB 300 Home Run Club.  Back in 2020 when the article was written, Uno was 33rd on the NPB all-time home run list.  Four years later, he's slid down to 34th.

Remember that note from Kenny that was next to the postcard?  He mentioned sending me an autograph of the current New York Yankees captain as a thank you for some Henrik Lundqvist cards I had given him.  Well, here it is:

2013 Prizm Draft Picks Silver Prizm Prospect Signatures #33

Holy cow!  The New York Yankees might be my least favorite team in baseball... but that's never stopped me from collecting their cards.  And this one is a biggie.

And for the curious, here's the third and final card in the pack:

2022 Takara Tomy WiXoss #WXDi-CP01-051

Honestly... not sure what this is.  But it's Japanese, so I'll give it a nice home.  Kenny also included one in the second padded envelope... so maybe the card holds some special meaning to him.

I'll wrap things up with the contents of that second care package...

December Package:  Unopened Epoch Packs & Godzilla

The bulk of this package were nine unopened packs of different Epoch products.  I'll be keeping one of each sealed for my unopened Japanese pack collection.  Three of these packs will eventually be featured on A Pack to Be Named Later.

Trust me.  It'll happen.  Just don't expect it to happen anytime soon.  Did you see the list of packages I mentioned at the beginning of this post?  They are the priority.

And rounding out the stuff Kenny sent were some top loaded singles:

2012 Sega Card-Gen #135

This one is another biggie.  Matsui doesn't have a lot of cards featuring him with the Oakland Athletics and I'm pretty sure this is the first one to land in my collection.

There was another copy of that 2022 Takara Tomy WiXoss card, but I didn't scan it again.  But I did scan this card:

Luis Torrens Custom #ZZ

I've received this card before in a previous zapping.  It's sort of Kenny's trademark card from his days of being the ultimate Luis Torrens super collector.

Thank you Kenny!  Not only for these awesome cards... but for being such a class act.  Please let us know which direction your collection takes you.  It's my turn to owe you.

Happy Saturday and sayonara!

Cleaning, Organizing, and Sorting

On a recent trip to Costco, I purchased some heavy duty Bankers Boxes which led to some early spring cleaning in my office.  When I was finished, I had cataloged most of my larger card sets which is something I've been meaning to do for years.  Most of the large boxes have been sorted and put away, but this major cleaning/organization project will probably continue until mid-March when spring actually arrives.

In the meantime... I'm also organizing parts of my card collection as well.  Back in December, I received a large flat rate box from Woody over on Sports Card Forum and inside were hundreds of Japanese MLB cards.  It took an entire afternoon to sort through his stuff and integrate it into my binders.

Here are the highlights from his care package.  Let's start with the Ohtani's since he's arguably the hottest player in the hobby:

2018 Topps Opening Day #200

2018 Topps Archives #50

2018 Topps Update #US285

It's not often anyone sends me an Ohtani rookie card... let alone three.  Once upon a time I owned a PSA graded copy of that Opening Day card, but I sold it during the pandemic.  The other were completely brand new to me.

In fact out of the thirteen Ohtani cards he sent my way, I needed twelve of them.  Here's a look at the other nine:

This influx of Shohei cards motivated me to give him his very own binder.  Up until now, his 9-pocket pages were crammed between Tomokazu Ohka and Hideki Okajima pages.   He joins Kurt Suzuki, Ichiro Suzuki, and Hideo Nomo as the only Japanese baseball players with their very own binders.

Speaking of Ichiro and Nomo, here are their new additions from Woody.  Let's start with Ichiro:

2021 Topps Platinum Players Die-Cuts #PDC-15

2022 Topps Archives #185

2021 is the least represented year in my Ichiro PC.  That die-cut insert is only the second card of him in my binder.  Maybe Topps didn't add him to a lot of checklists that year.

Next up are the new Nomos:

1995 Stadium Club #556

1998 Bowman International #289

I thought I owned most of Nomo's rookie cards, but was surprised to see I needed his Stadium Club card.  This Bowman parallel (which didn't scan well) is really cool as it shows off his birthplace.

2000 Pacific Invincible #56

2003 Playoff Portraits #17

Both of these cards are proof that card companies are capable of making high quality base cards.  The Nomo on the left combines cardboard and acetate... but what makes this card especially cool is that it features him with the Detroit Tigers.

The Playoff Portraits card is thick and textured to give off the feeling that you're holding a card that was actually hand painted.  If you've never owned one of these cards, it might be worth tracking down a copy.

Wrapping up today's post is a Masahiro Tanaka relic card:

2017 Topps Museum Collection

Meaningful Material #MM-MTA (#'d 18/35)

I'm not exactly sure why Topps chose to call these Meaningful Material relics... since according to the back of the card the swatch isn't from any specific game, event, or season.  But when you consider that there are only 35 copies of this card out there and Woody was kind enough to send me one of them... that's pretty cool (and meaningful).

Thank you Woody!  I have at least one more post planned that will show off some other cards that were part of this care package.

There were literally hundreds of duplicates in Woody's care package that when combined with my extras ended up filling close to two full rows in a 5,000ct. box.  In the midst of the office organization, I sorted them by player.

Anyone interested in starting a Japanese baseball player collection?  If so, shoot me an email and I'll gladly help you out.  Unfortunately I don't have many Ohtani or Ichiro duplicates, but I've got plenty of other guys like Nomo, Matsuzaka, and Okajima.

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!