So, I took a minute tonight to take stock of where I am with my budding baseball card collection. I’ve made some good progress and have managed to finish off a couple sets already. I created a new page, Cards, to chronical them all. I’ve got to scan some of my more interesting hits for posting and to update my “for trade” list. Anyway, if you happen to have anything on my list, leave a comment and let me know.
Fixed a couple compatibility issues and we’re all set again. Man, upgrading to WP 3.2 and dealing with all the TimThumb, jQuery issues is a huge pain. Luckily I had been working on exactly the same thing at work and knew right where to look to fix the problems. Anyway, should be go for now. Carry on.
It seems like the baseball card collecting community is all about the love. I’ve seen dozens of sites running all sorts of contests, most out of the goodness of their hearts and “for the love of the game”. See what I did there. Anyway, my buddy Sam is no exception. Not only did he hook me up with a sweet Ellsbury relic card to start off my collection, but he’s running a contest as well. Check it out.
So, the last time I checked in, I mentioned I was buying baseball cards again. Well, turns out it’s really friggin fun, so I’m spending way too much money on it and need to cut back. My reasoning behind my little binge was that, since I hadn’t dabbled in the world of cards since I was 8, I kinda wanted to see what was out there. So, I bought a little of this, a little of that, and I think I’ve settled on what kinds of cards I’m looking to collect long term. Red Sox cards, team sets and the occasional relic/autograph. What that means is that packs, blasters and hobby boxes are pretty much a waste of time and money for me. I don’t intend to pick up the entire 300+ card set of whatever is the hot product of the month. So, I’ve decided to myself that if/when I do pick up a random product it will be a) for fun, b) not for collecting and c) just to see what it’s like. It’s simply easier and more cost effective to purchase the complete set of a series on ebay for $5.99 than it is to buy a blaster box for $20 or a hobby box for $80 and get complete garbage.
Case in point. This morning I picked up a $20 blaster box of Bowman Platinum. Bowman is an offshoot (resurrected brand) of Topps and focuses on rookies and prospects. Glancing at the checklist for the set, there are only 8 current Red Sox players (the set does have some current MLB player along with the rookies and prospects) and 4 prospects. There’s only 100 base cards in the entire thing. The box I bought was $20. After opening the box, realizing I liked the product, and searching for it on ebay I was able to purchase the 8 Red Sox players from a dealer for $5 shipped. I could have saved $15, but at the same time, I would have never known how cool these cards were. So, $15 well spent? Yeah, I’d say so. I got paid today, have the spare $15 and don’t mind spending it for the fun thrill to open some packs. I’d put a value on that. $15 is also about what I spent on lunch. So $20 isn’t really the end of the world. One blaster box, every pay day (2 weeks) isn’t going to hurt, and makes me happy, so I’m good with it.
So, Bowman Platinum is definitely a cool product, and one I’m going to keep on my radar going forward. Allen & Ginter however, I’m completely over. I got a box of that as well and got completely hosed. No autos, no relics, 2 stupid short prints, tons of dupes. That was it. I also got two completely identical packs. The same cards. Which wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t hit the exact same pack in a previous box. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that 3 identical packs, separated by boxes, time and distribution location, are an indication of exactly how poor and “not random” Topps quality control is. I’m going to find the few Red Sox cards I need to complete this years set and then never buy it again. I was all excited it because of it’s retro feel, the thicker weighted cards, the higher production value, but was really disappointed in the end result. I’ve had more fun buying completely basic “base” Topps cards this year than I have with Allen & Ginter boxes.
Anyway, I’ll be on the look out for base sets of various products from now on and just troll ebay every once in a while for parallels or cool relics. That’s all that really appeal to me at the moment. I also have a lot to go backwards and catch up on. I’m already done with 2011 Topps Series 1 & 2 (just waiting on the update/traded player cards this fall), Topps Chrome, and Bowman Platinum (with the purchase of the a fore mentioned team set). All I need to find is a couple A&G cards and about 1/3 of the remaining Gypsy Queen cards and I’ll be pretty much done with 2011. Then I guess I’ll try and do 2010 and keep moving backwards, but I’ve already got a couple of those sets as well. I’m not sure how far I want to go back, but I’m thinking 2000-2003 is probably about it. Nothing from the 90’s appeals to me.
I also wanted to show off some random stuff I’ve hit in various boxes. Like I said, I was kinda buying a little of everything. I picked up a box of just about every line I came across at Target or Walmart. Upper Deck, Bowman, Topps, A&G, Opening Day, Chrome, etc, etc. I’ve put up a Google Photos gallery with “trade bait” (link in the sidebar) that shows some of them, and what I’m posting now is just what I’ve taken photos of with my phone, so it’s far from exhaustive (and leaves out 99% of the base cards I’ve found), but it kinda gives you an idea.
Matt out
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So much going on, so much to do and so precious little time to do it all in. You guys don’t mind if I do this one all shotgun approach do you? Good.
So, the kiddo is apparently cutting teeth, which is tough for everyone. It makes her completely miserable and short of giving her some baby Tylenol, there’s really nothing that will help her. She’s also congested and tired and cranky, which makes Mom and Dad tired and cranky.
Also, my father-in-law is back in the hospital. More stomach problems. I took him to the ER at 3am on Tuesday, that was fun. He was in pretty bad shape, so he needed to go, and I didn’t mind taking him at all, it was just a long night. We’re still dealing with the fallout from that. Someone needs to watch my mother-in-law 24/7 these days, so we’re trying to find sitters and nurses during the day. Last night we didn’t have anyone, so we had to spend the night. Charlotte had to sleep in a bouncy seat and I got the couch. Hopefully we can find someone for tonight because I’m not sure my back can take much more.
On the job front, I’m banging my head against a wall over WordPress updating jQuery and hosing just about everyone on the planet. Every theme for every site I’ve done in the past two years needs to be updated and a lot of them are either discontinued, stagnant or just flat out broken, including our corporate website and our intranet. So, yeah, that’s keeping me busy.
Google Plus is turning out to be handy. The mobile app on my phone is simple and easy to use and the website is pretty strait forward. I like the service, I’m just wanting it to be a little more robust at the moment. Twitter is dead to me. The 140 character limit made it almost a game to fit your thought into such a small space. Since I’m long winded, it was a game I often lost. So, there’s no love-loss there, I’m just done with Twitter. I tired it, it has it’s uses, but now it’s dead. Compared to Facebook (which I deleted my profile off of as soon as they opened it to the public and not just people with .edu email addresses), G+ seems to really be making an effort to keep things simple and clean, which I can appreciate. I love that there are no ads, no games, no apps, no pointless shit like “gifting” or any of that junk. I also really like the circle concept as a filter for my content. The one thing I wish it did have , and I’m sure it’ll happen soon, is an API that someone could write a hook for. I’d love to be able to either post in WP, or G+ and have it sync in either direction.
I’ve been picking up more and more baseball cards as well. Sam’s helped me get into it and was nice enough to give me a big box of supplies, which was very awesome of him. My original goal was to tryout a bunch of stuff and see what I liked, then go after that. Turns out that I like a couple different sets, so my focus changed a little. The plan now is to collect Red Sox players and try to get the whole team for each different set, per year. So, for example, this years Allen & Ginter set has 15 Red Sox cards (and a couple inserts) out of a set of 350 cards. Collecting the entire 350 just isn’t going to happen, budget or time wise, but 15 cards I can probably handle. The all-powerful eBay is also helping out with that. I can buy the 15 cards for $4.99 at the moment. So, the focus is team sets. I’ll pick up packs/blasters for fun whenever I have the extra cash, but just for fun and to search for “cool stuff” like relics or autographs. I think I’ll also put up a list of cards I’m searching for in the sidebar, just for fun.
We’ve also been doing a bit of cleaning, especially in our guest room. My brother is coming to stay with us for a while. He got accepted into law school down here, so he needs a place to stay for a semester or two. Until he has enough cash and an apartment, he’ll be crashing with us. It’ll be good to have an extra hand around the house and he’s offered to chip in some cash here and there with the job he’s yet to find, so, we’ll see how that goes. On the upside, I’ll have someone to finish the co-op campaign in Portal 2 with, lol.
Lastly, I’ve been thinking about getting myself a Playstation 3. Our home DVD is A) crappy, B) Dying and C) an HD-DVD player, which means that it’s HD playback potential is non-existent because HD-DVD is dead. As much as it pains me, BluRay seems to have clearly won that round. With nothing to potentially replace it on the horizon, it looks like it’ll be here to stay for a couple years. Combine that with the fact that a “good” BR player will run you $200-ish, and a PS3 is $300-ish and also conveniently plays video games, it’s worth it to me to pay the extra 100 and get something that would have larger value. The list of PS3 games I’m interested in is exceptionally short. With the majority of games being mulit-platform these days, and my brand loyalty to PCs and the Xbox, I’m really only looking at PS3 exclusives. Uncharted, Little Big Planet and Infamous are at the top of that list. I don’t really go for the import RPGs or the platformers anymore. If I just picked up those I think I’d be quite happy.
That about everything. Just working and scraping by, pretty much the normal, just with a little drama on top lately. Nothing we can’t handle. 😉
Matt out.
On a complete and total whim, I’ve recently become interested in collecting baseball cards again. When I was growing up, comic books were my collection of choice and I amassed a good 1000+ collection of them, mostly small imprints and independent labels like Image and Dark Horse with the occasional run of X-Men sprinkled in for good measure. I actually have a few rather rare comics, a couple variant covers, a couple signed comics, and lots and lots of “Issue #1” of dozens of titles. I pretty much have everything Jim Lee did between 1990-2000.
Baseball cards were something I also collected, but just in the periphery of my free time. My father, the year I was born, decided it was a good idea to purchase the entire factory set of Topps cards from that year. That was a tradition he kept up for a number of years until I was able to continue it myself. I believe I have 1980-1990 factory sets from Topps somewhere in my closet. That was about as deep as my collection got. Topps was for the sets and then I’d grab random packs, usually of Upper Deck, whenever I found them.
I gave up on both collections mid-high school and never really looked back. Money was tight and hobbies are the first things to go whenever that happens.
Having talked with my friend Sam at length about baseball and cards over mexican food one night, it seemed that the “sport” of card collecting had really been taken to the next level. Topps “purchased” the rights to the entirety of Major League Baseball and is now the only company allowed to make cards featuring teams and logos. The MLBPA signed a deal with Upper Deck to use player names, but names only, which make for some kinda boring cards. So Topps is really the only game in town.
That said, at least Topps offers a variety of cards. Actually it’s a over-variety of cards. They have, give or take, 20 different lines of cards. They range from a couple dollars a pack for normal “base set” cards to $150+ a PACK for things like “Topps Triple Threads” which feature actual pieces of cloth jersey or bat IN the card. They’ve also taken signatures to the next level. They get players to sign hundreds and hundreds of cards, some regular, some special cards, some really rare 1-0f-1 type stuff.
The collecting almost isn’t about the player cards any more. It’s more about the crazy extra stuff. Cards with pieces of stuff in them, cards with signatures, cards with holograms or special printing, cards with dye-cuts or minatures, etc, etc. Then there’s extra special lines like “Gypsy Queens” or “Allen & Ginter” which are throw back designs with special features or artwork. It was actually the Allen & Ginter set that caught my eye as something to collect.
The A&G cards feature retro designs, water-color-ish portraits and special signature inserts. A “hobby” box runs about $90 and features 12 packs and a guarantee of a certain amount of the aforementioned “cool stuff”. That’s right in my wheel-house.
So, I decided to take the plunge. My goal is to collect just basic player card sets, of just the Red Sox, for 2004 through the current year and beyond. If I happen to run across some of the cooler cards along the way I’ll pick them up, but I’d be happy with just the commons at the moment. I just received my first set off an ebay purchase. The entire 2010 Red Sox team set of A&G cards.
I like’em 🙂
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