Ormond: The rest of the Braves

 First, thank goodness it is Friday, rough week with my back, whew. Hopefully next week is better. Secondly, I scanned the rest of the Braves together without even checking to see if I needed them.

The Muller on the bottom, didn't need for my Braves (I'll check the set build later). The Dansby on the bottom, didn't need.  The Bowman Heritage Olson not needed for the Braves (I pc him, so keeper anyways). Needed both rainbow foil cards, and lastly the first two cards there not sure as I had them checked off in one spot but not the others so we'll see eventually, lol. Again both PC guys so no big deal if I doubled up.

The pair of Chronicles weren't Braves needs and I doubt they are set build needs, the Anderson on the bottom also not needed for the Braves, but may be needed for the set. Select Fried, same thing not needed but he's a PC guy. The other four all needs especially the team logo swap Freeman, nice......Likewise, the UK Acuna sweet too.

The pair of Finest will have to check the set needs, the Acuna black border mini was a need. The Purple Wentz was checked off in one spot but not the others, we'll see. The tri color Soroka was a need and the advertising card was too.

Now after all is said and done here, I believe these Braves were not from Ormond at least not this trip, they may very well have just been a stack laying near my laptop and put the other cards on top of them. i say this because they all look very familiar, and I certainly don't remember pulling these last week. On top of that I am staring at two other stacks (100, 50ish cards) near my laptop. I guess getting out of routine has it's setbacks. I hope to get those handled this weekend.... we'll see.

Have a great weekend everybody!

Newest 2023 Braves additions

 Not as many 2023's as there were 2024's, but I'll make that up tomorrow with the others.

There ya go short and sweet. I was able to get a good handful of the 2023 Platinum Anniversary cards while at the shop on Wednesday last week including the two Braves above. 

Newest 2024 Braves

 As mentioned yesterday/last night I had made an Ormond run last week. My goal was to not go crazy (my theme all year thus far). I really only wanted the Bowman, Big League, and Heritage Braves plus the Bowman set builds. Kyle's 6' dime table was slammed 3 boxes high on top and under.  I didn't bring an empty box on purpose so I wouldn't be overly tempted. Yeah, FAIL! Tons of Heritage and Big League, and Bowman. I filled 4 monster boxes (brand new ones from Kyle's shop). Probably could have filled a couple more. I could have forgone the Bowman as Kyle had complete sets for $10.00 on the vets, $25 prospects, and $35 chrome prospects. $70.00 for a complete set, those hobby boxes cost nearly $300. I decided to not to go that route and build the hard way. I did get the base set, 6 cards shy of the prospects, and half of the chrome. I'm good with that as I really don't chase the prospects and chrome (I just pick them out of dimes boxes here and there). I did get all of my Braves base and prospects, and 3 shy on the chrome.  I still need three more Big League, pretty sure those 3 won't be in a dime box, lol.

Most of the Topps inserts and parallels above came from those dollar box grabs that Kyle threw in.

I'll find those 3 chrome Braves in a dime box for sure.

 Now for my Heritage.

I put the 2 Fried cards backwards on purpose.  You can easily see the difference in the card backs. Now apparently this is nothing, however out of the 4500 Heritage cards I bought only 24 have this difference. There are 50/50 on the even darker backs, but this I just don't get. I called my buddy in Ormond who ripped the two cases and he said he caught that too on the 2 nd case and said they were falling about 1 or 2 per box. I probably should have used one of the darker backs to compare the light one. Things like this irk me, gets under my skin clearly somebody was messing with the product.

There you have it, minus the one Heritage Brave that I still need. Numero Uno Acuna.

Off to play trivia with my brother.

Let's catch up.

 You may or may not have noticed that I didn't post so much lately. No one actually inquired and that is a bit depressing, but it is what it is I guess. Anyways, the catch up. My daughter graduated and I did make it albeit I drove all through the night and got a great seat. I took care of the business/family stuff north of Atlanta. As for the lack of posting I could throw out a slew of things, but no need to do that when 6 words can sum it up the best. I just didn't feel like it. DONE! Now over the last few weeks I got a couple of mailings. This one came from Mr. Tessier.

A goodie from 1968. Thank you Tom.

Another package came in from the Owl himself. Greg returned some of those Beltre's I sent him and that was greatly appreciated. Greg decided to throw in a couple of blue Braves for me collection.

Looking at the Opening Day card it looks purple so I better check. Thanks Greg.

I haven't done much hobby wise this month. I did however venture over to Ormond last week (Wednesday). I hadn't been there in a month a half or so. While I was there I actually got a text from Jeremy asking if I would meet him at that card shop on Friday. Talk about funny I was already there. Anyways you've seen the haul that he brought back. Glad he got to venture over there finally. I didn't take any empty monster boxes with me, and I knew that I still had to hit up everything that wasn't Series 1 Topps. I came home with 4 + monster boxes of cards roughly 12.5K (38 of the cards I actually pulled out of Kyle's dollar boxes). Those were all Braves needs for the most part. As for the 4 boxes I loaded up Heritage, Big League, and Bowman all from 2024. Needless to say I do have extras. That reminds me I need to mail Greg some stuff. I'm not going to scan up those monster boxes. I will however cover the Braves that I needed. I'll start with the 2024 needs tomorrow, then do the 2023 Thursday, and wrap up the rest on Friday. No big purchases this trip. Kyle charged me a Benjamin for everything including the 4 brand new 3K boxes. I say a good deal. 

Have a great night folks.

Honoring Memorial Day.

 Honoring those who gave their lives so that we can have our liberties today. While many Americans will celebrate today with BBQ's and family and that is a good thing please remember those who gave everything (and their families) so that we can do the things that we do do, like collecting baseball cards.

May God bless America again!

Happy Mother's Day

 Be sure to give those mother's out there a shout out today. Let's face it....if it weren't for them none of us would be here today!

My mom has been gone 9 years now, I miss her she truly was my ultimate hero! I love you mom!

May the 4th be with you.

 Normally there would be an annual Star Wars post here. However, I haven't made any SW purchases lately. It is also a Saturday, so the best I can do (I'm lazy not wanting to drag out any of the SW sets I have/working on) is to wish you a May the 4th be with you!

Final Meely Pops cards: The PC pulls

 While my main focus was the Braves box (there was only 1 shoebox) in the cheap stuff, I sifted through the 2 boxes of Dodgers and called it a day as I knew that I wasn't going to get a "super deal". I did get $5.00 knocked off of my purchase.

Six cards above will be checked against set build needs before being dumped into the PC boxes. Well Maeda isn't a PC guy, so that one is going into the Father's Day section of my Holidates binder that is if I need it.

The Hershiser was a the twelfth dime card. Birthday binder/PC guy all in one.

17 cards for me that were not Braves. That completes the $20.00 from a trip (1 hr each way) to a LCS. Not much of a contribution, but I am a "deal" guy. There is a card show in Jacksonville this coming Saturday, but I am thinking that I will skip it. 

I am heading to Atlanta for a few days to take care of some Estate stuff and spend a little time with family that I probably won't see for sometime. Look forward to seeing my sisters Joyce and Jan as well as a few cousins. I am set to come back home on May 9th. However, my daughter Hunter originally thought her graduation from CCF was May 20th. She is my youngest and the last to get through college. Thank goodness! Yeah, turns out the ceremony is May 9th, so either I leave at midnight (the ceremony starts at 10am) and drive all night without sleep or I will miss her walk. The time allotted in GA has been set for a while now, and took a lot of planning to get a dozen of together all at the same times. I will be spending the rest of this week and weekend trying to work out my situation. I may not be posting again until after I return home. 

Meely Pops: part two....The Other Braves

 Time to get on to the non Topps Braves cards.

In this first scan there are cards that I definitely knew I didn't need or at least thought I didn't. I just wanted them anyway. I will run the numbers at the end again.

Same goes for the other two scans so let's check them out.

Here we go: 24 cards scanned above. I didn't need 10 of them. I can use three of those dupes. The Strider Capstone (which I knew) for his PC but I actually think I have a few of them already. I hope the recovery goes extremely well it is his 2nd time. My brother isn't a fan. I however am. 

The Gold Kimbrel is also for the PC, but that might wind up a dupe there too, who knows. The last one is the EEE auto for a mini collection/frankenset.

Not as good as last night 17 of 24 aren't hitting the dupes boxes at least for now. But it was still pretty close to it. I know this. There are 32 cards of 44 cards scanned so far that were good choices. Add in the purposeful Strider and I am back at 75% good calls.

Have a great night everyone!

Meely Pops: part 1

 I apologize for skipping a couple of posts, just didn't feel like posting. In fact I am heading out of town next week and will skip a few more as well. With that said I had went to Gainesville (Home of the Gators) last week and stopped in to one of the two Meely Pops card shops. I really don't go that often once twice a year as there really isn't the kind of deals that get my blood pumping. That isn't to say I don't buy anything. I do like lending a hand to LCS brick & mortar shops. This trip I spent a whopping $20.00. I broke the handful of cards into 3 groups and will post as such this week. No high end cards here obviously. I pulled a dozen dime cards and the rest came out of the .50 boxes which are the predominant selection of singles in this store.

Here we have a smattering of Braves from the 1993 Rockies edition Topps (and a couple more below).

I had no idea whether or not I needed any of the Braves cards that I bought.

That is the Braves Topps brand cards that I picked up. Now let's see how many of them I actually needed.

1993 Topps: I needed all of them which is awesome as I did have several already. Those were the dime cards that I bought (11 of them anyway). I still need roughly half of the Braves team.

2010 Topps Chrome refractors: I needed the Hicks. 

2012 Topps Update Gold Sparkle: nope....didn't need it.

2012 Topps Chrome purple. nope again.

2023 Topps Chrome Pink: nope (now I can use them though maybe (the Olson PC and possibly the Pink collection).  

2023 Topps Chrome Sepia: needed the Albies.

End result of the above definitely 13/20 were Braves team set needs and 1 possible PC need and 1 maybe 2 mini collection needs. So 15 of the 20 cards shown tonight fall into the PLUS column and 5 straight to the dupes boxes.

Have a great night. tomorrow I'll bring on the rest of the Braves.

This is a first for me.

 Like the title says....this is a first for me. 

Many of you know that I am building the Panini Chronicles sets.....basically all of them going back to the first one in 2017.

One of the things that me it near impossible to actually complete an entire year of all of the different brands is that there is usually 1 or 2 of the brands that are 60-100 cards in them. And they would be considered SP's in a normal set making it so difficult and obviously expensive.

This America's Pastime set is from the 2021 set. Back then I was buying the value boxes once they went on sale. That way I got a whole lot of cards on the cheap versus buying packs or blasters. I remember getting a bunch of those value boxes from Panini and other online dealers for dirt cheap. That ended in 2021 because the 2022 boxes never got discounted like that and so far the 2023 haven't either.

I did have 71% of this hundred card set already when I seen a Sports Lot auction for the complete set a couple of weeks back. It was on the third day and I placed a bid. I got outbid once so I bid again and after three days I won the lot for $21.00. Shipping was $12.99, but that was okay. 

 

Now I have dupes that many will go into the PC's. This is the first of those big sets that I have completed from any of the years. Spectra and Obsidian are two more of the larger sets as is the Revolution set. 

I hope to one day find some 9 pocket pages that handle the extra thick cards. For now these are sitting on the appropriate book shelf in a 700ct box. That is how thick they are.

As for the cards themselves.....they are ugly and really don't do much for me.

It would be great to catch some of those other larger brands in complete set for the cheap. We'll see as I continue to check the Sport Lots auction for deals.

Card #100 was awarded to Ryne Sandberg.

Not a super big deal but this brand being completed was not something that I had high hopes of completing so I am pleased with the purchase.

A few incoming

 I still have a few more incoming packages to get posted here.

These are Dover reprints from GCC. These I am pretty sure I need. Gotta love any Babe Ruth Braves cards reprint or not. These are about half of John sent, I still need to identify the reprint year on the others. Thanks John.

Now this is not a reprint. It is the last Braves card that I needed for my 51' Topps. Now TCDB lists this as a Hartfield card and not a Braves card. I count it as the variation of the Braves card #52. Fuji won this on Ebay and had the seller send it directly to me. It was in a PSA graded case, but I wasted no time popping it out of that prison.  Thanks Mark.

The above batch came from a recent trade with Bo. Half of these were upgrades and the other half are now haves that need to be upgraded. It is obvious which are which. Thanks Bo.

This should clear out the incoming file for a little while. 

1966 Batman: Red Bats with puzzle pieces

 Okay made it to the last of the Batman cards. 

You see that I didn't have much for the Batman puzzle, especially not when it comes to dupes. Reminder that the puzzles are 6-10 cards each.

Missing three for the Robin puzzle. (dupes that is).

The Riddler is complete.

Needing two for Catwoman.

Half of the Penguin.

Need two for the Joker.

After showing the Batman puzzle piece for the set build this is the only two I have for the puzzle build (dupes).

I am happy to have finally put these cards into a binder. The stack of what I had had been laying around for 11 years. Moving from place to place.....not anymore.