A Quick Question For Those of You Attending the National

Hi guys. I have a quick question for anyone who attended the National this week. Did you see any 1993 Finest cards (refractor or base) at the show? How was availability? Did you see any sales or trades successfully completed that involved these cards? Were asking prices decent or were these just museum pieces without realistic prices attached to them?

A Pre-National CardBoredom Summary

 

Happy National Card Collectors Convention Week (to all who celebrate). I'm not going but am hoping to experience the event vicariously through some of your own accounts.  I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys find!

At some future point I hope to make it out there, but just can't bring myself to stomach the travel expenses. While I'll go overboard on a vacation or trip to attend some unrelated event, when it comes to baseball cards I keep mentally equating the associated costs with the cards I could acquire for the same price. Attend an awesome show? Yes! Do it instead of picking up a low grade 1935 Goudey Babe Ruth or a '52 Topps Eddie Mathews rookie? Absolutely not! I've never been to the National and do not have any Ruth cards, so I guess this is all just theoretical anyway.

It's been a busy month, and I must confess I did zero baseball related writing until penning this post tonight. Sure, there were five new card profiles posted to CardBoredom, but these were actually typed up and scheduled for publication much earlier. I've got a Tom Glavine post kicking around but just haven't found the energy to fully lock down my thoughts. That will be taken care of soon enough, so I'll leave you with that preview. 

July saw another 1% of the 1952 Topps checklist profiled. I finally finished the second series (cards #81-130). While no major rookie cards appear in the second series, the underappreciated debut of a defensive wizard shows up in the third series. Another cardboard resident of the third series, purportedly a Cincinnati Reds pitcher, showed up in my mailbox with a rather unique odor to it. Johnny Groth is in the 1,000 Hits Club, for whatever that's worth.

They say it is theoretically possible to bend time if you travel fast enough. The Refractor countdown continues with a player who was so fast that he erased home runs, possibly killing off more homers than he hit himself. Alex Cole just might have a claim to have generated a net negative number of dingers.

 

June 2025 at CardBoredom

New month. New cards. In June I picked up two more Charlie Bishop cards from 1953-55. Both are duplicates, but significant condition upgrades. 

I've also largely finished writing the card profiles that will appear on CardBoredom from now until early December. Time to enjoy the summer.

 PROFILES FROM THE 1993 FINEST REFRACTORS SET

1. The David Justice refractor is a particularly tough one to find.
2. Eric Karros hit more home runs in a Los Angeles Dodgers uniform than anyone else. 

PROFILES FROM THE 1952 TOPPS SET 

1.  Floyd Baker's semi-high numbered card looks pretty nice. It's certainly better than some cards sporting some touch-up work.
2. Ted Williams was out of the lineup and shipping off to Korea. Bring in the photo stand-in.
3. College football stars trying to get into pro baseball is a nearly 100-year tradition.  

 

May 2025 Summary & Decades Blog Bat Around

Big news: As of the time I am writing this I am obsessively checking the tracking status of a personal grail card that is en route to my doorstep. I have a small player collection focused on cards of Charlie Bishop, a distant relative who played a few partial seasons with the Athletics in the 1950s. The full checklist has just three playing days Topps cards (1953, 1955, and 1955 Double Headers) and a handful of much harder to find regional issues. One of those has been identified by hobby publications as far back as the 1970s as being particularly hard to find, having been pulled from the presses before the full run of cards was completed. The only full set of 1955 Rodeo Meats cards in the Registry is in the process of being broken up and I was able to snag the Bishop card not too long after the listing went live.

Other arrivals this month include pick-ups for three of my other projects. Six '52 Topps commons came in, including a trimmed high number that set me back less than the cost of a pizza. A Luke Appling card was checked off my '49 Leaf checklist. I also added five Jose Canseco cards with the highlights being a '91 Topps Desert Shield and a '94 Bowman's Best Refractor.

Newly Posted in May

I'm down to the last dozen profiles of the 199 cards that make up the 1993 Finest Refractors checklist. This month highlighted a pair of constants from the American League, both of which played some of their final contests in short-lived stints in the rival league. Despite this residency in the DH-enamored AL, a pitcher found himself unexpectedly called to bat on multiple occasions. The second coming of Luis Aparicio likewise didn't find much success behind the plate, but he and his knee brace somehow managed to become (according to Immaculate Grid results) the most well-known White Sox shortstop.

Profiles of '52 Topps are rolling along. In May I took a look at "Muscles" Upton, a slightly-built infielder who seemed to make a career out of being used to balance out trades. The 1952 Red Sox had their own player with a BMI reading below 22 - one who gained amateur fame when he struck out 27 batters in a 7 inning game. The winner of a 1999 Seattle Post Intelligencer ranking of the greatest Seattle area athlete wasn't Ken Griffey, Jr., but rather a Detroit Tigers' player/manager who could apparently wrestle bears just as well as play baseball.

Blog Bat Around: Decades

A few weeks ago Baseball Cards Fan posted a Blog Bat Around idea. The challenge was to identify a favorite player for each decade for which you intentionally acquired cards. Each of the cards shown below are cards I specifically sought out either in my current collecting pursuits or during my obsession with all things baseball in the 1990s. The key is I had to have actually owned the card shown and have actively sought items bearing the likeness of the player shown.

1930s

Jimmy Foxx is the player I most sought from this period, though I have never owned a playing days card of the slugger dubbed "Double-X." In the '90s I once found myself out of cash at the end of a card show when I came across a beat up Foxx in my price range from 1934 Goudey, so a 1960 Fleer example would have to do. 

Instead, the player I found myself actually chasing was Heinie Manush. I didn't know anything about him other than he was a Hall of Famer when I picked up a 1939 Play Ball at a mall show. Learning more as I studied that card, his story grew on me. Ty Cobb more or less taught him how to hit as a pet project. He appears multiple times through some of the decade's best card issues. Manush played for a half dozen teams, giving his cards a rainbow of uniforms to see and making his career arc mimic those of the free agent players that I enjoyed following in real time. There's also the added benefit of his having a name that is fun to pronounce (Heinie Mah-noosh) and the knowledge that the plot of the 1942 film Obliging Young Lady is frequently moved along by an unhinged man who can't stop saying "Heinie Manush" in time with the sounds of the steam train in which the cast is being carried along.

1940s

The '40s again feature a player that I would love to collect but simply have never had any cards of his from the period: Bob Feller. Seeing as how his 1949 Leaf card is one of the toughest numbers in the checklist, it will be a while before I get around to doing something about that. The same goes for another favorite, Pete Reiser, who likely had more concussions than cards during the decade.

In the interim, I can satisfy this area of my collection with cards of Johnny Mize. He was pretty much the National League equivalent of Jimmy Foxx and stands well beyond most contemporaries when it comes to his advanced batting metrics. I specifically collect '49 Leaf cards and he was the very first Hall of Famer I added from this issue. It doesn't hurt that his '52 Topps card is one of the best looking, visually and statistically, within my other vintage set building focus. Couple that with the fact that the Ruthian Mize actually looks like Babe Ruth and is related to both Ruth and Cobb and you have some special cards.

 

1950s

This is an easy one. Since the day a random letter showed up at my house, I have been on the lookout for any new Charlie Bishop cards (see the intro to today's post for confirmation). Bishop is a distant relative of mine and is featured on a relatively small number of cards from the 1950s. Not bad for a guy whose minor league contract was once traded away by the New York Giants for a player locked away in a psych ward.

1960s

Frank Howard picks up the trail of slow-footed power hitters that featured names like Foxx and Mize. Growing up, I knew a handful of military neighbors who caught the occasional baseball game when traveling to DC. Frank Howard was their favorite Senators player and quickly became mine when we discussed this era of the game. His '62 Topps was my favorite from the decade. My first 1969 Topps card was a Frank Howard like the one below and quickly became the first step in an abandoned attempt to build the full set.

1970s

Two players were stalwarts of my searches through stacks of cards from the 1970s: Willie Stargell and Bert Blyleven. I credit the Stargell interest to my opening countless numbers of Donruss wax packs when they came with puzzle pieces featuring the new Hall of Fame inductee. The Blyleven searches stayed with me as time passed. I found myself wondering why so many were passing over the cards of one of the best pitchers in history - equal to Nolan Ryan in my view of the game. Picking up Blyleven cards was a way of making a statement to those collectors: I value things differently than you, even if, like everybody else,  I seemingly only pick good players or relatives as personal favorites. Blyleven's '75 Topps bubble gum bubble card is in my running for card of the decade, and his '71 rookie card scratches that itch to chase an unreasonable level of obsessiveness with condition. Today I have a limited number of cards outside of my primary set building interests and this is one of them.

1980s

Although the majority of my favorite player's games took place in the 1990s, most consider him a name from the 1980s. Jose Canseco was the only name I recognized when I opened my first pack of cards in 1991 and would be a staple search of every wrapper opened afterwards. The 1989 Topps All Star below was visually my favorite.

1990s

Cards of another home run hitter, David Justice, were a staple of my card collection binders in the '90s. Canseco was still the player I most wanted to find in any given pack of cards during the decade, but a Justice card was always a fine consolation prize. He played the full decade and is my choice to represent the '90s over Carlos Delgado who didn't really get going until the end of the period.

2000s and Up

The most recent pack of cards I have ever opened was from 1996. By 2000 I was selling off my collection and didn't come back to the hobby until taking care of higher ranking life goals. I only have two post-2002 cards in my collection and only one features a player active at the time of production. By that definition you can say I chase Shohei Ohtani cards though that would be quite the exaggeration.

Eight New Posts in April

 

That picture above represents the eight cards I profiled this month at CardBoredom. It also represents a good sampling of the cards I had hoped to land back when I was at peak collecting intensity in the 1990s. A bunch of '52 Topps, including Willie Mays? Yes please. More than one refractor in the same room as me? I can't believe it. The next thing you'll be telling me is that I've got a Billy Ripken error card in my pocket.

That's one of the effects of adding cards to the collection faster than I can write them up. The cards profiled this month were all added in the summer of 2023, implying my current blogging backlog is about two years deep. That seems like a pretty decent estimate of the current state of affairs. New additions have slowed compared to last year, so I should make some progress in narrowing that gap. In the interim, let's look at some cards.

1952 Topps

The quest to write up and complete the '52 Topps set ticked another 1% closer to completion this month. Highlights:

• The best card in my collection: Willie Mays (also my 500th post)
• Life goal: Live such an interesting life that people name race horses after you.
• Another pitcher prompted me to feed some baseball cards to the local wildlife.
• This pitcher played for teams named the Commies and the Reds. I wish him luck answering any questions from the House Select Committee.

1993 Finest Refractors

Chronicling the set building project continued in April, bringing the number of profiled cards up to 94% of the checklist. There weren't a lot of big names this month, but the dwindling number of remaining cards will soon start becoming increasingly concentrated among those with more extensive fanbases. Covered in April:

• A pitcher who supplemented his income by standing in police lineups.
• What do you do when designing a baseball card for someone who appeared in a soap opera? Obviously you give him the worst picture in the set.
• There are 15 active player collections in the PSA Set Registry focused on 1970s backup catcher Bob Montgomery. There are surprisingly zero focused on a second overall draft pick who generated more than 30 WAR and blocked Night Owl on Twitter.
• Cleveland's second baseman and I have both been on the receiving end of women armed with brushes and body paint. He got a baseball card out of the deal.

Collection Update

I've been taking new additions relatively easy this year and thinning out some of the collection. Someone bought my stack of trimmed 1953 Topps commons, funding half of my year-to-date additions. Aside from a couple PWEs waiting to go out, I am largely done with mailing out cards until late in the year. The total number of cards in my collection is once again less than Barry Bonds' career home runs.

The big addition this month is an insanely well-centered 1949 Leaf Gene Hermanski, who as one of the two Brooklyn players in the checklist takes my Dodgers team set progress from zero to 50%. Adding Jackie will be a bit more...um...challenging.

My 1952's saw two semi-high numbers get marked off the checklist. Low grade Gently used examples of Pat Mullin and Birdie Tebbetts were slotted in with the rest of my cards. I also picked up a duplicate (but unique) Monte Irvin. Someone updated the Irvin card by using glue to affix a type-written statistical appendix covering his 1952 season as well as filling in the offensive categories originally omitted from the back of the card.

Next month should generate at least another half dozen card profiles. Happy reading and may your cards never be boring.

499 and Counting

I had intended to publish one additional post this month, but time simply got away from me. This particular post is significant for couple of reasons. It will showcase the acquisition of what I consider to be the best card currently in my collection and will happily coincide with being the 500th post at CardBoredom. However, I want this to be more than just a quick 300-500 word "look at this card you're already familiar with" type of write-up. As of now, I have not found the ideal approach to present it. So, for the present, I will let the idea simmer in the back of my mind while I focus on other things.

One of my recent diversions has been to enjoy the return of clear skies and warm air on the tarmac of the local airfield. Just last weekend my son and I had the opportunity to get a close look at a stunning SR22T that pulled up in front of us wearing a very unusual black livery. Aside from the features that make this such a visually interesting plane (e.g. doors that swing upward, pronounced angle to the wings, 4 blades instead of 3 on the prop, etc.), this one has a built in parachute system. The parachute isn't for passengers, but rather the entire plane itself. Should the aircraft experience an emergency that precludes a traditional landing, the pilot can deploy the device and drift down to the ground below. As Cirrus' marketing department likes to say, "Chute happens." 

Returning to the subject of writing about cards, it seems my case of writer's block might be little more than hypochondria. Five cards were profiled in March, four of which fell within the purview of my set collecting goals.

1952 Topps: A's pitcher Sam Zoldak hit a home run but could never prove it with a box score. Before the team in Washington hosted races between presidential mascots, they made their fastest outfielder race a horse.

1993 Finest Refractors: My daughter trades Pokemon cards while I remember the time Alex Fernandez's arm was turned over for the insurance money. Frank Viola fights some robots.

The final profile for the month focused on the most prevalent card in my collection: The 1953 Topps rookie card of Charlie Bishop. Grab a bag of chips and read all about it.

Year in Pics and New Wallet Cards!

 

This is the progression of wear on one of my 2024 wallet cards. The full extent of the damage to my selection of Bo Jackson cards can be seen in a post recapping the many adventures they underwent. There are fighter jets, insect swarms, genetically enhanced plants, and much more across 32 pictures of how they spent the year.

Detailed reviews of a couple of 1986 Topps Traded wallet cards soon followed with a focus on the Topps debuts of Bo Jackson and Jose Canseco. As usual, these include a history of how the cards came to occupy their current place in the hobby as well as a walk through the past and present trade opportunities that they offer. I never swung a trade involving either of these cards, but wonder if any of you had any experience swapping them in or out of your collection?

Join me in taking things a bit too far with the Wallet Cards of 2025:

 

SET BUILDING CARDS PROFILED IN FEBRUARY

1952 Topps: Moms threw out their kids' cards (and saved this one)

1952 Topps: Did you know this set almost had a card with a guy wearing sunglasses?

1952 Topps: Bill MacDonald was an above average player. Technically.

1993 Finest: An outfielder who can dunk a basketball.

1993 Finest: Bringing in a closer now that the set is 90% complete.

January Updates and the Refractor Report

If you make a suggestion, you better be prepared to execute the idea yourself. When I first started collecting 1993 Finest Refractors I discovered there was no central repository of information about the set. It was surrounded by legends, out of date information, and a patchwork of decaying message board notes of varying quality and timeliness. While building the set I gathered as much information as I could, and earlier this month I published a summary of some of the insights gleamed from this endeavor. This Refractor Report serves as both a snapshot of the current known state of '93 Finest Refractors as well as a summary of how this has shifted over the past 12 months. I plan to make annual updates and continue to expand my data collection efforts.

This month I also saw a few more collectors chronicle their hobby year with their own annual reports. I always enjoy combing through these posts and definitely saw some good ones.

I continued to work my way through profiling cards from my collection. Notes on five pieces of cardboard were published in January:

1952 Topps: When a Giants' star was attacked by a bat-wielding cabbie

1952 Topps: Another NY Giant appeared on a lot of bases and a lot of cards

1952 Topps: Hi-dee-hi-dee-ho! 1930s big bands on the diamond

1993 Finest: A walking luau once chased Hawaii's finest pitcher

1993 Finest: I try to one-up Will Clark in a game of yelling at clouds

Next month I plan to change out my wallet cards and provide deeper looks at a few of the pieces of cardboard that previously spent a year living in my pocket. 

Never let your cards be boring!

2024 Annual Report

 

Last month I promised that I would finally get around to taking a proper look back at what has transpired on my end of the hobby in 2024. Here it is: The 2024 CardBoredom State of the Collection Annual Report. I tracked the number of cards flowing in an out of the collection, identified which ones moved me closer to meeting my goals, and ranked the top 3 acquisitions of the year. Progress reports for each area of focus are also included, as are report cards for how things stacked up against previously published goals.

 

December isn't just a period for reflection on the past. The publishing calendar continued to move forward at a decent pace. Four other posts made their way out to CardBoredom readers during the month. There was a look at the 1952 baseball card issues not made by Topps. Profiles were written for '52 Topps cards featuring a multi-decade soap opera star and a guy who knew exactly how to make opponents angry. I also made up some numbers to make reading about Larry Walker more fun.

Last month I asked others if they would post a similar recap of their own collecting year. I'm curious to see how other collections developed and have already been pointed to some reading material put out by other collectors well ahead of me in terms of writing up their collection.

Happy new year and may your cards never be boring.

Homework Time - Tell Me About Your Collection?

Not many people like homework, but I have a secret that makes it pretty fun. The answer? It gets pretty interesting when you are the person who assigns the homework.

I have an idea that would be fun (for me) to see implemented. I want to read a summary of your hobby year. I was away from the hobby when many of these blogs started up, and the experience of discovering another good one is sometimes akin to joining a conversation without all the necessary context. Annual review posts are very helpful in coming up to speed on a collection and help identify subjects that may have been overlooked amid particularly active posting activity. Several of you have been doing this for years and I really appreciate it. [Some established examples: Tim Wallach / Night Owl]

I've been kicking the idea around for a while but never got around to properly preparing one of my own for publication. This time I'm ready. A full report has been written and needs only a few finishing touches in the form of final numbers for the year.

Here is the general framework I am using:

1. Collection metrics: How many cards are currently in the collection? What is the breakdown between types of cards? How have these numbers changed over the past 12 months? How do these cards shake out in terms of number of what fits within the core collecting focus versus interesting items are that are just "there."
2. Highlight new arrivals. Which new cards finish in the top three for the year?
3. Review progress made towards longstanding collecting goals. Detail any changes in strategic direction.
4. Grade performance against 2024 collecting goals and lay out new ones for 2025.
5. Note any changes to the blog layout. A lot of work goes into personalizing these things and I suspect we are never finished tinkering with elements of design and usability. Did anything change in 2024?
   

 I'll have my report up at the end of December and hope to read about other collectors as well.

Other Items

 If you haven't been to the main CardBoredom site recently, here is what was posted in November:

1952 Topps: The best worst card I'll ever see from the high number series. Dick Kryhoski had an eventful introduction to the Navy. I accidentally went nuclear trying to add a card to the set building project.

1993 Finest: News flash - Athletes are good at athletic events. Also, some Greek antiquity, college football, and fast Saabs/slow Ferraris. My first experience with the retirement of a "modern" player.

Wallet Card: Looking back at the time I unsuccessfully tried to destroy a Ken Griffey, Jr. card.

 

Dash It All

 

Congratulations to the new World Series Champions! Or not. I'm writing this when it could still be either the Dodgers or Yankees. Like a chonky but enthusiastic squirrel I have been creating posts for use at future dates and throwing them into a publishing queue for future use. I already have enough profiles of cards from my in-progress sets to nearly get to the end of the year. Take a look at the ones that made it to the primary CardBoredom site this month:

1952 Topps

• Prior to Shohei Ohtani, the last American League pitcher to steal home plate did so in 1950. He was even portrayed running to home plate on his '56 Topps card.
  
• An excellent defensive infielder went to prison after explosives were planted on the cruise ship that would eventually become the set of The Love Boat
  
• Pitchers will do anything to stay in the game. One even had his teeth removed to keep throwing.
  

1993 Finest

• I don't believe the rumor that this member of the '93 Finest checklist is trying to corner the market for his Refractors.
• A baseball card once became the emblem of clubhouse discord among the New York Mets.

Dashboards!

One of the reasons for getting so far ahead of writing has been to ensure an adequate flow of posts while I put the finishing touches on the reporting output of the databases that drive my collecting records. Earlier in the year I teased alongside the rollout of new player infographics that additional updates would be rolled out in stages. I am pleased to report the release of the next upgrade: Improved dashboards for my 1952 Topps and 1993 Finest projects.

The '52 Topps dashboard should look very familiar to anyone familiar with these cards. I think I got the coloring and cardboard texture right while capturing the current state of this project. It is certainly an improvement over the prior donut chart showing progress to date towards completion. Aside from expanded data and better aesthetics, what I am really excited about is how every aspect updates automatically based on the checklist where I track my progress. All I have to do is save the resulting image whenever I want to announce the addition of a new card. Anyone wishing to see the live version of the graphic can find it on my '52 Topps overview page.

Upgrades are also live on at the bottom of my Refractor Dashboard page, an area of CardBoredom that sees quarterly updates with the latest overview of data on these shiny parallels. I improved the graphics while automating future production output. From this point forward, publishing of this data should be able to take place with the click of a button after proof

Powering this from behind the scenes is database that extends well beyond what is provided by any individual publicly available collector resource. While the dashboard gives a general overview of the availability of these cards, the database and my internal files are now at a point where they can generate usable insights into chasing this set. In early January a much more detailed version of the dashboard will be released as a full report on the state of the '93 Refractor market. I promise it will not be just a recitation of pop counts. It's going to be fun.

Next month I will have a homework assignment for you. Until then, don't let your cardboard be boring.