Saturday, December 30, 2017

Strive For '65 Saturday: The One Where I Keep Procrastinating.

STRIVE FOR '65 STATUS:
30 Dec 2017
Strive for '65 | 1965 Set Build | Master Want List
Current card count: 270/598 (272/600) 45.5%

Here is the link to my last update. I'm not sure if I've been consistent on these posts but I think from now on I'll try to keep the posting order of newest arrivals to oldest.

Well procrastination granted me a few more cards to add on this post. Originally I just had the two from the same seller back in mid November. Later in November I won two more cards from Sportlots auctions from two different dealers both shipped with other cards so individual shipping looks great but since Sportlots Auctions don't combine the total shipping stinks. I really need to stop doing the auctions there and have started an effort to avoid checking them. The Sportlots stores you don't get as burned with the shipping. Needless to say I won't list the shipping since they weren't the only cards shipped. Then just when I thought I was going to put this post to bed, a little more procrastination and boom I got another card from a Sportlots Store with some other cards.

Saturday 16 Dec 2017:  Or Sunday 17?
On Sunday evening 17 Dec 2017 I noticed I had a flat mailer envelope from USPS at my door. I'm thinking a neighbor had gotten it by mistake. Saturday morning 16 Dec I heard the delivery person knock on my door. I had a medium flat rate priority box from one the SCF Football Team Traders loaded with mostly Rams and a few Redskins cards (about 90% to 10%), but I don't recall this envelope being there at that time. I don't recall the flat mailer being there Saturday night when I went out to get something for dinner. Last year around this time (actually between Oct and mid Dec) I had a couple of packages (probably boxes) that I think were stolen by neighbors, there are a lot of teenagers in the development. One was a trade I never got any shipping info on and the other an order(from a Sportlots auction) had tracking and when I checked the status on a Thursday it said it had been shipped that Monday. Garden style apartment a big box in front of my door can easily be seen from the mail boxes porch.

This card came from a Sportlots Store along with a couple of Roman Gabriel Football cards, one I think I already had but wanted to make sure I had it. Oh and the final piece to put into my Bloggers Secret Santa package hosted by Matt at Bob Walk The Plank blog. Now I can package that puppy up and ship out. Got it for $4.50 - I did ship that out on last Saturday 23 December.

295 Dick Radatz Red Sox

Thursday 30 Nov 2017:
Another card from a Sportlots Auction. Now this one I have tried to get before a few times but got outbid due to its popularity and often too high prices. I managed to find this one for $5.50.

519 Bob Uecker Cardinals

Monday 27 Nov 2017:
This one I got from a Sportlots auction for the opening 25¢ bid. He is part of the same name club. This is a card I thought I already had, but I apparently didn't. I might be thinking of one of his other cards I might or might not have.

298 Jim Stewart Cubs

Monday 13 Nov 2017:
Went on a mini Sportlots spending splurge I got two cards from one seller two auctions, both I got for the opening 25¢ bid shipping for both cards was $3.00.

The first card is from a childhood fave PC guy 193 Gaylord Perry Giants. I remember Gaylord from his Indians days. His 1975 Topps card is iconic for me it may have been the first and for a while only? card I had of him. I might have had his '74 card as well til sometime between 81-83 when I got more of his cards.

193 Gaylord Perry Giants

Next is card 380 Rocky Colavito Indians. Him I have no idea about. Interesting he started with the Indians in 1955 then spent some time with the Tigers and Athletics then back to the Indians in '65. It appears that the picture on this card is a cropped version of the picture on his 1964 Topps Giant card when he was with the A's. The KC logo was airbrushed off.

380 Rocky Colavito Indians

The Latest Additions:
Sat/Sun 16/17 Dec 2017:
295 Dick Radatz Red Sox

Thursday 30 Nov 2017:
519 Bob Uecker Cardinals

Monday 27 Nov 2017:
298 Jim Stewart Cubs

Monday 13 Nov 2017:
193 Gaylord Perry Giants
380 Rocky Colavito Indians

Thursday, November 30, 2017

CK42 Trade Post: Walking Dead And Hoops

 CK42 TRADE POST:
THE WALKING DEAD AND HOOPS
30 Nov 2017
Updated 06 Oct 2023

New Offerings:
Yeah that says what it means.

For this quick and dirty trading post I am tossing into the trade ring a smallish lot of The Walking Dead Non-Sport cards. I don't watch the show so they hold no interest for me. I had gotten them from of all things a football team trade. The other trader included them as the bookend cards at the ends of the team bags, or outside the team bags. At any rate they were the outside cards from the little bundles of cards in the package. They are produced by Topps in 2017.

2017 Topps The Walking Dead Season 6: CLAIMED
10 JSS
20 The Cheesmaker
24 A New Leader
25 Ambush
26 Separated
27 Good Guy Daryl
28 Howdy, Gentlemen
31 Chasing Enid
33 Crazy Idea
34 Being Stalked
38 Born This Way


Also I have a smattering of 2015-16 Panini Complete Basketball. 4 cards and a wrapper.


2015-16 Panini Complete Basketball: TRADED or RAC'd*
42 Shabazz Napier Magic
47 Jonas Valanciunas Raptors
175 Marcus Morris Pistons
285 Terran Petteway Hawks


Previous Offerings
Previous posts/offers are listed here.

CK42 Trading Posts:
A Lot of Oilers: A 50-some card lot of Houston Oilers cards.
Previously Trading Thursday: A couple of pack lots. One 6 packs one 9 packs.

Trading Thursday Posts:
A Set And Singles: 1993-94 Classic Draft Basketball
The Return?: 2015-16 Donruss Basketball from pack pulls
This One Is On Eleven: Basketball, Football and Non-Sport tall boy sized
A Fifth Of February: Mixed bag of Baseball, Basketball and Football
Experiment Number One: 3 cards total 2 hockey relics, 1 baseball auto
CFL Trading: 2015 CFL Football cards from a single box break

The cards listed in this series of posts are for trade or sale. If I don't mention a price feel free to give a reasonable offer. In some cases I might just feel like giving the cards away to a good home that will appreciate them. Not that I don't appreciate them, but the cards I list no longer fit into the scope of my collection. I don't "trash" cards anymore. It makes me cringe when I hear people talking about throwing trading cards into the garbage. If I can't find a home for cards I no longer want cluttering up my card hoard, I will have to toss them into the recycle bin.

*RAC = Random Act of Cardness

Tuesday, October 31, 2017

A Slightly Oversized B'More Orange and Black Bird

Back in September for my Sportlots Spending Splurge I got this nice card, with another card from the set Walter Johnson Senators which I am mentioning on my Curly W Cards blog. This one was 70¢ (Big Train was only 50¢) I also got a Hockey card for my name niche PC. Shipping was only 68¢ for the three cards. Buying from Sportlots stores is better on shipping than for the auctions. For some reason auctions there don't combine shipping.

I had forgotten that the cards from this set were slightly larger than standard size at 3.5" x 5" about postcard size. Still nice looking cards. Only 60 cards in the set and not too expensive. I don't think there are any super hard to get cards from this. That is good since it looks like I should get more of these oversized beasts.

1984 Donruss Champions 19 Eddie Murray Orioles

EDITED: To cross-link to Curly W Cards blog for Walter Johnson card from this set.

Saturday, September 23, 2017

Strive For '65 Saturday: Is One Twin Still A Twin?

STRIVE FOR '65 STATUS:
23 Sep 2017
Strive for '65 | 1965 Set Build | Master Want List
Current card count: 265/598 (267/600) 44.6%

Here is the link to my last update.

Sigh I wanted to originally post this last week a week after I had gotten the first card. I got myself hung up on procrastinating on the scanning of that card. Now I have since gotten two more cards to add to the mix.

So I wonder? Is a Single Twin still a Twin? OK just playing of course they are. This particular Twin card is a player who begin his major league career with The Washington Senators (1.0) and continued on with The Minnesota Twins. Had a 13 season career with the same franchise.

Saturday 02 Sep 2017:
From a Sportlots auction for 25¢ + 69¢ shipping. The shipping is for just this card, I won two other 25¢ auctions from the same seller so I got 3 cards in one PWE the total shipping was $3.37. One of those cards I'll mention on my Curly W Cards blog sometime. The third I should mention here under my Name Niche PC feature.

180 Bob Allison Twins

Tuesday 19 Sep 2017:
I had recently ordered a bunch of cards off of Sportlots oddly though these two cards came from some auctions I bid on just after I had placed that order. They are from two auctions from a seller I had bid on 8 auctions. 2 of those auctions were for a lot of 8 cards so all total I got twenty-two 1960s vintage Baseball and Football cards from that seller. The shipping was highway robbery at $8.52 and all the auctions I got the cards for 25¢ each except these two of course which I got for 75¢ each . They were the only 2 auctions from the batch that had another bidder on it and it was the same bidder for both auctions who upped the price to 50¢, and my max bid got me to the 75¢ winning bid. If I hadn't bought from this seller before I would have suspected shilling, but I'm guessing it was a rookie buyer just bidding the minimum bid price without selecting a "max" bid number. Anyway here are those two cards:

89 Mike Hershberger White Sox

98 Bob Miller Dodgers

The Latest Additions:
Tuesday 19 Sep 2017:
89 Mike Hershberger White Sox
98 Bob Miller Dodgers

Saturday 02 Sep 2017:
180 Bob Allison Twins

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Blogged But Not Blogged: Rookie Ram Circa 2010

This is the type of post that I have probably done many times before, I call this type of post "Blogged, But Not Blogged". Long story short since Aug 2007 I have been blogging about my card mail days over at TCC on my blog over there and since July 2012 duplicating those posts in a mail day thread at the TCZ forums. There are many cards I have mentioned in detail at those sites that I have never blogged about here on what I consider to be my official trading card blog. A few times, mostly in the early days, I mentioned a card in my mail day and even scanned it (at least the front) but never blogged about it over here.

This is the story of one such card:

This card I have shown a few times online. I am surprised I never showed it here.

27 Apr 2013:
One of the first mentions of the card I'm gonna show I posted about on TCC in a post called "Football Break plus a couple of Harper Sketches".*  I also made a small rant about it. "Sort of tired of the card companies making all these minute variations of cards that you have to search 20 different levels of variations just to realize your card is considered the "base" version (even if they do seal it in a hinged case)." Strange I didn't show it on that post, but showed the Bryce Harper sketch cards.

28 Apr 2013:
From TCC Forum post #81 in CaptKirk42's Collection thread. 

Got some cards from a group break over at TCZ (a sort of younger cousin of TCC cause there are loads of TCC folk there). I'll only show two of the cards from the break I got about 14 more I had Rams/Ravens plus draft teams of Bears/Vikings. Products were:
2012 Panini Absolute
2011 Donruss Elite
2010 Panini Plates & Patches

I got at least 2 cards from each product, most of it was Elite base.

Here are my two fave cards. I'll let the cards do the talking both are from the 2010 Panini Plates & Patches

89 Danny Amendola Rams Base #d 016/499

And the Sweet one:

Mardy Gilyard Rams Auto (blue sharpie on cut card)
3 color GU (Gold, White w/stitching, Blue) #d 470/699

Notes:
* The Bryce Harper sketches I mentioned in the original TCC post I blogged about here at Curly W Cards.

Thursday, August 3, 2017

Blasting The Past: I Wonder Where It Stopped?


So a few years back I had a contest or two just for the fun of it in what I like to call "Random Acts of Cardness". I think most can figure out what that means. On one of those adventures I came up with this interesting piece:

Front of RAC Card

Back of RAC Card

The links at the end of this post give the full story and details, most of which I forget. The basic gist was I held a contest and then sent the winner of the contest some cards along with this homemade RAC (Random Acts of Cardness) Card. My original idea, as it starts to come back to me, was to start the card on a year long journey to as many card collectors as possible then back to me at year's end. Procrastination took hold of me and I didn't send the RAC out until Early Aug 2013. I Tracked it's progress along the way to see how many people had received it. If you remember getting it you're an OLD FART blogger. Kidding. It was only 3 years ago, Oops 4.

I had gotten the idea from some forum posts at TCC Both were a kind of "Pass it on"/"Pay it forward" type of ideas. One was an old site tradition of a wooden coin, or a lucky coin or something. I think it was a homemade thing that was hand-marked "TCC Lucky Coin" or something similar. Not sure cause I never got it. It had an index card that accompanied it on it's travels that the recipients were to write their name and where they were located. The idea of it was if you were lucky enough to get it you passed it on to another member at random. The lucky coin or whatever it was has long stopped somewhere unknown. That is what usually happens with these kind of things.

The other TCC post that prompted the RAC idea was called "The Chain". It was a "pick one card, leave one card" package. It soon morphed into a pick whichever cards you want so long as you replace them with an equal or greater number of cards. That would morph into including larger items and memorabilia at one time, which made future Chain packages have to make rules to limit what could be placed in the package. At one point there was a full 500+ card set, a signed baseball and maybe something else that added to the shipping cost of the package. For later rounds large items and memorabilia were banned from the package(s). The originator would send the package to the first person on the list, that person would choose a card or two, add a card or two equal to or greater than the count of what they took, then pass the package onto the next person on the list and so on. The person at the end of the list would ship the package to the originator of the package. A fun element was when the originator of the package listed the original contents (and possibly provided a picture or scans of the cards), and then by the time it got back to the originator what cards were in the final package.

As you can see from the tracking info below, it went halfway across the good old USofA, took a late summer vacation in Portugal (to see all the lovely lady cards I bet) back to the States and then in late December around Christmas time disappeared somewhere in the back alleys of Illinois. It may have made it out of that state, but me thinks it crossed da family somehow and is now swimmin' whit da fishes.

Here is how the unskilled trackers at CK42HQ shadowed shadowfly  followed The RACs journey:

START: Silver Spring, MD
03 Aug, 2013: Shipped to Channelview, TX
05 Aug, 2013: Arrival in TX
07 Nov, 2013:Arrival in Lisbon, Portugal (via Channelview, TX USA)
21 Nov, 2013: Back in the U.S.A. Norridge, IL
13 Dec, 2013: ? wherever GCRL is/was. IL?
23 Dec, 2013: Plainfield, IL
?
END: ?

Didn't reach Final Destination: Silver Spring, MD back at the end of 2013.

Does anyone know where the RAC Currently is?

Anyway there have been times I've thought of sending another of these things around. Maybe this time I won't ask for it to be returned just that it gets PAID FORWARD to other collectors and update me with a heads up to its current location from time to time?

Past Random Acts of Cardness Posts:
RAC Card Update: In The Bargain Bin
RAC Card Update: European Vacation
RAC: RAC Card Tracking
RAC2: The Finale
Update: State Of The Blog (Sort Of)
RAC2: Reminder - Any More Entries?
RAC2: Random Acts Of Cardness Part Deux
RAC1: Contest Winner (Plus a Bonus)
RAC1: Contest Over
Random Acts Of Cardness Contest Number 1

Guess I should show a card maybe two. OK maybe just one quick Card of the Whenever.


This card I have mentioned the cards I had gotten the same day as this one on 04 April 2017 my birthday in fact. At first I thought it was the same package but I double checked my mail day "blogs" and it was in a package by itself. I had to battle a little for it. It was from an Auction at Sportlots got it for $1.25 with $2.25 shipping.
 1959 Topps Football: 126 Los Angeles Rams Pennant Team Card

Not sure what that "kids" name/signature is. Brian Room? Brian Rook? Brian Ross? Brain Room? Brian Junior? Brian Roo? Brian Root? anyway the name is blue ink scripted Brian something.

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Trying To Make Things Right and Organization?


A huge part of collecting cards, for most collectors is also trading cards with other collectors. It is not necessary, but it adds to the fun. In today's high-tech world most trading now seems to be done through trading card forums, social media like Facebook and Twitter, and also through the Blogiverse. In some areas the LCS (Local Card Shop) might be another place for trading, many have some kind of activity night like a "pack war" night where collectors gather and open packs of cards. The collector who pulled the most hits gets some sort of cool door prize.

Another big part of collecting is having one's collection ORGANIZED in some logical fashion. Sadly I have been very delinquent in both these areas. More so with the unorganized part.

My organization of my collection has been off for several years, pushing at minimum 10 or more. I've been in my apartment for 9 years August 1st (today). Sometime before my move, at least a year possibly two or three earlier, I had started a re-organization effort but didn't ever finish it. Basically my card collection was about 90% organized and partly in binders partly in boxes. Some of the boxes were made for trading cards some not.

I had my Baseball cards organized by player's last name (from a previous reorganization using the standard organized by year, brand, card number). Team cards and team leader cards with multiple players under the team nickname. Multiple player cards of different teams I had under whatever the reason for the grouping was. If it was a picture of two Pitching Aces then the card was usually under whatever the title on the card was or "Pitchers - Aces", checklists were prominently in the "Cs" under "Checklist" Obviously. Adding cards was letter-by-letter and some letters I didn't have to shift over every update, but letters like "M" and "S" almost always had several additions and a lot of time spent shifting all the "S"s from sheet to sheet, card by card. My collection was so big I didn't have binders for the second half of the alphabet. I forget which letter my binders ended and the boxes began. Well I then decided to re-organize the Baseball to the way it used to be and my other sports cards were by year, brand, set, card number. Non-Sports was sorted by set name, card number. I had only gotten about half way done with that project when I gradually just stopped working on it and then a year or two later I had to move. The collection has been more like a hoard ever since. Often I have given up on ever getting organized again. (and not just with my trading cards)

Lack of organization of course has lead to unintentionally buying duplicates of cards all the time. Discovering website based collection tracking databases like Zistle and TradingCardDataBase have been extremely helpful in KNOWING what I have and in some cases what I need. It hasn't stopped the duplication completely but the times I keep current with updates to the collection at the website(s) the duplication is at least paused slightly. Buying duplicates from Sportlots doesn't seem to be affected by this factor though. When buying card lots from Sportlots or from Ebay one almost always has to buy duplicates to get some of the cards you actually want and think you need.

If that isn't bad enough I am delinquent on a several trades, going back two years now, possibly more. I recently made up one 2 year delinquent trade and the recipient seemed to like some of what I sent. I sent a huge lot of stuff. I helped them complete a few sets (thanks to Sportlots) one of which they apparently had been one card from finishing for quite a while. It feels good to do stuff like that. I try not to be like that (delinquent). I try to be a good trader and often try to overachieve by adding bonus stuff and a little bit more than expected when possible.

"I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way."

I'm also delinquent on making some care packages for a contest I had a few years ago. Don't hate me because I have perfected the skills of procrastination.

Slowly I am trying to makeup for those delinquencies. Often times I made a commitment without being 100% positive that I had what was supposed to be sent, or partly agreed and that partial agreement was interpreted as a "go ahead and send your part". I need to stop saying things like "I think I have such-and-such" or "I might have that somewhere". I need to check my stock/hoard FIRST then make a comment that is interpreted as a commitment.

I've blogged a few times about Organization or the lack there of: In A Bind(er), Organizing Some Random Thoughts, Random Card Thoughts. It saddens me a bit that I am STILL not organized, and far from being at the point of organization that I would like. That goes for everything in my life not just my trading card collection. I have some wonderfully organized ideas, but getting them done is the rub.

I belong to a football team traders group on one of the card forums. My claimed teams are my Homie Redskins and Rams as my secondary team.Years ago I was with the baseball group also and at one time was foolish enough to take over the management of both of them (at the same time). But I digress. Each month members send trade packages out to 3 or 4 members of the group. They set up trades within the forum's Trade Manager so they get trading credits. There is a sort of organized schedule and members of the group are divided into six sub-groups. Each month an assignment schedule is posted as to which sub-groups trade with each other. On occasion members trade within their own sub-group. So members who participate long enough will eventually have traded with each member and sent out each team at least once. Right now there are 7 unclaimed teams. There are 3 or 4 members who have a couple of teams, me included.

I keep my trade fodder for the group in a monster box sorted by team. I use those "card saver" plastic pockets (like ID card holders) as dividers with a simple label for file folders at the top with the team name written on the label. They aren't much good for any long-term protection of cards at all. This makes them useful for something.


Of course I have had to reinforce the labels with tape on the sides, because a few of them were popping off their card-savers. The teams unclaimed by the group are beginning to fill the box up. Instead of a temporary holding area for those teams it is becoming a permanent storage area. Eventually the overflow I will store somewhere else or try to trade elsewhere. It is helping me keep up with those trades at least. I also have a smallish lot of Houston Oilers I'd like to trade away. It was published as a CK42 Trading Post post on Sunday (the post before this one).

Another thing that helped me get a little more organized, especially with the Football team trading group, was a purchase of two sorting hats trays. I learned about thee trays from someones card blog post about the things. Sorry I forget who it is that blogged about these trays maybe a year ago? I got them off Ebay last November for $20 each Free shipping. A bit more than I wanted to get them for. I think I had seen one at $10-$12 but it was only one and I wanted two. The cheapest I've seen them is maybe $10 but with high shipping and I've seen them go for $40 or more I think straight from BCW they are close to $40.


I got the photo of the stack of sorting trays by doing a general search for the sorting trays. It was on a blog that I think is mainly about Magic The Gathering. It seemed to be somebodies business blog and they were talking about sorting sets and needing x number of trays to do the sorting per set. What?

Where does that leave me? Still unorganized and bemoaning the fact I guess.

Sunday, July 30, 2017

CK42 Trade Post: A Lot Of Oilers

 CK42 TRADE POST:
Previously Trading Thursday
30 Jul 2017 (Updated 23 Jun 2022)
A Lot Of Oilers

New Offerings:
Yeah that says what it means.

This post offers cards from a defunct NFL team that relocated and then a year later changed their name completely. I'm sure somewhere there are some people who collect Houston Oilers cards.

NOTE: Many of these cards have already been traded away or ear-marked for a Titans collector that also collects the old Oilers. Check on availability.

1989 Topps Football: 96 Alonzo Highsmith
1990 Score Football: 151 Bubba McDowell (2)

1991 Pro Set Platinum Football: 42 Mike Munchak
1992 Pacific Football:
114 Bo Orlando
115 Don Maggs

1992 Pinnacle Football: 257 Lamar Lathon
1992 Pro Set Football: 509 Cody Carlson

1992 Skybox Football: 
100 Warren Moon - Traded
169 Ernest Givins - Traded
1992 Topps Stadium Club Football:
8 Don Maggs (2)
34 David Williams (2)
55 Chris Dishman
75 Lamar Lathon
89 Greg Montgomery
120 Warren Moon (4)
152 Lorenzo White
183 Johnny Meads
218 Bruce Matthews
267 Bo Orlando (3)
1992 Wild Card Football: 88 Tony Jones 50 Stripe
1993 Hi-Pro Marketing Action Packed Football: All Madden Team 19 Bruce Matthews
1993 Fleer Football: 242 League Leader Warren Moon
1993 Skybox Football: 146 Warren Moon
1994 Upper Deck Collector's Choice Football: Crash The Game C14 Gary Brown
1994 Fleer Football: 193 Warren Moon
1994 Topps Stadium Club Football: 472 Al Del Greco

1994 Fleer Ultra Football: 117 Cody Carlson Traded
1995 Pinnacle Action Packed Football: Monday Night Football: 83 Steve McNair - Traded
1995 Upper Deck Collector's Choice Football: 226 Ernest Givins
1995 Collector's Edge Football: 79 Haywood Jeffires - Traded
1995 Skybox Impact Football:
57 Ray Childress
58 Haywood Jeffires
1995 Classic Pro Line Football: 391 Gary Brown

1997 Upper Deck Football:
199 Eddie George
200 Ronnie Harmon
202 Willie Davis
1997 Upper Deck Football:
204 Darryll Lewis
225 Michael Barrow
2017 Panini Donruss Elite Collegiate Football: 32 Earl Campbell Univ Texas Longhorns Uniform
1997 Upper Deck Football:
205 Blaine Bishop
201 Chris Sanders
1994 Fleer Game Day Football: Tall Boy: 164 Steve Jackson - Traded
1995 Fleer Flair Football: Prieview 12 Bruce Matthews - Traded

Previous Offerings
Previous posts/offers are listed here.

CK42 Trading Posts:
Previously Trading Thursday: A couple of pack lots. One 6 packs one 9 packs.

Trading Thursday Posts:
A Set And Singles: 1993-94 Classic Draft Basketball
The Return?: 2015-16 Donruss Basketball from pack pulls
This One Is On Eleven: Basketball, Football and Non-Sport tall boy sized
A Fifth Of February: Mixed bag of Baseball, Basketball and Football
Experiment Number One: 3 cards total 2 hockey relics, 1 baseball auto
CFL Trading: 2015 CFL Football cards from a single box break

Friday, June 30, 2017

Niche PC 001: Some Tennis Lovin

Niche PC 001:
Some Tennis Lovin'
[No Niche Logo Yet]

When I was a kid I used to pronounce the word niche as "Nitch" since I had never seen the word written and had only heard a mispronunciation of the word.  I associated it with a similar word "Nook" as in a book nook. Personally I think the nitch mispronunciation sounds better for the physical divots when referring to the word's noun usage as a "shallow recess" like a nook. When referring to the adjective use of the word's "small specialized appeal" the real pronunciation of "neeesh" is preferred especially with trading card PCs. OH maybe it was being pronounced as "niissh" and I heard a T.

When it comes to collecting cards there are many collectors who have niche sub-collections in their PC, or they may concentrate only on their niche. There are as many niche categories as there are collectors. Just as there are team collectors and player collectors there are odd ball collectors, perhaps that is the biggest type of "niche" collection? There are collectors who niche collect their local college, or their college Alma mater, players from their hometown or state, players from a specific country, players with the same first name, last name, birthday, birth month, birth year. Cards that show their sport's championship trophy, players chewing bubble gum (or chewing tobacco), players not wearing a cap or uniform, players in a different sport uniform, Baseball players with a gigantic glove, Baseball players with two or more bats, players holding a ball, Well you get the idea.

For many years I didn't have what I would call any niche PCs. Sure I PC'd my homie DC and Baltimore teams and many many too many players I liked. For the most part I still collect those same players and a bunch more. I have always been into some of the "odd ball" cards of various kinds. It wasn't until recent years after seeing several bloggers talk about their niche PCs that got me into the more obscure or finer detailed niche collections. I forget who the first blogger was that coined the "niche" category but at first I thought some of the categories were very silly even some of the categories I now collect myself. At one time I tried to niche PC players from the general DC area (including Maryland and Virginia Suburbs) but that is too large a scope for a niche PC, I now limit the local "homie" players (from my home area) mostly to those who attended The University of Maryland or are originally from Silver Spring Specifically.

Other than My Homie Teams (DC and Baltimore teams) and Players I PC my niche collections include: My birthday 04 April, Players from the University of Maryland (preferably in a Terps Uniform), mascots, players with similar names to myself both first and last name. Sometimes it opens the scope of the niche up a bit too much. It also opens up my collection to other sports and more odd ball things.

So this post is labeled as the first episode of a series of "Niche PC" cards.

The FIRST card for this post I got from Sportlots from an auction in their "other cards" section since it is of a sport that is not in the Big Four of Baseball, Football, Hockey and Basketball. As it is a Tennis card, yes Tennis I'm not into that sport (even though I love the women's short short short skirts) but this is a niche card so specific sport be damned.

This tennis star has my first name incorporated into her last name. Jessica Kirkland.. So it falls into the Kirk Name Niche Collection.

2013 Leaf Ace Authentic Grand Slam Tennis: Autograph: BA-JK1 Jessica Kirkland

I got the card for the opening bid of 25¢ + $3.39 shipping. It was one of three packages or PWEs that arrived on my Birthday (04 April). This particular PWE or rather PYE (Yellow/Mustard/Gold instead of plain white) came from Ontario, Canada with a cute little stamp.


On a side note I do find Miss Kirkland attractive. Now now maybe its just the little white short skirt. Since starting the draft for this post I have added another Jessica Kirkland card to my Name Niche PC

2007 Ace Authentic On The Line: Autograph: OT-8 Jessica Kirkland RC

This one came from Ebay for $5.99 Free Shipping on the First of May. Not from Canada but from the Other Washington, Washington State. From Shoreline to be more specific (Approx 9 miles North of Downtown Seattle according to Wikipedia). Believe it or not the sticker is silver/chrome not lime green as it appears due to the reflective scanning. I'm not sure if my scanner has the ability to adjust light refraction, it might, I haven't really bothered changing many of the settings for fear of putting my ancient Epson Flatbed Scanner permanently out of alignment.

Man those Tennis card makers sure do love those silver/chrome stickers for the autographs. Of course I prefer real ON-CARD Autographs, but for the card makers the sticker-autos are more efficient. Topps and the other big boys mostly use clear stickers now, the silver ones are more often for higher end products. The On-Sticker Autographs or Stickergraphs as one blogger calls them. I forget who coined that one, or was it Labelgraphs?

As I said this is the first of a new post series that may or may not have any additional posts. I like the idea of a series of niche PC cards. My first draft of this post I had titled it "Name Niche PC 001: Some Tennis Lovin'" but that would mean I would have to start some other Niche PC series: Birthday Niche, U o MD Niche and maybe a few others.