2023 Bowman Platinum and LCS trip

 It’s getting the time of year where things start getting crazy around here. Usually, it’s the crazy volume at work due to the Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years holidays. This year, there are just more things we’ve been invited to and a whole new uncharted territory of having a kid that is a year older than last year. This year it seems like we have a ton of Halloween events instead of just the trick or treating that we had last year. We drove to an event about an hour away yesterday in order to meet up with my sister and brother-in-law, we had dinner at Kylers best Benny’s house at a Halloween themed night that Bennys parents threw, and went to another event at a church near their house beforehand. This week I think we might have 1 or 2 events as well. Throw in all these idiot bikers clogging up the roads for Biketoberfest (we’re 45 minutes away from Daytona Beach), Karen’s birthday tomorrow, and Kylers birthday 13 days after that, and I feel exhausted before the real crazy times even get here. 

On the bright side, there have been some chances to get cards during all of the chaos. I can’t even remember when it was, but we went to Wal-Mart at some point in the last week, and I was able to pick up a blaster of 2023 Bowman Platinum. Then a few days later, Karen got her hair done, and since it was so close to my work, Karens mom offered to pick up Kyler from school and watch him so we could grab an early dinner date. After I got off work, I still had some time to kill while Karens appointment was still going on, so I drove to the card shop near my work and killed an hour or so. I finally had my Topps wantlists, and although I didn’t think they would have too many old cards, I was pleasantly surprised. 

Unfortunately, I have cards from both trips combined so you’ll have the ‘23 Bowman Platinums in the same photos from the LCS trip. 

The LCS usually has mainly Pokémon crap and overpriced packs, but I am usually able to find parallels and stuff for my player collections, but while digging through boxes and letting the owner know what I was looking for, he dug out a box from the back of older cards. They don’t have many boxes in the store (only like 4 or 5), so I was really surprised he had this one. It contained ‘78 Topps cards, mostly in numerical order with 5-6 of each card, and some basketball and football cards thrown in. I was surprised to find that ‘78 Topps had checklists, so so nabbed the one I found. I found a few ‘80’s Topps cards of HOFers in other boxes, and I was stoked to find a floating heads Cubs team card. The Bowman Platinum have a cool design but many of the photos are tough to make the players face out on because it’s just a dark design on many teams. 

The ‘78 box had a number of team cards and managers which I scooped up as well. My favorite card from the trip was the 2007 Topps Barry Bonds. It is card #661, and is an SP. I opened a ton of that set in ‘07, and I can’t remember it’s exact story, whether it was included in the complete set or an SP added to the checklist late, but I noticed the card like the day before when I typed out my ‘07 Topps checklist for the blog, and then low and behold, I found it at the LCS the next day. 

While not a Yankees fan, I was happy to find the Billy Martin MGR card. I tried to limit my purchases of favorite players, Rays, and Tigers, but did find some fun ones. We met DeLand native Nick Fortes at a game in Washington in June, and I found 3 of his cards, including the ‘22 TSC. 

The Andrelton Simmons ‘16 Donruss parallel is really cool looking. Found some early Bowman Chrome Rays, a few parallels and rookies, and got lucky to pull a Taj Bradley in the ‘23 Bowman Platinum blaster. The ‘94 Triple Play Medalists card was one I couldn’t leave behind. Those cards were hot in ‘94 and I probably have 10 ‘94 Triple Play cards in my entire collection. I was surprised to find the ‘22 Royce Lewis rainbow and ‘22 Topps Chrome Witt in the boxes they were in as most of those cards were quarter and 50 cent ones. The whole stack of cards at the LCS was 30 bucks and I was happy with that, especially with the Bonds SP, a few rookies, parallels, and all of the ‘78’s. Heck, if I go by the TCDB ‘pricing’ thing, the David Freese ‘09 Topps was like 4 bucks (I’d maybe pay 50 cents for it). 

The Bowman Platinum blaster delivered a ton of keepers, probably 3/4 of the blaster for me. Some cards that I would assume are rookies as they all were drafted in 2022, a rookie of the top Rat-Bird hitter, and the 4 ice parallels per blaster. 

I got a bonus along with the 4 regular Ice parallels and pulled a green one of now Mets prospect Drew Gilbert, who was acquired from the ‘Stros in the Justin Verlander trade. I hope this parallel could turn out like the Blue one numbered to 150 that I pulled in a pack of ‘17 Bowman of some Acuna guy. 

The other 2 Nick Fortes cards I already have, but I know Jim (who I mentioned in the last post) needs. He actually texted me that evening after our dinner date and let me know he got my ‘21 Topps Logan Gilbert signed at the Stetson University banquet. Maybe on one of my days off, I’ll head over there and do some trading. 

I’ve been doing a little work on TCDB and have put in a number of my Braves non-Topps cards. I’m on the 1996 cards currently, and I might keep doing that project on off days and put the wantlists for the blog on hold, as I have an official one on TCDB. The site is really a game changer as far as knowing what you have and what you need. Problem is that I just have so much stuff. Dime Box Nick posted the other day that he has 90+binders. While every binder isn’t a 3 or 5 inch one, if I include 1 inch binders, I’m at 98 or so, with plenty of empty ones waiting for me to put cards from my monster boxes in. It might be 1-2 years before everything is put in the site, but it will be worth it. 

I have Monday and Tuesday off work, but Monday will be mostly busy and I plan to head out to Karens work and surprise her with flowers and lunch, and then pick up Kyler from school and have him do a card for her and probably clean the house up at some point as well. Tuesday will probably be the day to do card stuff and if I end up going to a shop, Jim’s house, or anything noteworthy, I might post about it then. 

I just need to find moments in between all of these commitments to relax and have some card time. Or wait til 2024….

Thanks for checking out my latest post. 

-Jeremy