Upcoming Mall 205 Card Show & Thrift Treasures

I'm going to start this post off by getting right to the point. I know of four bloggers from the Portland area. I'd say five, but I'm not sure if having to drive an hour and a half to Portland counts as being in the Portland area. With that in mind there is the frequently held card show at Mall 205 on the 8th. Unless some unforeseen circumstances come up I will be going to the show. While I did the Beaverton show three times last year after returning to card collecting. I have yet to do the Mall 205 show, and am a virgin to this show if you will.

From touring other blogs atleast one blogger has mentioned getting together at a card show. Thinking to myself why not put a face to a few of the blogs I read, lets do this. So if anyone wants to either exchange some cards in person, look through cards together, or just stop me and say hello. I'm going to be sporting my black Fresno Grizzlies hat with the orange F on it. I try to arrive as close to opening time as possible for events like this show, but usually end up early by fifteen minutes or so. Like I said I haven't done this show before so if you have an obvious meet up spot I'm in. Just let me know by commenting here so anyone interested can stop there.

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Card shows aren't the only thing going on in the world of the cat. On Monday my plan was to just hang with the dog, and get some mailing ready. The wife had other plans as a stop into Costco was in her plan for my day. What that meant is I had to make a stop at not one, but two thrift stores. My first thrift store was the usual Goodwill where I found the following.

Another baseball for the collection that I keep claiming I'm not going to buy any more of. This one was for ice cream so it had to come home. How could I leave a baseball for an ice cream place sitting there? I couldn't, so it came home with me. Two rows down I found another great find in another binder of card pages. Much like the last binder it's an 'O' ring so I bought it only for the pages. Twenty-seven pages to be exact, all for the cheap price of $1.99. The craziest thing about the binder was sitting just four inches away was a hockey sports card binder with no pages inside.While I didn't look I assume the hockey binder cost more than the binder with actual pages inside.

Excited about how my luck was running I decided to push it. My second thrift stop was St. Vinnies which is just a few blocks from the Goodwill. Usually I don't go here as its very rare that I find anything interesting. Today rare was in my favor as I walked out with a couple needed items.

Two ball holders for those baseballs I keep buying. I figured last week that if I was going to continue buying baseballs I should come up with a way to showcase them. The plan has been set in motion as I'll keep buying these ball holders every so often. Getting two of them on the cheap was a dream come true.

 All the dice are for another hobby room look. In the past I commented about having a few old canning jars in the room. One of the jars is being filled with various dice from games. Any time I come across ones like the five above they go into the jar. Currently the jar is maybe 1/3rd full, and filling faster than the other jars. One day when I get moved into the new hobby room I'll show off the group of jars. Until then they are like all the other hobby room goodies. Things you get to see in bits and pieces until the time comes to showcase everything.

Lately my luck has been flowing when it comes to the thrift store stops. Today was the peak of this run of luck. Hopefully it keeps running as I'm not ready for it to end just yet.

Another Bad Trade Post

From reading the title one could assume that I'll be talking about a bad trade. In reality the trade wasn't bad just this post about the trade is.

I mean how can any trade that contains cards such as a Mark Teixeira Ovation card be called a bad trade? Its a beautiful card that I just wish could get the respect it deserves. Not being included in a post talking about how I struggle at times with my trade recaps.

Ron even added these two sweet cards in with the Ovation card. Yet I froze up, and only came up with the idea for a post that talks about how terrible my trade posts can be sometimes.

All I know is that hopefully one of these days I will be more consistent in putting out quality trade posts. Currently they are hit, and miss at best. Maybe if I keep working at it they will be up to par with our top bloggers one day. I doubt it, but I will keep dreaming and trying.

Until then all I can do is say Ron from the group TradingBases dropped four sweet Mark Teixeira cards on me. Just know that I was thrilled to add these into the Teixeira collection. Even if my post doesn't give you the respect you deserve Ron. Don't hold it against me as I'd love to better with a future trade.

A Teeny Victory

Not feeling the best on Friday things got much better after arriving at home. Doing my usual ritual of getting the dog, and heading to check the mail.That is when excitement, and confusion set in. A manilla envelope with a strange feeling that didn't feel like baseball cards caught my attention. Wondering who sent this goodie bag as the sender was Party Animal Inc. My first thought was maybe a fellow collector worked for this company, and didn't want to use their address they went with one from the company. Still puzzled I had to wait until after dinner before this mystery would be solved. Finishing dinner it was killing me to see what was inside. I just had to know, and dug in to reveal.

(image taken from Sports Card Info blog)

My prize!!! For those that didn't know the awesome blog Sports Card Info held a contest for three packs of TeenyMates. A contest that yours truly was luck enough to win. To win these beauties all I had to do was leave a comment every day from Sunday through Friday. Contests like this are held quite often at the blog with some sweet prizes popping up constantly. Besides all the great prizes the blog shows some just as great looking cards on a daily basis

Ironically the day before being announced the prize winner I had bought two packs of these. After seeing them on another blog or two I had to see them in person, and much like the others think they are awesome. Not willing to wait a second longer I ripped into the first pack.

Now that is a great start! Hitting one of my two favorite teams in the very first pack. If I could have hit a Rockies Teeny to go along with Seattle I might have cried. I highly doubt it, but it sounded cool.

My second package had a National League feel to it. Maybe it's just me or maybe it was getting a Cubs followed by Brewers figure in the package.

 Rounding out the goodness that was inside the three packages were Cleveland, and Texas.

Overall this was a sweet package of TeenyMates. As you can see above its a pretty cool looking collection if you ask me. Adding them in with the four I got on my visit to Target the collection stands at 10. The best news is so far I have zero doubles, and only two puzzle pictures in the lower don't connect to the other eight. Currently I am undecided if I will attempt to build the puzzle, and how far I will go with collecting all 30 teams, and the four rare figures.

These things are right up my alley in that they are a kind of general baseball item that I can display easily in the hobby room. So odds are I will pick these up every so often as long as I can buy a pack or two at the Target. If or when I find the Colorado Rockies player all bets are off. No matter what the future plans are for collecting these. I want to once again send out a huge thank you to Sports Card Info, and Party Animal Inc. for the prize.

So is anyone else out there collecting these? Would like to hear what the plan is for you if you are.

How??

On Wednesday afternoon I got one of those how type packages. You know the one... The package that contains one or more cards that leaves you shaking your head. All wondering how did I not already have this card? With me this wasn't just one card, but two cards.

This PWE came courtesy of Tom who is a member of the online group TradingBases. Tom was one of the people who I dropped cards on with what I called the big mailing last month. In return Tom dropped three Nolan Ryan cards on me.

The card above is not one of the cards I'm referring to. When this card came out Mike Scott was going to be a legend one day. So much so that when this card came out I was in the early stages of considering a Mike Scott collection. Luckily I never started that collection so this card is only one of a few I have with him on it. My others are all put away in with the doubles or cards for trading. Whatever it is you want to refer to that pile of cards as.

Included with that card was two cards that left me shaking my head wondering, how?

When CollectaBooks came out I was deep into the world of card collecting. I say collecting, but lets be honest here. I was one of the million other people who bought cards, and were going to get rich off them. Nolan Ryan was a doubly whammy as he was my favorite player, and still is. Being a sure in Hall-Of-Famer this meant when I decided to sell his cards they would be worth tons more than what I had paid for them. Like the other million people who had that dream, I'm still working.

Being I picked up every Nolan Ryan card possible. It's amazing that until Tom sent it this week I didn't have one in the collection. Now that won't be a problem any longer.

If you have followed or just stopped in and read this blog for any amount of time. There is one thing that by now has become pretty obvious. If it is anything that I enjoy in baseball cards it is the oddball stuff. Back when I originally collected the oddball stuff was by far my favorite. The thinking was that the more tough to come by the more valuable it would be when I resold for all my riches. Due to this thought process if a magazine had a picture, or card of Ryan inside I bought it. How a 1989 Nolan Ryan card from Baseball Card Magazine slipped through the cracks is beyond me. Thanks to Tom I won't have to ask that question ever again.

Over time I have just come to appreciate the more oddball items for what they are. That has been one of my favorite things about blogging since starting. When another blogger shows either a police set, bread card, or anything else promotional in their personal collection. I can't help myself from dropping in, and learning about this oddball card. Nothing is better in my opinion than seeing one of these hidden regionalized gems. Be that a card from 1980, 1990, or from 2014. The oddball stuff will always be king in my mind. So if you ever post a regional card you'll have the cat stopping by atleast.