Baseball cards

[Patrick Thistle]

(When I went to Cooperstown it was really quiet. Just me and Mrs Thistle in the actual hall. When I saw his plaque I got a lump in my throat. It was surprisingly emotional, like a pilgrimage.)

(I need to go back to San Diego and put a Welsh flag on his statue.)

[ursus arctos]

[Patrick Thistle]

Yes, there's been a couple of basketball cards. I'll need to get one.

[San Bernardhinault]

I'd like to collect 394 different cards in honour of the .394 season. I think that would be fun.

Have you had the .394 beer yet? Or is it something that’s still only in the San Diego market? It’s pretty ubiquitous in our neck of the woods, and is actually a delicious, very drinkable pale ale, made by Alesmith.

[Patrick Thistle]

I haven't tried it. I think it's a local thing.

[Patrick Thistle]

Aaargh. I found a double in my Gwynn album so I'm back down to 170 cards.

[Cal Alamein]

I'm looking through my albums - guessing you already have an 89 TG bowman - #461- and a 1990 Topps (Big) #93 - neither are rare at all.
1989/1990 was pretty much the end of my card buying.

[Patrick Thistle]

Actually, no, I don't have either of those. I'm missing some Topps base as well - 1985 and 1986. Also DonRuss from those years too.

[Cal Alamein]

PM to ya!

[Patrick Thistle]

I bought a little lot of 2019 Padres cards from the eBay group mainly because it had this Topps Heritage Tony Gwynn card. I really like it.

[ursus arctos]

Lovely

That's the 1975 template

[Patrick Thistle]

Yes they pick a couple of year templates for retro cards each year.

[ursus arctos]

I have this real schizoid reaction to Heritage.

On the one hand, I love the designs and think the cards are extremely attractive aesthetically.

On the other hand, they seem ersatz because I have very vivid memories of the originals, and know that the players featured were at best children at the time.

[Patrick Thistle]

I understand what you mean. Most of the people on the UK collectors group are youngish (40s and below) but Heritage seems to be aimed at older collectors who like the nostalgia. Opinion on the blogs is mixed, and with all the variations and short prints the nostalgia is diminished again.

I've heard some people ask if we are heading into a second junk wax era. It feels that way.

[ursus arctos]

Similar discussions going on in the SABR Committee at the moment.

[Patrick Thistle]

The Lockdown is causing quite a few people in the UK card collectors groups to have sort outs. I've managed to pick up some more Topps 1987s to get me a few cards closer to completion. Also a selection of Tony Gwynn cards. I don't need all of them but no harm having a few doubles. And I've also got a couple of random lots coming too.

Not sure if there is a Covid risk associated with receiving stuff through the post. I guess I can just leave them a few days when they arrive just to be sure.

[Hot Pepsi]

Don’t put your face close to the packages. Wash your hands after handling and maybe just leave them out for a bit.

[Patrick Thistle]

The package of random cards arrived. It's got a few minor league cards and other oddities in it, like an insert about CNN. It also had a Tony Gwynn card with Tony in a Brewers uniform. Threw me for a split second then I realised it was his son.

[Patrick Thistle]

The second package arrived. It's about 200 cards from the Cracker Jack set that Topps released in 2005. I love the retro styling of the Cracker Jack sets. Plus a small set of Gwynns and a few more Topps 1987s, including the All Star card of Darryl Strawberry who a) has a great a name, b) is striking a very nice pose on the card. The All Star cards from those Topps 1980s sets are usually really nice cards. That would be something to think about collecting in future. I think I need about 6 or 7 of the Tony Gwynn cards. I'm amassing several doubles, which I could file in my Padres binders as a little lockdown project.

[Patrick Thistle]

Going through them just now and I needed 9 of the cards in the bundle that arrived today so I now have 180 in my main Tony Gwynn binder. I also have a couple of swatch cards and a few other randoms as well.

[Patrick Thistle]

I now literally only need 19 cards to complete my childhood ambition of a full Topps 1987 set. I'm posting the numbers here for reference, and maybe someone has some for sale. One of them is Cal Ripkin Jr's rookie card though. I'm probably going to have to buy that for proper money.

97
104, 115,
200, 218,
390, 392
418,
503, 513, 519, 596,
697
713, 733, 735, 736, 776, 784,

[Cal Alamein]

PM to ya!

[danielmak]

I wasn't an organized collector as a kid (bought packs here and there and dumped the cards in a shoebox. When I was in my late teens one of my dad's good friends had a son who got into collecting and I told my dad he could give the kid the cards. These would have been Topps cards from the mid-1970s through the early 1980s. Then in the early 90s I started collecting cards again in a more organized fashion. I was especially interested in some odder things: Ted Williams had a series (maybe 2 or 3 years) and then Topps' re-prints of 1950s sets. I nearly completed all of these. And then I bought some other oddball things: a Topps Pete Rose set. None of these were worth anything but interesting historical artifacts. I gave the Rose set away to a colleague's son about 20 years ago and then the rest I recently gave to a friend who was diagnosed with cancer and was going to be home bound while going through chemo. He's also really into collecting oddball cards so I figured he'd dig them and they were just sitting in a plastic tub in my basement.

For PT: I think those Williams sets had some Gwynn cards but I can't remember for sure. Here is a list of the 1993 set. I think he also did a 1994 set.

[Patrick Thistle]

Woke up this morning to find I'd won an eBay auction I speculatively bid on last night for 3 Tony Gwynn relic cards. One of them is a bat relic. The other two are swatches. They're shipping from the USA so it will be a few weeks before I get them.

I've seen card bloggers refer to a "card trinity" where you have a rookie card, a relic card and an autographed card (preferably pulled from a pack). I've got a few relics now as I already had 2, and 2 rookie cards so I just need an auto to complete the trinity.

[Patrick Thistle]

My relic cards arrived. Nice mail day.