Something completely DIFFERENT

 Reverting back to those 21K cards I picked up from Grand Slam several weeks ago. Most were baseball, I think I have a thousand football, and a little less basketball. Some were not sports at all.

Shang-Chi a 2021 Upper Deck Marvel release based on the movie (Ben Kinsley was in the movie). The cards have a couple of parallels, the RED version looks really good. 

I think the red looks better than the base. 

I wasn't aware of this film. Now I am. The set has a few inserts as well including I think 2 parallels of the base red inserts. 

You can easily pick the green parallel out.

As well as the blue parallel. I'm sure the golds and silvers would be similar. They are also stated clearly in LARGE print on the back which one they are. LOL. 

I wound up with 62 of the 70 card base set plus the inserts and insert parallels. I also got 39 of the 70 Red parallel base set. Like I said something different.

Next posts will come from the 4th visit to Grand Slam. There will be maybe 3 posts in all. I have a hundred or so Braves cards to check and enter into my systemS. I have had them sitting on my scanner for about 3 weeks (next to the stack of the Topps ASG cards that need scanned). I also got a few decent Braves from Ormond when I got those 50K cards. Somewhere in between I have sort out that HUGE Sport Lots order that is mostly set build Prizm cards (not scanning those, but there are some Braves in the box too). I have yet to open the box. 

Have a great night everybody!

Okay, Double dipping here. The story I wanted to tell you is the basis for the double dip.

 A couple of weeks ago I mentioned here that I was going to go over to Ormond so that I could return the plastics from the previous visit. It had been 2 months, so I wanted to try and make it on Trade night, and for some reason I also thought it was one of the Topps Trading card days. I was wrong on both. It was not trade night nor was it trading card day. I mentioned that I boo booed in a post after that day. I was totally discombobulated for sure. I had planned to spend the whole day there and I knew something was up on August third when I opened the door there. Bill, (who doesn't usually work in the shop) was there. No Kyle, No Mike. Kyle was at the National and Mike was doing a card show near Orlando. Talk about getting it wrong. Anyways, I did stay for most of the day (5 hours). I had nothing else to do that day so I went through all 15 boxes of the baseball dime cards. I easily filled one box, but struggled with a second so I just threw a bunch of 2025 stuff in the box to fill it up knowing I didn't need them. The story really hasn't started yet, call the above the forward. 

I didn't scan any of the apx 6K cards. I can tell you that I loaded up with 2024 Heritage (I started building all of the Heritage sets BTW- call me a late bloomer). I pretty much finished off the set barring only a few SP's and a few others, that's right a boatload of SP's were in the dime boxes. Most in fact. Anyways, after loading up those 21K cards from the the Grand slam visit last month or was it the month before (maybe I'm still discombobulated), I started putting sets together of stuff I have never built before. Just about everything. 

Fast forward to last Saturday rather Saturday before last now. I get a text from Mike, asking me where the "heck" I was. I told him I was just there but that he wasn't. He offered me up a deal.....

Remember those 15 dime boxes (all of them monster boxes)? Mike offered them up at $25.00 a box. He obviously filled them up as most were missing a row of cards after my previous visit. They were looking to buy a huge collection they were sorting through and had already made up 10 of what will become dime boxes should they buy the collection. Now, keep in mind I already went through those boxes 10 days earlier, and struggled to fill 2 boxes. I knew I didn't really need much in them. I explained that to Mike, but still accepted the offer as I wanted to let him drive it in his brain that I like DEALS, and I'm sticking to it. This way when they don't see me for 2-3 months they can call me again with the $25.00 boxes just like it used to be 2-3 years ago.

There you have the story. Not much of a nail biter or anything, but the moral of the story is that they realized that I hadn't been there in a while (at least that either of them) had seen. I got a deal. BTW, one those boxes that they re-filled was mid to late 70's Topps cards. I offered that one up to Jeremy as he is building those sets. I plan on delivering it personally to Deland too. He has a lot going on this week and next, so I doubt he will be reading this, he thinks I'm charging him the $25.00 (but I'm not). I'll be meeting up with him in 2 weeks at the big Toy convention they hold twice a year in Deland. Because they did some re-filling I actually had to flip my way through them again to see what was different. I found some good stuff, but again I didn't scan any of them. I've been too busy sorting and TCDB entering with hundreds and hundreds of new set builds for me. I must have a whole in my head.

The double dip is the 2 trips to Ormond plus the fact that I am building tons more sets that I wasn't previously working on. I've mentioned that I have sorted heritage, A&G, and a few others. The sorting of the 21K plus the 50K I just got here I haven't touched my PC update in months. I still haven't started the "L's". Thus far I have entered into TCDB the Heritage, Topps and Bowman Chrome (plus their offsets), Gallery, Big League, Optic, and some non-sport sets. It never ends so why not. Anyways, I am getting ready to do Gypsy Queen and Archives plus double check all of the previous mentions sets with the cards from this Ormond haul. 

To make matters even MORE FULL..I got my 1,134 card order in from Sport Lots, which is mainly Panini Prizm, so I'll have to enter those into TCDB too. I've separated everything by manufacturer including what I already had sitting in the garage. I'll probably do the Opening Day, Topps Gold parallels, and a few other misc Topps sets sets next (when I get to them).

Have a great night!

 

Shadow Shots

 Tell me what you see in the shadows.

I'll go with a Hyena. 

I see a baby whale.

This one is a stretch.....a catapult machine.

Have a great weekend.

Last night was awesome.

 My daughter and her boyfriend joined us for Trivia last night, it was awesome. They had fun, and my daughter kicked butt. We stayed at or near the top all night. We didn't win though as we didn't guess the correct final answer even though we kind of figured it was going to be wrong. Our (2nd guess) was the correct one, oh well....they plan to join us again. Jalen (the boyfriend) wants to brings his family too. Then we can have a medium size team. There were a total of 17 teams last night most teams were 6 people of more, a few of 2 people, and 2 with 4. One team had 12 players, another 10. Tough questions all night, but we were always in the top 2 or 3. Just couldn't close it out. Had a great time with family. A+ all the way.

Now, let's show some baseball cards. I still have a bit of catching up to do. Here are some Braves.....when I got them they were not just new to me, but new period.

These Braves are from the recently released Topps All Star Game set. There are lots of Braves especially in the subset Homegrown heroes. Yeah, I know just another Topps gimmick, but they are Braves and I have to have them. I'll eventually track down the rest of the base Braves and the subset/inserts. I will post up the PC guys and their inserts later on (I haven't scanned them yet- I've been busy).

Have a great night!

P.S. I haven't forgotten the story I want to tell y'all about, just not ready. It will be soon though.

Wacky Wednesday

 Let's me start out with this has been a GREAT 24 hours. I'll have more on that when I tell you "THE STORY" I mentioned yesterday, not tonight although I can say that my daughter Hunter and her boyfriend are joining my brother and I tonight for dinner and TRIVIA. Love family time. 

Back to back weeks with some awesome Upper Deck card backs.

Have a great night folks!

Let's catch up!

 With the Grand Slam magazine purchase out of the way we can get to to some incoming cards from fellow traders (some bloggers some OCTers).

Up first is a package from the Night Owl. Braves needs.

Next are cards from Bo.

The next two scans came from (personally delivered) Jeremy.

The Riley/Olson combo is from Dynamic Duals set and this is the gold version numbered to 50!

The vintage cards below came from OCTer Michael Salinski.

OPC got to love it.

The next 2 scans came from Tom of Angels in order.

The last scan here came from OCTer Tom Biggs.

I also got cards from OCTer's Tim Morales and Kyle Dworchak (he used to blog with us). I didn't scan those as I was into a HARD sort. 

I've got a story to tell, but I am saving that for another day. You'll just have to wait.

The Right Stuff: Finishing up the Yearbooks. EXTRA INNINGS: TCDB update.

 Getting to the last of the magazines. I didn't think that it would go so fast, but it did. This is the other half of the Atlanta Braves yearbooks that I picked up on that third trip to Grand Slam Collectibles. 

Murphy and Horner grace the 81' cover.

Horner, Niekro, Hubbard, and Chambliss in color with Mathews, Spahn, and Hammerin' Hank in Sepia (lol).

Love the shot of Hank there. There wasn't an 83' in the lot so I am hoping that I have one in the "stuff" I already owned. I really am looking forward to getting to that project. 

Speaking of projects (I always have multiple going on): I have taken a break on the PC update (I haven't touched the L's seems like 2 months now). I figure they won't take long and with the M's (one of my largest sections) the halfway mark and the yearlong task thus far had me a bit ahead of schedule (I started last October) I could use a break to work on other projects. It was always a 2 year end to end project. Pretty sure once I get through this round and start up the process again it will only take a few months to cover it all especially with me drastically cutting back on the amount of bulk buys. Not by choice of course, but it works. 

For the next couple of weeks I have 20 CE credits to take care of. Three classes: one 4 hour Ethics update (every 2 years), one 6 hour class, and one 10 hour class (saving that one for last). I'll probably work on the L's once I have finished those courses. Try to get back in to the groove.....You know what I mean man? Catch my drift?  LOL.

The last 2 weeks I have been running the second round of sorting the cards in my garage which includes the 21K I bought last month. The first round of sorting included the 350K plus in my garage that I have begun sorting. I did the heritage and A&G already too while I was sorting. I broke the rest of them down into "sets" that I would build (or put together), and Flagship Topps (which I need none- ZERO, and non set builds. I just put any card that was in a future set build into boxes without further separating. This 2nd round of sorting which is a lot more reasonable is down to maybe 100K cards give or take a thousand. This round is separating them down to company/manufacturer. IE: Topps, Donruss, Upper Deck, etc.... I should finish that up tonight. The 3rd round will break each of those down into actual sets followed by a 4th round which will take one brand at a time and sort the sets by year and put in numerical order and entering them into TCDB, and pacing the rest in order back out in the garage. 

That is a whole lot of sorting folks. But when I am done with this project which should have never gotten this disorganized to begin with (life happens....excuses etc.) I will be able to trade/sell do whatever with relative ease in finding cards that others needs. Of course, that only pertains to the ones I am sorting. The "non-set build" cards will still be a mess, along with the hundreds of thousands of Topps Flagship cards.

It is PROGRESS that I can live with. With all of that said, I can get to the point now. Entering the PC update into TCDB along with the Heritage and AG stuff  and Chrome, etc.... has me currently sitting at #35 for total unique cards (only a few cards to jump three or four spots) and #17 baseball, not bad considering I haven't put a dent in what I have yet to enter. 

When it comes down to Atlanta Braves the other "yay who" is still 550ish cards ahead of me.

Oh look they used the photo of the AWESOME Dale Murphy cover everyone liked. Now if Topps would just use that shot on one of their Stadium club cards. That certainly could be a card of the year favorite.....

For those still paying attention to the  cover prices. $4.00 on this one. That is a 25% increase over the previous year, oh yeah we were in a serious recession back then or rather working our way out of one. I built my first house a couple of years later and the interest rate was fixed at 10% for my mortgage and that was extremely low compared to what others were paying, and that was a on a 20 year mortgage. The 30 and 40 year mortgages they are doing these days were unheard of. They really should be 10-15- or 20 years max on a mortgage. If people can't afford, chop the heads off the greedy banks/FED.... LOL. make them lower the rates.

Years 89-91 were also not in the batch so again I'm hoping I already them. But hey by this time America's team was on a roll (just couldn't close out the World Series...yet.

The last yearbook in the lot was this $7.00 one. I'm thinking Smoltz, Chipper, and Andruw should have been on the cover instead if Terry, Dave, and Lemke. That would look so much better with Glavine and Maddux. Don't ya think?

I hope you enjoyed this 2 week journey down memory lane with me. I did.

Shadow Shots

 Have a great weekend everybody, meanwhile what do you see in the shadows?

A dancing Pi sign.

Godzilla on the prowl.

A poodle taking a walk.

See ya!

The Right Stuff: part 4A

 It is time to get to the Atlanta Braves Yearbooks. I will show half of them tonight and the other half on Monday. Some of these are probably dupes with what I already have. I know there are dupes, but I have yet to organize all of the mags I have all together. We'll get to it....eventually.

Some great vintage photos on this cover. Check out that umpire uniform.

Still just a dollar. Love that. This cover reminds me of how much I was always puzzled by why the Braves were in the National League WEST. I mean come on...You couldn't get much more closer to the Atlantic Ocean, lol.

Uh oh.....Price went up 50%..   Oh yeah we were having a bit of an inflation issue at the time. 

Talk about a major change in the covers. Phil looks a little like Alfred from MAD. Did you notice another bump in price....Now $2.00. When I bought all of this batch I dealt with the shop owner Steve (Grand Slam) directly and when I asked how much for all of them, he flipped through them, and then said $150.00 ($3.00 a piece). I reminded him there was a whole bunch of Spring Training and minor league stuff in there, and asked if he would do $2.00 a piece ($100.00 for the lot). He sad yes, and whah lah we had a deal. I was happy with the purchase and it cleared out a bin/box that was sitting under the wooden card bins. 

I'll finish the yearbooks up on Monday.

See y'all later!

Wacky Wednesday

 Happy hump day everyone. Had to drive to Gainesville today for not 1, not 2, but 3 VA appointments. Three being the key number there, as I also stopped by 3 different card shops. Two were in G'ville, and the other one in Ocala, and get this.....I didn't buy anything. 

It is time for another round of cards that I found interesting for one reason or another. I HOPE YOU DO TOO.

Predominantly the card backs. Upper Deck was good at putting some qulaity shots on the back too.

Have a great night people.

The Right Stuff: part 3

 I'll be covering the "other magazines" tonight. Items like World Series programs and/or magazine publications. Only 5 scans total so this will be a very short post.

Talk about taking you back. The 80's (overall) were not good days for die-hard Braves fans. My mother and I had moved back to North Georgia in December 1976. Then in December (we always moved when I was on Christmas break at school) of 1981 we moved down to South Georgia. No longer able to go to Fulton County Stadium. Go figure the Braves won their division, lol. I was just 16 (just turned at that). My how things turn out. The following year I got married and was in boot camp at Fort Sill Oklahoma. 

Fast forward nearly a decade. This time I was in Florida and on wife #2. My first child was very much on the way. Christy was born in February of 1992.

 

Heartbreak, my Braves lost the World Series (the first of a few in the 90's). 

Of course, they did finally get it done in 1995 which is cool that this picture was mixed in the bin with all of those yearbooks and stuff. Yes the 90's had the Braves tagline of America's team. WTBS was the bomb for watching games....Times have changed.

If you're a Braves fan and obviously I am and have always been then this "stuff" is super cool to own. Glad I decided to flip through the bin tucked underneath the card bins. Looking forward to the last two posts from visit 3. 

Hope you enjoyed as much as I did going through this stuff.