What are the ODDS? round three and the grand totals.

 My daughter and grandson spent last night here and will be here again tonight, so knocking this right out.

Alrighty then. Here we go, there was a dup above so the total count for the game is 89 Braves. 

Braves needed: 16 = 18% (this is more in line with expectations).

Set potential: 29

PC potential: 28 (but doubtful any will make the cut).

Mini collections: 4

Outright waste: 10 plus 2 other wasted picks.

Total of all three BRAVES rounds combined stats:

Braves needs: 70/257 = 27% 

Set possibilities: 55

PC possibilities: 67 although most are unlikely.

Mini collection: 4

Nopes: 25 plus the actual pulled dupes.

I was surprised for the totals and I would call this a WIN even though I hold on to the initial regret that I had after buying them. $300.00 for 70 Braves needs that weren't high end, eh... Now yes there are tons more set/PC needs that more than make up the purchase price. There were a total of 844 cards minus the 257 Braves, so we have quite a bit to show off yet from that Tampa show. Those will wait until I get out a few other posts, and then I will kick start the Tampa posts again with the ACTUAL BRAVES cards that WERE needs.

Adios!

 

What are the ODDS? round two underway!

 Round two contains 71 cards 9technically there were 72, but I missed a dupe dupe). Categories in case you missed the previous segment.

Needed Braves team sets, Set builds, PC, Mini collections, and out right didn't need anywhere.

Let's see the cards in this round.

Okay there are the cards. Here are the end results:

Braves needs: 23/71= 32.4% (again much better than I had hoped for)

Set needs: 18/71= 25.3% (this number is POTENTIALLY as I still need to verify they are indeed needs).

PC guys: again Potential as we know how long it will be before I actually know. 23/71 providing they weren't set build needs first.  32.4%

Mini collections: none

Not useful cards: 5

OVERALL ROUND STATISTICS: useful cards 63/71 = 88.7%. Again not what I expected as when buying bulk is typically not that useful. I generally hope for a 25% for needs of some kind, but in reality is around 10%. It has been that way for decades. 

I'll finish up with round 3 tomorrow and sum up everything for the 3 rounds as well. Thursday I need to post some over due thanks for incoming cards which will probably continue on through next Monday and Tuesday as well. We'll see. I have gotten in a bunch of stuff on my own too, but those will have to wait until I wrap up the last Tampa show I went to with the Non-Braves cards that went straight to set build or PC stacks. There are 3 days worth of those with some great cards in there for sure. (and some duds). 

Have a great night everyone!

Scatter Brains

 Apparently, the break I took from updating my PC collection gave me scatter brains. I have dun dun it to myself this time. For those who are unsure of what I am talking about. I am constantly updating my PC's and it takes 2 full years to go from A to Z. I knew I was way ahead of the game at the end of summer, so I took a break which was perfect timing with me getting sick for the entire month of September. In October I resumed with the L's, and then moved to the M's this month. RED FLAG! OOPS, one big thing I forgot about was the Braves that I sorted out of my binders back in the beginning of the year. I would start each letter of the Update by going through those Braves boxes (out in my garage) pull those to start the letter update. 

TOTAL BRAIN FART HERE. Now for Lopez, not so much a big deal as I am no longer "tracking" him. Not listing them in TCDB, just boxing what I had. But, the M's..... Maddux, McCann, McGriff, Markakis, Mathews complete other story. McCann and McGriff not so much a big deal as I hadn't updated those yet (they would have been next week), but the other 3 oh boy. Especially Maddux as there was 1500 cards in those boxes for him alone. Oh boy. I started last night pulling the "potential" set build needs for all 5 of those guys plus Lopez. I have to check there first to see if any of them are needed there before resuming and correcting Maddux, Markakis, and Mathews. Yep glad I realized I was scatter brained before i got too far along with the update. I am so glad to have cleared the scatter Brains. I am back to excellence LOL!

I hope everyone's weekend was good.

 

Saturday Shadow Shots

 Hopefully by now everyone is beginning to get over the turkey lag. I finished bt leftovers yesterday, so today is a new beginning. Maybe some chili and grilled cheese sandwich, or maybe some fast food drive thru. LOL.

So here you are just aching to tell me what you see in the SHADOWS.

1) I see a cartoon horse or mule (some kind of animal) doing a run away from something while looking back.

2) I see Homer Simpson streaking full out running.

3) I think Rollie lost his mustache. I guess you could say he left everything on the field.

YOUR TURN.

Happy Thanksgiving! What are the ODDS begins today.

 I have been looking forward to this day for a month now. By the time you read this I will be so miserably full it is shameful (yet I'm not). I am thankful for EVERYTHING, (well the good stuff anyway). Special thanks on our hobby at bottom of post.

Alrighty then, let's get to the Tampa card show (also looking forward to getting through this series too). As a reminder... I bought 2 monster boxes of cards for $300.00, all top loaded with a total of 844 cards with 257 of them being Braves cards. I already posted the I knew then they were dupes, but wasn't leaving them in the boxes they are not in the counts. After the ODDS posts are over I will do about a weeks worth of the set builds/PC posts from the majority of the haul (the other apx 600 cards).

The rest of the Braves have been broke down into 3 rounds (when I sorted them into "groups" that is what worked out, and why mess with perfection.... seriously look at me  :). Yeah I know I'm vain. What's wrong with a little confidence anyhow? All kidding aside the cards are about to flow. Just the Braves are in the game. 

NEEDS Categories were: Team sets, Set builds, PC, mini collections, and dupes.

Those 86' are Tiffany cards.

Before getting to the "NUMBERS" OTHERS IN OUR WONDERFUL HOBBY (WHICH I AM SO VERY THANKFUL FOR) especially "team collectors" that have been doing this thing for several decades like Greg (Night Owl) know that it seems hard at times to hit those I need these, but in reality we also know that there is just literally  A TON of stuff, and cheap stuff too that we don't have and NEED. It really isn't hard to hit those want/need lists......JUST TIME CONSUMING,  lol.

Now, for the numbers:

71 cards in this round: 2 additional dupes, providing 69 potential needs.

30 team sets, 10 absolute don't need anywhere cards, 17 for the set builds. 

End totals: 30 teams sets, 8 of the 17 were needed in the set builds and 4 of those went to the PC boxes, 12 went directly to the PC boxes, plus added 5 more for nopes. 

I was surprised by how many useful cards were in this round. The percentages.

30/69 actual braves needs 43.5% AWESOME!

8 useful set builds and 16 that might be PC needs. (we'll know in 2 years).

absolute needs were 38/69 = 55% counting the PC 78.3%.  Not bad. This first round was a learning experience. Rounds 2 & 3 were a lot simpler and smoother.

You can see from the cards in the scans that this was the Topps portion. Chrome prior to 2025 was a much needed section of older newer cards that I needed. I did a lot to reconcile that this year. Now it is just those pesty parallels which I did some damage there too. 

After I made this purchase I regretted doing so, but I am still thankful for the opportunity to do so. Besides, this was a pretty good round. Bulk buys for me usually run into the 10% needs range for me. I always hope it's more like 25% and that is where I come up with what I want to pay for the lot. 

I am also thankful for you readers, and for you fellow bloggers, and all of those in our hobby that make it possible to do what we do. May God bless you all.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Wacky Wednesday

 Hump day. Just got home so a bit behind.

Just some fun cards.

Nite everyone.

Okay okay okay... The Shohei Ohtani rookie auto story or is it stories?

 We are going to begin at the beginning. While I was up in Georgia taking care of my Uncle (I sure do miss him.. he was so good to me), I would drive back home every couple of weeks to gather my mail, pay bills and the like and drive back all in the same day usually. But, once in a while I'd get to stay a night at home. On those instances I'd make sure to hit the Walmart that is super close to my house (2 minute drive). Well, on back to back home visits back in 2018 I hit paydirt. One trip bought some blasters and took them back to GA. Opened them up and got the first Ohtani auto. Next trip grabbed some more but different product, again took them back to GA opened them and bingo another Ohtani auto. One of them is numbered to just 25 too. Now I don't recall which blaster was first but that really doesn't matter. I knew the odds was crazy 2 weeks 2 Ohtani autos. That is when I decided that my buying retail blasters was done. Now, I have always had extreme luck when buying blasters, and pulling great cards, but these two made me put the brakes on. For awhile the only blasters I bought were the Holiday boxes and Stadium Club, which was short lived as both could be had pretty cheap on Ebay as complete sets. So that ended before I came home permanently. 

I guess now would be a good time to drop in the cards.

Black frame numbered 18/25.

84' Retro Rated Rookie Signatures, the rarer of the bunch although this one isn't one of numbered parallels. 

The cards are Gem Mint. Any scratches you see are on the top loaders that I of course immediately put them in. Once home, I put the cards in a certain box and looked them up on all of the sites. Ebay and comc didn't have any these at that time, but back in 2022 I continued to watch for them and sure enough I got to see them both pop up and was at that time was valued at $1,500.00 and the other $2,500.00.

I must of decided that I needed to put them somewhere else and just forgot about it. Then two months ago one of my readers or maybe another in person trading buddy was looking for some one that the last name was I think "N". I was updating my L's at the time and knew I had the N's and O's in a staging are if you will and pretty easy to get to. I went digging, didn't find what he was looking for and decided hey why not pull out those Ohtani's and look them up again. I didn't remember which cards they were so I had to pull them out to look up. They were NOT in the box. 

I was devasted, thinking someone had snagged them on me. Completely forgot about moving them somewhere else. Anyway to get this long story closer to the end I will fast forward to my PC update of the letter M. There are ton of M's, so it would take a month just to sort the M's. (I am not quite half done entering them into TCDB as of today, but almost). I am currently on Pedro, but anyways when sorting the M's I found my two Ohtani cards mixed in. I guess I figured nobody would look for Ohtani in the M's (obviously why would someone be looking for Ohtani, lol). sometimes stupid is just stupid. I found them and I looked them up, and HOLY CRAPOLA batman, the prices ranged for graded which these are HIGHLY likely to get 10's were ranging from 25K to 150K. WTF, I said to myself even raw copies were $7.5K - 30K. I figured you know I should sell these cards. Buy a cheaper Ohtani rookie auto and call it a major win with some cash to boot. 

Even the Optic card above is pretty rare even if it is the Bronze version and still tough to even find one. Currently Ebay has 5 of this rarer version for sell. I did find different parallels RAW ranging from $5.5-15K, and 2 holo prizms priced at $33K each slabbed. The Ginter has one Black Frame for sell on Ebay right now for $25,000.00 slabbed of course. No RAW cards to be found. Just the one, heck even the un-numbered base card goes for $25K too slabbed. ComC doesn't have Ohtani framed mini auto let alone the black frame. In fact they only have a total of 15 black frame autos none of which are slabbed. They do have a Braves I need at 50% off ($6), but no sense buying something that I can't afford to ship to me. (No free shipping this Black Friday. Maybe their sales will SUCK so bad this weekend that for Cyber Monday they'll offer free shipping, lol.)

It was the following weekend when I went to the Tampa card show, and mentioned to Justin that I would sell him the cards. He hasn't been up here though. I still have bother cards. I know the owner of my LCS collects Ohtani. I haven't decided whether I should mention them to him or not. I am thinking I should grab the dinero while it's still good. Then again I'll have to deal with but they're RAW. What do you think I should do with them?

I did stop in the shop yesterday, grabbed a couple hundred dime cards plus a couple of other things. SEE BELOW.

This is just a wrapper, but I bough the technically complete 70 card set with it for $2.00. I will scan them if you guys want to see the set of umpires. LMK in comments.

I also grabbed an unopened box (100 packs) of these 1990 panini stickers which I did in fact need. Got the complete set however I needed 4 of the Braves for my Braves team, so I am short there. Some of you will find a few of these in your stacks. Back to the dime cards (that is what I paid for them). I found a good size stack of Florida Gator cards too. Nearly a complete set, but not close enough. I'll have to look at what I need. That set is a mix of all Gator sports and yes Tebow was there Chris Collinsworth too, lol. Several other former big names in there too. If you want to see them also LMK in the comments below.

Tomorrow is Wacky Wednesday so I wish you all a very Happy and blessed Thanksgiving! I had planned on starting the "What are the Odds" posts yesterday, but looks like a Thursday tee time for that kick-off. I've got lots of stuffed scanned from trades, gifts, wins, purchases too so the line-up card is filled for a good minute or two.

 

Me being me. I dun went and dun et. OOPS I did it again (this time on TCDB) and a ComC update

 I guess I am on fire. Not literally or physically of course. Apparently some people only care about getting points on TCDB (I'm not one of those). I am one that wants to get my entire collection listed in the data base. An actual title worth having. You know I've been working on that for the last couple of years. I've made a lot of progress as I WORK through the PC update this go around. Recently in fact last week I started and completed my Mickey Mantle cards. Overall I have 552 different Mantle cards in the system with 11 cards that I could not find in the system. I have 495 Mantle cards in his PC binder. Some I could identify as they are all over EBay and other sites, but not listed. Most of course didn't have the year so I hit the forums. You know the one that is supposed to help you with "card identification" or "mystery card". I took the time about 30 minutes to scan fronts and backs individually so as to have clean crisp pictures. Then I put the 11 items on the forum which only took 5 minutes. Before I had the 3rd card on there I started getting some crap from 1 specific guy (and then a 2nd chimed in) both at  point level L8 who:

1) He isn't trading on the site. I'm okay with that as I don't either right now. I'd rather have my cards inputted first and then decide which ones I want to get rid of. 

2) His collection isn't growing. Mine is and at super speed levels (I'm currently #27 on the site in total cards entered (#14 in baseball cards) and I still need the other 90% of my collection put it.  Get the idea. I care more about getting the #1 recognition for my collection and not being recognized for points that are supposed to be earned for helping some one else. Oh yeah, he didn't help me...did he. No points for him on this one. Not resolved.

3) He is answering the card id forum without actually answering the forum, ie: messaged me over and over for hours and days blasting me, and never once identifying any of the cards or even mentioning them. (getting points- well trying too anyways).

4) A 2nd L8 guy (obviously a point buddy), chimed in reiterating some stuff then called me lazy and unresourceful well "quote" I come across as that way. When I replied with the work that I do put in especially when trying to identify a card, he replies no one called me that. UH dude YOU DID! Some people are just always going to whine and bi_ch no matter what. Kind of like what this post is doing, but once posted and comments answered when needed I'll be done. 

5) Remind you guys here I have about 2 million more cards to run against the TCDB system. Those still need to be entered if I can identify them (now that's just me being a smart a_s).

6) Let me say that this ordeal has been 50/50. Half siding with me (liking- I guess that's still a thing) and the other half siding with that first nincompoop. I am sure when I log in today there will be notifications. In fact, one of my BLOG readers dropped me an e-mail this Saturday morning letting me know he's seen the fiasco going on.

Here are my final thoughts, if you can't answer the TCDB question, don't answer it unless you actually have a positive suggestion where I might actually find the answer (even though my experienced resourceful and NOT lazy self has already checked those before asking for help). As for unlicensed cards not being listed on the site, BULL Dookie, there are tens of thousands of them listed already. If you list one of them and count it as a card then ethically you should include ALL of them. BTW, some of those 11 cards are licensed, just no copyright year on them. Promo stuff for the most part. 

Now for a ComC update. Other than the "survey request" regarding how'd we do? I haven't heard a thing since "Stacy" was sending it to her supervisor (Julia , the owner). Also of note, found their Black Friday Cyber Monday e-mail sitting in my spam folder. Yeah, rather NOPE no free shipping again this year. Crapola offer. Guess I need to follow up with the BBB to see what's up on their end.

You folks go out and have a POSITIVE impact on the world, and if you can't then just stay home (lol) that's just me being me again. Peace everybody.

Shadow Shots

 Had a blast last night. Hunter and Elijah spent the night, we had Chinese (E's choice) and then we went out for ice cream and man o man was it good. they are heading to our town's Light up Ocala festival today. Me....I'll be playing with my cards as is my usual almost everyday thing.

Tell me what you see in the shadows.

1) I see a stallion galloping along.

2) At first i saw a work bench/saw horse, but then quickly seen a giraffe.

3) Clearly a bucking BULL has escaped the rodeo and poor Mr. Curtis is trying to hop the fence so as not to get gored.

Bonus cards today.. When I grabbed those Japanese cards from the cheap boxes I also pulled these out too.

Nothing special but for a quarter (.20).

Jimy Williams had a pretty kush job in Atlanta with Glavine, Smolts, and Maddux.

For some reason I think I left these two cards out of the scans from last week. 

Enjoy the weekend, I am ready for Thanskgiving Day!

The In betweens and some gambling of sort.

Before I start on the post title. I got a text last night from "Ormond". Dime Section Special. 50 3 row boxes available $30.00 or $25.00 for 4 or more.  I did not reply.

In between my two flu invasions. I managed to make it to a card show down in Tampa last month. Now before you go and get all excited (just kidding). I said hello to Justin (told him I would sell him my 2 rookie Ohtani certified packed pulled autographs). I didn't take them with me, but I did mention me finding them last month here and I will tell that short story soon. I didn't really do much of anything at the show. I got there as they were setting up or at least some of them hadn't even made it to their tables yet. I wandered for maybe a minute or two and sat down in the back left corner at a dealer who had 4 tables. Half were all dollar boxes. He had a sign out that said take a box for $200.00. They were 3 row boxes for the most part, however all of the cards were in top loaders so roughly only 400 cards in each box. There were 28 baseball and that didn't count the 5 or or so vintage boxes. 

I decided I would go through them even it took all day and it did. Albeit I only went through one of the vintage boxes and did that quickly as it was time to head home. Throughout the day the dealer and I talked of course. Several people around midday started digging into the boxes too, but only a couple of guys (a father and grown up son) spent time in the baseball boxes and we talked a good bit too. At one point I was pitching the idea of just buying all of the baseball....if the price was right. 

The best price on a box the dealer would go down to if you got them all was $100.00 per box and I wasn't willing to drop 3 grand on the cards. Especially, with the cards being what I would call quarter cards to begin with. Me NO pay full price! NOPE NADA NEVER. I continued to dig through grabbing pretty much all of the Braves while trying not to grab dupes from the boxes. I did purposely grab some Braves that I knew I did not need because figuring I'd be paying close to a quarter I wanted to get those that I knew were a deal even if I didn't need them. There wasn't too many.

When all was said and done I filled TWO 3 row boxes containing 844 cards with 257 of them being Braves cards. The dealer asked for $350.00, I said nah...(I was still hoping for that $100.00 a box thing, lol). Settled on $150.00 each basically paying 3 for a buck. I broke the Braves down into 3 groupings. Each of those groups will get their own post. I am titling those posts "WHAT ARE THE ODDS?" I'll be starting those on Monday (I think).

I do regret not taking in the whole card show (3 hours of driving to and from). Spilled milk as they say. I was thrilled to be out and about after dealing with the stir craziness from the flu the first time combined with the frustration of trying to take over the #1 Atlanta Braves spot on TCDB. So yes of course those that turned out to be needs have long since been added to TCDB. But we'll be doing the BRAVES breakdown here at JohnnysTradingSpot. Three rounds of whether or not it was wise to put the cards in the box. So I will be starting those rounds next week.

Meanwhile, and so there are cards in this post here are the I knew straight up I didn't need these Braves anywhere, meaning not in the Braves teams sets, not in set builds, not in PCs, or mini collections. Just straight up wasn't leaving them behind. You can see the categories in this paragraph that I will be using for each of the 3 rounds.

I knew I didn't need these 16 Braves. I just found them worthy enough to grab them anyway at that moment. That was then and it helped me to realize now that I have to stop doing crap like that. Unless of course they were all Ohtani rookies, maybe then it would be okay, LOL.

I do also have 2 or 3 days worth of cards that went straight to the PC boxes (we all know it will be 2 years before I know if I needed them). Well, those that are M and beyond will get done in this round of PC updating. Speaking of which I am now updating and re-doing the Maddux binder. I had to pull all of the Braves cards out of the Maddux binder, and check them against my Braves team binders to see and most were needed there. You see, while I was up in Valdosta for those years I decided to not do the dupe thing with my Braves PC guys.....I regret that. So now I have pulled them all out and put them where they belong the numbers will be changing drastically on my PC player page for Braves guys. 

Have a great night!

Wacky Wednesday

 I am well enough to go to trivia tonight. My daughter Hunter and Jalen will stop by for 30 minutes or so before he has to go play football. Speaking of which, one of "The Gang" could use some prayers. Jared broke his leg at that first football game....broke it bad and after his surgery has to keep weight off of it for 8 weeks. He is a P.E. coach at one of our many local schools so he will be out for quite some time. Lift him up!  Lift him up!  Thanks.

Now for some interesting baseball cards.

More 1993 Upper Deck for Greg to talk about on his "other blog".

Have a great night everybody and maybe my brother and I can do better this go around (we stunk the last time out).

2024 Dream Order Pacific division.

 No since repeating the yesterday's post so here they are.

Pacific Division.

The inserts.

My guess is it won't be long before Kenny is dropping a few of these on some of you guys, that is if he hasn't already, lol.

Sayonara!

This is a first. 2024 Dream Order. Japanese baseball trading card game in the cheap boxes.

 Last week I posted about me dropping in my LCS for a quickie. I had mentioned that I found some interesting cards in the quarter boxes. Cutting straight to them. Well...The first half of them anyways. This is the 2024 NPB Dream Order....Central division cards. I will post the Pacific division tomorrow.

I had no idea what these cards were when I seen them, I just knew I had to grab them all and there was a good size handful.

All of the backs look the same. Now for the 2 scans below I guess these would be considered inserts of sort. At least that is how TCDB treats them.

I was very pleased to add these cards to my collection along with the other half you'll see tomorrow. There were a few dupes in the mix, but I've already earmarked them for Fuji. Mark there will be some of this stuff in your next package eventually in fact I actually scanned the dupes.

Sayonara!