Pickups from the Canadian Baseball Hall

 Hello Friends!

Today I received a package in the mail of a couple things I purchased from the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame. 

The prize of the package was this. I've wanted a Larry Walker autograph for a while now. I could get through COMC or Sportlots, but they're ranging anywhere from $40 USD - $150 USD.. Too rich for my blood.. I got this for $40 CDN. Plus, it puts money into the Hall of Fame in St Mary's. 

I also ended up getting a set of inductees again, because it's been a while since I was a member and a number of inductees had been added. To find out definitively if I have everything I need, I need to get at my other set and combine. From there I can also see what duplicates I have to maybe send to others if they so desire.. 

There were a couple I found interesting. 

Jimmy Claxton. A guy who, in some circles, has one of the more difficult cards to find. I'll be happy with this card. lol 

Vern Handrahan has more cards that I believe were family or self-made than major releases. 

Jimmy Rattlesnake. An Indigenous player who ended up staying around his home rather than pursuing a professional career. At the time, a lot of the towns and cities in the prairies had cash baseball tournaments where teams would compete to win a cash prize. Once professional baseball moved further into the rural areas coupled with urbanization, the tournaments dried up since the talent and the prize money wasn't there anymore. 

Rattlesnake is in the Wetaskiwin & County Sports Hall of Fame

Now.. One pet peeve about the set and how it's catalogued on TCDB. 

The set has cards showing the earlier inductees, though the cards started to be printed in 1985. On the TCDB, the timeframe they have for the set is 2002-2023.. It contains all the cards.. 

That's a minor gripe. Because the cards themselves were inconsistent in presentation, the organization of the cards on TCDB is all over the place. Between different fronts, different backs, different numbering systems at different points including no numbering system, the whole thing is a royal clusterfuck. 

I'd honestly prefer to have them catalogued by induction year to avoid the confusion. There's also some cards that have the print run listed. Some cards have different numbers of print runs and there's minor differences. 

I honestly don't know if I have the full induction lot or not because of it. I'm going to maybe do a list myself by induction date and match it against the CBBHOF site to deal with less brainfuck.. 

Anyway, with the cards coming in today I have a few that I plan on sending out for TTM requests. Fingers crossed. 

Another Autograph in the Pile

 Hello Friends!

Today I was going to show the cards I received from Night Owl, but I got an autographed card I purchased through eBay today. 

Ted Bowsfield! The card's a little beat up but really, for a 1960s card that just adds character to it. 

I really need to move the bed that's blocking my back room out of the way so I can finally consolidate all my autographed cards into one place. 

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..