Chicago Cubs I Have for Trade

I'm going to try to list the cards I have for trade bait.  I'm listing the number I have (just ask for specifics) plus naming any bigger names. I'll start with the world champion Chicago Cubs. Send me your team if you want it next, otherwise I'll just pick by presumed popularity.

Chicago Cubs Trade Bait
1971 Topps I have 3 including Billy Williams
1972 Topps I have 6
1973 Topps I have 4 including Ron Santo
1974 Topps about 10 including Santo
1975 Topps 2
1977 Topps Bill Matlock
1978 Topps 8
1979 Topps about 15 including Bill Buckner and Dave Kingman
1980 Topps I have the entire team including Buckner, Kingman and Bruce Sutter
1981 Topps over 20 including Buckner, Kingman and Sutter
1981 Fleer 2
1981 Donruss 10 including Kingman
1982 Topps 10 including Buckner and Lee Smith
1982 Donruss 3
1983 Topps over 20 including Lee Smith and Ryne Sandberg rookie
1984 Topps over 20 including Sandberg, Buckner, Smith, Ron Cey, Fergie Jenkins
1984 Fleer 4
1985 Topps over 20 including Sandberg, Smith, Cey, and Dennis Eckersley
1987 Topps 8 including Eckersley
1987 Fleer 2
1987 Kraft Sandberg
1988 Donruss 7
1989 Topps 4 including Andre Dawson
1989 Donruss Greg Maddox
1990 Fleer 3
1990 Bowman Sandberg
1991 Topps 4
1991 Fleer 4
1991 Donruss 15 including Greg Maddox, Dawson, Sandberg (one's the Diamond King), and Mark Grace
1992 Topps 7 including Greg Maddox and Grace
1992 Donruss 2 including Sandberg
1992 Score Greg Maddox
1992 Stadium Club 5 including Dawson
1992 Studio Greg Maddox
1992 Leaf Mark Grace
1993 Topps 12 including Greg Maddox, Dawson, and Sammy Sosa
1993 Topps Gold 3
1993 Fleer 7 including Grace
1993 Leaf 4
1993 Select Sammy Sosa
1994 Topps 3
1995 Fleer 3
I also have some odds and ends of commons from sets not listed here.

Updated Dallas Stars Want List

This evening I finally finished going through recent purchases of Dallas Stars and getting my want list updated. I think I am finally up-to-date! I have tons of gaps. Is there a hockey card collector out there who can help me out??? Here are pictures of the last groupings of Stars I've received in the mail lately. They go from 1999-00 to current.

Cards with a Story, Part 2

I think I've mentioned before that I spent my early years living in suburban Minneapolis before my family moved to South Dakota. One of my best friends in Minnesota was my backyard neighbor Brian. He was a year older than me. We had some really good times playing together. After we moved our parents tried to get us together whenever one of us was in the other's area. As we were apart longer and longer those meetings would get more and more awkward with less and less to talk about. But even as most of our interests drifted apart, we still both shared a love for baseball cards. One time when we were visiting him and looking at each other's cards, I came across this one that he had that I really wanted, the 1977 Topps Carlton Fisk.

But the problem was I didn't have anything that interested him enough to part with it, so that was that. Later we were climbing a tree in his front yard. Being used to the tree he could climb way up in it, but I was more hesitant. In an effort to motivate me to climb higher, he decided to put this Fisk card way up in the tree. He told me I could keep it if I could get it. Well, you know how the story ends as I have it now. What I remember was being really afraid as I got higher and higher, but the desire for that card helped me overcome the fear. Brian encouraged me the whole way.

Looking at the card now, I think the Yankees player sliding into home plate is Willie Randolph. Judging by the position of everybody my guess is that Randolph was safe, and by a ways.

All the photos in my previous blog posts were taken on my phone. This one, for the first time, I scanned in on my scanner. I think it turned out a lot crisper and more colorful. I don't hardly ever fire up the PC anymore, but perhaps I'll try to more often for card scans. But don't hold me to it. ;)

In Today's Mail - Yaz

I was starting to worry about this one. It was over two weeks ago that I bought it. I bought and received several other items on ebay since. Well today my first ever Carl Yastrzemski jersey card arrived. It's the 2001 Fleer Platinum National Patch Time. It doesn't indicate when in his career he wore the jersey the swatch is from. It's really sharp looking! I'd like to trade for more of his jerseys if the opportunity arises.

I've been sorting more of the Dallas Stars lots I've purchased recently and am up to 2001 now knowing what I have and still need. Here are shots of 1994-95 through 2000-01. I started a Stars want list page. It's not complete yet, but it's a start to hopefully generating some trades.

These were the years the Stars started getting really good and I started getting more interested. They had some great players these years like Hull, Zubov, Modano, Belfour, etc.

In Today's Mail - T207s

I was pleasantly surprised to find these in the mail today. I wasn't expecting them this soon after the auction.

Both are 1912 T207's, the first Smoky Joe Wood and the second Harry Hooper. Neither card is in good condition. Wood has a big crease and tape on the back. Hooper has paper loss on the back. I'm still happy to add them to my collection. They were both on my want list. Wood's career was short, but he produced some of the best seasons a Red Sox pitcher has ever had. An interesting thing about him is that he lived to be 95 years old. Hooper played 12 solid seasons with the Red Sox and is enshrined in the Hall of Fame. Both of these players won multiple World Series championships with the Red Sox.

Random Thoughts

Has anybody had any luck selling cards on a garage sale? Garage sales are big here. Entire neighborhoods will have them on the same weekend. Our neighborhood has one annually and it's the largest one in town. I've thought about setting up a table or two with cards for sale. But it would be a lot of work organizing, moving, and pricing them all. I'm just not sure if it would be worth it. 

I estimate I have somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 cards. About three-fourths of them are baseball, and about half of them are doubles. I don't want all these doubles taking up all this room. If you're hunting for anything between 1979 and 1993, team sets, partial team sets, singles, or whatnot, let me know and I'll see what I can send your way. They're mostly Topps, but there's a fair amount of others as well. I haven't gotten to know many of you yet, otherwise I'd just start sending things off your want lists. 

Has anybody had luck selling cards on ebay? It seems like a great idea, but most cards go for really cheap. After shipping and fees, I can't imagine getting enough to make the listing, packaging, and mailing worth it. 

And finally, here are a couple more of the Dallas Stars team sets I'm putting together with purchases from Triple Play and ebay. 

They are from 1993-94 and 1994-95, mostly Topps Premier and Upper Deck. 

Here Come the North Stars

This'll be short on words but long on pictures. Between cheap deals on ebay and another trip to Triple Play, my Stars collection is starting to take shape. Here's what I have so far from 1984-85 to 1992-93 (the last year the cards said North Stars) It's a mixture of Topps, O-Pee-Chee, and Upper Deck. I'm trying to obtain one of every player each year.

Some of my Favorite Cards, Part 2

I've always been a total stats geek. That was, I must admit, one reason I enjoyed card collecting as a kid, the stats on the back. And back when Total Baseball was in print, I would always buy the latest edition when it came out (2500+ pages of statistics, wow!) As I looked through the all-time leaders in various categories, those early 20th century names seemed almost mythical. Ty Cobb. Honus Wagner. Sam Crawford. Nap Lajoie. Tris Speaker. Hey wait a minute...Tris Speaker...he actually played for the Red Sox for a while. Granted his best years were with Cleveland, but he put up some great numbers for several years with the Red Sox.

A few years ago when I started on the Red Sox T206 team set, I figured Speaker would be the one I may never get. Since fakes are common for the stars in that set, I wanted to make sure I got one that was graded. After many months of patience this one finally showed up on ebay. It is graded in poor condition, but I didn't mind at all. Inexplicably, hardly anyone bid against me, and I won the auction for a very reasonable price. It's one of my favorite cards because it's a glimpse into the past, into an era that was only known to me before through stats in books or on web sites.

In Yesterday's Mail - North Stars

I've been learning a ton about the world of hockey card collecting this weekend!  From the start Topps has been in and out of hockey cards. Same with Upper Deck. O-Pee-Chee has been a constant for a long time, first aligned with Topps, then later with Upper Deck. Sometimes OPC has their own design, but other times the pictures are exactly the same as Topps. Even when they have the same pictures, they sometimes have cards of more players than the "copied" brand. Well known baseball card brands like Donruss, Bowman, and Score have all produced hockey sets here and there as well. Since I'm starting out as a team collector, the Dallas Stars, I'd prefer a nice long run of sets from the same brand. That's not going to happen with hockey. At any rate, yesterday I received a package with my first Stars team set. It's the 1990-91 Topps version. Modano is obviously the biggest name in there.

In Today's Mail - Yaz

I don't think this technically qualifies as a card. It's a 5x7 Topps poster from 1967. I bought it now on ebay.

The seller taped it against some paper (to keep it from bending) so tightly that it will be challenging to get it out without ripping it. I'm really looking to grow my Yaz collection, especially the cards that came out since he retired. 

So what about hockey cards? I've picked up some strays over the years, but have never went hard after them. Reading some other blog posts on hockey cards makes me want to start up. I'm going to start with Dallas Stars team sets and see where it goes. I have a couple on the way already which should arrive sometime soon. 

In Today's Mail

This post could also go under the Some of My Favorite Cards title. It's the 2005 Topps Retired Refractor, serial numbered 8/25. I bought it now on ebay and it arrived today. I haven't anticipated the mail with this much excitement in a long long time. Yaz has been my favorite player ever since I started collecting cards. And yet I've never gotten an autograph of his. I've been wanting his autograph for a while and I absolutely love refractors, especially of action shots like this. Then throw in that the serial number of the card is his uniform number. All this made me willing to spend more than I'd hoped to get it. I don't know if it's my all-time favorite card or not, but it is immediately a contender.

I've looked at some of the other cards in the Topps Retired set. There are some really nice looking ones. It looks like the set ran for a few years. Other Red Sox I've seen include Tiant, Lonborg, and Fisk. I'm going to stop with Yaz for now.

Cards with a Story, Part 1

It was probably 1983 when I obtained this card. I had a friend named Joel who had a few cards including this one, and he was over at my house to trade. He wasn't really a sports fan, but he especially liked a model I had of a U.S. Navy ship. (I think it was the Constellation??) We worked out a trade of the model for some of his cards. He also had this Johnny Bench card, a 1979 Topps, that I wanted. So we went back and forth a bit, trying to make another trade, but just couldn't come to an agreement. Finally, in frustration, he ripped it into a bunch of pieces, threw them into our trash basket, and left. After he left, I sifted through the trash basket and was able to find all the pieces. I put it back together like a puzzle and applied a bunch of tape. And here it is today.

16 pieces, and still with original tape. I bought out my brother's cards a few years later and got another one of this card that was whole. But it had his initial B written on the front, right in the middle. It wasn't until I bought the complete 1979 Topps set years later that I finally got one in good condition. 

In Today's Mail

The 2012 Elite Extra Edition Autograph of Jamie Callahan arrived today. I got it via buy it now on ebay. It was recently added to my want list and now comes off.

I added a page for my Carl Yastrzemski player collection. In the past I collected his Topps cards and others that were cool. But when it comes to his more recent cards, the collection is pretty spare. Please reach out of you can help me out.

In Today's Mail

Sometimes the team name on the card doesn't match the player's uniform on the picture. I have done no research to support this, but it seems like more often than not it's a Red Sox uniform with a mismatched team name on the card. Since I go by the team name the card company puts on the card, I don't go after those cards. I kind of feel slighted since it might mean one less player to collect that year. That brings me to the card I received in the mail today. It's 2008 Upper Deck Jersey of Eric Gagne. It's a Red Sox card but he's wearing a Dodgers uniform. It's nice to have one go my way for a change. 

Triple Play Purchase

I am very fortunate to have one of the largest sportscards dealers in my town. Triple Play Sports Cards is ebay's 3rd biggest card seller and one of just a few platinum sellers on Beckett. The owner Dennis is a great guy. He claims his inventory is arranged such that he and his staff can retrieve any card in 20 seconds! Here's what I picked up at Triple Play this week.

1. Bob Melvin. 1993 Ultra, wow some cards were boring back then. 

2. Scott Hatteberg. 1997 Donruss Limited, it's the back side of Javy Lopez.

3. Jason Varitek. 1999 Upper Deck.

4. 2001 Fleer Red Sox 100th. Fenway Park. 

5. Mike Lansing. 2002 Fleer Tradition. 

6. Dustin Hermanson. 2003 Donruss Team Heroes. 

7. Curt Schilling. 2003 Topps 205, must have been made late in the year because he didn't join the Red Sox until then. 

8. Dustin Pedroia. 2004 Just Rookies, in Augusta uniform this time. 

9. Wade Miller. 2006 Topps Heritage. 

10. Josh Bard. 2006 Upper Deck. 

11. Billy Wagner. 2009 Topps Heritage. 

12. Carson Smith. 2016 Stadium Club. 

13. Josh Rutledge. 2016 Topps Heritage. 

14. Matt Barnes. 2016 Topps Heritage. 

15. Carl Yastrzemski. 1990 Baseball Wit.

16. Yaz. 2016 Donruss, looks to be hitting one the other way. 

17. Yaz. 2016 Topps Bunting, very cool. 

So that's 14 more off the Red Sox want list and three more of Yaz. I'm going to make a page for my Yaz PC. I'd be interested in trading for anything not on the list. 

In Today's Mail

I made a lot of purchases last weekend, and more arrived today. 

1. Carlos Baerga
2. Grady Little

Both are 2002 Topps Traded. For some reason the Topps Traded set that year was rarer and more expensive than the gold version. I've had my eyes on these two for about a year on ebay. They were more than I was willing to pay however. I figured if I could get combined shipping it would help. The problem was, the seller only combined shipping for purchases made the same day, and these were always spaced several days apart. Finally the listings were reposted on the same day, and I had my chance.

I just saw the news that David Price's elbow is okay and surgery is not necessary. What a relief!

In Today's Mail

I received a nice sized package from Burbank Sportscards today. In addition to the Red Sox below, a bunch of Steelers and Lakers, my other favorite teams, were also included.

1. Don Baylor. 1988 Topps Wax Box. One of the few ways to get him on a Red Sox card that year. 

2. Luis Rivera. 1994 Pacific. Great photo!

3. Zane Smith. 1996 Fleer. I didn't like Fleer's low grade card stock that year. 

4. Mike Stanley. 1998 Fleer Tradition Update, another great action shot!

5. Bill Haselman. 1998 Pacific, more action!

6. Damon Buford. 1998 Pacific Online, and more!

7. Another Mike Stanley. 1999 Fleer Tradition. 

8. Another Damon Buford. 1999 Fleer Tradition. 

9. Jeff Frye. 1999 Fleer Tradition, proving he releases off the correct fingers. 

10. Derek Lowe. 1999 Fleer Tradition. 

11. Hideo Nomo. 2001 Topps Update. 

12. Doug Mirabelli. 2002 Upper Deck 40 Man.

13. Juan Diaz. 2003 Donruss Team Heroes. 

14. Bill Mueller. 2006 Topps Trading Places. 

15. Eduardo Rodriguez. 2014 Topps Prospect Debut.

16. Kyle Hart. 2016 Bowman Draft.

17. Joe Kelly. 2016 Topps Heritage. 

18. Carl Yastrzemski. 2005 Donruss Champions. 

19. Yaz. 1992 Score Factory Insert. 

20. Yaz. Upper Deck Hitters Club Epic Performances. 

21. Yaz. 2002 Topps 206. I was hoping this would be the same smaller size as the original T206's.

22. Yaz, who else? 2000 Fleer Club 3000.

That takes 17 off my want list, and five more of Yaz. Two great mail days in a row!

In Today's Mail

Today I received a package from COMC. This is my biggest order from them. I really like the concept of consigning cards from numerous sellers and shipping them together as one order.

1. Dick Berardino. From the Topps TV set (pun intended). He was the Red Sox bullpen coach, so doesn't appear on any other cards.
2. Mark Meleski. Pawtucket's first base coach.
3. Rac Slider. Red Sox 3rd base coach.
4. Steve Curry. Pitcher and also from the TV set.
5. Aaron Sele. O-Pee-Chee Diamond Dynamos proof. I thought I had every Aaron Sele card, but this one escaped me. It's not on any checklist anywhere.
6. Edgar Renteria. 2006 Topps Bazooka Rewind. It has a tiny little piece of bat in it.

7. Jacoby Ellsbury. 2014 Topps Heritage Chrome.
8. Christian Vazquez. 2016 Topps Heritage.
9. Peter Gammons. 2004 Playoff Honors Fans of the Game. It says Red Sox on it so I'll count it as a Red Sox card.
10. Matt Price. 2010 Donruss Elite Extra Edition, autograph numbered to 699.
11. Mike Rozier. 2004 Donruss Elite Extra Edition, autograph numbered to 628. What's the significance of 628?
12. Jon Denny. 2014 Bowman Inception, autograph.

Twelve cards off the want list, a good mail day!