Miscellaneous Pickups

I've been unusually active on Sportlots lately.  I know I said I wasn't going to buy random cards this year, and instead focus on saving for a '53 Mays, but my hand was forced.  One of the perks of being a season ticket holder to the Albuquerque Isotopes, is that early in the year they put on a meet and greet with all (or most of, sans a few curmudgeons) of all of the players.  So I made a point to track down cards for as many of the guys as I could this year, which for the most part was ones I didn't have from random Bowman and Topps Debut sets (where do you even buy packs of these?).  Old habits die hard, and I couldn't just order 3 cards from a seller, without maxing out the shipping price point with a few Wallach's.  That's where most of the 80 cards above came from.

The best cards of the bunch, pictured again below, were two random eBay purchases.  These sort of oddballs aren't all that hard to find, but usually sellers want about $5 a pop for them.  The Rancho Cucamonga showed up for a buck shipped, and the lot of Stuarts was less than a buck a card, so I pulled the trigger.  It's actually the first Ranco Cucamonga card I've added since 2013.  So maybe it's a little more rare than I thought it was.

Updated Totals:

1983 Donruss x10: 235
1983 Stuart x7: 17

1983 Topps x8: 460

1984 Donruss x2: 241

1984 Topps x19: 1,306

1987 O-Pee-Chee: 28

1988 Donruss All-Star x3: 79

1988 Fleer: 429

1988 Fleer Baseball MVP: 33

1988 Revco: 50

1989 Donruss Baseball's Best x4: 38

1989 K-Mart x4: 80

1990 Donruss Baseball's Best: 22

1990 Fleer League Leader: 14

1991 Classic: 10

1991 Score Super Stars x4: 33

1992 Bowman: 93

1992 Triple Play x3: 152

1993 Topps Traded x2: 41

1994 Pacific: 24

1995 Topps Finest: 20

2001 Rancho Cucamonga: 5

Recent Online Purchases

I've been a little bit more active on eBay and Sportlots of late.  I'm sure this is due to the inclusion of Tim Wallach in the 2024 Topps Archives "Fan Favorite Autos" subset.  My desire to find each of the variants led me to checking ebay a lot more ofter, where I have a general "Tim Wallach" search saved and sorted by most recent.

The big find was a 1993 Memphis Chicks card for the extremely reasonable price of a dollar.  That card was one of my two "white whales" for decades.  I knew of its existence from around the time it was printed as a result of seeing a photo of it (mixed in with other cards from the set) in one of the old black and white, newsprint card magazines.  The memory as to which magazine has long since been lost to time.  The first one I ever found (back in 2013) was autographed, which was something of a disappointment, but I was still thrilled to finally own a copy, even with the sharpie blemish.  This is the 3rd copy I've added since, none of which are autographed.  It's still a lot of fun to find one of these in the wild.

O-Pee-Chee has long been a fascination of mine.  When I first started collecting cards, and Wallach cards, I knew about O-Pee-Chee and even had a small amount in my collection.  But I didn't end up owning a single Wallach O-Pee-Chee until years after Wallach had retired and the advent of eBay.  I still don't own very many, and when I saw a seller on Sportlots who had a good number of them, I took it upon myself to purchase them all.

There's a new documentary out about Dick Perez, who painted all the Donruss Diamond Kings cards.  I haven't watched it yet, but I'm not expecting him to explain why Tim Wallach was inexplicably passed over for his entire career, never appearing as a Diamond King, despite setting nearly every Montreal Franchise record from 1982-1992.  Wallach did however appear in the 1988 Leaf set as a "Canadian Great," which has long been a curiosity for me.  Did Perez opt for Wallach in '88 only to be overruled by Donruss?  Was it always the plan to use a different player for the Leaf set, and if so, which one got the "first choice?"  Maybe the documentary will address it, but I'd be shocked if it came up.  In any event, the O-Pee-Chee seller on Sportlots had a few of these available so of course I took them all.  

Below are the current numbers.

Updated Totals:

1983 O-Pee-Chee x11: 56
1984 O-Pee-Chee x2: 51

1985 O-Pee-Chee x3: 32

1986 O-Pee-Chee: 22

1988 Fleer All-Stars x2: 21

1988 Fleer MVP: 32

1988 Leaf Canadian Greats x9: 46

1988 O-Pee-Chee x2: 23

1988 Revco: 49

1989 K-Mart: 76

1991 Classic: 9

1991 Upper Deck Checklist x26: 404

1993 Memphis Chicks: 4

1983 Fleer Lot

 

That's what 830 copies of the same 1983 Fleer card looks like when laid out on a table.  It's the most copies of a single Wallach card that I've ever acquired at once.  They were purchased on Ebay along with over 700 copies of Wallach's 1984 Topps card.  At less than 4 cents a card shipped, I'm hoping the seller as some more large lots lying around.

I have to tip my hat to Fleer.  In sorting through these over 800 copies of the card none stood out as any sort of manufacturing error.  None of the cards had any huge issues with ink levels or centering or anything else to make them stand out.  Just what I would consider ordinary variances from card to card.

The seller did let a few mistakes slip through the cracks, no doubt being fooled by that Expos logo in the lower left corner of the card.  These six cards were mixed in the lot.  I actually didn't have any copies of the Raines, so that was sort of a nice surprise.

Updated Total:

1983 Fleer: 1,054

1984 Topps Lot

 I recently purchased two large lots of cards from the same seller on eBay.  This lot of 780 copies of the 1984 Topps Wallach and a similarly large lot of 1983 Topps Wallach cards that I will post later this week (I need to stretch out my limited opportunities for new content).  My general rule of thumb for large lots is to not pay more than 10 cents a card shipped.  The seller of these two lots agreed to combine shipping and the result was I ended up picking these up at just over 4 cents per card.  I think it worked out well for the seller and myself.  He picked close to $40 and cleared out some shelf space and I picked up close to 1,600 new Wallach cards.

I'm not sure what sellers are holding out for.  The demand for a lot of 300 copies of 1988 Donruss Tim Wallach cards just isn't there.  At the risk of sounding arrogant, they're selling to audience of one.  If I'm willing to pay you $3.00 on top of shipping cost, that should be a no brainer.  Unless some people just like endless piles of worthless cards sitting in the their closets, of players they don't collect and sets they aren't building.  To each their own I guess.  Given the nature of this blog/collection, I'm well aware that I'm one of the last people who should be throwing stones from inside this glass house of mine.

The last decade or so, it's become increasingly rare for me to obtain more copies of a card than I previously already had.  On the rare occasion it has happened, it's usually some odd-ball release like the  Provigo food product set, or an O-Pee-Chee sticker that I only had 2 or 3 copies of.  I don't recall the last time I picked up more new copies of a main stream release than I already had.  But that's the case here, as the 780 new copies nearly doubled the 444 I had in my collection.  The huge addition makes this the second most abundant card in my collection behind only the 1982 Topps Wallach by a margin of just 16 cards.  It's conceivable that by the end of the year, 1984 Topps could end the 82's decade plus reign at the top of the list.

As far as the cards, I have to credit Topps for their quality control.  Nearly 800 copies and there were only three that stood out as I sorted through them.  Below on the left is what I consider a "nice" clean copy.  Moving left to right is one with ink levels that left it looking faded, then a slant cut, and finally on the far right a copy that was miscut on the top/bottom enough to show the top of the card below it (which would be Paul Molitor).   They're a little curved, but in my experience that eventually goes away once I get them sorted.  The slant cut card is odd enough that I'll move it into my pile of manufacturing errors.  The others, while unique, will be sorted with the others and stashed away like the ark at the end of the first Indiana Jones film.

I reached out to the seller to inquire why he (or she) had so many copies '84 Topps and '83 Fleer (and to see if they had any other lots they wanted to part with) but never heard back.  Someone spent a lot of time sorting these though and did a pretty good job too.  However, the five cards below did get mixed into the lot.  I can see how that would be a common slip up with the pink vertical "Expos" looking similar while breaking down nearly 800 completes sets worth of cards.  Hopefully this person cashed in on their Mattingly's and Strawberry's back during the feeding frenzy on them around 1989 or so.

Updated Total

1984 Topps: 1,224

eBay pickups

For the most part, I only purchase Wallach cards on eBay when they're sold as large lots.  Even then, I tend to avoid them unless it's less than 10 cents a card with shipping.  There's no shortage of $4.95 1990 Topps cards to be found on eBay, but they aren't for me.  

While I cringe at the price gougers trying to turn a profit on junk wax commons, there are a hand full of Wallach inserts that I guess pass for "rare," albeit, they aren't in high demand.  For the most part I avoid those too.  $20 to $100 for a 1993 Finest Refractor is insane to me, the seller has this blog's blessing to keep them in their own collection if they mean that much to them.  Same for the handful of autographed cards that have come out the last few years.  Besides that fact that autographs don't belong on cards unless they're obtained in person by kids, I'm just not that interested in new stuff as a general rule.

That said, these 2005 Topps Rookie Cup inserts are a bit of an exeption for me.  I really like them.  Not enough to buy them all up regardless of the price, but when they pop up for just a buck or two (or even up to three), I'll bite.  Should an elusive "gold" or "silver" variant ever pop up, I may need to reevaluate my budget, but as far as I know they're sitting inside an unopened box in a warehouse somewhere next to Indiana Jones's Ark.  These two "green" additions recently popped up on eBay at what I deemed an appropriate price, and now sit my collection.  I'm up 13 copies, meaning there are only 186 more to track down.  Seems reasonable.

Updated Totals:

2005 Topps Rookie Cup "Green": 13

1986 Wallach Lot

I recently picked up this lot of "15" 1986 Wallach cards on eBay.  With the shipping charges it was going to be a couple cents over my per-card cap-price, but I was feeling frivolous with my money that day so I went ahead pulled the trigger on the purchase.  To my pleasant surprise, when the cards arrived, there were 23 of them, not the 15 promised in the eBay description.  The difference knocked the per card price (with shipping) well below my self-imposed eBay limit.  It worked out for everyone I guess.

The 1986 Topps Wallach has long been an afterthought for me.  Amongst what I consider the the "classic" run of Topps Wallach cards from 1982-1991, I've always slotted this card near the bottom, probably 8th or 9th ahead of only the 1991 and 1990.  The only reason I never have it at the bottom of the list, is due to the photo selection of '90 and '91.  I don't care for the 1991 design, but it's a set loaded with some of the best photography Topps has ever put on cards.  The Wallach photo is rather vanilla by comparison, and I always felt sort of blurry too.  I'll preemptively apologize and hedge my next comment as I know it's not popular amongst my fellow vintage enthusiast, but I love the 1990 Topps design and view it as a "sister set" to 1975 Topps.  That's not a hill I'm willing to die on, and will make no effort to convince anyone else to see it my way, but that's the way I see it.  That said, The Wallach photo has never been my favorite.  It's too dark, the cropping is poor, and it's just a weird angle for the photo.

The 2003 Topps Fan Favorite set only served to reinfoce my opinion that a better photo would have made it a much nicer card, as it corrects all of the problems I have with the original.  1990 is also another great set as far as photography.  Though it doesn't get the love of 1991 Topps (and for good reason), some of my favorite players have some really great cards in that set.

  

  

Getting back to this 1986 Wallach, I've always been lukewarm on the 1986 Set.  I came to have new found appreciation for the set as a whole when I finally got around to sleeving it in pages a decade or so ago, but the Wallach still didn't jump out at me.  I always thought he looked too small in the frame of the card.  I think I'm willing to admit I was wrong.  I'm not sure I like it enough to jump it ahead of any of the other Wallach Topps cards from the era, but it can certainly hold it's own.

Updated Total:

1986 Topps x23: 463

eBay Pickup

I picked up this lot of 107 cards on eBay awhile back.  I'm pretty sure the 52 copies of 1989 Upper Deck is the most I've ever acquired at once of that card.  You may also notice (the photo isn't the best), but those three 1993 Topps are all of the "Marlins Inaugural" variety.  One final note, the 1987 Topps brings that tally to exactly 1,000 copies.  It joins the 1982 Topps as the only two cards I've reached that milestone with.

Updated Totals:

1982 Topps: 1,229
1983 Topps: 368

1984 Topps: 416

1985 Topps: 362

1986 Topps: 428

1986 Topps All-Star: 699

1987 Topps: 1,000

1988 Topps x8: 767

1988 Topps All-Star x10: 792

1989 Donruss x3: 462

1989 Fleer x6: 414

1989 Topps x5: 824

1989 Upper Deck x52: 268

1990 Topps x9: 574

1990 Upper Deck: 348

1991 Upper Deck: 342

1991 Upper Deck Checklist: 282

1993 Topps Marlins Inaugural x3: 9

1995 Topps: 80

Ebay Purchase

This is a lot of 27 1992 Diet Pepsi cards I recently purchased on eBay.  I'm not shy about my enthusiasm for "food product" cards, typical of the ones found in cereal boxes.  That said, I also don't mind acknowledging that this Diet Pepsi card isn't my favorite.  The design is fine, I just don't think the colors work well with the Expos white uniforms.  It'd probably be a better looking card if it was a photo using the road blues.  In any event, I went ahead and picked these up at a very reasonable price. 

Another common point I make on this blog is pointing out the occasions when I acquire more copies of a card than I previously had.  Such was the case here, as I previously only had 9 copies of this card.  On one hand, it's nice to pick up a large number of copies at once, on the other, it's evidence that someone was sitting around with more copies of a card than I had.  I will say that it rarely happens twice with the same card, but who knows.  Some Pepsi employee maybe sitting on a 1,000 sets of these stupid things.

Finally, I don't normally show the envelopes for purchases, I save that for cards sent by readers, but the Canadian postage stamp of NHL Hall of Famer and 3x Norris Trophy winner Pierre Pilote deserves to be seen, so here it is:

The photo may not show it, but the stamp is a solid 2 inches tall, it's about the size of the Topps Mini Leader cards.

Updated Total:

1992 Diet Pepsi: 36

eBay Pickup

This is a lot of forty-three 1982 Fleer Wallach's that I recently picked up on eBay.  They arrived shipped for less than 14 cents per card.  Typically I like to keep eBay lots at under 10 cents per card, but I'll occasionally make an exception for the right card, and in this case, '82 Fleer felt like the right card.

Updated Total:

1982 Fleer: 427

eBay Lot

It may not look like it from the less than fantastic photo above, but that's 517 Wallach cards to close out the year.  I picked up this lot on eBay, with the price (with shipping) coming in at under 3 cents a card, which is probably about what 500 junk wax commons should cost these days.  The highlight of the lot, by no small margin, was a stack of 29 copies of '83 Fleer.  It's rare to find that many copies of that card at once.  The most exotic, if you can call it that, was probably an 1988 Fleer Mini, which was the first one I've seen since 2016, a 1993 Score Select Update (a surprisingly uncommon card to see).  1989 Topps became only the 4th card I have to break the 800 mark with the 33 included in this lot. 


Updated Totals:

1982 Topps x2: 1,227
1983 Donruss x6: 147
1983 Fleer x29: 169
1983 Topps x2: 361
1984 Donruss x5: 166
1984 Topps x10: 390
1985 Fleer: 121
1985 Leaf x3: 45
1986 Donruss: 160
1986 Fleer: 130
1986 Topps x39: 422
1986 Topps All-Star x17: 692
1987 Donruss: 445
1987 Donruss Opening Day: 55
1987 Topps x6: 961
1988 Donruss x5: 893
1988 Donruss Baseball's Best: 52
1988 Fleer x3: 306
1988 Fleer Glossy: 15
1988 Fleer Mini: 16
1988 Score x5: 294
1988 Topps x7: 745
1988 Topps All-Star x6: 763
1989 Bowman x10: 172
1989 Donruss x14: 428
1989 Donruss Baseball's Best: 23
1989 Fleer x9: 404
1989 Score x2: 201
1989 Topps x33: 801
1990 Bowman: 121
1990 Donruss x6: 469
1990 Fleer x10: 466
1990 Score x5: 321
1990 Topps x16: 554
1990 Upper Deck x24: 344
1991 Bowman: 74
1991 Donruss x15: 312
1991 Donruss MVP x16: 295
1991 Fleer x4: 203
1991 Leaf x2: 179
1991 Score x6: 265
1991 Score The Franchise x9: 228
1991 Topps x16: 290
1991 Upper Deck x7: 325
1991 Upper Deck Checklist x9: 258
1992 Donruss x5: 234
1992 Fleer x6: 179
1992 Leaf x9: 118
1992 Pinnacle x2: 121
1992 Score x7: 104
1992 Studio: 78
1992 Topps x15: 250
1992 Triple Play x3: 108
1992 Ultra x3: 147
1992 Upper Deck x15: 305
1993 Bowman: 25
1993 Donruss x16: 126
1993 Fleer x4: 82
1993 Leaf x8: 104
1993 Pinnacle: 44
1993 Score x3: 38
1993 Score Select x2: 66
1993 Score Select Update: 11
1993 Stadium Club x2: 74
1993 Topps x3: 254
1993 Topps Gold: 36
1993 Topps Traded: 37
1993 Triple Play x6: 48
1993 Ultra x2: 48
1993 Upper Deck x4: 160
1994 Flair: 11
1994 Fleer x2: 42
1994 Leaf: 47
1994 Pinnacle: 37
1994 Score: 67
1994 Score Select: 29
1994 Topps x7: 133
1994 Ultra: 41
1994 Upper Deck: 79
1995 Collector's Choice: 38
1995 Collector's Choice SE: 47
1995 Topps x2: 73
1995 Ultra: 51
1996 Collector's Choice: 25
1996 Collector's Choice Silver: 7
1996 Collector's Choice Ser. II: 32
1996 Ultra: 11
1997 Collector's Choice: 28



...That's a lot of tedious work to tally all of those.

50 Card Lot of 1982 Fleer

I recently picked up this lot of 50 1982 Fleer Wallach's on eBay.  They arrived at less than 10¢ a card shipped, which is always my threshold for lots of cards on eBay, be they rookies or 1991 Donruss.  Given the age of the cases they were shipped in, and the condition of the tape that the cases were sealed in, these cards had the look of being from an early 80's rookie card speculator.  I guess after 37 years of taking up space, they decided to cut there losses.  I suspect in another 35 years or so there will be no shortage of "1/1's" and "rare" autograph and insert cards being unloaded for pennies on the dollar as well.  Hopefully that'll please some collector down the road as much as finding lots like the one above pleases me.

Updated Total:

1982 Fleer: 298

eBay pickup

Recently eBay hasn't been yielding much as far as large lots of Wallach cards go.  There's been a few decent size lots that pop up, but sellers seem to be confusing their junk wax Wallach commons, for hi-grade 1960's Topps commons.  This lot of 106 cards came to me under my 10¢ a card (shipped) price limit I impose on these things.  If I could unload all my unwanted junk wax from say 1991-1995 at 5¢ a card shipped, I would do so in a heartbeat, so I'm not sure what these sellers are holding out for.  Perhaps my ego is growing too large for my own good, but I sort of feel like I'm in a position to set the market price for Wallach cards, given as I'm the only person on the planet actively buying them in bulk.

This lot was a nice a little assortment, and as always, I'll be keeping an eye out for more.

Updated Totals:

1985 Topps: 296
1986 O-Pee-Chee: 12
1986 Topps: 310
1986 Topps All-Star x2: 624
1987 Donruss: 419
1987 Fleer x2: 206
1987 Sportfilics: 49
1987 Topps x2: 866
1988 Donruss: 748
1988 Donruss Baseball's Best: 33
1988 Kay-Bee: 29
1988 Fleer: 246
1988 Fleer MVP: 18
1988 Fleer Star Stickers: 80
1988 Nestle: 6
1988 Score: 253
1988 Topps x2: 679
1988 Topps All-Star: 671
1988 Topps Glossy Send-In: 18
1989 Donruss x2: 373
1989 Fleer x2: 340
1989 K-Mart: 50
1989 Score x2: 175
1989 Topps: 663
1989 Upper Deck: 187
1990 Bowman x2: 100
1990 Donruss: 421
1990 Fleer x2: 325
1990 Leaf: 96
1990 Score x2: 258
1990 Topps: 496
1990 U.S. Playing Cards x4: 33
1990 Upper Deck: 283
1991 Bowman: 59
1991 Donruss: 252
1991 Donruss MVP: 235
1991 Fleer x2: 173
1991 Leaf: 119
1991 O-Pee-Chee Premier: 71
1991 Score: 224
1991 Score The Franchise: 191
1991 Score Super Star x2: 13
1991 Stadium Club: 122
1991 Studio: 71
1991 Topps: 238
1991 Ultra x2: 83
1991 Upper Deck: 277
1991 Upper Deck Checklist: 216
1992 Donruss x3: 192
1992 Fleer x3: 114
1992 Leaf x4: 95
1992 Panini: 7
1992 Pinnacle x2: 100
1992 Score: 81
1992 Stadium Club: 54
1992 Studio: 60
1992 Topps: 203
1992 Triple Play x2: 92
1992 Ultra: 134
1992 Upper Deck x2: 271
1993 Bowman: 23
1993 Donruss: 97
1993 Fleer x2: 53
1993 Leaf: 75
1993 Pinnacle x3: 37
1993 Score Select x2: 46
1993 Stadium Club x3: 59
1993 Topps: 189
1993 Topps Traded: 29
1993 Triple Play: 33
1993 Ultra: 41
1994 Pacific: 12
1994 Topps: 116
1995 Collector's Choice: 34
1995 Stadium Club: 22

eBay Pick-up

I recently picked up this lot of fifty 1982 Fleer Wallach cards on ebay.  Typically on ebay, when it comes to lots, I like to keep it under 5¢ a card shipped, and avoid anything over 10¢ a card shipped, unless there is something really compelling about the lot.  This one ended up costing me a little more than my dime a card ceiling once the shipping was added, but I can live with it.  1982 Fleer is one of my favorite non-Topps sets of the 80's, and while this card likely wouldn't make my non-existent Top 10 list for favorite Wallach's, it would definitely be in the honorable mention category.

Updated Total:

1982 Fleer x50: 294

EBay Lot of 502

Picking up large lots of Wallach cards on eBay over the years has been perhaps my most effective method of acquiring new ones.  The last few years though, they seem to be few and far between.  Or rather, reasonably priced ones are.  I typically ignore any listings that are asking more that 10¢ per card.  The cards above were part of a lot of 507 Wallach cards I purchased recently.  With shipping, they came out to less than 5¢ a card.  I think that's a fair price for what amounts to a large box of junk wax.  Everyone walks away happy.  I mean, I would love to unload junk wax one 500 count box at a time at a profit of about $10 per box.  Which makes me wonder what the sellers asking upwards of 50¢ a card in lots are thinking.  The market for these Wallach lots consists of me, and I've set the going rate at about a nickel.  I can't imagine lots of Kelly Gruber cards are going for any more than that either.

The highlight of this lot for me was a 1987 Topps that had a "slant cut."  I have over 800 copies of that card, but this is the first one I've seen with the slant cut.  Take a look below, where I've scanned next to a regular cut copy:

Updated Totals:

1982 Donruss x2: 206
1982 Fleer x2: 244
1982 Topps x2: 1,189
1983 Donruss x5: 132
1983 Fleer x3: 112
1983 Topps x3: 254
1984 O-Pee-Chee: 47
1984 Topps: 305
1985 Donruss x2: 117
1985 Fleer: 96
1985 Topps x4: 288
1986 Fleer x2: 119
1986 Leaf x2: 26
1986 Topps x6: 306
1986 Topps All-Star x18: 619
1987 Donruss x6: 417
1987 Fleer x3: 204
1987 Leaf x6: 49
1987 Sportflics: 48
1987 Topps x30: 857
1988 Donruss x6: 737
1988 Fleer x16: 244
1988 Score x3: 250
1988 Topps x33: 664
1988 Topps All-Star x40: 655
1988 Topps Big: 61
1988 Topps UK Mini: 88
1989 Bowman x3: 148
1989 Donruss x14: 363
1989 Fleer x37: 334
1989 Score: 173
1989 Sportflics x3: 11
1989 Topps x5: 656
1989 Uppder Deck x4: 185
1990 Bowman x3: 94
1990 Donruss x5: 411
1990 Fleer x8: 318
1990 Leaf x6: 92
1990 Score: 255
1990 Topps x35: 486
1990 Upper Deck x12: 278
1991 Donruss x5: 246
1991 Donruss MVP x3: 229
1991 Leaf: 113
1991 OPC Premier x3: 67
1991 Score x6: 223
1991 Score The Franchise x4: 185
1991 Stadium Club x2: 116
1991 Upper Deck x6: 272
1991 Upper Deck Checklist x4: 206
1992 Bowman USA Gold: 54
1992 Donruss x6: 188
1992 Fleer x5: 109
1992 Leaf x3: 90
1992 Pinnacle x2: 96
1992 Score x2: 80
1992 Stadum Club x3: 49
1992 Studio: 58
1992 Topps x4: 199
1992 Triple Play x4: 86
1992 Ultra x3: 132
1992 Upper Deck x3: 266
1993 Bowman: 21
1993 Donruss x5: 95
1993 Fleer: 49
1993 Leaf: 73
1993 O-Pee-Chee x3: 8
1993 OPC Premier: 27
1993 Pinnacle x2: 34
1993 Stadium Club: 52
1993 Topps x36: 185
1993 Triple Play x2: 32
1993 Upper Deck x2: 131
1994 Donruss x2: 32
1994 Flair x2: 9
1994 Leaf Limited: 17
1994 Pacific: 10
1994 Score Select x2: 21
1994 SP x2: 38
1994 Stadium Club: 39
1994 Stadium Club Rainbow: 13
1994 Topps x2: 110
1994 Topps Finest: 5
1994 Upper Deck x2: 74
1994 Upper Deck Electric Diamond: 15
1995 Collector's Choice SE x2: 37
1995 Donruss x2: 44
1995 Flair: 15
1995 Fleer: 17
1995 Leaf: 16
1995 Leaf Limited: 7
1995 Score: 42
1995 Score Gold Rush: 13
1995 Topps x2: 49
1995 Topps D3 x5: 19
1995 Topps Finest: 13
1995 Ultra x2: 40
1996 Collector's Choice Ser. II: 25

Lot of 1982 Fleer

Above is a lot of 180 1982 Fleer Wallach's I recently found on eBay.  1982 Fleer had previously been the rookie card I owned the fewest of.  That distinction now belongs to Donruss.  Here's what they look like free of the cases they came in:

Picking up a lot like this is a little bitter sweet.  I'll explain why.  I previously had 81 copies of this card.  This seller just sold me 160.  That means someone out there owned nearly twice as many copies of a Wallach card as I did.  At this point, that shouldn't be happening too often.  Granted, every time this happens (which isn't too often anymore), it becomes that much less likely to happen again. Still, it bugs me to think people out there own more copies of a particular card than I do.  It's probably most common with 1982 cards, given the trend of 100 card lots of RC's back then, but somehow this '82 Fleer has remained somewhat elusive.  Thankfully my current total of 241 isn't likely to be shown to be second to anyone in the near future (and if it is, I'll just buy them out too).

If your wondering, 160 cards is about 3 1/4 inches tall when stacked.

Updated Total for 1982 Fleer: 241

40 Card eBay Lot

I was in grade school in the 1980's, and had a card "budget" that was typical for a kid in grade school.  Which is to say, my parents more or less bought baseball cards for me.  As such, I was never really in a position to speculate on rookie cards in 50 or 100 card lots.  My "speculating" consisted of hoarding the copy or two (or even three) I might pull from packs and trading with friends.  Aside from Tim Wallach's, I don't think I ever even reached nine of a single card but maybe a handful of times.  Nine sticks out as the number, because there was a brief period during which I was very proud of my full page of 1989 Topps Ricky Jordan (of the Phillies) rookie cards.

So while I never speculated on rookie cards in 50 or 100 or even 10 card lots, other people did, and I'm very happy that was a thing back in the 1980's.  Because that greed, er, "speculation" has allowed me to amass over 1,100 copies of Tim Wallach's 1982 Topps rookie card some thirty years later.  Just like  the guy expected when he loaded up on the Fullerton can't miss prospects rookie card in 1982, thirty five years later he'd sell them on the internet to some guy in New Mexico for a tiny fraction of what he paid for them.  Thanks for keeping them safe for me all these years.

With any large lot of the same card, the best part is the variations.  No, not the different colored, shiny, rainbow sparkle artificially fabricated non-sense the children enjoy today.  I'm talking about good old printing and cutting variations, organic variations if you will.  Below are the winners from this lot:

The top row are four of what I'm calling "sun faded" prints.  The black is normal, but all the colors are way too light.  There is a close up scan of one below.  In the lower left is a copy that looks like it got a double or triple treatment of the blue ink.  It's next to a "normal" copy just to show the difference.  Finally there was a extremely miscut copy.  The front of that card is perfectly centered.  The back however, has a good portion of the bottom of Ken Griffy Sr.'s card, though at the time we just called him Ken Griffey (I can't tell from the numbers, I just know Griffey to be positioned there next to Wallach on the uncut sheet).

Updated Total for 1982 Topps: 1,185

eBay Pickups

 I don't typically buy single Wallach cards on eBay anymore, unless it's something I don't have, which these days happens a lot more than it used to with all the "Rediscover Topps" floating around (but even that novelty has started to wear off given the abundance of them that seem to be available).  Single cards on eBay just don't offer the best bang for my buck.  Sure, I like a Jumbo Sunflower Seed card and don't have a ton of them, but I'd rather buy 30 '87 Topps on a bulk sales site than a single card on eBay.  I recently made an exception though.

I came across a seller with flat rate shipping and seven (7!) '85 Topps Tiffany Wallach's listed in his inventory.  I previously had two, and last picked one up in 2012.  And while I've certainly passed up more than two of them on eBay in the past, '85 Tiffany does in fact seem to be scarcer than the other Tiffany sets.  I know sellers like to claim it's "rare," but I've also seen a good number of '91 Donruss Wallach's described as "rare" by sellers.  '85 Tiffany's reputation has at least some merit in my casual field research on the subject.  So seven at a $1 apeice with flat shipping was enough to get me to break my habits (and if the title and concept of this blog isn't enough of an indication, I am a creature of habit) and buy single Wallach cards on eBay.  I went ahead and searched the seller's other Wallach's for sale.  I found five '84 Topps Tiffany (my first ones since 2013), and a 2005 Rookie Cup Orange variant.  I passed on a few of his "rare" '91 Donruss Wallachs.

I don't have many '85 Topps Tiffany cards.  I don't just mean of Wallach, I don't have many period.  But the ones I do have all suffer from a yellow tint.  I thought they were all that way, until these arrived and one of the Wallach's was a clean white with no yellow tint.  My picture doesn't show it the greatest, but it's an even more obvious difference in hand.  Have any of you ever cracked and sleeved a set of this and have any input?  Is it just luck of the draw with some sets being all yellow, others all white?  Do they very within the box sets, or is it just a simple issue of poor storage that leads to discoloration?  I'm pretty sure I've never seen another blog diving too deep into '85 Tiffany and have very little first hand stock to go on.

Updated Totals:

1984 Topps Tiffany x5: 12
1985 Topps Tiffany x7: 9
2005 Topps Rookie Cup Orange: 14