Custom Set Pages

Sunday, April 24, 2022

A great pull

 It’s been a while since I’ve posted. Really hasn’t been much happening since getting back from vacation, just normal things like work and stuff. Easter was crazy at work, but ever since the pandemic and these delivery companies doing the grocery thing, it’s been crazy even when it’s not a holiday. We had a nice Easter service at church. I normally play a Korg Triton Studio Series keyboard there when I play, but the organist from the earlier service needed to borrow it, so it was unavailable. No worries, though, as I was wanting to play either my digital piano from home (which has 1-2 more octaves of keys) or the grand piano which also does. I like the Triton because it has a nice organ effect and a nice Rhodes effect which I usually end up using for at least 1 song. This week, I felt like I could get by with a piano sound for the 4 songs, and like I needed the extra octaves to add that extra ‘oomph’ that Easter deserves. Looks like I won’t get the chance to play for a few weeks, though, as people at work are on vacation during the next few weeks and I was scheduled to work today and the next 2 Sundays. 
As far as the baseball cards (and probably the main reason you are reading), I’ve been getting a few hanging boxes or blasters of the new products like I have done for a while, just trying to get a look at the new sets. It’s still kind of a challenge to keep the priorities straight, but I think if I can get some cards each month without going crazy, it will be a good balance. 
I’ve been hoping to be lucky enough to pull a Wander Franco from the stuff I’ve been ripping, but out of Series 1, Heritage, and Opening Day, I’ve just pulled 2 copies each of his base and Major League Stars insert in Flagship. While it’s nice to see a Rays player doing well, it’s a little sad that it’s driving up the prices for his single cards. I don’t want to pay 5-10 bucks for a single card from Opening Day. After opening 2 blasters from the set and pulling most of the mascots and cards I’ve wanted from it, it would be silly to gamble 20 bucks and try to pull one from another one. 
My wife was at Target yesterday, and asked if I wanted any cards. Our store has been lucky enough to have a halfway decent card aisle in recent weeks. I told her if they had Heritage I’d take some, but no Opening Day or Series 1, as I’m going to purchase the 2022 complete set at some point and for the reason I’ve already mentioned about Opening Day. 
They had Heritage blasters and hanging boxes. My wife recently got a promotion and bonus at work, and was kind of in a shopping mood. I told her I would be happy with the hanging box, but she told me to just get the blaster since she had the bonus money. There were 2 blasters and she told me to pick either 1 or 2. I chose 2, and once I came home from work and we got everything unloaded, I got to ripping open the 8 packs. 
About 4 packs into it, nothing much for me, just an SP or 2. The 4th pack started pretty good with the Randy Arozarena playoff card I’ve been wanting to pull, and a few cards later, the Franco rookie. Then 2 cards after that, I pulled just a basic looking black insert card of Wander Franco. No serial number, no foil, and just looked like your average 1 in 10 or 20 pack insert. With no identification other than the card number (4), I stopped opening the packs and went to the internet to find out what the heck it was. After looking at the back of the pack trying to figure out what it was, I figured it was either a Candy Lid (which I figured would be circular), or a Venezuelan Stamp (which I figured was more of a postage stamp design). I finally hit pay dirt and found a picture of. Mike Trout Venezuelan Stamp, which looked like my Franco card. Sweet!  According to the internet, although the card isn’t serial numbered, only 200 were made!  Some of them online have prices from 20 bucks (with a week left on eBay), and one I found for 600 bucks earlier this morning. Probably one of the best pulls I’ve had, along with a 2005 Bowman’s Best ARod autograph and 2 common printing plates (2007 UD Jose Contreras and 2017 Topps Mark Canha). 

I also pulled a Shane Baz from the pack, which was probably one of my most Rays-heavy ever. Didn’t pull anything else from the packs noteworthy other than another SP or 2, but the 2 Franco’s more than made up for it. With Night Owl pulling the Chrome Refractor a few weeks ago and myself pulling the Franco stamp, the good guys stuck it to the flipper bro’s as far as ‘22 Heritage is concerned. 
I’ve also placed an order from COMC. I get why some people have issues with them not shipping as fast as they want, but I can deal with it, and I’ve always had good experiences with them. Back when they were new in 2007 or so, I ordered some cards, had them shipped, got on the site a day or so later, and ordered more cards. Both packages were placed in the same box and I was only charged once for shipping. Fast forward to now, I had 121 cards in my cart, and requested them to be shipped. I realized I missed a few cards on the list I made up, and emailed them, asking if I could cancel the shipment order and add more cards to it. They were very helpful, and I ended up adding 30 or so cards more to the order. I’ll show the order when it arrives, but it mainly consists of autographed or memorabilia cards of Rays and Tigers, some sunset cards, just about every card of Rays mascot Raymond that I didn’t have, some cards for my son (Jackie Robinson, Bernie Brewer, some of the Raymond cards), 2 cards I’ve wanted for a while that I feel have a decent chance of just costing more the longer I wait (Casey Mize and Spencer Torkelson Bowman rookies), and a few random cards of guys I collect. 
I’ve been dabbling with customs a little as well. I’ve updated the Sunset Cards page, with all of the custom sunset cards I’ve made, as well as updating the ‘22 Topps sunset cards (aside from the recent Jake Arietta). 
I’ve also started working on trying to see how far I could get with completing the 1952 Topps set. Surprisingly, I just have 3 teams left (Browns, Cardinals, and Senators). This means I’ve done each player who played for a team in 1951 that was missing a card, updated players with different 1952 teams, used a site to colorize a decent amount of black and white photos, found photos for every card, and somehow found autographs for every player in the set. Amazing things that the internet has allowed for us to do that weren’t available to us just say 25 years ago. If this project gets completed, I think I’ll move on to another, probably more difficult project of finishing the 1951 Topps set. More designs, cutout photo, 3 different fonts, diagonal lettering, a text bio, and for this set, every photo needs to be in black and white. If ‘52 is attainable, I know ‘51 (and probably any set ever) will be. 
Thanks for checking out my latest post. 
-Jeremy

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