Real Heroes and Silly Times

When it comes to blogging, I've been kinda in a funk.  It stems from Blogger's recent issues with sharing our posts on reading lists.  Thankfully a few of you shared the TCDB blogroll... which is an excellent companion to the Blogger reading list.  Combined they have pretty much resolved the issue, but I'm not sure all of the wrinkles have been ironed out.

I caught my first bug of the school year and ended up taking yesterday and today off.  Figured I'd get back into blogger mode and write something... since I'm just laying around with DayQuil flowing through my body.

The past week or two, I've had anniversaries on my mind and they're all tied to 2001.  Here are a few cards that are related to each of them.  Let's start with the obligatory baseball card:

This might not feature a baseball player, but it features the 1988 Topps baseball card design:

2009 Topps Heritage American Heroes #49

Two weeks ago marked the 25th anniversary of 9/11.  That dreadful day David Lim was working at the World Trade Center with his K-9 partner, Sirius.

When the towers were struck, Lim secured Sirius in his kennel before rushing to the aid of others.  Although he survived, Sirius tragically did not.  If interested, you can read more about it here.  And if you're interested, here's an interview with Mr. Lim I found on YouTube where he discusses that morning.

I have heard plenty of definitions of what it means to be a "hero".  I've gotta imagine David Lim and Sirius fit most, if not all of them.

Two days before 9/11, HBO released the first two episodes of Band of Brothers.

2009 Topps Heritage American Heroes

American Heroism Relic #AH-WWII7

If you've never watched it, it's a miniseries that tells the story of Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division.  Simply put, it's one of favorite television shows of all-time.

HBO is celebrating the 25th anniversary of this show, so I decided to rewatch all ten episodes over the past two weeks.  World War II was before my time, but this show gives people a tiny peek into what some soldiers faced in Europe.  It's also a reminder that love trumps hate... and that we as a society should avoid war as much as possible.

2001 Wizards of the Coast Harry Potter #8

Gonna wrap things up with one more anniversary from 2001.  Back in August of 2001, Wizards of the Coast released their first Harry Potter TCG set.  I'm going to guess that most of you could care less about this.

However while laying in bed yesterday, I had YouTube playing in the background.  One of the videos mentioned these cards, which reminded me of a purchase I made ten years ago at the Santa Cruz Flea Market.  I wouldn't call myself a Harry Potter fanatic, but I did enjoy the eight movies.  And at the time, I figured $5 for a box of cards was a great deal.

2002 WOTC Harry Potter Chamber of Secrets #28

2002 WOTC Harry Potter Diagon Alley #26

2001 WOTC Harry Potter Quidditch Cup #11

2002 WOTC Harry Potter Adventures at Hogwarts #13

Well recently fans of the franchise (or maybe the game) have rediscovered this forgotten TCG and this has sent some of the singles soaring in sales over on eBay.  We're talking about triple digits for raw, completed sales.

I don't know much about this game, but it looks like this Albus Dumbledore is the Harry Potter version of Charizard:

2002 WOTC Harry Potter Adventures at Hogwarts #1

 

Last Saturday, an ungraded copy sold for over $1000 on eBay.  If you happen to have any singles from this game, you might want to dig them out.  These are silly times... especially in regards to trading cards.

Okay... I'd better heat up another bowl of chicken noodle soup and finish catching up on some of your blog posts.

Happy Friday and sayonara!

Flea Market Finds #181: Dime Box Cards

This year has been one of the best in regards to flea market finds, but after two poor outings in a row... I'm starting to think the hot streak is over.

Two weeks ago, I walked around the De Anza Flea Market and didn't purchase a single item.  A friend of mine made a big purchase involving hundreds of packs and as a consolation prize tossed me one.  I'll share its contents in a future post, because I'm too lazy to run out to my car.

Two weeks before that, I walked around the Branham Flea Market and had it not been for a guy with a dime box, I would have walked away with nothing again.

Although all of these items were purchased at the same time, it's easier to split them up into two categories...

Purchase #1a:  The Oversized Stuff  $3

They're a pain in the butt to store, but I will happily purchase any box topper I come across if the price is right.  Ten cents works for me.

Here are a few of my favorites:

2020 Topps Holiday Ornament #WHO-MB

Some of you might remember my metal Christmas tree.  Well I've slowly been accumulating some of the Topps Ornament box toppers from the past five years.  Just need a few more to decorate an updated version of it. 

2021 Heritage Box Topper #OB-VG

In the midst of preparing this post, Vladito was having a monster series against the New York Yankees.  Unfortunately he hasn't found the same success against Seattle's pitchers.

2011 Topps Lineage 1964 Topps Giants Box Topper #TG9

The 1964 Topps Giants is one of my favorite vintage oddball sets.  I'm a huge fan of the simple design and was very lucky to add the full sixty card set to my collection a few years ago.  I'm not building this box topper set, but I'll happily add affordable singles when I stumble across them. 

2013 Panini Golden Age Exhibit Box Topper #25

This is probably the least interesting card for the majority of you, but it's my favorite from the bunch.  I can't tell you much about Mr. Johnson that you can't look up on Wikipedia... but this card makes me think of my father who was a huge boxing fan in his youth.

Okay, let's check out the rest of the dime box purchases...

Purchase #1b:  The Standard Stuff  $7

Here's a heads up... there wasn't a lot of baseball in this guy's dime box and the stuff he did have I wasn't interested in.  That being said, there were a bunch of other sports represented and some non-sports too.

I was a pretty diehard San Jose Sharks fan for their first thirty seasons, but I haven't really followed them, the sport, or hockey card industry in several years.  I'll still buy some Sharks, hockey autographs, and 90's inserts from time to time.  But if they started skating in the past ten years, I have no idea who they are.  That being said, I know that the Upper Deck Young Guns are popular among hockey card collectors.  At 10¢ each, I figured I'd grab every copy this guy had.

The same 10¢ rule applies to any shiny Pokemon cards I come across.  The hidden treasure in the box is political trading card of Mark Takano.  Never seen these before, but it's an interesting addition to my Japanese Pc.

There were a bunch of these Disney cards in the guy's dime box.  I picked up a bunch for one of my co-workers who is a huge Disney fan.  However I held onto a few including the Beagle Boys and Goofy cards above.

I was also happy to find a bunch of new Jon Jones cards for my collection:

I don't consider myself a huge MMA fan, but I did enjoy following Jones in the UFC Octagon.

Here are a few more singles I found in the dime box.  Honestly there wasn't anything too mind blowing in this guy's box... but I had fun flipping through it.  Hopefully he'll be out there again this Saturday.  If not... I'm hoping to find at least something card related to purchase out there.

Until then...

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

Flea Market Finds #180a: A 15 Pound Collection

September has been rough.  But things at work are starting to settle into place... which means that I should be able to spend more time doing hobby related stuff like sorting cards, writing posts, and sending out some care packages that I've been sitting on.

In the meantime, here's a recap of my trip to the De Anza Flea Market back on September 6th.

Purchase #1:  A Box of Cards  $20

 

The flea market was packed with new vendors and tons of people walking around.  I even ran into an old friend while walking down the first aisle.  As luck would have it, he spotted this box of cards under a vendor's table.  He's not into cards, but knows they're my favorite thing to collect.

I probably could write an entire post on this box, but it took me about a week to sit down and sort it... so I'll just show off some of the highlights.

There were four stacks of inserts, parallels, and rookie cards from 2018 to 2022 baseball products.  Nothing too crazy, but the box helped me fill about forty slots in my star binders.  I also found some football and basketball cards scattered in the box.

2018 Topps Chrome 1983 Topps #83T-1

2018 Topps Chrome Pink Refractor #1

1994-95 Ultra Premier Pad Men #2

Under the scattered semi-rigid and top loaders were several rows of Pokemon cards.  I didn't bother counting, but there were probably two hundred hologram cards:

There was also an unopened pack with Will Clark in the box as well:

1993 Milk Bone Super Stars

Here's a peek at the back:

But there were two cards that stood out and made this purchase and me walking with a 15lb. box of cards around the flea market worthwhile.  The first one stood out immediately:

1990 Leaf #300

I have loved the look of this Frank Thomas rookie card since 1990.  This might not be worth the entire twenty dollar purchase price, but it's about half.

This card made the purchase worth every penny:

1988 Pro Cards Vermont Mariners #NNO

I wasn't exactly sure what this card was, but apparently it was a promotional card handed out after the 1988 Pro Cards Vermont Mariners set had already been released.

It sounds like there's a counterfeit version in circulation, but based on this blog post, they are usually well-centered and feature different fonts.  This particular copy appears to be legit.

I'm sure I'll sprinkle some of the other cards from this purchase into future posts, but this post is already starting to drag on.  In fact, I think I'll end up splitting this trip into two posts to keep these recaps a reasonable length.

But before I wrap up this part, here was my second purchase of the day...

Purchase #2:  Baseball Card Game  $3

1991 U.S. Games Systems Inc. Baseball Legends Card Game

The early 90's saw the release of a bunch of baseball related decks of playing cards.  I wasn't familiar with this one, but a quick search on COMC revealed that there are thirteen legendary baseball players featured.  Haven't decided if I'll keep this deck sealed or put the singles into my hall of fame binders.

Well that's it for today.  I'll try to get the second half written up and posted by the end of the week.  Plus I need to recap last Saturday's trip to the Branham Flea Market, but I'm that probably won't happen until next week or later.

Until then...

Feel free to share your thoughts on either of these purchases down below.

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

Godzilla Lands in Cali

My collection of Japanese baseball players has expanded exponentially over the past decade.  The main push for this growth has been fellow bloggers sending me care packages featuring guys like Hideo Nomo, Ichiro Suzuki, Shohei Ohtani, Daisuke Matsuzaka, and today's featured athlete: Hideki Matsui (also known as Godzilla).

Kenny over at Torren' Up Cards recently experimented with some PWE's to see how long it would take for them to travel across the Pacific Ocean.

I'm sure glad I was one of the guinea pigs, because inside the first PWE was this signed Matsui card:

2010 Topps Heritage #310

According to Kenny this was signed in Staten Island about ten years ago.  Now normally a card of this magnitude would be the highlight of most care packages, but there was another card that just might have trumped it:

2012 Sega Card-Gen #J12-EX-R06

Matsui only played in Oakland for one season, so you don't see too many cards with him wearing the A's logo.  That in itself makes this card a treasured item in my collection.

But when I flipped it over, I saw the word "Congratulations" written on the back and figured this might be a prize card handed out at a Sega-Gen tournament.  I looked all over the internet to find more information about this card, but couldn't even find it on TCDB.  Well Kenny confirmed it for me.

The first PWE also contained a pair of WBC cards from 2009 featuring Yu Darvish and Hisashi Iwakuma:

The second PWE contained the same duo, but in Card-Gen form.

Thank you Kenny!  When it comes to testing out the postal service, you can use me anytime.

Happy Sunday and sayonara!

Extra Innings

Earlier in the year, I had planned on doing a series called Monday Munchies where I'd test out a bunch of Japanese snacks that Ryan (also known as SumoMenkoMan) sent me.  Well I got distracted and a few of these snacks expired over the summer.

Figured I'd open them up and see if they were still edible.  They were.  The first three snack packs contained vanilla wafers.  The fourth package contained a very similar wafer snack, but it was strawberry flavored.  And the package on the far right contained two grape flavored gummies.  All were yummy... and all contained cards.  Here's what I pulled:

I'm guessing all of these are anime shows or manga titles.  I have heard of Demon Slayer, but haven't watched or read it.  The only one I have seen is Sakamoto Days on Netflix.  It's pretty entertaining.

I still have a few more snacks to try out, so hopefully I can get back on track and post at least one Monday Munchies post each month to end 2025.  Until then...

Thank you Ryan for these snack packs!