Introducing Maildazed From The Pazt

Maildazed From The Pazt: A NEW blog Feature

Introduction and Logo Key

Sometime in 2015 while contemplating my naval massive backlogged "to blog about sometime" queue/pile/boxes/hoard of cards I came up with an idea. Dangerous I know. I have many large lots of cards from mail-days gone by that still haven't been sorted into my collection. My collection is a bunch of small groups of sometimes related cards that should be a massive organized and well oiled trading card machine. Sometimes I have an accurate record of where, when and who they came from. Most times I have no idea. Yeah a massive lot of them have been sitting for years and years waiting to be blogged about. I know there are still some sets I'm itching to blog about and show off, but haven't gotten around to them. Some of them other bloggers have beaten me to the punch. There are also many cards that sadly will never be mentioned at all. Some of those at one time were in the "to blog about" queue but I decided to remove them from the queue. All these problems are due to this long queue line and being too damn proficient at procrastinating and letting things get out of hand. What should be a small effort is a super monumental task. Ultimately if I could just get everything completely organized THEN I could comfortably blog about stuff better. I would also feel better about trading and knowing what I had for trade. Did I mention the time it takes to scan stuff that delays things as well? Along with procrastinating on the scanning. There was also something about being organized. Whatever that is.

In the alleys and backwoods of the card forums I frequent. I have mail day threads and blogs where I post about what I got and usually from where or who and sometimes how much it cost me. The accuracy is not always detailed but generally good to OK. In 2007 shortly after joining the TCC site I started a blog there on their blog system. It started off as a place to post what I had for sale/trade, but morphed into a mail day blog. Now I am the only one who "blogs" there at all. Most people post their mail days in the specific Mail Day board there and show their scans/photos on the Show and Tell board. I seriously need to make sure all my entries from the blogging area are saved elsewhere because TCC has had some long downtime periods and since I'm the only one blogging there they might decide to close that section down sometime or the site will disappear. My saving effort is barely started with maybe two years worth of the 11 years of posts I have there.

Details of what I had gotten are pretty fuzzy for the early days. I didn't always have all the info sometimes didn't even bother mentioning how much I spent on the cards or left off the specific date received and there are way too many times I didn't keep up with the posting so I had to do a recap to catch up. Some stuff slipped through the cracks at that point. Card lots of 30 or more cards I only mentioned by number or just a selective group of maybe up to two dozen cards if I mentioned them at all. I've had to do recaps in recent months also. Those recaps are often from a couple of months of slacking time. There is usually enough info to scrap together an almost interesting post about a small or sometimes large lot of cards. I can also just show the dang cards which is what I usually end up doing with no story

Often when I mention my mail days elsewhere I clearly remember doing so and telling the tale of that particular card, set, or lot of cards. Then when thinking of something to post for this my regular blog I think "Well I've already talked about that card" when in fact I haven't. Not here, there yes, but here NO. Thus my "Blogged But Not Blogged" feature. Many times I haven't even cataloged the card in my Zistle collection lists, [this shows how long this particular post has been in the draft queue], or my Trading Card Database list. Sadly Zistle is now owned by Beckett and in danger of being a thing of the past. For the most part I have stopped adding to it.

Sometimes I've scanned just the front of a card. In the early days the front was all I scanned. Sometimes I still only scan the front if I think I won't talk about that card in great detail or it is part of a huge set that I can only show off a few cards of at any one time. Then when I look to add a scan somewhere I see the card and think that all is well with this blogiverse when it obviously is not. So I am often very wrong and I'm doomed. Doomed I Say! It's Hopeless! We're Doomed!

I often wonder if I should attempt yet another blog and make it exclusively mail day info? Hmm? I only have 11 years worth of TCC blogging to copy/transfer over. Seems like 100 or 1,000 though. The problem with that is eventually the mail day blog would become another blog that I would have to make at least one post per month on. I already have 3 blogs with that self appointed task. Some months I barely get something up.

OK enough background exposition talk lets get on with the showing off of cards. Heck since this is the first one of these let me just do the dang Logo Key: Some of the links below the thumbnails of the cards lead to a post on my Curly W Cards blog.

OK so this is the original colored scan logo I had intended to use.

As you can see in three of the corners there is part of an envelope or package those are for the background. I have since recycled them so I'm not sure who they would have come from. I made this logo shortly before or at the time I got the idea to identify the cards in these logos I put on my blogs. At the time some of those cards I had just gotten in the mail but the majority of the cards shown here are from a pazt maildaze from a checkoutmycards (often referred to only as COMC) order of 44 cards. Technically it was my second order from there, but my first order ever from there was wiped from their database when they redid their website a few years back (after being sued by the Big B). Some cards there still only have partial information. I plan on detailing the 44 card order in this feature sometime. It should be one of the in process posts in my draft queue. I have only ordered from COMC 4 times. Actually only "shipped" 4 times I currently have 7 cards I have bought in the last year that are in the "to be shipped" area of my dashboard there. I would order more often but you have to add rickin' frickin' money to your membership "store credit" account kitty.

ROW 1:

1976 Sugar Daddy Sports World (Series 2): FOOTBALL: 4 Sonny Jurgensen Redskins

1956 Topps Baseball: 49 Pedro Ramos RC Nationals

1959 Topps Baseball: 74 Directing The Power: Jim Lemon, Cookie Lavagetto, Roy Sievers Senators

1959 Topps Baseball: 465 Baseball Thrills: Sievers Sets Homer Mark Roy Sievers Senators

ROW 2:

1962 Topps Baseball: 88 Ralph Houk MGR Yankees (Yogi Berra in background)

1969 Topps Baseball: 650 Ted Williams MGR Senators

1967 Topps Baseball: 348 Tug McGraw Mets

1965 Topps Baseball:  574 Roy Sievers Senators

1955 Topps Baseball:  48 Bob Kennedy Orioles

1955 Topps Baseball: 13 Fred Marsh Orioles

ROW 3:

1968 Topps Baseball Game Insert: (Back) 9 Brooks Robinson Orioles

1972 Topps Baseball: Traded: 754 Frank Robinson Dodgers 

1973 Topps Baseball: 30 Tug McGraw Mets

1973 O-Pee-Chee Baseball: (Back) 30 Tug McGraw Mets

I am working on posts for my COMC orders so those will most likely be the next few "MFTP" posts. My last COMC order was 2 years ago. I have a huge watch list over there and about 7 purchased cards waiting to be shipped. I want to make a huge dent in purchasing my watch list before having any more cards shipped.

Four Cards For Less Than Four Bucks Fishing On Bay

This post is going to be one of those that I will duplicate on my Curly W Cards blog because it is has some Nationals. The post over there will be slightly different so it will not be a true cut and paste or just plain link up deal.

OK so from Ebay I had bought some cards from one seller each card at 99¢ with Free Shipping. Four cards total two of which are Nationals players in a Nats Uniform.

Lets just get on with the cards I will make some comments about them after showing them.

2000 Fleer Skybox 1 Cal Ripken Jr. Orioles

(Front and Back)

Hows that for planing the first card being shown is card number 1. OK so I didn't plan it that way, I planned it going in chronological order and of these four cards I'm showing This Ripken from 2000 lands first.

2005 Donruss Zenith 162 Nick Johnson Nationals

(Front and Back)

When I saw this card I just had to have it. I don't recall coming across the Zenith brand from Donruss before, maybe I did but this Nick Johnson card is the only Zenith card I have. I plan on getting at least all the Nationals and Orioles from the set, and eventually the entire set of 250 cards. I like the simple yet complex design. It seems that the Zenith brand was only produced in 2005.

These next two cards and the final half of the four are from the same set 2008 Topps Allen & Ginter's. Yes most people just say Allen and Ginter or simply abbreviate to A&G but as long as Topps includes the apostrophe es I will label it that way (or just A&G or A and G)
 

 

2008 Topps Allen & Ginter's 212 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 19th Century Composer

(Front and Back)

This is one of those cards from A&G that either makes you love the sets or hate them. The Non-Sport and more to the point Non-Baseball card. The A&G brand is primarily a baseball set but technically is an All-Sport all inclusive set since it has the Non-Sport as well. I personally like the Non-Baseball cards as well as the Baseball.

2008 Topps Allen & Ginter's 271 Paul Lo Duca Nationals

(Front and Back)

Paul Lo Duca is one of those players that only spent one season, actually only part of a season, with my beloved Nationals but he quickly became a favorite. 

I was going to post my CWC post simultaneously with this one but I will now wait till this one is published so I can link to it.

Organizing Some Random Thoughts

A while back now, in reading a post about organization from a fellow card blogger Mike (member of TCC and a Facebook Pal) on his card blog, he also has a comics/toy collecting blog which was his original catch-all blog, I was reminded of an organizing rant post I did in November of last year (2012). His dilemma is frighteningly similar to mine. Years and years of having cards in boxes (or elsewhere) not organized or semi-organized and needing to be put in binders or displayed in someway. Apparently we are not alone in being overwhelmed by a hoard of cards. Colby over at Cardboard Collections  sometimes feels defeated. Oh and for those who didn't know Greg The Night Owl is NOT a pack rat (but he might play one on TV) here is his proof.  I'm not either, but I don't have any proof to disprove it yet. I'm lazy and organizationally challenged. Ironically when I was a kid I was a neat freak, I think public school corrupted me. So being disorganized can sometimes be a common enough feeling.

In my previous post (mentioned in the paragraph above) the first part was another kind of rant when I was in a bit of a funk about the hobby and wondering "Why?" then I settled down some and talked about an idea I have had for a while, but is not very practical. 

The idea was this: Have a service company that will sort and organize your cards for you. The basic premise is for collectors to send their collection, or the unorganized part of their collection they want/need organized with instructions on how they want it organized (by brand/by year/by team or whatever). The service then sorts the cards and puts them in boxes or binders based on the instructions, and service level purchased. It would probably make extra money selling the supplies or at least the binders, or heck supplies cost could be figured into the processing/organizing fee.

This would not be a grading/authorizing/verification/slabbing service there are plenty of those kinds of services. I haven't thought all the details out on if graded cards would or could be entered into the mix, probably not.

An obvious problem would be the cost of shipping cards in those volumes. More so on the company sending out the neatly organized collection in spiffy new binders (or boxes). Keeping a huge inventory of all the needed supplies would initially be a pain: Having a large inventory of the right kind of binder, the binder pages, penny sleeves toploaders, card boxes.

Then there is the space needed while organizing. A nice clear table large enough to hold a bunch of cards and some assorted supplies. There might have to be some sort of limit to the number of cards sent to be organized at a time "x" number of 5000 card monster boxes worth.

For right now I need to actually start doing all the sorting, organizing and proper storing of my own card hoard first. I have a problem of knocking down card piles and having to restack them and in the process their original "order that they came in" gets totally messed up. Someone else blogged about knocking over leaning pile towers of cards some months back sorry I forget who it was. Messy unorganized apartments don't help either.

hmm. I stumbled upon this link: "How to Organize Your Trading Cards" It is a "Simple" guide to organizing your cards too simple. Sadly it is way too simple and looks to be geared toward beginning collectors not seasoned collectors that are re-organizing for the zillionth time. There are other "similar" links including this one: "How to Organize Baseball Cards". Again not really for seasoned collectors ((Sigh!))

Another problem I have that contributes to my collection not being totally organized is my backlog of neat and fascinating cards and oddball sets that I have waiting in the wings to be blogged about. I have one set that I started a post about. I don't remember when I first wrote it up. I have updated it several times, and I still need to get the cards scanned. I had to add the set to zistle since it was such an oddball set.

Related Links:
How to Store and Organize Trading Cards
5 Easy Steps to an Organized Sports Card Collection *


*This seems to be the best advice I've seen yet. I already do some of what is mentioned in the article.

**Sorry for the blurry pics they were quick and dirty shots taken with my webcam handheld.

Random card thoughts

Sometimes I get into a little bit of a blogging funk and think "Why bother"? Any cards that I get, unless they truly are 1/1s, are just one of thousands, maybe tens of thousands and are most likely going to already be blogged about somewhere, or part of a preview review of some product that is coming out. The one thing that keeps me going when thinking like that is the thought that my take on the individual card is unique. I might be the only one who actually likes a particular card or set out of the hundreds (or is it thousands?) of card bloggers out in the blogiverse (Blogsphere to most).

I don't do those custom jobbers like some bloggers do. Well I don't normally make custom cards, I do have a digital one (front only) as part of some of my logos. I wonder how many of them (the custom cardmaker bloggers) actually print-out their creations? Or do they just keep them digital like E-Topps sort of was mostly? 

I do know that there are some super popular trends, or at least continual trends of the card manufacturers that I really can not stand *cough*rip cards*cough*. I could list them here but I don't want to offend any of my two or three regular readers that may like those particular trends.

**Sigh** Negative thinking often reminds me that most of my collection right now resembles a hoarders nest. I know what I want to do with most of it but gettting motivated to do it and taking the time it will take to do it is one of the things I lack right now. Oh and Yes I do use zistle.com (My Zistle) I am far from having EVERYTHING listed there.

Sometimes I wish there was an organizing company that you could ship a box of cards to with instructions on how you like your cards organized and they will sort and organize and put your cards into binders for you, or whatever containers you prefer. If I knew I could make money off doing that and "retire" from my regular job I would maybe consider doing something like that.That whole concept however would be impractical and would cost tons to ship the cards and then you would have to wait for your cards to be returned, and insure your treasure for tons and determining how long it would take to organize and... Oh it just wouldn't work out for anyone. Or would it? Getting fellow collectors to help you organize wouldn't work either because they would be envious of some of your collection and pester you for some of them. Some more devious collectors might even try to "palm" some cards off of you. OK forget I said any of that organization stuff.

OK now just to keep up with the randomness of this post here are some random cards (fronts only):

1972 Topps Baseball 11 Bobby Valentine Dodgers

 1976 Topps Football 145 Roman Gabriel Eagles

1984 Fleer V 21 "Ready For Action" 

Faye Grant as Juliet "Julie" Parrish

I feel like showing a ton more cards for some reason. OK maybe one more since the Hockey season will probably NOT happen this year here is a card I don't have anymore I either sold it or traded it away. It was my first freebie from sportscardforum I had won it in one of their forum contests. I think it was a new members contest.

2006-07 Upper Deck "Be A Player" Signatures -

JS Jason Spezza Senators

OK so there you have it how much more random can I be? Oh one final thought If you are following me and have my blog linked on your blog, but I don't have yours linked Please let me know so I can reciprocate.