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.

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.

South Bend Pick Ups

Just a quick post as I've been under the weather for a few days. Head cold kind of symptons but I think I'm on the other side of it. I worked through it and if you know me I don't get much sleep so last night I crashed around 11 pm. I woke up at 7 this morning and chilled in my recliner for an hour before falling asleep again and sleeping until almost noon. I'm sure that helped me heal a little faster since I generally get less than 5 hours sleep on work nights.

I have 2 posts to get to in the next few days, todays and I received a Christmas package. I got it logged in and all today (once I finally got up) so I just have to do the post. I have a show tomorrow so you'll probably get that one on Sunday.

Today's post are just a couple of cards I picked up at the last show we did in South Bend. I got bored towards the end of the show and walked around. I hit a couple of dollar boxes and started pulling a bunch out but then I decided I didn't want to spend that much so I put back everything but a couple cards that I decided were the better cards for me.

I grabbed this Caris LeVert from the guy set up next to us. He's been by us a couple of times in South Bend. He graduated from Purdue so we've talked about that since my son turned down Purdue to go to Purdue/Ft. Wayne. He had a couple of cards I looked at but this was the only I decided that I had to have because as much as I hate having to buy all these color parallels, I really like the looks of them. I paid a buck for it.

I always have to pick up Paul Konerko cards that I don't have so this was a nice find. I wasn't keen on paying $2 but I don't generally ask for a discount when I'm only buying 1 card and this was a fairly new dealer, we've talked before but nothing for very long so I don't know him that well. It was PK that I didn't have so I didn't care about paying $1 more than it's probably worth. When I logged it in, I realized I didn't even the base so there's probably 50 color parallels as well so more to chase I guess. This card is my 760th card of PK.

We're doing a show in Fort Wayne tomorrow so I may get to see my son, he usually tries to stop by since he's living there now.

LCS finds

If you've been around here, you know that my cousin and I do a little side work for my LCS. He buys all kinds of stuff that walks in the door and we help him sort it all. When we first started going in the shop, he had boxes all over. Under all his tables and piled in the corners. Now his shop looks pretty clean as far as the floor goes and he has told a bunch of people how much help we've been. He shows us that by giving us cards and great deals on the more expensive stuff. As an example, he had dupe Cronenworth autos and he gave them both to me for the price of 1 which I sent the other to Dennis.

I stopped by yesterday after work to drop off what I sorted last weekend and picked up some new stuff. He didn't give me a ton to do this weekend since I have 2 shows so today is the only day I would have to work on them. He has a few people who buys blasters, hangers and such who pull out one or two cards that they collect and they sell everything else back to him. So this morning, I went through 10 opened hanger boxes of 2022 Donruss. He lets me pull whatever I need for my collections, he knows if I find any high dollar (which I never do with the stuff I'm sorting) to let him know, other than that, he knows I have limited collections and that's all I take so he let's me take them.

I've sorted 2022 Donruss for him before so I had most everything as far as the base that I needed but while I was standing there talking to him, there was a stack of mini's sitting on his desk and I flipped through those and found a few for myself as well. Here's what I added to my PC's.

This was a nice find and it was actually on top of the stack of mini's which is the only reason I went through them because I hate mini's but I need them so what better way then free ones.

I don't add too many Konerko's often anymore since I have quite a few and he doesn't get a whole lot of hobby love anymore (not that he ever did) but he's my favorite Sox player of all-time so I grabbed it. It's actually the A&G back so I still need the regular mini. Plus I have to keep my hefty lead on TCDB.

I also found this regular back mini of Cal. I was hoping to find another one for Dennis but no such luck. I didn't even look to see if he needed it but it was free so I would have been able to take a chance.

Sadly, even though I'm slowly closing in on 1000 cards of Cal, I'm only ranked #46 on TCDB.

Another tier 3 PC guy with the black border version. I was glad to pull so many mini's of HOF'ers, you can't really complain about that.

Another Tier 1 guy that I don't add a ton to his collection. I found a black border mini on his desk and found an Orange Holo in the Donruss hangers I went through. 

At one time, I was #1 on TCDB. I got an email from a guy saying how he figured he'd be #1 after he entered his and I ended up having a couple hundred more. He sent me a 1970 Topps Super and I sent him 20 or so cards he didn't have. A few months later I looked and he had blown past me. I've dropped another spot since then.

Also found this Orange holo of the former Wolverine, Jake Cronenworth. I love that there is a good Michigan guy in the bigs to collect again. Apparently Dennis does as well.

I'm thinking I'm going to start doing my posts like this again, just a pick-up of that day kind of thing so it's less posts and more cards posted at a time. I'll still have some random posts until I'm caught up and then go to strictly these kinds of posts and the birthday posts. I like the random posts but even with doing a few players on each posts, I get behind rather quickly. Probably because I have so many PC players with all the Michigan guys.

Tier 1 sorting

Went over to Sluggo's after work today to prep a few more things for the big show in Shipshewana tomorrow. The bad thing is that it snowed pretty good here so I'm hoping that doesn't effect the attendance too much. We were pumped up for this show because they only do it 4 times a year and the first one is always the biggest, attendance wise. There's over 180 tables so it's always busy but the 1st one of the year is always the busiest. Plus, a fellow blogger is supposed to make an appearance but he's coming from up North and I'm afraid the snow will be too much. It's supposed to stop snowing tonight and it's not supposed to get real cold and get close to 40 tomorrow so while the roads might suck in the morning, I think they will clear off by late morning. It's also an hour East of us so for all I know, there isn't any snow because that's how Indiana works sometimes.

Today's post will feature my Tier 1 pick-ups, which I don't get to add to very often.

I picked up both of these from the boxes we are sorting and selling from the Man Cave up North. As you can tell by the Dodgers uniforms, these are early in his career.

I picked up these 2 from Hollisters at the Lansing show. Technically, we bought a huge box of cards from him and then I paid Sluggo for them at even more of a discount. I like both of these because I like the early Chrome's and Finest are always nice, these are both refractors as well. I paid less than a buck a piece for these.

These 4 give me 742 cards of PK.

I picked up this from Kevin, it's another one of those retired edition cards that I didn't know existed. It was a freebie for sorting.

This was another one that I got in the Man Cave boxes, so once again, another freebie. This would be one of those cards that I thought I had but I didn't. That happens a lot and that's also why I always check before I purchase, well, most of the time.

This one came from my LCS but it came out of a seriel numbered box that we purchased from them but I still got it free from sorting his other boxes.

These 3 cards give my Aparicio to 128 cards. I remembered when I first started that collection, I really didn't think it would ever get that big. It helps he has a bunch of 90's and early 2000's cards.

This is the only Billy Williams I added, but it was also free from sorting for my LCS. I've seen the '52 sets before but I never seen them in the Chrome versions but there were a few in the cards I sorted. Then I logged it in and realized it's from 2021 so it doesn't surprise me that I hadn't seen them yet.

This card gives me 116 cards so not too far from the Aparicio collection.

These both come from the LCS as well. I've been doing a lot of sorting. I actually don't get very many from the LCS sorts. For the most part, I usually only keep 10 or 12 cards of sorts. Although I walked in on Tuesday of this week and he set aside a card for me and just gave it to me when I came in, for free. The second card also goes to my Schmidt collection. It also came from the serial numbered box.

These 2 of Tom Terrific give me 554 card of him.

I got to add to 4 of my 6 Tier 1 collections with all the sorting I've been doing so it's definitely worth it.

West Coast Paulie?

My brother and I were talking about USC and UCLA joining the Big Ten. His thought was it'll suck for them to come and play in the snow and then it was, I hope they don't play night games on the west coast because those are 9 or 10 o'clock games here. 

Which is where I'm at with the Sox now, they are on the west coast so I didn't get to watch any of the Angels series live, but it's the weekend now so at least I can watch the Giants series.

Today's post is my all-time Sox favorite player, who once had the chance to sign with the Angels for more money but stayed with the Sox. One of the many reasons I like him.

These 5 came from Dennis. They are all serial numbered. I really like the horizontal one with the 3 pictures, I like the look of it. The Finest is pretty cool as well, it's a Blue Refractor.

Dennis didn't stop there.

He also sent me these 2 relics of PK. I thought I had the top one but I had a parallel of it and the Gypsy Queen is definitely new. I have 19 relics of Konerko now and these 7 cards give me 718 cards of him.

Be sure to check out Dennis over at Too Many Verlanders.

Blue Pauls

Since the Sox aren't playing today, the random decided to go ahead and show some Sox cards. At least it's of my favorite Sox player of all time.

I picked this up at the LCS in their dime box. It's PK and some other guy. This card gives me 578 cards of the other guy even though I don't have a PC of him. Lots of years with the Sox plus he played in the 90's where they produced a crap ton of cards and inserts.

I also picked up these 2 of PK at the Shipshewana card show in the dollar boxes. The top card is the blue version and is numbered to /900. The bottom is a refractor, also numbered but to /699. Some pretty good finds I think.

These 3 cards give me 712 cards of Konerko. He's my 2nd highest PC and is only the 2nd player I have over 700 cards of.

Surprise!

I've got a surprise for you, today you'll get a Tier 1 player. Actually, that's not the surprise. I don't know if it's out there or not but I haven't seen it listed anywhere but Barnes & Noble has blaster boxes. Sluggo picked up a couple of Gypsy Queen this afternoon and he said they had Allen & Ginter as well. They limit it to 2 boxes but the price is the old usual of $19.99. Don't ever say I didn't give you anything.

I wan't lying about the Tier 1 player today though. I picked it up at my LCS for a dime.

It's always nice to get another Paulie, this red parallel card put it at 696 cards, closing in on that 700. I'm going to have to start spending more money soon to get past 700 since I have a lot of the cheap stuff now. That's the plan once I get through all my collections of the $.50 or less stuff on Sportlots. I'll move it up to $1 and see what I can pick up. I still have a few Tier 2 collections and it'll probably take me awhile to get through Tier 3 because of the players in it, there are probably a ton of cards I need.

From Chicago to Konerko

I made it to Chicago and back and I have a few minutes to get this post in before midnight and I head to bed since I've been up since 4 this morning. We did drive by the Sox stadium as it's right off the expressway. It was all lit up, not sure why but it looked good.

My last post for Konerko so you'll finally get to see my final count after this last purchase on Sportlots.

1994. We'll start with a minor league card, I actually have quite a few pre-majors cards of Konerko. It helps that he was a early to mid 90's minor leaguer because they put out a lot of sets back then. I don't know that they do that much with the exception of team sets.

2002. One more card from 2002 that probably just didn't make my last shipment and came in after. That's the stance I remember when I think of PK, he holds that bat out until the pitcher starts his windup, then pulls it back.

2005. That leaf limited looks horrible scanned but I promise it's not that bad in hand. The Bowman Heritage is a mini version.

2006. One card from the year after our championship season. Some of the Bowman's look really good on Sox cards because as I have stated before, black borders on Sox cards look good.

2006. This is the Fleer portion as I have quite a few from this year to show. The bottom card is great because it shows 2 PC guys.

2006. The Topps portion starts out with a couple of A&G's and an action shot Chrome. I really like the look of the Finest, even with the red. A couple of Bazooka's to finish it off.

2006. Lastly, the Upper Deck portion. I like when they do team checklist cards. I don't ever use them for that reason but I'm always up for another good team card. I'd prefer a full team shot but you get what you get. I did like the looks of the Artifacts and the Sweet Spot. The SP is numbered which is always great to see when you spend less than $.50 a card.

As promised, the grand total of PK cards now is all the way up to 697. Hopefully there are a couple more coming, if not, I might have to grab a couple more just to hit 700. I do have a pretty good lead on TCDB.

I have 3 that aren't on TCDB which is why I said 697.