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.

Monday's Mailbag (I know it's not Monday, but I Like Alliteration)

Welcome to the slightly late Monday's Mailbag.  Okay, significantly late.  In the future, this will be a regular feature on Mondays, on a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis depending on how many card packages come in.  As I mentioned yesterday, this week mailbag was delayed due to weather and useless holidays (except for teachers Fuji).  

The Mailbag is a simple concept that you have seen many times before: I get cards in the mail, I show off cards here.  Don't laugh, I said it was simple.  

Today the mailman was actually able to deliver, and I got 2 card packages from eBay and 1 blogger PWE in along with the 1 blogger PWE I had in hand already.  Let's start with the bloggers just because I want to.  

The first PWE came from the wonderful Dodgers fan GCRL from Cards as I see Them.  Jim was the first claimant on my inaugural Sunday PWE Trade Bait posted and claimed a Takashi Saito card.  In return for that and a few other Dodger cards, this is what I got.

 

 

To me, the star of this show is the 2013 Topps Archives Dual Fan Favorites Bichette/CarGo.  Not only are they two of my favorite Rockies ever, but until Jim offered the card, I didn't know it existed.  I am very meticulous about my checklists, but some of the ones that haven't been reexamined in some time are missing some cards that may have been mislabeled by Beckett in the past.  The two rookie cups are a product of my being forgetful and not picking up the 2020 Series 2 cup cards yet.  They are very much appreciated.  

The Dan Johnson goes toward my 2005 Rookie Cup rainbow set.  The Garrett Atkins is somewhat interesting.  Jim offered me the card because he said it was on my wantlist, but I remembered having the yellow Atkins.  I checked the online wantlist along with my offline checklist and both said I didn't have it.  Then I checked the Atkins album (yes Atkins has an album all to himself) and there was no yellow, so I told Jim to send it along.  As I was in the process of putting the Johnson in the RC album, I spotted something.  Turns out I did have the yellow Atkins in my Rookie Cup set, but not in my Rockies collection.  Usually my Rockies collection comes before any other project, but I missed this one.  Thanks to Jim, I don't have to worry about that anymore.

The second PWE came from The Diamond King from his eponymous blog.  Kevin claimed a Mookie Betts and an Adrian Beltre from the same Sunday post.  From him I got this trio of cards.

The Todd Helton is from the 2001 Royal Rookies set which is so confusing.  I know I need the card, because I don't have it, but that set is so convoluted that I don't really know exactly what it is.  Something to work on, I guess.  The Juan Uribe is an orange parallel from 2005 Donruss Champions #'d to 75.  One year I hit that parallel set pretty hard, but the oranges were hard to find.  The Uribe is only the 3rd out of 10 Rockies that I have.  Finally, the strange looking Larry Walker card is an insert from 1997 Pinnacle.  Pacific gets a lot of justified credit for their imaginative inserts, but Pinnacle deserves just as much.  The plain looking Walker is actually a folded card which looks like this unfolded.

Much better, right?  Of course it suffers the same problem as any fold out card, it is hard to showcase the best part.  For now, Walker will take his place in the binder folded.  Thanks Kevin for the trade.

As for the eBay packages, they fall under the category of what I like to call "gamble lots."  I rarely buy single cards on eBay.  When shipping is factored in, they are just too expensive.  But I will buy gamble in two different ways and buy lots to make the per card price a little more in line with what I want to pay.

The first type of gamble lot is when I spot a card I want mixed in with other cards I may not want.  That was the case with this purchase of 2020 Bowman Platinum cards.  I spotted the Casey Golden blue out of 150 along with some other serial numbered cards from the set.  There were 8 cards shown in the photo, but the seller sent 10, plus a couple of Golden base cards, following a quick question from me about the lot.  If bought separately, the Golden could have set me back a buck or two, maybe a little more with shipping.  With this lot, I got each card for just a little over 50 cents each.  So I got the card I wanted along with 9 other cards (from collected teams, not just Minnesota) that will show up on future Sunday PWE Trade Bait posts or be posted on Sportlots for $1-$3 each.  Either way, I should come out ahead.

The second type of gamble lot is the riskier kind.  That is when you buy a lot of a certain kind of card, in this case 20 serial numbered and/or refractor Colorado Rockies cards), but you don't know exactly what is included.  The seller showed a few of the cards.  The 2013 Bowman Prospects Gold Refractor Tom Murphy is the card that caught my eye, so I put in a bid.  Those golds are out of 50 and hard to track down for cheap even for non-stars like Murphy, so I took a gamble.  I ended needing only two more of the 19 cards I received, but I would still call it a somewhat successful purchase.  

The 2014 EEE Sam Howard is much like the Murphy, a middle of the road prospect that played a little bit with the Rockies before being waived and catching on with another team.  Man, the Rockies never get anything out of these guys.  Moving on.  The last one I needed was the 1998 Bowman Chrome International Refractor Larry Walker.  This card is a parallel that is VERY hard to find for a decent price.  Up to now, I only had Edgard Clemente (Roberto's nephew) from the 16 card Rockies team set.  The remaining 17 cards included 9 serial numbered cards (mostly Topps Gold) along with 8 unnumbered refractors and X fractors ranging from 2006-2014.  For a price of 45 cents a card, I am okay with this because the ones I don't need can be put on Sportlots for around $1 per card.  It's not a guarantee by any means, but given time, I could even profit from this purchase.  Or I might run into a fellow Rockies collector that might need one or more of them.  Overall, I am happy with the impulse buy.

Thanx for reading.