Now here's a contest !!

Dan Wilson is having a contest here . There are some terrific prizes so ckeck it out !

Help out a new blogger and maybe be a winner !

There's a new blogger among us and he is looking to get involved in the community.
Check out his contest here : Baseball Cards  .

Exciting 1992 Fleer Good Will find !!

Any of the two or three people, who read  my scribblings on a regular basis, know that I love to shop at Good Will stores.

I sometimes have very good luck finding various sports items, including baseball cards, at these stores in my area.

Actually, this time, it was my oldest son Josh who got there first, but he kindly shared with his "Baseball Dad" !

We walked in the Good Will in Port Clinton, Ohio. I went right to the book shelves while Josh and my wife headed to the misc. section. When we met up later Josh was holding a small package. For a $1.59 he found 2 packs of cards bundled with 15-20 loose baseball cards. All you could see was the edges of the light blue packs. We had no idea what kind of cards they were but they didn't look at all familiar to either of us.
As it turned out they were baseball cards !
Now, this was exciting to me because I had never seen these cards before, so it was a chance to add a new wrapper to my collection along with a new sample card.

This is what he found :



This is one pack that I had never run into before. There weren't many 7/11 stores in our area in 1992.

You had to buy at least 8 gallons of Citco gas at a 7/11 store to receive a free pack of cards.



 
There were no Indians in this set of 24 called  " The Performer Collection ".
The two packs held duplicates of Frank Thomas and Tom Glavine so I picked the Thomas for my sample card. 

I also requested the Larkin in case a certain "Fan of Reds" is interested !

Today my wife and I are off to the new acquariun in Cleveland. Next Wed. is our 32nd wedding anniversary so we are celebrating this week-end !

There are sure to be some Good Will stores in that area that we have not been to yet !

First Fuji Tribe Transaction

I have seen, read and even follow his blog but we had never conjured up a deal before.

I noticed in a comment he left, on another blog, that he liked mini posters so I contacted him and soon we had a trade worked out.

The amazing part is that he sent 12 random cards and I can use 7 of them!

That is really great considering I have about 12,000 Indian cards and my want lists are really crap !(that's my next major project!) 



Fuji's calling card is really cool !

I need to look into something like that.

1991 Woolworth Sandy Alomar

1988 Kaybee Joe Carter

1992 Topps Chris James Gold Winner

The two oddballs are the very high gloss variety.

1999 Fleer Brilliants Illuminators insert

I had the Russ Branyan but I need this one.

Trenidad made a stop in Cleveland, in between the Giants and Dodgers, in 1997 and played in 7 games. Although I'm not sure at what level, there was a lot of competition in Cleveland in those days !

A standout for the Florida Gators,Justin was drafted by Cleveland and played at AA Lake County. After elbow surgery, he retired a couple years later.

These last two are in a slightly different category.

I already had both, but these were upgrades for my collection.

These are my old cards pictured here.

The Lofton has a small nick on the bottom edge right under his glove and the Alomar has a wider margin on the right side than on the left, although it doesn't show too bad in the photo.



Whenever I get new Indian cards,even if I have them in my collection, I inspect them pretty close to get the best possible examples in my albums.

I may be a little crazy about it though, when I look at borders that are off by 1/32" !!

Thanks Fuji for the great trade !!



Trade with Arpsmith

Arpsmith has been a long time reader of the baseball card blogs, and finally a few weeks ago he jumped in with his own. ARPSmith's Sportscard Obsession. If it's not on your blogroll, it should be!

He mentioned that he had a couple Kenny Lofton cards and wondered if I was interested. Well I'm always interested in more Tribe cards!

These 1998 SPx Finite cards were really an awesome product in their day. They were also rather complex. The 1998's had 90 cards with 5 subsets and 3 parallels with a total of 360 cards.
 

 The 1999 set dropped the Finite name and had only two parallels.

Adam didn't stop with just the Lofton cards though. He also included these great parallels.
The gold and sparkly chome are are fairly easy to come by but the blue and purples are a challenge.

There was also a nice selection of Topps Heritage from 2009 and 2012.
I had been looking for the 2009 Ben Francisco. I can also use the 2012's !

Last but not least was a 2005 Zenith Grady Sizemore.

Thank you very much for the trade and I look forward to more in the future !

JABO'S Blogarage Sale

Have you ever seen the "grab bags" at a card show ?  You know, the sealed up brown paper bags full of cards of your favorite team or sport selling for $1-2.  That's what Kyle's Blogarage Sale reminds me of. And I'm a sucker for them almost every time !

But this time I ended up a winner ! I told Kyle I'd take the Indians, and today I received the surprise package. I didn't expect to find many cards I actually needed, but I added a baker's dozen of new Tribe cards to my collection.

Somehow, I had never acquired these 1982-83 Topps Traded cards, so this is a nice addition to my collection.

There was also a couple newer cards I was missing.

2008 Upper Deck Masahide Kobayashi rookie card and 2001 UD Reserve Bartolo Colon.

There were 108 cards in all with an excellent selection of years (1982-2011), brands and players.


There were still several teams available so you may want to check it out !

1975 Topps Minis and I am still alive and kicking !

In spite of any rumors you may have heard, I did not die. I did not move to Africa to become a missionary and I did not trade all my baseball cards for a cigar box full of Pokemon cards !

I love to make trades. Sometimes I get a little too carried away in trading and end up taking on way too much !  As  I look as some of your want lists, I noticed that most set collectors concentrate on Topps more than any other brand. I knew I could help some of you out if I could just find the specific cards.

I have spent most of the last 2-3 weeks picking Topps base cards out of all my  "misc. to sell or trade" boxes, and sorting them out by year. So far I have about 15,000 Topps cards from 1963 to 2012  ( and I'm still not finished picking or sorting !).  I don't have a lot from 1963-72, but there are a few.

I also have 15-20,000 cards sorted by other brands but not by years.

My next project is to get my own want lists in order so I can start trading again !!

I also sent out about 10 trade packages and I'm still working on 5-6 more.

I have been reading most of the blogs and commenting here and there and emailing a few of you. I hope to start posting on a more regular basis again. I have many trade posts to work on.

I did find these 1975 Topps minis at a local card show for 10 cents each ! Most are in very good shape. The seller also has a permanent, inside booth at a local flea market. I will have to check that out soon !

That's all for now, I promise to be back soon !