Offer Up Purchase

Last week I saw an OfferUp post that had a bunch of boxes of cards for a reasonable price. I reached out right away, but I didn't hear back. A few days later I reached out again to see if they were available. He responded that he had a bunch of people inquire, but they never followed up. I didn't see the message until the next day, but made arrangements for an early Saturday morning pickup. 

As you can see, the seller mentioned that they are mostly commons. The part that is missing says "great for completing or starting sets". So I wasn't expecting any hidden gems, but I was certainly intrigued. The newer looking boxes are what caught my eye. I've been organizing my collection recently and thought they could come in handy. Now, unless they are empty, they don't exactly do me any good, but that's okay.

I did negotiate a lower price just because the seller lived a ways away. I ended up getting everything for $30. I was comfortable at that price even with the expectation that they are mostly commons. 

There was a little more than was pictured. Not much, but the was a couple of things. I don't believe the USPS box and the 1991 Score set and one other tin with a Collector's Choice Update set were in the pictures. This is what the collection looks like in my trunk. Not a bad haul. I went through everything briefly. Basically just opened up each box to get an idea of what was inside. There were a few boxes of football cards. There was a bunch of 1979 and 1980 Topps football cards and some other junk wax football cards. There was also a bunch of 1993-94 Fleer basketball cards. These will go to my football/basketball guy that I met through OfferUp. At this point, I think of him as a friend. 

The rest was baseball. There is a bunch of 1980 Topps baseball. Enough that I will probably start that set. Right now, I am just doing 1981 - present as well as a few other vintage sets (1970, 1971, and 1973). There are several boxes of 1985 - 87 Topps, Donruss, and Fleer. The other boxes are by brand. So one box with Bowman cards from various Bowman brands and years. Another with Upper Deck. Another with Pacific cards. These are going to be perfect for my goal of having a 9 pocket page of each card se. I know that might seem like a crazy idea, because it is, but it's fun to look at each brand and how they progress year over year. This collection has a lot of brands that I know I don't have already, so that is a huge plus.

It's going to take some time to go through everything and complete organizing my collection, but it will also be a ton of fun.

1974 Topps Traded Completed

Bo, of the blog Baseball Cards Come to Life, has helped me finish off my 1974 Topps Traded set. It's a small set (44 cards) and after I picked up a bunch from a dime box at my LCS, I decided to go after the set. I turned to Twitter and the blog and got a great response. The last two cards I needed were Eddie Watt and Tommie Agee and Bo sent them to me along with this 2003 Topps Heritage card of Danny Bautista. Thanks Bo!

Contest Winner

Thank you to all who participated in my Sparky Lyle rookie card contest! I know the roughly month long contest was a bit much and I don't plan on doing anything like this again anytime soon.

I did my best to count up the comments (one per day) and then blog posts featuring Sparky Lyle (an additional 5 entries per post) and here is what I came up with. 164 total entries.

7 - The Diamond King

16 - Jafronius

46 - Matt

6 - Crocodile

23 - Bo

2 - John Sharp

1 - The Lost Collector

11 - Defgav

1 - Fuji

42 - Elliptical Man

3 - Ohio Tim

6 - Night Owl

And the winner is...Elliptical Man. Congratulations! Send me your address via email (daniel24303@gmail.com) and I'll get your prize package out to you as soon as possible. Matt, please send me your address as well.

Sparky Lyle RC contest ends today!

Happy birthday Sparky! Hope you got one of those nice birthday cakes you enjoy so much!

With that being said, today ends the roughly month long contest I have been running with a well loved 1969 Topps Sparky Lyle rookie card as the basis of the prize. Along the way I've added a few cards here and there. You can still comment today to get an entry into the contest and then tomorrow I will put all the names into a randomizer and select the winner. I appreciate all the comments and Sparky related blog posts out there (extra entries).

Here are some additional cards that will be added to the prize package. I will add a few more as well. As much as I can fit into the package.

Offer Up Trade: Collect-A-Books

I have made a couple of trades with a gentleman I met through Offer Up. I sold him my 1980-81 Topps Basketball duplicates yesterday and today we met up to do a trade. My basketball and football for his baseball. For me it was the basketball and football cards I've found since we last traded. There was a nice stack of relic cards with stars and hall of famers and a bunch of rookies of players like Anfernee Hardaway, Tim Duncan, Bo Jackson, Antoine Walker, etc. Some nice stuff, but nothing huge. Some older basketball cards, a printing plate of Matt Bonner, and a few random boxed sets. Stuff like that. Maybe about 800 cards total. 

Here is what I got in return. Two shoeboxes full of randomness. I love the randomness. I love going through it and seeing a small stack of Albert Pujols cards and then finding some 1990 Donruss Rated Rookie card. Some 1991 Pacific Nolan Ryan cards, that I already have two complete sets of. Sure, why not. 2020-22 Panini Prizm parallels. Okay. An acrylic case filled with early to mid 90's Fleer Ultra inserts. Sweet! 50 or so Topps Chrome refractors from various years. Absolutely! A completely trashed 1975 Topps Gary Carter rookie card. Awesome!

What you don't see in here because I already took it out is a package of 1991 Line Drive Collect-A-Books "cards". It was lying on top, because I actually pulled it from another boxed and added it to the trade. Good thing I did. I needed 5 of the "cards" from the box.

The rest a dups and will be added to the prize package for my ongoing contest. 

In addition to the box of 1991, there were a few from 1990, but I already had these. Again, these will be added as part of the prize.

Here is what I still need for the 1990 and 1991 Baseball Collect-A-Books sets.

1990

9 - Robin Yount

1991 

3 - Nolan Ryan

5 - Bob Welch

13 -Jose Canseco

14 - Cecil Fielder

15 - Ryne Sandberg

20 - Mark Grace

28 - George Brett

30 - Matt Williams

31 - Barry Larkin

32 - Dave Stewart

33 - Dave Justice

34 - Harmon Killebrew

Feels like the Collect-A-Books were around for a lot more than just two years, but it's probably because they had them for multiple sports. Also, I don't think they sold all that well, or maybe there were just a gazillion of them because I feel like you could find them at discount stores for many years.

Ryan Roberts Super Collection Update: 2013 Topps Update Magenta Printing Plate

I don't know exactly how to put this in words, but I like to think that I have the largest collection of Ryan Roberts cards on the planet. There is probably someone out there with more Ryan Roberts cards than I have because they have 200 copies of one card, but I'm pretty sure I have the most unique Ryan Roberts cards. The Trading Card Database website shows him only having 138 total cards. I have 87 of the 138. I know that's only 63%, but out of the 138 total cards, 43 of those are 1/1, so there are only 95 non 1/1 Ryan Roberts cards. Looks like there are only 13 Ryan Roberts cards listed on Trading Card Database that I don't have and even some of those are serial numbered to 30 or less.

Ryan Roberts played in 518 games over a period of 9 seasons between 2006 and 2014. He played in 17 games for the Toronto Blue Jays (2006-07), 1 game with the Texas Rangers (2008), 372 games with the Arizona Diamondbacks (2009-12), 120 games with the Tampa Bay Rays (2012-13) and 8 games with the Red Sox (2014). 

They say that time goes faster, the older you get and I tend to agree. I can't believe it's been 9 years since Ryan Roberts last played a major league game. With that being said, it has been a while since I've been able to add a new Ryan Roberts card to my collection. Probably not 9 years, but it has to have been a few years at least since I've been able to acquire a new item for my Ryan Roberts collection.

This 2013 Topps Update magenta printing plate popped up on eBay a week or so ago and I grabbed it. I prefer his Diamondbacks stuff, but he just doesn't have a ton of cards, so I collect it all.

I already have the yellow printing plate for this card, so I just need two more and I could start printing it myself. This is my 13th Ryan Roberts printing plate.

1990 Leaf

I went to a card show this past Saturday. It was a bit of a dud, but I did have a unique experience that I will share in a later post. After the card show I went to The Batter's Box card shop and looked around for a while before I found anything. I was about to check out when one of the dealer that has a case there came in. He always has hand collated sets and a few other cards priced affordably, so I decided to wait to see what he added to his case.

I went over and struck up a conversation with him while he added items to his case. He put in a box with a 1990 Leaf set for $24.99. I recently picked up the Frank Thomas rookie card and posted about it here, but I've always wanted the entire set. It was the first modern Leaf baseball card set and was a premium set at that. I liken it to 1989 Upper Deck and 1991 Stadium Club.

$24.99 for the set. Hmmm. He ran out of space and couldn't put everything in his case, but I asked to see what else he had. He pulled out another box labeled 1990 Leaf with a $9.99 price tag. 

He told me the reason it was only $9.99 is because the Frank Thomas was damaged and it didn't have the complete puzzle. I already have the Thomas and I already have the puzzle, so I bought this one.

I already put it in sheets. Turns out is was actually missing one card; a common, #208 - Johnny Ray. I'll have to see if I happen to already have it. If someone out there has this handy and would like to trade, let me know.

The Frank Thomas is damaged. It has an indent, but it still works for me in the binder. The Sammy Sosa, Larry Walker and Ken Griffey Jr. are in good shape. I'm very happy to add this set to my collection for $10!

1974 Topps Traded from Twitter

I've had some recent success on Twitter getting some cards I need to get the 44 1974 Topps Traded cards.

I got these 4 in the mail recently from someone on Twitter. He had sent me a couple about a week before and I had someone else from Twitter send me a couple as well.

I am down to just needing 2 cards. 

If you happen to have #534 Eddie Watt and/or #630T Tommie Agee, and would be willing to trade, let me know. Thanks!

Dodger Stadium

On July 5th we went to the Dodgers vs Rockies game. This was my first time at Dodger Stadium. Never having been before I wanted to get there early to walk around. The game started at 7:10 pm and we left our hotel around 4:45 pm and got to the stadium around 5:30 pm. I bought a parking pass ahead of time, so we parked fairly close to the centerfield entrance, which I think is the main entrance. 

It happened to be Chris Taylor bobblehead night, so it was busy. When I told my boys it was Chris Taylor bobblehead night, my middle son mentioned that he liked Chris Taylor because he plays with him on The Show video game. There were 5 of us and we all got one. Almost immediately we were approached about selling our bobbleheads. During the night we were asked 5 different times about selling our bobbleheads. We ended up selling 3. We kept one for my middle son and then I kept one for a friend of mine the is a big Dodgers fan.

We got to the Stadium about an hour and a half before the game started, but I wish we would have gotten there earlier. Never having been there before I wanted to explore.

Here is the Jackie Robinson statue.

The Sandy Koufax statue was unveiled just last month.

We had to get a picture with the giant Tommy Lasorda bobblehead, even though my kids didn't know who he was.

With the All-Star game at Dodger Stadium later this month, there was a lot of signage up throughout the park.

I've heard about Dodger Dogs for decades. I was excited to try one.

There were some Topps baseball cards pictured throughout the park.

There was a display of Gold Gloves. Not sure if it was every one won by a Dodger, but there was a lot. Here is a picture of one of them won by first baseman Wes Parker. I've written several posts about Wes Parker and how great a fielder he was.

Here are some more of the Gold Gloves.

This Jackie Robinson display was massive.  

There was a room with a ton of amazing artwork; much of it signed, for sale.

Next we went up to the second level right behind home plate and headed towards right field. My point being, we only saw half. I wonder what we missed.

These are original lockers from Dodger Stadium.

I took a close up of the Exhibit Postcard dispenser. I had never seen one before.

The home plate on the left is the home plate from Ebbets Field that was removed after he final game there in 1957.

Next we went up to the third level where our seats were.

This was the view from our seats. We watched for a few innings and then went and got some food.

We got Dodger Dogs, BBQ beef nachos in helmets, tacos, and later we got twisted taters. I have to say that I was severely underwhelmed by all of the food. There really wasn't anything different or special about the Dodger Dogs. The BBQ sauce on the nachos wasn't horrible, but it made something already messy, incredibly messy. My wife got the tacos and she couldn't even finish them. She said the tortilla and the contents were cold. The twisted taters were okay, but dry.

I was impressed by the attention to detail throughout the stadium, including the stools.

After eating we went back and finished watching the game. The Rockies took an early 1-0 lead and later Kris Bryant hit his first homer as a Rockies player, but Max Muncy and Mookie Betts homered for the home team and the Dodgers ended up beating the Rockies 5-2. 

Dodger Stadium was massive! I could have spent several more hours there, just roaming around and exploring. I'll have to go back. Have you been to Dodger Stadium? What did I miss seeing?

2022 Card Shop Adventures #3: Burbank Sportscards

Earlier this week we made the trip out to Los Angeles. We arrived the night of the 4th of July. We got Dodgers tickets for the 5th and then tickets to Knott's Berry Farm on the 6th.

With nothing planned on the morning of the 5th, I took advantage of it being my birthday and finagled a trip to Burbank Sportscards. The wife and kids stayed at the hotel and relaxed and swam while I made the 30 minute trip to the famous card shop.

My first interaction with Burbank Sportscards came through eBay. I've bought multiple cards from them off eBay over the years. Their eBay page shows that they have sold 5.3 million items and they currently have almost 2.4 million items for sale. I know they also have a huge presence on Beckett Marketplace as well. From what I remember seeing from a few YouTube videos over the years, they had a small shop attached to a huge warehouse for a long time. In July of 2021 they opened a much larger shop. When I say much larger, I mean MUCH larger. It was by far the biggest card shop I have ever been to. They have a room inside the card shop that they call the fishbowl that is the same size as some other card shops that I've been to. 

In November 2021 they started a YouTube channel called Burbank Sportscards. Rob Veres runs the shop with his dad and son. Rob is affectionately know as the Card Father. Rob was there at the shop when I was there and he came over to talk to me unsolicited as I was going through dollar boxes. He was extremely friendly and personable. His dad, Stephen, was there as well working the cash register. We talked for a bit about Arizona because he had been in Arizona recently visiting his brother in Tucson.

I should have taken more pictures. It was a bit overwhelming. I was supposed to be there for 2 hours. I ended up being there for around 3 hours. Most of that time was spent looking through 3200 count dollar boxes. I think they had 6 boxes of random baseball cards and then another 10 or so boxes of baseball star players sorted alphabetically. I went through all the random boxes and then looked through a couple of the players. I was disappointed that they didn't have Paul Goldschmidt in the player section.

Here are some of the cards I grabbed from the dollar boxes.

They had several of these 1962 Bell Brand Dodgers cards sprinkled throughout the dollar boxes. This was the first one I saw and appeared to be in the best condition (it has some creases though that I didn't initially see). I thought since I was in the LA area and going to a Dodgers game later in the day, it was appropriate that I grabbed one of these cards.

This 2000 Pacific Revolution Ken Griffey Jr. card is numbered to 399.

A couple other numbered cards. I don't see these very often so I grabbed two of players that I like.

I thought this card was cool and with all the fireworks the previous day, I added this to my stack.

I thought this unused redemption card was pretty cool. I might send it to Juan Gonzalez to see if I can get it signed.

Speaking of autographs. I grabbed this Junior Spivey rookie auto. I already have it, but it was only a dollar.

I got a couple of Pacific cards that were embossed from different events. I haven't figured out what the embossing on the Nomar card is from yet.

The Eckersly card is embossed with a stamp form the 1997 Toronto Fall Expo.

There was a little bit of vintage sprinkled throughout the 3200 count boxes. I grabbed a few that I thought were in nice shape, including this one.

I grabbed a couple cards I hoped I needed for my 1984 Donruss set.

I also grabbed a few Donruss Diamond Kings numbered to 10,000.

Here are a couple of pictures I did take. They have entire showcases dedicated to a few players. Here is a picture of the one for Lebron. I'm not a huge collector of basketball cards at this time, although I've been buying more basketball lately), but this collection of Lebron James cards is impressive.

I also had to take a picture of this Griffey Game Jersey card. As a Griffey fan and a baseball card collector, this card is what I refer to as my White Whale. If I only had an extra $2500 I could have snagged it.

Okay, enough about what I didn't buy. Let's take a look at the two bigger cards that I did buy,

I bought this 1975 Topps mini Hank Aaron Highlights card. I son't consider the mini as part of his base Topps run because it wasn't part of the Topps base set, but I was still happy to add this to my collection.

But my big purchase of the trip was this 1980-81 Topps Larry Bird rookie card. This purchase came less than a week after purchasing the 1980-81 Topps Magic Johnson rookie card at a card show the previous Saturday.

This one is graded a PSA 6 and I got it for $5 less than I did the raw Magic Johnson card.

With the Magic and Bird rookies acquired for set number 2 I can will probably go after the other Bird and Magic cards from that set so I can complete at least the one set.

I had a great time at Burbank Sportscards and would love to go back, but I doubt it will be anytime soon. Anyone ever been to Burbank Sportscards? If so, let me know what your experience was.