Snowy Day Card Show

 Hello Friends!

Today was the card show at Healthy Planet Arena (Formerly the Evinrude Centre) and the turnout was pretty good, despite the threats of heavy snow throughout the day. There were vendors that cancelled, understandably, since they were travelling in from out of town. I ended up cabbing to it because I didn't want to deal with my wheelchair in the snow, nor did I want to deal with the drivers in the snow. 

So, I imagine you're wondering "So what did you get?" Well, dear reader, I got a nice little stack of cards. 

I'm a simple man.. I see Expos, I pick it up. Gary Sutherland is an OPC from 1970

An addition to my kinda-but-maybe-not-really collecting of the Donruss Diamond Kings from the 80s and early 90s. I mean, even if I decide to completely nope out of the DKs aside from sets, I'm sure I can find a taker for Fingers. 

A Tim Wallach I didn't have. 1984 Fleer is a tough find for me in general. 

Larry Jaster is a 70 Topps Expo that I needed. 

These three wonderful cards are 75 OPCs. 

I got four of the final five 77 OPCs needed for the Jays set. I just need the Jays coaches card.. I did end up getting duplicates of some of the cards.. If you need some OPC Jays, let me know. 

I needed the Dave Cash to finish off the team set. I did get more Expos, but of course they're going into the Million Expos Project!

Bird is the word for 78. I'm working on the 79 OPC set since I have the Topps completed. Get both major sets released in my birth year. 

A couple 1980 OPCs for either the Expos team or the set when I decide to get to 1980. 

A 1981 OPC straggler to add to my 1981 "build" lol 

Same with Tommy Seaver. Card Number 1 in 1985 OPC. 

I did get some other cards that ended up being duplicates (mostly 1992 Donruss DKs) and some cards to send to another blogger/collector. 

I did have to fight the urge to drop $30 on a Funko Pop of Andre the Giant. The box was giant because it had a poster of the Wrestlemania 3 main event..

So the next show is March 29. I'm hoping the weather is nicer that day so vendors can show up and so I can maybe wheel on down myself. 

I've Got Mail.. It's Not Spam!

 Hello Friends!

After the last few days of trying to figure out what I wanted to write about, the postman cometh with inspiration.. Or at least cards.. 

I got two envelopes in the mail today. One, that I'll feature tomorrow, from everyone's favourite Night Owl (blog) and one from one of the collecting Matts that I can't quite put my finger on right now.. lol 

Apparently these have been sitting in a pile for me for about two years, so they were sent.. 

First off, who doesn't love this card? DeShields, Grissom, and Walker standing in those amazing blue Expos away uniforms. A Hall of Famer, a Hall of Very Gooder, and DeShields.. No slight to him, but he just kind of fell off a cliff..

Flair, especially the first few sets, were interesting. They felt ultra premium in a time where companies were just transitioning away from the cardboard we were used to

Select was a brand I never really understood. I liked the design of this set, but I never really got into it. Anyway.. Matt Stairs! 

Donruss 1994. Another Walker!

Fleer Platinum. Peter Bergeron is a guy I honestly forget about. To be quite honest I have a couple blind spots when it comes to my baseball knowledge and fandom. The early 2000s and the early 2010s.. 

I may have seen Lee Stevens play for the Expos on TV once or twice, but he's another that is "He was there?" For the record, I only ever can picture him as an Angel

One of the many stops on the Matt Stairs "I've Played Everywhere" Tour.. The Chicago Cubs

MVP was a weird set.. It seemed to me they really didn't know what they wanted to do with it. I feel like it started as a budget set, then got moved around when they debuted Victory. I may be wrong. 

Fernando Tatis and Jose Vidro. I remember Tatis on the Expos. The early 2000s, any veteran who signed with the Expos felt like they were trying to hang onto their career and would accept less money just to show they could still play. 

Javier Vazquez was really underrated as an Expo. Look! Lee Stevens again!!

Another Peter Bergeron

Tim Raines in one of the Score 100 Super Stars sets. From the wall in the background, it looks like it's in Wrigley

The Fleer stickers were always interesting, but at the same time, very frustrating for me to separate when collecting. As far as I know, there's no copyright date or anything on them, so it's a case of going through TCDB year by year to find it. 

Is it me, or does the way the artwork was done on the sticker make it look like it was a knitted ballcap? 

I honestly love using these for the side of my binders for the Expos cards. 

This is one I've never seen before. I like it. 

Finally, the Jays version. 

Thank you Matt for the cards! (I did find out over the course of writing this post that it was Matthew J Prigge who sent these to me) 

Ad Cards

 Hello Friends!

While slightly lowering the population of 1989 Topps cards yesterday, I came across a few ad cards. Remember those? The cards that would sometimes take the place of actual cards to hawk other products Topps sells like T shirts?

I admit when I first started collecting, these and checklist cards felt like a rip off. Mind you, in those early days, anything but Blue Jays cards felt like a ripoff.. (Yeah, I was super narrow in focus until I got more interested) 

As I grew older and understood more about both baseball and cards, checklists weren't as annoying. Especially when they started to either put them on team cards, manager cards, or have a player on the card as well. Now, I'm honestly not sure if checklists are included anymore since there's resources like Trading Card Database to track the collection. 

So why am I bringing all this up? I know there are people out there that may collect stuff like this. Now, because it's 89, they most likely have everything. But you never know.. 

These two were from Stadium Club. One explained their stats system in place on the back of the card, and one being a membership form. I have one of the BARS and two of the Membership...

1989 Bowman had these cards in packs. They were sweepstakes cards and the fronts were based off Bowman cards from the original run of Bowman when it was a competitor of Topps. This fits nowhere in my collection. It is kind of a neat front, but yeah...

And now the 1989 Topps Company Store cards I have. Apparently there are two variations, grey back and white back. These are all white back. 

Of these I have one of each shown, 2 of the last one. 

So dear reader and set collectors... If you were making a Master Set for a year, which included every variation, would you also want the advertising cards? I think for me the set is basically the base and, if I'm able to find them, the box bottoms. 

Also, let me know if you want any of these.. 

Collecting

 Hello Friends!

Today is going to be a boring no real card post BOOOOOOO

I know I know. But it's what I'm looking to do both collecting wise and blog wise..

So. Like a lot of collectors and bloggers, modern sets aren't really doing it for me.. Sure I'll collect the cards that fit into my collections but I'm not going to go out of my way to complete sets in the modern times. 

I am enjoying my pursuit of OPC cards from the 80s, so what I'm thinking I might do is try to put together OPC sets from 1980-1994. That Upper Deck OPC is an impostor. 

I already have 1984.. 1983 will be complete once the cards get to the Sportlots warehouse, then to me. I'm working on 87 and Stuart gave me a bunch of 88.. I have 92 and a good start of 94.. So I don't think it's too much of a stretch. I know some cards will be expensive, but isn't that always the case?

I'm still looking for stadium cards and for Canadian born players and autographs. 

As for content.. I'm still, once I get into the swing of it again, looking to do more stadium looks.. They seemed to be popular previously when I did them. 

So that's what I'm planning. Obviously it's not going to just be this year. It's an ongoing thing. As long as Canadians enter the Majors, I'll be collecting their cards. As long as stadiums stand, I'll write about them. 

Ok I lied.. Here are a few 83 OPCs I got in to further my set build.. 

Random Stuff from Stuart

 Hello Friends!

My last post I mentioned Stuart from SR75 cards sent me a nice box of 88 OPC. Well, there were a couple other interesting things in the package as well.. 

One is a card from, what I guess is 1970 Topps Super. All I know is that the sturdiness of it puts some cardboard boxes to shame.. 

Mine is a little warped, but it just matches the owner now. ;P

I hadn't heard of this set before. The only one that catches any collecting is the Staub for me. There are some pretty big names in the set though. 

And here's the back. I had a thought and decided to check the back of the 1970 Topps Staub. 

So the card from the full set as basically the same write up minus the comment on his school career. The cartoon is the same content but different illustration. Very interesting.. 

The other cards that were in there that I found nice to get are these: 

They're 75 OPCs! 

I need most of the cards for the team set. Especially the Carter RC.. I have multiple Topps copies though. 

There was also a base Bo Bichette of the Heritage/Archives card I got from DK.