September 7th & 8th Raleigh Card Show: Still Learning

     I was able to get away this past weekend at the request of my good friend Blake to the card show in Raleigh, North Carolina.  Sports cards are his business and livelihood. He doesn't believe in the financial burden of a physical shop but he is a very successful streamer on Whatnot (has the largest store on the platform) and sets up most weekends at  shows all over Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina. We're about the same age, and our card collecting background is pretty similar.  We both appreciate the nostalgia of cards from the '90s and have large PC's of our favorite teams (he's a Twins fan and I don't hold that against him!).  This lead to a quick friendship he trusts me and my knowledge (of baseball cards at least) enough to help him keep an eye on the table and charm customers into buying cards they don't need.

    I was happy to make the trip down and help out for the weekend.  It was a busy show with lots of foot traffic.  It wasn't all work and no play however.  The perks of being a dealer at a show is getting in early "to set up" and prepare for the day.  Our set up takes 10 minutes at the most to set up so that leaves plenty of time to go shopping for ourselves.  While he was working on deals to bring in more inventory, I found some cards to bring home to the nest.  

    I've been on the look out for the Orioles from the Kellogg's sets since fall of last year.  They aren't terribly expensive and I could grab them off of COMC at any time.  Its about the chase though.  You knew that already, though.

    I grabbed a handful of insert set needs from the cheap boxes.  I'm one card closer to the Dick Perez Diamond Kings set (1982 through 1996) with the Eddie Murray.  I thought the Heart of the City cards from Topps Chrome were really cool as well as the All-Aces and Black Golds from the last few years.  I'm always on the look out for them.

    

    Some PC pickups here.  I love Raywave refractors of any kind which probably stems from my real life job. The Mancini will look nice in my PC of his cards.  Bundy is a nice pickup for less than a buck.  I think that Beam Teams are a box hit.  I had never seen the Brooks card before and at a quarter, I'll definitely take it.  The Grayson was 2 bucks and I love green cards of any kind.  Easy buys.

    Oh Austin Hays, I'm sad that he's gone from the Orioles but I know why they made the trade when they did.  Either way, both being numbered parallels, being orange, and of a favorite player make these some of the easiest buys of the weekend.

    This particular weekend I made some awesome pickups for my Cal Ripken PC.  I usually struggle to find Ripkens I don't have.  I was able to add this pretty new Ripken All-Star relic card from 2024 Topps. I love 1989 Topps and especially the All-Stars subset.

    The next Ripken I picked up was this Etch-A-Sketch insert from 1998 Topps.  I had assumed that Topps made this insert using some sort of computer program or something.  Not so.  This is an actual Etch-A-Sketch "drawing" by an actual person.  Wow, I had no idea until I read the back of the card. The guy who made the real life Sketches had some serious talent.

    My favorite Ripken pick up of the weekend was the insert from 1999 Skybox Molten Metals.  This is from the Heavy Metals Fusions insert set.  It a decently rare insert that I knew I needed when I saw it.  I used to think that Skybox and Pacific were rip off brands and didn't really pay them that much attention when they first came out.  I guess at this juncture of my collecting life I've really come to appreciate the risks that some of the "off the beaten path" issues took back then.  Case in point is this card.  The dots that you see on the right side are actually tiny pinholes which classify it as a die cut.  The scan really doesn't do justice to easily my favorite pick up of the weekend.

    I'm still learning the higher end of the card market.  I have stayed in my comfort zone of the card industry for quite some time.  It may have something to do with how I was brought up and cherishing every pack of '92 Topps I bought from the local grocery store or the '93 Donruss I bought from the drug store.  I totally understand the lower end of the market and Blake has been kind enough to show me the ropes of buying and selling higher dollar raw and graded cards and I am grateful for his tutelage.  I am just as grateful to have another card collecting buddy to call a friend.

All that being said, the weekend was quite enjoyable at the card show in Raleigh and I picked up some great additions to my collection.

A Trade with Greg of Night Owl Cards

 I recently made a trade with the astonishingly consistent Night Owl.  Its probably been nearly 10 years since I made a trade with Greg.  He sent some great cards this time.

Not a baseball card, but I don't remember Night Owl having his own business card.  Nice touch!

I've been working on a full run of Diamond Kings from 1982 thru 1996.  Night Owl was able to knock these two off of the 1986 list.

He was able to hit my 2023 Orioles wantlist with these awesome cards.  I'm super excited with the Henderson mini!

I've added some vintage food issues to my Orioles team set wantlist including the Kellogg's 3-D cards. Any Eddie Murray card is an awesome one, but this has three dimensions of that stare.  I'm just getting started with the 3-D's, Post, and..... 

the Hostess food issues.  This Doug DeCinces Hostess from 1977 is just the beginning of my team sets of them.

Greg also sent a pile of UD Masterpieces from 2008 to fill some holes on my second set build.

Thanks Greg for the awesome cards.  Hopefully we wont wait a decade to trade again.

Trade with Jason of Joe Average Card Collector

I recently was able to swing a nice trade with Jason of Joe Average Card Collector.  He's somewhat new to the blogging world but he's been a collector for long time as far as I can tell.  At first I mixed him up with another blog called I Am Joe Collector.  Pardon me, I can be a little slow to figure things out the way things have been going around in my head lately.  Jason is on the ball and he already was able to post up his goodies from the trade and you can read about them right HERE.
Here's some of the nice collection pieces I was able to get:

When I started blogging I hardly knew anything about Mike Cuellar.  I used to think that Vintage cards were old and crusty and that they were prohibitively expensive.  I just avoided them like the plague because I thought they were poor quality and the photography was awful. Now after reading about vintage cards and knowing more about them, I feel the exact opposite way.  The perceived flaws now have become strengths in my eyes!  Take for example the Mike Cuellar card that will go into my One Card of every Oriole binder.  I love action on my cards but the posed shot and the simple color scheme made me chose this card to go into the binder as my favorite representation of Mike Cuellar.

Jason also sent me a nice stack of Cal Ripken cards I didn't have before.  While this foil board insert didn't scan for crap, it's still one of my favorites from the package.  BTW, this package takes me over 1200 different cards of Cal in my collection!

I had never heard of the commanders of the hill cards before.  I'm glad he sent it to me as it's a nice addition to my Mussina binder.

This card of Steady Eddie will go into my team set binders.  I think I need a couple more Orioles from the set to finish it off.  There's a ton of parallels but I think this is the base version.  Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I'll close out the post with a refractor of the loveable drunkard Sir Sidney.  Oh how we were all fooled into thinking you were going to turn into an ace pitcher.  Instead you turned into an out of control idiot with pumpkin seeds for brains!  I kid, I kid!

Thanks Jason for the awesome trade!

Trade with ARPSmith's Sportscard Obsession

Here's another trade that was started by me when I offered up some A&G minis as tradebait a few weeks ago.  Adam from the soon to be relatively world famous ARPSmith's Sportscard Obession requested a bunch of the Giants minis from the lot and in turn he sent me a bunch of cards from my 2012 Allen and Ginter wantlist along with a couple of standout cards. Here's the highlights:

Any Eddie Murray card that I recieve in a trade is a good one especially if I didn't have it before.  I like this card because of the picture of Eddie as he just smashed a ball towards the gap or beyond.

I'm getting really close on the 2010 Bowman Chrome set.  Adam sent along this single Adrian Gonzalez to help me on my quest to finish the set before the end of time.  Can you help me out?  Here's the last couple I need:
2010 Bowman Chrome (1 - 220): 5, 37, 46, 53, 102, 103, 104, 108, 149, 153, 171, 176, 191
2010 Bowman Chrome Prospects (BCP1 - BCP220): BCP1, 10, 40, 100, 145, 187, 208

Also a surprise in the package were several of the 2012 Panini triple play cards.  The jury is still out on these for me.  I understand the need for kid friendly cards in the industry and this product definitely fills that need.  I'm not too big on unlicensed cards but these seem to work well because of the cartoony look.

Thanks Adam for the nice package of cards you sent!

Trade with Ryan of The Great Orioles Autograph Project

I recently completed another trade with Ryan from The Great Orioles Autograph Project. We've become pretty good trading partners over the past couple of years and have helped each other's collections immensely.  This go around I sent Ryan a pile of 2012 Topps series 1 inserts that he needed for his set and he sent me back a whole big pile of cards I needed.

This Mike Mussina card finishes up my 1993 Score team set.  This card has sat on my Top 10 Most Wanted list for quite a while so I am very pleased to replace it with a new wantlist item.  I'm a fan of 1993 Score because of the simplistic design but it's still classy!  It might actually be Score's best design out of all of it's flagship designs.  On a side note, I'm happy to see the orange jersey back in action this season as an alternate.  

This shiny Eddie Murray card is the last one I needed to complete all of the Topps Lineage variations.  I even have the sticker version!  

I've said it before I think that 2008 Upper Deck Documentary was a great idea but it fell a little short in execution.  This particular card shows a picture of Adam Jones running the bases but refers to the "right fielder" providing the heroics.  Jonesy never played right field for Baltimore in 2008.  So I wonder who they could be talking about?  I flip the card out and it turns out the right fielder they were talking about was none other than Nick Markakis who jacked a homerun in the 8th inning the give the Orioles the lead for good in the game.  Maybe it's a coincidence that #21 won game #21 with a homerun.

I still need a pile of the Oriole Documentaries so if anybody has any extras, give me a shout!

Thanks for the cards Ryan!

Trade with Brian of Play at the Plate

I was contacted by Brain from PATP a few weeks ago asking for my address and saying that he had a nice stack of Orioles ready to send me.  Of course I sent my address along and started to wonder what he might be sending.  I had been saving a stack of Rangers for him so I dropped those in the mail as soon as I could.  A few days went by and these awesome cards ended up at my house.

I can't complain with 2 Oriole HOFers, especially high-end parallels.  Marquee is out of my price range but I have picked up a bunch of O's from trades and shows for bargain bin prices.  I can honestly say I've never busted a pack that is more expensive than 5 bucks other than Jumbo packs of Topps flagship.

I think Brian mentioned he had the Orioles in a group break randomly assigned to him.  I think that's where the Sepia Markakis and the Heritage Chrome Jones came from.  Lucky pulls for him me!

The Orange parallel Britton and the Orange Jones above came out of the retail Chrome value packs.  I almost pulled the trigger on buying both on COMC but I'm glad I didn't since I was able to trade for them.  Now all I need is Derrek Lee and Nick Markakis to finish up the team set.  I also scanned the regular Chrome version of Britton just cuz I think it's his best looking rookie card of the year.  For some reason, the horizontal picture just does it for me!

Thanks Brian for the great cards!  I've already started a new Rangers stack with your name on it for our next trade.

Trade with Matt of DocHoloday.com

There's a relatively new blog in town called DocHoloday.com.  It's run by Matt who is a friend of Sam from the Daily Dimwit.  Matt contacted me about 2 weeks ago about some Orioles cards that he had for trade.  Matt said that Sam suggested that he try and trade with me since he has traded with me a couple times in the past.  I'm sure glad he did.  Matt sent me a really nice package of cards, so lets look at a few of the highlights:

Here's a nice looking Eddie Murray card from Lineage.  I'm still a little bit confused about the actual name of this parallel.  Are they just straight up "Refractors" or "Platinum Refractors"?

Well here's a card that I'm sure I know what it's called.  This is undoubtedly the purple refractor from Topps Chrome.  I'm a little puzzled why retail gets 3 different refractor parallels: purple, x-fractor, and orange.  Why don't they just do x-fractors and call it a day?

And here's a nice shot of Mark Reynolds playing baseball in the dark.  I remember as a kid playing t-ball in the backyard after it got dark and catching a batted ball with my face.  Also I've probably touched on this before but does Topps know that the Orioles have never worn Orange socks?  Do they know they can look up the official uniforms at Chris Creamer's Sports Logos page?  Do they even care that their photoshopping jobs really blow sometimes?

Thanks Matt for the great cards you sent.  Also thanks to Sam for sending Matt my way so I could get my hands on some new Orioles cardboard.

While proofreading this post, I noticed I asked a lot of questions that mostly only Topps could answer.  If anybody has any hilarious answers to the questions posed, please feel free to comment!

Trade with Greg of Plaschke, Thy Sweater is Argyle

I'm quickly finding out that trade bait posts are good ways to start up trade talks  with other bloggers.  I've had a few great trades by offering up some nice cards I don't collect and getting something I do collect in return.  I've also read about other blogger's similar successes which brought me to my still forming conclusion.

Greg from the brilliantly named Plaschke, Thy Sweater is Argyle blog liked the Albert Pujols relic card that I posted a little while back and offered to make a trade.

I was happy to get this card and I think it is a pretty even swap.  When I first scanned this card, I thought that I might need to clean the scanner bed before I really took a closer look at the card.  It looked like there were dust particles all over the glass or all over the card.  Upon closer examination, the speckles are actually part of the card design.  Another neat thing I noticed about the card is around the swatch where it says "Authentic Game Jerseys"  like there are 2 or 3 different pieces of fabric embedded in the card!

Thanks go to Greg for the nice and easy card swap!

Trade with Kyle of Just a Bit Outside

When I was still a single man way back when (September), Kyle from the relatively new Just a Bit Outside blog contacted me about a trade.  He was interested in the Aaron Crow autograph I pulled from my Topps Chrome box.  I also threw together some other random Royals cards that I hope he'd enjoy.  Here's just a few notable cards that I got in return:

I'm having some trouble making a decision about which binder to place this card.  Should it go in with my Markakis binder or in with my 2004 Orioles Team Set binder.  Decisions, Decisions, Decisions.

I'm really digging this card of Jake.  I believe this is his first rookie card that came out in Topps Chrome last year.  I hope Jake has a speedy recovery from elbow surgery and continues his growth as a pitcher.  I think if he can reduce his walk rate, he could become a franchise cornerstone.

I'm going to close with these 2 Paninni stickers from 1988.  I think the stickers speak for themselves!

Thanks goes to Kyle for the nice package that he sent me.

Trade with AJ of The Lost Collector

There is not much to say about this trade that AJ hasnt already said at his blog. But, when I saw this card from the blaster he busted a week or so I knew I had to have it!  I love when Orioles GUs have Orange swatches in them.

Thanks for the quick and easy trade AJ, its a pleasure to trade with you!

Card Show Pickups: GU Edition

As I mentioned in my last post, I attended the Inside Pitch show in Raleigh, NC this past weekend. I got many, many great cards but I'm only going to show the Game Used cards in this post. I lucked out and found a vendor who was doing his last show before retiring to Hawaii. I was able to scoop up all 4 of the following cards from him for a great price:

This one is from 2005 Upper Deck Trilogy. Notice that it is serial numbered 20/99.
I really like this one because of the orange swatch. I haven't seen a lot of Ripken GU's that have an orange jersey piece.
Here's my first Eddie Murray Game Used card. This is a really nicely done card by Upper Deck in 2004 SP Legendary Cuts. I'm really digging the Gold Stamped cartoon bird logo.
This one is perfectly round, but I think it is too skinny to be the handle of the bat. This card reminds me of a dollar bill because of the green motif of the card.
I also picked up this one from William. I added the random piece of dust that you can see on the jersey piece. I might keep this one or trade it for the right offer.

Trade with Dustin of Coot Veal and the Vealtones

I first want to say that Dustin of Coot Veal and the Vealtones is a great trader. His blog is relatively new, but he has been around the blogosphere for a while now. I traded with him before when he was just know as blog reader Dustin. Check out his blog and if you end up trading with you you won't be disappointed. Here's a few of the great cards he sent me:

This 2007 Fleer Ultra Iron Man insert shrinks my needslist for this set down to a lucky 13 cards. I can see the end of the tunnel now. Here's the ones I still need: 1, 2, 6, 13, 15, 16, 17, 30, 31, 35, 38, 46, 47.

Here's a 2008 Upper Deck Red back mini of Nick Markakis I didn't have before. Nick is staring straight into 2011 Opening Day, looking to having a big year. I'm gonna go ahead and call it now: He's going to have a MONSTER Season!

Here's a card I never knew existed. I can't believe that I have never seen this relatively common Diamond Kings Brady Anderson card. I think Dick Perez nailed Anderson's likeness on this card. I'm happy to have this card in my collection.

Here's a trio of cards I have also never seen before. I've seen plenty of the actual HOFers pictured, just not on these cards. I'm now very interested in the 1986 TCMA Orioles set that Brooks and Jim are pictured on. I'm going to do a little more research on this set. I'm also pleased to have the 1981 Kellogs card that Steady Eddie is pictured on. On the back it has a nice write-up about how he is quickly becoming a superstar in the league. It also has a retro looking Tony the Tiger printed there too. I had never seen retro Tony before a few weeks ago when I walked down the cereal aisle at Target!

And I'll wrap up this post with a couple of minis. The Brooks is a shortprint from 2007 Goudey that I needed for my set. The Jones mini is the Ginter Ad back from 2010. I already had that one so it is for trade if anyone needs it. The last card is apparently a Sticker from a set made by Topps in 1981 (at least that is what the copyright says on the back). That one is going straight into my Eddie binder beside the Kellogs card above.

I want to thank Dustin again. Thanks for the thoughtfull package that you sent. Look for something coming your way soon!

Check out my Check Out My Cards Bounty

I think this is an appropriate Thanksgiving Post. Today we give thanks for the bountiful lives we live here in the good ole USA. As we get over our tryptophan induced haze and pumpkin pie tummy aches, feast your eyes on the bounty of cards I got from CheckOutMyCards.com . I was able to get a free processing coupon at their table at the National back in August. I sent in a bunch of cards I didn't want and turned some of the profits into cards I wanted:

First and Foremost I was able to buy 90, yes 90 new Cal Ripken cards I didn't have before. Here are just a few. Many will get their own chance to shine in their own posts sometime in the future.

A few mid-70's cards of Orioles HOF'ers I was able to get on the cheap. These cards are in great shape and I got them for basically a song!

This Nick Markakis card is one of a Rainbow I am working on. This particular rainbow is particularly frustrating because I am having a heck of a time tracking down a a Black Version #'d to 59 and the Target Throwback editions of the card. I can't find them anywhere on the Webernet.

This Steady Eddie may as well serve as my capstone card on my 2008 UD Masterpieces set. What more can be said about this set other than it looks great in a binder!

Why Andrew McCutchen? I think he is a dynamite player and I am still plugging along on my 09 Topps 206 set. I still need a few more Shortprints and a good bunch of the Piedmont minis. Any help on these sets would be much appreciated.

So that is just a little sampling of the great cards that I was able to purchase with store credit at COMC.com . I highly recommend this site for anybody interested in selling cards or just looking for cards of their favorite player. If anybody would like to look at what I have for sale, search for seller ryanhughes12.

Trade with Larry from Emerald City Diamond Gems

I solicited Larry a couple weeks ago about trading. I knew I could knock come cards off of his "Super Set". He has already featured some of the cards that I sent him. All of the cards that Larry sent me were great in their own way and I wish I could feature every single one of them but I was able to narrow it down to 5 cards that really standout to me.

1959 Topps Jerry Walker. I know nothing about Jerry except what is on the back of this particular card. It looks like he put up a great season in the "Sally" League in 1958 but had a rough go of it when he got the call to the big club.

1967 Topps "Dave" Johnson. It's kinda funny how Topps will lengthen and shorten names on a whim. Everybody knows this guy as Davey Johnson. He had a good career with the Orioles as a player and as a manager. It's hard to believe that he was at the helm of the team when the Orioles last had a winning record or were in the playoffs. Seems so long ago

1984 Donruss Diamond King Eddie Murray. This is one of the few cards that I have seen Eddie smiling in. Since this is a painting, I am not surprised he was painted this way. For some odd reason 1984 Donruss had eluded me until now. Larry was able to almost finish off my team set. the only card I am missing is Rick Dempsey.

Larry also included some surprise cards in the package that I definitely will enjoy:

1989 Hagerstown Suns Brian Ebel. While he isn't a player, it does show that trainers work their way up the organizational ladder too! When this card was printed he had already been in the Oriole Organization for 4 years (3 years at Bluefield, and 1 year at Erie). Brian is currently the Assistant Trainer for the Orioles. He also has a lot less hair!

1997 Pacific something card: While I am not a fan of Pacific cards, this is an indicative card of the 90s: tons of gawdy foil stamping, a gimmick (his mugshot is printed on a clear plastic window) and a great shot Brady Anderson doing something (the card back shows him sliding into second).

Thanks Larry for the trade and the great cards!