Saturday Randoms

I'm out cruising around deep in the woods of northern New Hampshire on a snowmobile right about now, so how about a scheduled post to clean out a bunch of back-logged images from my scans folder?  Sure, why not!

In 2008, Topps included a 5-card insert set of the World's Deadliest Sharks in its Allen & Ginter release.  Since I first saw Jaws as a kid I've always had a passing interest in the apex predator of the deep blue sea, and so these really appealed to me as something you don't see every day in the world of cardboard.  I have no idea what the odds were of pulling one of these, but over the years I grabbed one here or there on the secondary market.  This Tiger Shark was actually the last one I needed to complete the 5-card set!

This Giancarlo Stanton is a photo variation short print.  Pulled it myself from one of those ten-packs-for-ten-bucks repacks sometime last year.  It was a pretty boring repack by any standard, so this card was unquestionably the star of the show.

You've probably seen this one elsewhere by now, but just before the holidays Topps sent this special 2016 Highlights Topps Now card out to anyone who had purchased a Topps Now card from them over the course of the season.

Since it features David Ortiz on the back I consider this one for my Red Sox collection.

Here's a nice Bazooka cartoon insert featuring the most dominant Red Sox pitcher of my lifetime, Pedro Martinez.  "Batters cry...while Pedro Cys" is cheesy to say the least, but I think they did a good job replicating the look and feel of the Bazooka Joe cartoons I remember from childhood.

Here's one that doesn't necessarily fit my collection in the strictest sense, but I grabbed it anyway.  The price was right, I'm a sucker for Topps parallels, and it features a solid trio of stars.  I probably would have been better off putting the $1.25 I spent on this toward another project, but I really enjoy just cruising COMC for random bargains quite a bit.

Next up, a trio of Whalers that I believe actually came from my buddy Douglas Corti yet slipped through the cracks when I was typing up that particular trade post.  I've mentioned this before but any time I get a new Terry Yake card I remember as a kid my Dad and brothers joking that his name looks like "teriyaki".

Super shiny Sanderson!

This one doesn't quite blind you in the way that the Leaf Limited card does, but a new Whaler is a new Whaler regardless.

Here's a card that's seen better days, but that I just couldn't bring myself to leave on the counter at my LCS.  I'll take just about any card from the '50s that I don't have if the price is right, condition be damned.  If the subject is featured with a franchise that no longer exists (at least in the same city) like the New York Giants or Brooklyn Dodgers, then I'm even more intrigued.

If you've kept up with the blog for a while now, you may have seen me post some of these awesome Blue Cubes parallels from O-Pee-Chee Platinum before.  With just 65 of each card in circulation, they're rare enough that I don't want to stress myself out with trying to complete the 200-card set, but whenever I see them for cheap coin it's hard to resist.

Nice to add another pair here, especially the Barkov card.  Thanks to an influx of young, talented stars as well as the ageless Jaromir Jagr, the Panthers have actually become my second favorite NHL team in recent years behind the Boston Bruins.  Barkov is an important piece of the puzzle for Florida, and I was so excited to land this one that I paid nearly $6 for it, which isn't exactly a great deal.  I love the card though, so I'm not losing any sleep over it.

I've really become motivated to keep working on my 1959 Topps set, especially after Shane of Off the Wall sent me a huge lot late last year.

Here I've got half a dozen new entries to the binder.  As you can see with Hank Sauer here, I'm not very picky about condition at this point, just happy to fill a binder slot on the cheap whenever I can.

The Sauer card aside, the rest of the cards that make up this half dozen are actually in really nice shape.  Nice enough that I will never feel compelled to upgrade any of them, that's for sure.

Always nice when I can double dip and grab a new Red Sox card at the same time!

This one might be my favorite from this small group, I love the glasses.

The best part is that each of these only set me back between 50 and 65 cents.  It's nice to be early enough on in the set build where I still need a lot of cheap commons like this.

Last two cards for today, a pair of beautiful Paper Framed parallels from the first Gypsy Queen set.  I really went crazy for this set the first year it was released, though I tired of it quickly.

I've been working on the Paper Framed and Green Framed parallels ever since, and was happy to snag a couple of HOFers here for cheap coin.  The Frank Robinson is particularly nice.

Well, that helped clear up the clutter some.  It'll be back to your regularly scheduled programming beginning tomorrow...