Lets talk about an OCD nightmare

The title says it all, but more on that in a minute. First I'd like to send some much deserved thanks out to some "trading bloggers"

Recently, I contacted a few bloggers about allowing me to send them some cards of "their team" or "want lists". A few replied back and out went some stuffed PWEs. I got the first return package in this week and man o man was it a doozie. All Atlanta Braves inserts or parallels, wow! I was only expecting some base cards back, I'm not too picky on the return as I am wanting every Braves card sticker, whatever ever made. Yes, I do try to keep track of what I have and need (reference: the title of this post) for the most part as this post will lead too eventually. The blogger who sent the Amazing Braves was Daniel Wilson of the blog "it's like having my own card shop". I can't thank him enough. I hope that he enjoys the 2nd PWE that left out this week with his D-Backs, and I went ahead and made up a couple more to send out in December too.

I'd also like to thank bloggers Jedi Jeff from 2x3 heroes and founder of the PWE club of which I am a proud member! Likewise, I'd like to thank Nick from Dimebox. These two guys have helped me come along, pushing and recommending my blog. Granted I have a long way to go when it comes to this blog. But, I definately appreciate teh kudos those 2 send out.

I still anxiously await Jedi Jeff and his computer skills to magically make scans show up as I would like them to, so that I may post some awesome cards that I truly would love to write about. And to figure out how to link my trading site. I had better wake up now, and get to the point of this post. Some card scans would be GREAT right HERE.

I should probably restate the title of this post to NIGHTMARES!
As mentioned earlier, I have been trading for Braves cardboard, besides the John Elway "SUPER COLLECTION" which is my main priority, #3 T206 cards, and #4 Wacky Packages.

I was only able to add 17 unique cards to the Elway collection this month, even though I tried to FOCUS on it. I wound up increasing the number of BRAVES binders instead.  A short list of the binders here: LOL.

#1 First year card in Atlanta uniform

I still need 68 cards total, 34 of which I have no card at all and the other 34 I at least have a second year card. Organized by year.

#2 Same as above but Organized alphabetically.

Still need 210 for this "2nd Set" obviously I need the above 68 x2, leaving only an additional 142 cards.

#3 Every Topps flagship Braves card.

Organized by year, and list is current, sort of.

#4 Every Donruss Brand card.

Organized by year.

#5 Every Fleer Brand card

#6 Every Score Brand card

#7 Every Pacific Brand card

#8 Every Upper Deck Brqnd card

#9 Every Bowman Brand card

and lastly

#10 Every inserts/parallel and oddball

Now you can see where the OCD nightmareS are coming from. I am wondering why I did this (head held down). Anyways.........

recently I have been reading other blogs and noticed several of us deal with this issue, especially when it comes to our cardboard.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Doesn't matter, I wouldn't have it any other way, LOL.  I think I will say that again LOL!

To close out I will share the trade numbers for the month of November.
Total trades = 40
17 Elways, 2 covers, an oddball. A boat load of Braves!

(hint) I believe I may run some kind of contest (hint) for December trades with some "sic" prizes for the top 3 trades.

Later.......................

A funny thing that happened today at the Flea Market

Yes, I did go back to the same flea market yet again today. I was hoping that same vendor (Rob) would bring that "other binder" he had told me about. In short he didn't, but we talked some more baseball, once again I enjoyed it. Wound up buying a couple of DVDs no cards there today at his table. So I figured while I was there I would hit the aisles that I couldn't last weekend  (my hands were full),  Well, just a few tables down the same row, another table with misc "stuff", and 1 binder full of vintage. Nope, didn't get this one, as the guy had everything priced at NM bv, and was asking for 50% of what was marked. The cards were in EX (not NM) condition, but I am NOT going to spend that kind of money of some cardboard, at least not for those he had, albeit some were nice, and would have liked to have them, but I will trade for them eventually, I hope.

Went down the next aisle, nothing there, and then on to the next and wowser! BINGO BINGO BINGO! did I say BINGO!?  Yes I did. I spent about 30 minutes at this table, making deals the whole time card by card. In short, A Mantle Autographed card from that set back in the early 80s, and it was NM. Perfect sig too, yep, I grabbed it along with some other nice deals, but the Mantle was the doozie. Now, keep in mind I only collect John Elway, Braves, Wacky Packages, and T206 cards. But I figured what trade bait that auto is going to make. The guy swore he even had a T206 there, but we searched didn't find it, needless to say, I'll be back to see Gilbert again!

I suppose everyone is wondering what I dropped for the Mantle, I'm not saying yet but whatever you're thinking cut it in half, and then halve that too, trust me. It was a steal rather than a deal, and genuine too. Now this brings to me to the funny thing that happened at the flea market today. You see I no longer have that Mantle, it never seen my truck. There was only 1 aisle left on the one side that I had previously skipped for reasons already mentioned. Low behold, I see cards about mid way down the aisle. I rush over to it, and it the second I've seen in my now 2 trips that was only sports cards and collectibles. My eyes are lighting up, then the vendor pops out in the aisle, turns out I know him and have for nearly 20 years. I used work with "BOB" for a long time and knew he dealt cards at the flea markets for what now must be 30 years, but had lost track of BOB a long time ago. He had fallen ill (ticker I think), and thus I figured he was out the biz if not out of the picture altogether, if you know what I mean. (I hadn't been to the flea market in about that long).

I must of spent 3 hours with Bob, I didn't buy a thing from him. You see I don't have to buy anything from BOB, if he has something I want, he tells me to take it. That's the way it used to be, and he didn't really forget or change a thing. In fact because I have moved since we last seen each other (about ten years ago), he is coming over Wednesday night to take all those basketball cards off my hands, and some vintage hot wheels/matchbox, stuff in general. Yes, we are trading! He had some 77-80 sets of Star Wars, and some other odd ball collectibles I wanted. I offered them up. Now of course, by now you have figured he got the Mantle, and yes I let him have it, now of course I left his table with a few Personal Collection cards too.

Like a 1965 Hank Aaron in EX+ condition ($75), a NM Neikro/Carroll RC ($50), a Chipper RC (the $10.00 one ), a 1975 Aaron ( a bit faded, but okay), 1978 Murphy EX,  and 5 Elway cards in NM, turns out I did actually already have one of the Elways an $8.00 one, but hey I can always trade it or put it with the other 800 Elway dupes. One of the Elways was a $24 card , 2 others were $12.00. I also left his booth with a 2004 MINT Braves year book, and a 9 pocket page of red bordered Action Packed  HOFer baseball cards ( for a fellow trader), and some odd and ends. I think I got $60.00 worth, what do you think?  I haven't even mentioned the other cards from the BINGO table, not much just some nice PC adds there too for Braves.

As I was heading out, but still talking with BOB, someone comes up behind me and starts hugging me tight from the rear, I turn to see who it is and it was a client of mine, that I had just seen last week, Friday actually. His name is also BOB, and he had two friends with him, and introduced them to me and I will be seeing one of them in a week or two. How about that, go to the flea market to get baseball cards and I gain a business client, and yes that Mantle steal was awesome, but seeings that I don't have anymore I will just have to take solace in the fact that I ran into an old friend/card hook up, gained a client (thats what pays for the cards lol), and have a handful of PC hits.

I love this hobby!

Thanks again to Nick, for the push to check out the local flea markets!

Later

Oh BOY part TWO (the other stuff)

Just an update about the rest of the cards from the flea market haul! Wow, some really great stuff. And all available for those who may be interested. I really only wanted the fore mentioned Braves, using the rest to trade with.

I've never been one to collect the Sportflics cards, at least not the ones from the 80s. I did pop a few boxes of the 1995s and 1996, be it most but not all of those have been traded away by now.

In this most recent lucky find. I managed to get parts of  what looks like 2 sets of the Sportflics :

1986 triple action: 2 don mattingly, 10, 11,12, 16, 21 kirk gibson x3, 25 seavor, 26, 31,37 reggie jackson, 43 nolan ryan, 48, 53 neikro/reuss/witt, 57 cal ripken/baylor/reggie jackson, 58 parker/madlock/rose, 59 x2, 70 sutsliffe/carlton/seavor, 73 lynn/murray/ripken, 83, 84, 85, 86, 90, 97 strawberry, 98, 99, 102, 106 carew, 108, 110 dawson, 111 x2, 112 x2, 114, 117 morris, 119, 123, 127 raines/sandberg/hernandez x2, 128 molitor/ripken/wilson x2, 134 sutcliffe/seavor/denny, 138 perez/staub/rose, 143 nolan ryan/valenzuela/gooden, 144 x2, 149, 151 x2, 156 franco 2nd yr card, 161 mcdowell rc, 163 phil neikro, 166, 167, 169, 171, 172, 176 (6 players w/ mattingly and for a couple of you guys has a play at the plate w coleman, 177 (6 rc players), 178 6 future stars w canseco, tartabull and greenwell, 180 boggs/carew/mattingly/brett/cooper/wilson, 181 gwynn/madlock/guerrero/parker/rose/hernandez, 182 carew/neikro/rose/ryan/tallman, 192, and 193.

The other two sets 1 red set  and 1 blue set, are copyrighted 1986 also, but actually have the 1986 stats so I guess they are the 1987 set red being the National Leaguers, and blue for the American. Not many of these total for the short list is here:

red set: 13, 29,36, 58,72, 104, 115 schmidt/brown/wallach, and 120 scott/valenzuela/gooden.
blue set: 1 mattingly, 4 henderson, 7 puckett, 9 ripken, 10 clemens, 15, 89, 96, 101, 106, 114 boggs/brett/gaetti, 118 6 rookies, 143, 161, and 194.

I've heard horror stories about these type cards cracking and such, but these are NM.

I did get nearly a complete set of the 1989 Score  with all the key cards including the Randy Johnson RC.
Keeping with the Score line there were partial sets (no more than 25%) of 1988 through 1998 again the super stars are in there.

A similar run of Donruss accept that run was from 1982 to 1992, with the super stars in there too!
The Fleer run was pretty cool and went from 1981 through 1992 with  several STAR inserts from 86, 88, and 89.

A handful of 1989 Upper deck , Ecks, parker, and Canseco were the highlights of those cards.

A partial set of 1985 Topps with lots of the dupes of cards 700 through 720 (they are all stars so I didn't mind).
Another handful of 1989 super stars only ryan/ rose, mattingly, johnson, bonds, clemens, schmidt, henderson, brett, mcgwire , most have 5 cards each.

There were many 1992 & 1993 Topps, and a handful of the 1993 topps Gold, no biggies there.
Now the 1986 Topps had players like seavor, ryan, ripken, brett, and gwynn, very nice all NM too!

And low and behold another handful of 1973 Topps not in good shape overall, but I did manage to score some 1976 Topps  stars in EX+  many cards had a dinged corner or two, and several others had creases.

There were a few 1974 & 75 cards.

Oddball sets or partial sets of the 1983 & 1986 Topps commemorative All Stars
Also 5 1986 minis including Gwynn the only card in very good shape other than the checklist.
Not many of the 1984 & 1987 Topps, but what is there are super stars.

About 20 other sets that just had a few cards each, mainly stars but not all.

And two really odd ball cards. 1991 Hall of Fame Olympic Cards of Mary Lou Retton and Eddie Eagan (boxing).

3 8x10 team issued photos of some Buffalo Bills looks like from the 70's . And 1 very interesting  Fran Tarkenton (Vikings) page from some magazine, on the reverse is a cartoon where the center has "I love You" written on his butt, and the QB wearing #10 is pulling what appears to be toilet paper from the top of the center pants???????????? Interesting anyways.

Plus 2 Topps sticker albums with some stickers insde from 1982 & 1983. and several Ted Williams set cards.

Throw in the vintage and oversized cards from part one of this post, and I think I got my $35.00 dollars worth!

 I hope to share my good fortune with my fellow traders. My need are simple, lol.

I want JOHN Elway!, and Any Braves cards I can get especially TOPPS (2 each) base cards.
And just to throw in out there any T206 in poor- fair condition greatly appreciated.

Email me if you want some of this stuff.

jfmjr1@aol.com

Oh BOY! I did a bad thing today.....

Not really. I did make my way to one of the local flea markets today, and get this I was out of there in 1 hour. But an extremely good hour it was.

After reading a fellow bloggers' rants or should I say RAVES about his flea market finds in several of his posts this summer, I decided to quit procrastinating and just go dig through some boxes myself. At least that was my intention. Didn't find any to look through, but what I did find were two tables with some cards. (I only went though 3/4 of the market).

At the first table of all kinds of misc. stuff I see some sports cards thrown all around. They were in horrible condition, and yep they were all crap cards too, you know the ones. There were some misc baseball items too, but none worthy of a dig. I ask the man how much for all of this sports stuff? He replied $50.00, I laughed and told to have a nice day, he immediately dropped down to $30.00. I again told him no thank you and he asked what I was thinking, and I said maybe $5.00 but that would be pushing it, he laughed. He then proceeded to tell me he has over 1 million cards (not there of course), but he did have some in his truck, and pulled out a storage box of pretty much all Yankees, with one exception...... a box of 100 unopened packs (6 stickers each) of 1997-98 Upper Deck Basketball stickers with Jordan on the wrapper or package and the box too. I asked how much for that? he said $5.00, done. I have them, I don't collect basketball although I do have several thousand for trade. But couldn't pass that up.

Onward I go, not much in my hand but the one small box which was actually in a bag. I stumble on another table where an older gentleman was sitting with all kinds of flea market stuff, and right in front of him were 6 binders all open of sports cards. He was actually going through what looked to be a 20 year old price guide. I had noticed that the binder in front of him had 1985 Topps baseball, so I looked at him and said what card are you pricing, he pointed to a Pete Rose Record Breaker card, and thus started what turned into a 30 minute conversation on baseball memories. I quite enjoyed that. His memories of catching a Mantle foul ball, then a few innings later at the games' end asking him to sign it, and he of course said no.... funny thing though Whitey Ford was behind Mantle and said "I can sign it for you", he did and went on to get Yogi Berra to sign it and another Yankee too!  Now that's a memory.

I glanced quickly through the binders, 1 was full of vintage, which I wanted. The others were near sets with pretty much all the key cards, but 1 89 set didn't have the Griffey. Of course I didn't know what all was actually there until I got home and spent 6 hours pulling the cards out of the binders. They were not in any type of order, or even by sets. Whoever "binded" them put the cards according to player. At let me tell there were a lot of super stars. I will provide details later in this blog. Obviously, we negotiated a price and I now have all 6 binders and a 800 count box too.

Before I spill what I paid I want to let you know what I got. My hands were now full so I headed back to my truck to get home so I could go through what I just bought, and here is what was in there......

I'll start out with the light stuff.
I got 3 Elway cards including his 1985 among 50ish football cards several were from the 70s. Nice.
I got about 2 dozen basketball and 4 of them were from the 74-75 Toppss all in EX-NM condition.
Even some vintage Hockey from the 70s about 6 in all.
I got about 50 or so Braves whereas 4 were 1957 Braves and 1 1960 and some 70s including Neikro. Nice again! This is why I bought the cards to begin with.
I got a factory sealed Upper Deck HOF first edition stamp 12 (card size) set! I so want to open it but I dare not. The player checklist on the back contains: Ty Cobb, Dizzy Dean, Bob Feller, Whitey Ford, Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby, Mel Ott, Satchel Paige, Babe Ruth, Casey Stengel, Honus Wagner, and Cy Young. Apparently these stamps are official legal postage stamps as the box states if you are mailing from St Vincent or the Grenadines. Still very NICE!
I got 2 sealed 1996 Flick Ball sets: Dallas Cowboys * Minnesota Vikings.
I got 4 1983 Donruss oversized (post card) cards of Nolan Ryan, Yaz, Steve Carlton, and Eddie Murray.
I got several 8x10s.
I got about 3000 baseball cards which I have almost sorted into sets, I will then need to put them order and such. But to sum those up there are many Ryans, Rose, Ripkens, Schmidts, and the like. Even some Griffey Jr, Bonds, all the super stars are in the lot for sure.

Now on to more specifics, like the VINTAGE BASEBALL CARDS.There are 65 1957 Topps, 15 1959 Topps, 25 1960 Topps, and 13 1976 Topps. All of these cards have been sorted and looked up! Wait to you see who was in there!

I will start with the 1976 Topps: All EX/MT-NM
1 Brett/ Madlock, 3 May/ Foster, 8 Campbell/Eastwick, 70 Johnny Bench, 200, 216, 234 Nolan Ryan, 265 Mark Fidrych RC, 387, 504, 510, 600 Jim Palmer, and 635 Yount.

Do you think I got $35.00 worth of cards yet???????????  Just wait.

1960 Topps : 15 runnels ex-mt, 30 francona gd+,89  brown ex+, 106 nm, 118 nm, 119 ex-mt, 121 nm, 218 ex+, 245 yost nm & ex-mt, 287 alou ex-mt, 288 ex-mt, 337 ex-mt, 401 ex-mt, 406 ex-mt, 441 Bell ex+, 449 brosnan ex-mt, 451 ex-mt, 452 ex-mt, 458 nm, 460 ex-mt, 463 ex-mt, 471 ex, 507 stigmon nm, 517 Charley James RC NM, and 521 Mike Lee RC ex-mt.

How about now?? The cardboard angels were shining on me today!!!!

1959 Topps:
56 nm, 85 ex-mt, 148 ex, 201 ex-mt, 206 gd-vg, 214 RC nm, 229 ex, 236 RC vg-ex, 263 nm, 325 Ken Boyer EX+, 378 ex-mt, 393 nm, 405 vg, and 483 ex-mt.

Now for the jackpot 1957 Topps.
3 long x2 p-fr & pr, 11 ex+, 16 fr-gd, 17 vg, 42 vg, 52 gd, 64 James Runnels Ex-MT, 77 RC gd, 89 ex, 94 gd, 96 RC fr, 104 ex, 106 fr, 113 Mizell EX-MT, 121 Clete Boyer RC EX-MT, 128 fr, 134 pr-fr, 137 gd, 140 Frank Thomas fr, 150 friend gd-vg, 151 gd157 ex, 159 RC ex, 165 Ted Kluszewski gd-vg, 168 gd, 182 pr-fr, 184 RC ex, 186 gd-vg, 209 vg+, 211 ex-mt, 225 ex, 234 gd & ex, 235 ex, 244 vg, 247 ex, 267 RC vg, 273 gd-vg, 281 gd, 285 gd-vg, 304 Cunningham GD, 327 Pendleton EX, 345 fr-gd, 346 vg, 351 RC vg-ex, 358 gd, 359 RC vg, 362 RC ex, 363 RC ex, 368 vg, 371 vg, 373 RC pr, 379 RC fr, 382 EX, 393 RC pr-fr, 396 RC ex, 404 RC ex. Plus a few cubbies I set aside for someone they were all pr-fr.

Now to think I spent just 1 hour at the market 30 minutes of it listening to someone share their baseball memories. Which I will say again I enjoyed very much. BTW some of the 70's cards I didn't list or talk about had stars too like Billy Martin. I only mention him as the guy tried to find his card while I was at his table, he couldn't. I found two!
 I will eventually get these cards added to my trading website and into my org at Beckett (ID jfmjr1)

https://sites.google.com/site/johnnystradingspot/home

Until later.  

jfmjr1@aol.com

Hello November 2013

Well October came and it went, a fitting end on a day BOO comes into play, more of a boo-hoo for me. Slow start and slow finish for trading. I did manage to close on 63 deals, again most of which were for my 2 Atlanta Braves Collections. Which I now only need 147 unique Atlanta Braves uniformed players out of the 617 that I have listed. Remember now that I am attempting the earliest possible card (preferably Topps when that is the case) for 2 sets. One for me the other is a Christmas present for my brother. I really thought that this project would be completed by now. Go figure some cards are hard to get, especially via trade.  That is however what keeps us engaged and excited. No doubt I will be utterly satisfied to obtain the 2 1966 Hank Aaron cards that have thus eluded my trade grasp. I can't wait to binder those 2 cards!

Added 2 T206 cards to that special binder, haven't done that in quite some time. Both are Piedmont 150 backs in poor condition ( I ACTUALLY LIKE THE "LESSER CONDITIONED") but complete: LOBERT CINCY & GANLEY WASHINGTON.  The Lobert card front is majorly creased but the back is fantastic, while the Ganley card front is superb (EX) the back has some paper loss. Both cards have rounded corners, and I was very pleased to get them both. That has to be the toughest set in the world to get, duh!

My SUPER ELWAY COLLECTION will be back to main focus for the remainder of the year, as I am way off target for hitting the 1500 unique by years end. I am sitting at 1329, with apx 900 dupes(nearly 500 unique), 21 figures, 34 magazine covers (2 vintage dupes), 16 collector plates, and 33 oddball/other items. I must mention again, that I was able to trade for my first to Elway Autographs that are not listed above even though 1 is on a card, the other in a book.

If you run across any Elway I only need like 3,400 cards, LOL. . . . . I always have cards for your PC......

LETS TRADE!!

jfmjr1@aol.com