Resisting Temptation

The past few weeks have been sort of a personal test.  I've been reading post after post after post about 2019 Stadium Club and each and every time I was tempted to hunt down some blasters.  Luckily I haven't seen any at my local Targets which is probably a sign from the Cardboard Gods.

However I've seen them on eBay for under $18 shipped and Fanatics had them for $15.99 (free shipping if you bought two or more).  Ultimately... I resisted temptation and purchased a complete set off of eBay for $40 shipped.

Even though I had seen plenty of singles on everyone's blogs... I was still blown away by the beauty of these cards.  The number of fantastic photographs made this become my all-time favorite Stadium Club set.

The original plan was to show off my ten favorite cards in this post.  I ended up scanning thirty-four different cards and there were easily another twenty I could have gone with.  Most of you know my animosity towards scanning, but the seventy-six minutes it took me to select and scan these cards were worth every minute.

Here's a gallery of my favorite 2019 Stadium Club cards:

Photographs featuring the backs of players seem to be gaining in popularity.  I'm not complaining.  Here are two more:

Los Angeles Dodgers fans hit the jackpot with this product.  It seemed like every Dodger card I stumbled across was pure awesomeness:

And who could forget this moment in World Series history:

I was also impressed with the number of well-cropped action shots like these:

Then there are the zoomed out action shots:

Plus a quartet of defensive gems:

Don't forget the legends:

And a few gorgeous rookie cards:

Plus my favorite rookie of them all:

Speaking of favorites, it was impossible for me to choose a favorite.  But I will say that I've narrowed it down to these three cards:

I probably could write a post on each of these cards, but I've invested way too much time on one post already, so I'll just wrap things up with the last five cards that caught my eye:

There you go.  Thirty-four fantastic cards from this year's Stadium Club set.  This set is definitely the front runner for my favorite set of the year.  And even if it isn't... I guarantee you won't see another post on this blog with thirty-four scans in 2019, so soak up the beauty and enjoy.  I know I did.

Happy Thursday and sayonara!

A Few of My Favorite Things: The 90's

I've always used decades to help define my life... and the 90's were my first exposure to adulthood.  The first half of the decade revolved around college, friends, movie, music, and sports cards.  The second half of the decade focused on career, friends, movie, music, and sports cards.

In fact, I loved the hobby so much... I started the decade working at one card shop... and finished it working at another card shop.  Those were the good old days.

And that's what this post is going to focus on.  It's the fifth installment in my Blog Bat-Around series that features A Few of My Favorite Things.  This particular BBA was started by The Collector a little more than a month ago.  With music, movies, and sports cards being such a big part of my life, I knew I had to participate.  To keep posts to a reasonable length, I broke it down into decades.  If you'd like to see A Few of My Favorite Things from other decades, feel free to click the links below:

The 50's

The 60's

The 70's

The 80's

And without further ado, here are A Few of My Favorite Things from the 90's...


Baseball Set: 1999 UD Century Legends Epic Signatures

Autographs are one of my favorite things to collect... and the 1999 UD Century Legends Epic Signatures are one of my favorite autograph sets ever produced.  Upper Deck's design team did a great job of using a black and white image of Tigers Stadium in the background with a large portrait of the player off to the right.  Then they had the players sign the cards on top of left field.  The blue Sharpie really allows the signature to stand out.

Over the years, I've managed to collect twenty-three of the thirty cards on the checklist:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately the final seven cards are pretty expensive.  When any of them actually pop up on eBay (and it's not often), they typically sell for triple digits...  which means that I probably won't ever complete this set.  But it's okay.  I accepted this fact years ago and appreciate the twenty-three that I actually own.

Movie:  The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

The 90's were loaded with awesome movies.  I've never actually compiled a list of favorite movies, but if I did I'd estimate that 30 to 40% would come from this decade.  Here are just a few of my favorites off the top of my head:  Braveheart, Last of the Mohicans, Clerks, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Trainspotting, Fight Club, The Big Lebowski, Saving Private Ryan, Terminator 2, Fargo, Forrest Gump, The Silence of the Lambs, Seven, Good Fellas, and Casino are all awesome films.  And if I went and looked at all of my DVD's, I'm sure I could name a few more.

I eventually narrowed the list down to five movies, but ultimately I went with The Shawshank Redemption.  I watched it for probably the tenth time a few weeks ago and enjoyed it as much as the first time I saw it.

Song:  So What'Cha Want (Beastie Boys 1992)

The Beastie Boys are my favorite group.  They have been ever since 1992 when they released their third mainstream album, Check Your Head, which took their hip hop style and meshed it with their punk roots.  The result was amazing.

The song that originally caught my attention was So What'cha Want.  This was the first song that popped into my head when I originally started drafting these BBA posts.

Well that's it for today.  I'm way behind schedule.  Normally, I like publishing my weekday posts at 3pm PST, but it's already 3:40pm and I haven't even edited it.  I'm gonna cross my fingers and shoot for 4.

What about you...

Do you have scheduled times for publishing posts?  Or do you just click publish as soon as you're finished writing?

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

The Shoebox Collection

A few weeks ago, I purchased a pair of shoeboxes filled with cards for five bucks.  I'll be honest, there wasn't anything too exciting sitting on top.  However for the price... I determined it was worth the risk.

Well I finally got around to sifting through both of these and I ended up pulling out about 400 cards.

Half of them were these 2017 Bowman Draft Chrome cards:

I'm still not sure what to call most of these.  They're like wannabe rookie cards, I guess.  I recognized a few names and figured I'll set them aside.  Maybe one or two of them will become stars.

The other half consisted of a few smalls stacks of Topps Chrome and Topps Heritage base cards from the past five years that I took out for care packages.  There were also twenty-seven singles I pulled out for fellow bloggers.

And then there were The Final Four:

1985 Topps Traded #24T

1986 Topps #370

1983 Topps #49

1985 Topps #23

Outside of the Bowman Chrome cards, these are the only four cards I kept for myself.  You know how much I love my 80's rookie cards.  All three of these guys spent time on Beckett's Hot List at one point or another.  These days they're quarter cards at best.  Ultimately there weren't any big dollar cards to be found.  However it was fun sorting through these two shoeboxes and the entertainment value has to be worth the five bucks I spend on them.

Well that's it for today.  Have a fantastic week!

Happy Monday and sayonara!

Raising the Bar

When I look back on my collecting history, I can pretty much define the kind of collector I was by decades.  In the 80's, I was opening packs and boxes in search of rookie cards.  The 90's were all about parallels and insert cards.  And when I came back to the hobby in the late 2000's, I was hoping to pull autographs and relics.

These days I try to hold off on opening packs and boxes.  My hobby budget is usually reserved for specific singles and complete sets.

Back in April, I purchased a 1998 Zenith Raising the Bar insert set off of eBay:

On the surface, this set is just your ordinary, run-of-the-mill shiny insert produced by Pinnacle.  It's not particularly flashy.  And they aren't rare.  But I've been obsessed with 1998 Zenith baseball and hockey for the past twenty-one years.

That's when Pinnacle came up with the Dare to Tear line of cards.  Each pack of 1998 Zenith contained three 5x7 trading cards.  Within each 5x7 trading card, there was a standard size card embedded inside.  Collectors had to choose to either keep their 5x7 card intact or tear it open to reveal the standard size card.  If you are familiar with Allen and Ginter's RIP cards, it's pretty much the same concept.

These shiny, golden inserts were inserted into one out of every twenty-five packs.  When you consider that there's eighteen packs per box, collectors were not guaranteed one of these inserts in their box.  And if you decided to keep some of your 5x7 cards intact, the odds of pulling one of these were even tougher.

That's why I let someone else do all of the work and purchased the complete set of fifteen cards:

1 Ken Griffey Jr., 2 Frank Thomas, 3 Alex Rodriguez
4 Tony Gwynn, 5 Mike Piazza, 6 Ivan Rodriguez
7 Cal Ripken Jr., 8 Greg Maddux, 9 Hideo Nomo

10 Mark McGwire, 11 Juan Gonzalez, 12 Andruw Jones

13 Jeff Bagwell, 14 Chipper Jones, and 15 Nomar Garciaparra

As you can see, the checklist is loaded with hall of famers.  There are currently nine guys in the set that have a plaque hanging in Cooperstown and one or two other guys with a shot of eventually making it in.  The rest are recognizable names from the era.

At the end of the day, nobody will be funding their retirement with this set.  In fact, I purchased all fifteen cards for $20.49 (+ $3 shipping), which is a little over the price of a blaster.

However when you consider how these were distributed to collectors and all of the big names on the checklist, it was well worth the price I paid (in my humble opinion).

Okay, here is today's question of the day:

Alex Rodriguez, Hideo Nomo, Mark McGwire, Juan Gonzalez, Andruw Jones, and Nomar Garciaparra are the six guys in this set who aren't enshrined at Cooperstown.

If you had a vote, would you vote for any of these guys?  Do you think any of these guys eventually get elected?

That's it for now.  Happy Saturday and sayonara!

Fence Busters

Another day.  Another purchase inspired by Henry over at Cardboard Greats.  Last week... or the week before... I wrote about my 1970 Topps Posters set.

Today I'm showing off my latest vintage card purchase:

1967 Topps #423

Willie Mays and Willie McCovey are considered one of baseball's greatest home run hitting tandems of all-time.  They spent just over thirteen seasons together in San Francisco and during that time they clobbered a combined total of 801 home runs.  During a span of eight seasons (from 1962 to 1969), the NL Home Run Crown was taken home by one of these guys six times.  The other two seasons were won by some guy named Henry Louis Aaron.

Between the two of them, they won two National League Rookie of the Year Awards, three National League MVP Awards, and a variety of other awards.  To top things off... both were first ballot hall of famers.  Just about the only thing these two didn't accomplish was bring home a World Series title to San Francisco Giants fans.

Anyways... getting back to the card.  I've seen it on a few blogs before and have always thought it was cool.  But it wasn't until I read Henry's post about his best cards for each National League West team back in mid-June that I decided to finally pick up my very own copy.  I kinda feel like it's some sort of Bay Area native card collector's rite of passage or something.

Alright fellow collectors... here is your question of the day:

What is your favorite home run hitting tandem that you've had the pleasure of watching in person or on television?

You know I've gotta go with The Bash Brothers:

1990 US Playing Cards MLB All-Stars #WILD

Happy Thursday and sayonara!