A little post-Christmas red & green

I hope everyone was able to have a safe and healthy Christmas. Mine was extremely quiet compared to what was planned. I was supposed to travel a few hours away to spend the holiday with my parents and siblings. However, a few tested positive for COVID-19 a few days prior, causing us to stay home and have a small little family Christmas. While it was nice and slow, I did miss being with my larger family.

As for the big day, I didn't get any cards for Christmas, although to be fair, I didn't ask for any either. There's just nothing out there I really want or care to open right now.

I haven't been buying or trading much the last few months. It's not uncommon for me lately to spend less than $10 a month on cards on Ebay. For example, in November I spent $6.66 total on cards on eBay, including shipping. It's kind of liberating.

However, in December my total jumped to $18.44, as I bought three cards during the month. Only one of them was a baseball card:

A nice 2012 Elite Extra autograph of Ty Hensley with green ink. This card is numbered 05/10, and set me back $7.88 including shipping. While I probably paid more on shipping than on the card, it was a Hensley I didn't have, which don't pop up much any more. Therefore, I'm likely to overspend, even if I'm the only market for such a card.

The green autograph looks nice against the red background, forming an inadvertent Christmas-colored card. This card brings me to 126 unique Hensley cards. I'll always pick up his cards when a new one arises.

It'll be quiet around here over the next few weeks, so I'll take this moment to wish you all a very Happy New Year!

Something stinks...

...but it's not these cards. 

Sure they have an odor to them. But that's because Johnny's Trading Spot sent them.

No, no. It's not about Johnny. I assume he smells fine. In fact, he sent me my very first card of Roughned Odor as a Yankee. If you told me this guy would be a Yankee a few years ago, I thought that would have been cool. But last year he was a no-cost pickup. Fun player, not very effective. He has since been released by the Yanks, but I'll always have this card from Johnny.

Speaking of firsts, Johnny also sent me my first non-on-demand Joey Gallo card. I like Gallo. He struggled quite a bit, but he's a cool player. Awesome power, good OFer. I think people get tired with the true three outcome-ness of his game, but I think he'll have a good second season in NY.

Johnny also sent a few more Topps Holiday cards, which is welcome because I didn't open any of these and they are always one of my favorite releases of the year.

Thanks for the PWE, Johnny. I keep saying it, but I owe you some Braves and will send them soon.

As for the rest of ya, Merry Christmas!

The upside down & a birthday

This is my second day in a row posting. I feel like I'm living in the upside down! This isn't something that's happened since last spring. Don't get used to it!

Speaking of the upside down, I recently purchased a new Tino Martinez card that has a few upside down qualities:

This is a weird printing error where Tino's name is nowhere to be found. The card state's Rich Amaral's name and team upside down, above Tino's head. The Studio logo is also upside down in the lower right.

Normally I don't care about printing errors and don't chase them. Many people find miscuts and misprints and errors to be more fun or even more valuable. I have never really been in that camp, nor have I actively gone out of my way to pick them up.

However, I though this one was pretty cool, and for a buck or so, found it to be a unique addition to my Tino collection.

Speaking of Tino, today is his 54th birthday! I have trouble remembering my family members' birthdays, yet every year December 7th shows up and I remember it's Tino's day. Did you know he was also acquired by the Yankees on December 7th, 1995? Must've been quite a day!

A TTM success trickles in

For the most part, I have stopped sending out TTM requests. While I enjoyed this aspect for the hobby for many years, I no longer feel the same about it like I once did for a multitude of reasons.

However, I have hundreds of unanswered TTM requests still out in the world, and every so often one finds its way back.

The most recent was sent in February, 2020, a few weeks before the pandemic changed the landscape of the 2020 baseball season. I was already sending out fewer TTM requests due to absolutely dwindling response rates over the past few years, but that didn't stop me from sending a handful to spring training just to give it a whirl.

Twenty two months later, former Yankee and most currently Red Sox Adam Ottavino returned two cards signed. Back when he was a Rockie, Adam used to sign with purple sharpie. It looks like he has traded that in for a more traditional blue marker.

Both came out great. The Heritage is fairly cool.

Ottavino was sent to the Red Sox for virtually nothing so that the Yankees had some wiggle room under their self-imposed fake salary cap. For the most part, he was a dependable arm for Boston. He appeared in 69 games, throwing 62 innings and striking out 71, and saving 11 games. I didn't agree that the Yanks should send a veteran reliever to their rival, but what do I know?

I'm sure another TTM or two will pop up in my mailbox at some point, but for now, it's always fun when a surprise return comes back.

Monsters Inc

As the days of this blog wind down (more to come on that), I've still got a few things to show off here and there. 

Overall, I think Topps Project 70 is utterly exhausting. Sooz did a good job getting a pulse on these on recent CardChat, and between acts of plagiarism to Topps shutting it down for a few days with little communication, the project was overly ambitious and is now tired.

Therefore, I fully expect a Project 2022 of some sort. This is Topps we're talking about.

The Project 70 checklist has been overloaded with Yankees, Dodgers, Trout, Ohtani. Once in a while a random player is featured, but for the most part it hasn't been as expansive as initially hoped. I thought I might even get a Tino at some point, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

And while I appreciate the freedom the artists have to connect their designs to a certain year of Topps cards, many times it's hard to tell and even Topps' website doesn't list the year of correlation. 

I've only bought two so far. I did acquire an early Dock Ellis, and recently, my second arrived:

I do think Alex Pardee has been the star of Topps Project 70. His monster/alien/creature mashups have been a fun change and a lot more creative than some of the other photoshop filter efforts. While they may not be for everyone, after seeing his early Ronald Acuna, I always said that I'd buy any Yankee he decided to contribute.

Obviously, he chose Aaron Judge. The 1972 Topps design remains mainly unchanged, but we've got Judge exhibiting some cool monster-like features. I love the massive Judgian hand come at you. And apparently he's in some sort of bubble bath?

His face looks like it's got a few layers of skin overlapping one another, and he has about a hundred teeth showing. Terrifying, indeed. Pitchers, beware.

My only real regret is not buying this from Topps and even giving myself a chance at a foil parallel. I bought this during en eBay pre-sale to save a few bucks.

Cool card, tired project. That's probably the last one I'll buy...unless we get a Tino somewhere.

Greed

For someone who isn't too into the hobby right now, I sure acted greedy recently.

No, I didn't go clean out a retail shelf. I'm not that greedy. But during Wes' recent trade-a-thon on Twitter, I was admittedly more greedy than I should have been.

For those who don't know about Wes' annual event, he basically posts a bunch of cards on Twitter. The first person to respond "take" gets the card. Participants are limited to claiming five cards. Wes simply asks for a surprise package in return that he waits until Christmas to open. For this round, he asked for wrestling cards in return.

I claimed three cards this time around, and as mentioned, was a bit greedy in my claims. But I do feel that what I sent back was fair, for whenever he does open his package.

The first card I claimed was an early Derek Jeter Upper Deck card. I didn't have this one, and figured it was a good one too claim. If nothing else popped up, I was happy.

Something else did pop up. This:

Oops, I claimed it. This card isn't super rare and can be had for about the price of a blaster. But I still took it. It's one of those cards I've never gone out of my way to buy, and maybe wouldn't do it if not for Wes' event. It's place in cardboard lore is well established, and I felt like I should own one to put in my "money box"...aka the box my wife knows to look for in case something ever happens to me.

Speaking of cardboard lore going into the money box, this was my third and final greedy claim:

Whoops. Yeah, pure greed. And I felt guilty as I hit claim. This was a wantlist card for me for a long time though. I even had a saved eBay search for a PSA 8, but right when I was looking to buy one a year ago the prices when up quite a bit. I never trusted to buy a raw, so the saved search just sort of sat there.

And then it popped up on Wes' timeline and I pounced.

Afterward I felt little icky, and hope I didn't take the fun out of it for others. As mentioned, I do feel that my package to Wes will be reflective of the cards he sent me. While I don't know a ton about wrestling cards, I made sure to pick out a few for Wes that had a story behind them.

Thanks, Wes. And sorry for being a greedy bastard.

Atomic holds up

Personally, it feels like Chrome products have been lackluster the past few years. Pricy, hard to find, and when one does find it, it feels like a dud. Buyer's remorse happens almost instantly. There have even been a few Topps Chrome group breaks I have passed on because I just didn't feel like the product was worth it.

That's not just Topps Chrome, either. Bowman Chrome seems to be in the same boat.

But that's why we have eBay and the ability to go back and purchase cards from better years and better efforts. If today's shiny doesn't do it for you, there's always a surplus of something from the golden era of cardboard.

For example, 24 years ago, Topps rolled out this:

Atomic Refractors were still fairly new, but man, is this Bowman's Best nice. The background textures add a depth and dimension that makes the grid-like refractor pattern just pop off the card. It's crazy we had this in 1997, yet don't get much new in 2021. 

Plus, this card set me back less than $2. I'd rather spend my money on that than today's unimagined Chrome products.