TCDB Trade With A Canuck

 Hello and welcome to my standard "I don't know what I'm going to post about" post, until I come up with something that is fairly easy to scan and yack about.

Since I only have about a dozen regular readers and one or two regular commenters , no one but me would notice if I skipped a month in posting. I have made several posts about my self-regulating posting quota of at least one post per month, per blog.

Long story short this post might end up being one of my worst posts with very very minimal views. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I'm not sure but I might have to sometime soon think about reevaluating my collection and draw a line somewhere about acquiring "new" cards. There are just too many things currently in the industry that take away the fun of collecting. One of the many things is the endless and pointless parallels. It seems every card now needs to have at least a dozen parallels. Now sometimes it is fun to collect the variants and go for the "rainbow" but usually it is just another gimmick to fall for. Cheap in the sense that it is low quality or literally no brainer as in it takes no brain to come up with the idea. However it is expensive in the fact that it adds to the overall cost of the cards and sometimes adds in the materials used to make the cards.

Well that didn't solve a damned thing.

Alright so I had a recent trade with a member over at TCDB from Canada. The trader supposedly originally sent the cards within a day or two of the trade being confirmed, but a week or two later he sent me a message saying the cards had been returned because the stamp fell off, so he resent. I didn't complain because Canada. About a week or two later the cards finally arrive. Sent  of course via PWE with a stamp. There was thin cardboard from a "Coors Light" box nicely painter's taped around a 3 pocket section from a 9 card sheet. I noticed the stamp cancellation was 3 days before arrival, so his sending time honesty wasn't entirely accurate. Again no complaints everything was safe. I sent five Topps 1978 Battlestar Galactica cards, the last of my original dupes from that set for 6 hockey cards (I might already have some of the Caps cards but didn't have them marked in my collection online) and a 1978 Topps Superman: The Movie card I needed for my set (a card I thought I had, maybe I have the sticker with the same photo). My ship out day was a week after the trade confirmation because the trade was confirmed on a Saturday afternoon.

Here are the cards I got.

1991-92 Upper Deck Hockey 41 Ken Hodge Boston Bruins

1991-92 Upper Deck Hockey 402 Ken Baumgartner New York Islanders

1991-92 Upper Deck Hockey 585 Donald Audette Buffalo Sabres

1994-95 Parkhurst Hockey 254 Dale Hunter Washington Capitals

1992-93 Pro Set Platinum Hockey 242 Dimitri Khristich Washington Capitals

1990-91 Upper Deck Hockey 109 Kevin Hatcher Washington Capitals

1978 Topps Superman: The Movie 10 Marc McClure as Jimmy Olsen with puzzle back

Last Post Of The Year: All Capitals

 Well it is that time of the month again, and in addition that time of the year. Goodbye 2022 and Hello 2023.

 OK so a quick one this lot of cards came from a Trading Card Database member as a PIF (Pay It Forward) which is TCDBs form of a random act of kindness or as I like to call them "Random Act of Cardness" (RAC). The member sent me 9 Washington Capitals Hockey cards from my want list at the database.

Here they are as a group:

1991-92 Score Hockey:

20 Kevin Hatcher

128 Dino Ciccarelli

1997-98 Pinnacle Hockey:

24 Jan Bulis Rookie

1998-99 Pacific Paramount Hockey:

244 Sergei Gonchar

2000-01 Topps Heritage Hockey:

5 Olaf Kolzig

52 Adam Oates

112 Jeff Halpern

168 Chris Simon

214 Sergei Gonchar

The 2 Score cards

The 5 Topps Heritage cards

The Art Of The Sweep

When I started the draft for this post the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs were in full motion. The Finals series to determine the 2019 Champions between the St. Louis Blues

and the Boston Bruins

was just beginning. So yeah this post draft had a full length playoff beard that almost rivals Rip Van Winkle's beard. The Final Series is long long over and the St. Louis Blues won the Stanley Cup.

Their fourth time in the Final Series and now their first WIN.

Among many things that were interesting about this season's playoffs was the results of the Eastern Conference Champions Road to victory.

The Boston Bruins representing the Eastern Conference had a somewhat normal road to the Cup Finals.

In round one the Bruins beat the Maple Leafs in 7 games.

Then for round 2, in 6 games they beat the Blue Jackets.

Who had swept the Tampa Bay Lightning round 1.

The Bruins then swept the Carolina Hurricanes.

Who in round one beat my Washington Capitals,

then in round 2 swept the New York Islanders

who had swept the Pittsburgh Penguins in round 1.

I just find that a neat sort of pattern.

Now is the time on Sprockets when we dance.

Note: The cards I showed here were totally picked at random. Most of them were in the same semi-unsorted box. The box is only sorted somewhat by sport and/or set.

Secret Santa: 2018 Haul

Several of the Trading Card Blogging Brethern participated in a Secret Santa Gift Exchange this holiday season. A big thank you to Jon of A Penny Sleeve for Your Thoughts for managing the misfit gang o' traders this year. To see my pirate booty from last year you can follow this link. Any how for this year I had shipped out my Secret Santa package of Bo Soax to Shane of Off The Wall early in the month on Saturday 08 December. Then the next Monday 10 December I received my S. Santa package.

Secret Santa package showing inside note and team bags.

I opened the package carefully, trying not to see the cardboard goodies inside, in search of a note or card that ID'd my S. Santa.

Secret Santa Note

I caught a glimpse of some of the front and back cards of the two team bags that were waiting inside. I waited until Christmas Eve before I opened the team bags to see Exactly what was inside. What was inside? A Rock! NO NO NO WRONG HOLIDAY CHARLIE BROWN! Right there were two team bags one Filled with Some B'More O's and the other filled with a Mix of Washington Teams with a Sweet Walter Johnson card showing on the top.

My Secret Santa was Adam of Cardboard Clubhouse and he sent a nice batch of Washington and B'More cards. In total there were 44 cards and one card sized book. The team breakdown is 22 Orioles (1 was a logo), 23 Washington cards of Baseball, Football and Hockey: 4 Senators, 2 Redskins, 2 Capitals and 15 Nationals (1 in team USA uniform, 1 Notre Dame Uniform?).

Lets see the cards shall we? Starting with the Orioles stuff.

Top Row: 1982 Topps 232 Terry Crowley
1986 Topps 365 Mike Flanagan
1987 Topps 120 Eddie Murray
Middle Row: 1989 Topps 757 Brady Anderson
2016 Topps Heritage (1967 Topps Design) 669 Mychal Givens
2016 Topps Heritage (1967 Topps Design) 125 Zach Britton
Bottom Row: 2017 Topps Heritage (1968 Topps Design) 159 J.J. Hardy
2015 Panini Donruss: The Rookies: 13 Christian Walker
2012 Topps Archives: (1954 Topps Design) 32 Adam Jones

Top Row: 1989 Sportflics 134 Craig Worthington
2012 Topps 125 Adam Jones
Bottom Row: 1990 Fleer: Sticker: Baltimore Orioles Team Logo
2015 Topps Update: All Star Game: US159 Darren O'Day

2018 Topps Big League: 44 Trey Mancini - This is my first Big League card a big thanks to Adam for it.
2018 Topps 587 Chris Davis
2016 Topps Update US182 Hyun-Soo Kim

Front and back of Collect-A-Book

1991 Impell JBC Collect-A-Books 9 Ben Mcdonald

A Winning Hand of Cal Ripken Jr.s

1994 Topps Team Stadium Club Finest: 8 of 12
1991 Topps: 150
2016 Panini Donruss: 181
2015 Topps: Highlight of the Year: H-27 Final Season Appearance 2001
1989 Topps: Big: 286

Now we get into the Washington Stuff:

REDSKINS

1988 Topps 8 Doug Williams
2018 Panini Classics: 190 Clinton Portis

CAPITALS

1991 Pro Set: 511 Peter Bondra
1993 Stadium Club 234 Keith Jones

SENATORS
A few reprints and retro cards.

2010 Topps Update (Thank God for TCDB never would have known it was from the update set): Vintage Legends Collection: VLC-50 Walter Johnson - Front 1951 Topps Design.
2011 Topps 1916 Sporting News CMGR Reprint CMGR-19 Walter Johnson
1911 Turkey Red T3 Reprints (reprint date unknown argh 1982 Renata Galasso?):
99? Walter Johnson with Turkey Red Add on back
No 15 Norman Arthur "Kid" Elberfield

NATIONALS

Top Row: 2015 Topps: 207 Bryce Harper
2018 Donruss: 192 Bryce Harper "Mondo" variant
2018 Topps Heritage: 1969 Design: 230 Ryan Zimmerman
Middle Row: 2016 Topps Heritage: 1967 Design: 73 Jonathan Papelbon
2016 Topps Heritage: 1967 Design: 518 Jayson Werth
2016 Topps Bowman: BP140 Chris Bostick
Bottom Row: 2015 Donruss: 178 Jordan Zimmermann
2016 Topps: Washington Nationals Team Set: WN-15 Matt Den Dekker
2009 Upper Deck Baseball Series 2: 947 Shairon Martis RC

Top Row: 2017 Topps: 327 Danny Espinosa
2018 Topps: 355 Joe Ross
Middle Row: 2015 Topps Allen & Ginter: 106 Yunel Escobar
2015 Topps Allen & Ginter: 266 Drew Storen
Bottm Row: 2011 Contenders: Draft Ticket: DT88 Brian Dupra in Notre dame Uniform?
2015 Panini Donruss: USA Collegiate National Team: 13 Nicholas Banks USA team Uniform

Something Is Gonna Break.

???

OK I will be a bit mysterious for now. In a day or so I will bust open a box of cards I got recently. I will then post some scans of the box break; the box, a pack, a sample of a base card, some or all of the inserts and of course all the hits. I plan on doing a review of what it is and give a little backstory of how it came to be. Actually how I got my grubby little hands on it. I might just end up giving away all the cards, or at least a good portion of them.

Why the mystery? Why not? Seriously though it is mostly just to insure I get a December post or two in on this blog. Also being a bit mysterious with a planned future post tends to get more people to read a blog, or get them excited about it a little.

In the meantime here is An Alex Ovechkin card I haven't shown. I got it from a group box break. I don't recall exactly when, but I think it was one of the last hockey ones I was in earlier this year. I cut back on all the breaks I was participating in. Now-Days I am only in one Baseball break that is taking December off. I may or may not continue with that one. I like group breaks but it just gets too expensive to stay in them month after month, especially if you are in more than just one or two. Plus the groups tend to repeat some of the products they bust, or they bust stuff you really don't want, or they only bust the high end stuff and your team is rarely in the expensive 5 cards or less 1 pack boxes. I digress.

Notice this card is one of those plastic acetate "see through" cards. Well it looks like it's white but that is the background of my flatbed scanner, actually the padding on the underside of the scanner cover. I tend not to like this type of card, but this one has grown some on me. At least it isn't a die-cut one with weird angles and shapes.

 2012-13 Panini Rookie Anthology Hockey: Intensity Elite Acetate:

I-16 Alex Ovechkin Capitals #258/500

(Front and Back in front of scanner's white background)

???

Washington Wednesday: On A Saturday I must be CRAZY

OK so this probably should be a Washington Wednesday episode, but it isn't because I needed a "quick and dirty" post for the end of this month (Feb) to keep up with my minimum of one post a month. I don't seem to have scanned the back of it whenever I did scan the thing. It is blank anyway. I thought I had mentioned it at one time, maybe it was only on my trading card forum blogs I mentioned it. Oh well So on with what you really want to see:

1979-1980 Topps Hockey Mini Poster - 16 Washington Capitals Team

I got this from Ebay I think for incredibly cheap, meaning $10 or less probably more like $5 or less. These mini-posters were included folded up as an insert in the regular 1979-80 Topps Hockey Card packs I believe. It is the size of four standards cards. Mine is in pretty good condition I don't think there are any tears or holes on the crease folds. If there are they are very tiny. I'd like to get the other 15 from this set eventually but it is not a huge priority.

Washington Wednesday: 3 Caps and a Joe

Three Caps and a QB

OK first there is still time (I've had to extend it numerous times) to enter my Group Box Break. Just Five more slots (halfway home) and I can make it a real break and not have to break down to Plan B. Do I have to get down on my knees? Do I have to even say what evil diabolical scheme Plan B really is? I don't think you want to know, I don't want to know and I know what it is. It might involve sacrificing some cards to the cardboard gods do you want that to happen? Anyway on to the real subject of this post.

A while back I had gotten some cards from a blog draft that Shane over at Shoebox Legends held. It was loads of fun... hmm I might try doing one of those sometime. I got a bunch of cards from it many of which were my first few choices and excellent additions to my PC. Over at TCC I blogged about what I had gotten I really should gather the cards for a group scan. *Say Cheese!* I got some homie cards out of it (including a couple of Nationals that will be mentioned sometime on my Curly W Cards blog).

 2008-9 Upper Deck Hockey Series 2 Young Guns

499 Karl Alzner Capitals

(Front and Back)

Ack the Capitals haven't done too well so far in this abbreviated 2012-2013 Season (really only 2013 Season now). They just lost their home opener to the Winnipeg Jets 4-2. Their first opening home loss since 2000. UGH! 0-2 now.

 2009-10 Upper Deck Hockey Series 1 Young Guns

235 Michal Neuvirth Capitals

(Front and Back)

These other two cards I had gotten from TCC from a forum members package "Chain" that I had started, based on a previous package chain. I'm sure you are familiar with the concept (I think there is some sort of Blog Chain going around but I'm not sure since I'm not in all the blogsphere/blogiverse circles). Basically a collector ships out a package to another collector that is on a predetermined list he created of participants. Upon receiving the package the second collector takes the cards he wants (if any) and replaces the cards he took with other cards, he then sends the package (the remainder of the original contents plus what he added) to a third collector and so on until the last person on the list sends the package back to the original sender. It is sort of like a multiple-team trade. Not many cards in the batch but a few for my PC and then a few cards to add to the next chain package.

Amongst the cards in the chain for my PC were this last Capital Auto card. I tried to adjust the brightness/contrast/gamma to make it better viewable online but since it is one of those chrome silver refractor type cards it doesn't scan to well to begin with and in real-life is pretty dark as well. And yes the autograph is hard to see in reality.

 1999-2000 BAP Millenium Signature Autograph

244 Jamie Huscroft Capitals

(Front and Back)

And this vintage 1970s Redskins card. 

 1978 Topps Football 416 Joe Theismann Redskins

(Front and Back)

Well that is it until next time. If you have some Washington sports team (Redskins, Nationals, Senators, Capitals, Bullets, Wizards) cards you want to get rid of you can always send them to me (I even do Orioles and Ravens a bit as well).