it's time for almost free stuff friday!

it's been a while since i've hosted one of these, and with cards from the quarry doing his sunday thing, i figured why not.

the "almost" in "almost free stuff friday" means that i am going to ask that you send me a card from my want list in return. you can choose to claim up to 9 cards from this post (to keep shipping at pwe-level) in exchange for at least one from my want list.  just claim the card(s) you want in the comments below and they will be reserved for you. email me your address and i will send the cards to you. i will trust that you will send me at least one card in return. easy enough, and this should keep the 'something for nothing' folks that we've all dealt with at bay. 

here are the cards - claim them in the comments!

random stuff:

here's some o-pee-chee from the post earlier this week:

1998 and 1999 pacific crown royale:

2000 pacific invincible aces and kings of the diamond:

2005 upper deck pastime pennants:

2008-2009 upper deck starquest

2010 topps yankees randomness

2011 topps lineage:

2013 topps target red parallels

2013 topps making their marks

2013 topps emerald parallels:

2015 topps 40 free agents

2016 topps perspectives:

2017 topps chrome pink red sox refractors

2018 national baseball card day

2018 topps big league parallels:

2019 topps stars of the game/superstars of baseball

a mashup of cards from a 2018 topps factory royals team set and a 2020 topps factory american league stars team set

2019 topps gypsy queen fortune tellers

and finally some 1952 in 2021

the judge card has a dinged corner, fyi

here are some non-sport inserts from 2019 topps allen & ginter

and how about some hockey?

ok, that does it for this week. make your claims! i'm looking forward to sending out some cards!

my favorite cards of the year - y2k edition

last month i introduced my mini collection focusing on my favorite cards from each year that i've been a collector. you can see the first post here, and i am also tracking this collection at my want list site (along with my other mini collections). the basic jist is that i wanted to create a space for the cards that i most appreciated having in my collection in the year that they were released. these were cards that i acquired in the year that they were issued, and that i considered to be my favorites at the time. i have disallowed (most) cards that are already in other mini collections in order to avoid having a mini collection consisting of more steve garvey, double plays, and dodger stadium cards.

having said all of that, in the year 2000 i don't believe there was a garvey card, or a double play card, or a dodger stadium card that surpassed these next two in terms of my favoritism.

favorite non-dodger card: pacific invincible ken griffey jr

i first saw an ad for 2000 pacific invincible in a beckett that year, and i immediately went to ebay to pre-order a box. there was a delay in the production, and so it took a while, but the box eventually arrived and it was probably one of the most enjoyable breaks i've ever had. the inserts were varied and great (i've put together the kings and aces of the diamond insert sets), and the base cards were these incredibly blue acetate/aztec ruins masterpieces.

the griffey was one of the cards found in my box, and was one of the first cards of his that i owned showing him as a red. that, along with the way that his red jersey pops on the card, made this an instant favorite.  i suppose this card could also be included in my now official 'name/number on the back' mini collection (and i may track down another copy for that purpose), but it truly was my favorite non-dodger card that i pulled in 2000, so it will stay here, too.

favorite dodger card: upper deck legends sandy koufax

yes kids, there was a time when finding a sandy koufax card in a new release was a treat. a year after upper deck was forced to leave koufax out of their seminal 1999 century legends release, they were able to include him in their follow up 2000 legends issue. sandy had signed with upper deck, making his debut with that company and appearing in a major manufacturer release for the first time in a non-auto, non-reprint capacity since his retirement, really. he had shown up in various tcma sets over the years, plus the great 1980 cramer legends set, but all we had of him from topps were the 1975 mvp card, the 1982 kmart card, and the 1990 turn back the clock card. donruss was able to have him sign some cards in their 1998 signature series set, but i didn't know about that at the time, and those cards were beyond my reach anyway.

the aforementioned 1999 century legends set pretty much kept me from abandoning card collecting, and i was sorely disappointed that koufax (along with pete rose and joe dimaggio) were missing from the set. when i read that koufax cards would be appearing in the 2000 legends release, i ordered a box. i was so happy when i opened a pack and found this card! for the record, my box guaranteed autographed card was that of rollie fingers, but my favorite card from the box was sandy koufax's.

i am having fun with this mini collection as it is bringing back some great collecting memories. stay tuned for more...

card show flip or flop?

as luck would have it, i was out of town for a work meeting one friday morning earlier in the fall, and that meeting locale was just down the road from the location of a mall card show that was running from friday through sunday. i headed out after my meeting ended, even though my experience has shown that friday mall shows are not the best. unfortunately, this one didn't do anything to change that opinion. 

between dealers setting up and the relatively large number of tables only carrying jerseys or photos, there weren't too many card boxes to look through.  i did find one dealer who had a 4/$1 box, and i started digging without much hope. i had thrown 10 or so cards aside before the dealer approached me with an empty 550-count box and told me that i could fill the box for $40. now that the bargain box was a 7-cent/card box, i started pulling cards with a bit more fervor.

i knew that i would not be able to fill the box with just cards for my collection, so i kept an eye out for cards that i could add to the few trade packages i was (and still am) putting together. i also tried to identify cards that i thought i could flip. i mentioned in a recent post that i have a bad habit of doing this when going through bargain boxes. sometimes it works out and i make some of my money back, and sometimes i misjudge the marketplace and wind up with cards in my collection that don't really fit.

anyway, i wound up filling the box and gave the guy $40.  when i got home, i went through the cards that i had selected and found that i needed 43 of them.  here are the keepers:  

a 1971 topps don sutton coin was probably the highlight here, and i am always amazed at how many mike piazza cards i don't already have.

in addition to the 22 dodgers, i can put the 1997 upper deck collector's choice all-star connection mike piazza card in my dodger stadium mini-collection thanks to the camera day photo on the back.  i found five new double play cards, and two new tatooine cards, including another piazza dupe. i also found one card for a set i am working on (that would be the 2000 pacific kings of the diamond set), plus 12 cards to add to my vladimir guerrero collection.

i also found about four dozen cards that were for trade packages.  that would mean that i had over 400 cards to try to sell. long story short, i've already made back that $40 payment after selling only 14 cards (with more in the pipeline), thanks mainly to a couple of pacific gold crown and leaf clean up crew cards.  sure, it's taken a fair amount of time to scan and list and mail the cards, but i've been selling cards for a long time now, and it's time i would have spent doing that anyway.

of course, i've already reinvested the proceeds in other cardboard, so i'm not really coming out ahead. still, for me, looking for cards for others and/or bargains to flip is part of the fun of the card show experience.

truth delivered

jon from 'a penny sleeve for your thoughts' and i have completed a couple of trades in the past year, and we are currently working on another.  most recently (meaning a couple of months ago), he sent 35 different dodger cards my way, all in penny sleeves. that's enough for 35 of my thoughts!  jon wasn't kidding when he offered penny sleeves for thoughts, although it's the cards that generate the most thinking.

2014 panini prizm would have us know that clayton kershaw is such an outstanding pitcher, that he won an award!

of course, he won two awards in 2014 - his second straight cy young award, and the national league mvp.

the inserts in 2000 pacific invincible were what made me buy a box of the stuff even before it was released, and the aces of the diamond cards didn't disappoint.  this is the first numbered parallel i've seen, however

and it's a welcome addition to my dodger collection that includes quite a few surly characters like kevin brown.

here's a 2002 topps 206 team 206 insert of kazuhisa ishii

i'm still working on this set, and i'm currently on pace to finish it sometime around 2035.

last card i'll show from the trade with jon is a 2013 panini prizm andre ethier blue parallel

it looks great, but there's another blue chrome team set i'm working on first.  just one card to go, as you might have seen last night.

thanks for the cards (and penny sleeves) jon!