The Great Sports Name Hall of Fame

Some Kind of Progress

2012-05-23T15:11:00.001-04:00

Hey all, long time no post (over 10 days - wow!). It's partly due to me being busy finishing my grad work, but also due to no cards coming in recently. There are fewer and fewer Senecas needs of mine popping up these days, and so while I'm very much still on the hunt, I've actually had more cards leave my collection (via Ebay) than enter it lately. Not too shabby since it's extra Paypal to spend on cards once they do show up I suppose!

Anywho, with little to pick up in terms of cardboard, I took to my needs list, which sat at about 70 cards. Thing is, that list included 40 cards I had never seen before anywhere, which is understandable for some cards (1/1's, /10's, etc.), but kind of unheard of for a basic non-numbered base parallel. So I looked for a few of those cards on Ebay, sent a few messages to sellers, and learned a few things. Namely, two of the cards I was chasing (per Beckett saying they existed) were never made.

The first is Seneca's 2009 Topps Mayo #322 Silver Parallel. Turns out that in the base set, cards 1-275 were normal, with 276-350 being short prints, but in the mini set the short prints were NOT short printed. Confusing right? That's why Seneca has a mini and all its parallels, but his base card does NOT have a silver chunk parallel. I was wondering why I had never seen one...so that was good to know. I also asked the guy about Seneca's Mayo Mini Red Back /25, and he gave me info there too. They're called "Harvard" backs, and it does exist. He doesn't have one for his set, but a buddy working on the Mayo Master set does. He'll never sell it to me (unless he gives up haha), but I was just happy to have confirmation that the card exists in the world!

Which was the opposite confirmation I got for the other card I sought, which was Seneca's 2003 Upper Deck Standing Ovation Embossed Die Cut parallel. I knew Seneca had a base rookie card, and that there was an embossed version of it (I have both). I'd also seen images of a die cut parallel from that set, which look like little footballs. Beckett claimed it existed, but after digging around I noticed something strange - none of the rookies from 2003 had a die cut listed online, while I could find image after image of die cut veteran cards. A little more digging and my suspicions were confirmed - only the veterans got die cuts in the Standing O set. So once again, a card was knocked off my list, never to be sought again!

So I guess in a weird way I did make progress on my master set lately, addition by subtraction and whatnot. I'm now up to 76.4% of the master set with those two cards removed. I should bump even more in a day or two though, when a very cheap/new Seneca arrives in my mailbox. I like addition by addition more when adding to my collection, so I'll let you all know when it arrives!

More Milestones!

2012-05-12T16:20:00.002-04:00

It's been a little bit since I last posted, and that's partially because life is busy (we're mid move to Cincinnati as I finish up my schoolwork - yikes!) and partially because Senecas are getting hard to come by! I count two currently available online that aren't in former supercollections. Luckily my ISU store owner is still posting cards he finds locally, and the newest version came in the mail a few days ago. Here it is in all its glory:

I now need just one card to finish the Playoff Tandems/Quads set. The quads include Seneca, Brian St Pierre, Rex Grossman, and Taylor Jacobs (I need the football pieces one). The tandems are just Seneca and Brian St. Pierre, like this beauty here /75. This card completed MANY milestones for me, including:
1. It's the last card I needed for the Tandem miniset (jerseys only, footballs only, jerseys and footballs)
2. It's the last card I needed /75 (There are 10 cards /75 in his Master Set and I have them all!)
3. It's the 200th card I own from 2003 (woohoo!)
4. And it's my third card from the ISU Ebay seller who has hooked me up so far. All three cards were ones I had rarely seen before, if ever, and all three were at fantastic prices. May the beautiful partnership continue!

My best Seneca Wallace patch is a freebie, or golly gee card collectors sure are nice!

2012-05-03T06:23:00.000-04:00

I believe I've mentioned 0264 roadrunner here before, a forums user with whom I've dealt now on several occasions. We first met a long time ago over a card. And I shouldn't say just any card...it's his copy of Seneca Wallace's 2003 SPX Winning Materials Patches /75, which has the Seahawks logo centering the Seahawks eye and part of the beak. In case you didn't know, that makes that card EPIC. I mean just look at the Seahawks logo...is that not pretty intense?

Anywho, that card is part of his master set, so a long time after I found that card he ended up selling me an extra he had on the cheap, which I appreciated because it helped my set along. We then chatted now and then on the boards over various things, and recently I bought a bunch of neat looking patches off him of guys I like. Building good rapport as they say in the education business, or just making a good collecting buddy as they say around here.

Anyway, fast forward (or rewind since this is a future post) to 4/20ish. I get a message on Blowout alerting me to a "surprise" that he has for me. It's not a new need, but rather an upgrade, but I'll enjoy it. And he just found it. So...suspense...what could it be?

I knew it couldn't be the eye, as it's one of his favorite all time sets and one of his favorite all time cards. But the way he said upgrade, I just KNEW this card had to have some sort of a sweet patch. Yet I was clueless as to what it could be!

Turns out he found ANOTHER Seahawks eye in that /75 print run that popped up on Ebay, and he purchased it immediately knowing I would love it to surprise me. How freaking sweet is that? And impressive...I generally catch about everything new Seneca on Ebay within the hour - I mean the 4th plate I picked up was purchased and paid for within 11 minutes of being posted online. So kudos to roadrunner for beating me to the Ebay chase.

But especially kudos to the card. Like the logo above, this Seahawk is flipped - so usually you see the Seahawk facing right, but my patch faces left. So it'd be on Seneca's left sleeve. It looks like this:

Look at that gorgeousness! You get the nicely defined head of the Seahawk just off the jersey, plus the curve of the eyelid, and then that sliver of green from the eye with the rest of the eye white as well. Here' a close-up:

Not only is this my first Seahawks eye card, but it's also my first logo patch or three color patch of Seneca PERIOD. See, the Hawks and Browns (and ISU for that matter) don't have a lot of color variations to their jerseys. Aside from the shoulder numbering of an ISU jersey and the logo patch of the Seahawks (and maybe the front jersey numbering of the Senior Bowl jersey), 3 color jerseys just don't exist in the Seneca Wallace card universe. So when one joins my collection, it is a time for celebration. And when that one includes the intense Seahawks eye...well that card just straight up makes my day.

So I can now finally say I've arrived as a Seneca collector. I've got a three color patch, a logo patch, and that illustrious Seahawks eye all from one bubble mailer. And it's all thanks to the great 0264 roadrunner. Thanks so much man, my collection wouldn't be the same without you!

3rd in a Series (of 3) - Gulliver's Travels kinda

2012-04-30T13:30:00.000-04:00

I read this book as a kid, and I always remember the image of a giant dude on sand surrounded by little people. Jack Black did his own take on it a few years ago, and I never saw it but this scene sort of captures what it looks like when they tie him down to the sand:
I always thought of him standing on the sand though. So I took another bipped card and combined it with a Where's Waldo card to make this:
I don't think Waldo is on this particularly card (every 7 or 8 combine together to make a big scene with one Waldo). I also think this looks a bit more Clash of the Titans than Gulliver's Travel. But it's funny to me so I'm a fan! And with that we return to unaltered cards, until my boredom drives me to more scissors and glue!

Cards from Lifetime Topps Project...Man these look familiar!

2012-04-30T06:30:00.000-04:00

As some of you know, I collected 1995 Topps as a kid (I was 9 when it came out). I shouldn't just say collected though, because while 1989 Topps and 1992 Topps were both sets I worked on as a kid, both of those were relegated to 800 count box status. 1995 Topps was the only set I ever dedicated to a binder, and I meticulously kept track of every card I had and every card I needed on a piece of lined paper. I also noted "awesome card" in the set, which included rookies and stars of course, but also lesser stars like Tim Davis, a Mariners pitcher who had my first name and birthday! Those were good times, and I moved closer and closer to completion as time went by.

Until 2006ish, when I sold that big blue binder with all the cards at a yard sale for something like $2. Which wasn't a terrible price for a set that was maybe 60% complete, but did mean I lost all that progress when I came back into collecting and decided to try 1995 Topps again. I did have tons of doubles that I didn't sell, so they were useful for starting over. But besides that I've slowly built through trades and purchases.

The most recent trade puts me at less than 20 cards left for completion, thanks to Charlie of the Lifetime Topps Project. He messaged me and said he had a bunch of cards for me, and I had a bunch for him, and that's how good trades are made! The end result was an awesome package that looked quite familiar, because these were some of the cards I remember marking on my sheet back in the day! I'll show you my 10 favorite from the package in one quick image (because life is so busy right now haha) with some thoughts afterwards:

The obvious cool cards from 1995 here were the nice shots (Guittierez with the glasses, Baerga chilling back, Ozzie Guillen sliding into a base) and star Bo Jackson. I also LOVED the Greg McMichael as a kid because I was a Braves fan and my brother's name was Greg and as a 9 year old that was a good enough coincidence for me. The prospects I all had listed at the time in case the guys ended up huge, and Olmedo Saenz, Izzy, and Johnny Damon (at single A ball) aren't the worst of prospects. The best was that Nomar Garciaparra Draft Pick card though - I always thought it was hilarious how he weirdly folded his hands on the front of the card!

The most awesome card now might be in the bottom right - it's Chipper Jones. The reason it's cool is because the back shows his career stats, which at this time were 8 games and 3 at bats in 1993. See, Chipper was on the DL for all of 1994, which was a wash of a season anyway, so he didn't get his real start until 1995. And what a start it was - that of course was the year the Braves won the World Championship and Chipper became a household name. Nothing wrong with that!

So thanks so much Charlie for reminding me why I love this set so much! I think this set will easily be finishable by the end of the year now, which is fantastic!

Victory Leaders - with weird animal faces

2012-04-28T02:18:00.000-04:00

Back when bipping was for cool kids, somebody sent me a zillion copies of a Ron Guidry/Gaylord Perry Victory Leaders card. I chuckled a bunch, and when I still had them a few months later I tried selling most as a lot on Ebay. They sold, but never got to their destination, and so I had to refund the seller. Almost a year later that package came back to me marker undeliverable as addressed, but still filled with those cards.

These cards just keeps coming back to me, again and again and again! So I had to alter at least one. Took one Beanie Baby face and one "Wild Cat Willie" from WCW face, and next thing you know I had this:
In time I want to do more with these than just gluing heads over faces, but this is my favorite head one so far. Perry's face is hilarious, and I think the Beanie head goes good with the Yankee colors. Not a bad second attempt if ya ask me!

Arts and Crafts Part 1

2012-04-25T17:46:00.000-04:00

So lately I've been staring at those cards that never move. Some late 70's, some 80's, some 90's, some 00's...all without a place to go. No one wants to buy em, no one wants to trade for them, everyone already has the sets completed (or the sets are so dumb that no one ever wanted them). But they fill up my boxes and will probably sit there until the end of time unless I set them on fire.

Or I play arts and crafts:
What happens when you mix a early 90's dinosaur set with Jason Kendall? You get Jasorous Kendall. Simple, but it makes me laugh, and it made something awesome out of two cards that weren't going anywhere. I made a few cards the other day, so expect some more in the next few days. They'll all be this...amateurish...but I kinda like them!

Seneca #216 - It pays to make cardboard acquaintances

2012-04-22T17:45:00.000-04:00

Remember my post about seeing red a week or two back? If you remember the bad part, you remember how I got a slightly damaged new Seneca. If you remember the good part, you might recall that I picked up a new Seneca need from an Iowa native who promised to look for new Senecas.

I was focused on the second part, and it has already brought FANTASTIC dividends. I went on Ebay a few days ago and searched for new cards, and found a sweeeet patch card #'d 59/75 staring back at me from the same seller. He's already making good on his offer which is fantastic, and the card shipped to me in just 2 or 3 days - it looks like this:
It is very, VERY hard to find 2+ color jerseys of Seneca, patch or otherwise, because most of his jerseys are lower end and generally one color. So anytime I get a few colors is awesome. But this patch is especially awesome for two reasons, which a close up better reveals:
1. The blue in the patch here is lettering or numbering from the jersey, and has that weird ironed on feel that we all know too well from sports camps or little league baseball. Professional jerseys are always so similar from sport to sport - it's nice to get some variation from the college level.
2. As you can see from the label to the left of the patch, this patch came from the jersey that Seneca wore in the 2003 Senior Bowl. That makes this patch unique, as I've got cards with jerseys of Senecas at Iowa State and cards with jerseys of his from the Rookie Premiere, but this is my first from the Senior Bowl. It could also be my only one - the foil version of this card appears to be Iowa State material, so the Senior Bowl jersey may only exist in this one card. I might have to look for more to see what other kind of patches exist - with the numbering there could even be a 3 color patch out there, which for a Seneca card is almost UNHEARD OF!

So yeah, this card is really cool.

75% of the master set! Good times!

2012-04-20T06:30:00.004-04:00

Under 25% of the set left! Now that's progress!

Card appeared in my mailbox a few days ago looking like this:
It's Seneca's 2003 Bowman Uncirculated Gold #188. That of course means it comes in that Uncirculated case. As I now do, I busted it free ASAP!
It looks great with the other 7 parallels I have from 2003 Bowman and Bowman Chrome. There's only one left I need - can't wait to pick it up and complete the set!

Patches, Patches...O Glorious Patches (Part 2)

2012-04-18T06:30:00.001-04:00

I don't know if I've mentioned 0264 roadrunner before, but the guy is a fantastic forum user, on Blowout or otherwise. He used the 0264 tag because he collects any and all SPX cards #'d 264/anything, and his collection is very impressive (so if you have any 264/something SPX cards you should get them to him!). He's sold me a Seneca card and he's sold my random single needs before, so when I put up the request for patches he offered me a few at dirt cheap prices ($4 delivered per). I found on I liked a lot, a Marshawn Lynch 2 color /50, and so almost immediately a deal was on. That nice two color looks like the following:
I used to have a Lynch jersey a while ago that I sold because it was just a "boring" one color, but I see this one sitting in my collection for much longer given the throwback blue and sweet two color-ness of the patch. Plus it's Beast Mode...everyone loves Beast Mode!

I hated to buy just one card if shipping alone would be about $2, so I asked roadrunner if he had anything else to offer. He told me to check his bucket and we'd work something out. And I'm glad I did, because I found two awesome cards!

The first is a Bo Scaife jersey, #'d 1/99! The "Ebay 1/1-ness" doesn't do much for me, but the sweet three color patch of a former family favorite does:
My little brother and I used to play Madden a ton, and for a bit as a tween he enjoyed the play of Steve McNair and Eddie George enough that he became a Titans fan. He eventually moved full on to the Texans, but he's still fond of the Titans and was a big Bo Scaife fan for a while, making sure he was target numero uno in any and all Madden fantasy drafts. He doesn't collect cards like me but does enjoy hearing about my pick ups now and then, so I'm sure he'll be happy to hear I grabbed a three color Scaife on the cheap. I know I'll be happy to share the news!

I also picked up a second replacement jersey card for one that I sold away. See, many moons ago I traded a Seneca Wallace 2 color college jersey (regret #2 of my card trading career, 1 being giving my MJD Jaguar head patch away) for a Josh Cribbs single color jersey that wasn't even game certified. I like seeing my cards game certified when I can, and that card was 1 colored and didn't certify anything so I didn't care much for it. But now, thanks to roadrunner, I do have a Josh Cribbs certified jersey, albeit still a one color:
Broken toes last year be damned, Cribbs is still one of my favorite players in the entire league. When healthy few players are more exciting, and he and Seneca Wallace seem to have a nice chemistry going when they're on the field together. Of course they are rarely on the field together given Cribbs' re-focus on special teams and injuries and Seneca's place on the depth chart, but for a few plays a year the offense fires on all cylinders with those two together. So it's nice to have a Cribbs jersey again so I can imagine what would happen with a starting QB Seneca and slot WR Cribbs playing all the time in Cleveland!

Patches, Patches...O Glorious Patches (Part 1)

2012-04-16T06:30:00.004-04:00

After an initial crazy run on Blowout where I bought up tons of stuff, I've recently taken to simply posting on the site as it's a fun place to chat with the modern day collector. Discussions range from shipping costs to authenticity of cards to more off topic stuff like favorite burger joint, and they're always pretty fun. If you're not on a forum yet I'd definitely suggest you try it - Blowout is my personal favorite but can get a bit...crass, at times, for some people, so many SportsCardForum or Freedom Cardboard or The Bench is more your style. But anyway, forums are fun, yay, that's all well and good.

Anyway, I recently came into a little money (No I didn't win the Mega Millions, but not for lack of trying!), and decided I wanted to spend some. Senecas are drying up and I like to find set needs in shops or trades if at all possible, so I threw out a random request to the Blowout crowd: Best patch you can get me for $10 or less delivered. And wow did Blowout deliver, with tons of people offering some gorgeous patches from baseball and football! It's amazing how far the price of the modern day patch has dropped! Regardless, I ended up making three separate purchases, and this is the one that entered my mailbox first. I paid for it via money order, which originally freaked me out since I've never done that before, but was actually quite easy and the result was well worth it!

Card #1 is a beautiful piece of a Matt Williams game jersey:
I think that image gives a pretty good idea of the insanity that is this patch, but here's a close up in case you needed one:
That's right - FIVE colors! I count white, that Diamonbacks aquamarine-ish color, gold, black, and purple. I don't even know how many color breaks this would count as - I guess 6? Regardless, it was mine for under $10, which was astonishing to me. Matt Williams is no hobby hero, but a lifetime WAR of 43.9 is amazing, and I'll remember his 43 homeruns in strike shortened 1994 for a long time!

What's better than one sweet patch for under $10? How about two? Because in the end, it was basically $10 plus shipping for the above card with the one below thrown in:
That's four more colors for those counting at home, going white, grey, black, and a sliver of Lions blue from left to right. Being a fan of Warren Moon as a kid, I always followed Jon Kitna since Moon handed Kitna the starting reigns when he left. Kitna seemed to learn how to mentor from Moon, as he in turn mentored Carson Palmer in Cincinnati and Tony Romo/Stephen McGee in Dallas before retiring this January. He also was with Detroit during their 0-16 season. In fast, had he not been placed on IR in Week 5, the Lions likely would've avoided such a fate. But I guess 0-16 got them Matthew Stafford, so in a way the modern day Lions wouldn't be where they were without Kitna's injury.

These might be the most impressive patches I picked up in terms of color and number, but they're not the only ones I got. Stay tuned the next few days for a few patches of players I like a lot and a fantastic logo patch that I wasn't even aware of until it was for sale!

Patience is a Virtue

2012-04-14T06:30:00.005-04:00

No really, it is!
As many bloggers well know, not all trades are created equal when it comes to mailing time. Some literally take days - you send an email, get a reply later that night, and three days later a bubble mailer is in your mailbox. Some take...longer...and today's post is about one such package. See, Peterson of Sign Here...and Here and I made a trade back in the day. I don't remember exactly when, just that it was before Trade Bait Draft 1 (sometime around February of 2011). The first trade went so well we figured we would do another, and so a few weeks later we agreed to another deal. One thing led to another and Peterson got kind of busy so my side never came. That's okay though, I get busy too and I understand, so I waited, emailing him every few weeks with a "Hey, how are ya, got any cards for me? ;-)"

Baseball season went by...football season went by...and finally after the Ryan Braun drug scandal I figured I might never get the cards. So I sent him one last message - something to the tune of "They're just cards, and I understand you've probably got a lot on your plate and your passion for collecting may be waning after this whole Braun thing, so no worries. But if you ever do get around to mail my end of the trade, here's a reminder of my address." That was January, and I took Peterson's package off my list in Excel of "incoming packages" (because yes I have a list haha).

On Monday I got an email from him - "Guess what I finally got around to doing!" It also had some 16 digit number - known in these parts as a tracking number!

And in my mailbox was this:
I gotta say, that backside of the mailer made me chuckle. I'm glad I was patient too since the goodies were quite nice! The centerpoint was a Brady Quinn patch card, and it somehow gained an Adam Dunn jersey card for a friend:
The Quinn patch is even nicer in person, and the Dunn is still wrapped in its little plastic wrapper! I think Peterson must have included it since he knows I have a soft spot for Reds now, as he also tossed in (along with some Red Sox, Browns, and Patriots) a nice little helping of Reds base and insets!
The Jay Bruce (third from the left in the bottom row) made me especially happy since, as I mentioned a few days ago, he is quickly becoming a fan favorite in our household. I realized after last Sunday's game that I've actually seen him hit 5 homeruns and rob 1 homerun with a nice catch in just 3 games watched! I know it's a small sample size, but maybe if I buy season tickets he'll be the MVP every year! Worth a shot, right? ;-)

Any who, thank you so much for the package Peterson - I appreciate you seeing a deal through to its end just as much as you appreciate me patiently waiting. And don't worry at all about the time it took for my package to get here - I'm actually still waiting on two packages that were agreed on even earlier in time (one is on year 4 now I believe), and I'll patiently wait for those too. What's that thing they always say? Oh yeah...good things come to those who wait!

Freedom 12

2012-04-12T06:30:00.004-04:00

Every time I go to Cincinnati for the weekend, I bring a little more along with me to fill the new apartment. This time I also picked something up that I needed back in Bloomington:
We have two hammers and somehow both got packed a month and a half ago. I took this one back home with me a few days ago, and used it to free several cards from their slab traps:
Now my Seneca Wallace Contenders Black Ink /864 and 73 Hank Aaron can breathe! I'm especially happy about the Seneca card because I'm a binder guy, and all of my Seneca cards besides this one and the Uncirculated slabbed cards are in a binder together. It always stinks seeing the slabbed cards outside the binder with the rest of my master set progress sitting in the binder, so it's nice to have one less Seneca card in that pile. However, time will tell if I break any of the Uncirculated cards free - technically they are all supposed to stay in the slabs to "count" in my mind...but they ought to be with the other cards in the binder. What's a collector to do?

Edit: I broke them free too! A few just snapped out as they're in weird kind of snap cases, but some were snapped so tight that I had to pry off the snaps with pliers. However you put it, every Seneca Wallace card I own is now in the same binder, and it is lovely.

I think Cincinnati and I are going to get along just fine!

2012-04-10T06:30:00.005-04:00

As I've mentioned here and there, the missus and I are going to be living in Cincinnati next year. Although I love the city I was initially a little wary of our exact living location, since it's in a bit of a "dodgy" area (twenty years ago it went by the nickname "Helltown"), but after stopping in over a few weekends I'm realizing how much better of a neighborhood it is nowadays and how many amazing things the area has to offer.

One such thing is a professional baseball stadium only a twenty minute bus ride away. We took in our first Reds game as a couple this past Sunday and watched as the Reds won via walk off, with Jay Bruce hitting his second homerun of the game in the bottom of the ninth to tie it and pinch hitter Scott Rolen singling in the winning run a few batters later. My fiance doesn't care much for baseball but even she was excited by the end and now wants a Jay Bruce jersey. Maybe I'll get this girl into baseball after all!

Another thing the area has to offer? Tons of baseball card stores, including three within 15 minutes of our new apartment. I already mentioned Maverick's in the past (in short, a nice enough place but mostly a comic shop), but this past weekend I hit up two new stores to see what else was around. The two I chose were Shoeless Joe's and Ideal Baseball Cards, awkwardly within 5 minutes of one another. I decided I'd stop by both shops last Thursday as I drove down from Bloomington, but I totally forgot that Thursday was Opening Day for the Reds! Because of this both owners were out of the shop, which meant I didn't get the true Shoeless Joe's experience (and Ideal was closed!).

Friday thus became a do over day, with me going to Ideal first and then Shoeless Joe's. I'll review them backwards though because I want to finish with pictures and sadly I have none from Shoeless Joe's. It isn't that the store was awful - it was kind of small, but filled with lots of hits under glass (some local focused but many not), a few 25 cent boxes, a box filled with team sets from various years, and tons of figures like SLU or Headliners hanging around. It also had lots of new boxes to be bought, and always had a few local guys hanging around talking shop, so it's clearly a store with some established buyers and that's great for a card shop! I however am not a box or pack guy, I'm a singles guy, so all I really care about is the stuff under glass and the dime boxes. There wasn't anything I needed and what caught my eye was a bit expensive, so I passed. The owner was pretty nice though so I'll probably be back - he said he might have some Senecas and I can't pass up that chance if he does!

As for Ideal, at first the name seemed a bit of a lie to me, as my ideal would be tons of 90's and 00's commons and hits and this store focuses mostly on well priced vintage. And when I say vintage I mean vintage - every card you could ever want from the 50's, 60's, and 70's littered all over the store. There were a few cases dedicated to newer hits and singles, and what they had was priced very well, but there was nothing I needed desperately. They did, however, have a random 800 count box of cards sitting on one desk, and it just happened to have tons of 1995 Topps Series 2 sitting in it. That's the one Topps set I am still collecting and I can never find it anywhere in person, so I ended up picking up a big stack of cards, almost 100, or about 17% of the overall set:
I brought them up to the owner and was hoping to trade with cards I brought, but he told me most of my stuff wouldn't sell (which I agree with, the trade bait drafts took all my good trade cards hahaha). So I braced myself for a $10+ price tag, only to hear the owner ask me if $3.50 was okay. $3.50 for almost 20% of the set that I've been trying to complete since childhood? Yeah that's okay with me!

The owner was a super nice guy overall - talked cards with me a bit before and after the sale, and even helped me bring my boxes to my car after I brought a bunch of 800 count boxes in for the attempted trade. So for now Ideal IS my ideal baseball card store in the area (it's also the closest I think, or maybe tied with Maverick's for closest), so I'll probably go back there most. We'll see if the tides change as I'm in Cincinnati longer, but for now it's nice to know I might have an LCS, which is tremendous!

So between the game and the card stores (and some tremendous food), I'm loving Cincinnati so far. But now I'm back in Bloomington and finishing up some research so I can get my degree and get gone. Can't wait til I'm officially a resident of Ohio again!

Seneca #214 - Bought CHEAP!

2012-04-08T06:49:00.002-04:00

I know that when it comes to transactions in the collecting world, sellers technically (and literally) hold all the cards. But when a seller gets a little high on his prices, buyers often look elsewhere - and in the case of one such seller he is losing $ after $ from me thanks to other card sites!

This specific seller had 15 cards I needed a while back, and aside from two way out of my price range we had been haggling on the other 13. That 15/13 has turned to 10/8 with many of those cards popping up on Ebay at lower prices. The Bowman's Best Red card was a few dollars cheaper, but today's card (A Fleer Genuine Inside Reflections /99) was about $8 cheaper when I bought it online. Saving $8 at this point in my Seneca collecting is pretty hard to do, so I was super psyched to keep that extra money in my pocket! And the card itself looks pretty nice, here's a scan:It's specifically numbered 55/99, and it's different than the "base" Genuine Insider (I say "base" because the other version is still numbered, just numbered higher) in its silver tinting and the lower numbering. It completes yet another little subset of Seneca cards for me, which is always fabulous. It also puts me one card away from owning 75% of Seneca's master set - not a small number by any means!

My newest Seneca has me seeing red!

2012-04-06T18:30:00.000-04:00

Lucky #13 (213 that is) is a beautiful card that I've been chasing for a while /50. For the longest time I just couldn't find it anywhere, but then it popped up in the collection of Seneca's #1 guy, the guy who won't sell me the Mirror Black yet. He of course wanted $10+ for it, which was reasonable since I hadn't seen any of the other 49 in ages, but I decided to wait him out in case another in the series appeared on Ebay. Good move by me, as a week ago this baby popped up with a BIN OBO of $19.99. I got it down to about a fifth of that, saving myself quite a few dollars off the other potential price, and this arrived in my mailbox today:
I'm loving the red foil - sooooo nice. The swatch is interesting too - like the Bowman Blue it has an odd yellow residue, which I'm sure has been mistaken by some collectors for dirt or sweat. Thing is, these were event worn jerseys, so it's more likely that the yellow is related to the adhesive that sticks the jersey to the card back. Still gives it an interesting look that sets it apart from your basic off white jersey!

The more unfortunate piece, to some collector's anyway, is that the card came damaged. You might be able to see it above if you zoom (it's on the left and right vertices of the jersey window) but if you can't here's a close up of the worst creasing:
I went back and checked the auction - the damage is slightly visible in the picture so it was there pre-shipping, AND the card is listed as in Like New condition. Uh oh! Thing is, I don't care a ton about condition and this doesn't ruin the card for me, especially at that price point. And I like this seller because he is located in the Iowa State area and says he'll look for rarer Senecas after I shared my collection. So I sent him a little message saying something to the tune of "I love this card and don't need a refund, but in the future double check your condition as you list." Dinged the item description a little and otherwise left all positives - so it goes in the Ebay world.

There was also a super weird discovery with this card. I never noticed it with my other Bowman's Best jersey cards, but Seneca's position is, ahem, altered:
As you'll notice under the serial #, Seneca is listed as a wide receiver! When he first came into the league many urged the athletic Wallace to make the switch to receiver, and he resisted despite some neat receiving plays executed during his time in the NFL. Apparently Bowman's Best didn't believe in him though, as this is the only card I've found thus far with the WR designation instead of a QB designation. Very odd, and I'm glad I noticed it!

More Middle Man Cards - Interested in Sweet Patches?

2012-04-04T15:30:00.000-04:00

Some guy on Blowout who used to collect Eric Chavez offered me a ton of patches in the $9-15 dollar range. A lot are REALLY nice. I know at least Fuji dabbles in Athletics, so I figured I'd show them off - if anyone wants one let me know and we can work out a deal like the Billingsley where you sent me payment, I forward it to the guy, and then he sends you the card(s)!

(This first one has a SWEET Cubs patch too)

(Nice little patch of Adrian Beltre too)

(This has part of the Athletics elephant logo from the sleeve)

(This is the most expensive @ $17 delivered. He may do 2 for $20 delivered though)

(/5)
(/10)

(/25, elephant sleeve patch)

(with Scott Rolen, Rolen's patch is the red bird!)

Anyone want a Chad Billingsley Patch #'d 7/10?

2012-04-03T07:44:00.002-04:00

I was wandering Blowout the other day and was offered a Chad Billingsley 08 Baseball Heroes Patch card #'d 7/10 for $7.50 delivered. Not a bad price for something so rare, but I'm neither a Dodgers nor Billingsley collector, so it didn't do much for me.

But I figured it might do something for one of you guys - anyone interested? It looks like this:

If you are let me know - we can work something out where you pay me $7.50 and I then pay this guy $7.50 and have it shipped to you. Yay!

I was recently charged with an EWI!

2012-04-02T06:30:00.004-04:00

Ebaying while intoxicated, for the less informed. See, I've been keeping to an excellent budget lately and decided I'd look at some cheap ending auctions in case I found something cool. I found something sort of neat, which usually I may have held back on, but PBR is powerful sometimes, and a nice little two color patch at $2 kind of spoke to me! It's of Kenny Britt, pretty awesome WR for the Titans, and it's #'d 28/50:
Nice little two color patch, eh? I thought it was pretty awesome myself especially with that powder blue coloring! Maybe I should EWI more often? Probably not though - I'm guessing I'd end up pretty deep in the hole and with some strange cards that way if I did it too often!

Samuel Deduno: CHROMIFIED (Thanks Josh)!

2012-03-31T06:30:00.004-04:00

When it rains it pours I guess! Josh from Royals and Randoms knows I have a soft spot for a certain cup card, and he had the chrome version of said card sitting around looking for a good home free of charge. A super nice offer for a super nice card, and a few days later it showed up in my mailbox, super shiny! And holding that fantastic paper cone cup:
I now have the base regular card and the base chrome card, and that got me crazily thinking of chasing all the other versions of this card in existence. COMC has four I need, and there's others sprinkled around Beckett, Sportlots, and Ebay, but there's a ton of cards in all (21) and 9 are 1/1's so it might be kind of crazy! So I probably won't do it - but if I change my mind I'll post my wants on the site for all to see!

But for now I'm just psyched to have a second version - thanks a bunch Josh!

HOF Greatness from Manpatches and Mustaches

2012-03-29T06:30:00.003-04:00

Feels like forever since I've made a trade with anyone - don't know why, just life and lack of trade bait I suppose. Doesn't mean I don't keep an eye out though, so when I noticed Eric of Manupatches and Mustaches posted some trade bait a few weeks back, I was intrigued. One of the cards REALLY interested me, and so I mentioned I had a patch card if it was in any way, shape, or form comparable. Eric said it was, the deal was on, and next thing I knew this beautifully slabbed card of HOFer Hank Aaron was in my mailbox!
I was a big Braves fan growing up (bandwagon sure, but Fred McGriff was also my favorite player and Greg Maddux was so insanely good), and so I couldn't help but admire Aaron. I've long wanted a base Topps card of his, and for some reason (probably since I used to own that 1973 Mike Schmidt RC) the 1973 Aaron became my card to get. I love the "just about to catch the ball" pose too, especially due to those shades. It's a fantastic card, and once I find some tools to remove it from the slab (because those are in Cincinnati too haha), I'm going to do just that. Hank deserves to be freeeeeee!

Thanks a bunch Eric!

Several New Senecas!

2012-03-27T06:30:00.003-04:00

As some of you know the missus and I are moving again, and we actually already found the place! It's awesome and we're psyched and she's already there, but she took my scanner with her - ahhhhh! So for the first time in a long time, I'm going with pictures over scans for a few posts. These ones come courtesy my Droid...so if that bothers you sorry! I still think they're cool though.

The first two cards come courtesy of COMC. I only needed two Seneca cards total on COMC for the longest time, and recently I decided to bite the bullet and purchase them. Waiting was super nice for me too, as months later a second version of one of the cards popped up at a lower price AND the other card was at a lower price! Super cheap buys this late in the Seneca collecting game is FANTASTIC! Especially when they're really nice cards!

The first card is the Uncirculated Silver parallel of Seneca's 2003 Bowman card:
Other than the silver border it doesn't seem super special, but the odd thing about this card is that it's neither slabbed nor numbered. Now I know most of you are probably just like "Alright, that's fine," but it's weird here because the card is listed as uncirculated (which generally means slabbed) and it's got a print run of 111 (which generally means serial numbered). I think it's super neat because of this - nice when a card defies expectation like that.

The other COMC card is a college jersey in holofoil:
It's #'d 50/125 (ooo round numbers), and is my third card in this jersey series. It also has Iowa State jersey in it, which is always fantastic since those are the only Seneca jerseys that were game worn!

Speaking of which, I FINALLY picked up the base version of Seneca's 2003 Upper Deck Pros and Prospects card, #'d to 350, from Ebay. It was the highest #'d card I still needed, but I never win it on Ebay because Iowa State collectors are CRAZY! None of them seem to formally collect Seneca...they just dabble in the occasional auction...but I'll be damned if they don't dabble in every SINGLE AUCTION. But haha...now one is mine!
#'d 212/350, I love the little square with the weird card stuff in the middle. And the card's red coloring is fantastic as well - from the design, to the jersey, to the uniform worn by Seneca - a fabulous card and a great addition to my collection!

GSNHOF Nominee - Seth Schwindenhammer

2012-03-19T06:30:00.002-04:00

This one's for Adam!

Adam has long been calling for me to nominate Seth Schwindenhammer to the GSNHOF, and today I finally am. So buy up some of his cards, friend the guy on Facebook - it's time to celebrate the man with the longest last name in baseball!

Now part of why I was hesitant to put Seth on the Ballot earlier is because he was already kind of a big deal in other great name circles, especially Minors Moniker Madness where he was bracket champion in 2011. I wanted to give at least a little pause between his win and his introduction to my list, and I think I've waited long enough now!

As for the player behind the name, Schwindenhammer is a Red Sox minor leaguer who spent 2011 with the Lowell Spinners. Soxprospects.com does a great job summing up Seth, noting that he has "above average raw power" but that he "does not project into higher levels without extensive work eliminating holes in (his) swing." In other words, Schwindenhammer does indeed bring the hammer, but he hasn't mastered it yet. Here's to hoping that he brings it all together with some minor league seasoning so that we see Jarrod Saltalamacchia unseated as the longest last name in baseball!

So success may or may not come for Mr. Schwindenhammer at the major league level, but that doesn't mean it can't come at the great name level. He already won Minors Moniker Madness - with some votes he'll be enshrined as a truly great name here as well, making him the first player to achieve that honor! Best of luck to you Seth Schwindenhammer!

The Results of Ballot Seven of the Great Sports Name Hall of Fame

2012-03-17T07:30:00.002-04:00

With the end of Ballot Seven, it truly is a Wonderful World.
Thanks to your votes (all twenty of you who voted), we now have TWO new entrants into the Hall!

The first, in his 7th and last chance at the Hall, was Wonderful Terrific Monds,
who actually set a new record high for voting % with 65% (13 of 20 ballots). I was really worried that Monds would never end up in the Hall, so I'm glad he did so with a flourish, passing the previous record voting high of Rusty Kuntz (61% on Ballot One). To be honest, Wonderful Monds inspired not only the Hall, but much of my return to cards in the first place, so it's nice to see his name right where it belongs in great sports name history!

We also had a second name enshired thanks to a last second vote by one of my fellow bloggers. Razor Shines
was sitting just under 55% with 10 of 19 votes, but then one ballot right before time ran out named Shines and put him right at that magical number. Two other names have landed at the 55% mark before, but they were both 55 and change - Shines is the first name to hit exactly 55%, making him the lowest qualifying name in the Hall. But they all count, so congrats to you Razor on your enshrinement!

It wasn't all good news for long tenured names. As I mentioned with Monds, 7 ballots is the limit - after that you're off. While Monds made it in on his last try, Lucious Pusey
was not so lucky, scoring a nice but not enough 40% of ballots. So he'll join the ranks of the names that weren't quite good enough now - he had support at times (50% on Ballot 1) and lacked it at others (21.1% on Ballot 4), and the end result was falling off the Ballot. Maybe it's karma for changing his name to Seymour?

All the rest of the eliminated names started on Ballot Seven. I guess I nominated some weak names this time around - here they are:
2 Ballots (10%) - Jay Walker
1 Ballot (5%) - Rich Parent ,Waskal Adames , Harry Chappas, Clint Goocher
0 Ballots (0%) - Hugh Quattlebaum (And yes that means Hugh is joining the Hall of Mistakes. I don't know what I was thinking with that name!)

As for the names that will return to Ballot 8, there were 11. Their vote totals are below:
8 Ballots (40%) - Pete LaCock, Baskerville Holmes, Manli Wang - LaCock had a 15% vote increase here, which bodes well for his Hall chances!
6 Ballots (30%) - Misty Hyman, Bum-Ho Lee - This was Lee's first ballot. Meanwhile Hyman hit exactly 30% after hovering around the number over the last 4 ballots.
5 Ballots (25%) - Be n Gay, Jorge Poo Tang, Alamazoo Jennings - Poo and Alamazoo were new, while Ben Gay has one ballot left and his chances of enshrinement look slim.
4 Ballots (20%) - Ten Million, Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jacques Wamutombo , Doug Fister - Fister was new, while both Million and Mutumbo join him in nearly being eliminated from future ballots.

So there you have it! Two new names inducted, 7 names knocked off, 11 names continuing on to Ballot Eight! Congrats again to WTM3 and Mr. Shines, and I'll try to add some fantastic names (including Seth Schwindenhammer) to the next incarnation!

Ballot 7 Voting Ends NOW

2012-03-16T23:59:00.000-04:00

Whether you voted or not, Ballot 7's time has come to a close. Off centered auto Kaz Ishii 1/1 commands it!
(That really is a 1/1 by the way. On Ebay now for under $3 - neat.)

I'll post the results probably sometime tomorrow!