To Collect or Not To Collect: 1983 O Pee Chee

I came across this one in one of the boxes holding other sets and I honestly forgot I had them. 

1983 O Pee Chee is a 396 card set modeled after the 1983 Topps Set. 

Of the 396 cards, I have 257, meaning I'm 64.9% completed.. 

I've been thinking about this set and I do like it. 

Obviously, with it being a 1983 set, there are lots of Jays and Expos. 

Multiple Hall of Famers in there as well. Ryan, Dawson, Raines, Carter, Murray, etc etc etc..

It's also got two pretty decent rookie cards.. 

Tony Gwynn (anywhere from $5.65-35.00 on COMC)

Ryne Sandberg ($11-17 on COMC)

They weren't quite as bad as I thought they would be..

I love the Supervet cards in this (and Topps') sets in 1983. Thhis one is obviously Al Oliver. 

Can't show a Canadian set without showing a Canadian player, can I? 

I actually own this one, but don't have Fergie Jenkins yet. 

I do not own this one yet.. This is another that I thought would be expensive, but according to COMC, I could get it for $2.75.. 

Another Supervet. This time Nolan Ryan 

So am I going to keep collecting this set? 

Yes. 

I'll post an updated want list for this set soon.

EDIT:

1983 OPC Want List Is Here and Updated!

Jays from The Team Collectors

Another day, another post about cards. Strange how that works.. 

This time, it's a small stack of cards I received from Team Collector member promodeltodd. 

Some early Classic cards here. Nice seeing Bell and Key in a Jats uniform. 

Niekro pitched three games for the Jays in 1987 and didn't fare well.. 

15 hits, 11 runs 4 HR, 7 BB and 7K in 12 innings. WHIP was 1.833. 

The Jays acquired him August 9, 1987 and released him at the end of the month. He signed with Atlanta to finish the year, and his career.. 

Quite the jump after the 2005 cards.. Right into 2018-2019. 

Vernon Wells autogrpah here. A Topps Now card for Roy getting into the Hall. 

Then we have some more on-demand stuff..

The Tellez and Jansen are from the Rookie Progression set.

The two Alomar cards are from the Topps x Lindor set. 

The Reid-Foley card is from the Clear Travel set, I believe, since it's numbered CP-61

The Granderson and Urena are both serial numbered out of 25. It took a bit to find those. 

The rest of these cards are from the Topps x Vlad Jr set. 

The Jansen auto shown is numbered as "9-A" for the card number, so I imagine it was meant as a variation of card 9, but I'm not sure. 

Thank you for the cards!!

Cards from DodgersDennis

I'm part of a community of collectors called the Team Collectors.. 

As the name suggests, it's for people who collect a specific team and you send and receive packages between others in the group. 

I admit, with all the stuff I've been dealing with I haven't been the best member, but I do appreciate the community and I do have stuff to send out. 

Well, I was surprised to hear I was going to get a box from a member, DodgersDennis. We've interacted before and I have to say, a lot of what was sent was glorious. 

I scanned what ended up fitting into the collection. I have other Jays collectors I can disperse the extras to. 

I kind of like the old 100 Rising Stars and 100 Superstars sets that Score made. 

Eric Yelding is interesting to see here. According to Baseball Reference, he was drafted by the Jays in 1984. Then in 1988 was taken in the Rule 5 draft by the Cubs. In 1989 he was selected off waivers by the Cubs. 

The card shown is from 1989. So I imagine Score took photos in Spring Training of 1988, since it was December he was taken by the Cubs. 

Ed Sprague 1992 Score! This one has been a rather elusive card for me.. 

Reed Johnson was one of my favourite players of the Angry Birds era.. 

We have some more modern cards here, with Cavan Biggio and Nate Pearson. 

We have snow in the Dome! Oh wait, that's just the card effect.. 2018 Holiday cards and some 2019 Update. While Biagini had an up and down tenure with the Jays, I really liked him. 

These three confused me.. 

Trying to figure out where they came from and where they fit on the TCDB.. I did find them, though it was fun.. 

Vladimir Sr counts as an Expo card obviously. He's in the Million. 

Jr, while he's Canadian and technically, I would need two of these for my collections, I'm leaving the Online On-Demand out of those requirements for my collection. Otherwise it'll just drive me bonkers. 

Thank you DodgersDennis for the cards! I will have something out to everyone at Team Collectors hopefully in February.. 

A Final Look into the Box From Bru

This one is the final look into the big box of cards I got.. 

We start with some 1994 Topps.. The Butler goes into the Canadians binder. 

Love some of the other cards shown here. The Ramirez and Servais bring me closer to being done the 1992 Ultra set. 

Some 2000s cards here. I actually need another copy of that John Sneed/Matt Blank/Kip Wells, since it's got both a Jay and an Expo on it. 

Some later cards including a Panini Vladimir Guerrero, and a Stadium Club Robbie Alomar. 

Thanks for the big box of cards, Marc!!!!

Welcome to the Hall of Fame, Larry Walker!

In his book, Canada's Baseball Legends, Jim Shearon wrote:

"If he can stay healthy, Larry Walker will be the best Canadian-born baseball player of all time" 

Today, he became the second Canadian-born player to ever be inducted into Cooperstown's Baseball Hall of Fame. 

There was a lot of talk about his stats being inflated by Coors Field. For a few years, it does show. I do find it funny though, that his MVP year in 1997 he hit more home runs on the road than at Coors. 

The other knock was injuries. There were a few years where injuries took a fair portion of the season from him. He still provided at the plate and on the field.. 

I'm not going to go too deep into the stats, but I do want to mention that in 1988 games, he hit 383 homers. 

Since this is a baseball card blog, I want to show my top 10 favourite Larry Walker cards I own. 

They're in no particular order, really, though my number 1 might be on the bottom of this set...

Walker in Triple A.. Member of the Indianapolis Indians in the American Association. 

Possibly one of the few times you'll see Walker in a uniform number other than 33.. I honestly think this was in Spring Training, since Baseball Reference lists his only number as an Expo as 33. 

Early Score seemed to like to get Maple Ridge wrong. They kept calling it Maple River. 

Another example of the 55 though, as that definitely looks like a 5 on his back. 

I think once he made the team he was given 33. 

I love this picture. Walker and I'm not sure who that is.. Against the backdrop of Wrigley's ivy. 

Honestly, I want to say the other guy is Tom Foley... But I may be wrong.. 

Stadium Club has been historically known for great photography. This one is no exception.. I love the shot just as Walker throws the brakes on. Though, it does look like a good way to break an ankle. 

I don't know why I like this one. It's an interesting picture though, Walker in front of the bat rack.. 

The Rookie Cup insert from the last couple years (I don't remember when) had this wonderful card in it. 

This is the only Panini product on here, since he wasn't featured much in their stuff. I just like the look of the picture. 

Upper Deck was another company known for great photography. This is probably one of my all time favourite cards period. 

 Finally... My favourite card.. 

It may or may not be known, but Walker played hockey in his youth and was going down the junior hockey path as a goalie. He ended up getting cut from the Regina Pats and went home. He was found at a college tournament by the Expos and signed. 

As an added bonus. I wanted to show the back of his 1992 Studio card. This is why I loved these early Studio sets. 

Congratulations on making the Hall of Fame, Larry Walker! The second Canadian born player to do so!

A Third Time Into the Bru Box

I've got some more cards sorted through from the Shoebox of cards. 

A nice batch of Big League here. 

I really like things like the Monument Park cards. 

Some 80s and early 90s here. 

The Leiter was in a penny sleeve with "C'est magnifique!" on it.. It took me a while to notice it's an OPC!

Some more set needs here. 

I think I have one more post out of this box before I move onto some other stuff that's come in from the people at Team Collectors.. 

Another Dip Into the Big Box of Bru

Today is another dip into the Shoebox of cards I got from Marc. 

First is 1990 Bowman. I liked the first couple Bowman sets when Topps relaunched it, but since then it's gotten into Parallel Insanity. 

The Farmer in the middle actually goes into the binder rather than the set. 

I'm now 53% done the 1990 Bowman set.. I will be finishing it. 

Next is 1986 Topps.

The Henke shown here is for the team binder. Also here in the last photo are a Classic Best Jeff Barry and some Fleer stickers. 

With these 86s, I'm now 89% complete this set.. I'll be updating my want lists for the sets I'm completing over the next couple months or so.. They're up to date here though.

Next post will be a couple more sets I'm working on and hopefully a little bit of random stuff in the Box.. 

Remembering the Astrodome with Expos!

I recently received a message on Twitter from Marc of Remember the Astrodome fame looking for my address because he had some cards to send me.. 

Well.. What I got was a shoebox full of team bags.. In those bags are set needs, Expos, and Blue Jays.. 

Now... I'm showing a few sets today that he helped add to.. I'll have more next post as well.. 

First up is 1990 Score.. Now remember, I decided to continue to collect that set.. These cards put me a little closer.. 73.3% according to the Database Gods.. 

The Boyd is from the Traded set and since I already have two copies of it, goes into the big box of Expos. 

The other two Score Traded are the same thing.. 

These three 1991 Fleer are cards I needed for the binder, so I have them separate.. 

These are all adds for the set.. Included in there is Peter Steinberg's favourite John Kruk. 

With these cards, I'm now at 83.3% complete for this set. 

I have some Bowman and some other stuff to show off next time. 

Today was a bad day mental health wise, so I really don't have much to say.. I will say thank you to Marc, aka Bru on Twitter! 

COMC Order

I placed a COMC order before Christmas and received it today. The majority of it is Expos for the Frankenset, though I did get a couple Jays as well. 

These 9 all fit into the Frankenset. I actually bought two of the Renko In Action so I would have one for the set and one for my collection. 

The Pete Rose OPC replaced my current Card 300. Showing him in an Expos uniform, looking at COMC, there's a Donruss and a Fleer card.. Otherwise, it's Topps Traded and unlicensed stuff from Leaf years later.. 

The Canadian Greats were from the Leaf/Donruss sets in the 80s. I only needed a couple to have them all.. So I got them.. The Raines is a duplicate for the Frankenset. 

The Haney Rookies card, I'm honestly not sure why I picked it up, other than to have one closer to finishing that need.. 

The Bullock Stadium Club I picked up two of. The Walker Bowman I got two of as well. 

The Walker Stadium Club, I for some reason, now show as having multiples of, but I don't recall having them before.. So I need to relook. 

The Pinnacle Walker I got multiples of as well. 

I also got three copies of the Walker Cyberstats card to fill each need.. One for the Expos, One for the Canadians, and one for the Frankenset. I love the look of the card, so it took over 221. 

The Circa card is very 1995 Fleerish.. 

Jason Bay was a multiple pick up as well. I don't recall if I had it for the Canadians binder and the Expos binder already, but I got two.. I'll really need to split my collections on TCDB to keep track I think.. 

Finally a couple 2004 Expos cards for the set. I love the team cards, so I will almost always have them in when I can. 

So.. Those were the cards I picked up from COMC. I'm going to catalogue them in a spreadsheet so I can keep track of what I have where.. 

But this brings me to an issue I'm sure others doing the accumulation projects run into.. Accuracy and not being completely sure if your numbers are correct.. I'm severely tempted to go through and recount my duplicates and everything else, minus sets.. I'll just keep the info from the sets on TDCB, I think.. Though if it's only the duplicates I'm worried about... It may be something I do later on in the year.