Why Don't You Show Some Cards Already?

First off Hmm it looks like Trading Card Central (TCC) is down for the count. I first noticed, oh geez I think maybe the weekend of April 8th? That card site has had it's ups and downs many times over the years. In part due to the original owner skipping out years ago. He would occasionally pop up on the site and had some kind of arrangement for website renewals to avoid having the site go down every year, five years, or however long website registrations last. I forget what the time periods are as it has been over 10 or 12 years since I last attempted to maintain my own website. I'm pretty sure that TCC was the first trading card forum that I got involved with. I have always liked the way people there were friendly and most were in the hobby for the hobby not to just flip cards and make money as most people seem to want to do now. Some of my Facebook friends I met through TCC and I still keep loose contact with them even though many of them no longer use TCC and in some cases no longer collect trading cards. TCC has never been super high-tech but it used to be an old stand by. For several years I had used the "blog" area of the website for my trading card transactions and mail days before I started up my blogging and continued to blog there even though I eventually was the only one updating their blog there. I stopped detailing my mail days and trades and trading card stuff some years back about 10+ At one time I had started to copy my blog entries there onto a simple word document but stopped doing that after only having copied the first couple of years worth of stuff. I am not sure how many years worth of posts were left to copy over. I also used to make posts about purchases and favorite cards and whatever in the regular forums. I even had a "my collection" thread at one time. That reminds me I often had to repost images that had been on photobucket but I transferred to some other online photo gallery when photobucket started going corporate and having it's own problems and got greedy requiring paid subscriptions for access to actually do anything with the site. 

UPDATE: 20 April. Hey TCC is Back UP! I looked at the blog section over there. My last TCC blog was in early 2019 and the last blog by anyone was near the end of 2019. When I clicked on the link to add an entry I got a "this page isn't working" error. I probably should try to finish that "transfer" of my blogging from there to my word documents. I probably should have started backing up my archives here at blogspot back when I first signed up to blog here. OH Well.

ADDITIONAL UPDATE: 26 April 2023. BIG SIGH! Site is down again. not sure why... Still down as of time of this post's publishing on 30 April 2023.

In other card news over at COMC I have sold 4 cards this year, 2 in Mar and 2 in Apr. Granted 2 were under a buck one just a little over a buck and one a little over 2.5 bucks. The last few years I have sold 1 maybe 2 cards a year over there if that. Been years upon years since I submitted any cards to sell over there. I currently have 156 cards in my inventory over there.

OK so what cards to show?

This duo of cards I have had in a mixed box that has some cards that have been in my "to be blogged about" pile for years. Anyway, they are two copies of the same card. The difference is one of them missed the foil printing phase.

The Card 1993 Topps Stadium Club Baseball 515 Thomas Howard Cleveland Indians.

First the card as it should be:

Next the card that missed the foil lettering printing. 

It can't be seen in the scan but there is the slight indent of what was to be foil printing on the card.

Here they are side-by-side.

Bye Bye Mail-day Tracking Bye Bye Bye

OK so this post story will probably be two-fold. The main subject will be mail days tracking. I guess I'll start with what I used to do up until a little over a year ago. I think I have described the process in detail before so I'll try not to get too deep into this time. Basically until around mid January of last year (2019) I used to keep pretty detailed records of what cards I got in the mail, from where how much I paid for them etc. Since last January I haven't updated any posts or files, but still stupidly have been keeping all the packages and envelopes separate in their piles and marking the outer envelope with the receiving date, but often not keeping track of prices especially the shipping costs. So I have a few boxes of padded envelopes and PWEs with assorted cards that I know exactly when I got them but may or may not have what I paid for them. Sometimes Sportlots sellers include all the details, but often if they do include a packing slip the shipping fees are not listed. Sometimes they don't include anything so there is not even the record of what I paid for the lot or the singles or what have me. At one time I thought about trying to catch up and have a word file with some stuff that came in early 2019 but it is far from complete I think there are 3 or 4 padded envelopes left from January 2019 and some of the other months I have some packages listed here and some PWEs there. So That stuff came to a screeching halt sometime around this January. Except I have still been marking the envelopes with date received.

I used to keep track of all that stuff in two places first on the community site Trading Card Central (TCC) that was my main "storage" area for my mail day posts. I would then cut & paste my TCC post onto Trading Card Zone (TCZ) which a few years back changed it's name to Sports Card University. Sometimes the TCZ version I would tweak some to cater to that forum's platform. Usually I would draft my posts as a MicroSoft Word file or just a plain Windows Notepad file. Sometimes I would save the original file sometimes not. Well now long story short TCC seems to have finally bought the farm and bit the bullet, and formerly TCZ merged with another site to become Sports Card Club. The TCC site seems to be totally dead now (since around early Mar) and Sports Card Club is currently blocked by my work network and I haven't bothered trying to connect when at home.

So yeah I no longer keep detailed records of what I have gotten, when, or from where, or for how much. I can look at my buying history on COMC and Sporlots and Ebay (to some extent) but I'm not going to bother any more. Trying to do my previous card inventory logging delays the organizing and cataloging of my collection too much. So those days of being super detailed (or anal retentive) are over. I still have some records and I have my Check Out My Cards records that I have been meaning to make some "MailDazed From The Pazt" posts with those. I'm stalled on finding the dang Football cards from my very first order that were mostly from the 2009 Donruss Classics football cards. Maybe sometime I'll get around to that and scanning all the cards from my various orders there.

Well that is all that I will talk about that for now lets look at some cards:

OK so I'll show two cards that it turns out I got from a Sportlots order that I received on 19 Jul 2019. Two 2019 Panini Score Football cards both parallels, both Rams. First one is card 296 Todd Gurley Red parallel and the other is card 299 Brandin Cooks Gold parallel. Neither is a serial numbered card. I only know that information from the little paper slip I put in the penny sleeve that one of the cards was in. Part of my old system that sort of ended last year, except I have still marked the envelopes with the date I received things. I could look in my Sportlots buying history to find out about the order but I'm not going to bother.

 2019 Panini: Score Football: 299 Gold Brandin Cooks Los Angeles Rams

 2019 Panini: Score Football: 296 Red Todd Gurley II Los Angeles Rams

I really like the design of the 2019 Score Football. Especially the helmet in the corner. I wish the backs had more complete stats and didn't repeat the front photo. I'd rather have all stats like in the 1960s and 70s Topps monopoly days. I probably have the normal base versions of these cards from my Sports Card Forum (SCF) team trades but I'm not sure. I should also get the Red Cooks and the Gold Gurley to have those rainbows. Oh well a collectors life is never done, or his collection never complete or dead or something.

COTW: 1976 Topps Fred Dryer

It is the end of the year and yep I had the entire month of December to think about and plan for some of the recent goodies I've gotten but procrastination, dilly dallying and being sort of nonchalant about the whole blogging thing has once again gotten in the way of posting.

Let us go back a few years, decades to the mid 1970s  and a defensive end football player for the LA Rams who would go on to have a pretty decent acting career. Fred Dryer and one of his playing days cards. I have a couple of others somewhere but this seems to be the only one I have scanned and that was some time ago before I would photoscape card's orientation and proper cropping.

This could have been one of my BBNB (Blogged But Not Blogged) cards. I forgot about that series for this card's post. (I was looking for a quick and dirty post subject and found the images in my pictures folder) I did a quick check of My Collection posts at TCC but didn't find a post about it. I guess it is better in many ways that I didn't. Most of my posts from over there in that thread have obnoxious "image not available" images from Photobucket, because I haven't updated my account over there and am over the super low minimum memory limit they recently (as in last few months) started enforcing.  To be a little honest if it weren't for some of the email reminders and account warnings I wouldn't even think about Photobucket any more. but I do have some remnant photo images over there to do something with.

1976 Topps Football: 252 Fred Dryer Los Angeles Rams

Blogged But Not Blogged: Roman Gabriel WLAF

This is the type of post that I have probably done many times before, I call this type of post "Blogged, But Not Blogged" at least I will call it that from now on. Long story short since Aug 2007 I have been blogging about my card mail days over at TCC on my blog over there, and since July 2012 duplicating those posts in a mail day thread at the TCZ forums. I started the TCC one partly as an attempt to post trade bait but it morphed into more of a mail day posting board. There are many cards I have mentioned in detail at those sites that I have never blogged about here on what I consider to be my official trading card blog. A few times, mostly in the early days, I mentioned a card in my mail day and even scanned it (at least the front) but never blogged about it over here.*

This is the story of one such card:

On Monday (24 Sept 2007) I received an order from Sportlots.com I was waiting on. A Roman Gabriel 1991 Pro Set World League "Collectible" card #24 (Inserted in 1991 Pro Set NFL packs).

I didn't realize it would be coming from Canada. Anyway I thought it was a card I didn't have but it turns out I had it. I have the full World League Set, but not all of the Inserts to the NFL set which are slightly different thus part of my confusion. My older card had a surprise. Little did I know that what I had always assumed was some odd Gatorade spray caught on film, seems to be some sort of damage to the card. I never thought anything of it because it was the only copy of the card I had and it didn't look like damage. This was before the Internet so I had never seen the image "online" before. Oh well. It appears the "spray" is possibly some kind of low ink or dirty printing plate printing error.

Roman is my fave all-time Rams Quarterback (Down Kurt Warner Down). I was told some years ago that when I was 3 or 4 my family was worried there was something wrong with me because I didn't talk much, so I was sent for testing at an Easter Seals Medical Clinic for hearing tests and other such nonsense. I remember some of those visits, but not this particular story. At the time I didn't know the reasoning of the trips to this particular medical clinic. I just looked at them as any other childhood "trip to the vet doctor", except I recall I didn't like going to these extra ear tests. Apparently my folks thought I might be deaf or have some other physical or maybe mental problem. One of the physicians or maybe an assistant or technician there noticed me doodling pictures of little football men (mostly of a quarterback with the number #18 on his chest), and in talking to me discovered that I was a big Los Angeles Rams fan and that Roman Gabriel (#18) was my favorite QB. Well then they found out I didn't have any physical problem, I was just extremely shy.

The subject card of this post is from the 1991 Pro Set World League of American Football insert set from the 1991 Pro Set NFL card set. On the back by the card number these cards were labeled World League Collectible there are 32 cards total. I mentioned a confusion of these cards because Pro Set produced a 150 card WLAF set. I had bought the set whole in one of those small card boxes that has the outer sleeve of the box over the container box.

ON to the card:

1991 Pro Set Football: WLAF Collectible Insert: 24 Roman Gabriel Head Coach Skyhawks

Original "spray" card

1991 Pro Set Football: WLAF Collectible Insert: 24 Roman Gabriel Head Coach Skyhawks

Regular card

Side by Side

1991 Pro Set WLAF Football: 131 Roman Gabriel Head Coach Skyhawks

* This post is the first one that I drafted for this "Blogged But Not Blogged" series so the introduction is a little longer than other posts in the series. I wasn't sure of the order I would publish them in. As of the 01 April 2018 (now 28 Apr 2018) editing draft of this post two other posts from this series have been published before this one. I have created a "BBNB" label for this series. (OK kids you should be able to figure that one out) I usually cut & paste the original blog or forum posts and then edit and add onto them so things could get a little confusing with these posts. 

For this post the original posting in my "CaptKirk42's Collection" TCC thread (post #21) didn't go into too much detail. So this post is more of a rewrite than a direct copy. The previously posted stories were typical direct copy with some rewriting. It should also be noted that most of the images from the old TCC posts are no longer showing due to Photobucket's change to their third party sharing polices. Free accounts can't do it anymore. So many of these images will be newly uploaded scans, or copies of the original scan/photo. The first 3 images in this post are my original scans. The rest are newly scanned images that I have cropped better and straightened their angles via the free photo editing software "PhotoScape"

Blogged But Not Blogged: Redemption Freed From Fed-Ex Prison

This is the type of post that I have probably done many times before, I call this type of post "Blogged, But Not Blogged". Long story short since Aug 2007 I have been blogging about my card mail days over at TCC on my blog over there, and since July 2012 duplicating those posts in a mail day thread at the TCZ forums. There are many cards I have mentioned in detail at those sites that I have never blogged about here on what I consider to be my official trading card blog. A few times, mostly in the early days, I mentioned a card in my mail day and even scanned it (at least the front) but never blogged about it over here.

This is the story of one such card:

16 Feb 2009:
From TCC Mail Day Forum Post "Finally From Fed-Ex Foulball: A Redemption":

This is quite a story. From the Official TCC Baseball Box Breaking Group I had gotten a redemption card from 2007 SWEET SPOT BASEBALL I don't recall when I logged in the request for it online, but here is it's story.

Back of redemption card

The thing was being delivered via FedEx with SIGNATURE REQUIRED Delivery. Well long story short FedEx attempts to deliver it 3 times when I'm not available.

So about a week or two ago I contact FedEx and take a day off of work (since I had to accept a UPS package with the same sort of deal) and wait. FedEx didn't try delivering that day. The package didn't get on the truck or something. I arrange for a special delivery to my Apartment's Management office on a Friday (which would screw things up some more) only to find that my Management office doesn't sign for any packages, when they had told me on the phone they did.*

I arranged another delivery and take off Monday to wait. Their operator calls in the morning to verify that they will be sending it out and it was on a truck. I wait and wait and wait. When I finally go out to check my regular mail I notice a door tag that says they had attempted to deliver it at 10:00 AM (the other times they had attempted to deliver it was afternoon times 1:30 PM,3:00 PM etc) well I was really really PO'd. I had taken off of work and they try to deliver in the morning around the time I was in the bathroom showering (I should have not showered until after getting the dang thing).

Well I contact them and get directions to their station where they are holding the package. I get there about 15 minutes before they close and they can't find the thing. The system says it's still on the truck. They said they will call me when they find it. Um yeah sure. As it turns out that particular time it was a Manager who had tried to deliver it so it didn't go into the system as it normally would (I found that out today)

Finally today (16 Feb 2009)  I get a call saying the package is waiting and I can pick it up anytime. Fortunately I had the day off for Presidents Day and FedEx was open, that surprised me. OK so I went back out to their station and sprung the package from it's FedEx prison.

I don't have a scan of the card (Not sure when I'll get my scanner hooked back up**) but it is a:

2007 UD Sweet Spots Baseball Dual Signatures of Alex Gordon Royals and Cal Ripken Jr. Orioles Glove Leather black sharpie 4/5.

This puppy ain't going anywhere (Cal Ripken Jr PC) so don't ask to trade for it. Not sure what it's BV is or if it is even listed as having one.

UPDATE: 26 NOV 2009 Added the scan. Hadn't gotten round to posting the scan here (meaning TCC as this is a cut/paste copy of my original post there), but it has been in my Photobucket# for a few months.

From TCC Blog post "Redemption Freed From Fed-Ex Prison":

After a long game of cat and mouse with FedEx delivering the package with "REQUIRED SIGNATURE" I finally got my redemption. In the mail day page  I gave most of the horrid details of trying to get the thing. (as reposted up above) Anyway it is:

2007 UD SWEET SPOT BASEBALL Sweet Spot Dual Signatures

ALEX GORDON (Royals) and CAL RIPKEN JR (Orioles)

Glove Leather Black Sharpie #4/5

Not bloody likely for trade at anytime. If I ever get around to finding a price for it, I might consider selling if I like the price, or if someone offers a really ridiculous amount for it.

Notes:
* When I first moved into my Apartment 01 Aug 2008 the management office would accept and sign for packages for tenants and then notify them of the package. I think by a notice shoved onto your door. They quickly stopped sometime within my first few months of living at the apartment complex. Looks like I was in my apartment for just 6 months when this package arrived. Update since around the holidays of last year (2017) the leasing office accepts some FedEx packages on behalf of residents now.

** Wow I had forgotten I had gone a while (several months it seems) without my scanner hooked up. I probably hooked it up shortly after this mess. I still don't have a printer hooked up, or my regular stereo set up. I have been in my apartment for nearly 10 years (come Aug 01). Yeah 10 years without a printer and a stereo. I print stuff at work when I need to and scan papers there. The lack of stereo only means I can't play vinyl records. I have portable and other tape and CD players to use. I don't listen to music as intently or as often as I used to several years ago. Those are stories for another time if at all.

# Photobucket has banned free 3rd party hosting. So any attempt at linking images at PB look like this:

This image is intentional this time only. If it appears anyplace else on my blog it is not intended.

COTW: AAGPBL Maddy English

1994 Ted Williams Baseball 95 Maddy English AAGPBL Racine Belles

You guessed it, it is the end of the month and I didn't have anything prepared so I am rushing something out to make my self-appointed blogging quota of at least one post per month. Fortunately for this month I sill have a few images that I have uploaded to the photo album of this blog that I haven't blogged about here. I scanned this card and talked about elsewhere. I had posted this card sometime last year I think over at the TCC forum in one of those all-out contests where contestants show off cards they have that fit a certain category as picked by the contest holder/judge and then usually forum members vote on which they think is the best. I came in third over all I think. I forget what the category was, maybe female athletes, but this is one of the cards I posted. A few years back I used to use my photobucket to post pics on the forums, but I don't use "the bucket" much any more. I mainly just keep it as an alternate storage space. At that time I started using the albums from the blogger blogs since I could then easily blog about any cards I posted on the forums, or blog about something first then post on the forums.

So here we go a single card from the 1994 Ted Williams Baseball set. I may have blogged about this set before or the Ted Williams card company that made the set. If not you can Google the card company (or Bing if people Bing anymore). It is one of the seven cards from the "Women of Baseball" subset that features key players from the AAGPBL (All American Girls Professional Baseball League) the woman's league featured in the movie A League of Their Own about women's baseball during WWII.

 1994 Ted Williams Baseball 95 Maddy English AAGPBL Racine Belles

(Front and Back)

Warehouse 13 Myka Sketch Card

One of my favorite TV shows will come to an end later this spring shortly after returning to the Sci-Fi channel (spelled with two "y"s and no "c") for a 5th and final season of only Six episodes. Warehouse 13 a well written adventure series often with witty tongue in cheek humor reminds many of the late 1980s show Friday The 13th: The Series (in recent years renamed "Friday's Curse" to avoid confusion with the horror movies of the same name). One of the characters on Warehouse 13 Myka Bering played by Canadian actress Joanne Kelly fast became one of my faves on the show. So...

Back in November of last year (Thursday 21 November, 2013 to be exact) I had a two card mailday. As many might know by now I keep track of my maildays on my TCC blog. I got this card by sniping on Ebay, in this case I really really wanted the card. I started watching it, and was nervous about it because it was getting some bids and creeping toward my comfortable maximum bid (as is the case with many sketch cards that often "start" at too high a price for me to even consider bidding). About a day or two before the end of the auction it had 6 bids and was at $15.50 many more bids and it would be out of my comfort zone. The Final night I watched it periodically for updates and in the last few minutes kept checking it and refreshing my browser then when it was down into the final minute I bid my max of $35 and for about 40 seconds I was worried another sniper would come by, the ones that use the sniping software and don't have to watch the auction at all because their program bids at the last second or two. Fortunately for me I had the winning bid. The 7th bid at $21.50. I thought the shipping had been set to $3.50 but it showed up as Free Shipping in "My Ebay". I was really glad I won the auction for this beautiful sketch of a beautiful woman.

The Artist Javier Gonzalez of Blackhilt Studios I think was also the seller under the Ebay handle Blackhilt Studios. The card was listed as an ACEO (Art Cards Editions and Originals) sketch card.

 2013 Blackhilt Studios Sketch Card by Javier Gonzalez

Joanne Kelly as Myka Bering (Warehouse 13)

(Front and Back)

Washington Wednesday: Wes Unseld Hall Monitor

WASHINGTON WEDNESDAY: Wes Unseld Hall Monitor

In early January of this year 2014. I bought this sweet shiny card from a fellow member form the TCC forums for just $5 delivered. A Wes Unseld Bullets card number 22 It is from the 2013 Panini Prizm Basketball set The "Hall Monitors" 25 card Hall of Fame Sub-Set. I might try for a partial rainbow of Wes Unseld but with two 1/1 "black parallels" (Black Prizm and Black Prizm Mosaic) a full rainbow is next to impossible. There are enough of the other colors to make even a partial rainbow hard. I might try to get the base cards (and maybe some parallel colors) of a few of the other players: Moses Malone, Earl Monroe. Not sure if I'll try for a full base set of this sub-set.

 2013 Panini Prizm Basketball: Hall Monitors 22 Wes Unseld Bullets

(Front and Back)

Washington Wednesday: A Bullet in Triplicate

A Bullet in Triplicate

It has been quite a while since I've done one of these (somehow that sentence seems to be used a lot around this blog and for semi-regular segments like this one). OK so I had to check the old TCC blog archives for the details on this catch. In one of my insane Sportlots auction splurges I came across this 1990 Fleer Basketball Update U-97 Pervis Ellison Bullets card.

As you can see from the image under the WW Masthead I got not just one copy, not just two but THREE copies of Mr. Ellison's 1990 Fleer Basketball Update card. I wish I could say that each was a slight variation but no they are all standard base cards. I debated a little bit as to whether or not I should pull the trigger and get this trio and finally decided what the hay, even though I am not concentrating on Basketball cards much. ON that note I did just recently get a huge package of some mostly 1990s Bullets/Wizards cards from the blogiverse. That could be the next installment of WW, I'm not sure yet these things usually end up being random.

So the sordid details of this purchase I received it on Tuesday 19 Feb 2013 from Sportlots.com as I mentioned earlier. It was one auction for the three cards so there wasn't much of a choice, unless I had searched for the card individually and for Basketball I do that very rarely. I got them for the opening 1-2-3 bid of .25¢ + $2.50 shipping. I don't recall what type of package they came in as it was over two months ago and I have since received many many card packages and some card PWEs.

Anyway here is the card in all it's single glory:

1990 Fleer Basketball Update U-97 Pervis Ellison Bullets

(Front and Back) 

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).