Fun Saturday in KZoo

We set up in Kalamazoo on Saturday. The last time we set up there, John (John's Big League Blog) and Dennis (Too Many Verlanders) met up with us and bought some cards. KZoo is a little over an hour for us and around an hour and a half for Dennis and John lives there. Dennis and I traded some cards so we didn't have to pay postage.

First off, he contacted me about a Valient set on Facebook that he found. For those that don't know, the Valient set is the NIL set of the Michigan team. There are 110 cards in the set and I believe each player is represented and I believe they all get a cut from the set. They sell packs of the set and they aren't cheap, which is why I didn't have any. I don't think I would have normally dropped as much cash as I did on a set but we just won the National Championship with this team so I though if I was going to do it, I should do it on this team. It was a great price for the set so Dennis grabbed one for each of us and he brought it to the show.

These are what the cards look like and they are the 4 players that I already have PC's of. I'm sure there are a lot of other players that I'll have PC's of but I didn't feel like guessing so I'll just wait until I pull future cards of them then add them to their PC. That's cards 8 and 9 of Corum, 3 and 4 of Edwards and only my 2nd of Wilson. This is a really cool set and I'm glad I bought it and super happy that Dennis gave me the opportunity.

He also dropped a few other cards in the box with the set.

These 3 are Sox collection cards. 2 inserts and a color parallel. That's my 280th card of Abreu. The top 2 player never really grew on me in their terms with the White Sox.

This card is also a Sox collection card, but also a player collection. This Fisk insert surprised me because I've sorted a lot of A&G plus there is a bunch in the list stuff that I sort but I didn't have it yet. This is my 388th card of Fisk.

Dennis also hit me up with this Woodson and a couple of other guys who probably aren't any good. Ok, maybe good. I like the name of the insert, 3D with 3 top defensive players. This is my 60th card of Charles Woodson.

I did also buy 1 card while at the show, from Kevin. This Aqua of McCarthy earlier Bowman U. I wish it was the new Bowman U where they had a license because I hate when they make the helmet a solid color. This, and the other 2 at the top, are my 8th, 9th and 10th card of JJ.

It was a great show and a good time with some friends. Dennis also invited Jason and his wife who actually live just North of us. I believe Dennis met him on TCDB and trades with him. He's also the guy that made the Mike Hart jersey that Dennis gave me for Christmas. If you don't remember, here it is, along with the rest of us, including Kevin.

LCS Pickups

Kevin and I ran down to the LCS on Friday, we dropped off some stuff we sorted and picked up some more. I worked on that on Sunday and will probably finish the next few days as tomorrow is my last day at work until the 5th of January so I'll have plenty of time. I brought home 3 2 row boxes of baseball list players and 5 2 rows of football list players to sort. I probably won't end up with a whole lot for myself but I do usually end up with some.

While we were there, Kevin bought a bunch of colored parallels from them. We generally only pay a quarter a piece and throw them in our dollar boxes, or more if they are worth it. So while we were sitting there, I went through the box and pulled out a bunch for myself.

Everything above is a holo or refractor, lots of color up there as well. The Gavin Sheets in the top row of the top photo wasn't in the box, the LCS owner had set that aside for me and gave it to me, along with another card you'll see. The 3 Giolito's give me 153 of him. The 2 Anderson's give me 232 and the Abreu is my 275th.

Next up are Tier 3 pickups.

I picked up 1 basketball card and it's of Larry Legend. This insert is the holo parallel because yes, even the inserts have parallels. This is my 106th card of Larry.

2 more Tier 3 collections with this Stadium Club refractor of Steve Carlton and an Update Sapphire of Ripken. I guess technically the Sapphire isn't a color parallel as it's its own set but you all know I love the cracked ice. This is my 229th card of the lefty Carlton and the 976th of Ripken.

Next up is Tier 2.

2 more of Fisk, both in White Sox, both made to look like older sets and of course, not both parallels. The 1988 look-a-like is from 2023 and is an insert, the Platinum Anniversary Prism is from 2022. This is my 386th card of th OG Pudge.

I grabbed a couple more of the only star from last year's team. Let's hope he stays with the team and continues to get better. The 2022 on the left is another Prism parallel and the Optic on the right is the holo parallel of the insert. These 2 give me 203 cards of Luis.

The top card is a Stadium Club Chrome refractor, I already had the non-Chrome and the Chrome to go with it. The bottom card is the other card that the LCS gave me, it's only my 2nd relic of Moncada and these 2 give me 230 of him.

Really love the Buehrle, mainly because I don't pick up too many of him. It's only my 5th card that I've picked up this year and one of those was a week or two ago. It's also my 386th of him. At this rate, it'll be a few years before I hit 400. The purple Eloy is my 209th of him.

A couple of former Wolverine Tier 2 players. The Larkin is an insert parallel as it's the Holo and you can tell the Cronenworth is an XFractor. Oddly enough I have the SC Red, Chrome and now the XFractor but not the base. I have both of the base and the Holo of the Larkin though. The Barry is my 747th card of his and the 77th of Jake.

The LCS refilled his 1/2 off box and I went through that as well and pulled these 2 auto's. I feel like they equaled $36 and then half off was $18 but he gave them both to me for $10. He had others I wanted but I was trying not to spend too much. I grabbed the Burger just because I liked him and wish they wouldn't have traded him and I also like Sheets so those are the 2 I grabbed.

I am all caught up on posts, for now. We don't have another show until the 31st but I may go to the LCS with all my time off. I should finish the sorting so I'm sure I'll hit it sooner or later.

Fort Wayne Show

Need to get a quick post in to get caught up. Last weekend we were at the Fort Wayne show and I picked up a few things. I didn't really do much shopping around, these were more or less brought to me.

There's a dealer who's a friend of ours who sets up in the other room. He'll usually ask me to come watch his table so he can take a bathroom break, go smoke or just take a little time to shop for himself. He has a shop so he definitely wants to do some shopping to pick things up for that. He usually gives me cards or just discounts what I get since I usually get bored and start looking at what he has on his table. He had a couple of boxes so I hit that.

He had a cheap autos box where I found these. The McGrone was a cheapy, he had the Evans at $7 if I remember right. Both former Wolverines so I snagged them. It's my 4th card of Cameron but my 1st autograph. The Evans is my 2nd autograph but my 54th card of him.

I was really happy to see this card in there as I don't get many Michigan baseball cards (other than Cronenworth), let alone autographs. This is only my 5th card of Jordan but my 1st autograph.

I picked up all 3 of these for $8 total.

He also had a box of Vintage that I could have pulled a lot out of but I wasn't looking to spend too much so I came up with these 3 since they are all player collection as well.

It's hard to tell with the photo but that is a mini. I definitely wanted this one when I saw it. I still need the regular sized Schmidt from '75 but I wasn't going to pass this one up. This card gives me 359 of Mike.

He also had these 2 of Fisk that I needed. Another '75 and his '76. I love getting Vintage of guys I watched when I was a kid. These 2 Fisk give me 386 of him.

I paid $10 for these 3 cards.

We had another dealer friend of ours say he had a bunch of 5x7 cards that were serial numbered that he wanted to know if we wanted to look at. He pulled the Sox for me. I wanted them all as they were one's I didn't have but I narrowed down to these.

Remember these are all 5x7's but I don't know if you can read those serial numbers in the bottom left corner. I tried to get a closer pic of the serial numbers

They are all numbered to /10. I had trouble grabbing cards because there weren't many PC players and not even a lot of my favorite players so I grabbed all of them that were #'d 1/10 and a few others.

There was one PC guy and my most favorite player for the Sox so I definitely grabbed this one. It's my 761st card of Paulie.

Kevin grabbed a stack of Braves ones as well. The Braves had all kinds of "vintage" players unlike the Sox ones. so his stack was pretty healthy so he made a deal for them. I know the dealer was asking a buck a piece to us and Kevin got them cheaper than that but he never gave me a cost on what I owe so he must have gotten them cheap enough that he gave them to me.

I have one more post to get out which are cards I picked up at my LCS on Friday.

More list boxes

Nothing too exciting going on, just trying to get through the week and start my weekend. Saturday will be a busy day as we are doing a card show during the day. Then I'm going to the Michigan/Notre Dame hockey game and then come home and watch the Michigan/Iowa game. Hopefully, both will be Wolverine wins.

Today's post are the cards I sorted last week. If you remember from the post that I recorded what I do when I sort. I had a bag of cards to sort and then a bunch of list players, this time it was MLB.

The top 2 rows were all Topps Update which I didn't have any yet and also a Bowman Platinum which also just came out in the last few weeks or so.

I picked up all 3 of these for the Vintage collection. They are list players as Ted Simmons is a Hall of Famer (and former Wolverine) and Don Mattingly is on the list, probably because he should be a Hall of Famer.

This actually came from the bag of cards, but he's a hall of famer so it went to the list box and then sorted into my stack.

I added 13 more of Cal Jr, other than the 2023 Donruss, they are all from the 90's. These cards boost the Ripken collection to 974 cards, maybe I'll hit 1000 before the end of the year but that is closing in soon.

I also picked up 6 more of Schmidt, mostly look a likes and a couple of Stadium Club. These 6 give me 358 cards of Mike.

That's all of the Type 3 collection, on to Type 2.

This was also in the 2023 Update bag but he's a list player so it would have ended up here as well. If you remember, I just hit 100 cards with Dylan so this is number 101.

Another 2023 Donruss, this time of Fisk. I've picked up a bunch of these former player cards from 2023 Donruss.

I picked up this Optic of Eloy as well. 

I picked up 3 more of Robert jr as well. That Bowman Platinum came from the bag of cards but again, he's a list player so I ended up with all 3. The top left card is one of those Clearly Donruss. These push me over the 200 mark of Luis by 1. These give me 201.

the Great Sort

As I mentioned earlier in the week, I sorted 4 3 row boxes of cards for my LCS. I found quite a few cards that I didn't have which surprised me because the majority of the stuff I sorted was, for the most part, just base cards. There were some inserts, but not a ton of them. Everything I got here, I get to keep for free for payment for sorting.

I decided to do the scanning by players instead of big scans, I just like it better that way so you'll get a lot of scans.

As you may know, I collect team cards as in team photo cards. I've probably flipped through thousands of 2023 cards and never thought to keep these for that collection but I did this time. All 3 of them kind of look like the team photos of the past and they seem to feature the whole team so I kept them.

I set aside the players to scan that I have over 50 cards of, and they are all White Sox cards considering I don't PC them as players. Frank (1017), Abreu (265), Ventura (182), Giolito (149) & Rodon (77).

I also did a scan of the younger players that I like and a couple of an older player. Garrett Crochet, I expected big things from before he got hurt. Oscar Colas is supposed to be our future. I really hated the Jake Burger trade and didn't understand but I still like him. I don't think I'll PC him just because he's no longer with us. Lenyn Sosa is also supposed to be one of our futures. You also can't go wrong with some new Dick Allen cards from A&G. Certainly better than a lot of the non-baseball cards they put in that set.

Next up are PC cards.

I grabbed 5 cards of Eloy. This is the first time I've seen the Cosmic Chrome, those are pretty cool. To be fair, I don't think they would have the luster they have without being Chrome. You'll see a lot of the above sets throughout this post. I now have 194 cards of Eloy, closing on a milestone there.

I picked up 3 cards of Robert, 2 of the 3 are actually inserts. I'm only a card behind Eloy with 193 cards of Robert and therefore, also closing in on the same milestone.

I'm still collecting TA, even though I haven't been real happy with him lately. We'll see if it doesn't get better next year. These 7 cards give me 217 of Anderson.

I only picked up 1 card of each of these players. Also like grabbing another Buehrle as he doesn't get much love from the newer sets but he did in the Platinum Anniversary set. I have 383 of Mark.

I picked up this insert of Cease as well. I haven't seen these Velo inserts from the Capstone set. I'm closing on a milestone of Cease's as well with this card being the 98th.

I also found 2 Fisk, 1 from each Sox and both newer. These 2 give me 383 cards of the original Pudge.

2 more of Johnny Bench, one being an insert and a die cut one at that. These make 232 of the Little General.

A couple more of the Platinum Anniversary cards. A lot of my PC players had a card in this set. That's my 348th of the Kid and 147th of Doc.

Always great to pick up some of the Tier 1 collection, especially when I'm adding 4 cards. These give me 572 cards of Tom Terrific which is my 4th highest PC.

2 more for the Yaz collection as well, both from sets you've seen a number of times already. These 2 give me 182 cards of the BoSox legend.

2 more singles. My Zimmy collection is definitely bigger than I thought it would be when I started it. It's at 399 with this card.

Barry's collection, however, I expected it to get pretty big because of when he played. It now sits at 3rd place of my PC's with 741 cards.

I haven't been searching for cards of Steve Carlton but I feel like I've added quite a few lately. I shall go look. I've only added 25 this year but 12 of those were in the last 2 months. He's now at 229 cards.

I'm always pleased to add more of this former Wolverine as well. Really liked seeing the Cosmic Chrome, they definitely look better in real life than scanned. These 2 of the former Rookie of the Year give me 73 of him.

These 2 A&G of Ripken also get me closer and closer to a major milestone of Cal. His PC is my largest at 960 cards. I'm not sure I'm going to hit 1k by the end of the year but I'm not real far away considering I spend 95% of my Saturdays at cards shows.

I said I sorted 4 3 row boxes. What I didn't say was 3 of those were baseball. The other, well, you'll see.

I found this DPJ among that box. This is my 40th card of him.

I've been getting a lot of cards of Nico as well lately. These 2 give me 60 cards which is 4th among my football PC's.

It's always nice to grab a former Wolverines still wearing the uniform. This Uche rookie gives me 12 cards of him.

The Rashan Gary is double that number with 24.

I only started this collection back in November of last year so it's only at 47 cards. I say only just because he has over 4000 cards. I've been searching them out though, just grabbing what comes to me.

Last but not least, I picked up some of Kwity. He only has 37 cards but 5 of them now are of the Wild Card variations. I have 7 Wild Cards and like I said, 5 are of Kwity.

Those were all the freebie cards I got from my LCS but when I'm in there, I try not to look around too much so I don't spend any money. I made the mistake of glancing in a case and seeing this card that I needed.

I cut me a deal on it but I still paid way more than I usually spend on cards. Its his pre-rookie or out of the Traded set.

As you can see, I added a bunch from this last sort but it wasn't one my usual sorts. He actually got 8 3 row boxes from another guy that I know and Kevin sorted the other 4 so he probably pulled some cards for me as well but he sorted football and basketball and he doesn't know all my PC's which is what sucks about not sorting everything. But, I get what I get and I don't pay for it so who am I to complain.