Gone, but not for Long

Looks like I hit my wall even faster than last year, unless the flurry of posts to close out 2014 count.  But I’ve no plans to disappear until the end of the year again.  Whenever I get around to scanning stuffs again, I’ll have fresh card posts to share.  In the meantime, I’ll see about getting around to more 30 Day Anime Challenge posts, and if we’re lucky/unlucky, depending on what you think of my work, maybe some poetry as well, to bridge the great divide.

I can at least say I’ve even been a little bit productive away from the blog this time out.  I have a bit of fresh art and, shockingly, even a little writing to show for my slacking off here.  The first several hundred words, as well as a new story bible, for Nexus Eternum are under way.

I really should have more to show for it, but you know how easily distracted I can be, even without the assistance of the internet and social media.  Still though, it’s amazing how much free time opens up when you aren’t really even thinking about cards at all for a significant stretch (going on two weeks now).  Once I know for sure if, and/or how badly, my checkbook is wrecked, I will get to work finishing packing up the handful of outstanding deals I have in the works, to be sent out as soon as I am able.

For the rest of today though, I have another hour or so of art in me, and a round of relatively intense cleaning to do.  Maybe I can work in a little food, and maybe even a shower too, if I really put my mind to it. 😛

Thanks for stopping by!  I’ll try to be back soon.

Here’s a random card from one of my last major scanning sessions.

Sincerely,

The Patron Saint of Lazy Bloggers

Now and Then, Here and There

’61 Post Ron Santo..

Time marches on

BowChro Bryant/Moran Dual-ing Die-Cuts..

The days pass

1995 CARDZ WCW Main Event Booker T..

The weeks, the months, the years…

2014 Topps WWE Chrome Adrian Neville NXT Prospects..

As we wander through our lives

Trifecta-completing Brandon Phillips RC..

Lost spirits on this lonesome path

Alshon Jeffery Inception Purple #’ed 41/99..

Uncertain and unwinding

D-Lee Atomic Refractor..

The wrinkles on our brow get a little deeper

Big Cat RC..

The glasses on our face get a little thicker

Rizzo Red, White, and Blue Prizm..

Seasons come and seasons go

Leaf Sports Heroes Dominique Moceanu Red auto 1/3..

Champions are crowned and the losers go home

The greatest RC photo of all-time, Purple Cracked Ice edition..

We lose ourselves in the past

Fridge RC!

Longing for our glory days, safe and certain

’75 Bill Madlock..

Engulfed in the rose-hued haze of memorialized time

’58 Vic Power..

While trying to live for a future left in doubt

Billy McKinney Mini Orange Refractor #’ed 8/50..

When all we have that’s a given

Finest Warriors Taijuan Walker..

Is the right here

2014 Bowman Platinum Carlos Santana Magenta Printing Plate..

And the right now

Bowman Heritage Soler Road to the Show..

Until our next…

Remember that Walter Payton Rookie?

Well, there was more to that trade than just Sweetness.  There was some shiny too!

First up, in #'ed /250 X-Fractor form, the late bloomer himself, Bobby Scales.

And coming to us in Gold Refractor form and #’ed out of /50, Derrek Lee!

Finally, Sewingmachineguy also sent his calling card:

It’s the back of a playing card.  Impromptu prize time.  A random jersey card to the first person to correctly guess the card.

And that be that.  Thanks to the Sewingmachineguy for the great trade!

Until our next…

No One’s Going to Read this Post

Heh…

My first second thing to do now that I’m back is to get some old trade posts up.  So, here goes.  This trade comes to me courtesy of No One’s Going to Read this Blog.  This isn’t quite the usual trade, oh no.  This one started as an art trade, a sketch card for a sketch card.  Then when I couldn’t decide on who I wanted, I suggested it be a twofer, one real person, one fictional character.  And so it was done.  I did an Adrian Peterson and a group shot of the Fantastic Four for Jeremy (you can check my deviantART link on the sidebar if you’d like to see them, as well as some of my other work), and I received the following two cards in return:

 

Starlin Castro

Raven from Teen Titans

Very nice work all-around.  I can’t quite find the words to adequately to explain what it is about the cards that makes me like them so much, but who really wants to read a critique anyway?  Suffice to say I think they are great, and welcome additions to my sketch card collection, as well as the individual collections I have for each.

 

The back of Jeremy's cool custom sketch cards.

On top of the sketch cards, we also ended up finding a few regular cards on our respective wantlists to trade.  Here are just a few of the cards I received (the ones I was able to get scanned before they got sorted away).

 

Aramis w/ fancy-pants border.

More '09 A&G minis...

The Cubs Power Trio on '07 Goudey

Finally, an Action Packed Billy Williams..

And that’s all for this one, sports fans!  A fun trades it was.  It’s good to be blogging again. 🙂

Until our next…

Cards from Marie and Matt

I got my prize winnins from Cardboard Problem and a fresh trade from Heartbreaking Cards at the same time and scanned them at the same time, so I might as well post them at the same time.  Plus I’m not sure which came which on one of the scans.  I may have mixed them on it, I dunno.  Anyway, pretty pictures ahoy!

These be from Marie. It appears the Cubs drew the better artists in Chicle, judging by these three. All solid, and Ernie is outstanding! Love the scoreboard shot! And the Prince is cool cuz I used to have a small collection of the guy and clever cuz the ticket is against the Cubbies. The terrible, terrible Cubbies. *le sigh*

The *literally* big prize. Johnny Mize cabinet card. Though a Cardinal, it's one of the prettier looking cards in the entire set, in my rarely humble enough opinion. And three mini 206 Cubbies (only one still with the team) for scale and because I couldn't fit normal-sized cards on the scanner bed with giganto Mize. I mentioned something somewhere about this being my first contest win, but I actually won a contest at White Sox Cards awhile before. Slipped my mind due to how quick that one went down (half hour, give or take).

And the rest, maybe. But what nice filler it is. All-Star Classics is one of my absolute favorite sets of the entire past decade. Been wanting a box for eons.

Now it gets confusing, though it’s a perfect segue from Marie to Matt I guess.  I don’t know which one these all came from, though the more I think about it, I’m pretty sure there is some from both in this scan:

If there's a choice between keeping Big Z or Dempster, I'm keeping Big Z. Every. Single. Time. Also, I heart blue refractors. 🙂

Now it’s definitely on to the Heartbreaking part of this post.

The King Felix collection gets some rare lovin' thanks to Matt. Noice.

Even though the D-Lee collection was officially closed almost immediately after this (but well before he was actually traded), that mmiddle row is freakin' sweet. And a new Kosuke (the Documentary one)!

Finally, the two cards that keyed this trade in the first place, the blue Fukudome & Vlad parallels. Also a cool D-Lee segueing into his tenure with the Cubs.

Great awesome cards.  Marie and Matt should both be expecting something in the mail before too long.  And with that, I’m outta here.

Until our next…

A Trade Post You Say?

Yep, and I think I’ve about got a return package ready for this one finally.  It comes to me from Baseball Card Stuff, and it is awesome as can be, so let’s get right into it and check out the majority of what was sent!

That 20-10 topps card isn't part of the trade, for some reason I combined them with scans of this trade (twice as you will see). Poor planning on my part.

Why does Opening Day get so much crap for being the same as the base set when almost every year, the little tweaks actually make it BETTER looking than the original??  The blue foil is better (or at least more interesting) than the regular silver on the ’06s, and the white border completely and utterly destroys the black-bordered design of the ’07 set.  I’m not normally all about the white borders (if you’re going plain white borders, just make it full-bleed, cuz that’s much less boring), but it actually makes the ’07 design look nice.

Also, Derrick May!  And a nice Upper Deck design, which brings me to my next rant.  To the people that dislike Upper Deck’s general lack of base set design, I strongly disagree with you (and they change it up enough to tell the difference from year-to-year, so come off that BS).  An analogy: I watch my wrestling for THE WRESTLING, not the silly skits & promos and crap.  The extracurricular crap only works to raise the interest in a match when it’s good, and quite frankly, it usually isn’t.  This is the same reason I generally prefer Upper Deck’s flagship base sets over topps’, they tend to be free of the frequently not very good design clutter of topps and let the great photography do the talking.

To each their own I guess, and it’s not like I’m a set collector anyway, but topps, ehh… I can take ’em or leave ’em.  They may have the history, the tradition, but I think tradition is overrated, especially when it comes to baseball.  I may catch heat for that, but I’m not saying it all willy-nilly.  There are reasons for it.

Rant mode off.

For now.

Maybe.

No rants here, just some good ol' quality Mark Grace action. This is the other one I foolishly combined with 20-10 topps scans that I'll probably never use, though I managed to put a keeper up in the same row as the trade cards this time.

I guess the lack of mid-’90s baseball card collecting (I was all about the basketball back then when I was first starting out) is why I have so few Mark Grace cards in my collection, so these are all greatly appreciated.  The ghostly Graceface on the Pinnacle card is foilboard I think.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have sudden urge to go grab a bottle of RC.  Dunno why… 😛

Now we're gettin' to the nitty gritty. Griffey, Dawson, Bell, that Fukudome I have about a half dozen of now...

Yeah, I have a lot of that UDX Fukudome.  If anyone has a spare Heritage or Goudey Kosuke Rookie, I’d gladly send a UDX (or two!) for it.

I’m planning to pare down my Griffey collection, but the Profiles and Record Breakers will be staying.

I think I might have to make a player collection for George Bell, since I’ve been keeping the few pre and post-Cubbies I have of him too.  He’s just cool.

Speaking of cool, Andre Dawson, ladies & gentlemen.  I think that Hawk is my first very first Leaf card of that year.  I don’t even recognize the design, though I’m sure I’ve seen it before.

And wow, I never realized this, but ’84 topps is like the unholy offspring of ’83 and ’86 topps, lol.

This scan is so full of win!

A Kosuke parallel #ed /99 flanked by two different ’83 Fergie Jenkins’!! ~ Win x3

My first ever ’80s Sportflics! ~ Win

The total mindblowage that is Eck & Lee Smith being on the same team at the same time combined with the fact that I’m pretty sure I’ve never even seen an ’85 Donruss card before! ~ Win x2

And as my dad noted when he saw the card, not only the is mustache above Buckner’s lip impressive, but the mustaches above his eyes are pretty amazing too! ~ Win for my dad’s sense of humor.

And that’s not even getting to the fact that I need both the Hawk & the Ryno. ~ Yet more win.

See?  Full of win.  Thank you very much, Jake.  Awesome cards.  I will get stuff sent as soon as I can.

Oh, I almost forgot.  Jake also sent this lil guy along:

Andre Dawson Coin! I was pretty geeked up to find this in the package. 🙂

Now then, though the interest has been better than I was really expecting, we’ve still got 9 or so more spots still to fill to make the Opening Day Group Break happen.  It will be a max of $25 for two random teams and the boxes busted will most likely look pretty similar to the rough draft from a couple posts ago.

Next time, Gadget…

Small Trade Blowout Extravaganza

Since I’m still working on scans from my Secret Santa gift and the 45+ Warren Moons (amongst other things) from The Great Sports Name Hall of Fame and the cards from Marie and some random hits and you get the idea, and my A Piece of History box isn’t due till Monday, I don’t have much to post about at the moment.  Thank goodness for belated trade posts though.  Here are the cool cards I got in the various clunker-type trades I cashed in on awhile back, as well as a small trade with Baseball Dad.

First up, some cards from Roll Out the Barrel.

The four 2008 Sports Royalty cards were what this one was about.  For some reason I decided I wanted to collect all the non-baseball players in the set.  I’m not even sure how many there are, but I want ’em.  I need to update my wantlist to note that I have these three someday.  May as well list the mini too, since I listed the WBC refractors I have over there.  What were we talking about?

Oh yeah, he sent some Cubbies along for the ride too.  That was nice.  I need ROtB’s address to send him some stuff in return though (bubble mailer’s long gone).

Here are the main cards from Baseball Dad.

Sent a LaPorta jersey and a Crowe auto and a couple other random cards for these and a couple others.  The D-Lee refractor was a nice surprise, especially after the 2009 he had and the realization that I have so many cards of him that I decided I should just make him his own separate player collection.  It’ll be official once I have some room in the big binder or get a new one that I can put his cards in.

These are from Stats on the Back and Nachos Grande.

Sorry about the awkwardness of this pic.  I don’t know what the heck I was doing here.  Gilgamesh and Ichiro (and a not pictured for some reason Chrome Trading Card History of Alfonso Soriano) came from Nachos, and the rest came from Stats.  Well, except for the Red Moore.  I pulled him myself.

I really like the Hit Parade of Champions and am trying to collect that set as well if anybody has any to trade.  All I have are the Kobe above and LeBron.

Lots of nice cards, and even though the whole Clunker thing isn’t relevant anymore, the idea is excellent.  I may try to do this with some of my excess minor inserts and such someday.  Anyone got a catchy new topical name for it?

Finally, I leave you with this.

Flairamis!

Somewhere along the way, I think Aramis Ramirez became my favorite Cub.  I think this card also came from Roll Out the Barrel, but I’m not 100% sure.

Make like a pig and FLY!

Wicked Ortega Trade 2: (Insert Clever Sequel Title Here)

Now attached to the front of a binder...

Lest you think it’s only random packs I’ve gotten crazy awesome cards from packs lately, I present a selection of most of the cards I received in my second trade with Don Wicked Ortega.

Some Cards!

A guy that can hit close to .300 and steal 50+ at an 80% clip?  Why did we get rid of Juan Pierre again?  Aramis, D-Lee (recent official addition), and Big Z are specific player collections, and it’s always nice to get a Marmol.  I think that is only my 4th or so.  Chuck McElroy from any team are welcome cards are welcome.  Soto, where were you last year? We could’ve used you.  We had some bum catching last year that only hit .218!

HAWK, mini Shin-Soo Choo, and off-center Kosuke

Andre Dawson and O-Pee-Chee, two great tastes that go great together!  I need more Shin-Soo Choo, I think he’s gonna be a star one day soon.  That is my second Kosuke black parallel, and they might have both come from Mr. Ortega.  Indeed, he sent me all the Kosukes in this lot in the first trade, so umm… hey fellow Cubs bloggers, I think I should spread the love around.  I have a handful of Cubs dupes from The Don, from both trades, so if you be needin’ any early-’90s Upper Deck or the Fukudome cards, I got ya hookup.  I know I have a small number of extra Ryne Sandbergs from that era as well, so shoot me an email or leave a comment or something, and I’ll send all extras I have (there are a few newer ones too).

Ryno time!

Aside from the Hall of Famer, is future Hall of Famer Greg Maddux when he was young, and George Bell appears to be pointing Paul O’niell in the direction of some no-doubt fine tail.  Also, this trade has brought to my attention severely lacking I am in Mark Grace cards.  He lead the most awesome decade ever in hits!  I gotta get my grubby little mitts on more of him sometime soon, especially shiny ones like that Ultimate Victory.

More good stuff! I think we gots the wrong Jose Reyes though...

Actually, the Ticket to Stardom Fukudome wasn’t in the first trade, because the set wasn’t out yet!  Why do people hate on Artifacts/A Piece of History?  It’s now at or below $40 (not including shipping…) for a hobby box.  I encourage everyone to give it a shot at this way lower price point and see if they still don’t like it.  My box is on the way (or will be if they ever get and/or confirm the payment, was Dave & Adam’s closed the entire week?), and Field of Cards enjoyed his.  Right, what was I saying.  Ooh, look at the pretty Kevin Tapani card… @_@ *droolz* Taste the purple…

Shiny Fonsie!

It’s not as subtle as it’s UD3 ancestors, but it sure is effective.  The old cliche that I’ve been fortunate to rarely need to use holds true here, the scan doesn’t do this card a lick of justice.

Another try at the whole CF of the future thing, a card that made lmao, and... a Yankee?! Wat?

I think I need to start stocking up on Sam Fuld cards.  Well, I need ’em anyway since he’s a Cub, but here’s hoping he’s he real deal.  Anyone got any?  Eventually every Cubs, O’s, and Expos/Nats collector has to get themselves a Chipper rookie someday right?  But I still couldn’t help but have myself a hearty chuckle at getting a future Hall of Famer’s rookie because a guy from my team that didn’t do much happened to share his card.  Igawa?  I’ve dramatically pared down my Asian player wantlist from any and all to about a half dozen + the Chunichi Dragons (WBC I want all of, regardless of country), and he isn’t on it.  But I just wanted the card because it looks really cool.

Alright then, that’s all well & good, but only those that bleed Cubbie blue will think any of that is crazy awesome.  So let’s get CRAZY awesome… Behold!:

topps Dan Haren sketch card!

Isn’t is a beauty?  Gotta love that dreamy stare, lol.  And guess what!

It be a 1/1!

This card is awesome on so many levels.  I’m kind of a wannabe artist, as you know if you’ve been reading for awhile.  And precisely because of this, I collect sketch cards.  But they are very expensive, and thus hard to come by for someone poor like me (Fortunately the great CK Russell thought highly enough of my abilities to agree to an art trade for a personal sketch card from her).  So getting this (only my second at the time, got a third in my Fantastic Four Archives box), is mindblowingly awesome.

I’m so thankful to Alfredo for being willing to trade me this absolutely wicked awesome card.  I still don’t know what to say, because “thank you” doesn’t seem like enough.  Honestly, the whole time until I saw him post what I sent, pleased with the trade, I was fretting that the four or so hits I sent in return weren’t enough.  Granted, I do this with almost every trade I send out, but this was whole other level nervousness.  I said thank you didn’t seem like enough, but it seems that is all there’s left to say.  So from the bottom of my heart, thank you, Alfredo.  Thank you so much…

I am curious about something though.  Can anyone tell me who drew this card?  They got mad skillz. 🙂

Finally, one more thing before I go.  I have more thank yous for everyone who has come by my blog the last few days!  For the first time ever, I received over 100 hits three days straight (today remains to be seen).  It doesn’t seem too long ago that I could barely crack double digits when I posted something, let alone on days that I didn’t, so while I’m sure most of you have long since felt this elation, I’m now starting to feel like maybe I’m actually getting somewhere with this thing.  So thank you everyone, and may you all have the happiest of holidays, no matter what you celebrate, this time of year.

I feel like I won an Oscar, thanking everyone like this… You guys rock!