Saturday would have been Card Show Day

Buckle up, this post is going to get Rosier. There was a card show scheduled today here in the Twin Cities, but it was cancelled (May show is still on for now, but I suspect that too will be cancelled). The local Card shops in town are basically doing online sales only right now, which I think is perfectly reasonable and smart. I have added a few things recently buying online as a replacement for the monthly show. This post is pretty close to what I might pick up at a show if I attended in person.

If you are already sick of my Rosie Rainbow ravings, please scroll on down to Ichiro and start there. 

The release date of Bowman was pushed back, which has me wondering if series 2 will also be delayed. I am stretching my Rosie Rainbow muscles early on Topps Heritage. Rosario is one of the Twins' short prints, that one actually ended up costing more than the purple refractor after shipping. Chrome refractor, Silver refractor, White refractor. There's a gold refractor I missed out on (didn't want to pay $130 for it), and there's probably a 1/1 and printing plates out there too. I might call this Rosie rainbow "complete"

Oh, except there's also an online exclusive 5x7 numbered to 10 that I found. Added that too!

Ok, this is as Rosie as it is going to get! Josh Donaldson signed with Minnesota in the off-season, and this is pushing me even closer towards the 1974 Topps set build. His Throwback Thursday online exclusive features the underrated design. Rosie also had a Topps OnDemand Black and White card, an UTZ card, and GQ came out this week somehow, so I found the Gold Chrome parallel of Rosie for that set.

Ok! Here is something different. Jim from cards as i see them posted this one a while back and I was happy to add Ichiro's "sunset" card to my collection. He was creating a backlog of them with his 2018 comeback with the Mariners, then the 2019 Tokyo series that opened the season. He's probably actually retired now for real. I wouldn't be opposed to another cameo in the future though! Let him play whenever he wants like Minnie Miñoso!

I saw this card on Twitter and immediately grabbed a copy on eBay. This is the Topps 75-76 Seattle Supersonics team card, complete with 747 jet (not supersonic) and coach Bill Russell (definitely super)!

Speaking of team cards, I'm still working on the 1959 Topps set, and I have just two team cards to go, Pittsburgh and the Yankees. I picked up this Cleveland card with a couple of All-Stars

Specifically these two All-Stars!

Then I watched about 10 different Mantle auctions for this card for three weeks, and ended up doing a Buy It Now anyway for the best possible deal I could find. Fortunately or unfortunately, I didn't win any of those auctions. Paid a little more than my highest bids were.

Willie Mays, widely regarded as one of the best to ever play the game, still criminally underrated and I picked this up for a fraction of what I spent to acquire Mickey Mantle. Not complaining, but that's messed up!

My favorite thing about these All-Star Cards are the cartoons on the back - Awesome! I think I prefer the back of Mazeroski's card to the front. I waited this long to get it just because I didn't like the photo selection. (similar to my 1961 Topps Killebrew holdout).

Go find the closest card shop (or your favorite one if you have options), find out if they sell online, and buy some cards from them if you have the means to do so this weekend! But above all, please take this thing seriously and stay safe. We'll all be back to the new normal eventually in the meantime everyone's health should be the number one concern.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

Saturday is Card Show Day (for the first time in 2020)

I like going to card shows without a real agenda, like I did today. I was thinking about needs for the 1959 set build, and wanted to look at some 1970s cards to try to pick my new set build for 2020.

But beyond that, it was going to be anyone's game. I actually only spent money at 2 tables today, but each had their share of fun and surprises. The modern stuff all came from one table, and the vendor also had a stack of vintage which was a very rare occurrence for him.

The other vendor was the regular vintage / oddball guy and he did not disappoint. I picked up a Wheaties Minneapolis Laker . . .

And added some Yogi for a balanced breakfast of champions.

You'd think I was over the Moon by then, but that was not the case.

In fact, I found 2 Moons, all part of my quest to build the 1959 Topps set.

The vintage guy also brings a large stack of in person and/or through the mail autographs to the shows, and I don't know, am I going to start collecting Autographed Rookie Cup Cards? Seems pretty ridiculous to even attempt that. Why did I get the Donn Pall? So glad you asked. He's in Vancouver, at the home of Vancouver's AAA team, a stadium called B.C. Place. This stadium was designed by the same group that built the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis, and I thought it was a quirky trip down memory lane to see another Teflon roof.

Back to the first vendor - I scored a small stack of 1970 Topps. I don't think this will be the set I build, but I got a decent deal on these, so why not?

He also had this. I had no intention of adding a Mickey Mantle to my collection today (unless it was that 1959 All-Star card), so both of us were surprised when I asked what he wanted for it. I won't bore you with the details, but the price was so low that even if I wasn't planning on ever owning this card, I still had to pull the trigger on it today. Yeah, it's creased to hell and back, off-center with rounded corners, but it's Mickey Mantle!

Mickey Mantle: good at baseball.

If I had made a plan, I would have skipped his table altogether because he didn't have anything from any sets or collections I am working on right now... but that's the beauty of not making plans!

Good-Bye, 2019! Hello 2020! (contest in post)

Happy New Year everyone! 

2019 had its ups and downs collecting-wise, I wanted to get 2020 started with a quick review of my 2019 Collecting Goals. How did I do? Well, we grade on a curve here at the ol' Arbitrary, so everything is Highly Subjective.

My first goal was to organize my wantlists, player collections, and mini collections.... HAHAHAHA! Well, I definitely did not achieve this goal, and if anything, I'm in worse shape now than I was last year. Some things I did in 2019 did help my collection get more organized - I added some new Hockey and Basketball binders, and I updated my want lists on this site at least once each... Hoo boy, that's a low bar. But I cleared it! 

I made a 2019 commitment to my bat rack mini collection, and now I have a fairly healthy stack of cards to place in pages. At the beginning of 2019, there were just 2 pages of bat rack cards in my bat rack frankenset. Now I have posted up to page six, and there are more pages on the way in 2020. This was a goal achieved without any argument from me. 

I added a new mini collection in 2019 for cards featuring phone calls, and made a modest stack of these as well. They are much less abundant than bat rack cards, they seemed to be most likely found on NFL sidelines in the late 80s, and then again in the mid to late 90s Fleer and Upper Deck sets. It technically started in December 2018 with this Secret Santa post, but it wasn't until 2019 that I started adding phone cards intentionally. I look to continue this mini collection and add a new one for 2020, which will come in a future January post. Any suggestions?

2019 was going to be the year I finally finished the 1959 Topps set build. I am very very close now, with a small checklist remaining of mostly high numbers, including the very pricey Bob Gibson rookie card. If I can find a good deal on Bob (and Willie and Warren and Mickey), then I should have this set completed in the next few months. I'll be looking to do a similar weekly review of each team's set in 2020 once I complete the darn thing!

What else for 2020? I've let my "I Love the 80s" posts wither on the vine a bit in 2019, I will be looking to pick those back up again and start moving from 1981 Team Reviews to 1982. 

I also want to start another set build, and since I've worked on 1956 and 1959 after completing the oddball 1965 O-Pee-Chee set, I thought I would go with a 1970s edition next. 
Hey, here's a random contest with a very long fuse. I haven't decided which set I'm going to try for next, but maybe you can guess which one it will be in the comments below?
Let's say up to 5 people can win this contest, so if you wanted to pick a year that someone else picked, go ahead.
Winners will receive a custom-made-by-me re-pack of those 100 card (+1 pack) boxes you find at, say, Walgreens. Each box will have a "hit," and I'll add some 1970s vintage singles in there, too.
Winner(s) will be announced when I finally pick a new set, probably in February or March.

 Last but not least . . . Support The Minor Leagues!

ready . . . set . . . Build!

With some big ticket items still missing I am going to fall short of completing the 1959 Topps set this year, but I am going to get pretty close! Over the last month, I attended a couple card shows in the area and was able to shrink my list down to roughly 50 cards to go in this massive 572 card marathon.

The "high number" series for this set starts in the low 500s and includes an All-Star subset to close out the set. Ruben Gomez is one of them!

Each Team Card has a portion of the set checklist on the back, finding a Phillies card with minimal marking on the back (It has the low number cards on the back) can be tough. This one was creased in two corners, but otherwise looked pretty good.

The set is peppered with these team themed cards - I like how they look together. I have been going back and forth about putting these cards together at the front of the binder, or keeping them with their respective teams.

Not Hall of Fame guys, but these were some players that had some big games and big seasons in the 1950s.

But since you asked, there were some Hall of Fame guys in the latest haul. George is better known as Sparky Anderson, the Reds and Tigers World Series winning manager.

I was able to add Hank for just $20 - the vendor had 3 in the case and this was the one in the worst condition. I am just one card away from finishing the AL All-Stars (the Mantle, of course).

The big cards left on my checklist include the Mantle All-Star card, the Bob Gibson rookie, and Al Kaline's base card. I finally added the Roy Campanella special card (Card #550) after passing on it many times. I ended up finding a much more affordable copy at the next card show, but that is the Murphy's law of collecting. 

Arbitrary Acquisitions

Summer keeps on rolling - I haven't been to a card show in a few months now, both for financial and for scheduling reasons. Missed out on the National, as well. But that doesn't mean I was completely shut out of new cards.

"Twinkletoes!" I only have a pair of 1940 Play Ball cards, after adding this George Selkirk over the summer in a COMC bundle.

I don't think I will chase the set, but I couldn't pass up the awesome nickname. The other Play Ball in my collection? Stormy Weatherly, of course.

On to a set I am building, I added a short stack of 1959 Topps. Wally Post and Sherm Lollar were probably the biggest names of the bunch. The 1958 NL shutout leader, Johnny Antonelli is also in the group.

When I saw this Ted Williams  / Paul Bunyan mashup, I assumed that it was a photo taken in Minnesota, but Bunyan gets around. This was taken in Maine, where Ted was given an 8 foot long baseball bat.

Once you fall down a COMC rabbit hole, there's no telling where you'll end up, like fence leaning rebels, Robbie Alomar on the horn, Nolan Ryan selling out for Classic, and even a Felipe Alou photobomb on Tim "my moustache is the 11th Canadian Province" Blackwell's card.

I did actually buy some new retail - including a blaster of Allen & Ginter, which yielded a couple big rookies and a couple even bigger egos. No problem though, Reggie and Rickey proved they could back up the talk.

Saw this one on eBay and made the decision to buy it right away - several of these SPs have dropped in price since they were released, I may have jumped the gun on this one. But this may even count as a bat rack card - there are shipping boxes of Louisville Sluggers in the background!

This card, however, I waited a few decades before snapping up in an eBay auction. I was the only bidder for this well-loved card.

Bob Bonner didn't pan out as the Orioles' shortstop of the future. Good thing they had a backup plan.

COMC Haul - 1959 set Building!

The Spring Sale provided a big boost to my 1959 Topps Set build, I added 48 cards to the set, and for the most part spent a dollar or less per card!

Here's the highest of the high numbers, the final card on the checklist, Billy Pierce. There are still plenty of cards on my checklist, but I've now passed the 75% mark.

Let's see the new additions, sorta sorted by color! First up are stripes. There are several rookie stars cards for each team, and I'm thinking of putting these in the binder at the back end of each team page.

Orange-y Pink. I missed it in the COMC scan, but the Moe Drabrowsky card has a big crease running vertically from the top. But it was under a buck, so I can't be too bummed about it!

Stoplight time - 8 new Greens, including 1950s iron man Eddie Yost, who was 2nd to Lou Gehrig for the longest consecutive games played streak.
 

Yellow has several familiar-ish faces, like Hank Sauer, Vic Power, and Bob Cerv! The Bobby Tiefenauer is a little off center, but probably the sharpest conditioned card in my whole set.

We stop with Red, adding 8 more to the set. 2 pesky Yankees, and Senators great Jim Lemon. He was a big power hitter for Washington right up until the move to Minnesota.