Trying to complete some sets

 I’ve been on a FB complete set builder group, and let me tell you, although the internet can be loaded with D-bags and flippers, there are still some good people out there who just care about completing sets and helping others out. I have seen some guys on the group who you can tell probably buy Target out of blasters who are trying to complete ‘Master sets’ and are mainly looking for inserts, but a majority of them are guys trying to finish out 2025 Topps sets and are missing the same 10-20 cards that I am because the collation sucks. 

I’ve been doing a lot of trading on that page lately. One trade I gave some 2025 Topps needs and got a 220 card lot of Rays. I had a ton of dupes, which is bound to happen being 12 cards short of the #5 Tampa Bay Rays collector on TCDB, but I got cards from sets I never had, like 2022 Topps Pristine. 

Another guy needed some random sets like 2016 Topps Chrome, 2007 Topps Heritage, and some older sets I had tons of dupes of, like ‘93 and ‘94 Topps. I sent him a good 500 count box of needs and got back a box almost as big with Topps needs ranging from 2010 to 2018. 

I got a pretty big stack of all Topps needs, and it darn near took the whole afternoon to mark them off of my paper list, computer kist, and TCDB list. 

I am darn near completing a few Topps sets from that era now, including 1998 Topps (just a John Smoltz card), 2005 Topps (Jermaine Dye), 2016 Topps Update (Robert Stephenson),2001 Topps Traded, (a 1976 Topps Traded Willie Randolph which I will accept either the reprint or the original), 2007 Topps Update (Scott Baker), 2002 Topps (Shane Reynolds), 2007 Topps (Vinny Rottino), 2005 Topps (2002 Topps Update (just a Brian Hunter SP and Eric Cyr), 2003 Topps (Carlos Pena, Mike Hampton, Jeff Kent All-Star), 2018 Topps (12 cards), 2017 Topps (42 cards), 2010 Topps Update (20 cards), 2018 Topps Update (22 cards), and 2015 Topps (55 cards).  The ‘18 Update might be tricky, as I need an Ohtani Rookie Debut and the Acuna Rookie Debut, but if I can be patient, I can probably get the Ohtani for 20 bucks or so, and the Acuna is surprisingly around 5 bucks. So all those sets are at 90% complete or more. Most of the ones missing fewer than 5 are just due to my stupidity when placing my SportLots order. I may just due a big order at some point in the next few months and try to complete some of these. I am excited that I have got so close to completing some of these Topps sets, and I can now realistically see having a complete run of Topps and Topps Update sets from 2016 to now, which will give me a run of sets for every year my son has been alive. If I really worked at it and spent a little dough and time on SportLots, I could probably fill in the holes from 2003-2015 as well. I have a few years complete in that gap as well, including (almost) 2005-2007. 2008 just needs a complete Update set, so really the only set I’m seeing that is surprisingly expensive is 2014. If I can get it for 40 or 50 bucks, I might bite, but I never see it for under 70-90, and just because it has a Jose Ramirez rookie, I still can’t justify spending that much on it. I’ll get these sets eventually and be looking at a Topps run from 1980 to now. Maybe not this year or next year, but in the next 5 hopefully. (Late Update, I found the 2018 Update Ohtani Rookie Debut for a decent price, so that set has all the toughies knocked out other than the Acuna, which I think I can get for a fiver or so). 

I’ll have 1 more package from a trade coming in this week. I helped a guy finish his 1992 Donruss set, and I have no clue what’s coming back, but I’m sure 👍🏻 I’ll be able to cross some cards off of my Topps wantlist. 

I added links to all of these sets just in case anyone wanted to see what they have and do some trading. As with John from Johnny’s Trading Spot, I’ve been trying to organize some of my dupes in order to make trading easier. I’ve done everything up through 1989, there is a big junk wax gap, and have basically everything from 2021 to 2025 in numerical order. This should make it easier to trade Topps doubles, and I can basically use TCDB for non-Topps stuff. I’ll get the 1990-2020 stuff organized at some point, and I’ll be able to know pretty quick if I can help out anyone in the FB set collectors page, or anywhere else for that matter. 

The part that is circled are the 2021 to 2025 doubles that are in numerical order. The rest of the box is is 2018 or so to 2020 sets that need to be organized. 

I basically have 4 days of work left, and then I’m off Sunday. Karen and I will travel to Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville Sunday afternoon, and she will have the stent trial on Monday, and we’ll see how it does the next few days, and I’ll basically be off the grid until Saturday when I’ll probably be back in DeLand and at work. Hopefully it will improve her breathing and we can get the mesh surgery in the coming weeks after that. I’ll probably take my laptop with me. There is a card shop in Jacksonville that my brother in law likes, but I doubt I’ll have a chance to stop by. I’ll probably make some customs on my laptop, getting to finish the 2007 Topps Rays set, and maybe finishing 2007 Update and getting some 2008 Rays done. I’ll definitely post those on FB and if I can, I’m going to try to print the 1999-2007 missing Rays customs that I’ve done and put them in with the regular set and maybe post them. Hopefully the trip will bring some new customs, a little rest, and most importantly some improvement on Karen’s health and a go-ahead for the mesh surgery.  

Thanks for checking out my latest post. 

-Jeremy

I guessed right

 Oftentimes when digging through dime boxes, it comes to a matter of guesswork. Do I have a certain card of a player?  Do I need a regular or Chrome version of a card?  Wantlists can help out immensely with this, but as a team collector of the Rays and Tigers, and a player collector of 50+ guys, it often times comes down to guesswork. A good amount of the time, I guess wrong and end up with some doubles. I’m sure it happens a decent amount of time with team collectors who don’t lug around a phone book sized list. It’s just one of the things card collectors deal with. 

I kind of wanted to go to K n T’s one more time on Tuesday, as it was the last day off before school starts again, and I was able to go, although I had the little one in hand again. He was a little more hyper this time, and I had to remind him not to spin on the chairs and keep his feet on the ground. 

While at the shop, I was able to add some needs to my collection, but not without the doubles. 

While this stack makes it look like my guessing game was off, I can assure you that it wasn’t that bad. Let’s look at the keepers, and I’ll explain why. 

For the favorite players, I was pretty good with the guessing. The Brady Anderson, Rob Ducey, Nick Fortes, Mason Miller, Max Scherzer, and Jonathan Schoop pickups were all guesses. The ‘95 Emotion and Stadium Club cards were hit and miss, with a few new ones making it. Both team sets are 1 card short, I believe. 

The 1998 Upper Deck set is where I struck gold. The set was released in 3 series. I have a good number of series 1 as a friends dad collected it and gave me just about everything from that series that he had that wasn’t an insert. I purchased a few series 2 packs, and maybe 1 series 3 pack, so those were on the thin side in my Tigers binder. Fortunately for me, there were a few chunks of 1998 Upper Deck in the dime boxes the last 3 times I went to the shop, and my 1998 Upper Deck Tigers team set is now complete. I don’t even think that the 1990, 1991, or 1992 UD Tigers sets are complete, so that is a cool accomplishment. The 1998 Upper Deck set is a vastly underrated set. The design is cool, despite sometimes having names and teams being hard to read. All-Stars, retiring players, and rookies all have a circle emblem notating that at the top, and there are some short print Eminent Prestige cards that are somewhat tough (1 in 4 packs), but only 3 of them, so they are attainable. The Manning, Baez, and Rainer were right guesses, as was the Nate Lowe. I have seen the 2019 Topps Update Josh Lowe card enough to know that something was off with the photo of the one in the dime box, and sure enough, I pulled an SP. The last correct guess of the photo was the ‘23 Donruss Kyle Manzardo. I knew I had a parallel, but wasn’t sure if I had the base version. 

The first part of this group had some good guesses, and some bad ones. I could’ve sworn I had the ‘24 Chrome Curtis Mead, but I didn’t. The ‘23 Jonathan Aranda was a dupe, but the way he has performed this year, I’m happy to add it to my rookie card binder. I swear I picked up a Chrome of the Colt Keith Rookie Debut card and that TCDB said I needed the base Chrome, but I remember picking it up from SportLots. I picked one up, and sure enough, it was a double. I’m still not sure what the Chrome card I need of Keith. Perhaps a parallel?

The best guessing came with 1999 Stadium Club and some Heritage sets. I had remembered that the 2001 Stadium Club sets had SPs that were draft picks and prospects, but wasn’t sure about 1999, so I took a gamble. Turns out the ‘99 set did, and I netted 3 more. 

The Heritage were the biggest guessing gamble for me. I knew one of the recent years of Heritage had SPs that were numbered 1-100, not 401-500, but wasn’t quite sure. There was a chunk of the 2023 set that had random cards numbered in the 400s and less than 100. I gambled that 2023 had SPs numbered 401-500, and I guessed RIGHT!!  Even picked up a few dupes of SPs. There were only 2 of the 2025 Heritage set that were SPs, but I’m still happy to add 2 more. I also had to guess on some of the high number SP numbers. I wasn’t sure if they started at 700, and saw about 3 copies of 2023 Heritage #700, but didn’t pick it up. I should have, as it was in fact an SP, but maybe the next time I go back it will still be there. I normally don’t go through Heritage stuff unless it’s the beginning of the year and I need Rays and Tigers, so I’m glad I decided to look. The SPs will help me out with some TCDB trades as well as helping out fellow bloggers trying to complete some Heritage sets. 

The last batch involved some bad guesswork. The Mojo refractor was a dupe. I found a stack of 1992 O-Pee-Chee, and dug out the Dodgers and Braves, hoping Night Owl and Johnny’s Trading Spot needed them, and according to their wantlists, I don’t believe they do. Oh well. Not bad cards to pick up for 10 cents. There were 3 pickups of guys who haven’t got much cardboard. Bobby Chouinard only has 5 major cards, a 1996 Bowman’s Best, a 1997 Fleer, 1997 Topps, a 1997 Ultra, and the 1997 Upper Deck I picked up. The next guy, Curt Lyons, stumped me. I followed baseball die hard from around 1996-2011, and you would be hard pressed to find a random player you could tell me about that I hadn’t heard of. I can tell you about Brett Hinchcliffe, Brandon Reed, Stephen Smitherman, Kevin Polcovich, and other random names. But I had never freaking heard of Curt Lyons until picking up his 1997 Upper Deck from a dime box. He has an autograph insert from 1996 Bowman, and 1997 Circa card, a 1997 Metal Universe insert, and the 1997 Upper Deck card. Ron Witmeyer could be a candidate for Night Owl’s 1 card wonders, but I’ll let him be the judge. As far as major brands, he just has the 1992 Stadium Club you see here, and a 1992 Topps MLB Debut card, a random boxed set. Other than that, just minor league cards. 

The only Topps needs I found were the 1977 Rodriguez and 2010 Paulino. I always like 1992 ToppsGold cards, and the Templeton was a need. It is also his sunset card. Joe Randa is always a favorite of mine. Back in 2004 or 2005, he was a free agent, and I had added him on MySpace, and he put out a bulletin saying that he was debating on signing with the Pirates or Yankees. I sent him a message begging him not to go to the evil Yankee$, and he surprisingly messaged me back and told me that he was weighing out options and that he was surprised how strongly I felt about it. I like to think that I helped keep him from signing with the Yankee$ and got him to become a Pirate. 

Chad Mottola is the guy helping the Rays hit .200 and under, and the Rays aren’t planning on firing him anytime soon, so I pick up his cards for potential autographs when I see them. I told Kyler how I got autographs of Sandy Alomar Jr and Sr, so I picked up the 1997 Upper Deck of Junior. Kevin Witt was a nice guy when he was with Detroit. I have a few of his game used bats, so I picked up his ‘99 Fleer Warning Track parallel card. I don’t know how the ‘06 Bowman Gold Miguel Perez card got in my stack, but I’ve seen him play, so I’m cool with it. 

The best part about the trip was that it was only 5 bucks. He would’ve done 10 had I used a card, but I had a crisp 5 dollar bill burning a hole in my wallet, and it served its purpose. That included 1 card from the dollar bin, a 2024 Topps Blue Tyler Glassnow. For all of those SPs, I think I got a deal. Hopefully, I can be as good at the guessing game during the next trip to the shop. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post. 

-Jeremy

Latest K n T trip

 I had a day off on Friday, and I figured it would be the last chance I had to go to K n T’s Sportscards and spend a whole afternoon there before school starts again, so I made the trip to Ormond. I have always went by myself, but Karen convinced me to take Kyler. I knew trying to keep an 8 year old occupied while I dug through dime boxes wasn’t going to be easy, but I figured if I could have him go through stacks and find Tigers and Rays that I could search for favorite players and Topps needs. 

I found a good assortment of stuff, including a few of players that I had never heard of that appeared in majors sets. I figured, why not, they weren’t going to break the bank. The Mike Linskey was one of those, as was the ‘93 Team Stadium Club Brian Deak. The Nolan Ryan’s before the Deak cars were ones Kyler picked. He has been hung up on Ryan after hearing he threw the world’s fastest pitch, and has also been hung up on Honus Wagner and his famous tobacco card after hearing about it. I might have to find a cheap reprint of it. 

The ‘94 Team Stadium Club Tyler Houston is one of the few cards of him as a Brave. Kind of weird that he was a #1 pick of them, was with them up through 1996 (when they were just starting to field good teams and appeared on tons of cardboard), and still has very few Braves cards in major sets. Just a 1990 Score and Topps Draft Pick card, 2 Bowmans from 1990 and 1991, the Team Stadium Club card from 1993, and 2 issues from 1996, a Pinnacle Aficionado, and a Score Summit card. Just strange for a prospect from a popular team to have been in the organization for 7 years and only have 7 cards during the overproduction era. The ‘95 Emotion cards were nice finds, as was the ‘95 UD Minors Daron Kirkreit. My friend Jim (who I’ve mentioned in a few posts) was getting rehab on his knee a few years ago, and happened to have Daron as his therapist. He asked me if I had any cards, and I had a Fleer Excel minors card, so I gave it to Jim, and he got it signed for me the next time he went in for exercises. The Stadium Club SP of Pat Rapp comes from the 1996 set. It was one of the first base sets in the modern era to feature SPs. These, I believe, were 1 per pack, and I always try to pick them up when I find them. 

Alex Delgado was another new to me player. Robert Smith was a guy selected by the Rays in the expansion draft, and another Braves prospect with very few Braves cards. Sal Fasano is one of the most friendly players I have ever met. I saw him 3 times over his career. The first 2, which were 2 Spring Training games in 1996, I must’ve got his autograph at least 3 times. I had a 1989 Topps Royals leaders card which he signed for me, and then at each game, I had a baseball, handed it to whichever Royals bullpen guy was signing, and they would pass it around the bullpen and sign it, and I ended up with 2 balls signed by Fasano, who was in the bullpen. Then, when he was with the Yankees and I finally had an actual card of him, I got Sal to sign his 2006 Topps Update card. I sold most of my autographs, and now have about 10 unsigned Fasano cards, but still have the baseballs. I never knew Roberto Hernandez appeared in the 1998 Fleer Diamond Ink program. I’m counting this as a Rays card, as I am the 1998 Stadium Club Bobby Abreu. Many people don’t know that the Rays selected him in the expansion draft and then traded him to the Phillies. I don’t think a photo exists of him as a Ray, but I do have the Stadium Club card with the Rays logo on it. I always love picking up 1998 Diamondbacks cards, and the fact that the Jay Bell I found was from the nice looking 1998 Upper Deck set was even better. The 2005 Bowman Silver Parallel must’ve snuck in the stack. Kyler saw it was serial numbered and I explained to him it was a different color, and I don’t think it made it back in the dime box. 

Now we switch to the more modern parts of the dime box dig, and get more Rays and Tigers. I have picked up a ton of Carlos Colmenarez cards from K n T’s over the past year or so, but have rarely heard about him on Rays sites despite him being in so many Bowman inserts. Looking at his stats, he is hitting in the low .200’s in A ball. If he’s a good fielder, he could start next year with the ‘Rays Way’ of valuing defense. I’m just glad that he’s a shortstop and that there are guys that hit better like Carson Williams ahead of him on the depth chart. 1/2 of a season more of Taylor Walls hitting .150!!!!  I picked up a ton of cards of Curtis Mead. He was recently traded away, so I’m hoping I can maybe find some of his Rays cards at a discount. I am disappointed at the Rays and Tigers for not going all in at the trade deadline. The Tigers should’ve traded Max Clark or one of their top prospects for Alcantara, Gallen, or Kelly, and also tried to get Eugenio Suarez and a closer. Charlie Morton should be retired, and the #5 starters and non closers they got for the bullpen are a joke. They deserve to get knocked out in the first round of the playoffs and Scott Harris needs to get fired unless it was an issue with ownership not wanting to pay money. Might be time to start rooting for a team that spends. Garrett Mitchell is the newest addition to my favorite player collection. He is a Type 1 diabetic, which I found out after reading the back of his ‘25 Heritage card. 

I found a ‘25 Topps True Photo variation of Jose Berrios. No clue how rare these are, but I had to pick it up. I only found a few Topps needs, but for a dime, I’ll take ‘70’s Topps cards all day. I also picked up the final 3 cards I needed to finish my 2025 Topps set. I probably shouldn’t have done it by busting blasters, but how would everyone have cards I’ve traded to them lately, and the dupes have also helped me with some trades. More on that shortly. Not sure how I am going to complete the ‘25 Update set, but maybe a hand collated set from eBay would be the best route. 

While I didn’t go to the National, I did pick up a Curtis Mead National Chrome card. Strangely, it has a Bowman back. The Finest ‘93 reimagined insert is neat. Lately, Kyler has been fascinated with the fact that I’ve pulled a Junior Caminero card from just about every blaster Ive purchased. I had to get a few Juniors, and a Chrome rookie insert isn’t a bad one to have. 

I don’t have the best memory like I did when I first started collecting (or maybe just have thousands more cards), so I had a decent stack of dupes at the end of the day. Not a big deal, as I can use them to trade, as well as put in other areas of my collection, such as rookies, parallels, and refractors. When you factor in the fact that out of everything I got that 5 were dollar cards, and I payed 10 bucks for all of those, I think it was a great trip. With an off day on Monday, I might have to see if I can go back. 

Actually, it might be a better idea to leave some time to go to the post office. I’ve found a set builders page on FB, and have made a few trades to help me finish the 2025 Topps set. One netted me a 320 card box of Rays that should arrive tomorrow. I am in the process of trading some Heritage, Chrome, and 2025 Topps extras to a guy on the page for a good stack of 2000’s Topps needs. I may just finish out the 2018 Topps set with what he has for me. I have a 500 ct box of stuff for him, and I need to find out the best way to ship it. There are probably a hundred or so other needs I could include, but then could I ship it in a priority mail flat rate box?  I haven’t done one before, so I have tons of questions. Do you just get it at the post office and load it up with whatever?  Are the boxes free?  Do I have to buy packing peanuts and tape, or can you just use them from the post office for free?  I might just bring the 500 ct box and ask the clerk at the post office tomorrow or Tuesday. However I end up shipping them, I’ll have a box about the same size of goodies coming back, and maybe I’ll finish a set or get very close. 

I’ve never been a huge Ryne Sandberg fan, but always felt he was a top notch player. I pulled his 1994 Topps Gold base card from a pack and thought I was going to retire rich. I was shocked to see that he passed, as I just saw a post from a FB ttm autograph page a few days ago saying that people were getting autographs back but that he included a note saying that he was stopping ttm autographs starting in August. 

I never actually got to meet him, but I was able to get his autograph. I lived in Montgomery, AL from 2006-2009. I moved prior to the minor league season, and Ryne was a coach at West Tennessee in 2009. They came to Montgomery for a game, and my friend Rob got me a ticket signed and sent it to me in Florida. 

I also have a bat relic card of him. I went up to Montgomery in December 2005 in a trip that would change my life. I went up to visit a former college roommate, JT, and some other friends from college. I stayed with JT, wrote a song with him, and that convinced me to move to Montgomery in a few months, allowed me to meet people over the next 3 years that would shape my piano playing, and strengthen my relationship with JT. He eventually became my brother in law when he married my youngest sister, and we still record music as comedy duo ‘The Younger Griffin’ and serious duo ‘Resiliency from Obscurity’. Long story finished, I picked up a jumbo pack of 2005 Topps Update from the card store there, and pulled a Luis Castillo All-Star jersey card, and the Ryno bat card. RIP, Ryno. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post. 

-Jeremy