Sox and more

I dropped off previous sorting at my LCS a week ago and he gave me some more stuff to sort. I was in his shop when Kevin text and said we weren't going to the show on Saturday so I grabbed some more to sort since I'd be home. I started it Friday when I got home and finished Saturday afternoon. There was a book of pages and a lot of cards in penny sleeves which is a pain because I have to take them all out. That probably took more time than all of the sorting. I went through a lot of baseball, some football and a real small stack of basketball but I only ended up with more baseball for myself.

We'll start with the older White Sox cards that I got. There was quite a mix of stuff in this sort as you see the above cards. That is my 109th card of Carlos Lee and my 192nd of Mags.

These are the shiny newer cards. Well, except the Colas, it's not shiny but he's a player I've been picking up cards of lately because I'm hoping for good things. The Keuchel is the Prism Refractor. 

There was also a ton of these Chrome Platinum Anniversary. I didn't realize how many cards were in the set because I figured I was getting close to the team set until I looked these up. I was wrong, these 4 give me 14 but there's 31 total. That's my 238th card of Tim Anderson and my 279th card of Abreu.

Then getting into the player collections, I got one Tier 3 of Gary Carter. The scan doesn't show but it's a pretty shiny card itself. This is my 350th card of the Kid.

Some more platinum anniversary Sox cards but both PC's. That's 233 cards of Moncada and 213th of Eloy.

1 more, same set, different team. I also found this Larkin to add to that PC.  This is my 749th card of Larkin.

As I said above, there was quite an assortment of cards.

I also found 6 cards to add to my 1971 Topps set. As you can see, they are in pretty good shape as well. These 6 give me 204 cards which is good for just over 27% completed.

Even better than the 1971's were these 4 from 1969. They give me only 71 from the set which is just over 10% completed.

The temps dropped below 0 for the first couple of days this week and they cancelled work so I'm working tomorrow to make it up so I'm not sure when I'll get back to my LCS to exchange cards. We have the show that got cancelled last week on Saturday as it got moved so it might have to wait until next weekend.

Last cards of 2023

When I met up with Kevin before the show last weekend, he brought me a bunch of cards that he pulled from his sorting duties plus he picked up a collection. It gave me a milestone tonight, well, technically, last week. We'll go through the cards first.

I didn't know what these were but upon looking them up on TCDB, they are the 2005 Champions from Danbury Mint, they each came in plastic cases that I had to use scissors to free them from. I would have preferred to get some of the top names (4 of them are PC's) but they are still pretty cool.

A few oddball stuff from the earlier days of my collecting. The first 2 are from Coca-Cola, then Toys 'r' us. The bottom row is Denny's followed by a Fleer sticker back.

A couple of scans of newer cards as well. Rookies and stars, even an old coach. I didn't realize how many of those Chrome anniversary cards they put out for each team as I keep getting more and more of them. I have 235 of Tim Anderson, 154 of Lucas Giolito and 278 of Jose Abreu.

He also gave me a team card which I don't get too often anymore. I really need to pick up more of these Heritage team cards. I always forget about them until I see one.

Some more old school Strawberry's. A Fleer mini set and another Denny's Grand Slam of him. These 2 give me 159 of Darryl.

I also received a later Dwight Gooden. This gives me 164 cards of Doc K.

2 more of our now former closer. As I said, I keep getting these Chrome Platinum Anniversary cards. These 2 give me 39 cards of Liam. I hope he lands back on his feet.

Another Chrome Anniversary, this time of Eloy. This is my 212th card of Jimenez.

I'm not sure how I didn't have that Jim Abbott, I've probably skimmed right past hundereds of them doing my sorting and thought I already had it. It is my 288th card of him. You also see I did get 1 of my PC players from those card from Danbury Mint which I was happy to see. This is my 387th card of Buehrle.

I thought I had this one as well but it's apparently the silver parallel. I can't imagine how many parallels I went past before I used TCDB. This is my 127th card of our current coach.

2 more former Wolverines picked up. I have a bunch of Charles Woodson in the maize and blue because Panini pumps out a few a year. This is my 59th card of Woodson. I picked up another of Taco as well, this parallel is my 27th of him.

Another of PK, nice. I've picked up a few of him in the last month or so which is great. Another Chrome Platinum as well. This is my 763rd card of Konerko.

I told you at the beginning that I hit a milestone on my last pickups of last year. These 41 cards put me over 10,000 cards added to my collection in 2023. 10,016 to be exact. As I've said in previous posts, I've done that by spending less than half of what I did in 2022. I spent just over $1100 in 2023 as compared to just over $2100 to get just under 2400 cards in 2022. I would say it was definitely a byproduct of all the free cards I get from sorting.

As I've also said above, these were the last cards that I received in 2023, I logged them in (which is the day I consider them received) on New Years Eve day.

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.

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.