My week

So my Dallas Cowboys played their only Monday Night game of the year this week.  I had to work, so I couldn't watch it.  And they lost.

But when I got home, there was a trade package waiting for me in the mail box.  With a bunch of Cowboys cards in it (future trade post).  Irony.  And I had sent of Redskins to get them.  Bonus Irony.

But my email account was gone.  Ugh.  Turns out when I moved, they cancelled the old account and created a new account.  So I called to have the old email address added to the new account.  No problem they said.  In 24-72 hours.

So I've been without email access for two days.  I stopped on the way home to grab a couple of school lunch supplies.  And threw a rack pack of Update in my basket.  (You know where this is going right?)

Out of the 29 base cards in the pack, 13 were dupes <slaps head> and 9 of those 13 were my third copy of the card. Still have less than 1/3 of the set though.

But then this card came out.

So I guess it wasn't all bad.  Even though Trout will be overused in every product possible by Topps, I still like pulling Trout cards.  I still have a Trout PC, even if I have absolutely no chance of collecting even a small fraction of the Trouts out there.

Oh, and I had to call support again to get the email address working.  Seems it had been transferred to the new account, but it still wasn't working when I got home.  So if anybody sent me an email in the last two days and it bounced back, I'm back in business now.

I guess my question is - Am I being stupid for ripping packs?  Maybe I'm harkening back to the mid-late 80's.  If you wanted cards, you ripped packs.  Wax pack, rack packs, cello packs.  I like ripping packs.  But I don't remember this level of bad luck with dupes.

I am a glutton for punishment

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Albert Einstein

I was at the blue parallel store today.  I popped on a hanger box of Update.

Those are cards from the box I got today.

They are also cards I got from the box I bought recently at the red bullseye store.

 

I now have less than 1/3 of the set - 103 cards.

 

I now have 22 duplicate cards. (I only showed 21 because one of the cards was Mike Trout.  I can put one with the potential set and one with my Trout collection)

 

21% duplication rate??  Did I get this kind of duplicates stack when I was a kid?

 

 

One other thing that was pointed in the comments of the previous post:

 

I got both of these cards in this box

 

 

Tomlin is actually #311

And these were both in the last box

Holaday is actually #21.

Let me know if you want of the dupes.  Please.

Why?

So I finally got my hands on some Topps Update tonight.  I had been in a few blue parallel stores late last week - nothing.  I stopped in to a red bullseye store to pick up a couple of things tonight, and I grabbed a hanger box.

This was the first card showing in the cellophane.  And the Giants won tonight 7-1.  Take that for whatever you think it might mean.

But I happened to notice something.  I like looking at the backs of cards. 

Most of the card numbers look like this.  All smooshed in the corner to fit the US- before the number.  Although the Highlights card looks as though it has the swoosh shifted down a bit, allowing more room for the number to fit.

But.

Then I noticed all of these.  The US is above the number.  And there's no - between the US and the number.

I know I know.  My OCD is kicking in here.  As it turns out, these are all All-Star Game cards.  So it appears Topps made the numbers for those cards different from the rest of the set.

Why??

Oh yeah.  And there was this..

C'mon man!


Anyhooooo

You may have noticed one of the highlights of the box for me there.

Yeah, there's too many Trout cards already.  I don't care.  I'll take them all.  Let's see some other highlights of the box..

Slayer parallel!  Yep, still love them.  I can't get enough of these.  Love 'em.

Pink parallel (#/50) of Amarista.  I guess that's a hit.  Amarista was a guy the Angels traded away.  The guy played 105 games in 2012 and 146 games in 2013.  So I'll give you a bonus "why?".  Why was Amarista not in the 2013 base set?  Or even the 2014 base set? 

Settling in

So I got everything (almost everything) moved from the old place to my new house on Friday.  I had spent the better part of a week taking boxes over, so that my friends could just help me with the big stuff.

I have all my cards in a closet at the moment.  I'm still deciding on a plan for them.  But hopefully they will end up being more accessible than they were in the last place.  I had them under the bed, on shelves in a closet that wasn't easy to get into, all over the desk (of course), and on the floor.

The computer is all hooked up with internet (obviously) and the scanner is ready to go.

And just today I got my first package of cards addressed to the new house.  Feels like home now.

Robert from $30 a week hooked me up with a bunch of missing cards from 2014 Topps.  You've all seen them, so they're probably really only of interest to me.

But he also threw in a couple Angels for me.

I've said before that Topps has overdone the parallel thing.  But I've also said before that I'm a sucker for parallels.  So Mr. Downs is quite welcome here in the (new) land of Junk Wax.  Mark Harriger there never made it out of AA ball, and in fact his name isn't even hyper-linked over at The Trading Card Database.  Poor guy.  At least he has a page over at the BR bullpen.

But the star of the package is probably the 1997 Donruss Preferred - X-Ponential Power #6A Tim Salmon.  (Quite a mouthful huh?)  Its not only die-cut, but its clear too.  And it isn't teal.  I tried scanning it solo - still teal.  I tried scanning it sideways - still teal.  Its actually a shiny, refractory, metally looking card.   Its also card 6a.  6b is Jim Edmonds.  Why didn't they just make them cards 6 and 7?  That's the 90's I guess.

Thanks for thinking of me Robert!

Welp, time to go do some more unpacking.

Oh yeah.  Go ahead and vote in my little poll up at the top right.

Pause

It wouldn't exactly be out of character for this blog to only have sporadic (or no) posts over the next week or two.  So when I say that is exactly what will happen, nobody should be surprised.

What is different is the reason for said inactivity.

I bought a house.  Been saving and searching for a couple years and finally got one that works.  Just a couple blocks from the place I'm renting, so my girls can stay in their school.  So the collection is about 80% boxed up at the moment.  And the scanner is about to be packed.  I didin't get time off from work until late next week and the following week, so I'm just taking boxes over at the moment.  (If I'm in your address book, drop me a line if you want the new address)

I'll just pretend that the Angels didn't lose the Royals last night...

I had a great post idea to show old stadiums and the new stadiums teams moved into.  You know, as a parallel to me moving into a new house....   That never really came about.



But I'll leave you with something I found kinda funny.  Just bought a lot on eBay to supplement my 1982 Topps football set (I'm only 27 cards away from completion).

I saw two cards that I just had to pair together.

There's all kinds of lines running through my head... the Ram surrendering to the Lion, etc.

I guess the fact I found that interesting shows how my mind works....