February 2025 Arrivals

[Philip J. Fry]

1997 Finest Silver Embossed, $2 delivered. I can usually tell from the back of the card if it really is embossed but this was a tough one. Luckily it worked out, but even if it didn’t, I need the silver anyway for my master set.

2024 Bowman’s Best base. Another $2 delivered card, nothing too special.

 

[mrmopar]

I totally dropped the ball and kept posting to the January thread for a few days into Feb. Probably would have posted there again today, had i not seen this first.

Kell /25


Picked this up for the movie connection, as Patel clearly never materialized as anything other than a sidebar story unfortunately. I know I had at least one of his cards, but this was actually a pretty decent price and a refractor too. Not going to get rich investing in Patel cards, I know this.



Pretty happy about this one. I would love to complete all the Hostess panel sets, but after winning this lot, I went in and inventoried. I am just way too far away from most of the sets to finish them w/o a serious investment. i have a lot of extra panels and may try to do some trading at some point. I do have a complete 77 set and almost another, falling 8 panels short. 75 I need 35 panels! This is my furthest from complete set. 76 needs 19 panels. 78 needs 16 panels. 79 needs 18 panels, but one of them is the ultra pricy O. Smith/Nolan Ryan panel.

I did land a Murray RC panel in this lot, which was the primary reason I went so hard at the lot. Otherwise, out of 21 panels, I only got 6 new panels for sets. That gives me 15 more dupes though.

I don't love them cut this close, prefer some meat around the cards, but i'LL TAKE WHAT i can get when the lots are this large.

 

[michaelstepper]

Was out of town on a work trip/vacation for 2 weeks so have a little catching up to do. This was all from last month.

Finally found a 2019 rainbow foil. Finishes my current run of Griffey stadium club rainbow foil /25 2014-2024

Beltre patch for the HOF PC

Frank Thomas patch

Thomas barrel piece, would love to upgrade to one of the museum autos pieces

Mel Ott barrel piece

 

[mrmopar]

I have been picking up these old School autographs for a while, but didn't realize there were relic cards too. Not much into relics and never really have been, although the initial idea of them was very cool. Doubt about authenticity has really made buying them a risk now, despite what the card maker prints on the card.

I got this cheap enough to not really worry either way. May pick up others if I see them cheap enough.

 

[mrmopar]

Carlton Recollection /30. Realized I already had one, but COMC is holding it right now.


Burks. Not sure if I had a certified Burks auto yewt and I like this set

Fun lot of minor league sets. Wanted it for the Santiago, but there may be other goodies. I have a bunch of the Dodger set, but it does have some guys who went on to play in MLB. In fact, I have the entire PCL set from cramer that year, so all three on the bottom are dupe sets.

 

[madbull34]

2 cards in the mail today. Japanese NBA hopeful I stumbled upon on eBay:

And this Darvish camo patch:

 

[mrmopar]

Massive mail day today. This one took the long way here and had me worried. Many people look at these issues with disdain, preferring the NBA mainstream issues. I like a lot of their off-brand sets though, especially those from the 90s. I snagged a bunch of these for pretty cheap and finished the Flash from the Past auto set with this Bird. pretty happy with a couple Kevin Garnett autos as well and don't mind a few duplicate Flash cards at well below what I paid for the first copies!

 

[mrmopar]

This is going to bore most, but this 1978 Topps Rico Carty autographed card finally arrived today. I bought it back in mid December after discovering that I didn't have one already.

Quick back story. 1978 Topps will forever be an iconic set for me, because it was my first introduction to baseball cards as a kid. i built the set, my first ever, from packs. Most were handled and I ended up upgrading the set to a nicer one later on. At some point, the autograph bug bit me hard and I wanted to try to get as many 78 Topps cards signed as I could, among everything else. I ended up buying a partial set in the earlier days of ebay and thought I had most of the more common cards, but still find a few here and there that I don't have. I don't expect to finish the set, not am I really trying. However, when I see a 78 Topps card signed I know I don't have and it's not a budget breaker, I try to win it.

Anyway, back to the purchase. This Carty didn't show up with the original order. As per the usual when a card doesn't arrive, I expected to get a refund and no card. The seller said they would look. i didn't hear back for a while and finally opened a case. Then seller said they found it and sent it. Sweet! A couple more weeks pass and i finally get tired of waiting and ask Ebay to step in for a refund. Of course, it brilliant ebay fashion, they see that the card showed delivered (it was one of 10 or so cards I won individually that got shipped together. OF COURSE IT SHOWS DELIVERED, BUT THEY DIDN'T INCLUDE IT IN THE PACKAGE! I even have messages confirming the seller didn't include it. Before I can try to call ebay and waste my time, the card finally showed up.

So much time and effort for a $6 card. Carty had died, by the way, a few weeks before winning this listing. All the more reason to really want to have it arrive, so I wouldn't have to track another one down.

 

[Dilferules]

My card buying is really going to slow down for the foreseeable future due to employment uncertainties, but here's a pile I got in over the past month and a half or so. I'll post from time to time as I pick up any high priority items that don't break the bank, but I'm going to stay away from filling random sets for the time being.

First some team set completers:

1977 Bill North finishes off my '70s Hostess needs (not going after the Twinkie variations). Then we have 1999 Pacific Prism Holographic Mirror/160 and 2000 Pacific Omega Copper/45.

More team sets completed: 2004 Absolute Memorabilia Spectrum Gold/50, 2004 & 2005 Fleer National Pastime Red Foil/150, 2002 & 2003 Fleer Focus Century (numbered to 100 plus the jersey number), and 2013 Panini Prizm Die-Cut Orange/60.

Very rare for me to pick up any Donruss Stat Line needs nowadays so these two are nice. 2004 Season Mulder 08/17 and 2005 The Rookies Career Mike Rouse 14/27.

Some recent Topps Black parallels.

I'm a sucker for any retro designs from the late '80s and early '90s. This Dave Stewart auto is 8/15.

And the big one - for my signed 1988 Topps set, the Nolan Ryan Turn Back the Clock card. This was the last of the 3 Ryan cards in the set I needed, and also completes the Turn Back the Clock subset which isn't too shabby because it includes Stan Musial and Bob Gibson. This gets my needs for the set down to single digits: 9 to go!

 

[mrmopar]

I had not come across this before, so I bought it. It came with 3 Reds RC Cola cans too, including Rose. I like the RC cans too, but hard to buy any quantity of them cheaply unless you luck out and find someone within driving distance (which I have not). They generally don't sell for much individually, but the shipping kills you. I am guessing Ryan is probably the top $ can, maybe a Murray as that is around his rookie season.

 

[banjar]

So I have to ask. Where the hell do you keep this A's collection? How do you catalog it? Must be a million cards by now!

My card buying is really going to slow down for the foreseeable future due to employment uncertainties, but here's a pile I got in over the past month and a half or so. I'll post from time to time as I pick up any high priority items that don't break the bank, but I'm going to stay away from filling random sets for the time being.

 

[mrmopar]

Joe Carter Topps 582 Montgomery Au


One of several oddball sets that I try to add to little by little when I find bargains. I have at least a couple seasons complete as well. Sonics Sunbeam/Shurfresh cards. These were originally attached to loaves of bread with those plastic clips that are still used to seal bread bags. it's hard to find them with the tabs. They could also be redeemed for Sonic tickets, so unless the bread maker or Sonics kept the redeemed cards and they got into the hobby later that way, they are just tougher to find than other sets that were issued to be collected and kept. Lack of huge names helps keep these reasonably inexpensive otherwise. Spencer Haywood, Fred Brown, HOFer Lenny Wilkins and one card of coach & HOFer Bill Russell are the biggest names you'll find in this issue.

 

[Dilferules]

So I have to ask. Where the hell do you keep this A's collection? How do you catalog it? Must be a million cards by now!

Most of them are on a couple of plastic shelving units like you would normally put in your garage, in my office/"man cave" room. 34 3200-count boxes, 13 3-row toploader "shoeboxes", and a few two-row graded card boxes. I catalog them on TCDB. I'm at 53,682 different A's cards currently but when you add doubles, IP/TTM autos, and non-A's cards of A's guys, it's probably in the 70-75,000 range.

 

[jmc855]

Added the full size gold refractor /50 in jersey # to the mini gold refractor /50 in jersey #.

 

[michaelstepper]

One mail day
Loving this set. Have half a dozen now and looking for more.

 

[madbull34]

Nice to see Murakami (1st Japanese-born MLB player) get a first pitch card. Might also chase the auto'd version if the price is reasonable.

 

[madbull34]

Hopefully Sugano can make a smooth transition to the states.

 

[banjar]

That is excellent! I just bought a copy.

Nice to see Murakami (1st Japanese-born MLB player) get a first pitch card. Might also chase the auto'd version if the price is reasonable.

View attachment 361918

 

[JVHaste]

That is excellent! I just bought a copy.

Good call, that's a future Rockies pitcher for sure. I'd say high leverage 8th inning pitcher.

 

[Dilferules]

Here's one I couldn't resist:

1999 UD MVP Super Script AJ Hinch 13/25. I only have 3 of the 7 A's in the set, these are pretty tough.