Cubs Lot #4

This is another smaller lot but one that I plan on spreading out over about 150 posts.

What?!

Don't worry, I'll explain in a bit.

I actually won several auctions from one seller who seemed to be doing a purge of his unwanted Cubs cards. Lucky me! I probably wouldn't have normally picked these up for the $0.99 I paid individually, but with combined shipping and the lot (you'll see at the end) that I won, I definitely feel I got my money's worth.

Now, most of these guys you'd probably have to be a pretty big Cubs fan to have heard of since just two made the big leagues. But I'm still happy to add these guys to the collection.

Brandon Sing made it as high as Triple A Iowa but spent the past couple of years in independent leagues. This blue refractor is limited to just 150 copies.

Elvin Puello topped out with six games in Single A Peoria in 2005 before going back down to low A Boise in 2006, his last year.

Chris Walker played for the Cubs organization from 2002 to 2007, rising up to Triple A Iowa. He's been bouncing around the minors and independent baseball since, spending 2013 in the Mexican League.

Kevin Collins played High A ball for the Cubs and Cardinals but hasn't played since 2006.

Ronald Perry "Bear" Bay didn't make it above A ball with the Cubs but played at the Triple A level for the Indians, Angels and Padres as recently as 2012.

Buck Coats had Major League time with the Cubs in 2006, the Reds in 2007 and the Blue Jays in 2008.

Matt Creighton bounced around quite a bit while in the Cubs organization, playing at multiple levels each season. But he couldn't quite break into the bigs. These are a nice pair of autographs to add to the collection though.

Bobby Brownlie is a former first round draft  pick for the Cubs and although he played Triple A for the Cubs, Nationals and Braves, he too, never broke through to the Majors.

Grant Johnson is a former 2nd round draft pick out of Notre Dame that topped out at Double A Tennessee.

Finally for the single cards, we have to most successful of the group, Tyler Colvin. A first round pick in 2006, Colvin made his Cubs debut in 2009. He was traded to the Rockies with DJ LeMahieu for Ian Stewart and Casey Weathers following the 2011 season. He bounced bewteen the Rockies and their Triple A affiliate for the next two seasons and is currently with the Giants Triple A team in Fresno.

However, the large part of this purchase was this lot below:

Nearly two hundred Mark Prior cards, all different. Considering my collection consisted of a meager 50-ish Prior cards before, this is a big boost. There weren't any autographs of relics, but there were a couple of serial numbered card. As I mentioned at the top of this post, I intend to get many posts out of this lot. There are so many different inserts that I missed out on in the early to mid 2000s that I think it will be fun to visit each (or most) individually. I'm thinking "Mark Prior Mondays" might be a thing although I may just use them when I get stuck for a post.

All of the cards in this post set me back $20.47 shipped, which works out to less than a dime per card. All of the minor league cards were new to me and I'm guessing at least 150 of the Priors will be new once I get them all scanned and cataloged. There weren't too many base cards which is what I mostly had. Not too shabby.

I will have to double check when everything is sorted out, but this may bump Prior up to my second biggest player collection (unofficial) behind Ryne Sandberg.

Cubs Lot #3

This lot was much smaller and I'm able to take care of it in one fell swoop. It was the priciest per card lot that I bought, but from the pictures, I could tell it had a bunch of stuff I needed. There were some common base cards but even among them, I found some upgrades.

It only took 4 scans and some cropping so this was fairly quick and painless.

I didn't have many Bazooka cards so these were all new. Apparently, the Bazooka Joe character is a bandwagon fan of all 30 teams and has a card for each. You can't tell from the scans but the Donald Hood on the left is the regular card and the one of the right is a mini. Or vice versa. Whatever.

A few more Hee Seop Choi for the collection. The Donruss on the upper right is a dupe but he's got a broken bat so it'll be heading to JediJeff.

I had the regular Stadium Club of Shawon Dunston on the left but mine had some chipping on the foil logo so this is an upgrade. The Golden Rainbow parallel is a nice addition and the Dunston part scanned as both golden and a rainbow. The Score above and Score Select below were new to me as well.

My Eric Karros collection quadrupled as I started with one and now have four!

What Cubs lot purchase would be complete without a new Corey Patterson and Mark Prior? There were a couple of each of these guys, but alas, only one each that were new to me.

Like Eric Karros, Rondell White is suddenly thriving in my collection. These three double me up to six.

I said it before, I'm still a little surprised when I come across another new No-mah cahd. This one is die-cut and horizontal.

Speaking of horizontal, how about a nice Sammy Sosa? I'm a little sorry that I was out of the hobby when Fleer Tradition was around. I've seen some nice stuff form them. Lots of horizontal-ness.

This was hands down the coolest "card" in the package. Its a standard 2.5 x 3.5 but as thick as the manu-ring-relics that Topps has put out. A good half inch. If you look closely at the front, there's a yellow button with a megaphone icon. When you squeeze the card, you get the WGN radio call of Sammy's 300th home run. Well, at least you're supposed to. The battery is on its last legs because mine just lets out a high pitched squeal for about as long as I imagine the home run call is.

I mentioned that the lot itself was fairly pricey (per card). But I did get the seller to throw in an autographed Cubs card he had listed separately for no additional charge. Not a big name, but still new to me.

As is protocol for a lot purchase, here is the breakdown.

Advertised Quantity: 100 + 1 bonus

Actual Quantity: 102 + 1 bonus

Damaged Cards: 0

Non-Cubs: 1

Different Cards: 103

Price Per Cubs Card: $19.99/102 = $.196

Price Per Different Card: $19.99/103 = $.194

New Cards (or upgrades): 52

Price Per New Card:  $19.99/52 = $.384

Number of Different Players: 54 + 2 team cards/multiple players

And here is the one "non-Cubs" card. Like the Derrek Lee from the other day, I'll be keeping this one too anyway.

Its kind of funny that the player was Hee Seop Choi, since he was the one sent to the Marlins to land Derrek Lee. Ok, maybe that's only funny to me. Since Choi is shown in his Cubs uniform, I'll be hanging on to it despite the teal coloring and Marlins name across the top.

Cubs Lot #2, Part 4: Everything Else and the Breakdown

Last week's first Cubs lot was a pretty manageable 217 cards. So much so, I was able to fit the scans and breakdown into one post. My second lot was nearly six times that size at about 1300 cards. But don't worry I'm only going to split it into four posts. Relics. Autographs. Serial Numbered. Everything else and the breakdown.

So you’ve seen the Relics. And you’ve seen the Autographs. And the Serial Numbered cards.

Just because these next cards don't share any of those characteristics, that doesn't make them any less a part of my Cubs collection. There are a few base cards but also quite a few inserts and a decent mixture of rookies and stars.

Let's start with one of the staples of my repack box breakdowns, the oldest card in the box.

1979 Topps Cubs Prospects (Dave Geisel, Karl Pagel, Scot Thompson)

Dave Geisel had a perfect 3-0 record with a 2.15 ERA in his 36-game Cubs tenure.

On the other hand, Karl Pagel went a career 0-3 at the plate with three strikeouts in his time with the Cubs. The cap logo belongs to the Midland Cubs, the team's Double A affiliate at the time.

Scot Thompson spent the most time with the Cubs, playing with them through the 1983 season.

You probably can't tell from the scan but the photo on this Kevin Tapani card is extremely blurry. With the pinstripes and the blue and red color scheme of the Cubs uniform, It almost looks like an attempt to make a 3D card, glasses not included. I already have the regular card, but I'm going to keep this too, just for fun.

The other day at the card show I picked up a Mike Fontenot Classic Combo card that I didn't know existed from the 2007 Topps set because it wasn't included in my team set checklist. Low and behold, I came across an Alfonso Soriano in this lot, paired up with JJ Hardy.

Maybe I'm missing something obvious about these Chrome cards but can somebody explain why the Blake Lalli had a white border but on the Jeff Antigua, the chrome goes to the edge?

Topps reusing photos isn't limited to just the old retired players. I have a really good memory when it comes to player photos so this makes me afraid of all the Cubs cards I've put back from dime boxes over the years because I recognized the photo as something I already had. And these were just two of the examples, there were probably a half dozen more, easily.

This card marks JR Mathes' debut into my collection. Can anyone explain to me how you get J.R. from Alfred George? Speaking of debuts...

A good chunk of Topps Total was able to add a couple more first timers to my collection, represented here by Francis Beltran and Donnie Hood.

I guess Fleer didn't get the memo from Topps that it was ok to Photoshop. Here, Alfonso Soriano appears on Cubs cards while wearing Washington Nationals uniforms.

The player who added the most unique cards to my collection from this lot was Corey Patterson with 18 new-to-me cards. I already showed some of the numbered cards, but here's a trio of "regular" inserts from the lot.

There was only one new Ryne Sandberg card in the lot. This card from Metal Universe didn't scan very well but it appears that Sandberg has some kind of funnel/vortex/vaccuum thing on his glove hand. Ok.

Of course, there were tons of cards of Alfonso Soriano, Derrek Lee, Geovany Soto, Carlos Zambrano but it was a pretty mixed bag on new-to-me and dupes. 

Let's get to the breakdown.

Advertised Quantity: 1391

Actual Quantity: 1372

Damaged Cards: 5

Non-Cubs: 1

Different Cards: 1067

Price Per Cubs Card: $42.05/1371 = $.031

Price Per Different Card: $8.98/197 = $.039

New Cards (or upgrades): 567

Price Per New Card:  $42.05/567 = $.074

Number of Different Players: 371 + 29 team cards/multiple players

Considering all of the "hits" and still being able to come in at well under a dime per new card, I was very happy with this lot. The rest of the lots going forward will be of the much smaller variety, more like the first one. Before I get to those though, I will probably dip into my Craigslist lot a little more.

As for the one non-Cubs card that showed up, I'll probably keep it anyway:

How fun to say is Rancho Cucamonga?