Blog Bat Around: What I collect

Night Owl made a Blog Bat Around post the other day about things he collects. He had some cool parts to his collection. Mine is a little different than his, but our secondary areas are pretty similar. Here it goes.

1. Favorite Players

I have about 3 binders full of my favorite players. There are too many guys to list, and I don't want to bore you with a ton of pictures, but feel free to check out the link and the individual posts/pictures of each player. This area of my collection takes the #1 priority. If I get cards online, I try to get guys I collect to add to this binder, and if I pull a card from a pack that could fit in another area of my collection, I will add it to my Favorite Player Binder first, then if I get a double of it, then it goes either in a lower category, if applicable, if not, then it goes in a team binder.

2. Tigers/Devil Rays/Rays

I love to try to get cards of Detroit and Tampa Bay players from any year. Pretty simple.

3. Season/World Series Highlight cards

Here is where I took some pictures so you can get a feel of my different binders. I feel that Season/World Series Highlight cards capture the rare moments when athletes are at the top of their game. Also thrown in this album are historic moment cards, such as the Gold Rush, Woodstock, random wars ending, and such. Here are some pictures.

I have these in order by date. If I have cards from different brands of the same moment, it goes by earliest year and alphabetically by brand. For some moments that didn't get cards (like Barry Bonds' 100th HR (in the center of the left page on the last photo), I have made customs for them.

4. Famous Rookie Cards

This binder includes anything from a Shawn Abner '85 Topps rookie to a '89 Upper Deck Ken Griffey, Jr. Basically cards that were on Beckett's Hot List, or ones that I remember being big when they came out. Many of them don't hold their value now, but some of them do. Here is a sampling.

I forgot to mention that I like getting cards signed, and if they are signed, I add them to whichever binder they would normally go in.

5. Relics/Shiny cards/Cards that have meaning to me/Refractors

The final albums are kind of a hodgepodge of what I like about cards. I like to double stuff my cards in the 9-pocket pages so there are 18 in each, so this pairing of cards kind of came out of necessity. Relic cards don't fit in pages as it is, and if you try to put them back to back, it's impossible. To solve this problem, I put my cards with meaning/shiny cards on the reverse side. My relics only take up maybe 10 pages, so after the relics are gone, then the rest of the meaningful/shiny cards fill up the majority of the binder. The final part of it has refractors by year. Here are some pictures from that album.

I could go on for days on why some of the cards mean so much to me with stories about when I pulled them or who I traded with to get the card, or games I went to and got the card signed. This album is a nice way to relive some great times. Plus, the Refractors are fun to look at. Love the sparkly!!

So that sums up my unique binders and what I collect. All the rest of the 50 or so binders are dedicated to each team. I don't know if I am different from most collectors or not, but I find it comforting that I share the same kind of priority in their collection of guys like Night Owl who have their favorite teams as the 2nd or 3rd level of their collection. Collect what you like, and like what you collect. I think I have done that with my 5 kinds of things I collect and each binder.

Thanks for checking out my latest post.

-Jeremy

COMC Haul

The last 2 years after we got our tax return money back, my wife has been nice enough to let me get a bunch of cards from COMC that have been on my want list. This past year, I placed my order right before the WBC, and before I had started collecting former members of the Dutch National Team, so I have a bunch of those guy on my list. Here are the cards I got, starting with guys in my Favorite Player Collection binder.

I am particularly excited about the Andruw Jones WBC relic and the Richie Sexson Brewers patch. I recently added Ron Artest Metta World Peace to my Favorite Player Collection after watching him on Big Brother Celebrity Edition this past month. That guy is crazy.

Next up are cards for my Highlights and Famous Rookie Card binders. I got a Derek Fisher card for my collection and for my son Kyler's (Kyler's first game was Fisher's MLB debut where Derek hit a Homer for his first hit, and later followed with a single in the same inning as the Astros batted around). I picked up a few key rookies from the '90's and '00's that I had never got, but kind of always wanted, including Bagwell's '91 Stadium Club rookie, Giambi's '91 Topps Traded USA card, Tony Clark's '94 Bowman's Best and '94 Bowman Preview rookies, a '97 Bowman Miguel Tejada, '97 Bowman Chrome Jose Cruz, Jr. and Travis Lee rookies (Lee is an International Parallel), a '98 Bowman Chrome Ryan Leaf rookie, a '99 Bowman Chrome Corey Patterson rookie, Adam Dunn and Alfonso Soriano from '99 Topps Traded (Chrome Soriano), an '00 Bowman Chrome Refractor of Rick Asadoorian, '01 Upper Deck MVP Ichiro rookie (which I couldn't believe was only 4 bucks!), an '01 Sweet Spot Mark Prior rookie, an '02 Bowman Dontrelle Willis, and '05 Topps Jay Bruce and Jered Weaver rookies. None of these are really worth anything now, but back in the '90's and '00's, these were pretty hot cards.

Finally, for the Game-Used and Special Card binder, I got Fragments of the Farm relics of a championship flag, seat, tarp, pitching rubber, and netting from various different minor league parks. I think the Fragments of the Farm issues are nice collectibles, and it's refreshing to see something different than the usual jerseys and bats. I think with these relic cards, I have just about a whole baseball field covered as far as relic cards. I have a base, home plate, pitching rubber, outfield wall, seat, flag, pitching rubber, tarp, and bunting.
I got jersey cards of Miguel Cabrera, Clayton Kershaw, and Mariano Rivera. I was hoping to get ones from Derek Jeter (hate him, but just becasue he is such a big name), Bryce Harper, and Mike Trout, but they were a little more than I wanted to pay.
Finally, I didn't get the '92 ToppsGold autograph card of Brien Taylor, but I did get one from Classic. I had Tony Clark's 1996 Upper Deck Future Stock Prospects card, but I got it signed, and ultimately, when I sold some of my cards, Tony's was with them, so I got it back with my order. I have always liked the Bowman's Best Cuts insert set in '97 Bowman's Best, and I got this Jose Cruz, Jr. Atomic Refractor.
This purchase will ultimately put me back a little bit as far as it comes to updating my Favorite Player Collection posts, but I hope to finish them up and have them as up-to-date as I can, and then get cranking on customs with my favorite players represented on my blog.
Most everyone has got '18 Topps Heritage, but I am a little late to the party. I hope to get some the next time I go to Target. I have the '18 Topps checklist page up, and the Topps site has the custom '18 Topps maker up now too, so some friends on the FB Custom Card Page have knocked some off of the list. I am just hoping to focus on finishing the '98 set, and maybe start the '93 Topps or '91 Topps set.

Thanks for checking out my latest post.
-Jeremy

Richie Sexson Missing Topps Cards

Richie Sexson played in the Majors from 1997-2008. He played with the Cleveland Indians from 1997 until the middle of 2000 when he was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers. He played with the Brewers until the end of the 2003 season, twice hitting 45 Homers in a season. He got traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the offseason, played with them through an injury filled 2004, and then signed with the Seattle Mariners. He played 2005-2008 with Seattle, getting released in August of 2008 after struggling with the team. He was picked up by the New York Yankees on July 18, finished the year with them, before calling it a career. I actually got to see him play during his short time in New York. My brother-in-law JT and I were on a baseball road trip that July, and we saw game 1, and the pregame warmups of game 3 of a Sox-Yankees series at Fenway Park. He didn't get an at-bat, but did come in to replace Jason Giambi at first and recorded a putout.

Sexson was covered pretty well on Topps cards during his career. He is only missing a 2009 Topps card from his playing days. I decided to give him a 1994 Topps Draft Pick and a 1994 Topps Prospect card as well. I may add a 1997 Prospects card if I can find a few more First Basemen to pair with him.  Here is Richie's career Topps run.

1994 Topps Draft Pick custom

1994 Topps Prospects custom

1995 Topps Traded Prospects

1996 Topps Prospects

1998 Topps Prospects

1999 Topps

2000 Topps

2001 Topps

2002 Topps

2003 Topps

2004 Topps

2004 Topps Traded

2005 Topps

2006 Topps

2007 Topps

2008 Topps

2009 Topps Custom

That completes Richie's career Topps run. 

I have been doing a few projects for other people lately, but it looks like they may be done, and I plan on doing some more of my custom projects, including finishing some cards from the 2020 Topps Archives Lost Cards project, doing some more 1998 Topps customs, and finishing my Favorite Player Collection player posts. 

I also placed an order on COMC, so I will have a bunch more cards to add to my Favorite Player/rookie card/highlight binders. Spoiler alert: I got many guys from the Dutch National Team. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post.

-Jeremy