Do you know the way to San Jose?

A few weeks back, I got a nice mailing from San Jose Fuji.

I'm sure many feel the same, but to me Fuji is the ultimate blogger. Thoughtful posts, kind gestures, and always something nice to say.

For me, he's been a constant in my nearly eleven years with this blog.

Fuji sent me a nice rigid envelope of cards a few weeks back, highlighted by two Yankees relics from 2019 Topps Holiday:

I have to think that's my first Aaron Hicks relic, but I'm not totally sure.

Topps Holiday is always a fun set with fun relics, and I always seem to miss out on it. I don't have a Walmart nearby, and even if I did would I ever find boxes of these? I rely on TCDB for the singles, but Fuji certainly helps with the relics.

A couple Tinos were also included, include a fairy rare 1998 UD Authentic Sheer Dominance Gold (/2000).

Lastly, can never go wrong with a triplet of HOFers, including Jeter, Mantle, and Rizzuto.

Fuji, thanks so much for the 'blog friendship' over the years.

I've got a token to ride

Tokens used to be a normal thing to ride NYC's mass transit subway system.

The first time I rode the subway was in 2002, and by that time the current-day MetroCards were already in existence. Today, MetroCards are still the main method of payment to ride, although many turnstiles now have an area where you can tap your credit card, phone, or even watch. Here is the MetroCard that currently sits in my wallet:

Still, for many years there was still a small slot to insert a token, even though no one had any.

What happened to all the tokens? Apparently Topps bought a portion of them, and placed them in commemorative 2000 World Series Subway Series relic cards.

The Subway Series set was actually a 100-card set issues to highlight the series. However, there was one token card per set. It took me years, but I finally tracked down the Tino Martinez:

Very cool card! You actually cannot touch the token, as there is acetate on both side of the card. Tino is one of 36 players to be featured in the set.

I like the design very much, and think it was a unique relic set to add to the boxed sets. The back gives a little bit of a history on the subway token itself, as well as mentions these were an original token obtained for the NYC Transit Authority.

If we saw this in 2021, the back would likely read: Token is not from any specific rider, train, or subway station.

Put a ring on it

Thus far, Tino Martinez has far less cards in 2021 than he did in 2020. That's ok. His modern card numbers have been soaring, so it's nice to take a step back a bit. 

In 2019, he had 69 cards. In 2020, that jumped to an unreasonable 144. Halfway through 2021, he sits at 15 cards, and most of those are autographs. No base cards...yet.

My latest pickup in 2021 is from Topps Series 2, as Tino is part of the World Series Ring relic insert set. I'm a but lukewarm on manu-relics not being something that is a bonus in a blaster, but it's nothing to get worked up over. 

The card looks nice enough, and the relic resembles the actual 2000 World Series ring. Tino had a tough year in 2000 with only 16 homers and a .258 BA. However, all was forgotten, as he had a very good post-season and contributed to the Yankees 3-peat. In the ALDS, he hit .421 in five games. In the ALCS, he hit .320 with a homer in six games. And in the World Series versus the Mets, he hit .364. That's how you make people forget a poor regular season. By performing when it matters most.

There are parallels and autographs for this card, of course. I'm in no hurry to grab them. I'm content with this card for now.

Sup.

Year 2

This is a straight up filler post, but trying to clean out my scanned folder just a touch. 

I'm really looking forward to a second - and full - season of Gerrit Cole in Pinstripes. He was excellent last year, and it's been a long time since the Yankees had a pitcher who I considered it "can't miss" TV. 

It would be cool to see him win a Cy Young, although I'm not optimistic that'll happen. Too much has to go right. However, if healthy he'll be in the thick of it.

My Cole collection is small, but growing. I'm not going after his cards with any sort of dedication, other than mostly adding his Yankees base cards on TCDB and trading for them when the opportunity arrives. I still do want his 2021 Topps photo variation, shown from above.

One admittedly weird card I did buy was a relic from 2020 Diamind Kings. While he's listed as playing for New York, the relics are obviously from his previous stops. I am uncertain if they are actually from the Pirates as Astros, as both of those clubs use these colors in some fashion.

It's a bit of a odd relic, with the swatch windows in the four corners of the frame. I bought it some time ago, so I must've gotten a good deal or won an auction with a low bid.

Regardless, it's a Gerrit Cole card. And a nice reminder that he's a Yankee...even if this card doesn't scream it.

An old Habit returns to my mailbox

It had been awhile, but I completed a small blogger to blogger trade with Judson of My Cardboard Habit. Judson and I go pretty far back swapping cards. We made out first swap back in 2014, according to my blog posts. This was the first card he sent me back then, if my blog records are to be trusted:

My how times have changed!

Judson does more Tweeting than blogging these days, and recently had the stroke of luck of pulling some Yankee relics out of 2020 A&G. He thought it was misfortune. I disagreed. So we struck up a deal and these came my way:

James Paxton and the 'stache look hilarious!

Judson also threw in a few relics from A&G past. Tex = cool. Ellsbury = fool.

Always good to make a small swap here and there, Judson. If you want to find this cat on Twitter, he's @cardboardhabit.

Vroom Vroom - A different kind of relic

I've mentioned a few times that I'm a bit bored with baseball cards currently. I'd say it's the result of 2020, with cards not readily available to open. And even if I do stumble upon some, the sets are pretty lackluster.

Some of it has to do with also coming down from the emotional collecting high of 1,000 Tino cards. I'm not chasing down his cards with the same vigor after hitting that milestone.

Maybe I'll change my blog to "The Bored Collector."

Nah.

So in searching for some fulfillment, I've seen a few blogs show some racing cards. No, I do not plan on collecting racing cards, although I did buy the Lewis Hamilton Topps Now card. But I don't plan on collecting nor buying any packs.

However, I did see a few relics shown off, and they are pretty damn cool! Race-used tires! Firesuits! Gloves! SHEET METAL!

That's cool. That's more fun than a plan gray swatch.

So off to eBay I went to sample a few of these.

The first I bought was a race-used tire card. This was a cheapy. Daniel Hemric. He's made most of his starts in the XFinity and Truck series, although does have a few Cup starts to his name. He actually was the 2019 Cup Series Rookie of the Year, although it was more by default than anything else. This tire relic is pretty cool though, featuring three pieces of tire, and one with some fibers!

The next card I snagged was a quad-relic of Cup mainstay Ryan Blaney. Now we're talking. This is a fun one. It contains two pieces of sheet metal, one piece of fire suit, and one piece of...I don't know. It's rubbery, but not tire rubber. At least I don't think it's tire rubber. It could be. I'd say it's either shoe or glove? That's my biggest complain with these NASCAR cards: that the cards don't say what the relics are. Similar to baseball relic cards, it's all very vague.

The last card is a dual sheet metal card of Clint Bowyer. I actually thought the relic piece on the left would be rubber, but it's not. It's metal. I'm thinking it's from the front of Bowyer's car, from the "grill" area or from the fake headlights. Looks like grill. Not sure!

I doubt I'll pick up more of these. I basically paid money just to look at them. But they sure are cool and more fun than "jersey that is not from any particular season, game, or event."

While I wait for Ginter...

As I'm anxiously awaiting my first look at the 2019 Allen & Ginter Tino Martinez, that didn't stop me from bringing in a new Tino to my collection. Although it's 17 years old, indeed it's one I needed.

Fleer slash Skybox put out a few interesting sets, and one of those was the EX brand. I always sort of liked them, as they had an acetate-type feel for them, and often had all or a portion of the card as clear cut. I love clear cuts.

While I have several copies of the base card, this is an instance where I had no idea that a relic existed. Truth be told, it looks like Fleer had some leftover bat pieces laying around, and essentially just cut out a weird shape on the base card and found a place to stick a bat relic. It's not integrated into the card particularly well.

I had never seen it until it popped up on eBay, and with just 43 copies made, that's not surprising. While perhaps not low by today's standards, during this time it was low.

Now I'm ready for some 2019 Ginter.

Branded

Recently, Fuji showed off his favorite relic card. Fuj, I'm going to steal your image:

I really like when Upper Deck used to brand a bat relic piece with a team logo. It added a nice looking element to an otherwise pretty boring piece of wood.

Recently, I picked up this Dave Winfield bat relic. I was emptying my COMC account of credits, and had around $2 left, and search for a "Yankee memorabilia card" to spend the remaining funds on. This one was probably the best of the bunch with was left, so I figured a card like this of a HOFer was worth it.

It may not be a press conference-used table cloth, but still a pretty cool card for a small price, and I do appreciate the extra step to make the relic look a little less bland.

Michael Phelps Autograph - Part 2

While Part 2 of this post won't feature any cards better than the Micael Phelps autograph, it's really all gravy from here on out. I mean, for $25 I got this:

And this:

Even if the remaining 1,000 or so cards were utter junk wax, I was still coming out well ahead.

Well, one of the first cards I came across was this:

Another Bryant RC. That makes two!

From there, there was a row of probably about 100 straight RCs. That makes me feel like this person knew even more what they were doing. They ranged from big stars to guys who you thought would be big stars, to some junk wax era RCs that are still great to have. Here's a sampling.

The Freeman and Baez are pretty good pulls alone, then you've got busy like Boegarts, Yelich, Didi, Votto, etc.

And while its not a RC, this card was a surprise.

There was actually a decent stack of Bowman Platinum, which shows this person was a fairly recent collector.

From there, I found a few more autographs that weren't pictured, as well as a couple of numbered cards. Still gravy.

I was surprised to find an old Pinnacle Epix! These were tough pulls, and I'm sure that the Belle would have fetched a few bucks back in the day. The condition of it was a bit rough, but cool to have!

Many cards were grouped by star player, as there were plenty of Bryants, Altuves, and around 30 Ichiros!

Yanks weren't overly plentiful, but still some decent ones, including some from 2018. Again, a recent collector!

And it was right after the James Paxton trade, so it was fun to find these included.

There were a few vintage cards, and nothing great, but again, any stack of vintage is gravy at this point.

Oh, and the shiny I mentioned from yesterday? These were in the form of a bunch of colorful 2014 Topps parallels. I was actually just a tad let down from these because when I peeked at them while still in NYC, they caught a weird light and looked orange. I thought I stumbled upon a rare Orange version!

I finished up the first box, which was the largest of the two, and then I started on the smaller box. The first 20 cards or so were junk wax, so I figured that's what I was in for from here on out. Then this card showed up:

Whoa! Followed by a massive run of Seaver cards, maybe 25-30 total, both vintage and modern.

Following the run of Seavers, was the run of game-used cards. THESE WERE NOT ADVERTISED. There were literally 30 right in a row, with guys like Ortiz, Teixeira, Sheffield, and Helton featured. Pretty cool!

Honestly, there were a lot more treasures not even pictured, but this is the best recap I can muster up.

Probably the best $25 I've spent on this hobby. And a feat I don't ever expect to replicate again.