A trade post plus you know the 1/2 over FREE stuff

 It's hard to believe, but we are only half through the commitment to the daily giveaway. Six months to go. What is blowing my mind is that the box I had and still do have sitting near my laptop that was going to used for the giveaway is still FULL. You can't tell any cards have come out. That's because I kept getting stuff from card shows and the new stuff that I picked up kept making their way into the packages (envelopes). So what I had hoped to get those cards gone, is reality just ain't gonna happen. LOL. Oh well. Hopefully half way through some bloggers, readers, and traders have added some nice stuff to their collections. 

The winner last night was: TDK for back to back.

Now just a short trade post here. You may remember Kyle from "Nolan's dugout" who is now a member of OCT, and is doing well. Here are the latest cards he sent to me.

Kyle sent me two PWE's double stuffed with the cards above. They are for my set builds. Every one a need.

Masonic Monday: the Other Twain plus FREE FREE FREE giveaway of cards!

 Friday night produced a winner named TDK.

Now, here is the 2nd cover with Samuel L. Clemens on the cover. He is a lot younger in this portrait for sure (than the previous cover.

continued on page 27.

Again, I hope this read was interesting for someone.

In other good news that I have not mentioned yet is that my brother Jack is finally back home in Florida. He had been living in Douglasville, Ga for the last apx 40 years after being in Ocala for 18 years or so. He now resides right behind my house. He is renting and should be my neighbor for about two years. When my old neighbor retires and returns from N.C. That could always change though so we will see then. My brother Jack is 70 years old (14 years older than me). Basically since I was around 4 or 5 years old, he had been out on his own and other than the yearly Christmas visit that is all I seen of him. That should be all different now. Until he gets annoyed, he is older than I who just so happens to be the youngest of all siblings and I truly love being a pain in the ass (from my sense of humor). From the time I was a teenager and he was an ordained minister, I could always always make him cuss (beat him badly at everything) especially basketball. Drove him nuts. I loved it. Hey that's just me, he is my only brother so with all of the sisters (1 is here in Ocala), he is not related to the other sisters I must take on the role of the pain in the ass sibling on a daily basis. It doesn't take much to get him fired up, but I'll be a little nicer than I used to be, but I ain't letting him win at anything, lol.

The other HALF (ComC Cyber Monday)

 The winner last night was: David, please email me your address.

Now let's finish up that long overdue post. I did the Braves portion last night so tonight we get the set build portion which I explained last night would be something I wait until it is complete except for Chronicles stuff. After I blasted them the other day on the 2022 product, it is deserving to give the non 2022's I picked up their due. So much better quality. So much!

2018 (I think) Spectra, so much better. Yes, I did want them to not be as thick (maybe half). But not like what they did this year, it's like a Bowman Chrome thickness. 

The two Gypsy Queen mini's are rookie image variation and are for my PC's. Then some Obsidian, also thick.

More thick cards from other years, 2021 I believe. 

Have a great weekend. I plan on going to a local card show tomorrow, yea me. 20 minute drive instead of hours, so looking forward to it. I just hope prices are right.

Forgotten but not lost.

 Going through the tubs (the ones with binders), I found a box from ComC that I had not even opened yet. It was delivered (to Georgia) 12/12/22, just a few days before I came home permanently. I had forgotten all about that purchase, but a couple of other bloggers still posting about their Black Friday gets over the last couple of weeks had me thinking. I didn't remember posting mine or did I. I could have checked but again forgot all about it.... that is until I unpacked it. I did NOT buy anything on Black Friday, however ComC had their deal running through Cyber Monday and I jumped on some pretty good deals on Sunday requested immediate shipping. Then again I did the same thing on Monday too. They shipped together. Tonight is just the new Braves gets.

The Maddux is a SP Legend variation.

Who doesn't love oddballs like the SI for Kids cards. Funny thing on that first row: The Chipper is from 1996 as is the Glavine, and the Andruw is from 1997. Th eSmoltz and Millwood are from different years too. Now take notice of that last card. It is from Onyx it was supposed to be GOLD ink auto, it was not. I reached out to ComC today and Matt credited my account as it was mislisted and easy to see. A whopping $1.45 well, now it is FREE. It is also serial numbered on the back.

Some nice early autos of some up & comers.

Closing the Braves portion out with a few more newbie autos and a few HOF autos too.

I'll have the other half of the order posted tomorrow. It is non Braves or rather set builds (they is a Brave in there). I normally would wait to post set build stuff until a set was complete, but not these sets as they may never be finished and after yesterday's post (with the griping) this is deserved.

Last night's winner was Matt from SCC.

My first retail purchase of the year: And the almost daily Free baseball card giveaway.

 Last night's winner was: Benjamin

I went to the Walmart just around the corner from my house last week. This store is always loaded with cards. I had checked them previously and steered away from the blasters of Chronicles. Why you ask? Well, $25.00 for 20 cards is not my kind purchase especially in blaster form. This time however I noticed they had 4 fat packs containing 15 cards each for $7.00. That I can live with, so I scooped up all four packs.

I want to get some bitching out of the way first, um I mean discuss some big time issues with this years crop. Let's just say Panini knows this is the last year (2022) of the baseball release, and the product shows it. To start with there are 31 different sets, not that that is a big issue they've gone overboard since the 2018 release.  What is not nice is that 6 of the sets are only autos or relics, which takes them out of my set building.... those are NO NO's. Then the quality of some of the cards. Like Spectra, no longer super thick which in and of itself is not a problem, but the cards warped like Topps and Bowman Chrome back in the day. Several of the sets are like that, curling. I can't stand that. Another issue: two sets have 100 cards each, another has 75, and another with 60 cards. And as if that wasn't enough base cards you can throw in three more sets with 50 cards each. Okay, I'm done.

I only pulled one duplicate from the four packs, so that was good. It was Manning, and that extra one has already left the house. 

These were the parallel cards I pulled. The Spencer Strider was very nice get. His cards are going for crazy prices right now.

Have a great night.

Back to some recent cards that came in.

 The winner last night was: Jeremy

This post highlights the latest cards from Card Barrel.

These cards had been sitting in the CB cart for a long while. So long that the Matt Olson card #2 had dropped out and I didn't notice it. I have since had one sent to my Sport Lots box which I'll probably have shipped in another week or so. That way I can close out my Braves Update set. Also there are 3 separate orders in the box, so it will be a nice get. 

I have other good news too! I got the garage clean up and set up started. The 1st four bookcase arrived at 8:15 yesterday morning (the other 8 are on backorder). I have already dumped binders galore onto two of them. I emptied four 30 gallon tubs, and eight of the smaller tubs. I have three more smaller tubs (holding about 8-10 binders each) left to unpack but I'll have to assemble the other two bookcases for those. Then I can start unloading the 80 something binders sitting on the floor in my bedroom too.

The other half of the tubs in the garage (7 large 30 gallon and 10-12 smaller tubs) are filled with boxes of cards that need to be put into binders.

I also found my address labels so you can bet I will be printing up a bunch in the coming days. Not to mention I found the other Masonic baseball booklets. There were only 5, I thought it was more like a dozen. Oh well. The dates range from Feb. 1971 to Oct. 2004. I just scanned up several non ball players for the Masonic folder so I probably will wait until the All-Star break to do the remaining baseball guys.

Masonic Monday: Mart Twain or Samuel L. Clemens your choice. 1 of 2.

 The winner Friday night was John Sharp. 

Now onto our subject for today (and next Monday too). These are not as many pages as those we seen with the ball players.

The first cover from October of 1974 shows an elderly Twain. The cover next week does not.

Hopefully, there was something in this article useful, new, or at the very least interesting. Next week I will highlight Twain again but it will be from thirteen years later.

The next cards that came and the FREE baseball cards too.

 The winner last night was: Jon

Now the next batch of cards came (after the cards that came on Sunday), was an order from Ebay and an order from Card Barrel), and get this they came on Monday which was MLK day. At first it didn't dawn on me that it was MLK day. I seen the not the new regular mail carrier pull into the cul de sac, made the round put mail (the two packages) in my box, but left the outgoing envelopes that I had sitting in the box with the flag up. I was pissed about that. Then in the evening I realized that it was MLK day. But still I didn't understand why deliver mail if you ain't picking any up. Oh well, I got over and was thankful for my 2 packages one of which you are about to see.

From 2Bros (Ebay seller). When I first starting buying from them shipping was always a dollar, no matter how many cards you bought. They do the BIN stuff with a 45% discount on 25+ cards. When Covid hit, they went to 1.50. I was okay that jump in shipping costs. However, that extra .50 made a difference in how often I bought because the cheapest cards they list are .99. Basically with the discount that means .55 for most of what I get not all but most. Now, they are $5.00 for shipping, so it will not be often that I buy from them, because the other outlets have the cards cheaper.

2022 Panini Capstone, my first cards of that brand.

Capstone inserts.

Top row are my first 2022 Optic cards (the Braves portion in case you haven't figured that out yet). The next 5 cards are my first 2022 Chronicles cards. The last card is just awesome. I needed that for my Braves team and the set build. I have the other sitting in my SL box now.

Finishing it up with Prizm inserts.  I bought 28 cards this time, but I only see 27 above, and I don't remember what the other card was. Will do the Card Barrel cards next week. Have a great and safe weekend.

1991 Brockum RockCards. Plus the almost daily FREE Giveaway.

 The winner last night was: Bo

Now on to the Rock Cards. Growing up in the 70's & 80's was awesome. My music taste was varied even way back then. 

These first three scans are stickers.

Out of scan 1: I would say AC/DC and Motley Crue are the only ones that I listened to. That's not to say I did hear the others on the radio. But I owned cassette or 8 tracks of the other two.  Hits like Smokin in the Boys room, Home Sweet Home, and a bunch from AC/DC like Back in Black, Hell's Bells, Dirty Deeds, Highway to Hell, and You shook me all night long come to mind.

Not much different here.

Or here either. Now that Tommy Lee is a long way from his acting days as Zack & Cody's dad.

One thing I noticed about this set is the lack of Led Zeppelen cards. Now that was one hell of a rock band. 

Another Ace Frehley card. KISS was another band I listened to alot. Had every album. Wish I still did.

Poison had my hear for awhile. Hits like Every Rose has it's thorn, Talk dirty to me, Something to believe in, and Nothing but a good time.

The one & only missing card #97. It would be Iggy Pop.

Seeing the David Lee Roth card brings Van Halen to mind.

A couple of hits pop into my mind with WhiteSnake like Here I go again, and Is this love. What really pops into mind are the videos, like the hood of the card, and I'm not talking about the car itself either, lol.

Bon Jovi was another that had my ears for awhile. Wanted dead or alive, You give love a bad name, and Living on a prayer.

Black Sabbath I remember just not their songs. I think what stands out the most was when Ozzy got kicked out of the band. 

Pink Floyd: Another brick in the wall and Money come to mind.

There you go, as promised.