Sue Bird RC #2

I finally found a 2002 Ultra Sue Bird RC for a reasonable price. Someone who was selling the 2002 Ultra WNBA rookie SP cards (#101-120) for $39 and I wasn’t going to pass it up. When Bird’s card alone sells for $40-60 for a raw copy, I came out ahead on this purchase.

Bump It 8x10

I picked up the most unusual item awhile back and it sat in my closet until recently when I was looking for some 8x10s I had stored. It is a Fist Bump and Kiss Bump 8x10 autograph. 

Ashlee Evans-Smith is a character, she is part punker and part Conor McGregor and she makes some very interesting Twitter posts that are always fun.  

Topps has released fist bump cards in both MMA and WWE, but they are always expensive, so I went a different route. This was a custom piece that the guy had made to bring to one of the MMA conventions, he has other fighters too but most I didn’t know. I am disappointed that the background is pixelated, but it is a cool discussion piece and will display nicely with the autographed MMA fighting gloves that I have. Now if I just had a man cave where I could display my collection.

Monday Question Day- How Do You Protect Your Cards

Today is question day:

Do you do anything special in regard to storing your collection?

Since I returned to collecting 1992/93 I have lived in two different environments. In Arizona I deal with high heat, strong sun and dry air. In Washington (Seattle) there was more moisture in the air and typically was colder overall compared to the temps in Arizona.

I keep most of my collection in a bedroom closet, this keeps everything out of the light and relatively temperature controlled. 

I have never had environment damage to my cards, but l heard some horror stories from poor storage. In Arizona I have heard of people storing their cards in the garage or in a storage unit and everything dries out and cracks. Autographs disappear and cards with glossy coatings bake together. In Seattle’s wet climate, mold becomes a very real concern anywhere you have an exterior wall at or below ground level because moisture seeps through and mold grows.

Congratulations Darth Bader, Bellator's New Heavyweight Champion

Last night Ryan Bader won the Bellator Heavyweight Championship, making him the first champion in Bellator to hold belts in two different weight classes. 

I did not add much to my Ryan Bader collection last year, only six cards and two of those were with my COMC order. I did just purchase a Ryan Bader custom ticket stub relic card with a ticket from Bellator 199 but that is an ACEO.  With adding only six official cards to my collection I am now sitting at 152 unique Bader out of a possible 334 cards, this includes his #1/1 cards, putting me at 45.5% of his collection. If you remove the 105 #1/1 cards that I am missing (mostly printing plates from 2011 sets) I am now sitting at 66.3% of all Bader cards. 

I have not made any collecting goals for a couple of years, but I want to focus a bit more on my Bader collection. Most that I am missing are lower serial numbered parallels that don’t show up too often so I will have to really double down on my searches and hit up other options outside of eBay and COMC.

2011 Topps Finest UFC Fight Mat Jumbo Autographed Relic 

2011 Topps Finest UFC Flag Bearers. This is a four-card set, the letters spell out “USA” and the 4^th card is a US flag. I have seen the “U” and the flag cards show up but I was on the fence until now.

2011 Topps Moment of Truth Showdown Shots w/ Tito Ortiz Red parallel 

2011 Topps Moment of Truth Showdown Shots Dual Auto w/ Tito Ortiz

2015 Topps UFC Chronicles #78 Green parallel

2017 Topps UFC Knockout Fearless Fighter Autos

The Art Gallery 2.0 - 2013 Cult Stuff Civil War Chronicles Volume II Confederate Soldier

Welcome to The Art Gallery 2.0. I have so many sketch cards that I have 11 The Art Gallery posts in my Drafts listing and I still have sketch cards that I have scanned and waiting so for now, I figured why not share art twice a month?

This sketch card is from Michael Hannan, a visual artist from Tennessee, and was inserted in the 2013 Cult Stuff Civil War Chronicles Volume II. Hannan has been creating art since the early 70s and is no longer as active as he once was and has basically retired. 

When I was younger I was interested in the Civil War and did a lot of reading. As I have gotten older I am not interested as I once was but I do like Cult Stuff’s Civil War releases and I was excited to come across this sketch card of a Confederate soldier in full charge.

Vintage Card Of The Month: 1933 Goudey Sport Kings Duke Kahanamoku

 

This month’s VCoM comes from one of the most amazing sports sets ever, the 1933 Goudey Sport Kings Gum set. The 48-card set was released throughout 1933 and 1934 in packs of Sport Kings gum by Goudey.

Goudey did an amazing job with an awesome checklist, which was a complete necessity to get children to part with their pennies in the midst of the Great Depression and included athletes from a large variety of sports. Along with baseball, basketball, football and hockey there are also summer and winter Olympians as well as a number of outdoor athletes. Some of the big names are Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Red Grange, Jim Thorpe, Walter Hagen, Gene Tunney, Johnny Weissmuller and Bobby Jones.

Now you may remember a couple of years ago where I posted about purchasing a fake version of this card as part of a collection, last year I finally added a real one to my collection and I can tell you that visually the cards are night and day and you can tell which is real. I am very excited about adding this to my collection.

You Do You Boo Boo!

Upper Deck can not produce MLB licensed card, but they can lampoon their own baseball cards from previous sets. In the 2019 Deadpool set, that comes out next week, Upper Deck is recreating some of their iconic sports cards. I was already interested in the set, there is going to be glass and lenticular cards in the set, but I love these sports cards.

I have seen the checklist for the Sport Ball insert (I listed the checklist below), though not the images, and three cards are from 1989 Upper Deck baseball. If am really hoping Deadpool shows up as Ken Griffey Jr, if so that is one I am going to have to get one. 

Here is the Sport Ball insert checklist for the 2019 Deadpool release. I am really surprised they don't have Michael Jordan's 1986-87 Fleer rookie.

SB1 1989 Upper Deck Baseball
SB2 1989 Upper Deck Baseball
SB3 1992 Upper Deck Basketball
SB4 1989 Fleer Baseball
SB5 1987 Fleer Baseball
SB6 1990-1991 Upper Deck Hockey
SB7 1991-1992 Upper Deck Hockey
SB8 1989 Upper Deck Baseball
SB9 1994 Collector’s Choice Baseball
SB10 1986 Fleer Baseball
SB11 1988 Fleer Baseball
SB12 1984 Fleer Baseball

Edgar! Edgar! Edgar! Hall Of Fame!!!

The announcement has been made and Edgar Martinez is the second Mariner to be elected to the MLB Hall of Fame. 

Edgar is one of my mini-PCs, so I’ll share some of my favorite cards.

A little chin music for one of the best pure hitters

Prediction Cards And Monday Question Day

The die is cast, the teams have been selected and in 2 weeks we will see who will become the NFL Champion at Super Bowl LIII in Atlanta on February 3rd. The boxes for Sports Card Super Bowl IX are in my hand and I am ready to let the sports cards do the talking.

This year I went with three mega boxes; 2018 Panini Playoff, 2018 Panini Prizm and 2018 Panini Absolute. 19 packs, 140 cards (including 3 autos and 3 relics) will predict if the Patriots will add a sixth title or if the Rams will win their second. Find out 2/3/19 to see what the cards predict

Since it is Monday Question Day, I will add a random question.

Does anyone know the odds for both MLB and NFL having a Boston/LA matchup playing for the Championship? Will we see Celtics/Lakers and Bruins/Kings championship series in NBA and NHL?

I don't know, I am honestly wondering if anyone crunched the numbers.

First Card Of The Year

The first card of the year for me is this 2010 Topps UFC Main Event The Ultimate Fighter Ryan Bader #TT-38 card. It is the Diamond parallel Topps Vault version. The Diamond parallel is a #1/1 so this is a #1/1 Topps Vault version of a #1/1 card, so odd. 

Too Many Variations

I know I am late to the game on this one, but I have talked about my distaste for variations. Did Topps really need to release a variation in the 2013 Chrome set of Prince Fielder’s hair? Sadly, this isn’t even the first time I have talked Topps’s decision to focus on hair on a baseball card, that distinction goes to 2017 Topps Now Bryce Harper Epic Hair Flip BS.

This isn’t a rant about hair, but un-needed variations, the hair/DNA cards are actually pretty cool.

Question Day- Ripped Off?

Today is question day:

Have you ever been burned on a purchase?

I have never had any major situations where I was scammed, partially because I am a skinflint and keep my purchases reasonable, but I have had two cases that cost me about $20 between them.

Many years ago I purchased a 1989 Score Troy Aikman rookie card. I couple of years later I purchased a 1989 Score Deion Sanders rookie card and when I compared the two the Aikman was an obvious counterfeit. Now you are probably wondering why someone would fake a $5-8 card, it is because at one time this was a card that would regularly sell over $50 and so I am guessing this card had been floating around since the days of those higher values. 

The second would be a 1933 Sport Kings Duke Kahanamoku. It was part of a collection of vintage cards that I picked up as one lot. The card got packed away because I was getting ready to move and by the time I got a closer look and realized it was a bad counterfeit many months had passed, and I was well past the time to get a refund. Since it was part of a larger lot I don’t feel like I got ripped off, just a lesson learned. I had talked about this one back in 2016 after I realized the card was fake. 

The Art Gallery- 2005 Breygent John Wayne

This month’s Art Gallery display is from Chris Henderson, who has an amazing talent with realistic images using just a pencil. He does work in color too but there are certain sets where every sketch is done in pencil and they are done well. Henderson has done a lot of work for Breygent, and those are usually the sketch card sets done almost all in pencil with minimal color. I believe this is because he is the only sketch card artist for those sets so he has a lot of cards to do in a limited time and pencil line sketches are easier to produce but don’t take that as they are not quality art.

The card is from Breygent’s 2005 John Wayne set and features the Duke in cowboy gear. When it came to John Wayne it was almost always a cowboy flick or a military flick so all of the sketch cards that I have seen fit in those two genres.

Would You Like A Sticker With Your Stickergraph?

Nobody likes sticker autographs, not when on-card autographs are available. But Panini decided to double down and add sticker autographs to stickers.

In the 2018-19 Panini Treble Soccer, a product that has a $225 SRP, includes hits that are Panini World Cup Stickers (from previous sticker releases) embedded in to a card with a sticker autograph. Not all the sticker/cards have stickergraphs, some of the biggest names did sign on-sticker/card but that doesn’t excuse using sticker autographs on any cards in a product like this.

Question Day- School Pride?

Today is question day:

Do you collect players from your school(s)?

I went to an art college, no sports teams, but I spent my youth in Tucson, so I collect University of Arizona players in their college uniform. I have begun to add some players from my high school to my collection, quite a few went on to a college / semi-pro / professional career. I had done a post this past November for John Beck, the first of my mini-PC of former Mountain View Toros.

Deadpool Is Traveling Again

Last year Deadpool traveled around America in the 2017 Fleer Ultra Marvel Spider-Man release, he sent me post cards form Seattle and the Grand Canyon. This year he traveled around the world in the 2018 Fleer Ultra X-Men release. Being the considerate guy that he is, he sent me postcards from his time in Japan and China.

A Goal? Well Sorta

Happy New Year! 

I’ve struggled with collecting modern cards, I am not going to rehash the complaints collectors have with the newer sets but just know that I am feeling the same way. It makes me sad that these thoughts have even crossed my mind.  

I wouldn’t say it is necessary to “re-ignite” my feelings, just a re-direction. When I was a kid, I loved ripping packs of Star Wars cards. I would go through my collection, add the missing cards and trade dupes. I would then wrap a rubber band around the set and place them in a shoe box. I want those feelings again, so I decided that vintage Star Wars is where I am going to focus. As I typed out the set lists, I started to feel better.

Nothing modern, no parallels and for now, no inserts or stickers.