Hidden Bowman Gems and the FB groups

 It has been a while since my last post. It’s been busy. Karen had the metal stent trial about 3 weeks ago. It seems like it helped her take in more air during the 2 days it was in, and it sounds like the doctor in NJ will proceed with the mesh surgery. She has a video appointment with him on Wednesday. She has had some breathing difficulty the last week. We’re just kind of taking that day by day. 

The real difficulty is her blood sugar levels. They just drop unexpectedly and she get lethargic and we’re just trying to get her to eat and she has difficulty understanding what we are trying to do, and she can eat a huge bowl of pasta with bread, 2 glasses of sweet tea, and fries, and it might get above 130, and 15 minutes later be in the 50s. I’m a Type 1 diabetic, and mine can get in the 50s and I can barely think or make coherent sentences. Karen had a reading of 18 before the last surgery, and one of 24 when she was in recovery. They gave her a few IV bags of glucose and it helped, but sometimes at home, it’s impossible to get her to eat enough and we don’t know what to do. She saw her endocrinologist on Thursday, and she prescribed a continuous glucose monitor for Karen, and they are going to try to find patterns of when the sugars crash and also do some blood work to try to get answers as to how much insulin her body is making and when. I don’t know if that will help anything, but we will see and have a follow up appointment in 2 weeks. She also has a heart oblation surgery scheduled for October to help correct the abnormal rhythm her heart has been having. So while some of these health issues are complicated, at least we have some answers and solutions coming up. 

I’ve been doing a bunch of purchasing on eBay just trying to pick off some of the more difficult rookie singles from Topps sets in the past 10 years or so. I think I knocked out all of the really big ones, as I believe these 5 will be Hall of Famers one day, with Acuna really being the only question mark with his injury history.

The Judge and Betts both came in plain white envelopes with very little protection. If I’m paying 5 dollars shipping for a key card in the set, I need it to come in a bubble mailer with tracking. I left positive feedback, but did mention the fail with the shipping. I feel like the cards I purchased gave me a realistic shot at now completing a Topps run from 1980-2025, as the key rookies are basically done. The only tough rookie cards I see from those years that are on my wantlist are Gerrit Cole, Nolan Arenado, and Christian Yelich from  2013 Update, Xander Bogaerts and  Jose Ramirez from 2014, a Carlos Correia Rookie Debut from 2015 Update , a Matt Chapman rookie and a few random Judge All-Star cards from 2017 Update, and a Rafael Devers from 2018. But to have the Ohtani cards from 2018 crossed off of my list is HUGE!  Same with the Betts card. 

That’s not all of the eBay stuff. I randomly was thinking about the 1991 Bowman set and how fun it was, and decided to see if I could find a cheap set. I found a listing for a 1991 set along with a 1990 set at a decent price, so I bit and now have those 2 sets. 

The set didn’t offer many favorite player additions, and I knew it would t. I was just looking forward to the random names, random minor leaguers, and some of the sleeper rookie cards. The 5 favorite player additions included 2 Brady Anderson cards. 

While not high-dollar rookies, Bowman had a decent crop of rookies in 1991. Guys like Jeromy Burnitz, Eric Karros, Kenny Lofton, Mike Mussina, Tim Salmon, and Jim Thome missed out on 1991 Topps cards, and Chipper Jones and Dan Wilson had draft pick cards in the 1991 Topps sets, but the Bowman cards were more scarce, so they were good pickups in my book. 

I consider myself to be a ‘90’s baseball guru, with 1995-2000 being my strong suit. Tell me a team, year, and position, and I can name the player, along with a few backups. While many of these guys appearing in ‘91 Bowman never made the Majors, most did, and there were 1 or 2 I had never heard of. Out of this page, I had never heard of Carmona or Smith. Funny thing is now I have 2 Willie Smith cards. A few of these guys have 1992 Topps Debut cards and maybe a Stadium Club card and that’s it other than minor league issues. Elvira had a 1991 Upper Deck card. I want to say I recognize Howard from being a replacement player in 1995 for the Padres. Gary Eave is a fun pickup for me. He has a 1990 Donruss card and a 1990 Score card besides the ‘90 Bowman. Do yourself a favor, and if you have a card of him, look up his address on an autograph collecting site, and if he has any recent successes, send him a TTM autograph request. You won’t regret it. 

The other thing I like about 1991 Bowman are the random cards with the gold foil on them. Let’s go to the bottom 3 first. I guess all 3 of these cards you can justify putting in the set as it was the 40th anniversary or the Thomson HR and Reese was celebrating his 75th year in baseball, and as Colin Powell helped the US during the war. Then again, there is no mention of the anniversary of the shot on either the front or back of the card, the last time a coach appeared in a Topps set was 1974, and why Powell but not Norman Schwarzkopf or George Bush? With that being said, all of the random cards with the gold foil are cool and I almost wanted more. 

Now let’s look at the ones on the top. Really zoom in if you want nightmares tonight. I can tell that the hats and uniforms are airbrushed, but are the faces as well? The Tim Howard card on the photo before also looks weird. Others from the same subset look normal, but there is something on those 3 in particular that just don’t look real, and it’s not the airbrushed hats. 

In 2010 or so, I purchased a box of 1990 Bowman from my LCS, and it came with a poster inside of the box. It is hanging up in my garage along with some random stuff. I’ll have to figure out some way to display the poster along with the complete set box. 

I also had a trade on TCDB that gave me a collecting milestone. I traded some Heritage Tigers for a ‘61 Topps Charlie Maxwell, a ‘62 Topps Rocky Colavito All-Star, and a 2025 Topps Stars of MLB Corbin Carroll. Why the Carroll, you ask?  I have never completed an insert set to my knowledge. I guess the 1995 Topps Cyberstats Season in Review set counts, but I have never had a desire to finish an insert set. Unfortunately for my wallet, I opened enough packs of 2025 Topps that I was just 3 cards away from finishing the Stars of MLB insert set. From BOTH series!  After a trade a few weeks ago, I was down to the Carroll, so I put it on my wantlist, and got it in the last trade. I probably won’t go after any other insert sets, but complete base sets are another story. 

I’ve kind of been fascinated with mid ‘90’s Upper Deck sets lately. 1996 Upper Deck is a severely underrated set, and so is 1998. Same with 1996-1998 Collectors Choice. I almost want to do a future post on my favorite Star Rookie and Rookie Class subset designs over the years. 

Well, I recently found a cheap ‘96 Collectors Choice set on eBay, and am in the process of a deal on FB to acquire 635 1998 Upper Deck cards. I’m trying to watch the budget for the next week or so, but there is a 1998 Collectors Choice set calling my name on eBay, and if I can find a cheap 1996 Upper Deck set, I might have to jump on it. There are also some decent priced 1996 and 1997 Bowman’s Best sets, so why not jump on them and get some early Rays and Diamondbacks cards as well as some cards of random ‘90’s guys?  

Jafronius asked me about the FB group that I’ve been trading cards on. The first one I joined is called Junk Era- All Sports- Keep it Real- 1980-1998. The group does have a bunch of guys that seem like flippers, but I’ve found some deals on sets and it was where I found the ‘98 Upper Deck lot. The other one with set builders is called Baseball Card Set Builders Unite- Trade Only. I’ve made some trades and have helped people get close to finishing 2025 Topps sets mainly, and helped one guy finish 2 1992 Donruss sets. It’s just more of a flipper free group, and although it probably has some guys that buy out the blasters and are just trying to make sets to sell, since it is a trade only group, you are at least getting cards back and the profit is kept off of the site. I know FB is a cesspool, but these 2 groups make it worth staying on for now. Speaking of FB trading groups, I had the idea to make a trading group where it is more team-based trading. I am trying to compile a group of guys who collect certain teams with the hopes of having every team represented, so when members get a pesky Marlins refractor or another darn Jeter card they don’t want that they can go on the group and trade with someone who actually collects those teams. If you feel so inclined, please join the group and post what teams you collect and what you want to get rid of, and maybe we can help other collectors out and find out exactly who collects the Marlins, White Sox, and Royals. 

I hope everyone has a good Labor Day, and if you do end up having to work, try to give it just 70 % instead of 100. Remember, if you give 40%, but all you have to give is 40%, you gave 100%. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post. 

-Jeremy