Series 2 sorted!

 Okay, I got the series 2 Topps sorted. I came up 8 cards short of a complete set. Rest assured I'll have those nicked by bedtime. Three thousand dupes. I'll make a few OCT trades for sure to thin those down. 

The pic above shows the first two rounds of (each box) where I sorted them by the "hundreds". The shorter stacks on the left are obviously the 350-399s, followed by the 2 rows each of 400's, 500's, and lastly 600-700. Side note: i did find another bubble gum card too.

Here you can see the sorted cards again by the hundreds bit sitting inside the box with the 351-399 sitting outside the box. After this was done I then sorted each row to get them into numerical order. Done. (now to get to those taxes which I am driving back up to Valdosta to handle with his accountant Monday). I did manage to pull PC guys and 2 of each rookie logo card for my hoarding as well. Now what I have fits into the box with about a hundred stacked on the side of one of the rows. Eventually, not now but I will thin them again for one of my 13 year running odd ball collections. In time, no rush. 

To close the week out tomorrow I'll scan up some of the odd balls.

Have a great night!

Yeah, I did!

 Ray Stevens was a very funny guy (my perspective). Frist let's recognize the passing of Willie Mays. He had 93 years behind him, HOF career and probably the best ever outfielder. RIP, kid!

Now, I mentioned last night that I would be heading over to the beach today, I did. I came home with two 3K count boxes. I will be sorting those for a few days. A good mix inside, but mainly series 2 Topps (apx 4K cards), maybe 500 or so Chrome Platinum, and then a variety. I grabbed up a good bit of Braves, which I'll sort by dime box, $1.00 box, 2 for 5, and $5.00 cards. I also used a Braves Bobble head to fill the box.  

Tonight I will just do one scan. 4 cards. Seriously sit down, just kidding I didn't get 4 Mays Gem Mint RC cards.

I pulled these cards as I scanned over the 4K looking for my Braves which I did pull out also. I went through half of the cards before checking the time. So this will have to do while I peruse the other half. Notice I spotted a new bubble gum card to go along with the three trophy cup cards.

I'm going to try to sort the other half tomorrow between trying to file 2 tax returns on behalf of my deceased for two year Uncle Fred, yeah those 75,000 new IRS agents are only going to go after people making more than 400K. BS, no DS *Donkey Squat). Fred, had a great income, but he spent more than that paying care givers, so literally he owed nothing in taxes, and after getting 8 years of his taxes done at once before he died, verifying that I had taken to the actual IRS building in Valdosta, and they told him not to file a return for those years....not once  but twice. I even double checked on the IRS website, yep said the same thing. Now I'm getting letters....... for those 2 years that wasn't filed. BECAUSE THEY SAID NOT TOO. Hopefully, all will be okay. 

Have a great night folks (my daughter just came over).

Topps series two

 Howdy all. Yesterday I received my first series 2 cards in the mail. My first Braves series at that. They hail from just a bit south of me from fellow OCTer Bob. 

Right off the bat I noticed a couple of things that I was not aware of. For example the Statue of Liberty. Yep, Topps decided to go all out for series two and added 6 new parallels. In addition to the one above, fireworks, sun, waves, summer foil, and hotdogs. I didn't catch those when I inputted the checklist to my website or excel sheets. Rest assured it is now done. 

The 2nd thing that caught my eye is the Hank Aaron card is so warped I would actually call it twisted. How it managed to scan fine I have no idea. A non chrmium card warping, what the heck is going on. I wonder has anyone else out there seen any new warping? 

I am thinking about running over to Ormond and scoop up the dimebox series 2 cards tomorrow. Guess I'll see if it is a common thing.

Have a great night.

Happy Father's Day

 Happy Father's Day to all papa bears out there!

There ya go three scans to commemorate the Braves getting 3 wins in a row. Man the last month was so bad. Ozuna is having one heck of a year. 

Flag Day

 What a glorious day to honor our Flag. Mine is flying high and you'll see below.

Had to put in a couple of "Flag cards." Now, for my Flag.

From my front door. Okay it is two flags.

The Braves stacks are done.

 Maybe I should say almost done. It took a week to get them all checked against my many lists. There are about a hundred or so cards not pictured that I already put into the binders before I realized that I hadn't taken or scanned any pictures. 

I put the 2024 and the 2023 in their binders already. Now, I need to finish putting the rest of these into the binders. I would have gotten them done today, but my daughter Hunter hung out with me all day (she spent last night and also tonight again too). It's all good. She hung out bought me lunch, swept and mopped my floors, washed laundry, and we did some brainstorming for my grandson Elijah's 5th birthday next month. I believe we are going to spend a few days in the big "O" and hit up all of the parks before sending him off to start kindergarten.

Have a great night folks!

CAUGHT MY EYE

 When I was digging through Kyle's dime boxes grabbing up all of the Platinum Anniversary cards there were some cards that caught my eye. There always are. Tonight I'll show you four of them although I grabbed some other brands too, but no need to show them.

I hadn't see these cards before. They are quality cards, nice and thick but not too thick. I have heard of the brand well at least seen it before not knowing what they were. Futera Unique.  These are from the Heritage section/subset.

The card fronts are underwhelming or bland if you will on design other than the logo. The backs are much better. Especially when you notice how short numbered they are. One of the cards above is from 2019 and the other 3 are from 2020. There is bronze, silver, and gold. Anyways, How could I pass them up when I basically was paying a little more than 1/2 of .01 per card. ($20.00 for 3000 cards).  .006 each.

Tomorrow is a busy day, follow up with VA in the morning, study trivia in the afternoon, and then go play trivia with my brother Jack. Probably not going to have a post.

When I went back

 I did in fact run back over to Ormond Beach last week to scoop up the 2023 Topps Chrome Platinum Anniversary cards from the dime boxes. I spent $20.00, got a book on Griffey and Thomas plus roughly 2500 of the cards. I got 75% of the set with the rest being held for me for my next trip over. It will be the first of the 3 sets that I will complete. Previously I showed the first two Braves, now I've added 14 more.

Sorry for being crooked, lol. I now need 7 more Braves plus two variations.

D-Day: Operation Neptune.

 June 6, 1944: D-Day as it has become known. World War II would soon be over. To think now we have to worry about WW3. Oh Lord please help us!

The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it is the largest seaborne invasion in history. copied and pasted from wikipedia.

A brief pause here to let you know that I spent nearly 6 hours in the ER today with chest pains. Wait, apparently I am okay numerous tests the ticker and lungs are good. All the labs, x-rays, cat scans, repeat labs etc say nothing. The only diagnostic that could be made or assumed is that I somehow in my sleep strained (inflamed) the chest muscles. Go figure... It sucks because obviously it intermittently is still present, again sucks. "Should take a week or two to clear on its own" I can now add a memory of my own to D-Day.  

The June 6th photo below was copied from the Eisenhower Library.

Photo from the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library page.

Jeremy brought some goodies too

 Jeremy's visit yesterday netted me some cards too. He brought with him some Braves, a PC card, and some mini collection cards (I'll need to save those for my annual post covering that topic). 

I don't even have to look to see if I needed this one, I know I did.

I'll have to check to see if I need that Morton Easter card. Pretty sure I need the Acuna parallel, the Spectrum Andruw as well as the Heritage. Pretty sure that I do have the rookie reprint though.  Jeremy brought about 30 or so Presidential cards that you'll have to wait until January. On a side note I drove over to Ormond today, looking to grab up a bunch of the 2023 Platinum Anniversary and I did! Not a complete set yet. Should be the first one I complete though as Mike and Bill both (from Kyle's shop) still have a boat load to sort and bring into the store. More of the key cards Ohtani, Acuna, etc plus the key rookies although I did get most of those just not all of them. I am sorting those tonight. 

Have a great night!

A quickie anyone?

 Real short tonight. Also letting you folks know that I did not get those stacks of Braves near my laptop checked out so that will have to be on the agenda for the rest of the week. Also noting there is another couple of hundred Braves in stacks on a tv tray/Table near my laptop so that too will be work. Meanwhile I did plan for this short post as I knew Jeremy would be here. Shout out to him for buying lunch today. He spent 6 hours (minus lunchtime) digging in the boxes. He got slower than the last time, he actually only made it through 2 boxes. Hundreds more to go, lol. He did manage "mark off" his want lists somewhere between 800 + cards. 

The above cards came from Mark (Fuji). The 2019 Braves are from the Clear Travel set he posted about recently. Mark sent a slew of those for the PC's too. Always a blast to get new to me Braves, but the real kicker is that Ebay card. I've never used one before, we'll see how that goes. The card was a return for some cards Mark wanted for another buddy of his. Thanks Mark and also to Jeremy for the visit.

I NEARLY FORGOT

 Like the title says I nearly forgot about one good size stack of cards I pulled from Kyle's two weeks ago. Non sports. Star Wars. Now I was basically filling the boxes with 2024 stuff and quite frankly I thought these were 2024's as well. Turns out they are 2023 which I may already have. I seem to remember buying a complete set earlier this year or late last year on Ebay, but the records do not indicate that, nor does searching my posts. I'll just blame it on being in my fifties I guess. I'll check those binders tonight though just to make sure.

Looks to be half of the base paper set and a near complete insert set (one of them anyway).

These look so familiar.

I think I am going to check those binders right now before I hit publish. I knew it. I do already have the complete base paper set and several of the incomplete inserts sets. UGH! Seems to me that I would have posted the set. (scratching my head right now).

Have a good night all! Jeremy is coming over tomorrow to dig through some boxes.

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.