Post 1,000 - Time for Another Arbitrary Giveaway.

I can't believe it myself, but this is my 1,000th post on blogger. The first 8 folks to comment here will get some free stuff from me. Why 8? I dunno. Just being arbitrary. In that same spirit, here a few of my favorite cards added while blogging. I had this Mudcat Grant card signed in person at Twins Fest, and marveled at Grant's kindness and grace- especially the time he took with kids.

Remember when Bartolo Colon was a Minnesota Twin? We lived through some wondrous and strange times over the life of this blog.

Building the 1965 O-Pee-Chee set was my first set build on the blog, which included finding this instant classic "rare 1/1" of Brooks Robinson.

I am still looking for the 2015 Topps Series 1 "Clear" parallel of Kennys Vargas, numbered to /10. I may never find it, as the majority of them are probably still sealed in series 1 Hobby Jumbo Pack boxes. If you really want to get some cool free stuff from me, help me find that parallel!

From my very first post!

By May of 2014, I was back in the hobby with both feet and began building sets new and old. What am I collecting? A little bit of everything. 2014 Topps Heritage turned into 1965 O-Pee-Chee which turned into Topps' All-Star Rookies 1960-present which has snowballed into any number of wild tangents.

Thanks for reading this first post - I'm excited to share my love of old school vintage, new school shiny things, and just plain weird things, like this Mike Cubbage card autographed by Twins bench coach Joe Vavra.

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!

repack regrets + a contest for you!

You know, I made such a big stink about these 100 Cards + one Pack repacks from Walgreens a while back, one would think I could take my own advice. Here are the oldest cards in the bunch - A pair from 1981 and a pair from 1983. I mean, it was just $5, but there were probably better ways for me to spend it.

Just one Minnesota Twin in the group of 100. 1984 Fleer has some great cards in it, and I'm a fan of the design.

4 cards featuring one-time Twins - Viola right after the trade to New York, then again with his 3rd team. Charlie Manuel played sparingly for the Twins in the late 60s/ early 70s - Don Baylor was on the 1987 championship team, joining after the trade deadline on waivers.

A no doubt Hall of Famer, a brand new Hall of Famer, A Hall of Famer in the record books, and a Hall of Famer in our hearts (or maybe just in our knuckles).

Horizontal Heroes! A Joe Mauer cameo, too.

Nick! Do you need this Jim Walewander? Is that guy in the background delivering mail, or is he about to go on safari? I guess there are at least 25 Tigers nearby...

These were some of my favorites from the bunch. The pack was 1988 Donruss. I could see through the wrapper that the card on the wax sealed side is Cal Ripken, Jr.

GIVEAWAY!

Anyone want the pack of 1988 Donruss? Just claim it first in the comments and it's yours.

CONTEST!

Guess how many cards out of the 100 I considered "keepers" - closest guess wins a reverse engineered 100 Card + 1 pack Repack of their very own. I'll put together a mailer and send it over.

Basically, just pick a number between 0 - 100.

CONTEST! Will announce a winner with Saturday's post.

Who Else Ya Got? (Another Quick Contest)

Giants and Mets go at it tonight, with two of the game's best strikeout artists facing off.

Madison Bumgarner goes for the Giants, with a postseason K/9 rate of 7.8 strikeouts, and a career rate of 8.9 Ks per 9 innings.

Noah Syndergaard takes the hill for the Metropolitans, sporting a career K/9 of 10.4, with last year's postseason run featuring an impressive 12.3 strikeouts per 9.

Which team will strike out more opposing hitters?

Tie break, how many combined strikeouts will the teams rack up?

Bonus: which *hitter* will strike out the most times?

Entries accepted until first pitch, prize will be me sending you baseball cards, I will contact the winner(s) to figure out your preferred team.

Good luck!

Who Ya Got? (A quick contest)

Orioles at Blue Jays tonight, and the on the menu we have dingers with a side of mashed taters.

 who's going yard today? Joey Bats?

Adam Jones?

Here's the contest - which team hits more Homers tonight?

Tie breaker - how many Homers total?

For a bonus, which player hits the first one?

Entries accepted until first pitch, prize will be me sending you baseball cards, I will contact the winner(s) to figure out your preferred team.

Good luck!

Update - 3 of you correctly guessed the team and # of Homers by both teams, congrats!

Generous Jeff!

Jeff from Wish They Still Came With Bubblegum sent along another PWE this week - I have been slowly gathering forces to return everyone's generousity - I've got some trade stacks going, I just need to organize and package them - they will hopefully be out the door early next week, though probably not in time for that big birthday coming up,,,

Let's take a look at the cardboard!

 A Classic! I do love collecting two Sport Stars, and guys playing the "Wtong" sport on their card is the best... Steve Nash traces his roots to Canada, where there's no shortage of love for Hockey.

 Sometimes you just have to roll with the villains. Bonds is one of my favorite villains. I also defended Pete Rose today... NO NOT FOR THAT. For steamrolling Ray Fosse. He was kind of a jerk already, bu being a jerk is maybe what made him such a great player. Certainly won't win him many points in a man of the year contest.

 A couple of the Twins' young arms. Trevor may be stuck in the bullpen this season, where he was effective, but man, if he can start? Let him start instead of Nolasco or Milone.... Sheeesh! Tyler Jay was the shiny new draft pick for the Twins out of Illinois. He was reliever, but they are going to give him a chance to start. Less college innings on his arm is a good thing!

Hrbek, Blyleven, Brunansky, and . . . can you name the fourth Twin? First correct comment will win... Something! Which I will send... next week! To the Winner! Well, that went quickly! It's Athletics' Front Office Maestro Billy Beane! Congrats to Laurens for the correct answer.

Is Chicago? Is Not Chicago! A Contest

The road trip is now over. I spent Friday with my brother in Chicago, went to the Twins/White Sox game, and of course, I found a card shop in Chicago. Earlier in my trip, I found another card shop in another part of Illinois.


Here's the contest - I will put up a series of photos of cards - half of cards are from the Chicago card shop, half are from the other Illinois card shop. Winner will get something very cool -- unopened packs of some kind...

Group A : George Scott, Tito Fuentes, and Nick Gordon

B : George Altman, Boof Bonser, and Eddie Rosario

C : Jim Thome, Corey Koskie, and Ryan Berry

D: Jerry Lynch, Jose Abreu, and Jim Kaat

E: Joe Mauer, Al Hrabosky, and Luis Tiant

F: Tony Oliva, Vic Power, and Boog Powell

To enter the contest, just leave a comment and pick which three Letters are "Not Chicago" 

Update: OK, still no winner. There are two clues now. Clue #1: F is Chicago. Clue #2: C is not Chicago. The Correct combo includes C, and does not include F
Clue #3: correct combo is " _ , C , _ " in alphabetical order.

UPDATE: We have a WINNER! Congrats, Mr. Scott! I will have the prize out to you this week.

Bonus (Claimed by Caitlin): Anyone that can identify the set the last oddball Boog Powell card is from will get something too. Looks like it is from 1971, and it is probably a food issue of some kind. The shop owner didn't know what it was, neither do I! Answer was 1971 Milk Duds

Where am I?

Here's where I started this morning:

This is on the southwestern shores of Lake Erie . . .

About 11 hours later, I found myself in front another body of water.

I'll have more details tomorrow (Saturday)  . . . long drive today (yesterday, actually)!

Quick Contest - name the Lake in the last two photos. First one to answer correctly will get something from me, from the town at this lake's southern borders.

Hint 1: Drove all day from Northern Ohio to get here.
Hint 2: There is a baseball theme to the town.
Hint 3: The lake is not named after the town.

Welp - that was Quick indeed. Jeff guessed Otsego Lake, which is correct! I am staying in Cooperstown, NY until Sunday Morning.

Good luck!

Highly Subjective News and Completely Arbitratry Notes

On Monday I will be heading out of town for a couple weeks on a (hopefully) epic road trip. I plan to continue blogging while I travel (fingers crossed for stable WiFi in these hotels), with less cards and more pictures of the adventures on the open road.

Billy Jo is my co-pilot

It will still be very baseball centric, so no worries there. I will of course also be adding baseball cards to my collection as I go if they are available, so I'll be sharing posts on that as well. I won't go into too much detail on where I'm going, hopefully that will make each destination a surprise!

When I get back I will be holding a contest, so I'll drop hints about that too as I'm traveling.

Just in case I have issues writing a new blog or trouble getting a good internet connection, I've written up several "Showing Some Skills" posts that will pop up if I don't have a new post ready to go.

Also, I've been pecking away at organizing my collection online via Zistle - if you use it too, feel free to propose a trade on the site. If you don't use it, you can still browse my trade list, so if you see something you like on there, send me an e-mail!

Contest Winner!

Congratulations to The Prowling Cat!

By correctly guessing the Rockies, this Charlie Blackmon Autograph will be on its way to you this week!

Send me an e-mail with your address and I will have it out to you shortly!

Thanks to everyone that participated and thanks for reading the blog!

Contest - Why not?

We have a WINNER! Thanks to all of you that read the blog and that participated in the contest!

There was a deal on a mini box of 2014 Stadium Club at the Local Card shop today, so I picked one up.

There's an autograph in every mini-box...

Guess the team on the autographed card, win the card!

Easy as pie.

I'll announce the winner on Monday, if someone has guessed it by then, just one guess per person, please!