A Barrel of Fun

What an absolutely exhausting week. I had two job interviews that went well. One of them told me to call and let them know when I can start. However I held out for the second job (much closer, better pay/benefits) and after that interview I was told I was "at the top of the list." Unfortunately they had two more days of interviews and I didn't get the job (yet?) If you chase two rabbits, you will lose them both.

Meanwhile my current place of employment has become a shitshow. We were operating as part of a franchise until January 1. Our owners decided to sever ties with the franchise and change the name of the company, which makes it really difficult to follow up on jobs that started before the name change. Also it's tough to keep track of which customers know us by which name, and some customers have to be asked to re-sign documents because the original copy had our company's old name on it. Fun times.

Anyway... here are some cards I bought at CardBarrel. I got a big order from BaseballCardStore too, but that deserves its own series of posts. I don't have the energy for that yet.

These Conlon Collection cards were a mixed bag. I already had the Rice. Cuyler has a small crease across the front. Wood is fine though. This is my first non-Red Sox card of Smoky Joe, who passed away in my hometown when I was four.

A pair of newer Brewer cards. I now have 117 different Robin Yount cards but not his 1975 Topps RC. I do have a Yelich RC incoming, as soon as Nick stops giving away cards :D

The rest of my Cardbarrel order featured set fillers, including two from 2013 Topps Update. I need just 16 cards to complete the 330-card set, and all but two or three of them are big names. The 2018 Chromes you see here leave me just 29 cards shy of a complete set, 25 of which are rookie cards.

2019 Topps Update got a big boost as well. Does anyone know why Mike Trout is wearing #45 here?

Every other card I ordered was a 2014 Topps common. I forgot to scan any of those before putting them away, so here's a Domonic Brown from my duplicate pile. Sorry folks, it's been quite a week.

I was hoping to visit my mother today, whom I haven't seen since before Thanksgiving. After I got Covid, my girls got Covid, and my mom got Covid I thought that there was no one left to get Covid and delay our visit. LOL. Her heart doctor got Covid, so she had to put off having a test done until... today. 😡

Perhaps I'll see her next weekend. This weekend I plan to put away the rest of my new card purchases (and Christmas gifts), update my wantlists, update my tradelists on TCDB, and visit your blogs while watching playoff football. Since my Packers have a bye I'm hoping for the Bengals to win and the Buccaneers to lose. I'd add Dallas to the 'lose' list but I've got no love for the Niners, either.


Enjoy the games, and have a great weekend!


~

Out With The Old..

Happy New Year! Let's hope that 2022 is slightly less crappy than 2021. 

I've updated the wantlist tabs at the top of this blog. Also, I made a New Year's Resolution.

Here's the rest of the COMC order I received on day one of quarantine:

Some 2013 Topps Update set fillers here. I'm just 18 cards away from completing the 330-card set but at least half of those are significant names. On the other hand, 2013 flagship is complete:

The Trouts and Machado cost a total of $11.49. I also picked up some cheap RCs for my 2018 Topps set build. Doubt I'll ever finish that one but I'll keep chipping away at it, just in case.

Some All-Time Teams upgrades (and a Christian Yelich I liked that was 31 cents) I'm not sure what I'll do with this project in 2022. Perhaps I'll show off each card, or make a checklist of what cards I'd like to upgrade. I'll never finish the set unless cards of Noodles Hahn and George Davis suddenly surface.

Just three basketball cards in this order - a "second year" Clyde, and two set fillers.

Some random-ish football cards I picked up. The Fitz is from a Fanatics exclusive factory set, so it appears that Fanatics already has their fingerprints on the trading card market.

Go Pack Go! My first priority was picking up Prizm rookies of Jordan Love and the "quadfather" A.J. Dillon. At $10.65 the Love RC was the most expensive card in this order; I'd whiffed on cheaper copies.

Some cheap Lightning cards here, including a Game Dates Moments cup celebration. These are limited to 499 copies of each for 2021-22. I might have to place another COMC order to pick up some Alex Ovechkin singles.

ePack cheapies. The Devils and Dougie Hamilton (who is now a Devil) were all 30 cents or less. Turgeon's auto cost $2.19. I didn't buy any graded cards or relics this time, and this is the only autographed card I picked up.

More Upper Deck inserts devalued by ePack. There's really no more room in my hockey boxes. Barkov and Geekie were 40 cents each. The Columbus guys were 50 cents each. I wasn't expecting the Kivlenieks to be so thick.

I mentioned that I made an offer on a Cleveland Barons logo card but the seller declined. So I used that last $1.69 in my account to make an offer on these two:

If I wanted to steal Night Owl's Cardboard Appreciation topic I'd discuss this Bedard. The photo and perspective is just fantastic. As for the Lowe, I've haphazardly amassed a bunch of his 1980s cards. I'm not really trying to collect his career run but since I already have so many I might finish the job.


I just got $500 cash for 'Christmas' and I'm setting aside $100 each for my daughters and my mom. Some portion of the remaining $200 might be spent on finishing sets or a vintage card, but I've got nothing in mind at the moment. We'll see what 2022 brings.

Thanks for reading!

~