So You Don't Have To Experiment #1- Worm Food

Today I start my “So you don’t have to” series and I am beginning with the one that will take the longest to accomplish so it will be first. I chose today because it is my 45^th Birthday today so it will be easy for me to remember the end date of the experiment.

The first experiment comes from Fuji who wondered if all of the commons from the beginning of the junk wax era that he donated to Goodwill would have been better as worm compost. We will have to wait one year but we will finally have our answer on May 30, 2018.

Fuji specifically mentioned 1988 and 1989 Topps but after doing studies of the local environment, the weather patterns and local indigenous plant life and wildlife in Northern Arizona I took in to consideration the composition of the cardboard that Topps was using in 1988 and 1989 I came up with a decision to instead use cards from the 1990 Bowman baseball release. No, just kidding, actually I just happened to have three 1990 Bowman Mike Boddicker cards and since they are similar to the ’88 and ’89 Topps cards they became the donor cards for this experiment.

I dug an elongated hole along the southeast wall in my backyard, one half of the hole is three inches down and the other half of the hole is six inches down. This section is open to the sun and elements and is clear of vegetation. I placed a card flat at three inches and one card flat at six inches with the third card between them standing up so the bottom of the card is at six inches and the top at three inches.

Where the cards are buried they will encounter air temperatures that range from around 10-15 degrees during the winter to 100-105 degrees during the summer. There will be rain, snow and high winds as well as small animals and birds. I don’t expect the animals will affect the cards but they may in some way that I don’t see happening so I wanted to include them in the list.

We will see the Boddicker triplets next spring.

If you have any more ideas of things I can do so you don't have to I would love to hear them. Check out my initial post that includes the list of things I will be doing and feel free to leave a comment if you have something else you would like added.

A Day To Honor Our Heroes

Today we honor all of the men and women who have given their lives in the service of our country. Since 1775 over 1.34 million U.S. soldiers have died during war and another 1.5 million were wounded. They have given all to ensure that the rest of us have our freedom, for this we thank you and your families

Possible Bad News For One NBA Player

Sometimes professional sports have a juicy soap opera storyline that doesn’t involve a Twitter argument, though there are Twitter posts involved here, and this one has gone pretty far to even hit on the international level.

NBA player Enes Kanter, who is from Turkey, was detained in a Romanian airport last week after Turkey invalidated his passport. Kanter has made it known that he is not a fan of the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and while detained Kanter made a video that he posted on Twitter where he compares the Turkish President with Adolf Hitler which you figure didn’t go over well.

In response, the Turkish government has issued an arrest warrant for Kanter claiming that he is being sought as a member of a terror group. The government has even applied for an Interpol red notice, which if approved will mean that Enes Kanter is seen as a terrorist and will be arrested on sight by any supporting nations which means the US could arrest him and he can be extradited back to Turkey.

Even though this is an obvious attempt by a repressive government attempting to silence an outspoken citizen it should be taken as a grave issue. This could go extremely badly for Kanter if the red notice is approved and it doesn’t help that he did turn to Twitter with a negative response saying “You cannot catch me. Hahaha. Don’t waste your energy. I am already going to come to spit on all of your ugly, hate-filled faces.”

Now isn’t this a better storyline than anything LaVar Ball spouts out to any news outlet that will listen to him?

Batman's Dark Victories

In 2008 Rittenhouse released the Batman Archives set which highlighted the history of Batman going back to his origination in 1939. The base set was all of the comic book covers going back to the first issue but there were three insert sets along with sketch cards with the 9 Dark Victory cards grabbing my attention. I have wanted these cards since the release because they are black light cards, some sellers list them as Glow-In-The-Dark but they are not. Individual card prices have remained stable for the past near decade and you could expect to pay $5-8 a card and with there being 9 cards in the set I wasn’t ready to pay that price.

Last year I found a seller who had the complete insert set for a little more than it would have cost to purchase two individual cards so I hit the BIN immediately. I did hit the buy button rather quick without even really looking through the cards, it was more a “Win” in my mind and I wasn’t too worried about the cards condition. In the end the set came in and was in great shape with no chipped edges or scratches, I could not have been happier.

The card's surface are a matte black with the images created using a reverse negative effect printed in a two-step neon ink with each character being one color and some white on the cards with a reflective Batman logo in one of the corners.

The set is made up of:

DV1 The Riddler
DV2 Scarecrow
DV3 Catwoman

DV4 Penguin
DV5 Batman
DV6 Joker

DV7 Mr. Freeze
DV8 Poison Ivy
DV9 Two-Face

The entire collection:

Another Cavalcade Of Griffey Cards V

This card is my second Griffey card of 2017, and it is from the 2009 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions set and was a background variation of the base card. Griffey’s base card in the set has the same pose but the background is a sunrise (or sunset not sure) while this is the Moonlight Variation with a cloudy evening with a full moon behind him.

There were 15 cards with the Moonlight background and in addition to Griffey there was Ryne Sandberg, Grady Sizemore, Barrak Obama, Ozzie Smith, Tiger Woods, Ichiro, Gerry Lopez, Andy Pettitte, Cal Ripken Jr, Ryan Howard, Smarty Jones, Troy Tulowitzki, Chien-Ming Wang and Gordy Howe.

Had this card not been on my want list since 2009 I would not have bought it but it is one of those “I don’t know when I will see one again” type of cards.

I Have Sadness In My Heart Today

This morning I was saddened to see that Roger Moore passed away at the age of 89 after battling cancer and with his passing was a bit of my childhood. He was the first James Bond that I ever saw and sent me down the road of Ian Fleming’s dashing tales of England’s best spy. I first saw For Your Eyes Only in theater when I was 9-years old, Octopussy when I was 11-years old and by the time I saw A View To A Kill at 13-years old I was hooked. In all Moore appeared as Bond in 7 films and added a bit of humor to the role during a time when campy movies were a thing.

A couple of hours later I found out that former Seattle Seahawk Cortez Kennedy also passed away this morning at the age of 48 of unknown causes. The Orlando Police Department stated that Kennedy was alone when he passed away and that nothing appears suspicious. I am not certain when an autopsy will be performed but most states have laws that when someone dies unaccompanied by medical staff an autopsy is required.

Kennedy spent his entire 11-year career in Seattle and was inducted in to the NFL Hall of Fame in 2012 and today “12s” worldwide are mourning his passing.

I tend to steer clear of political and religious discussions here so I will just end my post with my heart goes out to all of those who were affected by the suicide bombing in Manchester last night.

Why Does An Error Have To Become A Huge Issue?

My parents gave me an early birthday present, a couple of eBay gift cards for $50 total, so I decided to order something that I have wanted for a long time some Star Wars Samurai figures. There are quite a few people selling these around the same price so I picked a company that had both a Boba Fett and Stormtrooper Samurai figure and it came out to just under $40 shipped for both figures so I ordered them and for some reason, they shipped the figures separately even though they were on the same order.

I tracked the items and they were delivered, one to an address in Crestview, Florida on May 17^th and one to an address in San Diego, California on May 18^th.  A little bit off considering I live in Arizona and so I waited another day to see if it was just an error and on Friday I filed a case on eBay saying I did not receive the items and that I still wanted them. Someone from the company responded right away saying they will look in to it and would get back to me.

Sunday I got two emails saying that items I was watching are no longer available and the listings have been deleted. It was the two items I had purchased so the listings disappeared out of my Purchase list and removed the tracking numbers from eBay (I still had the tracking numbers in Paypal and email). OK, no concern yet and eBay had set the escalation date as May 25^th so I was just going to wait and let the company respond and figured I would at least get my money back if nothing happened by the 25^th. I also filed a lost mail claim with the USPS to see if they could track down my order.

A little over an hour ago I got two emails stating that the company had filed claims against me and wanted eBay to rule in their favor. That made me angry so I called eBay, the company claimed I received the figures and that I was trying to scam them to get my money back but when eBay requested the tracking information showing my address was on the packages when it originated in China they refused to give that info to eBay and whoever was in contact with eBay from the company was demanding that eBay make the decision today. Well, the company got their wish…eBay decided in the case today, for me, and my money will be refunded. I just checked and all the company’s auctions have been deleted and the company is no longer a registered user.

All I wanted was two action figures that I paid for, nothing more, and the company screwed up and probably just had the wrong address on the labels. Not a huge issue, they could have made things right easily but had to try to make this about them being scammed instead of an error. I mean, how much do these figures cost them? Maybe a couple of bucks apiece.

OK, my rant is over.

A New Job On A New Frontier?

Recently Pete Carrol said that the Seahawks may have some interest in RG3 and Colin Kaepernick because currently the Seahawks only have Trevone Boykin as backup QB and having an additional backup who can run the offense like Russell Wilson is a bonus. But yesterday the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League announced that they have acquired the rights to both RG3 and Kaepernick as well as Johnny Manziel.

Because the players are all still considered NFL free agents any NFL team has first shot at the players but if for some reason one of them decides to head to Canada then Hamilton has the rights to sign them before any other team can sign them. At this point none of the three players have even mentioned any plans for their future.

Too Good To Be True? Yup

Have you ever wanted an autograph signed by a 12-year old LeBron James? How about an 8-year old Kevin Durant? Well now you can according to one scammer he has a collection of 1996-97 Skybox Autographics that some how includes players who were not even out of middle school at the time.  To cover his ass the scammer is saying the cards came from a bulk storage but that they appear genuine.

A seller named pmitch_82, who somehow has over 6000 feedback with 100% positive feedback, is selling cards that he is claiming came from the 1996-97 Skybox Autographics set. Other players he is selling as part of the set, Carmelo Anthony (12-years old in 1996), Chris Paul (12-years in 1996), Dwayne Wade (14 years-old in 1996) and Derrick Rose (8-years old in 1996).

The cards are all signed with the same blue ink, except Allen Iverson, and some people on the Blowout Forums are saying that it appears that the autographs are not real but may really be facsimiles. What is even scarier is that every one of the cards have bids with the LeBron James card currently sitting at $112 and Charles Barkley at $100 even.

For the record, none of the players he is selling even appeared on the 1996-97 Skybox Autographics checklist and this includes the players who were active at the time like Barkley and Shaq. For comparison my 1996-97 Skybox Autographics Steve Kerr autograph is below.

The NBA Draft Lottery Ends Up Being About #2

If you listened closely last night you would have probably heard LaVar Ball popping the cork off of his champagne bottle after the LA Lakers got the #2 pick in the Lottery Draft.

LaVar has said some crazy shit about his amazing (fictional) athletic prowess and how his son Lonzo is the greatest blah blah blah. One of the things he has said is "My boy is going to play for the Lakers, and I'm going to speak it into existence" and if you believe some of the talk this is what may have happened. The rumors of the NBA fixing the lottery so the Lakers get the #2 pick have already started swirling.

The discussion has been going back and forth about who would be taken in the #1 spot, either Markelle Fultz or Lonzo Ball but now that the order of the draft has been determined we can expect the Celtics to take Fultz and the Lakers take Ball. Did LaVar just talk the NBA in to setting up his kid in LA? I know there have been conspiracy theories with the draft and while this draw may have been completely coincidental it gives people more evidence to stoke their theories.

Another Cavalcade Of Griffey Cards V

I have not been spending much money on cards this year and because I am catching up with medical bills I have decided to make a couple of cheap purchases to add to my Griffey collection. These two set me back just around $1 shipped and are just the second and third Griffey cards that I purchased this year.

Both cards are from 2017 Topps and the first card is the Topps Rediscovered promo card

 

The second card is the Topps 30^th Anniversary card

Anymore Ideas Of What I Can Do So You Don't Have To?

The list that I have put together for my “So you don’t have to” posts is up to 14 items, including the three from this past weekend. I am excited about this because there are things I have wanted to do to cards and now I have a reason to do them. I am setting parameters for each experiment because I want them to be easily replicated if anyone else wants to give it a try.

Most will take minutes or maybe a day to accomplish but there is one that will take time, that is Fuji’s suggestion about finding out if junk wax can be turned in to worm compost. I have begun the process setting up this experiment, I plan to make this a one year project which I will be starting next week.

If anyone has any more suggestions just let me know, I would love to add more items to the list. The list may be altered a bit here and there, some are nearly the same so I may just include them in one experiment. Here is what I have so far:

Burn a chrome card
Create sketch card
Create a collage

Create a custom card

Create multi-layer card/3D

Place a card in bike spokes

Place a card out in the environment for 1 year

Remove auto sticker

Place removed sticker

Remove a card from graded case

Remove a manufactured patch from a card

Remove a medallion from a card
Separate base cards (split layers)

Separate a jersey card

Separate a patch card

Skin a chrome card

Skin a Prizm
Submerge base cards in bleach
Submerge graded cards in water

What Can I Do So You Don't Have To?

The other day I did something to a card I had never considered before just to see what would happen, more on this in a future post, and it got me wondering if there was anything else that I could do that I had never considered doing before.

I have come up with a short list of things I plan on doing so you don’t have to do it but I would like some input to add to the list. A couple of things on the list include skinning certain types of cards and removing an autograph sticker. 

Question: What is something you would like to see done to a card but have never done?

Wallet Card #3

Time for a wallet card adventure. One thing that I like about small towns is that you tend to see some wonderful murals by local artists. There is a small town halfway between where I live and Phoenix called Black Canyon City and this mural is on the side of gas station in the area.

I am not sure if it was painted as one mural with the cars in the foreground and the horses in the background or if they were painted as two different murals at two different times. Next time I am there I should take a closer look to see if I can see separate complete levels.

Vintage Card Of The Month: 2005 UD Origins Satchel Paige

This month’s Vintage Card of the Month is not officially a vintage card but the subject began his career in 1926 so I am including this in the vintage series. The card is from the 2005 Upper Deck Origins release and is a 5x7 tin box topper of Satchel Paige.

In 2005 I opened a tin of UD Origins, the box contained 20 cards, one was a relic, plus one box topper. My relic was Randy Johnson so I was cool with that but nothing else was special besides the box topper of Satchel Paige. Like the box that it came in the 5x7 cards are also tin with blank backs and really reminds me of an advertising sign. I am currently not displaying the card and it is packed away but when I did have a man cave it was included in my displays.

This image is one of those that has been sitting in my scan folder just waiting for me to include in a post and now that I am not buying anything new it makes it appearance as a Vintage Card of the Month post.

Paige began his career in the Negro Leagues with the Chattanooga Black Lookouts in 1926 and his career lasted 40 years and spanned 5 different decades. His last official game was 1965 when he played in a single game for the Kansas City Athletics but his last regular appearance was in 1953 with the St Louis Browns. After the 1965 game, he did play minor league baseball in 1966 and 1967 and even worked in some time with the Harlem Globetrotters.

Unfortunately, the stats from his playing days are incomplete so it is difficult to tell how overwhelming he really was in his career. From the records that were kept from the Negro Leagues and MLB he went 128-81 with a 3.29 ERA and includes 7 All-Star appearances. He has two World Series Titles, one with the KC Monarchs in 1942 and one with the Cleveland Indians in 1948, and in 1971 he was inducted in to the Hall of Fame.

Another Case Of An Athlete Not Signing Their Own Autographs

Another case of someone else signing for an athlete, this time it is Takkarist McKinley’s autographs in 2017 Panini Contenders Draft and 2017 Panini Elite Draft. Panini is offering replacements to anyone pulling a McKinley auto from either of those products but it should be noted that they have not stated what they intend to replace his autographs with or when.

I am not sure how they figured it out because he just signs “Takk” and they all look the same. He did recently have surgery on his dominant arm so I can understand why he wouldn’t want to sign the cards but he should have just waited instead of having someone else do it. These people are being paid to sign autographs and if they accept a contract to sign they should treat this as a job and do their damn work they agreed to do. He signed for both SAGE and Leaf but that was before his surgery and both companies have come out since Panini’s announcement and said their McKinley autograph cards are authentic.  

Dustin Clay Of DnT Sports Breaks Caught Stealing Live On-Air

Last week a worst-case scenario happened that many people who buy in to breaks worry about. The breaker, in this case Dustin Clay of DnT Sports, stole a major hit and while he was called out on it and did own up to it the card he is claiming he attempted to steal is not the card that was stolen.

Here is the video with a narration to point out how it happened:

00:20 seconds He opens the box, notices the huge hit, closes the lid to hide it and slides it out so nobody can see.

00:25 seconds He sets the major hit on the edge of the table

00:30 seconds Opens the pack, keeps talking about the Mister Brandon Cooks #/99 card

00:49 seconds Slides the box bottom to the left, you can hear the major hit card fall

1:00 You hear him fiddling through encased cards while he searches for a card to replace the major hit

1:09 Moves the bottom of the box over the screen

1:22 Removes the box bottom and you can see that there are two cards stacked up differently than they were originally

1:25 Claims he was answering an email to explain him not paying attention

1:34 Shows the Kerry Collins autograph, which is the card he uses to replace the major hit

1:45 The viewer, who was recording the break on his phone, switches to the comments section where people watching also figured out the switch and stolen card

Now that this was caught and went viral Dustin Clay came out on a FB group and admitted what he did and claims the card he stole was an Ezekiel Elliot Autographed Honors card. Here is his post:

People have gone to Sherlock Holmes extent to figure out what card he actually stole using one of the few images of the card. It is obvious that the card is not the EZE auto card because those cards are all white along the top edge while this card has a white border down one side and darker (blue?) along the rest of the card. Currently the three cards that keep coming up as the card potentially stolen is

1998 Playoff Contenders Tickets Peyton Manning

2000 Playoff Contenders Ticket Tom Brady

2012 Playoff Contenders Ticket Andrew Luck

Here is the 2016 Autographed Honors EZE card for comparison to show it is not the card he claims the card was that he took. 

Dustin Clay has since shut down his social media accounts and deleted videos but some people have done some diligent work and came up with quite a bit of his personal information, but I won’t include that, but I will include his eBay account because I am sure many people will be watching to see if a high dollar card shows up.

Dnt-sports-collectables

Somebody has already done a DnT scam spoof video, short but funny

The Art Gallery: 2014 Historia Sketches Of History Buddha

This month’s Art Gallery display comes from the comic artist Lee Bradley, a British illustrator who has worked on comic books like Spider-man, Transformers, TMNT, Star Wars and Mars Attacks and is currently doing some side work for Marvel on their “Avengers: Age of Ultron” card set.

The set is the 2014 Historia Sketches of History, a complete sketch card set that includes sketches of famous people like Mark Twain, King Henry VIII and various Presidents. The company has seemed to have disappeared and their web site is parked (meaning it is paid up but shut down by the company). I wrote this post in 2015, yes some posts have been waiting patiently for a long time for me to post, but the company is definitely gone now and their web site is no where to be found and I can only find one sketch card that sold this year and that was in February.

I love the color and detail that Bradley used creating the Buddha card with the Dharma wheel on his hand, third eye and even the manji on his chest adds to the overall beauty. The seller had post two dozen cards sketch cards from the 2014 Historia Sketches of History set and 23 of them sold. This cost me $5.75 shipped, which was about the middle of the price range of all of the cards that sold.

May The Fo(rce)urth Be With You VII

Another May 4^th and another unofficial National Star Wars Day. This will be my 7th year in a row that I post something about Star Wars so this year I am posting some of my own sketch cards. 

2016 Yoda w/ green glow in the dark light saber

2017 Jedi Temple Guard w/ yellow glow in the dark light saber

2017 Darth Maul w/ dark light saber also called the black saber