Am I crazy for giving these cards away? Probably!

Hey there everyone! Just wanted to let everyone here know of a contest I am doing right now through my YouTube channel. @case.loaded (Cases Loaded with Dan Wilson) I'm giving away some pretty awesome prizes, so I wanted to make sure you were all aware and hopefully you'll participate and you might even win one of these great cards!

Check out the video for all the details, but here are the 5 cards I am giving away as prizes. Yes, a Ken Griffey Jr auto! Yes, a Babe Ruth bat card!

https://youtu.be/hBPUaVqO1hc?si=bBzU5SaANMbFnjwt

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!

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.

Player Collections from the 15/$1 Box

These player stacks are from the 15/$1 box at the card show this past weekend. These are all players I collect, but at this point I pretty much just add then to my collection when I find them for a dime, or less.

Most of the Goldschmidt cards I find at these prices are of him with St. Louis. I've got most of his Diamondbacks cards that I come across in the dime boxes. For Harper I will probably have at least a couple of the cards already, but at a dime or less, it's not a big deal. When it comes to Piazza and Griffey, I will grab them if it doesn't look familiar, but I typically end up having at least half of the cards of these two.

Happy Father's Day and Happy Anniversary

Happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there, and Happy Anniversay to my blog! Today is my blog's 2nd anniversary.

My wife doesn't like to get me baseball cards as gifts because she thinks I have too many already, but she and my boys did get me this for Father's Day.

As you can see, it contained 3 packs and one memorabilia card. The packs were 2008 Topps Series 1, 2009 Topps Opening Day, and 2007 Upper Deck Series 2. The 2008 Topps Series 1 pack didn't contain anything special. But I think I did pretty good with the other two packs.

2008 Topps Opening Day KEN GRIFFEY JR. Flapper Card - Griffey has always been my favorite player.

2007 Upper Deck MIGUEL MONTERO Ticket to Stardom - Always nice to get an insert of a player on my favorite team.

And here's my memorabilia card.

2002 Upper Deck KAZUHISA ISHIII Star Tributes Jersey Card - Nightowl, let me know if you need this and it's yours.

Sometimes it's amazing what a dime can get you!

My unexpected cards from Night Owl yesterday made me want to post about this 1994 UD Collector's Choice KEN GRIFFEY JR. card that I picked up out of a 10/$1 box at a card show about two months ago. I have always been a Griffey fan, but am not sure I had this card before snagging it back in March for a dime. Besides it being of Griffey, the card is just simply amazing!

Insane eBay Auction

I don't know what's worse. The fact that they want $3.96 for this card or the fact that they're charging $10.00 for shipping!

Pack Breaks: 2005 UD All-Star Classics

I picked up 2 packs of 2005 UD All-Star Classics last week at Target when I got my 2010 Allen & Ginter Balster. I was not familiar with the UD All-Star Classics brand and so for $1.59 a pack, I picked up a couple of packs. I was actually pleasently surprised by what I got. The base set is broken down into 3 categories: regular base cards, All-Star Futures and Legendary All-Stars so there is a nice mix of players. Here is what I got.

Pack #1

Pack #2 - The Midsummer Classic Griffey card is a 1:24 pack insert.

The best bubblegum card ever!

Shelliebee of the blog the middle child put together a collection of cards featuring baseball players blowing bubbles using bubblegum. Here is, in my opinion, the best bubblegum card ever! It may or may not be a real bubble, but I still think it's an awesome card. I also really enjoy getting to see Griffey's locker.

1995 Pinnacle Ken Griffey Jr

Ken Griffey Jr. wanted to wish everyone a Happy Valentine's Day!