Monday's Mailbag #5

Greeting all.  I swear guys, eventually I am going to get one of these Monday Mailbags actually posted on a Monday.  It's almost comical at this point that I keep missing the day it named for.  Perhaps I should just steer into the skid and never post Monday's Mailbag on a Monday.  It would be the perfect metaphor for my lack of time management and scheduling.  But I think I will continue trying to aim for a Monday post with these.  

This post is actually 8 days late, not 1 day late, but I have talked about how busy life is WAY too much recently, so let's just dive in and check out some new cards in my home.

 

First up we have an eBay gamble lot.  This was a lot of 14 2020 Bowman/Platinum Chartreuse parallels.  Of the 14, I could only see 5 of them in the photo.  Usually when this happens sellers tend to not show the less marketable players and since my team is full of less marketable players, I thought I would give it a shot.  It didn't work, but I did get some Sportlots (or trade) inventory for a relatively cheap cost.  I got 7 vets and 7 prospects.  Of the vets, I got some fairly big names including the Acuna above along former MVPs Bellinger and Bryant.  With the prospects, I let you know in 3 years whether I got any good ones.

Next up we have another eBay lot.  This was for a lot of 1986 inserts that I am collecting.  I go a lot of 8 for a really cheap price, so it didn't really even bother me that I only needed 5 of the 8 for my set.  The first card is of the late great Hank Aaron.  For my money, he is the greatest player of all time, so I was happy to get this card in a cheap lot.  Usually the cheap lots are filled with Twins or Marlins or A's or some other teams that just don't sell well.  Except Rockies for some reason.  Oh well.  Andrew McCutchen has been on several teams in his career, especially recently, but he really looks strange in anything but a Pirates uniform.  That being said, that card looks like it would seamlessly fit in the real 1986 set.

Next up we have a visit from everyone's favorite nocturnal bird of prey, the Night Owl.  Greg sent me a PWE in exchange for a pair of Dodgers and a pair of Braves he needed for a separate deal.  I highly encourage any of you to use my Sunday PWE trade posts as sort of a middle man like Greg did.  I like getting cards to where they belong, even if I am not the last stop on the way.  The Christian Yelich is a good addition to my set.  I hadn't seen it before Greg pack pulled it and showed it off.  I think it is one of the better 86 cards I have seen thus far.  The Todd Helton is a red foil parallel from 2019 Stadium Club that I was sure I needed, but I didn't.  It was the Trevor Story red foil and the Todd Helton black foil that I was missing.  But no problem, because now I can be the middle man to move that Helton to where it needs to go.  In fact, the next man up might even need it for his "Tatooine" collection.

That man of course is Jim (aka gcrl) from Cards as I See Them.  Jim has quickly become one of my regular trade partners on my Sunday PWE trade bait posts.  I know we traded a little, but I don't think we traded that much in my first go around the blogosphere.  But luckily we are making up for it now.  Up first is the 2005 Topps/Rookie Cup Red Reggie Sanders.  Both in hand and online the red /499 and orange /399 parallels are difficult to tell apart unless you see them side by side.  It doesn't help that they are the two most common parallels either.  Seller have made that mistake before.  In this case though, Jim got it right and now I am 1 card closer to my goal.  The card on the right is a different kind of red parallel.  It is one of the Target retail exclusives from 2020 Topps/Update.  2020 Update is a conundrum with me.  It is one my least favorite modern sets, bit also has several Rockies that don't get put on cardboard often, like Drew Butera.  I guess it is just going to end up being a set that I love to hate from now on.

Jim also sent a couple of additional Rockies needs.  Both of them could also fall into the cards I love to hate category for different reasons.  Up first is the 2018 Topps Independence Day manupatch relic Charlie Blackmon.  It hits two categories of things I love to hate, manurelics and jingoism.  Don't get me wrong, I love my country, but I cannot stand the jingoism that tries to sell patriotism for a profit.  But it is a Rockies card, so I am happy with it.  It seems, my love for my Rockies collection is stronger than my core beliefs apparently.  The other card is from 2008 Topps/Moments and Milestones.  That particular Matt Holliday has 216 different versions each representing one of his 216 hits in the 2007 season.  Each of those cards is #'d out of 150 which makes it incredibly difficult to track them down.  This card is actually a black parallel which has the same 216 versions except they are #'d to just 25.  25 is my cut off number to add cards to my Rockies checklists. so in order to be happy I need to track down a total of 432 copies of basically the same card.  Thank you Jim for knocking 1 off that list. 

Next up we have yet another eBay gamble lot.  This was a lot of 115 cards from various sets that I picked up for less than a dime per card including shipping.  In a normal case, you really couldn't have a really bad buy at that cost.  But in this case, it was a very good buy.  Not a home run, but a solid double...maybe even a triple . The only thing really bad about it is that I didn't get any new Rockies.  But what I did get was some nice cards.  The top row was some of the many good rookies that will pay for this lot and then some.  I actually got 4 Gavin Lux cards, 2 Fire and 2 flagships.  When he inevitably gets hot this season, those cards will probably sell for $10 each.  But it's not all about profit here.  

Strangely, I got a nice group of 1998 Bowman International cards included with all the 2020 cards.  I say strangely just because the 10 cards I got were the only card not from the 2018-2020 range.  Maybe, not strange, but definitely random.  The group I got were decent names too including the Pudge Rodriguez above.  The card that made me buy this lot in the first place was the Eddie Rosario Baby Shark parallel above.  I am slowly building the baby shark set, but I am only about 20% of the way there.  The final card though got me to 100% complete for one of my 9 sets for my 2020 Donruss rainbow project.  The Aaron Judge regular base card was the last of the 300 (including variations) that I needed to complete my base set.  The reason it took so long to get the complete set is that when I was purchasing lots, I wasn't buying lots of base cards, I was buying lots of blues or yellows or whatever.  Or on Sportlots purchases I was getting the parallels first.  When attempting a project like this, you don't want to focus on the easily acquired cards first because you can always find them later.  It applies to vintage sets too.  If you are trying to build a 1960s set, it is usually better to find the Mickey Mantle before you start picking up the bench players from the Indians and Pirates.  It usually helps the wallet and really helps motivate you to complete your project.  Just my handy dandy little tip of the day.

Thanx for reading.

Unwrapping the Sportlots Box #1

A few weeks back the great Night Owl wrote a post about the difference between saving your money vs. getting what you want quickly with the Sportlots box concept as the main character of the argument.  It's a great read like just about everything he puts out, but this is one of the few posts he has made that I vehemently disagree with.  Before I begin, I want to make crystal clear that this is not me calling Night Owl wrong, because that story is his opinion and by definition an opinion can never be wrong.  The way he collects, his way is right for him.  I just want to showcase one possible alternative way of using the Sportlots box to both get what you want and save money. 

I am a very eclectic collector.  My Rockies are main collection, but I have several other interests that I collect to varying degrees.  I collect my UK basketball guys.  I collect vintage Topps sets.  I collect insert sets that hold a particular appeal to me.  And I am currently working on a 9 rainbow parallel 2020 Donruss set, which I will go into greater detail about on a later day.  

Because I have so many interests, I get different hankerings when I visit Sportlots.  Most of the time I go there to find the Rockies team set for the most recent releases.  I have found that I can save 50% or even more by buying team sets individually instead of just getting one on eBay.  Most of the time I can get an entire team set from one seller, but not always.  This is where the box savings helps.  

 

Let's take the 2020 Bowman/Draft set for example.  The Rockies have one of the hot names in that set in Zac Veen so naturally his cards are drastically overpriced for a player that has never played a single minor league game.  I refuse to pay the "I think he will good" tax that so many have been charging.  But I still want the rest of the team set, so instead of paying $10 on eBay for a set including Veen, I got the rest of the set (+ 2 chrome parallels) for less than $2 including shipping by using box shipping.  It took two different sellers and if I used quicker shipping, the cost would have been over $8.  I am not a skinflint, but I am not wealthy to pay 300% more than I need to.  BTW, Case Williams is a real zero year guy because he has never and will never suit up for even a minor league game for the Rockies.  He was traded to the Reds in the Jeff Hoffman/Robert Stephenson deal after the season.

This also works for other minor league sets such as these examples from 2020 Topps/Heritage Minors and prospect heavy sets like 2020 Bowman/Platinum.  Of course, Tyler Nevin and "Jedi Master" Terrin Vavra were no longer Rockies by the time these cards came out.  They were sent to Baltimore in the still hard to understand Mychal Givens deal.

 

Inserts and parallels are also a very good thing to get through the box system, especially when buying from a smaller seller.  Most small sellers do not open enough product to get large quantities of inserts and parallels, but they could have that one that you want for a good price.  What I do is find a card I want such as these 2020 Bowman/Platinum ice parallel Trevor Story, 2020 Topps/Gallery rainbow Jesus Tinoco and 2020 Panini/Absolute Rookie Roundup Sam Hilliard.  Not many small sellers have multiple needed parallels and inserts for the Rockies, so I have to buy from several different to complete team sets.  

So many card sets were jammed into a very short time period.  There were at least 16 sets that were released in November and December.  Some of them I haven't completed checklists for, let alone picking up team sets.  But I was able to just add a few cards as filler to orders for other cards I truly wanted to buy that day.  This 2020 Stadium Club/Chrome Brendan Rodgers is an example of that.  I think the set, but did anyone truly have enough time to enjoy it?  Same with the 2020 Topps/Fire Flame Sam Hilliard.  Kind of a weird set, but it's not a bad design.  But there was no time to take it in before the next new thing came out.  Topps Gold Label is one of those sets that if it went away, would anyone really miss it or even notice?  But since it is around I grabbed this one.  The final Rockies card here is from a set I didn't even know contained MLB players for a while after its release.  2020 Panini/Contenders was written about on Baseballcardpedia as NOT containing MLB players.  Well, it does as shown by this Chuck Nazty.  Not a bad set, I like it in basketball, but again would anyone miss it if it disappeared in MLB?

 

 

Now we get to the actual greatness of the box orders.  With regular shipping, my cards would have likely ended there.  But with box shipping, I can look at additional cards that I otherwise wouldn't buy.  The one area of my collection that has benefited most is my vintage sets.  An example is with the Bowman Platinum Trevor Story from above.  I found it for around 30 cents or so.  With shipping at 75 cents, I could have gotten it a couple weeks ago for around a buck.  However, this seller offered box shipping of up to 25 cards shipped for $1.  So I checked his inventory and didn't see much more I needed with Rockies or NBA cards.  But I noticed he had a nice chunk of vintage for low prices.  So I added 23 1975 Topps and a 1982 Topps Dale Murphy to the order.  Not only did I get a few cards from two sets that I have little from, but the seller also benefited.  Instead of making a few cents off a dollar order that costs 75 cents to ship, the seller got a $5 order from me and was probably able to package my order with others to save shipping costs himself.  

I have been doing that regularly since the box system started.  Two sets that I have been steadily building with orders like that are 1974 Topps and 1981 Topps.  I have the 74 set within about 50 cards or so of completion.  This early Dwight Evans is one of the few I need that I found for decent prices.  The 74 Rangers checklist is one of 8 that I got from a seller, some of which were new to me and some were upgrades of others.  I very seriously doubt I would have bothered to collect the checklist set if it wasn't for shipping filler. 

By the way, is it possible that the Bob Knepper is the best mustache in the history of humanity?  Or is it the worst?  I can't decide whether I love it or hate it.

Another thing that I have been working on is my 2020 Donruss rainbow set.  It is another project that requires multiple sellers.  The orange parallels like the Yadier Molina only showed up at 4 per hanger box.  With a 300 card set, one guy is not likely to have all I need.  So you pop in one or two along with the rest of an order and before you know it, you are around 70% complete of a 2700 card project.  The Kershaw is one of the weird one that has a back variant with the same photo on the front.  I don't like that practice at all.  But anyway.  The main parallel that I am behind on is the Baby Sharks like the Kershaw.  I have a lot (50 I think), but there are a lot to go and they aren't cheap.  Although this time, I was able to add Kershaw along with 4 others.  

Let's end this thing by showing another couple of forms of shipping filler, my NBA collection and a really neat insert set that I have been very passively collecting, 2020 Topps/Big League Defensive Wizards.  First off is a 2019 Panini/Chronicles Panini Keldon Johnson.  I'm not a huge fan of Chronicles just because it is so limited on player selection.  It's a few superstars in the base set and then almost all rookies on 10-20 different designs.  Although the sheer number of cards per rookie do tend to help the collector afford them.  I got this Keldon before he has emerged as a future star in San Antonio this year.  I doubt I will get any more of his rooks as cheaply.  Finally, I added this Matt Chapman (along with a Bryce Harper) to my very passively collected set.  I have 13 of the 15 now.  I need the Trout and the Tater Tot (Fernando Tatis Jr.) cards to complete the set if you happen to have any laying around.

Most of those cards I would have never gotten to appreciate were it not for shipping filler and the Sportlots box system.  I love it both as a buyer and a seller.  It won't work if you just want to place one order from a single seller every so often.  In that case, just pay the full shipping, it will be better for you.  But if you are like me and buy from SL several times a month, the box system will save you money.  Actually that isn't true, because I still spend the same amount of money, but I get a lot more cards for that money.  And for me that is what is truly important.

Thanx for reading.

Rockie Trading Post #30 - Special Returning Guest Greg from Night Owl Cards

Welcome back to another edition of The Rockie Trading Post.  Tonight's returning guest is Greg (aka nightowl) from Night Owl Cards.  Greg was here previously on TRTP #9.  In case you are living under a rock with that guy from that Geico commercial, Greg collects Dodgers and, of course, night cards.  This time around I sent Greg several 2008 Upper Deck Timelines that he is collecting along with a few Dodgers.  Here is what I got back, according to his note his last Rockies.

We'll start out in 2006.  This is the only year that I still haven't gotten around to making a personal want list for, let alone a comprehensive one for the blog.  The Jeff Francis is an Opening Day parallel with the red foil instead of the standard (for that year) blue.  I prefer the OD blue border parallels to the colored foil changes by far.  Our Todd Helton card of the day is this 2006 Topps Chrome base card that show him in prime fielding position.

Next we move onto modern Topps inserts.  While it appears both of these cards are from 2007, the Ubaldo is actually a card yo mama threw out 3 year old reprint.  Chances are if Mama threw this card out, you aren't back to collecting yet anyway.  The Matt Holliday is a Topps 205 insert from the 2007 base set.  I really don't mind retro inserts such as the 2008 Trading Card History, I am just tired of retro sets from the late 19th/early 20th century.

Our final Rockie category today is expansion year catchers turned future Manager of the Year winners.  Joe Girardi managed the Marlins for one year, winning the 2006 NL Manager of the Year award, before moving on to fame and fortune and old players with the Yanks.  Eric Wedge managed the Cleveland Indians for much of the 2000s, winning the AL Manager of the Year in 2007.  He was let go in 2009 and is the current manager of the Mariners.

Greg also sent me a nice chunk out of my rapidly completing 2011 Topps Opening Day master set.  The Ubaldo Jimenez is my favotire out of the entire Superstar Celebrations insert set.  It shows the celebration following his (and the Rockies) first ever no-hitter vs. the Braves on April 17, 2010.  The Braun is kind of an odd card for this set because Braun is fairly obscured in that photo and to me it appears that Carlos Gomez is the featured player.

Here are some of the base cards (which is now complete...thank you to all my trading buddies) that Greg sent.  Mostly nondescript photos here, but I can't decide whether I like the Jeremy Jeffress photoshopped card.  I don't have his flagship card to post, but it is the same photo except the jacket and hat are Milwaukee.  I think I like this card, because if I hadn't seen the Brewers card I honestly don't know if I would have picked this out as a photoshopped card.  It is well done in my opinion.


Thanks again Greg for the trade and I will happily trade you Dodgers often so they stop sucking the fun out of my collection.  And good luck to the Dodgers in the Wild Card race this year, because they ain't winning the division hehe.  Okay now that I have poked the bear (well, owl) I will at least plug his fantastic blog once again.  Well that just about wraps up another fun edition of The Rockie Trading Post.  Join us next time for a trade with one of the few Yankee fans that I enjoy chatting with.  Until then, we are officially signed off.