The Sunday Sort: Patches, Planes, & The Professor

The past six Sundays, I've dedicated at least a couple of hours to sorting and scanning with the majority of the cards coming from fellow bloggers.  Sadly... after today I'm down one free Sunday.  After that, I head back into the classroom for my 29th year.

I'm hoping to continue to set aside part of every Sunday to work on hobby related stuff, but we'll have to see how things play out.  The start of every school year is usually very busy.

Anyways... let's get some of the highlight's from today's sort.

Let's start off with some Oakland Athletics that John over at Johnny's Trading Spot sent me last month:

2026 Topps Rainbow Foil #122

This card features two cool patches.  Lawrence Butler has a Las Vegas patch on his right sleeve, while Nick Kurtz features the Tower Bridge in Sacramento on his left sleeve.  I'm not exactly a patch collector, but this card motivated me to go out and purchase a pair of those tower patches for my Athletics PC.

2009 Topps Triple Threads Emerald #128 (#'d 31/50)

Back in the late 2000's, Cahill was considered one of the A's top prospects.  Unfortunately he only had one notable season with them before being sent off to Arizona.  Player aside... this autographed relic is a great looking card with OAKLAND being the center of attention.

1999 SP Authentic Chirography #EC

Whenever I think of Eric Chavez, "underrated" comes to mind.  He never played in the Midsummer Classic, yet he won six consecutive Gold Glove Awards and hit 20+ home runs in seven consecutive seasons with the A's.

John also tossed in a trio of O-Pee-Chee A's:

1984 O-Pee-Chee Baseball

One of these days, I'm going to sit down and build a bunch of team sets.  1980's O-Pee-Chee A's and Padres will be high on the priority list and these three cards will go toward the 1984 A's team set build.

Next up is this really cool Kurt Suzuki insert:

2020 Topps Archives Snapshots Walkoff Wires #WW-KS

This card commemorates Kurt Suzuki's three-run walk-off home run off Edwin Diaz back on 9/3/19.  The Nationals entered the bottom of the ninth trailing the New York Mets by six runs, but walked away winning 11-10.

Here are a few other Japanese guys for my collection:

And a few mascots:

2019 Topps Stickers #'s 210, 227, & 234

And a quartet of vintage airplane cards:

1957 Topps Planes of the World #15, 38, 53, & 60

My dad would have appreciated these cards.

He worked at Lockheed for a few years in the 60's on the SR-71 Blackbird.  I'm hoping Topps will one day produce another set of airplane trading cards and include the famous reconnaissance aircraft.

Rounding out John's care package was a giant stack of Greg Maddux cards.  Half were part of a Maddux Monday giveaway that I won.  The other half was a stack that John Sharp had won and passed along to me.  I picked four favorites from each stack:

Bo over at Baseball Cards Come to Life! also sent me a pair of Greg Maddux cards:

He also included a pair of Jackie Robinson cards and this Hank Greenberg for my Topps Glossy All-Stars project:

1985 Topps Glossy All-Stars #22

One card closer to completing this project.

And rounding out the Sunday Sort is a four-pack of NPB cards from Kenny over at Torren' Up Cards:

The top two cards are from this year's Calbee set.  Unfortunately, when I used Google Translate I didn't recognize either of these guys.  However the two shiny Dream Order cards featured familiar names.

The guy on the bottom-left is Kazuma Okamoto.  He's the starting third baseman for the Toronto Blue Jays.  Next to him is Teruaki Sato.  He is the starting third baseman for the Hanshin Tigers.  If you haven't heard of him, get ready.  There's a good chance he comes over to play in the states in the near future.

Thank you John, Bo, and Kenny for these generous care packages!  And thank you Mr. Sharp for donating your Maddux winnings to me.

I hope all of you had a great weekend.  Happy Sunday and sayonara! 

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.

Plugging Some Holes

When it comes to shopping for cards online... COMC's fall has led to the ascension of Sportlots (at least for me).  They've always served different purposes.  Sportlots helped me complete sets with their affordable commons, while COMC filled gaps in my player and team collections.

Since I've always tried to get the most bang for my buck, I avoided paying 20¢ for commons and preferred to find pricier cards over on COMC.  However their decision to restructure their shipping rates forced me to drain my balance, start using Sportlots more, and focus on card projects that have been collecting dust for quite some time.

1984 Topps Glossy All-Stars #10

1986 Topps Glossy All-Stars #7

1990 Topps Glossy All-Stars #8

Last week, I started shopping for some 80's Leaf Dave Stieb cards... which led me to plugging some holes in my 1984 to 1991 Topps Glossy All-Star project which was missing the entire 1986 set.  Well, I found one vendor with almost the entire set:

This lot puts me past the 50% mark on this project...

I'll be busy the next four weeks, but as soon as my summer break starts... I'm hoping to cross off the bulk of these needs with the help of eBay and Sportlots:

While shopping for those Stieb cards, I completed another set sitting in my office:

1990-91 Pro Set Hockey Set

Back in early April, Stuart over at S.R. '75 Cards sent me this set.  I'm a huge fan of early Pro Set sets and was happy to add their inaugural hockey set to my collection.  While flipping through the set, I noticed it was missing one card:

1990-91 Pro Set #298

No biggie.  That's what Sportlots is for.  If you're not familiar with this set, here's a quick peek:

Pro Set included everyone from draft picks to coaches to officials.  They even included a card for the puck.

They also honored the all-stars, award winners, and stat leaders.  Plus a ton of guys who would eventually make the Hockey Hall of Fame:

Speaking of future hall of famers, the 1990-91 rookie card class was full of them:

Jaromir Jagr is the lone player to not receive the honor.  But that's because he hasn't officially announced his retirement.  He last skated in the NHL in 2017, but was playing professionally in the Czech Republic up to last season.

Thank you Stuart for generously gifting me with this awesome set.

Let's wrap this post up with the two cards that inspired this Sportlots order:

1985 Leaf #54

1986 Leaf #68

Last week, I showed of this 1987 Leaf card of Dave Stieb that Adam over at Thoughts & Sox sent me:

1987 Leaf #72

I mentioned that I might chase down his other three Leaf cards from that era.  Two down, 1988 to go.

Like the Topps Glossy All-Stars... I'll target this card in a few weeks when I have more free time on my hands.

Until then, here is today's question of the day:

Where do you shop for cards online?  COMC?  Sportlots?  eBay?  Other?

If I were to break down the numbers, eBay and their vendors get most of my money.  However my purchases usually involve single cards or smaller sets/lots.  Sportlots is a distant second, but that might change this summer.

I look forward to reading and responding to your comments.  I apologize that I haven't replied to comments on my recent posts.  It's on my list of things to do this weekend.  Stay tuned.

Happy Thursday and sayonara!