Saturday Night Five: The 364 Day Old Mystery Box

Back at the tail-end of 2020, I placed an order on everyone's favorite Online Dime Box.  One of the items that I purchased was this fifty card, multi-sport mystery box:

Well... three hundred sixty-four days after receiving the mystery box in the mail... I finally opened it up.  Before I show off the contents, let's talk price.  The BASEBALLCARDSTORE.CA sold these for $5 each and promise a random assortment of fifty trading cards which obviously breaks down to 10¢ per card.

Let's see if this is something you might be interested in.  I figured I'd show off my five favorite cards, but before I do... here's a look at the other forty-five:

As promised, there's a lot of variety in the box.  There were baseball, basketball, football, hockey, racing, golf, and Olympic cards included in my box.  There was even a certified hockey autograph thrown in.

I was pretty impressed with the variety in regards to older and newer products.  One might expect a box filled with Junk Wax Era cards, but this box includes a few cards from each of the past four decades.

In addition to the autograph, there were a few inserts and parallels tossed into this box as well.  That Alcantara in the #9 spot is a very shiny Prizm parallel and the Wayne Gretzky in the #1 spot is some kind of National Hockey Card Day giveaway.

If you're were looking for a breakdown by sport, here are the numbers:

Baseball: 21 Cards

Basketball: 6 Cards

Football: 6 Cards

Hockey: 10 Cards

Racing:  4 Cards

Golf: 1 Card

Olympic: 2 Cards

And rounding out this post, here are my five favorites in no particular order from this fifty card mystery box:

1992 Score #800

There was a time when Manny was one of the most entertaining players in baseball.  Unfortunately... not everyone liked the guy.  Me?  I loved watching Manny being Manny.

1980 Topps #280

Oldest Card in the Box ✔

San Diego Padre ✔

Hall of Famer ✔

Well Cropped Action Shot ✔

1991 Impel US Olympicards Hall of Fame #62

Any card that commemorates one of the greatest moments in United States Winter Olympic history... is a winner in my book.

1990-91 OPC Central Red Army #19R

I couldn't stand Sergei Fedorov back in the 90's.  But now that he's no longer lighting the lamp against the Sharks, I can sit back and appreciate this rookie year insert.

2019 Topps Update #US189

Ohtani?  Oh heck yeah.  I'll happily add a new card of his to my collection whenever I can.

What about you?

Any cards from this fifty pack catch your eye?

Would you consider purchasing one of these fifty card mystery boxes?

Unfortunately... they are currently sold out.  But if they ever restock these, I'll probably toss another one into the shopping cart.

Happy Saturday and sayonara!

One Step Closer

1992 was a monumental collecting year for me.  At the time I was attending community college and working at the card shop down the street from me.  Things were pretty "normal" until that day when my LCS received their shipment of Fleer Ultra baseball.

1992 Fleer Ultra #277

As soon as I laid eyes on that green marble and graph paper design (on the back)... it was love at first sight.

I bought several boxes of each series and went on a mission to build the complete 600 card base set.  I'd had built hand collated sets before, but at some point I set out to build the four insert sets split among the two series too.  This was a hobby first for me.

In addition to the attractive design, I was also intrigued by Tony Gwynn being the poster boy for this product.

1992 Fleer Ultra Gwynn Autograph #6

Anyways... back then I accepted the fact that I'd never own the ten autographed Gwynn inserts, but everything else was fair game.  And within a year or so, I had completed the master set... or so I thought.

Many years later, I discovered I was missing two cards and both featured my favorite player of all-time: Tony Gwynn.  Recently I crossed one of them off of my wantlist:

1992 Fleer Ultra A Salute to the Children of Casa De Amparo #NNO

I have no idea where these cards were distributed, but according to the card back, it salutes the children of Casa de Amparo which is an organization that helps abused, neglected, and abandoned children.

According to the website, the organization has been around since 1978 and appears to still help kids in San Diego County.

After cutting back the past two years on big dollar purchases, I have been targeting very specific cards for my collection.  This was one of those cards.  It popped up on eBay back on November 8th with a BIN price of one dollar (plus $1.50 shipping) and I couldn't pull the trigger fast enough.

Sadly, I still need one more card to complete this thirty year project...

TCDB Image

It's a card that was handed out at the Fleer stockholders meeting back in 1992.  As you can see... it features Mr. Padre and Paul Mullan who was Fleer's CEO at the time.  This card will pop up from time to time, but it sells for more money than I'm willing to dish out.  At this point in my life, I've learned to be patient.

So for now... I'm just happy with taking one step closer to completing this master set.

Today's question of the day...

Have you ever discovered a set in your collection wasn't complete after decades of thinking it was?

I've encountered this issue with a few sets recently, but this is the first time it's happened after so many years.  Part of me is a little bummed... but then again... it gives me one more white whale to chase down.

That's it for today.  Happy Thursday and sayonara!

The Bronze Age of Baseball Cards (The Remix)

You know a set is pretty cool when it comes in a wooden box.  What you're looking at is a complete set of the 1995 Topps Legends of the 60's Medallions that I picked up back in September on eBay for $76.24 ($56 + $14.99 shipping + $5.25 tax).  It represents my most expensive eBay sports card purchase of 2021.

According to Beckett, Topps offered these bronze medallions to their Stadium Club members on a one card per month basis.  Each card sold for the ridiculous price of $39.95.  That means the entire 12 card set would set a collector back $479.40.

I'm guessing there weren't a lot of collectors who dished out that kind of money for these which explains why these aren't as common as most 90's trading cards.

This checklist and writeup comes from SCD's 2008 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards.  After fourteen years, it features pretty accurate values for this set.

Now if you're wondering if you've seen these cards before on my blog, you have.  I built a hand collated set two years ago which I showed off here.  Normally I wouldn't go out of my way to purchase a set I already own, but when I read about the custom wooden box that accompanied it... I knew I wanted one of those as well.

By the way... if you'd like to see each bronze medallion up close and personal, then click the link above.  I scanned the front and back of each card along with one of the booklets the cards were originally shipped in.

While were on the subject of bronze cards from the 90's, here are a few more:

The year after Topps produced those heavy bronze medallions, they created a bronze subset in their Finest product.  1996 Finest was split into two series... and each series consisted of three colored subsets: bronze (common), silver (uncommon), and gold (rare).  What you're looking at above is a complete set of Series 2 bronze cards that Dennis over at Too Many Verlanders sent me a few weeks ago.

Here's a closer look at some of my favorites in the set:

He also sent me these bronze bordered parallels:

1996 Score Dugout Collection #10

1996 Score Dugout Collection #45

1996 Score Dugout Collection #103

The mid 90's definitely seems like The Bronze Age of Baseball Cards.  What do you think?

Then again card companies also used a lot of silver and gold in their products.  Dennis also sent me these...

1996 Score Gold Stars #24

1996 Donruss Press Proof #61

These two cards feature gold foil and are brand new additions to my Hideo Nomo and Rickey Henderson PC's.

The next four cards also feature gold (or silver), but more importantly... they also opened my eyes to something new about this twenty-five year old set:

1996 Flair Silver #374

1996 Flair Gold #374

1996 Flair Silver #376

1996 Flair Gold #376

I have always thought the silver versions were the base cards and the gold were a rarer parallel.  Then I read this post and my mind was blown.  Fleer actually produced each color in equal quantities.

By the way if you have extras of these laying around and you're looking to trade... Dennis is building each of these 400 card sets.  Click here for his wantlist.

Getting back to the bronze trading cards, Dennis also sent me this memorabilia card of Kurt Suzuki:

2007 USA Baseball Bound for Beijing Materials #GU-9

It's not a bronze parallel, but Team USA did win the bronze medal at the 2008 Olympics.  Unfortunately, Kurt Suzuki wasn't on that team.  However according to the back of this trading card he was a part of the Team USA qualifying team in 2006.

Another Team USA item that Dennis included in his care package are these two McDonalds cups:

 

These are a blast from the past.  I totally remember collecting these back in 1992.  Good times.

Thank you Dennis for this very generous care package!  And thank you to everyone who took the time to read this post and relive the Bronze Age of Baseball Cards.

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!

Not Perfect... but Better

Natural disasters.  The Pandemic.  Blaster box shortages due to flipping.  Yup.  2021 wasn't perfect.  But like I commented on Nacho Grande's post this morning... 1/2/22 is way better than 1/2/21,

Last January... I was teaching from my dining room table and stressing over what #45 would do during his final weeks in office.  Combine the worst teaching experience in my twenty-four year career with watching people storm the Capitol... and that adds up to some serious anxiety.  Thankfully... the year got better and better as time passed.

Like I said at the start of the post... 2021 wasn't perfect.  Not even close.  But it was better (at least for me) compared to 2020 and I'm grateful for that.  Hopefully in 2022 things will be even better.

While we're on the topic of not being perfect, I figured I'd show a pair of additions to my Damaged Card PC:

2021 Stadium Club Oversized Base Master Photo #OBPFT

John over at Johnny's Trading Spot is the by far the largest contributor to this collection.  I'm pretty picky about what goes into it, but I assure you this Tatis makes the cut.  It features my favorite current player and a giant crease that runs right through his head.

I've commented on a few blogs how I'm tired of Topps reusing old designs.  But I've gotta say, this one isn't too shabby.  It's not perfect, but better than 90% of the other inserts sets they produced in 2021.

The other card headed into my Damaged Card PC binder is this autograph of Marcus Freeman:

2009 Sage Autographs Silver #A17

Wow.  This card is a candidate for my Damaged Card Hall of Fame.  I'm not sure what the story is behind this card, but it looks like someone went out of their way to destroy it.  That's okay.  I'll provide Mr. Freeman with a nurturing home.  He doesn't have to worry about receiving any additional creases.

By the way... if you're not familiar with Freeman, he was recently promoted to head coach at the University of Notre Dame.  Unfortunately his Fighting Irish lost a close game yesterday to the Oklahoma State Cowboys in the Fiesta Bowl.  It wasn't the perfect outcome (at one point the Irish held a twenty-one point lead), but it was better than being blown out.

John didn't just send me damaged cards... he also sent me these two Campaneris cards for my collection:

1969 Topps #423

1995 Sonic Baseball Greats #NNO

The gorgeous TSN All-Star card has a slight smudge running down the left hand side of the card... and the Sonic oddball issue doesn't feature an A's logo.  In other words, they aren't perfect... but they're way better than the logoless stuff Panini produces these days.

Actually... I really like the Sonic card.  Never seen this set before... but thanks to John I've added it to my list of saved eBay searches.

I'll wrap up my first post of 2022 with a very nice surprise.  When it comes to Wacky Packages, John is the super collector among bloggers.  Although not expected, I wasn't surprised to see some 1980 Topps Wacky Packages tossed into his care package:

He sent me twenty stickers in total... with these two being my favorites:

The sticker on the left stirred up a very fond memory from my childhood.  When I was a kid, I spent hours sitting on the living room floor building things out of my cylinder filled with Tinkertoys.  And what sports fan wouldn't appreciate a Sports Illustrated parody?

As for the surprise... I was absolutely flabbergasted when I turned over the above nine pocket scans and noticed they were pieces to a very, very, very cool puzzle.  After rearranging them, this is what they produced:

This is my favorite Wacky Package of all-time.  It's absolutely perfect and doesn't get better than this.

Thank you John for the awesome care package.  I hope you and anyone reading this post have a great 2022.  It might not be perfect, but let's just hope it's better than 2021.

Happy New Year and sayonara!