Trade Report: Who Are You Calling a Fathead?

I'm pretty sure all of the puns/double-entendres have already been made about Spankee and his Cardboard Mistress blog, so I chose to take the high road and pretend that he called me a mean name during our trade. 

Well, he didn't call me a Fathead, but he did send me one.

I've placed it next to a Gypsy Queen mini and base card of Moose and Country Breakfast, respectively.  Since it won't fit inside my library card file cabinet, I found it a home on top of the cabinet and it looks great.

And, since he already included one "tradeable", Spankee decided to add a few more Royals and a couple of CarGo Rocks.

And, the pieces de resistance, a couple of cards that I'm glad to add to two of my severely neglected collections.

Annika and John.  There's a joke to be made about the shorts in these pictures, but I haven't stumbled upon it just yet.  Help a brother out?

Thanks for the great cards Spankster!

And don't forget to (shill) bid on my current card auctions!

Trade Report: Restarting a Collection Thanks to PTSIA

After I bought out the Hochevar collector, I decided to try to recoup some money by selling some cards from my lower-tier collections (of which, the second round of auctions are ending in about a day) which included all of my manupatch cards except for my family name-plates.

Well, Greg Z. of Plaschke, Thy Sweater is Argyle was going to have none of that.  So, he restarted my ABC manupatch collection with a great "V".

Greg also sent along an avalanche of golden nuggets.

And, because he's awesome that way, he also tracked down some Mustache Portrait cards that I'll be using during this year's Movember.

Thanks again, Greg!  And I hope everyone takes a moment to wish Greg a happy 23rd birthday and to vote for him in the Sandy Koufax autograph give-away. 

Trade Report: Sometimes You Don't Know a Card is Lost Until It Is Returned Home

I love when Hochevar cards hunt me down instead of the other way around.  In this case, AJ The Lost Collector let me know that he had a Hochevar relic card that I needed for my collection.  YAHTZEE!!!

Getting this card in my collection opened the TriStar Elegance parallel floodgates because right after receiving this card, I added two of it's parallel brethren to my library card file cabinet a few days later in the "Great 2012 Hochevar Collection Buy-Out".

And, in true blogger-trade fashion, AJ threw in a few extras that are much appreciated.

It's always great seeing a mustache on a contemporary player's card.

Thanks for the great trade AJ!  I can't wait for our next one.

Trade Report: More Like 'Fantastic Cards'

When Superduperman99 of the blog Fantastic Catch told me that he had some Dexter Fowlers that I may need, I was super pumped to work out a trade with him because for some odd reason, I'd never traded with a Cardinals fan and had a huge stack of Cardinals cards to send him.

In return I received the Dexter Fowlers he told me about.  And sure enough, I needed all three for my collection.

But, in true blogger-trading fashion, there were a couple of extra special cards tucked between the Fowlers.  Turns out, Superduperman99 is a custom card maker and made two for me featuring my two favorite players.

I dig the hand written backs, especially the logos.  Thanks for the great trade and I can't wait to unload another pile of Cardinals on you in our next trade!

Trade Report: Fishing for Manupatches with SpastikMooss

Did a little vintage-for-manupatch trade with SpastikMooss of The Great Sports Name Hall of Fame blog last month, and along with a nice little cache of staches, I received this Marlins Manupatch.  

I have no idea who CARL is or why he deserves to be on a manupatch, but regardless, this card's a beauty.  Thanks a ton for the trade Mooss!

Trade Report: Condition (Not) Poor

When slangon of the blog Condition: Poor contacted me about working out a trade, I hoped I'd have something that he'd find valuable enough to persuade him to send what he was proposing.  Turns out I did. 

Yet something tells me that "Condition: Poor" is a gimmick, a hook, a rouse, a smoke-screen, etc., because as it turns out, none of the cards he sent were in poor condition at all.  In fact, they were in fantastic condition.  Here, see for yourself.

The meat-and-potatoes of the trade for me were these two manupatches.  While they don't fit into any of my current collections, there is no way I'm turning away manupatches of  Roger Maris and Frank Thomas. 

And I don't think I could consider myself a manupatch collector without at least one commemorative patch of the All-Star Game and the World Series in my collection.

The icing on the cake came in the form of some additions to three of my major player collections and a couple of cool Royals cards that I don't believe I had yet.

Thanks again for the trade slangon!  I look forward to our next meeting.

Trade Report: The Legen....(wait for it).....dary JBF

Jaybarkerfan sent me a little care package this week and, as the video above suggests, it's LEGENDARY!

I'm fairly certain that this is my first "prime" relic in my collection.  That three-color swatch of jersey ribbing is superb.  Literally the only thing that would make it better were if it was from a pair of John Stockton shorty-shorts.  Since it's not, I'm going to enjoy it in all it's Jazz glory.

Also in the bubble mailer were two fellas that could end up having their own legendary status someday.

Thanks for the great cards JBF!  And enjoy your slabbed '73!

Trade Report: The Cardboard Don

The Cardboard Don and I swung a sweet trade recently.  In addition to sending one of the pieces of my trif-ECK-ta, I also received these Fave Five hits.

FIVE:  Shiny

FOUR:  Signed Turkey

THREE: Jeffrey

TWO:  25/25

ONE:  A&G Piece of History Slices

Thanks for a great trade Wicked!

Trade Report: Obsessing about Sports (Cards)

My buddy Jeff of My Sports Obsession sent me a wonderful package of Royals and Rockies after I sent him a pile of 1981 Topps dupes.  He sent along some wonderful modern cards of my two favorite teams, but it was the following nine cards that made this trade fantastic.

My first pre-80s Royals cards and some fantastic old-school team cards. 

Thank for these great cards Jeff! 

Trade Report: Play at the Plate

I recently sent Play at the Plate a handful of tobacco cards that he found interesting.  In return, he sent along some colorful and shiny Royals and Rocks.

I love the orange borders on the chrome cards. Great cards from a great guy!  Thanks Platey!

Trade Report: M is for Manupatch by D. Dimwit

Did a card-for-card trade with The Daily Dimwit last week and I couldn't be happier with the results.  Both cards were #/99, both fit well into our respective collections, and both cards contained fabric.  My card is blue, his was red.  His card is a jersey relic and mine is a manupatch.

I love the overall look of this card.  It is very regal and old-timey feeling. 

Even though this is a "hat logo" manupatch, since I already have a Braves logo (J-Hey to be precise), it'll be the M in my Alphabet Collection, both of which I've resolved to complete by year's end.

Thanks for a great trade Double-D!

Trade Report: Eck from JBF

I recently sent a handful of shiny to Wes of Jaybarkerfan's Junk and he was so kind as to send me a few additions to my Eck collection, some mustaches, and a few cards for my trade bait page.

A suction-cup affixed mustache and a Member's Only Eck?  Yes and please!

The A&G relic and the Cal cards are both available for trade, so if you're interested, send me a line.

Thanks for another great trade Wes!

Trade Report: Juuust a Bit Outside

Another day, another trade with another KC Royals fan.  Today's pile of cards from from Kyle4KC who runs the JABO's Baseball Card Blog.  Kyle was kind enough to send me some great Royals and Rockies for the cards that I'll be shipping out to him this week.  Here are some of my favorites.

FIVE:  A Bazooka of a Relic

FOUR: Tulo and Cargo

THREE:  Brett, Bo, and Luker

TWO:  Gordo

ONE:  The Future is Now

As I was looking at the back of the Adcock gold card, I noticed something interesting.

An eBay 1/1 !!?!?!!?!  And, I've lived through both of those years!

Thanks again for the trade Kyle!  I'll be getting your cards to you as soon as possible!

Trade Report: Spelunking in the Quarry

I love making trades with Johnny from Cards from the Quarry.  My Rockies collection would be piddly were it not for his willingness to send so many of his duplicates my way.  This trade was no exception.  For one of my Dexter Fowler autographs, I am now the owner of the following cards, which I'll give a Fave Five treatment.

FIVE: My first serial numbered golf card.

Incidentally, I'll soon be posting the results of the box of 2001 Upper Deck Golf cards I recently won on the Bay.

FOUR:  Heltons

The first card in the scan may be my first Helton Rookie, which means I've completed 2/3 of a Helton trifecta.  I'm definitely going to keep my eyes peeled for a Helton autograph this year.

THREE:  Tulo

TWO: A&G Relic

This was the second Allen & Ginter Rockies relic I've received in as many days and I can definitely see why people like them so much.  Very cool looking cards in hand. 

 ONE:  Mitch Maier Autograph

This is my second autograph of the eldest outfielder on the Royal's active roster, which is a horrible sentence to write because it means that 2012 is the year I realized that I'm older than an entire MLB team's outfield.  Bummer for me.

Thanks for another fantastic trade Johnny and be sure to take good care of Dexter!

Trade Report: A Tulo Bat from Robert

I never really enjoyed my collection when they were in pages.  I just kept them in pages out of necessity.  So, when I got my library card file, I moved all of my cards into the drawers and I couldn't be happier with the results.

Here are some awful pictures of my genius method for labeled the drawers.  I've modified (i.e. cut in half) a card that represents what is in that particular drawer.  Some were easier to find than others.  My player collections were easy because I only had to find a duplicate landscape-oriented card with their name on it.  Others took a bit more creativity.

The close-up picture shows one of my Hochevar drawers, my Dexter Fowler drawer, and my Manupatches drawer.  It took me a few days to figure out how I was going to label my manupatches drawer, until I found an old Boy Scout patch in a thrift store.  It worked perfectly.

Now that I had all of my cards out of pages and into drawers, I had/have a cubic ton of pages that I didn't need.  On that very day I saw that dual blogging Robert was starting to move his Serial Number Insanity set into pages, so I asked if he needed any.  I figured there was no reason for him to go out and buy some when I had a plethora of them idly siting.

In return he sent me my first Troy Tulowitzki relic card.

Trades like this are why blogging is so much fun.  I was able to help Robert with his collection (even if it was a bit unconventional) and I got a sweet new card for mine.  Thanks Robert!

So, if anyone else wants to do a pages-for-card(s) trade, let me know. 

Fave Five: Cardboard Heavenly Draft -- The Keepers

Here are my Fave Five reasons why I'm glad I joined the Cardboard Heaven Card Draft that Cam put together to help raise funds for a Rose Bowl ticket.

FIVE:  Royals

FOUR:  Rocks

THREE: Former Brewers

TWO: Mustachioed Flamethrower

ONE: Helton Fabric

I added a slew of Rockies and Royals to my collection, including some former Brewers (Cam's team) who were shipped out to KC for Greinke and anther Helton relic.  Sure, I may have over reached a bit by spending my first and second round picks on the Jeffress and Cain autos  (#4 and #17 respectively), but I made up for it by snagging the Helton relic in the third round.

I was able to get either an autograph or relic with each of my picks through the tenth round.  It was then that I made probably my shrewdest move by picking up my Eckersley die-cut in the 11th round.  How it slipped that far, I'll never know.  

All in all it was a ton of fun for a very reasonable price.  I was able to hand-select a bakers dozen of autos and relics, as well as a pile of commons and inserts, for less than a blaster from Walmart or Target.

Later I shall post scans of the cards that will be headed to my trade bait drawer in the ol' library card file.

Thanks again Cam!