Trading With Myself.... Sort Of

Since right around the beginning of this year, I have been selling some cards on checkoutmycards. While progress has been slow, I have managed $28.50 in sales so far, and this is how I spent it (including shipping).

1969 Topps Johnny Unitas

Sheer perfection on cardboard. This is a great looking card of one of the games greatest quarterbacks. I was fortunate enough to meet Johnny U a few times, shortly before he passed, and he was a very kind man.

2006 Upper Deck Ultimate Collection Derrick Mason autograph #5/99

Truly a signature that could not be contained by any stinkin' sticker. As you can see, Mason's scribblings venture outside of the signing area, but at least you can still see it. I heart on card autos.

2005 Fleer Patchworks Dontrelle Willis/Josh Beckett dual patch #21/25

The D-Train on the front, with a great looking 4-color patch

Beckett on the back, with a great looking 3 color patch. If this isn't the ultimate Marlins fan trade bait, I don't know what is.

2008 Topps Chrome Ichiro Trading Card History refractor

A card I have wanted since the first time I laid eyes on it. The Trading Card History subset was pretty solid, and the refractors are particularly awesome. I believe this card is based on a Japanese Menko design from the 1950's.

2002 Bowman Chrome Reprints 1989 Ken Griffey Jr. refractor

This will most likely serve as trade fodder for one of the 2 Mariners fans I owe cards to.

All in all I think this is a stellar haul for $28 delivered. Lately a lot of people have been ranting about the excessive shipping costs on COMC, especially when compared to Sportlots & eBay. While shipping may not be cheap, in my opinion you are able to find better deals on checkoutmycards, especially on higher-end "hits", than you are on either of the other 2 sites. If I had purchased these cards individually on eBay, shipping would have easily exceeded $10, and may have been in the $15-$20 range. For instance, the other day, I picked up a Markakis/Adam Jones dual relic from Unique for $7.50. The card has a stated BV of $30 (ha!), routinely fetches over $10 on eBay, and would most likely cost a minimum of $2 to ship. I just saved almost $5 by picking this card up on COMC. Sportlots is another name that people often bring up. To be honest, I don't have that much experience with them, but I know that they do not give you the option to submit an offer for cards you want. You are stuck paying whatever the seller is asking, which in some instances, is simply too much. I've also found that a lot of listings on Sportlots don't include a scan or picture of the card. This might not be a big deal to some people, but if you're purchasing a patch card made by Upper Deck, don't you at least want to know if the edges are clean? They most likely aren't.

Opinions are like Gellmans (no offense).... and everyone is entitled to think whatever they'd like, and obviously shop wherever they want to. For me, right now, that place is checkoutmycards.

Vintage Variety From Project '62

I really haven't posted any vintage cards for a while, and that's mainly because I haven't been fortunate enough to acquire many lately. That should change this year, because one of the things I want to do is collect more vintage Topps team sets. Based on what I've seen so far, the prospects for 2010 releases don't look very promising. Old school is going to be the way of the samuri for this year's collective Tao.

All of the great cards in this post come courtesy of a trade with Project '62. Chris emailed me with some amazing vintage scans, and was kind enough to send them over even though there wasn't a whole lot of vintage I could send back in return.

1972 Topps Eddie Watt

A psychedelic tombstone of a pitcher I know very little about. A little research reveals that his career was marginal at best. That didn't stop me from picking up his 2004 Upper Deck Legends autograph card from checkoutmycards. It's amazing how many retired players have autographs in modern sets, including some you wouldn't expect, like Eddie Watt.

1962 Topps Earl Robinson

If you blinked, you may have missed the career of Earl Robinson in it's entirety. It only lasted 170 games, just barely more than one modern season. After breaking through with the Dodgers in '58, Robinson spent 3 seasons in Baltimore. '61, '62 & '64. I wonder what happened to him in '63?

1962 Topps Milt Pappas

Most people only know Pappas as the guy who brought Frank Robinson to the Orioles. Well... before being that guy, he was a pretty good pitcher, and at one point was the ace of Baltimore's staff. Pappas would have an All-Star season in '62, the first of his career.

1962 Topps Marv Breeding

Marv Breeding was another guy with a short career, playing just 4 seasons in the major leagues. I guess with a last name like that, you are destined for other things.

1962 Topps Dick Hall

Although I wasn't alive to see or hear about Dick Hall, the numbers don't lie. Over 16 seasons Hall earned himself a respectable .554 winning percentage, and a 3.34 ERA mostly as a reliever/occasional starter. It's the contributions of guys like Dick here that go largely unnoticed over the course of a season, but have a huge impact on it's outcome. Underrated? Perhaps. Under-appreciated? Most definitely.

1958 Topps Joe Ginsberg

Judging by his career numbers, Joe spent all but 2 of his seasons as a back-up catcher. He hung around the majors for 13 seasons, but only played in 695 games. Ginsberg also qualifies as a bit of a journeyman, having spent time with 7 teams over his 13 seasons. He came to Baltimore in '56 via a trade with the Kansas City Athletics, who had in turn acquired him from Cleveland a season earlier.

1958 Topps Al Pilarcik

Pilarcik is yet another early Oriole with a less than remarkable career. He played 6 seasons, 5 with Baltimore after debuting with the Kansas City Athletics in 1956. If I had to guess by just looking at stats, I'd say his best season had to have been 1959, in which he played in 130 games, and hit .282. The '59 Topps Pilarcik was one of the first cards I came to possess in my quest for the '59 O's team set.

1958 Topps Hal Brown

Another journeyman pitcher, only this time a guy who was mainly used as a starter. Over 14 seasons and 4 teams Brown moved on with a career record of 85-92 over 211 career starts.

1958 Topps Gus Triandos

Triandos was a solid catcher for a number of seasons in the mid-late fifties, and would have an All-Star season the year this card was printed. Gus was originally signed by, and made his debut with the Yankees, which is something I didn't know until looking him up on Baseball Reference to write this post. I almost feel bad for the guy now, knowing he had to play on some pretty miserable Oriole teams in the fifties.

Thanks for the old-school O's Chris. I had a lot of fun looking at these cards, and even more fun looking up some of these players on Baseball Reference. You've gotten me off to a pretty good start on both the '58 and '62 Orioles team sets, and I will definitely be putting together a vintage want list in the near future. Scratch that, future. "Near" implies that I plan on not being lazy in the immediate interval following my typing of this post, and that is already highly improbable.

Flea Market Finds- Hall of Fame Alert!

Budget: $40
Mission: Good deals & player collection finds
Results: See for yourself

2008 Bowman Sterling Joe Flacco blue refractor

Total cost: $8.00. It's probably worth less than that after last night's stinker. Thanks to New Card Smell, I now know where this card comes from. Until spotting this one at the flea market, I'd never seen one like this before.

2008 Topps Finest Nick Markakis green refractor #'d /199

Total cost: $2.00. One step close to the rainbow. I now have the green, gold and black variations of this card.

2005 Upper Deck Classic Fantasy Team Dennis Eckersley

Total cost: $1.00. It's a card of a Hall of Famer, and it's made out of wood. For a dollar? No brainer.

1973 Topps Hank Aaron

Total cost: $5.00. My first Aaron, and it was found in the five dollar bin.

1951 Bowman George Stirnweiss

Total cost: $4.00. I mainly bought this cards cause off this guy's nickname. It's my first '51 Bowman, and aside from the staining there on the bottom, is in pretty good shape. Oh, and that tape spot there on the back. It could be worse though.

1934 Goudey Charlie Grimm

Total cost: $10.00. My first '34 Goudey! It's only one of the most iconic sets of all time. That white spot on the back is part of the price tag that I didn't remove from the penny sleeve.

1955 Bowman Eddie Mathews

Total cost: $10.00. I was pretty thrilled to see this in the ten dollar bin. There was a '59 Topps Mathews in there as well, but it was in slightly worse shape than this creased up '55 Bowman.

Once again, the Dundalk flea market has yielded some great cards, and sweet deals. Needless to say I'm pretty psyched about being able to add all of these cards to my collection, but especially that '34 Goudey, as beat as it is.

I have officially edited the Beard-O-Meter, due to popular demand, and also have hereby accepted the term Beardometer as an acceptable alternative.

Cards from Stats On The Back

Last week mmosely of Stats On The Back posted some trade bait, which included several Goodwin short prints needed for my set. He kindly sent them over, and in return I am sending him some Goodwins from his want list, and 1 single Mets card.

#CD-15 Grigori Rasputin Citizens of the Day

The fabled Russian mystic himself. Sweet beard dude.

#CD-12 Wyatt Earp Citizen's of the Day

That looks nothing like Kurt Russell.

AS-3 Tasmanian Devil Animal Series

Remember when there was Taz stuff everywhere? That was strange.

1998 Metal Universe Brady Anderson Hardball Galaxy

Did the animator of this card know something about Brady that nobody else did in 1998? Looks like a classic case of 'roid rage to me.

1970 Topps Rookie Stars Fred Beene/Terry Crowley

It's always nice to receive vintage cards in the mail, especially when you've got no idea they're coming. The Crow looks good here, but then again, he was young.

Well, this finally almost doesn't quite get me caught up on trades from last week, but at least it's slow progress. Mark, thanks for the great trade! I have your cards packaged, but forgot the post office was closed today. It'll get them out to you in the next few days.

A Vintage Beauty

As you very well may know by now, 1959 Topps is perhaps my favorite set ever, and Frank Robinson is my favorite Oriole ever. It's only natural that I would chase this card, and finally, after watching it sell time after time for more than I was willing to pay, one managed to fall through the eBay cracks, and into my collection for less than $10.

1959 Topps #435 Frank Robinson

I should have scanned the back was well, but forgot about it. The little cartoon on the back says that Frank attends college during the off-season. A quick web reveals that he attended Xavier university, and graduated in 1956. He was signed as an undrafted free agent by the Reds that same year, and it appears as though he did not play baseball while attending Xavier. Perhaps he was taking graduate classes in '59?

This card is pretty damn close to perfection in my eyes. Excellent design, and a solid photograph, even if it was staged. Looking at the background makes me curious as to where this was taken. Spring training? I'm pretty sure that's a home uniform Frank is sporting, so we do know that it was a home game. It's also really cool to see sp many fans in the background. I can't think of too many other cards from this era that so prominently feature fans in the stands. The other interesting about this card is that Robinson is listed as a first basemen/outfielder. I had no idea he had ever spent any time at first base. Now I do, and knowing is half the battle.

Orioles Magic via eBay

I've purchased a few cards in the past week or two. I really need to stop, since my hard earned money should be going into savings, to pay for our wedding/potential home down payment, but I just can't seem to. It's not like I'm dropping $100/per card or anything, but eventually, all the little stuff that adds up.

That's not to say I don't absolutely love every card I acquired last week, because I surely do. Just look at them (not yet!), how could you NOT love these cards?!?

We'll start off with 2 vintage Topps cards. These were sold together, and even though I'm not entirely sure why, it doesn't get much better than 2 cards of Hall of Famers for less than $8 delivered.

1969 Topps Brooks Robinson

1969 Topps Al Kaline

Pretty sweet, huh? I might be biased, but it seems like every Topps design from the 50's & 60's is awesome. This design isn't drastically different from the 1968 design, with the colored circle prominently featured yet again. I happen to like this better than the '68 design, with it's dingy burlap background. I wonder if people accused Topps of "mailing it in" in the summer of '69?

When I opened the bubble mailer, after inspecting the front of each card, I flipped them both over to have a look at their backsides. This is what I found:

Hmmm... they don't match! A quick google search proved to be fruitless, but I've got a feeling that this is standard operating procedure for 1969 Topps, and I KNOW someone out there knows for sure, and will leave a comment telling me not to fret over it. I already asked Night Owl, who seems to know a lot about vintage cards, but he was just as clueless.


Next up is an oddball steal of a deal. Can you believe I was able to add a second Brooks Robinson certified autograph card to my collection for $2.22? I've never seen one of these before, and they were apparently only available through a mail in redemption program. Enough of my vagueness, here it is:

1996 Big League Chew Brooks Robinson autograph

How cool is this card? Can you believe this is from 1996? I would have guessed it was released at least 10 years earlier. It's not the best of designs, and the lack of logos definitely makes it look cheap-ish, but that scribble of blue sharpie makes these facts insignificant. As a 12-year old first baseman, a pouch of grape flavored Big League Chew could almost always be found in the back left pocket of my uniform pants. This fact seems insignificant on the surface, but really does add a nice bit of nostalgia, and deepens my connection to this card.

I mentioned earlier that this was indeed a certified autograph. It is, but just barely. I could reproduce this COA in about 20 mins with Photoshop.



That concludes the vintage portion of this post, and it's time to move on to some present day Orioles (as painful as that may be). The next card you will be seeing is one of the few from Goodwin Champions that I had to have. Hard-signed Nick Markakis autographs are fairly few & far between. Ironically enough, 2 of the most recent ones were released by Upper Deck (Goudey & Goodwin), who likes to use sticker autos even in "high-end" products (Exquisite, Black, Premier, etc.). When I saw Markakis was included on the Goodwin auto checklist, I knew this would be the card I'd be chasing after. Finally, after a month or so of watching them sell for more than I was willing to pay, I managed to score one for a decent price.

2009 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions Nick Markakis autograph

Reading over that last paragraph, it hardly seems fair that I singled out Upper Deck for using sticker autographs. Topps is equally as guilty. If any company reps happen upon this humble little blog, please take note. Sticker autographs suck, and they should not be used, under any circumstances, on a product that carries a price tag of $60 or higher per box. It's ridiculous that we've tolerated it for this long. Please cease and desist immediately.

Well that was fun. There's one more card left to be featured, and it's just as cool as the rest. I wasn't really saving it for last, as that was determined by Blogger's upload tool. As my Markakis collection grows, the need to have it showcased, or at least listed out somewhere is becoming imperative. I think next week is the week I officially go Zistle on the Markakii.

Here it is, the last card in this post.

2007 Topps Allen & Ginter's Nick Markakis no number mini

These seem a lot more special with the hand numbering they added to this year's release. That's ok though, you and I both know this card is only limited to 50 copies.

My First Tobacco Card

I found this card the other day while going through a cigar box of old stuff. It is an American Spirit tobacco card commemorating the invention of the dishwasher, and is from the Centuries of the Great American Spirit subset. At the time I acquired this card, I was not collecting, and don't even think it ever registered to me that it was a card. It was pretty cool to stumble across now, but as you can see, it isn't in very good shape. There isn't a date printed on the back, but I'm pretty sure this card was released in the year 2000, since I do remember peeling from the back of the pack. Inadvertently or not, this is the first tobacco card I ever owned, and I didn't even realize it until last week. Unfortunately, the internet is lacking in information on these cards. It would be interesting to see the whole checklist, and maybe what other sets the American Spirit company has released. I assume there are others since the back of this card says "Set 2, Number 33 of 36".

Surprise Vintage Package from Bozeman Mike

There is a reader out there named Mike, who happens to live in Bozeman, Montana. Mike and I first traded a few months ago, when I was looking to get rid of a bunch of my '08 Ginter doubles, and every once in a while Mike will send me a bubble mailer chock full of O's, accompanied by a hand written want list; mostly of cards needed to finish sets. He's sort of a man of mystery, and I have thusly dubbed him "Bozeman Mike".

Bozeman Mike sent me over quite the stash of vintage Topps Orioles, and we'll get to those in a moment. I'd like to start out by showing off a few of the more modern cards that were sent along:

1987 SportFlics Orioles logo thingy

What a great logo. I've said it many times now, but I think the O's should go back to the cartoon bird. After all, it was the symbol of the organization "glory days", from the mid-60's to the mid 80's. DO IT!

2002 Topps American Pie "American Sluggers" Brooks Robinson

2003 Fleer Fall Classic Brooks Robinson

2 very nice Brooksies for the player collection, and an awesome SportFlics logo card. Talk about a great way to start a trade post! Now, we've got a healthy dose of vintage in store. I will start part 2 of this feast for the eyes with the "newer" cards that Bozeman Mike sent along, seven 1971 Topps.

#53 Paul Blair

#170 Mike Cuellar

#491 Jim Hardin

#219 Elrod Hendricks

#193 Bob Grich

#196 1970 A.L. Playoffs Game #2 Highlights

#80 Mike Curtis

Topps' old football designs, especially from the 70's, were awesome!

Also included was one 1966 Topps card, a great one at that, if you ask me. It's in pretty good shape for being 40+ years old, unlike most of the vintage I own.

#390 Brooks Robinson

As if that wasn't already cool enough, Bozeman Mike also sent over nine 1964 Topps Orioles. NINE! These are the first '64 Topps I've ever owned, and are in remarkably good shape. The majority of them even have something resembling sharp corners, making them among the nicest 60's card in my whole collection.

#382 Wes Stock

#565 Stu Miller

#126 Russ Snyder

#45 Milt Pappas

#364 Joe Gaines

#239 Herm Starrette

#322 George Brunet

#263 Chuck Estrada

#221 Bob Saverine

That was a pretty impressive package from Bozeman Mike. Thank you very kindly sir! The 1964 Topps cards are absolutely beautiful in person, and have really made me appreciate the design a little more. If anybody has any more '64's or '71's of Orioles not pictured in this post, I am interested in trading for them. Since this package got me off to such a good start, I might as well attempt to build each O's team set. Eventually, I'd like to build every 1960's Topps Orioles team set. The '50's & '60's designs are so beautiful, I want all of them in my collection.

By the time you read this, I will be sitting through jury duty. Ugh.