Things I want, and things I need

The way I see it, the  my collecting brain is fighting an eternal battle -- there's the unhinged side willing to chase anything and everything I even remotely want, and the more sensible side that's begging me to settle down and just go after the cards I really need.

The fact that I currently have over 90 binders of baseball cards scattered around my room should tell you which side of my brain usually wins out. True, the prospect of chasing cards I need, and only cards I need, is a bit irrational to me, and doesn't sound very fun -- I'd end up adding like five cards to my collection a year. But I admit I can get carried away on the other end of the spectrum, gobbling up anything that catches my eye without really questioning how important said cards are to my collection outside of that pure I WANT! feeling. 

I often wonder what the want-need ratio is for an average collector, and if mine is as outrageous as I think it is. Most collections, I imagine, are scattered with wants around a small treasure trove of needs. And despite what it may look like around here sometimes, I think I've gotten a better handle on cutting down the ratio a bit over the years. At least sometimes.

I've still got a long ways to go, and I think a good example of that is admitting I claimed the above Yoan Moncada -- a glorified base card with a little All-Star stamp thingy -- via a Free Card Friday offering from Jay of "Card Hemorrhage" a while back, and chalk up another win for the want side of my brain, because there's absolutely no reason I needed this card.

In addition to the Moncada, Jay's sent a bunch other things via a few different packages and envelopes recently that toed the line between want vs. need.

I actually received these from Jay before I'd opened a single pack of 2020 A&G -- at the very least, I have Jay to blame for opening up another Pandora's box of needs, because I went out and bought that complete "Field Generals" insert not long after, mostly because of how much I loved that Girardi.

A&G's always good for a couple of those weird insert sets that I don't really seek out, but end up keeping all the ones I stumble upon -- like these two strange minis I'm not quite sure what to do with.

Now we're definitely into need territory -- I'll always be a sucker for regional oddball releases, especially if said region is nowhere near where I live.

I have Jay to thank for adding the first of these west coast, Giants-centric Emerald Nuts oddities to my binders, and now I'm floored by how much better 2005 Topps would've looked with black borders.

I unearthed a minor goldmine of these '81 Topps Scratch-Offs at the flea market last year, which I thought took care of everything I could ever possibly need from this set.

Apparently not, because by some stroke of luck, Jay thought to send me a few more of these panels -- I was shocked to discover a couple I didn't already have (namely Rose and Carlton) and thus needed...yes, needed.

Hostess cards and weirdly-shaped inserts? Definitely needs.

By now, you may have noticed my dilemma -- I love so many different parts of this hobby, and collect so many different things, that in the end a vast island of cards are worthy of being catapulted into needs.

Minor league cards are always needs, especially ones that feature one-time general managers in horribly loud shirts and scarves.

Here's a couple cards from Jay I didn't know I needed, mostly because I can barely find any shreds of information on them.

I do know that's my first card of any kind of Archibald "Moonlight" Graham, which is kinda shocking given the unlikely legend he's become thanks to Field of Dreams.

But then there's this weird third category: cards I neither want nor need, but still keep around for some reason.

My feelings on graded cards are generally known, and I already had an ungraded copy of this particular Wade Boggs sitting in my Red Sox binder, but still I hung onto this odd slabbed one Jay sent me -- it's sitting in the box of oversized and/or miscellaneous stuff I own right now. Why? Good question...I'm thinking it might have something to do with the absurdity of a company called "Snaggletooth Grading," or the knowledge that otherwise ordinary cards like these even get graded in the first place, but either way it's in my collection, and here to stay. For some reason. I don't know.

No one ever said this was a rational hobby, and there's a certain relief in simply submitting to that, but man I wish the I WANT!!! side of my brain would just shut up sometimes.

Nine years

"Dime Boxes" turns nine today, but that can't be right because didn't I just start this blog a few weeks ago?

I feel like I say this every year around the blog's anniversary, but sometimes it seems like these nine years have gone by so fast...but then again sometimes it does feel like I've been doing this for a long time. I was still a teenager when I started this blog, barely out of high school. That's mind blowing to me. I had no inclinations towards writing then -- go back and read some of the first posts on this blog, if you must -- but talking about baseball cards was (and is) something I'd always wanted to do.

I wish I could say I had every intention of blogging for nine years when I started this blog, but truthfully I didn't. I thought I might do it for a few months, get bored, and move on to the next thing -- as teenagers so often do. But no: seeing people actually read my posts, and better yet, learning that some people collected and thought about cards the same way I did, sucked me in for good. It was a joy and an affirmation I never really got collecting in my own bubble. I blogged some more, and then people actually started sending me cards for absolutely nothing, and the rest is history.

Nine years later, and I'm still here, just as grateful for this universe of blogs as I was when I found it way back when. I don't blog nearly as much anymore -- I don't have the time and energy that teenagers have so much more of -- but make no mistake, the blogs are still my happy place. It gives me great joy to carve out some time to write a post these days, and in the end, I'm still every bit as entertained by the blogosphere as I was nine years ago.

I can honestly say my life changed the day I decided to start this blog, and I have all of you wonderful readers to thank for that -- so whether you've been here since the beginning, or if you're new to the blog, I thank you so, so much for reading.

Pen marks and mustaches (or, writing on baseball cards)

It's almost hard to believe that baseball cards were once regarded as items with no value further than the beauty in the eye of their beholders.

The cliche is, admittedly, true: the vintage era was a simpler time to collect baseball cards. Kids then would probably be as aghast about grading and toploaders as present-day investors would about flipping prized cards against brick walls. There's a reason most of the vintage I own is creased, battered, and generally look like they're 50, 60, 70 years old. Okay, yeah, they're cheaper (and I'm notably cheap) but it goes a little further than that -- they tell stories. So few places in life offer windows into a time well before one was born, and nothing does it quite the way cardboard does.

But I admit that even I have a tough time imagining a time when baseball cards were seen as so historically insignificant, so overlooked as heirlooms future generations might enjoy, that people actually wrote on them.

I have vague memories of writing on a few of my football and basketball cards as a kid -- mostly little talk bubbles filled with things an eight-year-old thought funny -- but even as lax as I am with condition, I wouldn't dream of writing on any of my cards now.

Even in terms of vintage, writing is something of a paradox for me: if I'm gonna buy a "damaged" card, I much prefer soft corners, creasing, pinholes, etc. to writing. But in terms of general allure, I find writing to be by far the most fascinating "defect" of all. I own quite a few cards with writing on them, and while I'd be open to having other copies, I've never really sought that hard to upgrade them. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I'm so enthralled by the glimpses I get into their past owners.

The most common form of writing, I've found, is the transactional sort -- the collectors who, like me, find a certain pleasure in keeping up with the travels of their favorite players. Back then, though, kids had to manually update their cards, because it'd be years before any kind of Traded set came into existence.

These are a couple personal favorites in my collection -- especially the Frank Robinson, which was updated to reflect his later managerial stint with the Indians a full ten years after this card was issued (you can also notice scratched-out "LA" and "Cal." notations documenting his previous stops with the Dodgers and Angels).

Some collectors went the extra mile and tried to eliminate any possible evidence of the past -- though in the case of Fergie Jenkins, I suppose it could've simply been an example of someone really not liking the Cubs.

A few of my cards provided impromptu 2x3 canvases for future MAD Magazine artists.

Many collectors, it seems, were obsessed with facial hair.

I see a lot of older books come through my job with people's names stamped inside, or, in some cases, even lavish specially-made bookplates affixed to the front page.

A few of my baseball cards feature those same kinds of custom touches, and I can't help but wonder when and why we stopped having stamps and stickers made with our names on them, because I know I'd sure like to have one.

Often times, the collector took his pen to the other side of his baseball cards -- Post was a prime candidate since the backs are completely blank.

The front of this Post Sandy Koufax is obviously wounded enough, but that's before you flip it over and find the number "1,000,000" scrawled in a way that has always puzzled me -- is it an appraisal of future value? an aspiration? a secret code, etc., etc...

Some cards obviously belonged to devout baseball fans, including one who thought to pencil Home Run Baker's date of death onto this '61 Fleer Greats card issued a couple years prior.

Some pen marks tell a simple story.

Others are more difficult to figure out -- I've owned this particular '72 Milt Pappas for as long as I can remember, and I've never bothered to upgrade it because I've never been able to pin down with absolute certainty why someone wrote REPRESENTATIVE along the top of it.

I've long assumed it's because Pappas was (possibly?) the Cubs' player rep in the early '70s, and if you want to go all Occam's Razor it seems like the most logical reason, but for some reason there's still something telling me that might not be right.

Unless I missed a major chapter of baseball history, Carl Yastrzemski isn't and was never affiliated with the A's organization.

So why, then, does my copy of his '73 Topps card have the Red Sox team notation scratched out, and the words "On Ais(A's?)" written in the middle of it? I have no idea, and the only one who does is that lone person somewhere out there in the universe, the person who once owned this card, wrote on it, and then left me to decipher their mystery. And didn't even leave a note.

These are the mysteries that permeate the weird corner of the baseball card universe that I find endlessly fascinating. It's hard to envision a time where cards relapse in significance and value so much that we'd start writing on them again. But in some ways I find a certain comfort in seeing pen marks on a few of the baseball cards in my binders. They're fun reminders that this hobby wasn't always taken so seriously, that cards were once seen as possessions with no future to speak of outside of the lives of their owners. It's nice to imagine.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to sell all these eBay 1/1s.

You're reading the words of a bad blogger

I can't tell you the exact moment I became a bad blogger, but I know I'm a bad blogger.

Why? Let's see: in 2020, I've averaged about one post a week, sent out a record-low number of trade packages, and have proceeded to be painfully slow to thank the people who have sent me cards. Add that up, and you have a very unworthy member of the blogging community. Needless to say, I'm quite thankful anyone still reads this blog since I've been MIA so often.

Not that I don't have my excuses. With card shows defunct for now, I haven't been able to build up my trade boxes as quickly as usual. But that's still isn't a cop-out for the extremely slim number of trade packages I've mailed out in 2020. Nevertheless, I'm building stacks for many of my regular trade partners and/or people who've sent me cards recently, that, with any luck, I'll have out before the year is up.

It's the least I could do for being a bad blogger.

I've managed to accumulate a scary number of scans in my trade folder with cards I'm long overdue in doling out thanks for.

I'm ashamed to specifically note how long a lot of these cards have been sitting there, but let's just say that these -- which came from longtime friend of the blog Tom of "Waiting 'til Next Year" fame -- hit my doorstep not long after 2020 Big League came out (remember that?). Tom helped me out with a bunch of needs from the possible Set of the Year, including a messy thing of beauty with that Schwarber there.

Tom also sent along the Trout box-bottom at the top of this post, which was a real coup since the five or six blasters left at my Target at the time all had the Aristides Aquino cut-out card (guess he's not popular with the flippers).

A couple Big League inserts from Tom, and a reminder of how great those Defensive Wizards inserts are.

Tom also included this fun little throw-in -- not sure what set this comes from, but the backs of these cards make up a fine portrait of a few notable Senior League stars.

I'd swear that Topps prints Ronald Acuna cards in lesser quantities, because he always seems to be one of the last guys standing on a lot of my want lists.

As it was with my 2020 Big League needs, at least, until Mr. "Joe Shlabotnik" of "The Shlabotnik Report" was nice enough to pass this elusive Acuna on to me.

Against all odds, I actually bought a blaster of Diamond Kings earlier this year -- I don't regret the decision, but in the future I think I'll stick to getting them from secondhand sources, like these generous gifts from Mr. Shlabotnik.

I am, however, indebted to Diamond Kings for producing the only Negro League card I've seen all year with that excellent Mule Suttles.

A few other 2020 cards from Mr. Shlabotnik -- and if your Target is anything like mine, there's still boxes and boxes of Topps Stickers left for the taking!

I also took "Joe" up on an offer to give a good home to some of his spare mid-2000s singles, since these are smack dab in the middle of when I started to get back into baseball cards as a teenager.

I don't collect all these guys, and I didn't even experience some of these sets in real time -- don't think I ever opened a pack of Donruss Team Heroes -- but seeing anything from those magical mid-aughts years always gives me the warm fuzzies.

Zippy Zappy of "Torren' Up Cards" sent me a PWE a while back, and he made a convincing case for this being the "ultimate zero-year" card -- Conor Biggio (son of HOFer Craig) somehow managed to get a baseball card without ever signing a pro contract!

I understand part of Bowman's allure is to try and jump the gun on big prospects...but that still seems a tad extreme.

Mike Scioscia isn't high on my player-collection totem pole, but I couldn't resist claiming that one from a giveaway held by Chris of "The Collector" a while back -- I'm always a sucker for lenticular technology.

Plus he even threw in a few bonuses, like that excellent Starting Lineup oddball of player-turned-poet Dan Quisenberry which is just a tad too wide to slip into a standard nine-pocket page (rats!).

Our friend Mr. Fuji over at "The Chronicles of Fuji" recently offered up some free Cubs cards on his blog, and even though I've been a bad blogger, that apparently hasn't stopped me from claiming free stuff (*ducks under tomatoes thrown from audience*).

I get new Mark Grace cards often enough, but I can't remember the last time I added a Darwin Barney card to my binders -- part of the joy of collecting obscure dudes, I guess.

Jim of "cards as i see them" also dropped a PWE on me in the last few months -- sadly, I already had that Justice, but somehow I don't think I've ever shown it on the blog before, which seems egregious and in need of rectifying.

Greg of "The Collective Mind" was nice enough to knock out a bunch of my 2020 A&G needs, which'll save me a whole lot of money on packs (not that there's any left at any of the Targets around here anyways).

I understand it's probably not a popular opinion, but I want to see more Devil Rays Wade Boggs cards!

The same doesn't necessarily go for Diamondbacks Mark Grace cards, but nonetheless I couldn't help but request these spare minis Greg offered up.

A nice thing happened one day after work a few weeks ago -- I found a package in the mail from someone I'd never once interacted with, someone I didn't know was secretly socking away cards for me.

A reader named Stuart (whose generosity I've since seen mentioned on a couple other blogs) sent me a whole bunch of cards off my various Topps Archives want lists -- including a Tatis rookie from last year's set, completely free of charge, which good luck convincing most collectors to do that.

Specifically, Stuart whittled my 2020 Archives needs down to a select few -- he even sent along a few of those masterful nickname SPs, and a new CC Sabathia Brewers card(!).

With the rookie bonanza abound in the hobby today, I didn't expect to see any of these 2020 Archives inserts to show up in my mailbox anytime soon -- the blogs never fail to surprise me.

If I were to make a list of sets I never see in trade packages, Upper Deck 40-Man would be right near the top -- I don't think many people bought these at the time, and those who did probably locked them in their garage a long time ago.

So you an imagine how excited I was when Josh of "Royals and Randoms" fame sent me an entire stack of 40-Mans (40-Men?) not too long ago -- filled with weird guys I collect like Corky Miller and David Weathers who were otherwise all but ignored by the rest of the card industry.

And what's this -- a new Marlins card of Tim Raines?!?! 

Thank god Josh came along, because there's a good chance I could've gone the rest of my life without knowing this existed. Same goes for the vast majority of cards I've received during my time here. Josh and everyone else in this post are far better bloggers and/or readers than I am, because I haven't much taken the opportunity to spread the joy that so many of you have brought to me.

In this time of thanks, I thank you for reading, even if I'm not sure why you're still reading the words of yours truly, bad blogger extraordinaire.

Topps Update is...weird, man

 

My deepest sympathies are with the unfortunate souls who were put in charge of piecing together Topps Update this year.

When I picture the process in my head, I see absolute insanity at Topps HQ: papers flying, people scrambling, voices screaming. Maybe it wasn't quite that dramatic, but I have to imagine it was a panic from the get-go. Making 2020 Update was, in many ways, an impossible task. How do you truly "update" a season that didn't start until late July? How can you make All-Star cards without an All-Star game? And if there's nothing to update, and no All-Star cards, how can you make Topps Update?

In short: how can you properly document the three-month insanity that we agreed to call a baseball season?

The solution, at least in part, isn't much of a stretch from a lot of what Topps does these days -- ruthlessly bloat the checklist.

As I've said before, Topps Update Release Day is always circled on my calendar, even if, admittedly, the set has isn't really what it once was. I still like Update, and even with all the craziness this year, I was still thrilled to open some late last week. Between a few spare packs Dad found for me, and a freshly-stocked display that somehow went untouched by the pack hoarders at my local Target, I got my fill of 2020 Update.

But while the packs were fun, as Update always is for me, I couldn't help wondering what the point of this set truly was. Update seems to go to press sometime around mid-summer...and there wasn't even a baseball season going on then in 2020. With nothing to update, Topps just seemed to shove as many cards as possible into this year's set without any thought as to whether they should exist or not. 

Case in point: my packs yielded three of the four Mike Trout base cards in the 300-card checklist, and two of the FIVE(!) Albert Pujols cards -- why in god's name does Albert Pujols (or anyone) have five cards in the same set?!

I understand a lot of these weird decisions had to be made at the eleventh hour, and contrary to what I've heard from most other collectors, I actually think these "replacement" All-Star cards were a good idea in a pinch.

It's a bit jarring to see past greats on the 2020 base design, but I kinda like the concept of reflecting on past All-Star Games in the absence of a true Midsummer Classic this year -- granted, they feature the same crop of a dozen legends we see in every set these days (Jeter, Griffey, et al), but I'll never turn down a new Ichiro card!

But a lot of what made it into Topps Update this year is just...weird.

David Price and Billy Hamilton both have zero-year cards, and while I love them for that, I'll be the first to admit they probably shouldn't have been included in the first place. If Topps had time to make substitutes for the All-Star cards, then I have to imagine these could've been scrapped. David Price opted out of the 2020 season and never played for the Dodgers. Billy Hamilton, on the other hand, actually played for two other teams this year (Mets, Cubs), but is still featured with the Giants, who traded him before the season started.

Yasmany Tomas appeared in four games with the Diamondbacks in 2019, and exactly zero in 2020...yet here he is in Topps Update --  and the coup de grace of Update zaniness has to be that Bartolo Colon, the first card I've ever seen that lists a player as a free agent (not to mention that calling him "active" is a bit of a stretch).

There's only a handful of cards that genuinely feel like they belong in an Update set -- I'm talking guys like Jason Kipnis and Derek Holland who've changed teams since their last appearance in a Flagship checklist, and thus in need of updating.

In hindsight, I wouldn't have minded if Topps made this an online-only release and/or issued it as a smaller 100ish-card box set or something, similar to what they did in the late '80s/early '90s -- seems like a better option than making five Albert Pujols cards.

Despite the insanity, Topps did manage to sneak a few fine shots into 2020 Update, as evidenced here.

Topps was also forced to use a fair amount of posed shots here (gasp!), which I'm having trouble remembering the last time I saw those in a Flagship set.

It's never a good thing when the inserts are more exciting than the base cards in the packs I buy, but I guess that's bound to happen when Topps lets Mark Grace and Ron Santo make rare cameos in a modern set(!).

More miscellaneous inserts -- including a Luis Robert from Dad's packs I was sure happy to get, because I don't even wanna look at what his cards are going for right now (thanks, flippers!).

Dad managed to snag an Update blaster for me, and as luck would have it, he pulled probably the only one of these weird blaster-exclusive coin cards I'd actually care about owning with this Rizzo here.

I guess I expected 2020 Update was going to be a strange state of affairs, but I just didn't think it was gonna be this weird -- which, now that I think of it, is kinda how I'd describe 2020 as a whole.