Happy MLK day

 Just a short post honoring MLK. 

Now, I do have one or two cards of MLK as well, but they weren't in this scan file.

My Uncle Fred had this memento among his "stuff". Now I have it.

Enjoy the day.

Shadow Shots and a Postal update

 First let's get the latest postal service update. I hadn't heard a thing in several weeks. Until Friday morning. This it what was in the e-mail:

Hello John Miller,

The U.S. Postal Service has completed the review of your claim for (Tracking Number: 9500110374915276288624) and has approved your claim for payment. Payment for this claim will be sent to you in a mailing within 7 - 10 business days for this amount:

(Check Number: 324800735)
($100.00)

If the paid amount is less than the amount requested, the difference may be due to; the assessed value being lower than the amount claimed, depreciation, insurance coverage limits, etc.

Now to wait on the check I guess. I had reached out to one of my US Senators a couple of months ago regarding my issues with the P.O. I never heard anything (not even a form letter response) and that pisses me off a little too, especially as he was also my Governor for 8 years. Oh well, it appears to be all handled now after nearly 4 months. NUTS! 

Now for some shadows.

1) I really don't see anything particular in the shadow. However what I find interesting is it looks like a SQUARE that is tipping a ball cap.

2) I see the A Okay hand sign.

3) Either a Cheetah or a Puma can't really be sure.....I don't want to get too close

Enjoy the weekend everybody!

Mount Fuji erupts!

 I got a package as did many of us recently from Mark. I will have to split the goodies up into two posts. One for tonight and one will have to wait a few weeks at which time you will understand why.

TCDB: They finally updated the Braves input for me. Now I am 574 cards behind him. I'm telling you that I need to go to Atlanta (or nearby) visit some family and tear up every card shop I can taking all of the ATL Braves inserts and parallels, especially the parallels (pretty much could use any of those "seasonal" parallels Topps uses in series 1, 2, and update.

Back to Mount Fuji (maybe I should say Saint Fuji :)

These were the needed Braves. My first green plaid Braves from the 2025 Holiday set.

Mark sent along some John Miller cards too. No idea if I need them because I haven't updated that collection in a decade. Good news is, I might need them in the set builds too.

A few years back I remember sending a partial box of ALF cards to Mark. Either he finally opened the packs or these are from a different set. He sent about a hundred from the 87' series 1 set which according to TCDB I didn't have any of the 44 card set, and I now have 21 almost half of the set. 

Mark also sent an unopened pack of 2021 Opening Day. I haven't completed that set, I needed 30 cards yet, so I ripped the pack.

Over the years I have usually sent Mark all of the Mascot cards I'd get as he collects them. My TCDB data showed I didn't have any of the Mascots so there is a need right there, as well as the Correa which was also a need. Opening the Opening Day pack was the right call.

Now for some proud papa news: 

My brother and I switched weeks for playing trivia, and at the last minute last night Hunter (my daughter) texted me saying that all 4 of "The Gang" (the kids-youngsters) would ne joining us. I called here immediately to let her know that Jack and I weren't playing last night. They still went, they wanted to play and they finished in third winning $10.00, and was only 10 point from the number one spot. They did well.

Thanks Mark, and you already know why I must wait 4 week (minus 3 days) to show the rest of what you sent :)

Wacky Wednesday: almost done

 Almost done this go around, I didn't come close to getting through binder one and I have two binders of interesting or odd cards. In case you missed the previous post (GOALS) where I mentioned the readership on Wed. and Saturdays just isn't happening. I will be posting Monday through Friday once I have finished the few as in 3 weeks worth left of the Shadows and Wacky cards already scanned.

Here are this weeks winners or losers depending your liking.

Three more to go.

More incoming: The last cards of 2025.

 I've had to do a good bit of scanning today. Braves cards from other bloggers, Oct'ers, Ebay, and yes my ComC order. I'll scatter them over several posts. 

Last night I mentioned the TCDB thang.....Well....

I added 96 Atlanta Braves cards last night.

At 2pm today: HIS cards went up 58 and mine didn't change at all. Zippo, nada, zero.

Tonight is SUPER short. It came from Bob D'Angelo from OCT (and he trades in all of the card groups too). Bob is "local" as in he is about 2 hours away from me. We have met up swapped cards and share a meal or two. Bob and I have been trading for a baker's dozen of years, and he graced me with these cards as the last cards I received in the year 2025. They arrived on New year's eve just to qualify it.

There were a few other cards, but those were dupes. These (at the time) were all needs.

I especially appreciate the Black parallel of the reigning NL ROY!

Umpires set: 1990 TM

 Now I know you folks didn't think that I forgot about this set. It has been awhile since I asked whether or not you wanted to see the set, and the answer was yes. 

Here it is.

Not the prettiest set for sure, but back in the day I remember many of these umpires. As for umps today, I couldn't name a single one.

There you go. There is still one card that was available via mail in only, which I still need. The last card for the set too, Al Barlick #71.

I hope you found yourself cruising down memory lane....I did.

RED ALERT: I got my ComC order today. (mailed in a $12 and change flat rate "bag"). Now the cards themselves were in a box inside. In fact a 100 count box that was inside no idea why another box. Anyways, my order was 85 cards and all arrived. Three were not Braves and of the 82 Braves one was a dupe within the order itself, my bad. Of the remaining 81 cards 6 others I obtained since I bought them from comc. So, tonight I am updating those 75 Braves cards into TCDB. AS of last night and did not change as I publish this that "other guy" was 612 cards ahead of me. Let's see how many days it takes him to make up the 75 cards I am going to gain tonight.

Shadow Shots

 Peeking into the shadows on baseball cards. Hoping to find something interesting.....will we?

1) I pulled this one because I like the shadow of the ball.

2) Godzilla

3) One of those Mahjong characters.

Your turn.

WARNING: WARNING WILL ROBINSON.....WARNING

 Not sure if that catchy post title got your attention or not. But if you are reading this it probably did. Sorry to disappoint, but this post has NOTHING to do with "Lost in Space". Well..... that is unless you are talking about the gap between my two ears. 

Did you SMILE? I know it should have been DANGER :)

I don't know, maybe a dozen posts ago I made mention about 2025 baseball cards being released in 2026. Ahhhh. One week in and this is what has dropped (at least the checklists). 

Topps T205

Topps Chrome Sapphire UPDATE

Topps Now

Topps Now Road to Opening Day

Panini Flawless

Bowman Draft & Bowman Chrome Draft

Topps Heritage HIGH #s

I believe the following have checklists have now dropped, just have to locate the pesky things checklists.

Ginter X

Leaf Electrum

What else is coming you ask?

Panini Select

Topps Museum

Bowman Draft Super (whatever that is)

Leaf Pulse

Leaf Opti-Chrome

This doesn't is cover the (2025) ones being released or supposed to be released in March. 

Now go out and enjoy the weekend otherwise I will send Dr. Smith after you.

Some incoming cards

 Real quick, ComC last night bumped my order expected shipment back to 3/10/26 (LOL), and then today moved it back to 3/13/26. Also, after a delay I finally got my refund to my paypal account today for cashing out. 

1/8/26 8:23 pm EST, UPDATE: They say they have shipped my order.

Okay, for "real" hobby stuff here are a few items that came in last year in December.

The needs above plus 2 others I didn't scan came from fellow blogger Mr. Jester. Thanks Matt!

I scooped up these needs from a trip to my LCS.

The goodies above here came from Mr. Bubbles himself. Bob also sent along some bubble cards too plus another 3 cards that didn't get scanned. Thanks Bob!

1/13/26 I have an updated post as some of the cards above did not come from Bob.

These last two cards came from fellow OldCardTraders, 2 different people each sending one of the above. That Johnston cookie was first and came inside my first Christmas card of last year. The other card also came inside a Christmas card and knocked out one of the high priority Braves needs in the upper right panel. Been a long time since someone took one of those out.

Rounding out the night are some minor leaguers from the Z-man.

Thanks Mark. 

I have more incoming packages that I haven't scanned yet (been kind of busy). I'll get to them eventually and might post some of them, lol.

Have a great night!

Wacky Wednesday (plus a NEGATIVE ComC comment)

 I didn't mention in yesterday's post that ComC changed my expected ship date again, this time moved back to 3/9/26. Then last night it was changed again......to 3/13/26. I really think they believe that if they keep bumping it back (even put additional 50K people ahead of me) that I will quit saying bad things about them. Yeah....they ain't happening.....EVER. I will be saying bad stuff (for as long as I blog).

Here are some interesting cards to peek at tonight.

 Enjoy the rest of the night.

A big Ebay win. (BIN)

 As I mentioned last night I was stoked to get a great deal on this set. Yes....set in it's awesome sweet condition. 2001 Topps Tribute set. The very first year of the brand. 

Here is the 90 card set in all of it's glory.

Again, I am stoked to have knocked this set out, and for what I consider to have been for a quarter of what it would have normally cost. Those are the deals I love. Never really thought I would get this one. 

Ebay wins

 A couple of Ebay wins to highlight this week, but first some more BS.

On 1/3 TCDB Bravesfan1 had 33,227 and I had 32,742. I added 10 cards, and he added 130. This was yesterday. So now I am 605 cards behind him. I still don't buy it. 

Okay now to the first Ebay win for tonight.

Some new Topps Tribute for a decent low price with some big names. I was happy to win this auction. Just not as happy as the post for tomorrow night. 

Later.

Shadow Shots and ComC news

 Welcome to the New Year! Before peeking into the shadows let's do the year end TCDB update.

Atlanta Braves: -485

Gaming: Up 13 spots to #98

Non-sports: Same spot #27

Baseball cards: Up 1 spot to #12

Total cards: Up 1 spot to #25

Now for the shadows.

1) Lots of choices here, could be a whale diving, but I'm going with a ship anchor dropping.

2) definitely a big of some sort

3) a bird.

Now last night at 9:47 pm I got an e-mail from ComC (mind you my original ship date was 12/26/25 which was 13 days ......as they advertise with their "new rates" , albeit I check every day and it states a 3/8/26 ship date).  With that said I copied and pasted the e-mail from last night.....  scroll the right arrow to see they sent this on 1/2/26.

COMC.com 

From:staff@comc.com

To:jfmjr1@aol.com

Fri, Jan 2 at 7:54 PM

Hello John,

  

Thank you for your purchase. Your order is being packaged and is expected to ship on with an expected shipping date of 12/26/2025.

 

It will be mailed to the following address:
John Miller
3 Pecan Radial Place
Ocala, FL 34472  

 

If this address is incorrect, please reply to this email and change the email's subject line to "Address Correction" so we can make that adjustment.

 

You can view the full details of your purchase #84911411 in the uploaded PDF or on our website.

 

Please let us know if there is anything we can do to better serve you!

~ The COMC Team

Buy & sell on COMC:
https://www.comc.com

Get support:
https://comc.zendesk.com/

Follow COMC on social media:
https://comc.com/rt/LinkTree

Yeah, they still expect to ship it on 12/26/25 (8 days ago) and they let me know on 1/2/26. I say we in the blogosphere start a 100 spot grid  to take bets (per square) on how much longer they will remain in business. 

Here is the revised current status (originally it was 12/26/25).

Status:
Tracking:	Not Shipped Yet
Date Requested:	12/13/2025
Estimated Ship Date:	3/6/2026
Items Ahead of My Order:	578,894

ANOTHER UPDATE TODAY WHEN I CHECKED STATUS, NOW SHOWS SHIP DATE OF 3/9/26.

THESE PEOPLE.....

Enjoy the weekend! Four more weeks of shadows.

Happy New Year!

 Hopefully, everyone is enjoying the start of 2026. I certainly appreciate waking up on this side of the dirt today (I do everyday too). Once again I am foregoing my typical usual January 1st post....Sort of. I'm not posting the birthday athletes, but I am doing a "State of the Blog" which is basically just what I have planned for the coming year in regards to our hobby and what I post. The goals if you will.

1) Because I failed to obtain at least 1 T206 cards for my collection, this year I plan on TWO. I hope the prices drop some.

2) POSTING:  I have several more weeks worth of scanned and ready to go Shadow Shots, but once those are posted that it is for the year. Readership and comments for those weekend posts just don't justify my time. I will probably replace Saturday posting with a Friday post instead. I have something in mind. I have also decided what to do with that boatload of duplicate Greg Maddux cards. At some point in the coming weeks I kickstart "Just Another Maddux Monday". I plan on posting a page (9 cards) each Monday and the followers of the blog comment for a chance to win those cards. Randomized of course. Many rookies scattered through out and once in a while throw in a surprise non Maddux card into the mix. 

3) My PC (player collections): With the major cutback I've done the last two years on super bulk buys, I believe I can get my updating done all within one year. Speaking of which it goes without saying that finishing this last update in 2026. I finished the M's on 12/31/25 which would be normal. I spent the day today going through the 21K PC cards in the garage (didn't get to all of them but will tomorrow) and pulling out the N's, O's, and P's. The P's have a lot of guys, but not nearly as much at the next round which will be the R's, S's, and T's which will actually take up much of the first half of this year. Leaving the W's as the last BIG one to knock out. Still plan on cutting out a lot of the guys I've been hoarding and hopefully that will all be dome in 2026.

4) I didn't get to many card shows in 2025, so I want to get to at least 7 shows this year, and I'd like to take a couple of road trips to south Florida and checkout some of those shows and LCS's. I was planning on two specific ones this month, but I'm thinking of doing one of the Tampa area shows instead. 

5)  Last but not least, get a lot more of what I have collected inputted into TCDB. I've been doing the PC guys as I go along and will continue to do so. I still have about 20-30K cards for set builds to get sorted and put in. That needs done this year for sure.

That's it. I wish all a fantastic 2026. Enjoy our hobby as much as you can. Greg knocked out a good bit of the bad crap within the industry the other day, so need for me to add to it other than to say this.....

FANATICS SUCKS!

Wacky Wednesday: New year's Eve

 Hump day and this one is a Holiday. My words of encouragement: If you drink...don't drive and in 2026 be alive! I wish everyone out there a great new year. 

Tonight is trivia night so hopefully we can follow up our time with back to back wins. 

UPDATE: No trivia tonight. My brother and I play just around the corner at the "Dugout Sports bar & grill". It is New Year's Eve, I get up there and a sign on the door, closed at 5PM. It's a pub, it's New Year's Eve.....What????? Oh well such is life lol.

 

Be safe everyone, be wise, and most of all be happy!

The November Tampa card show finale

 Before you go getting your hopes up....I did not save the best for last. They were the last of the scans. So let's get at them.

Minted in Cooperstown parallels.

A few of those I think TBT inspired by 78....maybe, lol.

You may but probably don't remember that I had mentioned this seller had a bunch of vintage boxes too. I only went through the one I the top as I was filling that second box.

Yeah, these Kellogg's are pretty much cracked all up, but hey I grabbed them all anyway.

Grabbed the few Hostess too. I'm sure there may have been more in the other 6 or 7 boxes, but time was thin and the box was full.

And finishing the scans with a bunch of Topps Now cards. That completes that trip finally. I can now focus on getting the rest of the incoming from Ebay and other bloggers and trade partners.

Catcha lata!