Friday, September 29, 2017

Just an update

I just wanted to post an update about our good friend Mr. oddball, otherwise known as the guy who was stealing images of custom cards from people online (including Bob Lemke, who is deceased), and then selling them on eBay as his own. I sent him a pretty nasty message on eBay and he took all of mine down, and I give him props for that. All in all, with some of the images he has taken, I can tell from the work he has done to remove things like logos and such that he is actually pretty good at photo editing and could probably make customs himself, which is why what he is doing is pissing me off.
The other day I checked his eBay account to make sure none of mine were up (which I often do), and I saw that his user name was different. Apparently, he had changed it from Mr. Oddball to Greatcust0mcards0o0o. Then, a few days later I noticed that he had nothing to sell on his page. It has been like that ever since. Makes me wonder if he finally got caught and someone suspended his account, and it would make sense that he changed his user name so he wouldn't get caught.
So I then did a search of custom cards, and I saw a bunch of customs that friends online had made and saw most of the same ones I saw on the Mr. Oddball account. This user shipped from Opelika, AL, and Mr. Oddball shipped from Auburn, AL, which are 16 minutes away from each other. It leads me to believe that the first account got shut down, and he just created another one and is back to old habits. I still haven't seen any of mine (thank you for not using mine, I actually respect you for doing that Mr. oddball), but I will keep searching the accounts auctions and keep typing in random cards that I have made into search engines just to be sure. Here is the link to the new profile I found if you want to search to see if he has stolen any of your customs.
Let's be honest and just have fun making customs, people. I'm ok with sharing mine, that's why I have this blog. I'm just not ok with someone stealing my work, passing it off as theirs, and then selling it. I should note that I am almost finished with the Expos in my 1983 Topps Traded set, and I will post it when it is complete. Thanks for checking out my latest post. 

Sunday, September 24, 2017

The 1983 Topps set is complete!!

I've been busting tail making customs lately, and am happy to report that I have finished completing the 1983 Topps set. I really wanted to finish it pretty quickly, so I could use some of the cards in the upcoming ARAIG 1983 league that some friends are running. I just have 25 more teams in the '83 Topps Traded set, and every card for the '83 Topps regular and Traded set, as well as every one needed for the league will be complete.  

This marks the 3rd Topps set that I have finished, including the 1992 Topps set and the 1994 Topps set.  I just have to say that I thought that completing a set from the '80's would be a good deal more difficult than one from the '90's, and almost 1000% more difficult than a set from the 2000's where the internet was around and picture were way more prominent, but I have found that the '83 set wasn't too difficult. There were a number of minor league and TCMA sets in the '80's that helped me in my search for pictures, and even with the 2 photos that were needed per card, I somehow completed the set, as well as all of the coaches. It had significantly less players per team that needed cards made than sets in the '90's and (especially) '00's, and that was one of the big factors that helped this set get done so fast. It kind of makes me want to go back to the simplicity of the late '80's where all you had were 5 or so card brands that issued a pretty full roster of cards instead of the 5-6 guys per team and 20 Yankees, Dodgers, and Red Sox/3,000 parallels/SPs/numbered inserts/game-used/autographs/MOJO HITZ that we have now. 

I plan to keep working on the '83 Traded sets (I have a feeling the rosters will be a little bit more painful) and hopefully after that finish the '98, '97, '00, '86, and '88 checklists (and the '88 templates), and then slow down a little and work on some customs. Thanks for checking out my latest post.  Here is the completed 1983 Topps regular set.
-Jeremy