Blog, Batta, Blog!

I'm changing the whole website soon. There will definitely be a new blog, which I'm working on now, and there may well be a whole new look and interface. Hang tight, if you're still there.

Added some pages, stayed up too late. Enjoy.

So the REA auction generated $9.1 million in sales for that company, with large Mastro and Heritage auctions closing within two or three days of the REA close. The bidding was fast and furious, and as a guy who stays up all night long to watch the proceedings (I went to sleep at 4:30 AM), it was a trip to watch the Baltimore News Ruth jump from $220,000 to more than $400,000 after 1:30 AM, in five-figure increments. Money I can't even fathom, but it's awesome to experience.

For my part, I walked away with a Joe Tinker studio cabinet from 1907, and a complete set of N28 non-baseball cards. Since I have 6 of the 10 baseball cards, I'm left needing four for completion of the entire set - built the easy way. Can't wait to get them, although I've pretty much resigned myself to selling off my T206 collection to fund the purchases of these N28s.

Scans will come soon, I promise. Its busy, what with baseball season and all.

Yeah, I know, my scans suddenly suck.

I re-did them all a few weeks ago, and didn't notice until I uploaded them to my site that they're all weak-looking. I went from having a site full of awesome scans to having a site full of crapola. Sorry about that.

My hard drive is full. It's full of music (something like 50 GB of iTunes files) and baseball cards. So now I can't make new scans, because I have nowhere to put them. So I bought an external hard drive - and then the hard drive of my office laptop became full, too. Work trumps home, so I have to get a new, new hard drive.

Hang tight.

On the other hand, I am adding a new page to the site tonight, for my slowly growing collection of New Jersey baseball artifacts. I'm hoping to acquire some pieces to start documenting the rich history of baseball in my home state, and I'll put it here.

And downstream there will be some more new pages, and maybe even a redesigned site, and I may switch my blog over to Wordpress so that I can add to it from work.

Good luck in this weekend's auctions. Don't bid on anything I want.

This is the kind of stuff I love.

This is an Eddie Collins cabinet that I picked up in a recent auction over the summer. After posting it on a few hobby message boards, someone suggested that it might have once been owned by Collins himself.

After a little more research (with help from my friend Wes), we discovered the original auction where this cabinet was actually traced back to Eddie Collins' personal collection. The card was initially auctioned off in a lot with some other memorabilia owned by Collins, and somehow made it back to the same auction company - only this time they neglected to mention the item's provenance in their auction description. Essentially, the house did a bad job when lotting the item up a second time.

After providing SGC with the relevant documentation, they agreed to slab the card (which is clearly trimmed) with the "Authentic" designation, and assign it the provenance of the "Eddie Collins Collection." Way cool.

And again, special thanks go to my friend Tom - one of the nicest guys in the hobby and a good hobby friend - for yielding and waving me past on this one. The hobby is filled with cool people, but once in a while you meet one that's ESPECIALLY cool.

After nearly a year of whining, I crossed my 1938 Goudey set to SGC.

It was liberating, even though 15 of my 48-card set did not cross. I'll just keep looking. As Rob Lifson told me, "You can always buy them again." He's right - and once I got it out of my head that I'll never see cards in as high a grade as the ones I'm getting rid of (even though in some cases I won't), it actually felt good.

Because I know I'm getting rid of cards that don't meet my standards.

Anyway, here's a preview. You can see the entire set in the 1938 Goudey section of this website.

I'm not one to use my blog to pimp my cards, but, umm, it's my blog.

I am selling off virtually all my W502s - the main reason I started this blog in the first place. Most grade 5 and above, all are slabbed by SGC. For now, I am hanging onto most of the key HOFers, but there are a handful in the group. The cards include some tough backs, mostly "One Baggers" with and without the "Hold what you got" phrase, printed in both directions. There is one "THREE BAGGER" back.

More importantly, I am selling off a total of 15 high-grade 1938 Goudeys, including some HOFers. These are cards from my "private stock" - right from my main collection - and include cards graded PSA 6, 7, and 8.

Check it out, yo. EBAY STORE

Some of this stuff goes on sale on Tuesday the 30th in a 7-day auction, and the rest goes on sale Thursday the 1st in a 10-day auction. I've staggered the '38 Goudeys into two days so that all you big spenders can catch your breath. Shipping is free on everything I sell these days, but insurance is extra.

Good luck bidding, if you wanna.

Long satirical post deleted.

I am tired of message board drama and agenda-pushing; I'm going to try my best to be done with it. It's not why I got involved in this hobby and it's the thing I enjoy about it least. So I'll try harder to put some distance between me and it.

Wow.

A little earlier this evening, I posted the Eddie Collins cabinet in the October Pickup thread on Net54.

Dan from 54 suggested that the card may have been part of Collins' personal collection, some of which has been sold on 54 recently.

Sure enough, a friend pointed this out to me:

Hunt link

Evidently the cabinet was originally part of a larger lot of items from one of Collins' scrapbooks. It was sold, and then somehow made it back to Hunt once again. Perhaps the original owner wasn't happy with the trimming. Given that it was owned by Eddie Collins himself, I'm perfectly okay with it. What a cool story.

So my last post mentioned that I picked up the T222 Jennings and replaced the 1954 Irvin.

Nope.

A couple friends of mine convinced me that the Irvin is a really tough card, and one person mentioned that Irvin is one of the very few people enshrined in the HOF for their work in both the major leagues and the Negro Leagues. Meanwhile I had three Red Faber cards in my collection.

Red Faber? I know the cards are tough, but I don't really need to own three of his cards in my 50-card collection. Plus, I have a Henry Johnson Confectioners Faber that's in my collection but not counted in the 50 cards.

So for now, I elected to keep the high-grade 1928 W502 as well as the very scarce 1931 W502, but get rid of the 1923 W575-2 "Autograph On Shoulder" card. These are tough cards as well, but the point was made - who needs so many Red Fabers?

A couple of happenings from the last week:

1) I sold off all my R303s and a bunch of my old HOFer collection.
2) I scanned all my remaining HOFers and will be listing them in my eBay store (User ID: dromedary1) this week. Note that the "sale" page of this website is suspect as of right now.
3) I added a significant number of cards to my T206 collection this week, thanks to Barry Sloate, and I added a really cool new cabinet card that's going to require that I remove another one of the Nifty Fifty. I'm not sure how I'm going to handle this one, but I am probably going to insist that the card - a 1906 cabinet card of Eddie Collins that's trimmed to all hell - can be slabbed before I remove something else. Stay tuned.

Until then, let's say goodbye to Red:

While I don't have plans to pick up all of these at once, I'm sure interested in picking up one of them.

1888 N162 King Kelly, SGC 50 (or less depending on eye appeal)
A nice W600 HOFer
1909 E95 Eddie Plank, SGC 50 (or less depending on eye appeal)
1910 M116 Wagner with decent eye appeal
1915 Cracker Jack #88 Christy Mathewson, good centering and color
1933 Goudey #181 Babe Ruth, SGC 40 (or less depending on eye appeal)
1934 Goudey #37 Lou Gehrig, SGC 60 (or less depending on eye appeal)
1954 Wilson Franks Bob Feller or Roy Campanella

I'd be looking for the cards in SGC holders, or with the contingency that the card would cross.

I could do cash, cash and trade, or straight trade (check my sale page).

Got back from the National in Cleveland yesterday afternoon; an outstanding show.

Lots of great prewar stuff (I found three Henry Johnson Confectioners cards, that's it), and lots of amazing cards to see. SGC's booth was filled with dynamite prewar scarcities, and the PSA booth had the Wagner and some high-grade postwar stuff. Global redesigned their flip and launched a new website and the hobby immediately started falling all over itself to submit their cards.

The best part of the show, of course, was the social aspect. Meeting up with collectors from all over the country was a great thing. I definitely had more fun in the hours after the show was closed, sitting in the lounge or having dinner with friends than I had walking the floor. It was great to "meet old friends for the first time," as they say.

It was also nice to take a break from the drama that the hobby has been full of for the last few months and just get back to what I enjoy - finding new cards, meeting people, and learning about the hobby.

The article didn't make it because it was riddled with inaccuracies.

Hang tight - I'm still here.

Major renovations going on in the house, my card room is in a shambles, my cards are all over the place, work is bananas, and I'm currently selling - not buying.

Hopefully I'll start coming out of the contractor-induced hell this week and start getting a little organized so that I can redesign this website. Meanwhile, if you're interested in buying a '38 Goudey DiMaggio, I still have the #274 in PSA 5. The #250 in PSA 5 and PSA 6 are gone. Scans are in the '38 Goudey section of this site.

Okay, so I'm fascinated by this nutty hobby.

In that you can have a complete change in interests - COMPLETE change. And go out and re-purpose your entire collection.

Thats what I'm in the middle of doing right now.

Over the last year, a minor housecleaning has turned into a virtual purge, as I've wiped out entire sets in favor of HOFers, and later wiped out an entire collection of tough postwar HOFers in favor of prewar.

And now, in midstream, I had a complete epiphany. All because of a message board post.

See, someone asked "If you were going to build a player set, who would it be?" And that really got me thinking - I'm a fan of a LOT of players - but I'm not really a player collector. And after some thought, I decided: Goose Goslin. Why? Because Goose Goslin is a Hall of Famer from my favorite period in baseball history, and he happens to hail from New Jersey.

Never mind that Joe Medwick is, too - I like Goslin better.

Anyway, that got me thinking. There's a lot of baseball history here in New Jersey. After all - the first organized game was played right here in Hoboken. Yogi Berra's here. So's Phil Rizzuto. Larry Doby lived in Jersey, and Don Newcombe was born here. Hal Chase and Kid Elberfeld lived in Mahwah when they played for the Yankees. The Cuban Giants were initially based in Trenton, Rube Waddell spent time in Camden, and one of the greatest minor league teams of all-time - the Newark Bears - were here. So were, of course, the Newark Eagles of the Negro Leagues. Jimmy Collins played in Jersey City. Derek Jeter was born here.

I could go on, but you get the point.

Anyway, in digging around, I found that there's really no comprehensive resource for New Jersey pro baseball. No museum that I'm aware of, no major collection of historical artifacts, nothing.

So I'm giving serious thought to re-purposing once again. I'm a big fan of New Jersey - I love it here - and I know that the state has produced a large amount of baseball history, particularly in the Negro leagues. So I finally joined SABR, and plan on doing some research, and beginning to seek out Jersey-specific memorabilia and cards.

Doing this will enable me to add memorabilia to what I collect (which is now mostly just cards), while doing the kind of detective work that I've become interested in while chasing down W502s and Henry Johnsons.

I'll definitely still work on the HOF collection, and I'll probably stick with the 502s, T205s, and Johnsons. But this seems like an exciting journey to me, with lots of twists and turns. And best of all, unlike the Henry Johnson Confectioners company in Almeda, California or the Goudey Gum Company of Boston that no longer exists, the places where NJ baseball history was made are places I can VISIT. Which is cool.

So on that note, I give you Leon "Goose" Goslin, New Jersey native and Hall of Famer.

Took the family to Disney World last week, hence the lack of blog posts.

I did, however, want to plug a couple of lots I have in the upcoming REA auction. Both are great lots, and both are thus far taking a beating - great bargains to be had. PLEASE bid!

11 Days left and you can get a reasonably high-grade 1953 Topps set for a song.

And a High-grade 1961 Topps near set as well.

Normally I wouldn't do this, but I was kinda hoping that the above two lots would fetch a strong enough price to keep my card budget healthy for the auction season. I hope that my stuff isn't getting lost amidst the monstrous amount of mind-blowing material in the REA and Mastro auctions.

The '53 Topps set, which includes more than 170 graded cards, can currently be had for slightly more than the value of the Mantle and Mays alone.

Thanks for your bid!

Yessiree, there are some stunning items for sale in the upcoming two auctions.

Mastro's got the Lionel Carter collection, a bunch of greaty HOF rookie cards, and some stunning Carl Horner photos.

REA has the Barry Halper collection, a slew of amazing prewar cards, the Olympic Constitution, and almost too many rarities to list.

Did you budget your money wisely?

I hope so - I have some stuff consigned in the REA auction.

Anyway, to coincide with the upcoming auction season, this website is about to get a complete overhaul. First off, I did NOT budget my money wisely, so I have sold many, many, MANY of my postwar HOFers in the last two or three weeks. Much of what you see on this website no longer exists in my collection.

Second of all, I've still been adding to it. Primarily T206 HOFers lately, as I believe I've picked up 10 or 12 of them in the last month or so, mostly with tougher backs.

Third of all, the design is getting a tiny bit tired, as far as I'm concerned, so I'm thinking of making some design modifications.

And lastly, I want to create more galleries to display my R311s, R303s, and my 1990 Donruss.

Just kidding about that last part.

Just as an FYI, I'm selling ALL my postwar HOFers. Check my HOF pages - any card released after 1954 is on the proverbial block. There's a list with pricing on the B/S/T over at 54. I didn't update the "Sale" page on this site - I'm trying to do this quickly, before I change my mind.

Anyway, when this is done, expect some major surgery on this site. All the postwar HOFers will be gone. I'll have to change the way the whole HOF section is laid out. I may even change the design.

At least my Packard-Bell Gil Hodges has found a good home. The guy who took it off my hands really deserves to have such a cool card.

It occurred to me that by the time I'm done with this purge, I'll only have 7 postwar cards in my active collection.

It may be just me, but I've noticed a definite trend AGAINST Paypal payments.

I've sold about 30 lots or so on eBay over the past two weeks, and thus far not a single winner has paid by Paypal. Prices all over the place, too, from $25 for an off-grade T205 common to $2000 for a 1938 Goudey HOFer.

I wonder why that is? It's kinda weird.

Anyone?

Did you know you can leave comments on this blog?

I'm just saying, is all.

Sometimes people send me emails or even call me on the phone, and reference my blog posts. Sometimes people even get pissed off about some of the things I write. But there are very rarely any comments directly on the blog.

The lack of comments is the reason for my tongue-in-cheek remarks about the masses of people who read the blog. But it struck me this evening that there really aren't a lot of collector blogs out there. Actually, I know of only one. This one, actually.

So maybe there are readers who aren't aware of how blogs work. So I'll 'splain.

Underneath each blog posting you'll see the word "Commentaire". That's French, I think. Because I'm using cheap, off-the-shelf blog software. Or, as the French say, "merde." Pardon my French.

Anyway, if you click "Commentaire", you can enter your name and email address, then enter some comments about the blog posting on which you're commenting. Then I can read your comment and leave comments on top of those. Then, some other guy can read both of our comments and leave comments about our comments.

Pretty soon, we're having all sorts of discussions, commenting on our comments, arguing with each other, sharing the love, being buddies, bitching about the hobby. It turns my random thoughts into more of a dialogue. All sorts of wackiness ensues.

It's a beautiful thing, this internet machine.

Anyway, feel free to talk merde in the Commentaire sections of the bloggy-thing.

Been a crazy couple of weeks at work. I've been spending every waking moment working. And some of my sleeping moments as well. I know how you look forward to reading my blog. Commentary coming in a few minutes on the big hobby-fixing summit. But first, Joe Cronin.

Blogging light over the holidays, but thought I'd share a few gifts I got from a message board "Secret Santa". Some very cool items.



1978 Yankees roster and schedule. A nice companion piece to the set I have. When I scrapped the idea of building complete sets from each year the Yanks won the World Series, I kept my 1977 and 78 sets, mostly because I bought those cards in packs as a kid (I still have all those, too, but to re-build the sets I bought unopened material a few years ago).



W560 Waite Hoyt. Pretty cool card, from 1927 (A Yankee WS year), of a Yankee. A new card type for me, and a very thoughtful gift.



T205 Barry and Flynn - two new cards, both VERY nice (especially that Flynn with the Cycle back!).

Plus all sorts of Yankees-related magazines from the 80s, and a few shiny refractical Mickey Mantle cards and more 1980 Topps Yankee Team Cards than I can shake a stick at.

Thanks to Albie, who really, really spent a lot of time on my gift. Just a thoughtful, thoughtful thing to do.

Happy New Year!

So RapidWeaver (the web development program I use) came out with a software upgrade a few weeks ago. I'd been resistant to using it, since the program offers me everything I need. I'm a chimp when it comes to this stuff, and yet I think the site looks nice (thanks to RapidWeaver's built in "themes").

But I downloaded it anyway. Ass that I am.

Seems the geniuses at RealMac Software decided that photo albums no longer needed to be laid out in left-to-right rows. Evidently one long column down the left-hand side of the page is plenty good enough for them. After spending an hour trying to figure out what I was doing wrong, I found their message board, where they try and explain to all their customers that they really don't need tidy rows of thumbnails, lined up left-to-right across the page.

So I uninstalled version 3.5 and went back to version 3.2. Which means, of course, that the updates I made last week using version 3.5 are unreadable by version 3.2, and the blog posts are hereby dispatched into the ether.

Sorry.

After picking up ten upgrades to my '38 Goudey set over the last two months and boosting my set's GPA to 6.08, I came to the realization that there are very, very few cards left that I can upgrade. My next goal is to bring every card in the set to a PSA 6 or better - I have nine PSA 5s left in the set.

Problem is that two of them are DiMaggios, and all but two are HOFers. The process of taking these nine cards to PSA 6 is likely to cost me thousands and thousands of dollars. Coupled with the fact that my other cards are very close to being as high grade as possible, I've begun to realize that the upgrades for this set will be few and far between now.

Despite having walked away from my Yankee quest, I realize that I do need a set to build. As evidenced by my past blog postings, the W502 set is going to take me forever, so I've renewed my focus on the T205s. Over the next few weeks I'll be scanning the cards I currently own (about 20% of the set), and creating a T205 page on this site. My intention is to share all the scans here, as part of my crusade to prove to the hobby that lower-grade T205s can still be beautiful, even with the nasty border chipping.

I'm also changing the name of this blog, because it obviously has evolved beyond just a chronicle of building the W502 set. At the rate it was going, I was making blog entries every couple of weeks, just to let people know I was alive. With its new focus, it's now a little more blog-like.

The comments section is working now. Fire away!

Okay, so the comments function is not working, so essentially, I'm talking to myself right now. I'll fix it soon.

It's only been within the last two years or so that I've discovered the collecting community online; since then I've met some great people and discovered some awesome card types I may never have discovered otherwise. After reading an awesome (and lengthy) chronicle of a collector's quest to complete a 1977 Topps set on the SGC website, I thought it might be a cool idea to incorporate a blog component to building a set.

I selected the 1928 W502 set for a few reasons. First, David Vargha's excellent article on the 1928 ice cream issues in SGC Collector magazine was an outstanding primer to some unheralded card sets. Second, because the set is not particularly common, nor highly sought-after by registry set builders (meaning I won't have to slug it out with people over low-pop cards). Third, because I purchased an awesome Tony Lazzeri at the National that graded an SGC 84, and that seemed like a great start to the set. And lastly, because I know absolutely zero about the issue, and there doesn't appear to be a lot of cumulative knowledge about it available online anywhere.

Before deciding to do the blog, I obtained one additional card for the set - an SGC 60 Joe Dugan - to couple with my Lazzeri and my SGC 30 Highpockets Kelly. That means I'm starting with 57 to go, without any clue as to whether there are any variations, scarcities, or other strange issues that might plague this set (other than scarcity; the Dugan was the only card I've seen from this set on eBay in the last month).

My goal is to complete the set in as high a grade as possible, all in SGC holders. I'll purchase cards in other holders to cross, and will also consider sharp, raw cards without glue or tape stains on the back.

I'll be adding posts here as I obtain new cards, have anything interesting and/or worthwhile to tell, or find out new information about the set. Wish me luck, and if you have any nice ones you'd be willing to part with, drop me a note!