What a fancy little holder

Currently, my favorite ad campaign on TV is from Progressive. No, it's not Flo. It's actually Dr. Rick.

Dr. Rick is a coach who helps new homeowners from becoming their parents. Each scene is humorous and relatable, from a parent talking loudly on speaker phone in store, to having too many throw pillows or decorative signs, to hovering over the plumber while he works on a nearby sink.

While slightly fabricated, I think we all have moments where we feel ourselves becoming our parents. For me, lately it's walking upstairs only to find every light on in my house...despite no one being in the upstairs, and grumbling as I turn them off. Or threatening to go into the playroom with a black garbage bag if the toys aren't picked up.

I recently had another moment.

A package arrived from Bru, a long time trading friend and blogger. We completed a small TCDB swap (the best place to trade), and he threw in a nice stack of extras. This was the card on top, which was a Tino I needed:

Instead of letting out a "yessssssss" for the Tino card (which was new to my collection), instead I said to myself, "Oh. What a fancy little holder!" That was in response to the penny sleeve that had a built in pouch for a mini card, mitigating the risk of it sliding all around because that's what pesky minis do.

I was more captivated with the actual case than the card. I had never seen one of these. And like a complete geezer I actually said "what a fancy little holder." I didn't call it a penny sleeve. I didn't say anything macho. I called it "fancy." And "little." And "a holder."

I need some Dr. Rick in my life, I think.

I'll get to the rest of the cards Bru sent me another time, but I need to go examine my life for a bit.

Cards attached to cards

Recently, Kerry at Cards on Cards held another free card event. 

I feel like every time he does, there's something there that I want. Usually it's a Yankee. But in this instance, it was something else that caught my eye:

Look at that! A full, unperforated set of 1990 McDonald's SI for Kids Michael Jordan cards. I remember seeing these in my friends collection as a kid and being envious of them. The fact that Kerry had two full sets up for grabs was incredibly generous, and I couldn't claim one of them fast enough.

I've been on a bit of an SI for Kids kick lately, as I recently bought and older Jordan and Shaq, as well as a Nastia Liuken and Shawn Johnson. Since around 2014 or so, I've been receiving SI for Kids with unused airline miles. That actually has led to some really great first cards in my collection of people like Collin Morinkawa, Dustin Johnson, Simone Biles, and more. It also led to a recent $700 sale of a Naomi Osaka card from the magazine. Crazy!

However, the Jordans are for me to keep. MJ cards continue to be sought after, and something like this will always have a place in my collection.

Kerry didn't just send the Jordans. He sent me a big brick of Yanks. Along with the Jordans, this was stuck between two pieces of cardboard:

That is cool! It's a box loader card from 2020 Stadium Club. Are we bringing back Fleer Extra Bases?!

There was also a bunch of Yankees Turkey Reds, as well as Allen & Ginter cards, whose set designs are now nearly impossible to tell year over year.

I was happy to find this Jeter from 2020 Topps, as well as a 2021 insert of Gleyber Torres.

Thanks for the awesome package, Kerry!

A Ginter I can get on board with

Although it's my least favorite product of the year, I've bough a bunch of Allen & Ginter singles the past two years due to Tino Martinez's inclusion in the set. It's easy: grab the cards I want and move on with my life. No need to harp on the fact that the designs are getting worse or that the checklist is not appealing. 

Recently Topps issued Allen & Ginter Chrome for some unknown reason...to go along with Allen & Ginter X...to go along with plain boring Ginter. Do we need three issues of Ginter? Nope!

But I have to say, out of all three versions, this is by far the prettiest. The Tino cards started popping up over the past week, so I've grabbed a few here. The first arrived, and it's a beauty:

The green refractor (/99) looks great. I'm not sure if it's because it helps elevate the existing bland design, or if it's because green refractors on a fairly blank canvas have an appealing aesthetic. I also like how it fades from green to white. 

I thought it was clever how Topps took the shadow behind "Allen & Ginter" and made it a rainbow foil. I didn't like this shadow on the flagship A&G cards, but I appreciate that they didn't just leave it gray. It was a subtle, yet attractive addition.

I'll have a few more parallels coming in. And while this may be a very unnecessary set, the cards sure do look nice.

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.

X marks the spot

I was actually fairly slow to pick up the newest Allen & Ginter Tino Martinez cards. I haven't even taken inventory of any that I don't have, given the back variations and whatnot.

However, slowly but surely, a few have made it's way to me. Just last week, friend of the blog Mr. Scott reach out asking if I needed the Tino from Allen & Ginter X. Given I don't have any idea where one might find Allen & Ginter X, my answer was a quick "Yes!" In lightning fast speed, these two cards arrived:

That's the Ginter X base and mini. The base would look great signed in silver ink.

Then, via TCDB, I was able to bring in the standard base card from A&G:

Lastly, through a small eBay pickup, I got the silver foil version, which I thought was a nice add to A&G this year. They shine looks pretty good on these cards, likely because of the pastel backgrounds.

I'm still in need of other A&Gs, notably the mini and its variations. If you come across any, you know where to find me!

Single Digits

My quest for 1,000 unique Tino Martinez cards has hit another milestone. I'm down to needing just 9 more.

Sometimes I think that 1K isn't that impressive. Other collectors often have a few thousand of their designated guy. But then I tell myself to shut up because 1. it is impressive and 2. Tino just doesn't have that many cards.

According to TCDB, I only have 38.9% of Tino cards. But that number is crap when you consider the hundreds of cards that consistent of Yankee Stadium Legacy and Topps Tek's 900 patterns in the late 90s.

The latest two came from Tim over Cardpocolypse. Tim was kind enough to match his Tino collection with my want list and send me two. So generous and cool, and he pushed me into single digits! The International Chrome Refractor is so pretty!

I also have snagged a few serial numbered shiny recently. I'm not sure why, but some uncommon Tino's have been popping up on eBay. People selling their old stuff during quarantine, maybe? The Revolution is a Shadow Series #'d to 99.

Several gold cards have come my way, as well. I have several of the 1992 Topps Gold Winners, but never had the plain old gold by itself. The Bowman is also a gold foil version.

A couple of oddballs made their way in as well!

Last but not least, I had totally forgotten to pick up 2019 Allen and Ginter X. I'm not a big A&G fan, but the all black version is pretty cool.

I still haven't decided what I'm going to do for #1000. Maybe I'll splurge. Maybe it'll just be a run of the mill base card I missed.

Time will tell. But I'm getting close. And it's getting very real.

Here come the Tinos

In my initial post about Tino being a part of Allen & Ginter, I noted that since he had a Topps contract now, he'd probably show up in a bunch of products.

Looks like the prediction is somewhat coming true, as he's been included as an autograph subject in both Topps Tribute and the upcoming Archives product. Chasing down new Tinos, especially autographs, is not something I was expecting in 2019. Oy!

At least there are some base cards, and Kin from Beans Ballcard Blog was kind enough to send me a couple A&Gs so I didn't have to purchase them myself.

He sent me a few of the base cards, one of the hot box gold, and two minis the normal back and the A&G back. I am pretty clueless when it comes to A&G and am not in the know with the various types of backs. I'll have to take inventory at some point.

Kin, I appreciate you looking out for me! Thank you.

I thought the Glossies would be a little...Glossier

"That John Denver is full of sh*t, man."

That was the line that popped into my head when my 2019 Topps All & Ginter Tino Martinez Glossy Mini card arrived. It is a 1/1, and my first modern day Tino 1/1!

I wasn't sure why, but the card didn't seem very glossy. It would be easy to flip right past in a stack of minis. Luckily I knew I had it coming to me, but I wonder how many of these get overlooked by people ripping wax.

I spent a lot more on this card than I planned (and I blame Zippy Zappy). I made what I felt was a low offer to a seller on eBay, and it was accepted. However, even the "low" offer was a lot more than I typically spend on cards.

Still, a Tino 1/1 from 2019? Sign me up!

And if you have a stack a of minis, take another look, because you might have a glossy without even knowing it!

The first Tino Ginter arrives!

Yesterday, after a day trip to see some family, I came home to find this in my mailbox.

Oh yeahhhh! It's my first 2019 Topps Allen & Ginter Tino Martinez. I bought this earlier in the week, and it arrived very quickly, in a PWE to boot (free shipping on a cheap card, totally cool).

This is the gold foil parallel, found in "hot boxes." I don't know what a hot box is, and don't really feel like looking it up. I hope that these just show up one per pack or something in a hot box. I'd be annoyed if I bought a box and all the cards had this gold border around them.

Overall, I like the photo and the old times background. I'd really like to know when this photo was taken. It definitely was not Tino's first NY stint (1996-2001). It could have been from his final Yankees season, in 2005. But it just doesn't seem right. He looks a little older and thicker. It honestly might be from the last few years when he served as Yankees guest instructor at spring training. Just a theory, I don't know for sure.

Here's the back. Pretty standard. 

Looking forward to a few others rolling in!

Tino is in 2019 A&G!

Yesterday, I took a quick peek at the 2019 Allen & Ginter checklist that was released by Topps. A&G is by far my least favorite set each year, even more than Big League, but I did want to see what Yankees were in the set. I was glad to see that Adam Ottavino is included, for example. And equally happy to see that there was no Jacoby Ellsbury card. For some reason, Topps still seems to think Yankee fans want Ellsbury cards. I can assure you that, even for the season he was healthy, no one did.

But I was shocked, and I say SHOCKED, when I saw card #300 on the 2019 checklist: TINO MARTINEZ - NY YANKEES.

I don't know if this is certain, but my hunch is that Tino didn't have a Topps contract for awhile, but that has changed. For starters, he was left out of 2017 Topps Home Run Derby Champs insert set. How else can you leave out the undisputed 1997 Derby champ?!

I'm sure many non-Yankee fans will gripe. Why do we need to keep seeing El Duque and Paul O'Neill in our sets?! Because Topps makes money from old dudes buying cards, and including more Yankees = more sales. Simple really. Tino isn't a star, and is probably better reserved if another "Fan Favorites" set ever comes out. Regardless, I don't care what others will think, especially with some of the garbage that is usually included in the A&G checklist. If Tino takes the place of a base card of a hot dog eater or an entrepreneur, then I am for it. Many find those cards charming. I find them annoying.

Side note - I do enjoy the look of A&G. That's never my issue. And they look great signed! They serve as excellent TTM fodder. Like this:

Anyways, I'm wondering if this will start a run of Tino being included in various Topps sets. He was a redemption in 2019 Bowman for the 30th anniversary buyback autos, and now has a base card in A&G. It wouldn't surprise me to see him start popping up in Archives and the likes.

Will it make me buy more Ginter? Well, I'll probably buy a blaster because it'll be fun to pull a Tino from a pack in 2019. So, in short, yes. But I won't go overboard, as I'm sure a few copies will find their way to me even if I didn't buy a single pack.

But at least this did one thing: got me excited about a 2019 release, which is saying something.

Michael Phelps Autograph - Part 1

I've been wanting to write this post for a long time, but it's just been a bit daunting. However, it's time to bite the bullet and tell the story about how this valuable Michael Phelps autographed card came into my possession.

Over the summer, you may recall, I made two different social media marketplace purchases. I had some time between jobs, and these were 100% to flip. The first lot was for $40, which I sorted through and then sold the next day for $80. It was far more about volume than quality.

The second lot, which also cost $40, was a little better. It still had a lot of commons, but also some really nice cards that could be broken up into smaller lots. I ended up making about $250 from that $40 purchase. Pretty good.

Once the job started, I didn't have any intention of doing this anymore. It's too time consuming to sort through cards in bulk like that. But from time-to-time I'd still check Facebook, Craigsist, and LetGo to see if anything interesting was available.

In late November, right before Thanksgiving, this popped up on one of those sites. It was in NYC, just 8 blocks from my office:

Now, that is the only photo and description that was included, in this exact format. Immediately I was intrigued. The price for everything pictured was $25. Off the bat, I saw the Kris Bryant RC, plus two autographs, and the case of Teenymates, which my son really likes. I figured for $25 it was worth it, plus it was only two small boxes of cards, which I could manage on my public transit commute.

The only problem was, I contacted the seller on a Saturday. I wouldn't be in the office until Monday. Still, he responded and said it was available and that a Monday post-work pickup would work. I was still nervous, mostly because I started studying the photo, trying to get a better glimpse of what was there. I found that the one A&G framed autograph was Daniel Hudson. Pretty common card. But I couldn't quite figure out the other.

Zooming in, it looked like a non-baseball autograph. Maybe a swimmer? Immediately, my mind went to Mark Spitz. But when I checked eBay, it didn't look like one of his. Then I thought of maybe Ryan Lochte, but that wasn't it. Then I thought...Michael Phelps? No. Could it be?

I checked eBay, and lo and behold, the autographed card matched Michael Phelps signed Allen & Ginter cards from 2016. One had just sold on eBay, in fact. For $199.99!

Mind you, the entire lot was $25. Was I going to score a Michael Phelps autograph for $25?

I was a pile of nerves that Monday, but I messaged the seller and we arranged a 6:30 pick up. He brought the two boxes of cards down from his building, as shown, and I gave him the $25. I said, "this was everything pictured, right?" And he said, "yep!" He opened the one shoe box and there it was on top, this card:

I couldn't believe it. I was expecting the worst, but the transaction worked out flawlessly. The autographs were there. The Bryant RC was there, and I couldn't wait to go through more.

I said goodbye and walked about a half a block before adjusting the canvas shopping bag I brought. I stopped on a stoop to put the Phelps in between a few cards to protect it, as it was only in a soft penny sleeve (dummy me didn't bring a top loader). During the transfer, I took a sneak peek in the box, and I saw a lot of shinny cards. While one might assume the rest of the cards were junk wax, which I would have been totally fine with given the circumstances, it was obvious to me there were going to be some newer cards in there.

More on that soon. Because it got better. Much better.

Out of sorts

I feel very out of sorts with my blogging right now. Although my posts aren't particularly insightful in general, I'm having a tough time just finding the time to cobble anything together.

It sounds trivial, but it started when my blogroll inexplicably vanished from my blog. I didn't do anything to edit or change the layout. I just woke up one day and *poof* it vanished. I'm not sure how each you consume other blogs, but I'd start by going to my site and going through my blogroll. It's probably inefficient and leads me to miss some posts, but it's been my formula for the last five years.

Blogger help has said they are working on the issue, but we're going on three weeks now. It actually happened to many other people, from the looks of it on the forum. I highly doubt that they are going out of their way to help us though. At the end of the day, we are using a free platform, and although they screwed up, they don't have much incentive to repair what was done.

Luckily, a fellow blogger helped me to view a cashed version of my blog, and he was kind enough to pull the list I had of blogs I had. I'm dreading it, but I think I'll soon start repairing my blog roll manually, one by one. At least I have the list.

Ok, enough whining. Here's are two relic cards, that came together in a lot I bought not too long ago. I needed the Pineda, and the Beltran was a nice bonus. Apparently there are two different relic designs - an A and B versions. I didn't know that when I bought them, but noticed upon arrival.

Just turn it 90 degrees

Verizon has this content app called Go90. I recently learned the “90” in the name is associated with turning your phone 90-degrees so it acts as a more conventional video-viewing screen. I would have never guessed that from the name, but made sense once the logic was explained to me.

Anyhow, I was reminded of Go90 when these two cards arrived. It’s my first look at the 2016 Allen & Ginter, although if you told me in was 2013 or 2014 or 2015 I wouldn’t have argued. I’m at the point now where I can’t look at Ginter and automatically know which year it’s from.

I do like the teal/aqua color of Allen & Ginter. That was a nice touch.

What most threw me was that the mini that accompanied the base card – in this instance a black bordered version – was turned 90 degrees. Perhaps this is a common trend, but I don’t think I’ve noticed it before. Topps was able to show a bit more of the photo, as well as the background of the image. It also looks more like Luis Severino than Big Mike. Just a weird angle.

Anyhow, I thought it was an interesting route for Topps to take, and wonder if anyone else has thought something similar when comparing the base cards to the minis. I also know this product has been out for about six weeks and this topic likely has already been touched upon.

A new Pineda 1/1 has a home

A few weeks ago, I got an email titled "Pineda PC."

It was from Jeff of 2x3 Heroes. He pulled a Big Mike framed printing plate from Allen & Ginter, and immediately set it aside for me.

I know that Jeff could have probably got back half of what he spent on the box if he listed it on eBay. Instead, he instantly set it aside for me and then said "I'm sure you'll send something back that's fair."

What an awesome gesture, and it really put the pressure on me to prove him right. I'm just about finished putting together a White Sox package for Jeff that I really hope he finds to be suitable. I actually had a lot of fun putting it together, so I hope it he enjoys it.

This is my second Pineda 1/1, and man do I appreciate this gesture. After I added one to my collection last year, I figured I was done, but this one just fell onto my lap, and I'm really thankful.

Jeff, thanks for this, and I hope you enjoy the White Sox headed your way.

I hate this card, but I still bought it

I think buybacks are stupid.

I think buybacks in 2015 Allen & Ginter that feature nearly worthless A&G cards from the last nine years are pointless. Topps stamps some foil on it, and look, a new, fancy card! There are 224 of this Michael Cuddyer 2011 A&G mini on COMC for $.08, but look, we bought some and stamped it, and now it's rare!

I don't love it on vintage cards either, but I don't think it's as dumb a concept as what 2015 A&G is doing. I can tolerate it.

All these words of hate, and then this arrived in my mailbox over the weekend:

Was it a gift? A PWE from another blogger? No. I bought it on eBay.

When you have a PC of guy, I suppose you make these choices, which means you collect cards of that guy you think are dumb, but need them for your collection. That's what I'll tell myself. I luckily won it very cheap, but still, I wasn't excited about it arriving or anything. Maybe I'm doing this hobby all wrong.

I just bought a card I think is stupid. So what does that make me? Stupider?