Tuesday, August 6, 2019

Finishing things up

I have had the pleasure of finishing a few baseball card-related things these past few days. I am the type of person who doesn't really enjoy the journey and just wants it to get over with so I can see the result. It makes me happy to finally see some things come to fruition after months of plugging away.
The first thing I finished was my Highlights binder. I don't feel like I had that many to add to it, but it was enough to keep it from being boring. After that one was done, I finished my Rookie Card binder. I had a ton of cards to add to that. Guys like Jose Cruz, Jr., Mike Lieberthal, Brian Rose, as well as some stars like Ken Griffey, Jr., Ronald Acuna, Jr., and Gleyber Torres. Once that binder was organized, I got a new notebook, and started my much anticipated Sunset Card binder. Now that I am done with it, I will probably do a post with pictures of it, and try to list most sunset cards, and note the ones that are customs. The last binder I did was my Refractor/Serial #d/Shiny Card binder. Now that it is organized, all of my binders are basically up-to-date, save for 2-3 recent packs I opened, and a few cards I got from a card shop and my birthday back in June.  Speaking of card shop, a new one just opened about 2 minutes away from my house.
It isn't much right now. Mainly has jerseys, some replica rings, the usual Pokemon, gaming, and whatever kind of cards. The only baseball they had 3 weeks ago when I came in was about a dozen boxes of 20 for $1 cards (mainly '87-91 Topps, Donruss, Fleer, Upper Deck), and a 36-pack box of  '89 Topps. No thank you. I did purchase a few of the 20 for $1 cards, and they took my name down and are going to call if they get some Rays cards. I hope it succeeds and gets a good variety of baseball stuff.

Now that I have all of my binders organized, I am going to try to make a Want List of Rays and Tigers cards. It will be more like a Have List. I think it's easier to list what I have instead of typing out all of the names of hundreds of parallel cards I don't have. Stay tuned for those pages.

Lastly, I have some mail going out!  If you live in the 06810, 13601, 60706, 95119, 97213, or 97230 zip codes, you might have a package coming your way!  The good part about organizing my binders is that I found a bunch of cards for bloggers out there. 

That's about if for me. I've also finished up some yardwork today, cutting a bunch of bushes, taking out some hedge borders that weren't doing their job, digging a lot of dirt up where I was going to install a planter box, installing said planters box, putting some soil in the box, and finally moving 3 pineapple plants and a milkweed plant from their respective spots in my back yard and into the new planters box in the back yard. A tiring, but rewarding task. If anyone is interested, I'll post some pictures. I also made a planters box and put it in our front yard, and it has some zinnias in it with at least 30 flowers, 2 more milkweed plants, a few marigolds, and some morning glories. I can't wait to see what the two boxes will look like next summer if we actually get a normal amount of rain. The journey can be a pain sometimes, but on my yardwork and cardwork, the final result has been definitely worth it. 
Thanks for checking out my latest post.
-Jeremy  

Thursday, August 1, 2019

1997-2001 Topps Devil Ray customs

Yesterday, on the Facebook Custom Cards Group, someone asked for any customs made of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays from 1998-2001. I know I've made a lot from that period, so I figured I would post them here, and then put the link on the page. Maybe one of these days I will finish some of the earlier team sets. Here is what I have so far.

1997

1998

































1999





























2000




2000



Boy, do I miss those days of the '98-01 Rays uniforms. I really don't mind them, or the domed stadium, or the Devil Ray name. Those were fun times, and I really miss them.

I have been hard at work on the blog lately. Any customs I have made or found online that fit in my missing player checklists have been saved on my laptop, but a number of them haven't been posted here or uploaded anywhere. I have had a laptop crash on me once before, and I lost a number of cards in the 1992 Topps set that I was working on at the time. I decided to post every card I had saved on my current laptop, and I have posted them all with each set page on the right sidebar. On each set page, the missing player checklist is listed first, then any templates I have, and finally on the bottom I have posted any card I had on my laptop. This will ensure that I won't lose anything if it does ever crash. They are also fun to look at, so feel free to check them out.
I have also been working on missing player checklists. I can't remember which one I was working on since I last posted, but I currently am working on the 1959 Topps set, and just have 1951, 1953-1959, 2002-2015, and 2017-2019 left. These early Topps sets are easier because of fewer teams, so I hope to finish the last of the '50's by the end of the year. Once those are done, I will work my way up to the present.
I try to keep the checklists and set pages very detailed, and people have commented on that. I hope it is a good thing and that it helps out anyone who comes to this page looking for anything. If you have any ideas to help add to this blog, please feel free to let me know. I want this page to be a service to the custom card making/collecting/blogging community.
Thanks for checking out my latest post.
-Jeremy