Trading to Completion: Part 2

 

So, after a couple of months, how is this project going? Eh, like most of the projects around these here parts, slowly (still haven't finished any of my Heritage sets!). There have been a couple of nice flurries of trades, but I often get distracted with other cards and forget that I'm trying to finish off this set as priority number one.

I did manage to pick up one more card in my most recent Trading Card Database trade. Mr. Kremer was the 117th 2024 Topps card that I've picked up this year which brings us to 33.4% completion. 

The card, and some 1993 Topps, came from user Yankee1952 and cost me just some Topps dupes that have been sitting in a box for the better part of 30 years. Kremer is the 7th Oriole from the set that I've picked up, leaving just a few more to go. Yes, they do have preference when I'm searching through other folks' want lists when I'm putting a deal together. 

As I mentioned a few paragraphs ago, I tend to get distracted when putting trades together and sometimes forget to add 2024 cards to the transaction. There are also times when I receive a deal that has a card in it that I didn't know existed, or know that I needed. 

User RyanFrueh thew a trade my way that had some 2024 Topps along with a bunch of Orioles. Heading up the list was this gem - a 1996 Leaf Signature Series - Extended Series Autograph of Jeff Huson. 

Sweet card with a good-looking autograph of a sometimes forgotten Orioles.

Huson, initially drafted by the Montreal Expos (RIP) signed with the Orioles in December of 1994 after a stint in Texas. He would spend parts of two seasons in the Charm City accumulating 210 at-bats over 80 games with a slash line of .259/.317/.640 with 1 home run. 

The lone home run of his Oriole tenure came in a 9-3 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers on September 24, 1995. It was his first home run in more than three years. The "unlikeliest" of home run hitters, as The Baltimore Sun put it, joined Raphael Palmeiro, Harold Baines, and Chris Hoiles in putting the ball over the wall as the Orioles won their fourth in a row. Sadly, it was also the day they were officially eliminated from the playoff race.

That home run came a couple of weeks after Huson stood at third base on the night that Cal Ripken, Jr. tied Lou Gehrig's record for consecutive games. Huson went 0-for-4 on that historic night while Ripken homered off of Shawn Boskie.

The utility player (he suited up at shortstop, third base, second base, DH, and one game in right field for all of you Immaculate Grid players)  would play 17 games in 1996 for the Orioles before they released him in August. He wasn't out of work for long as the Colorado Rockies signed him to a deal. He never played for the Rockies, but did bounce around with Milwaukee, Seattle, Anaheim, and the Cubs before retiring in 2000. Currently he is working color commentary for the Rockies TV crew.

 It's a really good looking card and I'm happy to have it in my collection. Thank you Ryan. And thank you Yankee1952. The quest continues! 

Trading to completion: Part 1

Hello, happy trading card fans! It's been awhile, eh? 

With a cross-country move, a new day job, and the other site taking up a considerable amount of time, there hasn't been much time or energy for writing about baseball cards. It's not unusual for me to go through stretches where cards take a backseat to life. The good news is that the interest usually comes back, especially if I can tie it into a quest.

Will this quest actually come to completion? Hopefully, mainly because I'd like to keep my streak of completing sets going. Most of the time that involves buying at least one hobby box and a ton of blasters or hanger packs and then ending up with hundreds of doubles that I try, but fail, to trade out or sell. 

So, this year, in my attempt to complete the 2024 Topps base set, I'll be trying to finish things off strictly through trades. A few weeks ago, when it was released, I headed out to the local Walmart to pick up a couple of packs and was able to get 88 unique base cards along with 12 duplicates. 

The original plan was to try and pick up all 350 cards through trades, but where is the fun in that? After all, ripping packs is half of the fun. Okay, it's more like 75% of the fun. Unfortunately, another overarching goal is to actually reduce the amount of space that the cards are taking up in the closet, so going down this road again and ending up with a couple of rows of dupes is not what I wanted to do. Also, saving money is pretty nifty. It's a lot cheaper to get 18-20 cards that I need for the price of postage than dropping $10 and ending up with more dupes than needs. 

So, I figured I could knock off a couple of goals at the same time. I could get rid of some duplicates, get cards I need, and save money if I acquired the remaining 262 cards through trades. After dilly-dallying for a few weeks, I finally got around to completing a trade through Trading Card Database and am proud to announce that the want list has been knocked off by two, that's right TWO, cards.

What we have here is Nathaniel Lowe (card #174) and Pete Alonso (card #20).

These two first-basemen combined to hit 63 home runs last year. Lowe might have had fewer bombs than the Polar Bear, but he lifted more championship trophies at the end of the season. The good news is that I was aware of both of these players before I received their cards. That won't be the case for some of the future acquisitions.  

There was a total of 7 cards in the deal, a couple of Orioles base cards and some 1985 Topps needs came along with the two 2024 cards. I sent 9 cards the other way so it was a net deduction of two cards. Woo-hoo!

Orioles Victory Card Number Seven (1987 Season Edition): A Trade Post

Baltimore Orioles Victory Number 7: 16-3 over the Cleveland Indians

1993 Donruss Mike Mussina

With the sporting world on hold due to the novel coronavirus shutting down the world for a few months we here at The Hopeful Chase are going to our rain delay programming. For the last two seasons we've posted a baseball card following every Baltimore Orioles victory (I know, talk about the minimum commitment required). It's fun and keeps us writing about baseball and collecting. Rather than sit back and stare forlornly at the outside world we've decided to continue the series with a season from the past.  The season of choice - 1987. Please enjoy.

Oh man, thank God for the Cleveland Indians, huh?  The Orioles offense definitely righted their offense against five Cleveland pitchers (including future Oriole Doug Jones). Cal Ripken, Jr. busted out of a mini slump by going 3-5 with a home run and 4 RBI. Even newcomer Nelson Simmons (called up due to Lee Lacy going on the DL with a strained hamstring) went 1-3 and drove in a run. Ray Knight had another 3 hits and is hitting .513 on the season. Surely that's maintainable (spoiler: it wasn't).

Eric Bell picked up his second win as he worked into the sixth inning. He wasn't quite as sharp as his last outing, but he did pitch around 3 walks and 7 hits to limit the Indians to only 3 runs. Dave Schmidt picked up the old-fashioned save by shutting them out over the last 3.2 innings.

Who cares about all that. Today's post is about a card trade. Well, a lot of cards were traded. In fact with roughly 390 cards being exchanged it's the largest deal I've conducted on the Trading Card Database so far. 

User DukeyDevil proposed the deal in two parts and it required me to part with a bunch of 1994 Topps Archives (no problem, still have a bunch) dupes along with a bunch of hockey from the mid-90s that I was dumping. So, really the hardest thing for me was finding a way to ship them out (USPS small box flat rate turned out to be the best).

In exchange I picked up some 93' Donruss Orioles including the Mussina pictured above. Little known fact, the O's actually drafted Mussina in the 11th round of the 1987 draft but he ended up going to Stanford. I think that worked out for him.

There were also a ton of mid-90's Lightning cards (there are so many out there to collect!) including this 1995-96 Upper Deck Paul Ysebaert card. Look, he's happy. Kay Whitmore....not so much.

The bulk of the trade came in the form of 1993 Upper Deck. Again, it's one of those sets that I have on my "want list" that never seems to end. Even with over 100 cards coming in this trade, I'm still only at 61% complete, yet it takes up almost an entire row in one of my sorting boxes. Damn these early 90's sets that I have too many dupes of!

Trading is still going strong despite the quarantine rules in place in most states and the seemingly impending doom of the USPS. I have made one concession. With the exception of this trade I've pretty much limited myself to PWE trades. Does that make it tougher to achieve my goal of getting rid of an extra 2,020 cards this year? Yes, but it also keeps me from plunking down $4.00 a shot to mail out bubble mailers every day. 

And it's been pretty much a daily trip to the post office these days. For some reason we don't have an outgoing mail slot at our apartment complex, or, more likely, I'm too lazy to find it. The post office is only about two hundred yards away as the crow flies, but thanks to the way the apartments and streets are laid out here, it ends up being about a two block walk. Which isn't the worst thing in the world. It gets me out of the apartment for a few minutes at least.

With pre-printed stamps I don't have to talk to anyone of get within six feet of them so I'm not violating any social distance rules (yea me!). So I'll keep doing it as long as there are traders out there.

Thanks to DukeyDevil and everyone else that has sent cards to Utah over the last couple of months. It's kept me somewhat sane.

Trade Post...and a return to a more active site?

Well now. It seems it's been a month of Sundays* since I last posted. Time just kind of gets away from folks from time to time I guess. The good news is, as a member of the hospitality trade, I'm gearing up for a bunch of free time. That's bad for my bank account, but good for those of you who enjoy rambling trade posts and other random things.

We'll get back into the swing of things with a nice basic trade post. Things have been going well in that department as I'm shuffling cards around on a consistent basis. I usually have two or three trades in the works at a time which makes checking the mail a fun event. It's also helping with that goal of getting 2,020 cards out of the door.

Let's check in with the card-o-meter:

-443

That's 443 more cards out than in so far in 2,020. It seems like a good number, right? Unfortunately at the beginning of the month it was at -870. Then Heritage was released (had to get a box of that, right?). And along with that box, Dave and Adam's had a really good deal on 2002 Upper Deck Vintage - the original 1971 throwback set. So had to buy a box of that.

It's a process. 

On to the trade!

A few weeks ago I sent a blind trade request to user 3bCollection at the Trading Card Database. He saw some additional Braves inserts that weren't on my trade list. Being that I had no need for them, we reswizzeled things a bit and came to an agreement. The inserts and a pile of 2001 Topps dupes went to Georgia and in return came these cards:

1982 Orioles Team Leaders

Yup, another Eddie Murray card for the personal collection. That makes for 284 different Murray cards or 6.8% of the listed cards on TCDB. 10% or bust!

The best part of the card was the back. I love it when checklist cards were actually used for checking off cards in the collection. I'm also in the middle of adding my regular 1982 collection to the database and noticed all the checklist cards I had marked up back when I was a little kid.  Ahhhh memories.

1985 Baltimore Orioles Topps

The 1985 design has really grown on me lately. I'm not sure I'm going to start building it, but I'll at least finish off the Orioles that I need. Lowenstein's combination of sunglasses and mustache is peak level 1980's baseball while Cruz magnificent quaff of hair should never have had to have been contained by a hat or helmet.  

 

2019 Bowman Prospect Hall and Mountcastle

We don't know when baseball will start in 2020, but when it does, it'll be that much closer to the next generation of Orioles taking the field. Mountcastle and Hall are hopefully a big part of that. 

 

2019 Topps

I'm never going to finish this set. TCDB tells me I'm 99.4% complete. I don't believe it. Every time I get a card, the set size will increase by one card. I know that's what is happening.

Thanks 3bCollection!

   

Another trade in the books

We're back with another trade post from the Trading Card Database. This one involved a few 2009 Legends of the Game inserts heading out to Wisconsin in exchange for an Oriole card and a couple of needs off of the ol' want list. 

With the completion of this exchange of cardboard, I'm up to 95 on TCDB with one more pending. It'll be close, but I'll probably fall just shy of cracking the century mark by the end of the year. Still, it's been a rather productive last couple of months as I've turned a lot of dupes into cards that I actually want or need. For some reason there are a lot of folks looking for 2009 cards out there and I've freed up a lot of space in that box.

So, what did user FiresNBeers send back in exchange:

1995 Upper Deck Collector's Choice Brady Anderson

Brady Anderson is an Orioles hall of famer and possessor of the second best set of sideburns in the 1990s. He played in over 1750 games during his 14 season career in Baltimore and racked up 1614 hits and 209 home runs. Despite a .257 average he did get on base at a .364 clip making him an odd leadoff man that also hit for power.

2019 Topps Stadium Club Roberto Alomar

Alomar, pictured in a more familiar to many Blue Jays uniform, was teammate with Brady Anderson for three years in the late 1990s, which coincided with a brief run of competitiveness for the ball club. I always thought he was there for a bit longer, but it was just the one three-year contract from 1996 to 1998. That was a three year stretch that saw the Orioles win 265 games and make it to the ALCS twice.  In exchange for about $17 million the Orioles got a secondbaseman who slashed .312/.382/.480, won two Gold Gloves and had posted 12.5 WAR. That seems like a fair trade.

2016 Topps Ricky Nolasco

Nolasco has no real ties to the Orioles other than facing them five times. The Birds hit .308 off of him with 6 home runs in 35 innings. The former Cubs draft pick was traded to the Marlins as part of a package for Juan Pierre in 2005. Pierre had been previously acquired by Miami from Colorado in 2002 for a package of players including Charles Johnson. Johnson played for the Orioles in 1999 and 2000 where he was teammates with....Brady Anderson! See, it all connects.

This was, as most of my small trades are, a plain white envelope trade. Since we were exchanging base cards of negligible value there was no need to get crazy with padded envelopes and extra shipping. One thing I love about #TeamPWE is the different types of cardboard folks use to secure the cards. It ranges anything from cut-up cereal boxes to cut-up hobby boxes to beer cartons. Which leads us to today's packing material:

Everyone's favorite college/cheap beer - The Beast. I have, in my day, consumed a decent quantity of this affordable beer. Most of it at college parties (although for our non-party college drinking we were partial to Brigade Premium, which if I recall was under $8.00 for a case, including tax). 

I do reuse these cardboard sleeves, so if you have an upcoming trade, be on the lookout for a visit from Milwaukee's Best.

Trade Post! Upping the Lecavalier Collection

It's been a busy couple of weeks of trading as I try to get to my half-hearted goal of 100 trades on Trading Card Database by the end of the year. Some swapping of junk wax has netted me about 70 1991 Upper Deck cards, truly an underrated set, and a handful of other base needs.

In between baseball trades I did slide in a hockey trade with user SportsCardHunter in Ontario. In exchange for some duplicate Lightning cards I had listed he sent me a couple of Vincent Lecavalier cards.

According to TCDB they were the 272nd and 273rd unique Lecavalier cards that I have acquired. That's good enough for third among collectors at the site, but there is a bit of a gap between myself and the second place gentleman. According to their stats it also means I've acquired exactly 7.1% of the available Lecavalier cards they have listed. It may take awhile to get them all.

Here's the haul:

1999-2000 O-Pee-Chee

Look at him in all his rookie-year glory. The old-school uniform, the all-star patch, and most importantly the number 9 on his sweater. In his rookie year the now familiar number four was already occupied by Cory Cross. The defenseman would be traded after Lecavalier's first year and freed up the number and he went on to do great things with it.

The card itself is a direct parallel of the Topps base card from the year with the only difference being the logo on the top right corner on the front and on the bottom of the back of the card. 

2002-03 Upper Deck Vintage Green Back #88/199

Welcome to Parallel City! Honestly, I didn't even know this existed until I searched through SportsCardHunter's cards available for trade (his original offer was a generous supply of Lightning cards, but I wanted some Vinny!). I don't have the base, but I'm assuming the only differences are the serial number stamped on the front and well....the green back...hence the name.

As you can see Vinny is now wearing the four that would be retired in his honor and also has an "A" on his sweater. That's not unusual for a young player who was drafted to be the franchise's savior, but what is a bit odd is that Lecavalier had already worn the "C"  prior to this season. In March of 2000 he was named captain of the Lightning. At the time he was the youngest captain ever in NHL history (since then he's been surpassed by Sidney Crosby, Gabriel Landeskog, and Connor McDavid).

Due to a contract hold out, some public and private confrontations with head coach John Tortorella, the acquisition of Dave Andreychuk, and the realization that it was too much pressure, too early in his career Lecavalier had the "C" removed from his jersey. It wouldn't be until 2008 and the departures of Andreychuk and Tim Taylor, that the "C" would return. He would wear it until his contract was bought out in 2013.

Thanks for the trade, SportsCardHunter!

Some offseason blogging

A few days ago, Greg over at Night Owl Cards, an excellent blogger who I've traded with in the past published a post pointing out that it seems like there has been a general slow down in the trading card blog world. From people posting to people commenting things just seem to lack the frequency they did a few years ago.

He ponders a few reasons why and as I was reading, I realized that there was really no reason why I stopped posting here on a regular basis. I mean, there was a reason - I'm a lazy blogger, but there was no GOOD reason why I stopped posting. After all, I'm still writing regularly over at Raw Charge.

While my card purchases may have been down a bit, ok a lot, I haven't given up on the hobby. In fact, I've probably been more active trade-wise then I have been in a long time. A couple of months ago, my ancient version of The Card Collector finally gave up the ghost. I booted it up one morning and the file that housed my collection was gone.

Now, a smart person would have backed up the file from time to time, but what on this blog has ever led you to believe I'm a smart person?  So I finally decided to load everything into Trading Card Database. Up to this point I'd listed just my hockey stuff and anything after 2014 (the last update I had for The Card Collector). Now, it's going to be everything...eventually.

It's a slow process, but hopefully by next year everything will be in there. In the meantime, I'm kind of surprised at the amount of trade offers I've been picking up with some of the junk era sets I've loaded up already. It's almost at the point where I'll have to set a limit on shipping or else I'll be spending more at the post office then I would be at a card shop (shipping to Canada ain't cheap).

The good news is that I'm clearing out a lot of duplicates and picking up cards I actually want. So, it's my intention to get back into regular blogging by posting the occasional trade.

First up deal: I sent a bunch of 2009 Heritage to Ryan0625 in Minnesota in exchange for him knocking out a healthy chunk of my 2017 Topps Update needs and a handful of 2018 Archives.He sent a total of 45 cards and here are a few highlights:

Were there Baltimore Orioles cards?

Yes, although at first glance I didn't think there were.

After all Logan Verrett's Orioles career was brief. The Mets draft pick was selected in the 2014 Rule V pick by the Orioles. He never had the chance to make their roster and was claimed off of waivers by the Rangers in April 2015. Verrett lasted a handful of games for the Rangers in 2015 before being returned to the Mets.

The Orioles purchased Verrett in the winter of 2016 with cash considerations and made the opening day roster in 2017. He appeared in 4 games in 2017 picking up 2 wins despite a 4.22 ERA (6.53 FIP!) He was optioned to the minors in June of that year and never made it back up. He spent 2018 playing baseball in Korea.

Aww. Sad face. Manny Machado in an Orioles uniform.

The best card in the bunch:

When I put the 2017 Update set on my list of sets to complete I didn't realize that Bellinger's rookie was in there. After all, in 2017 it was all about Aaron Judge. I was lucky enough to pick up a couple of Judge's in some hanger boxes and thought I was home free as far as semi-expensive cards. Then I saw Bellinger's card.

I wasn't sure exactly how I was going to pick it up since I didn't really want to buy it. I figured I'd leave it until the end and then figure things out. So it was kind of a surprise when it was included in the trade package.

It's nice having the last of the "big" money cards off of the want list.

Best player in the bunch:

It was a pretty easy call, even with a Wade Boggs Archives also included.

So there ya go. The first in hopefully a semi-regular series of trade posts.

Orioles Victory Card Number 38

Orioles Victory Number 38: 7-0 over the Toronto Blue Jays

1976 Topps Mark Belanger

Whew. That win was a long time coming. After losing their previous 8 games (in which they gave up 5 or more runs in all of them) the Orioles beat their AL East counterparts 7-0 on the back of 6 strong innings from rookie David Hess and a 5 RBI night from Trey Mancini. They postpone their 95th loss of the season (and 9600th in franchise history) to another day.

I didn't watch most of the game, preferring a night out with The Duchess instead of the drudgery of a mid-August contest between two teams that had nothing to play for this season. Toronto is 29 games out of first place and focused on the future with young prospects Danny Jansen and Billy McKinney playing and phenom Vlad Guerrero Jr. set to make his debut sometime over the next month or so.

The Orioles are already starting to filter in some of their young players that may be around for the next competitive team as well. Cedric Mullins has made his debut and performed well in his first 16 games. He's taken over centerfield and made a few highlight reel catches already and held his own at the plate with a .305/.379/.402 slash line. He's riding a bit of a high BAbip right now (.348) so I expect his average to come down a little bit before the season is over, but he hasn't been overwhelmed by major league pitching (only 16% strike out rate) and it looks like he can be penciled in as next year's starting centerfielder.

Another young player that has kind of come out of nowhere is Renato Nunez. He's been handed the thirdbase job since the Manny Machado deal and has performed with the best stretch of hitting in his major league career. Over the month of August he's slashing .284/.370/.420 which way more production then the team was getting out of Danny Valencia and Tim Beckham. While his defense isn't going to remind anyone of Brooks Robinson anytime soon, his glovework is about even with Valencia and miles ahead of Beckham.  

Nunez is a nice find in a lost season. Had the Orioles been better he might not have received any playing time. But since they aren't, he was given a chance and has performed well enough to earn a contract for next season. He could be a nice, cheap stop-gap player until Ryan Mountcastle is ready for the big leagues. The Orioles control Nunez through 2024 and he could stick around as a utility infielder even after Mountcastle takes over the hot corner.

It's sometimes easy to forget that Trey Mancini is only in his second full season as a major leaguer. He played so well as a rookie last season that it just seems like he's an established veteran. Yet, he still has a lot of room for improvement. Other than Chris Davis' first half, Mancini's was the most disappointing.  There were times it seemed like he was lost at the plate and scuffling just to make contact. Some of that could be tied to the knee injury he suffered early in the season, but it also looked like he was trying too hard to pick up the slack left by the rest of the struggling offense.

His second half improvement is showing that last season was not a fluke. In the first half of the season he struggled to a .216/.292/.363 line with 12 home runs in 328 at-bats. In the second half he's upped his line to .292/.329/.496 with 7 home runs in only 137 at-bats.

The Orioles are going to be a mess for quite awhile while they try and find the pieces for their next contending team. The next year and a half is going to be spent plugging in players to see if they fit. It looks like, based on a small sample size, that they at least have 2/3 of their outfield taken care of with Mullins and Mancini. Hopefully, as the months wear on, they find a couple of more pieces.

So why a Mark Belanger 1976 Topps? Well, after completing a couple of sets this year (1983 and 2017) I felt it was time to start chasing another one before 2019 drops in January. This set just happens to coincide with the year I was born and it a relatively cheap set to put together as there aren't any major rookie cards that will seriously dent my wallet. The two key rookie cards are Dennis Eckersley and Willie Randolph while Robin Yount and George Brett have second-year cards.  So, it's doable.

One of the main challenges I'm facing is that I don't have a large collection of duplicates to trade from. Having only chased sets from recent years, I've been able to swing a lot of deals with dupes. With the 76 set I started with exactly four duplicates and have already traded them out. That means I'm going to have to hope collectors and traders are willing to part with their dupes in exchange for newer cards.

Also, I'm starting with the fewest cards I've ever started with (89) so I have a long way to go to finish it off. Still, it just takes one card at a time and that first card came in a trade just last week: 

If you have a stash of 1976 you're looking to get rid of, feel free to hit me up in the comments or check out my trading card database profile (Lightningfan7609). Hopefully, it won't take another 40 years to complete this one.

Trade Alert! New old cardboard finds a new home

Part of the reason for bringing my collection up to Chicago was so that I could get back into trading and put to rest some sets I’ve been chasing for over 20 years.  The other reason was because I had really, really overstayed my in-laws hospitality by using up a significant portion of their closet space to hold the cards for five or six years.  Of course, my reunion with my collection coincided with the demise of my preferred trade partner finding site - Zistle. Luckily I quickly found another site.

After a little crowdsourcing I settled on Trading Card Database as a new means to find collectors to trade with. It’s gone rather well.  I’ve completed 19 trades in the last couple of months, which isn’t a crazy amount, but what I’ve most impressed with is the response rate. With Zistle I might get a response once in every three or four requests. So far with TCDB I’ve only had two requests ignored.  Which is awesome.

The only rule I have for trading is that I have to send more cards out then I bring in. That way I can tell The Duchess that I'm actually reducing the collection (sometimes once card at a time). She, as always, rolls her eyes and moves on with her life.

Here is a sample of my most recent deal, completed with user OCHawkeye.  In exchange for a bunch of 1992 Score that have been in a box since...well….1992 and a handful of 2017 Update dupes I received the following:

4 2017 Topps.  

My god, I might actually complete this set before the 2018 version comes out.  To many set builders that doesn’t seem like a big accomplishment, but I’m still chasing cards from 1991 for goodness sake.

2 2017 Topps Updates

I don’t consider the Update set as part of the main set, but I bought a couple of packs from Target and have now decided to complete this one as well.  Trey Mancini picked a really, really bad year to be a rookie. Twenty-four home runs, .293 average and seventy-eight RBI’s is usually enough to pick up the award. This season he finished third behind Aaron Judge and Andrew Benintendi.

5 1990 Upper Deck

The successor to the most important set of the 1980s, 1990 Upper deck is one of those sets that I am still chasing. I didn’t buy a ton of it when it came out (Topps, Donruss, and Fleer were more in my price range), but have picked up a few in repacks along the way.  Loved the team cards (with art work by Vernon Wells’ father), would love to see Upper Deck bring it back for their hockey base sets.

11 1993 Topps

When you’re completing a set that sometimes means you’re trading for checklist cards. Yup, I swapped an actual player card for a checklist card (actually two of them). In the pre-spreadsheet days I actually used these cards to mark the status of my collection. Good times.

Trade Time- CrazieJoe helps kick off a new wantlist

As I mentioned a few months ago, it’s time to pare down the collection.  So I’ve been trolling other blogs and wantlists to see who needs some of the cardboard I’ve acquired over the last 30 years.  Somehow (it might have been Twitter) I stumbled across CrazieJoe’s Card Corner. He’s in Canada.  He likes the Toronto Maple Leafs.  I happened to be sorting through some hockey at the time and noticed I had some cards on his wantlist.  He had some cards I needed.  It was a match.

It was also the first trade I completed through The Trading Card Database.  With Zistle on life support, I’ve been searching for a new place to keep things organized.  I had signed up at TTCD about three months ago, but hadn’t really entered any cards, mostly because I was dreading having to import my collection over and re-enter it by hand.

With Joe having his want/trade lists on TTCD I finally had a reason to invest some time playing around with the site.  After a couple of days my initial review is...it’s ok.  Zistle has a little better interface for organizing, but the trade function on TTCD is a little easier to use once you have your collection entered.

Enough about that, what goodies came my way from our neighbors to the north in exchange for a stack of Maple Leaf cards?  How about some 26-year-old cardboard?  That’s right, it’s 1991 Donruss.  A set old enough now that it should be showing up as a “retro” insert set at some point.  Among the 14 cards here are some highlights.

A Rated Rookie

Wes Chamberlin. As far as a prospect, Chamberlin never lived up to the hype that a Rated Rookie logo usually inspires.  He lasted for five seasons and appeared in 385 games for the Phillies and Red Sox.

A Yankee Phenom

Kevin Maas.  Before there was Aaron Judge there was Kevin Maas.  A mid-season callup in 1990, the California native mashed 15 home runs in his first 133 at-bats. He ended the season with 21 home runs and enough votes to finish second in Rookie of the Year voting behind Sandy Alomar, Jr despite not making his major league debut until June 29th.  

A Former Oriole

Ben McDonald.  The Orioles drafted him first overall in 1989 (their reward for the disastrous 1988) and he shot through the minor leagues. He actually debuted the same year he was drafted as he was part of the September call-ups during Baltimore’s improbable pennant race. He struggled out of the bullpen, giving up runs in each of his first four appearances.  

Due to injuries and mismanagement by the ballclub, he never materialized into the dominant starter the O’s had hoped he would be. After 7 up-and-down seasons in Baltimore he left as a free agent and ended his major league career in Milwaukee. His relaxing Louisiana drawl can now be heard occasionally on Orioles broadcasts as he sometimes fills in as an analyst.

So why 1991 Donruss?  Because it’s time to finish off some of my childhood sets. I’ve knocked out 1983 Topps, pretty sure I’m done or close to being done with 1991 Topps so it’s time to turn my attention to some other sets from that era.  It was when I was collecting the heaviest so I shouldn’t have too many...OH MY GOD HOW DO I NEED 300 CARDS FROM THIS SET?

Well...that makes it a little more challenging, but I’m off to a decent start and I see these cards at shows all the time in the cheap boxes.  It shouldn’t be hard to knock it out.

Check the wantlist on the right side of this screen and if you’re digging for baseball cards from the same era just let me know.  (My apologies to the hockey collectors, those cards are taking quite a bit longer to organize than I anticipated).

Thanks for the trade Joe, your cards are making their way up to Canada.

Trade with Baseball Cards Come to Life

As part of the burgeoning quest to downsize my collection I started trolling wantlists for cards that would match up.  Early in my search I noticed Bo over at Baseball Cards Come to Life needed some 2008 Upper Deck  I had some duplicates from that set.  In fact I had quite a few.  So I sent him an email, he replied with an email and then I sent an email, so on and so forth.  I managed to put a decent size package together and thought, “Great - actually going to clean some cards out and get some space”.

Well, that kind of happened.

Bo happened to go out of his way to knock out almost my entire 2010 Topps Wantlist and throw in some additional cards as well.  So instead of subtracting cards from my collection, I actually added.  Whoops.  The good news is that since I already had a binder started for 2010 Topps, I still reduced the actual space my cards take up (how’s that for a justification?).  

Here is a random sample of what came my way.

2010 Topps

Like I said there were a generous amount of cards. In fact, I think the only ones he didn't send were ones I didn't realize I needed until I started to put the cards in the binder. My collation can be off sometimes.

Eddie Murray Personal Collection Needs

There were a couple of Dodgers-era Murray's as well, but why show them when I have Eddie in the sweet Orange and Black? Also notice the reverse batting glove use on the top photo. Eddie is signing at The National this year. I might buy an autograph ticket just to ask him why the hell he did that.

Random Orioles

There was a good smattering of series represented, from Heritage to Opening Day and Upper Deck. The combination of the 1989 design and "Fruit Loops" with his big ol' wad of chewing tobacco made it a clear choice to use for the photo. Normally the framing of vertical photos isn't that great, but this one is pretty well laid out.

Bo also took care of my 1992 Topps needs. I'm pretty sure I can officially mark that set as complete so if there is anyone that needs cards from that set, feel free to drop me a line. Also, the same goes for 2008 Topps Allen and Ginter. If there is anyone looking to complete that nice set, let me know.

Thanks for reading.