Tony Saunders Missing Topps Cards

Tony Saunders is in my Favorite Player Collection. I saw him pitch on TV a few times when he was with the Florida Marlins, and didn't really like him since he beat the Atlanta Braves in the '97 Playoffs. The Braves were probably my favorite team besides the Detroit Tigers up to that point. Saunders was the drafted by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in the '97 Expansion Draft after winning a World Series with the Marlins, and then I started pulling for him. I saw Tony pitch a masterful game at the Trop on April 22, 1999, as he held the Baltimore Orioles hitless through 6 innings. Mike Bordick singled to lead off the 7th, ruining my chance at seeing a no-hitter live. I hope it will happen during my life. Saunders broke his arm later that season, and again while in rehab in 2000, and never did make it back to the Majors after 1999.

Tony got his first Topps card in the 1998 Topps set, and got a 1999 Topps card. He is missing cards from the 2000 Topps set. I also created a card for Tony in the 1998 Topps set picturing him with the Marlins.  Here is Tony's career Topps run including my customs.

1998 Topps custom

1998 Topps

1999 Topps

2000 Topps custom

That completes Tony Saunders' career Topps run. I'm hoping to work on some customs when I'm off on Tuesday. Thanks for checking out my latest post.

-Jeremy

Trade Post: ARPSmith's Sportscard Obsession

A few weeks ago, Gavin from Baseball Card Breakdown posted that Adam from ARPSmith's Sportscard Obsession was downsizing his collection and looking to get rid of cards from some different teams. I emailed Adam to see if he was getting rid of any Devil Rays/Rays cards, and he said he was, and a shortly after that, I received a nice package of cards to add to my Tampa binder.

 I got a bunch of cards from sets I either didn't have or ones that I only got a few packs of, including a bunch of Pacific sets I haven't seen much of. I also got some nice cards of guys in my Favorite Player Collection, including a sweet '99 Fleer Platinum Medallion of Tony Saunders. I'll be looking forward to putting these cards in my Tampa binder, PC binders, and highlights binders ('00 Finest Boggs).
Thanks again Adam, and I will get some Giants to you the next time I stop at the post office.
-Jeremy

My first Card Show

On February 3rd, I went to my first ever card show with my stepdad. My wife dropped me off around 9, and I got started looking at the first table. He had a few good quarter boxes with some highlight cards which I got a few of, and also a few vintage cards. My stepdad met me while I was at that table, and he enjoyed looking at their vintage football cards and talking about the players.
I was done with that one, so I went and scouted the area. There were maybe 20-30 different vendors there, and I made a note of the ones with dime/quarter/dollar boxes, and then went to each one. The first one had a few 5000 count boxes of more recent common cards, and I got some Rays/Tigers/Favorite Players from it since I sometimes miss out on issues like Heritage/Allen & Ginter/Bowman. They also had some commons from 2018 Topps, and I got a few guys I wanted. I also found a 2018 Topps Gold Parallel card in the box, proving my point about my 2018 Topps review that the Gold cards look almost like regular ones.
After leaving that table, I made my way around to the back part of the show. I had a few manu-patch cards I was looking to get rid of, and a guy asked me if I was selling and he gave me 5 bucks for the stack, and I was happy to get those monsters off of my hands.
I went to one of the last tables, and started looking through the guys quarter box, and dang, did he have some great cards!  Probably not to the average collector, but he had parallels and regular cards of guys from the '90's and '00's that I saw play in the minors and collect. He had 3 5000 card boxes full of them, and I made it through the first box and about halfway through the second. My neck was starting to hurt, my stepdads legs were starting to hurt, and my wife said that our 14-month old son, who she was at the mall with, was starting to get cranky, so I cashed out, and waited for her to come pick me up.
I ended up spending like $45, which was a little under budget, and I got some really cool cards. Now, on to the pictures of the fun day.

 I got a bunch of cool Tigers/Devil Rays/Rays cards to add to my binders, including the '81 Fleer Fidrych, some '92 Topps Gold cards, and various parallels.

 I added some cool cards to my Favorite Player Collection, including a card of Sidney DeJong, a few Max Scherzers, and a 2016 Topps Heritage Pat Venditte.

I really got some nice additions to my famous rookie card/highlights/shiny/neat cards binders, including a 1985 Topps USA style Will Clark, '87 Topps Traded Maddux rookie, '88 Score Glavine rookie, '89 Bowman Griffey rookie, '99 Topps Pat Burrell rookie, a 2011 Sports Illustrated for Kids Bryce Harper, 2 World Series Highlights cards from '69 Topps, a '75 Topps Hank Aaron Highlight, a '75 Topps regular Hank Aaron, an '82 Donruss San Diego Chicken card, an '83 Fleer Ripken, some promo card for Ken Griffey Jr. plastic sleeves, and some various cards mixed in.

Overall, it was a great experience, and I wish I had a little more time, because that last table had some great stuff, and I would've liked to look through all their boxes, as well as hunt for some cheap game-used cards. There just wasn't enough time, but it was alot of fun, and I hope to go to another one soon.

Thanks for checking out my latest post.
-Jeremy

Trade Post: Night Owl Cards

I don't trade with other collectors that much, but this past month, I was able to do so with 3 collectors. Earlier this month, I traded a 2017 Topps Mark Canha printing plate to a collector named Charles, and he hooked me up with some nice additions to my Favorite Player Collection. I had sent a custom '92 Topps Dodgers set to Greg from Night Owl Cards a while back, and recently commented on a post where he was talking about not needing Rays cards that I would happily take them off of his hands. He was nice enough to oblige, and a few days ago, I received a stack of cards in the mail.

I got a nice assortment of Rays from many sets I didn't open many packs of, including the last 5 or so years of Allen & Ginter, and just about anything from 2012-2014. I am excited to add these Rays cards to my Tampa Bay binder, and Greg, I promise when I get some more Dodgers customs (like the 1989 Topps '88 World Series Highlights that are missing, I will get them over to you.
Thanks for checking out my latest post.
-Jeremy

2018 Topps

 I stopped at Target today, and lo and behold, 2018 Topps was on the shelves. My wife, son, and I went to Wal-Mart last night, and they had nothing. I was hoping to get a blaster, but when I saw you were guaranteed a Derek Jeter card (yuck!), I opted for 3 hanging packs. My first card of 2018 is.....

Wow, Jose Reyes. That could've been alot better. I would've almost preferred getting some common no-name guy than Reyes. Oh well. On to the good stuff. I got a few guys for my Favorite Player Collection, including Keon Broxton, a Kenley Jansen Award Winner insert, 2 Max Scherzer league leaders (1 will go in my PC binder, the other will go in the Nats one), and Andrelton Simmons. As far as Tigers and Rays, I got James McCann, Daniel Norris, 2 Jordan Zimmerman's and a team card for the Tigers, 2 Chris Archers, and a Kevin Kiermaier for the Rays. Doubles suck, especially when they are of your 2 favorite teams, ones that you hardly ever see in packs. I got a Lance McCullers, Jr. World Series card for the highlights binder, and the rest are inserts. 

I think I want to take this time to express my dislike for some things in the 2018 Topps cards. The Superstar Sensations and Legends in the Making insert cards are, to me, basically the same insert. A silver Topps logo on the top right, a player photo (in the Superstar Sensations case, two) where the player is coming out of a graphic, the white insert name on the bottom with the graphic kind of blending in with it, and the white player name below that. On top of that, they really remind me of one of the last years Topps Bunt designs (last year, maybe? I can never keep track of sets I don't open packs of anymore) and that Topps Fire set had kids. I'm just not into them. 

So I got a few of those inserts, including a Judge Legends in the Making one, which I might bring to tomorrow's card show and flip for a pack of '52 Topps. I got a regular? Legends insert of Frank Thomas (War Eagle!), and a Rookies insert of Nick Williams. These ones are nice looking inserts and I actually like them. I got an '83 insert of Justin Upton. Those are ok besides the lack of cardboard stock. Finally, I got a Gold insert of Dylan Bundy. Those are horrible. I was expecting some kind of different texture or foil on the Gold cards this year, just like in years past, but these are just a regular card with a little gold behind them. I honestly thought it was a regular card before looking at it closely. Go ahead and look at the picture and you can't really tell anything different from it and a regular card. Way to go and get cheap, Topps. 

 Here are the rest of the cards I got. The collation wasn't as terrible as I expected. I did get 2 cards in a row that were the same as a previous pack, but not the 5 and 6 that I have been used to seeing. The cards were kind of different than what I was used to out of the pack, not being in a single brick, but almost like when you shuffle cards and some are sticking out a tad and you have to tap them against the table to get them in a nice stack.

I'll probably get a few more packs the next time my wife asks me if I want cards, and maybe wait and get some '18 Donruss and Heritage once I get sick of Series 1. I guess I did ok with the packs. Wish the inserts weren't as mailed in as they are this year. Topps needs to bring back First Pitches and Pride and Perseverance.
Tomorrow is the big day, my first card show. Hoping to pick up some PC cards, Devil Rays, Rays, and Tigers, and I would love to get a jersey card or two, but we'll see what's in the dime boxes and what the budget allows. I'll be sure to post about it soon after.
Thanks for checking out my latest post.
-Jeremy