Collectible Card Club

 Where oh where to begin?

Many card collectors maybe aware of Collectible Card Club a subscription box service. As a member each month they will send you a box of unopened packs of cards. They have the 4 major US sports: Baseball, Basketball, Football, and Hockey plus Soccer and Gaming. They offer a selection of 3 membership tiers: Silver 5 packs $24.95, Gold 10 packs $42.95, Platinum 15 packs $60.95. You can choose which individual sport flavor you want or a 3 sport Baseball, Football & Basketball box. Plus you choose from Vintage (1999 on back to probably early 1980s. I think they have stated 1983 is as far back as they have gone), or Modern (2000 and up), or a mix of the two.

Now here is where things get interesting. Almost 3 years ago, back in Sept 2019 I received a box from The CCC. I did not order the box it was sent to me as a sort of promo for bloggers I think. I don't recall if I received an email or responded to some promo they were having but anyway I currently have a box sitting unopened still in it's yellow/orange mailing package. I had planed on doing a spectacular blog post about opening it that was to include a video busting the box and the subsequent packs inside, including scans of everything during the process. I nixed that idea due to all the time it would take to work on it. 

Flashforward to recent months as I have seen more and more UTube videos and blog posts of others busting these boxes and repack products like Repacked Wax and well I got the bug for it. So I set up a Platinum Vintage Baseball sub and a Gold Vintage Football sub. This way it is less likely I will get brands that I don't particularly like such as Chrome, & Draft editions. There may be a few as those trends started in the 1990s. Anyway for brands I don't like I will put those packs aside as traders or toss them up on Ebay maybe.

My first two subscription boxes arrived Friday 10 June. So now I am a Collectible Card Club Card Carrying Member even though I probably shouldn't spend so much on it..

I was going to include one of my first CCC Box Breaks for this post but I haven't started opening them yet. I have 3 to do sometime soon.

A Slightly Oversized B'More Orange and Black Bird

Back in September for my Sportlots Spending Splurge I got this nice card, with another card from the set Walter Johnson Senators which I am mentioning on my Curly W Cards blog. This one was 70¢ (Big Train was only 50¢) I also got a Hockey card for my name niche PC. Shipping was only 68¢ for the three cards. Buying from Sportlots stores is better on shipping than for the auctions. For some reason auctions there don't combine shipping.

I had forgotten that the cards from this set were slightly larger than standard size at 3.5" x 5" about postcard size. Still nice looking cards. Only 60 cards in the set and not too expensive. I don't think there are any super hard to get cards from this. That is good since it looks like I should get more of these oversized beasts.

1984 Donruss Champions 19 Eddie Murray Orioles

EDITED: To cross-link to Curly W Cards blog for Walter Johnson card from this set.

Washington Wednesday: Have A Coke And A Smile

Have A Coke And A Smile

1981 Topps Coca-Cola Washington Redskins Team Set

Mid to Late January I ordered some small sets from from Larry Fritsch Cards. Included in the order was a set I have been wanting for a while. I think I already had a card or two from this set but it is always nice to have the full thing. For 20 bucks I got the 12 card set of the 1981 Topps Coca-Cola Washington Redskins Team Set. The set consists of 11 player cards and a set title card.

No Number Set Header Title Card
1 Coy Bacon
2 Wilbur Jackson
3 Karl Lorch
4 Rich Milot
5 Art Monk
6 Mark Moseley
7 Mike Nelms
8 Lemar Parrish
9 Joe Theismann
10 Ricky Thomson
11 Joe Washington

 The back of the Art Monk card is not miscut. I just had that card too far over to the edge of my scanner and didn't notice until I was cropping the images. I didn't want to rescan it.

Accompanying A Strive Set Build 69 Style

As a life-long collector it is odd that there are many many (read most of the damn things) Topps Flagship sets that I still need to complete. Now days with the very short printed super high number cards even base set collecting has become impossible. Many collectors seem to start a set build and then wham bamm they are finished in a year or two with little effort. No matter how much it costs to complete or how many high value cards are in the set. Even if there are a bunch of super short printed cards. Well that is what it seems like to me anyway.

One of my big goals, as readers of this blog may know, is to complete the 1965 Topps Baseball set for my Strive for '65 set build. I'm already over a year and a half behind in that goal. Update to the set build. One of the common themes other than purchasing the cards from a Sportlots auction was that I also got some 1969 Topps Baseball cards to help with that set from yet more Sportlots auctions. I had three packages that had the 1965 and 1969 combo, one had some bonus stuff. Well not technically bonus since they were auctions also, they just hitched a ride on the Hippie '60s Trip. Now the cards in no particular order.

First a three card package the '65 was Marty Keough Reds. The two 1969 cards were 25¢ each:

4 NL RBI Leaders: Willie McCovey Giants, Ron Santo Cubs and Billy Williams Cubs

164 World Series 1968 Game 3: (Tim) McCarver's Homer Puts St. Louis (Cardinals) Ahead

Package two contained eight cards from 5 sportlots 25¢ auctions. [First picture at top of this post] I don't recall the distribution by auction of the seven '65 cards, but it resulted in getting one card duplicated. I also got one card I already had (the previous one of course is in better condition). I think it was a case of the needs of more cards outweighing not needing one card. The lone '69 card in this case is:

6 NL Home Run Leaders: Willie McCovey Giants, Richie Allen Phillies and Ernie Banks Cubs.

The final package only had one lone '65 card the Dave Vineyard (at 25¢) it contained a total of 19 cards from 7 different auctions (but yes the same seller) the shipping costs varied but came to $6.73 the auction prices ranged from 25¢ to $4.75. The grand total was $15.98.

The 1969 Topps Baseball: 8 cards 3 auctions two were for multiple cards at 25¢ each auction A's team lot and 2 Yankees, 2 Mets and the third auction was for card #12 at $1.25

12 NL Strike Out Leaders: Bob Gibson Cardinals, Fergie Jenkins Cubs, and Bill Singer Yankees

46 Fritz Peterson Yankees
72 Ron Taylor Mets
127 Kevin Collins Mets
143 Joe Mossek Athletics
195 John Odom Athletics
217 John Donaldson Athletics
313 Bill Robinson Yankees

BONUS CARDS: AKA Not '65 nor '69

1967 Philadelphia Gum Football: 1 card $2.25

120 New York Giants Team Card - Team Logo on front.

1982 Kellogg's 3-D Super Stars Baseball: 9 cards 2 auctions one of 4 cards at 25¢ and one 5 cards $4.75 (includes Parker and Cey). All in excellent condition with only a little bent warping.

9 Fernando Valenzuela Dodgers
25 Carlton Fisk White Sox
28 Robin Yount Brewers
46 Ron Cey Dodgers
48 Dave Parker Pirates
52 Chris Chambliss Dodgers
57 Dwayne Murphy Athletics
63 Vida Blue Giants
64 Eddie Murray Orioles

Card Of The Whenever: A Reprint of a Golden Oldie

1942 Play Ball 1983 Reprint Mel Ott Lifetime Giant

This randomly posted Card of The Whenever is actually a card of two whenevers as it is a reprint of a vintage card I will probably never have in anything above good condition if at all. In the mid 1970s and the early 1980s TCMA (founded in 1976) produced many throwback retro and reprint sets. This card is one of the reprints. The Player represented played for the New York Giants Baseball team, not Football sillies, his entire career and went on to manage them. You know the drill here is the card:

 1942 Play Ball 1983 Reprint 32 Mel Ott NY Giants

(Front and Back)

I am glad that this reprint is pretty true to the original design, no color borders added or colorizing of the original Black and White photo. The back is pretty much inline with the original. Of course the card stock is thinner modern bleached white cardboard and not the old style from the early '40s but you do need to be able to tell the reprint from the originals.

Card of the Whenever: Tommy John 1981 Topps

1981 Topps Baseball: Tommy John

This edition of the Card of The Whenever like most of these posts I will insert at random times. Usually many weeks or possibly months in advance. This particular edition is the third I have written, but who knows in what order it will actually be posted on the blog. I came up with the nifty logo image for this series before writing this post, but by the time this post is published you will have seen the logo already and might be tired of it.

This edition's card is from 1981 Topps Baseball. The Player: Tommy John who is probably best known for the elbow surgery (ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) reconstruction) that bares his name more than his actual career. Mr. John was the first baseball player to undergo the surgery in 1974 he spent the '75 season recovering. Anyway I got this card from a sportlots auction for 25¢ plus $3.14 shipping (it came from Canada with another card I have talked about on this blog previously)

1981 Topps Baseball 550 Tommy John Yankees

(Front and Back)

Baltimore Bop From A RePop

 Stuff For The B-Birds PC

OK so that title might sound strange. I guess it is. I probably should have left it at Baltimore Bop, or called it Baltimore Boogie. Anyway to stretch out my "Dollar" I shook the "Tree" (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). So this past post I showed you Le Expos from Le RePack. Now here are Da Orioles from Da RePack. I promise this is the last post about this particular Dollar Tree Repack Adventure. There were four Baltimore Birds in these two repacks three of them were in the second pack and I already mentioned the Mike Devreaux 1994 Fleer Flair card there. Two of these three are from Fleer and one of those is a Sticker. HA!

1987 Topps 398 Brad Havens Orioles

ACK! Grainy Scanner image

(Front and Back)

1992 Fleer 10 Sam Horn Orioles

(Front and Back)

 1983 Fleer Team Sticker No Number Orioles Cap w/Bird Head and team name

(Front and Back)

While I'm talking about the O's I could have sworn that I had blogged the picture I used at the top of this post before, but I couldn't find it in my Picassa Pic Albums. (ah it was on my regular blog Kirk's Knook) Also I could have sworn that I had mentioned the following Sticker. I'm not sure of when it was produced or any of it's origins other than it was most likely something that was team issued. It measures about 4" x 5.5". The main big logo sticker is just a little bit smaller than true 4" x 4". The back is plain white typical sticker backing paper. The Logo is circa late 1990s around the same time as my Bird Mascot Post Card I blogged about ages ago for Mascot Mondays. Oops it's been forever and a century since I've made one of those.

Expos Extra: Expos From The Repo (Repack)

In my last couple of posts I mentioned the booty I got from a repack adventure at the Dollar store (part 1, part 2). I picked a few cards to highlight in those posts that I thought people would be most interested in seeing. Well now it is time to show some of the cards I was most interested in.

This poker hand of cards (actually I already showed one in part one the Jeff Fassero card) are Expos ancestor cards of my Homie Team The Nationals. I thought about posting these on my Curly W Cards blog, but these guys never actually played in DC so I don't really want to highlight them there. I also considered posting this as a Washington Wednesday post but decided not to for the same reason.

Oooh I just got a good idea (at least it is a good idea for now) I'll call this new type of post Expos Extra. It will be for those older Expos cards of players that never called DC their home (at least at first, I might start slipping and adding guys who transitioned onto the Nats in DC). I think now I can justify showing them off at CWC.

Now for the cards:

1994 Pinacle 355 Ken Hill Expos

(Front and Back)

 1994 Upper Deck 274 Home Field Advantage Larry Walker Expos

(Front and Back)

1984 Topps 503 Elias Sosa Padres
OK so Elias isn't in an Expos Uni. But he was an Expo at one time
(Front and Back)

1984 Topps 390 Tim Raines AS Expos
(Front and Back)

I'll have to make some adjustments to the EE Logo. There are a few things with it I am not totally happy with.