Christmas surprise package from Too Many Verlanders

A few months ago, I traded cards with Dennis from Too Many Verlanders.  It was a good trade, and I certainly didn't expect another package to come in the mail, but Dennis mailed a bunch of Christmas packages to bloggers, and I was one of the lucky ones to recieve one. Certainly didn't expect that, so thanks to Dennis and all of the other bloggers who generously mailed Christmas packages to other bloggers. 

My cards came inside a package of 1998 Pinnacle Inside, the first (and maybe only?) brand of trading cards to be sold inside of a can. The can has a (Devil) Rays logo, and a little bio about the franchise on it. 

Inside were some cool cards. I really like the 1998 SPx Boggs duo. I have never seen or pulled any Stat line cards from 2004 Donruss, and I know I busted at least 5 or so packs. The majority of the package were from the 2006 Topps Rays set, which I am very close to completing now. The last 4 cards shown are a Richie Shaffer jersey/auto from 2013 Bowman Platinum, a 2014 Topps Matt Joyce, a 2014 Topps Chrome Orange Refractor David Price card, and a 2016 Topps Triple Threads James Shields auto/jersey card. Awesome cards, Dennis. Thank you so much for sending them to me over the holidays.

Speaking of holidays, they are coming to a close, which for me and anyone else in the retail world, is very exciting. Things should start getting back into a routine, which means my posting should be a little less sporadic, and I should be getting more checklists and customs done. 

I have finished the 1955 Topps missing player checklist, and have just started on 1956. Only about 60 more to go. The 1951 checklist also has every template imaginable for the set, and I did a Honus Wagner 1951 Topps card as a coach. All of that is on the page. I hope to keep knocking checklists out in the coming months, as well as organize my Rays, Tigers, and Favorite Player Collection binders. I think I will wait until the end of January just because I have an Amazon gift card, and I might order some cards from them. 

I plan to do a good amount of drinking tomorrow night, since this will be the first New Year's Day I have had off in quite some time, and I think we should be getting a hotel pretty close to the beach and some bars in Daytona, so I am looking forward to that, and will be pretty happy to kick 2019 out the door and usher in 2020. I hope everyone stays safe no matter what they are doing tomorrow night.

Thanks for checking out my latest post.

-Jeremy

COMC Parallel Haul

Back during the COMC Black Friday sale, I got 100 cards or so to add to my collection. Most of them were parallels of guys in my Favorite Player Collection that helped get closer to or finish some rainbows of cards, as well as a few cards to help complete some projects I've been working on. 

Let's see the haul. 

First up, I got the remaining few player cards I needed to complete my 1993 Topps Black Gold insert set.  I put all of the cards together to get a picture of the completed set. 

I also purchased a few of the redemption cards, to give me all of the redemption cards, and leaving me needing only 3 Certified Winner cards (AB, CD, and the grandmother of them all, ABCD). 

The difference between the two are more noticable on the backs. On the pack-inserted redemption cards, it has the spot for you to write your name and info, and on the Certified Winners (sent back after you redeemed the set), it has the players you won listed on the back. If you have any of the Certified Winner cards I need up for trade, hit me up.

Next up are some cards I got from the 1998 UD3 set. I was always intrigued by the set. It had 3 subsets that made up the 90-card set (30 cards each). Every card in the set also had 3 different (parallel?) versions of it, Embossed, Special FX, and Rainbow. I was fascinated by the set because it was between 3 and 5 dollars a pack, and only had 3 cards per pack. With my money back then as a 15-year old, I mostly purchased packs of Topps, Upper Deck, and Collector's Choice. More cards for 1-2 bucks. Here is a picture of an ad from Beckett of the set from It's like having my own Card Shop's blog.

 

The ad somehow incorrectly has the first card on the top right listed as Embossed technology, when it is a Special FX version. I purchased each technology of each subset, as well as a cheap die-cut card from each technology, so I basically had every version of each subset.

Going from left to right, you have the subsets (Establishment, Future Impact, and Power Corps), and top to bottom are the technology (Embossed, Rainbow, and Light FX). The very bottom row are the die-cuts.

I, of course, purchased some guys for my Favorite Player Collection, mainly adding some fun parallels of guys, a few relic cards I didn't have (Everett and Huff), an autograph or two (Dozier and McGowan), and some key cards I didn't have (Fielder rookie, Jacome Bowman, Alstott rookie), and sets I've always wanted (Fulmer Crusade, Gibson Millenium insert, Kluber Vector, Piatt Finest insert). The last random cards on the last photo are a Mark Appel & Sam Fuld rookie, a Brook Jacoby sunset card, a Khalil Greene relic (loved how he played SS), and a Brian Anderson Bowman foil I remember pulling as a kid and then trading away.

Here are a few Tigers and Rays I got to use up the rest of my store credit. The Joe Nathan is a Bubble-Fractor. I thought it would be a lot more textured and shiny, but it is still a cool card. On the bottom are some of the previously mentioned UD3 cards, as well as a Finest Jumbo of Dave Staton.

Lastly, I wanted to take pictures of some of the parallels and regular cards together to show off some of the rainbows. I have a Jack Cust '99? Gold Label & Gold Label die-cut, a Greg Halman 2009 Bowman & Bowman International, as well as his 2008 Bowman base, gold, and Chrome cards.
The '98 Score Rookie Traded Juan Encarnacion base I actually got out of a baseball pinball game at an arcade. The machine would shoot out cards the better you did at the game, and I played it a few times in 1998 and besides the Encaracion, I remember pulling the 1996 Topps Andruw Jones/Vlad Guerrero rookie. Now I have the Artists Proof to go along with the Encarnacion, as well as one to go along with my '98 Score Brady Anderson. I picked up the Chrome Refractor of Brooks Kieschnick's 1996 Topps card. Just need to get his Cubs team set version and regular Chrome version of the card. I got the Museum Collection of Robert Eenhoorn to go with his regular '95 Pinnacle card, a '97 Finest Refractor to go with the base of Bubba Trammell, and in a bit of a reverse fashion, I pulled the yellow Printing Plate of Jose Contreras from a pack of '07 Upper Deck, and now have the base card to go along with it.

Earlier in the year, The Buc Stops Here hooked me up wth 4 Bandon Inge 2013 Topps cards, and I added his Gold card to go along with the base, Green, Red, and Blue cards. I think I may be finished with Tony Saunders' 97 Ultra rainbow, with his base, Gold Medallion, and Platinum Medallion cards.
I considered getting all of the Refractors of Kenly Jansen's 2017 Topps Chrome card that were listed on COMC, but decided to get some cheaper cards. I still managed to pick up 2 more, so now I have his regular refractor, X-Fractor, Negative Refractor, and his Chrome Sapphire Refractor.
I think my 1997 Score Rafael Bournigal rainbow is finished. I have the base, Artists Proof, Reserve, and Showcase cards. Lastly, are Dave Staton's base 1994 Finest, All-Star, and Jumbo All-Star cards. I never knew he had a base finest card in the set. Still need the refractor versions, but it's cool to have all of the base cards and the jumbos.

It was nice to get a big shipment of cards at the end of the year after all of the craziness that has went on in 2019. As I write this, my wife is getting a scan done that may give us some answers about all of the pressure stuff in her head. Definitely sounds like more of a solution that what has been done so far, and if the scan shows the right things, there may be a possibility of relif for her, which would be nice. 2019 has sucked for a lot of people (and bloggers) that I know, and I have a feeling that 2020 is going to be an amazing year for me and a lot of other people. To anyone who has sent me a trade package this year and got my mind off of all of the craziness and to anyone who has sent a kind word or had me and my family in their thoughts and prayers this year, thank you. It truly means a lot.

I have been working on finishing my checklists. The main ones are done, and now it's just working on the 'traded and rookies' for every set. I started with 1951, and will keep working up to 2019. So far, I am in the middle of 1954, and they are going pretty quick. Hopefully they will keep doing so.

Thanks for checking out my latest post.

-Jeremy

The final Pole custom

When I first started this blog, I decided to make all of Dick Pole's cards. I knew little about the guy, just that he had a funny name and I wanted to attract traffic to my blog and figured that Pole would do the trick. It didn't really work, but I did learn a lot about Mr. Pole and how he became a sucessful coach with the Chicago Cubs and how he turned Greg Maddux into an elite pitcher with his coaching.
Well, I had thought I finished all of Dick's cards, but when I came to the 2004 Topps checklist, I realized that he was a coach in the 2003 All-Star game, and he never got a card. I corrected that and placed his name in the checklist, and I took about an hour and made the card.

I used about 5 different All-Star cards to get the magazine in the background right. I mainly used Carlos Delgado's card, and then others to get all of the letters in Sporting News and the players in the background. A classy card to cap off Dick's career Topps run.

I was supposed to be getting a package of cards from COMC today, but I don't know where the heck it is. The USPS website said it is in Atlanta after 3-4 days of being in Texas, then later today it won't connect to the site because it can't connect to a server. COMC's site said it left a shipping center in Orlando at like 12 AM today. Last time I checked, it said the delivery date was unknown. Before that, it was today. I'll give the post office a break since it is busy this time of year.
I stopped at the post office today to mail out some card packages. John from Johnny's Trading Spot, Lee from Dodger Cardboard, and Chris from FanofReds should be getting cards from me soon. Also, Mr. Haverkamp, I have a stack of cards set aside for you and I need your address. Collecting Cutch had also commented on wanting to trade, and I have looked for some Pirates/PC guys, and have a stack ready to ship out, so if you want to e-mail me where to send it, I will get those ones out soon. It may be another batch of 3 packages, becuase I need to look for some Black Gold cards for Gavin from Baseball Card Breakdown, and I will probably have a chance to do that in the next 24-36 hours.

The 2018 Topps Missing Player checklist is up (including the Traded set too), and the last main set, 2019, is sitting on the Phillies, with the Pirates on deck and the Cardinals in the hole. I should knock that out in the next 2 days as well. Might do a post on that one.

A quick thing before I go, I think this music thing may get it's first shot tomorrow night. Joe, our band leader at church is going to come over tomorrow night and look over some songs I wrote. I have 5 or 10 songs that might have potential to be recorded, and I want to get them perfect before I show them to him. They are all typed out with the chords and lyrics. I may reprint 1 or 2 in different keys and 1 had an alternate chord structure in the verse, so I might reprint that one as well. I have them organized in (I hope) the order of the best ones first. I really hope this works and I can make decent recordings of the songs. I might record what we do tomorrow. I just really hope this gets the ball rolling and that Joe gets as passionate about these songs as I am. He is a great guitarist and can sing pretty well, and if I can get him to play some lead guitar parts, sing, and perhaps drums on recordings, that is a good start to play in the DeLand original music festival next April. All you need is a CD, and I'm assuming an entry fee. By then, I think I will have found a drummer, and Bill, the electric guitarist at church, would be happy to come along and play either bass or electric if we played live. I might sing one or two songs, but my main thing will be doing my thing on the piano/keyboards. I play so much better when I don't sing, and I have specific piano parts I have written in each song that I want to be heard, so if I can just get a vocalist, I think we might just be able to make a CD at least.
I need to be to work in 6 hours, so I am signing off. Tomorrow is going to be a fun day.
Thanks for checking out my latest post.
-Jeremy

Trade with The Collective Mind

Another person to kindly react to my trading post and want to start a trade was Greg from The Collective Mind. He commented that he had some cards from my Want List, and soon, we got a trade in the works. I was able to find some cards of a few guys he collects, and I will definitely be looking out for more the next time I am at a card shop or a show. I haven't been to many of each this year, but fingers crossed, 2020 will hopefully be better for my family and I. 

Yesterday night, I recieved a box from Greg, featuring a ton of Detroit Tigers, Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays, and some guys I collect. The pictures here don't do it justice. It was a good 6-8 inch stack of cards, and I think I needed every one. Here are some of the cards that were highlights for me.

The first 2 are of Bobby Higginson. He was one of the better Tigers in the late '90's. I was lucky enough to meet him and get his autograph many times during Spring Training. If I would've had his '97 EXL and '97 Finest card, you can bet they would be signed by now. The next 2 are from 1998 Topps Chrome. I busted packs whenever I had money in 1998, but I just never made it out to our LCS back then, so it was mostly retail Topps, Upper Deck, and Collector's Choice. I was jealous of friends who had cards from '98 Topps Chrome, but now, 20 or so years later, I have a sweet Robert Fick Prospects and Higginson card of my own from the set. Next up is a card of Brandon Timm from '04 SP Prospects. I busted at least 10 packs of the set and never pulled the Timm card. I had totally forgot his name until I saw this card yesterday. He played for the Lakeland Tigers around that time, and I saw him play at least a few times in person, and could've probably got this card signed if I had had it back then. 

I did get the '04 Topps Alan Trammell signed when he was a manager, but it, along with many Tigers cards I had, got sold when I sold some of my autographed cards around 2013. Next up is an Upper Deck Timeless Teams? card of Jim Northrup. I remember reading about Jim and how he was a big part of the '68 Tigers team, but never saw many of his cards. It is nice to see him show up in a retro set and to be able to add his cards to my collection. Next up is Chris Shelton's '05 Topps Cracker Jack card. Chris was a beast, and hit like 12 Homers in 20 games or something like that in '06, and I wish he would've got a better shot in the Majors. Always nice to get cards of Big Red. The next 2 are a sweet parallel from '05 Donruss Elite of Troy Percival, and a card of Carlos Guillen from a set I have never heard of ('05 Skybox Autographics). To the bottom left is an acetate (never know how that word is pronounced) card of Pudge Rodriguez from '05 Studio. 4 of the next 5 cards are from sets I have never seen until today. The '06 Topps Chrome Refractor of Bonderman was the only set I have seen, and the other 4 are from random higher-end Upper Deck sets, which is probably why I have never got any base cards from them. Its great to add some new sets to my Tigers binder. 

On to the Rays part of the package, I got a '98 Topps Chrome John Flaherty that brought back some old memories. I was at a Rays game in '98 or '99, and was getting autographs before the game, and a lady and her son came up next to me, and had some nicer cards from sets like '98 Topps Gallery, '98 Topps Chrome, and such. I basically had Topps, Upper Deck, and Collector's Choice, and I remarked to them how they had some nice looking cards, and went about the rest of batting practice getting autographs. I will alwasy remember how nice their cards were. I guess they had went to a card shop at some point and got them. One of them was the '98 Topps Chrome Flaherty, which is now in my collection, thanks to Greg. The '99 Topps Bobby Smith is just a base card to 99% of collectors, but I barely purcahsed any '99 Topps, and this set is a great set for Rays fans like me, because it shows the teams first year. Next up are 2 2000 Jose Canseco cards, a nice Pacific Gold Crown die-cut, and a 2000 Topps card. I always wished he and the guy on the next card would've produced like they did in the previous 5 years. The Rays would've scored many more runs if Canseco, Vinny Castilla, and Greg Vaughn hit 40+ Homers during their tenure. The Castilla card is an insert from 2000 Upper Deck, and is pretty shiny. The Next 2 cards are from sets Topps put out in 2001. The Ben Grieve is a parallel from '01 Gold Label, and the other is a base card of Fred McGriff from '01 Topps Reserve, a set which only lasted 1 year. The big thing with Reserve is that you could pull redemption cards that featured a graded Topps Reserve card, with either a cut autograph (and I may be mis-remembering the next parts), a jersey piece, or a signed helmet. The '90's and '00's were a strange time with cards.
Next 2 are 2 shiny parallels from sets that I have purchased cards from, but never pulled parallels from. The first is an '05 Leaf Certified Materials card of Rocco Baldelli. I purchased a pack or two of the set, but never pulled anything that shiny. The 2nd is a Playoff Absolute Memorabilia parallel of Carl Crawford. I purchased between 5-10 packs of that set (perhaps maybe even a retail box), and I think the only parallels I pulled were a red and black logo card. Greg helped me add to my Francisco Leandro collection again. I went from having 0 card of Leandro to having 3 in the past month or so.
The 2 on the bottom left are from the '07 Topps Co-Signers set, and the last one is a neat looking (base?) card from a set I had never known about, called '07 Upper Deck Elements. It is cool to get such neat looking cards and to add depth to my collection with new sets.

On to the Favorite Player portion. Up first is a sweet '03 Bowman Chrome Refractor rookie card of Matt Diaz. I wanted to pull his card so bad in '03 and get them signed, so I am happy to have a nice collection of him now. Next to him is an '05 Donruss Champions parallel of Joey Gathright. I got a boost to my new Aubrey Huff collection, with 6 different cards, including 4 parallels. I don't know where you get all these sweet parallels, Greg, but you outdid yourself with them. My Brandon Inge collection got 3 new cards, including a nice Red framed parallel from '05 Donruss Diamond Kings. The next few are some inaugural Rays whom I collect, Brooks Kieschnick, Quinton McCracken, Tony Saunders, and Bubba Trammell. I love the Topps Chrome cards. 2 new Ben Zobrist cards to add to his part of the binder, and finally, a nice sunset card of Brook Jacoby that Greg had and was nice enough to send me. 

Thanks so much, Greg, for trading with me. You outdid yourself with the package. I will keep my eye out for Royce Clayton, Mike Mussina, Livan Hernandez cards, and anything else I think you will like. 

Things are a little crazy in the next week or two. My family and I are going to be in 2 parades in the next 2 days. We are playing with the band from our church on the float in the DeLand Christmas parade tomorrow. I'm hoping to pitch a few original songs to Joe, our new leader, if we have time tomorrow. I will let everyone know how that goes. My wife will be on the float in the Port Orange Christmas parade on Sunday with her work, and I will tag along with her for that one. 

On Tuesday, she is flying to Atlanta for 3 days for her work, and I should have some time to make checklists and customs. I should have a package from COMC in by then, so perhaps, I will be doing some organizing and updating. While putting the new cards from Greg in to my Rays/Tigers box, I didn't add any of them to my Rays and Tigers Want Lists, so I think once the trading/COMC packages die down towards the end of the year, I will put all my new cards in binders and make sure everything is updated. 

The week after that is a little up in the air. My wife has been getting the bad headaches again, so she went to her neurosurgeon in Gainesville today, and based on some tests that they did, they don't believe her LP shunt is working, so they want to do exploratory surgery on her on Monday the 16th. I will probably go up there with her. Hopefully this will fix everything, but if you have been reading this blog for any amount of time, you know that this is just a weird thing with her, and that she has had like 10 different surgeries since I've known her and it hasn't really seemed to fix anything for a long period of time. We'll see what happens with this one...

Speaking of how long I've been with my wife, it is our 7-year wedding anniversary on Sunday. Perhaps we will go out to eat after the parade and celebrate. I don't know how she puts up with me sometimes. 

I hope to have some packages out sometime this week, so if you've traded with me lately or have emailed me about a trade and sent your address, I just may have something headed your way. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post.

-Jeremy

Trade with Mr. Haverkamp

A few weeks ago Jim (aka Mr. Haverkamp) got in contact with me wanting to trade. Things have been crazy in the last week because of work being slammed with Thanksgiving coming. I managed to pull 49 hours, and I can't wait to see my paycheck in 2 days. I hadn't been able to go through my binders yet, but Jim decided to send me a package anyway, and I got it a few nights ago. Tomorrow I am off and don't really have too much on the boards, so I should have some time to go through a few different team binders for some trades that are in the works, and hopefully to make some customs to send along with them as well. 

Here is what I got from Mr. Haverkamp.

I always organize my cards by year when I take pictures of them, so you get to see some of the earlier Rays uniforms. I have always liked the first uniforms they had from 1998 to 2000, but the 2nd set of uniforms they had wasn't bad, as they kept the main logo and everything, just changed the coloring a bit. I got some nice Bowman Heritage/Topps Cracker Jack/Turkey Red cards from Mr. Haverkamp to start with. The 2nd card in the picture is a black box parallel. I love some of the 2006 Bowman Heritage cards. I didn't buy many packs of a number of these retro sets, and when I did, I usually never pulled Rays. The latter is the case for 2006 Bowman Heritage. I probably busted about 5-10 packs of it when it came out, but didn't pull any Rays. I would've loved to pull a Jorge Cantu, as he was one of my favorite Rays back then, and I am still bitter that he never made an All-Star team. The Francisco Leandro card (2nd from right on 2nd row down) would've been a cool card to pull in '06 as well, since I lived in Montgomery, Alabama, and I could've got it signed at a Montgomery Biscuits game that year. I remember his regular Bowman card was in the display case at the LCS we had in Montgomery, but it was like 9 bucks. Finishing the picture out are some Topps '52's, an Allen & Ginter BJ Upton, and some cool Bowman Chrome cards, which feature a few more Biscuits I could've got signed. The names brought back some good memories, and I am glad I finally have some of their cards in my collection now. You might see the Quaker cranberry almond baked flat at the top of the picture. Those things are good. We must've purchased some for my son at one point, and I had a low blood sugar in the middle of the night, and stumbled to the pantry to find something to sustain my sugar after drinking some OJ, and I grabbed one of his breakfast flats and started eating it, and now I eat on just about every morning for breakfast. I think I was about to pack my lunch when I was taking pictures of my cards. 

This picture is Allen & Ginter heavy, which is good, because I have purchased maybe 1 pack of each year, except for 2011, when I purchased like 3 boxes. Wish I would've saved that money and got some Rays and Tigers on COMC.
Anyway, a bunch of new additions to some Allen & Ginter sets, and a bunch of minis as well.

All of these 5 guys are in my Favorite Player Collection. I may have that '52 Zobrist, but no worries, if I do, I can put it in my Rays binder.

Thank you so much, Mr. Haverkamp. We should trade again, and like I said earlier, I will go through your Want List tomorrow and should have some cards headed your way by the end of the week.

I am so close to finishing the last 2 checklists for the Topps main sets. Around 2/3 of the 2018 set, and all of 2019. Possibly could get done with 2018 tomorrow.  I will keep everyone posted, and definitely let you know when they are done. After that, I will work on the Traded sets (big thanks to Paul B. for helping me with some of the Traded sets already). Expect to see a new Sunset Cards page up soon as well, definitely after I finish the last regular Topps missing player checklist. I need to go through each set to double check who needs a custom and who Topps made cards of, and also need to go through a few years and actually mark them down as sunset cards. It may be a little time consuming, but nothing a month or so shouldn't help to finish. Stay tuned.

Thanks for checking out my latest post.
-Jeremy