Introducing Maildazed From The Pazt

Maildazed From The Pazt: A NEW blog Feature

Introduction and Logo Key

Sometime in 2015 while contemplating my naval massive backlogged "to blog about sometime" queue/pile/boxes/hoard of cards I came up with an idea. Dangerous I know. I have many large lots of cards from mail-days gone by that still haven't been sorted into my collection. My collection is a bunch of small groups of sometimes related cards that should be a massive organized and well oiled trading card machine. Sometimes I have an accurate record of where, when and who they came from. Most times I have no idea. Yeah a massive lot of them have been sitting for years and years waiting to be blogged about. I know there are still some sets I'm itching to blog about and show off, but haven't gotten around to them. Some of them other bloggers have beaten me to the punch. There are also many cards that sadly will never be mentioned at all. Some of those at one time were in the "to blog about" queue but I decided to remove them from the queue. All these problems are due to this long queue line and being too damn proficient at procrastinating and letting things get out of hand. What should be a small effort is a super monumental task. Ultimately if I could just get everything completely organized THEN I could comfortably blog about stuff better. I would also feel better about trading and knowing what I had for trade. Did I mention the time it takes to scan stuff that delays things as well? Along with procrastinating on the scanning. There was also something about being organized. Whatever that is.

In the alleys and backwoods of the card forums I frequent. I have mail day threads and blogs where I post about what I got and usually from where or who and sometimes how much it cost me. The accuracy is not always detailed but generally good to OK. In 2007 shortly after joining the TCC site I started a blog there on their blog system. It started off as a place to post what I had for sale/trade, but morphed into a mail day blog. Now I am the only one who "blogs" there at all. Most people post their mail days in the specific Mail Day board there and show their scans/photos on the Show and Tell board. I seriously need to make sure all my entries from the blogging area are saved elsewhere because TCC has had some long downtime periods and since I'm the only one blogging there they might decide to close that section down sometime or the site will disappear. My saving effort is barely started with maybe two years worth of the 11 years of posts I have there.

Details of what I had gotten are pretty fuzzy for the early days. I didn't always have all the info sometimes didn't even bother mentioning how much I spent on the cards or left off the specific date received and there are way too many times I didn't keep up with the posting so I had to do a recap to catch up. Some stuff slipped through the cracks at that point. Card lots of 30 or more cards I only mentioned by number or just a selective group of maybe up to two dozen cards if I mentioned them at all. I've had to do recaps in recent months also. Those recaps are often from a couple of months of slacking time. There is usually enough info to scrap together an almost interesting post about a small or sometimes large lot of cards. I can also just show the dang cards which is what I usually end up doing with no story

Often when I mention my mail days elsewhere I clearly remember doing so and telling the tale of that particular card, set, or lot of cards. Then when thinking of something to post for this my regular blog I think "Well I've already talked about that card" when in fact I haven't. Not here, there yes, but here NO. Thus my "Blogged But Not Blogged" feature. Many times I haven't even cataloged the card in my Zistle collection lists, [this shows how long this particular post has been in the draft queue], or my Trading Card Database list. Sadly Zistle is now owned by Beckett and in danger of being a thing of the past. For the most part I have stopped adding to it.

Sometimes I've scanned just the front of a card. In the early days the front was all I scanned. Sometimes I still only scan the front if I think I won't talk about that card in great detail or it is part of a huge set that I can only show off a few cards of at any one time. Then when I look to add a scan somewhere I see the card and think that all is well with this blogiverse when it obviously is not. So I am often very wrong and I'm doomed. Doomed I Say! It's Hopeless! We're Doomed!

I often wonder if I should attempt yet another blog and make it exclusively mail day info? Hmm? I only have 11 years worth of TCC blogging to copy/transfer over. Seems like 100 or 1,000 though. The problem with that is eventually the mail day blog would become another blog that I would have to make at least one post per month on. I already have 3 blogs with that self appointed task. Some months I barely get something up.

OK enough background exposition talk lets get on with the showing off of cards. Heck since this is the first one of these let me just do the dang Logo Key: Some of the links below the thumbnails of the cards lead to a post on my Curly W Cards blog.

OK so this is the original colored scan logo I had intended to use.

As you can see in three of the corners there is part of an envelope or package those are for the background. I have since recycled them so I'm not sure who they would have come from. I made this logo shortly before or at the time I got the idea to identify the cards in these logos I put on my blogs. At the time some of those cards I had just gotten in the mail but the majority of the cards shown here are from a pazt maildaze from a checkoutmycards (often referred to only as COMC) order of 44 cards. Technically it was my second order from there, but my first order ever from there was wiped from their database when they redid their website a few years back (after being sued by the Big B). Some cards there still only have partial information. I plan on detailing the 44 card order in this feature sometime. It should be one of the in process posts in my draft queue. I have only ordered from COMC 4 times. Actually only "shipped" 4 times I currently have 7 cards I have bought in the last year that are in the "to be shipped" area of my dashboard there. I would order more often but you have to add rickin' frickin' money to your membership "store credit" account kitty.

ROW 1:

1976 Sugar Daddy Sports World (Series 2): FOOTBALL: 4 Sonny Jurgensen Redskins

1956 Topps Baseball: 49 Pedro Ramos RC Nationals

1959 Topps Baseball: 74 Directing The Power: Jim Lemon, Cookie Lavagetto, Roy Sievers Senators

1959 Topps Baseball: 465 Baseball Thrills: Sievers Sets Homer Mark Roy Sievers Senators

ROW 2:

1962 Topps Baseball: 88 Ralph Houk MGR Yankees (Yogi Berra in background)

1969 Topps Baseball: 650 Ted Williams MGR Senators

1967 Topps Baseball: 348 Tug McGraw Mets

1965 Topps Baseball:  574 Roy Sievers Senators

1955 Topps Baseball:  48 Bob Kennedy Orioles

1955 Topps Baseball: 13 Fred Marsh Orioles

ROW 3:

1968 Topps Baseball Game Insert: (Back) 9 Brooks Robinson Orioles

1972 Topps Baseball: Traded: 754 Frank Robinson Dodgers 

1973 Topps Baseball: 30 Tug McGraw Mets

1973 O-Pee-Chee Baseball: (Back) 30 Tug McGraw Mets

I am working on posts for my COMC orders so those will most likely be the next few "MFTP" posts. My last COMC order was 2 years ago. I have a huge watch list over there and about 7 purchased cards waiting to be shipped. I want to make a huge dent in purchasing my watch list before having any more cards shipped.

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.

Strive For '65 Saturday: A Major Catch-Up

STRIVE FOR '65 STATUS:

18 Feb 2017
Strive for '65 | 1965 Set Build | Master Want List

 Current card count: 258/598 (260/600) 43.5%

Man I really suck at this set build. The last update was way back in August last year. It has been a few months since any of these latest cards came in, but I failed to mention them anywhere other than in my mail day posts on the few card forums I still haunt. I didn't even update my need lists here on this ding dang blog. To say I NEED to get ORGANIZED is a huge understatement.

Monday 05 Dec 2016: Sportlots Auction 1 card $1.25 + $3.60 shipping

588 Lenny Green Red Sox

Monday 12 Dec 2016: 2 Sportlots Auctions $4.80? shipping

455 Norm Siebern Orioles $1.50
514 Joe Azcue Indians $1.75 for all 3
584 Harry Bright Cubs
594 Joe Gaines Astros

The Latest Additions:
Monday 12 Dec 2016:
455 Norm Siebern Orioles
514 Joe Azcue Indians
584 Harry Bright Cubs
594 Joe Gaines Astros

Monday 05 Dec 2016:
588 Lenny Green Red Sox

In A Bind(er)

This is mainly just a random thought thing. For those who are binder collectors.

• Which binder usually has priority? Fave Team Binder? Super Player Binder? Set Binder? Other Binder?
• When do you consider purposefully having duplicates or more of a single card for binders?
• How full do you stuff your binders?
• Are you a double occupancy collector (two cards per pocket to show off the fronts only), or a one card per pocket?

I am a large mixed type of collector. I'm a set collector, and I am a team collector for my DC and B'More Teams. Yet I am also a player collector of fave players past and present plus Hall of Famers. Sure it would be easy to get three 1997 Topps Cal Ripkens, but three of his Rookie card? Not so easy. Forget about getting three of some of the 1960s and 1950s cards. Some of those it is difficult to find just one copy of the card in ANY condition (at least not until I'm a millionaire who can afford spending thousands on just one small 2.5" x 3.5" cardboard rectangle with paint and ink on it).

In my case the order would generally be Set, Team, Player, but for some players and HOFers it would be Player, Team.

If I ever get my collection organized the way I currently envision it, some day I will make fillers for Team and Player cards and put them in the set binders. Or maybe just not go through all that trouble.

Another thought if you already have things organized by Set, then your team and player binders would be mostly empty. Except for maybe the autograph and insert cards that are not real clear about what actual set they belong to.

You could make "fillers" for the spots of the cards that are in other binders. Either by making a card sized note that says something like "See Binder X" (or X binder), or maybe go the extra measure and make a black and white (maybe even color) photocopy of the card front with your note of where the real card is in your collection of binders. I've been thinking of doing that when I have a better handle on the organization of my collection.

Sorry for the quick and dirty out-of-focus webcam shot-pics (actually this last pic of the pages filled back-to-back came out pretty good). I needed pictures that just don't get done by a flatbed scanner and I wanted them fast.

Organizing Some Random Thoughts

A while back now, in reading a post about organization from a fellow card blogger Mike (member of TCC and a Facebook Pal) on his card blog, he also has a comics/toy collecting blog which was his original catch-all blog, I was reminded of an organizing rant post I did in November of last year (2012). His dilemma is frighteningly similar to mine. Years and years of having cards in boxes (or elsewhere) not organized or semi-organized and needing to be put in binders or displayed in someway. Apparently we are not alone in being overwhelmed by a hoard of cards. Colby over at Cardboard Collections  sometimes feels defeated. Oh and for those who didn't know Greg The Night Owl is NOT a pack rat (but he might play one on TV) here is his proof.  I'm not either, but I don't have any proof to disprove it yet. I'm lazy and organizationally challenged. Ironically when I was a kid I was a neat freak, I think public school corrupted me. So being disorganized can sometimes be a common enough feeling.

In my previous post (mentioned in the paragraph above) the first part was another kind of rant when I was in a bit of a funk about the hobby and wondering "Why?" then I settled down some and talked about an idea I have had for a while, but is not very practical. 

The idea was this: Have a service company that will sort and organize your cards for you. The basic premise is for collectors to send their collection, or the unorganized part of their collection they want/need organized with instructions on how they want it organized (by brand/by year/by team or whatever). The service then sorts the cards and puts them in boxes or binders based on the instructions, and service level purchased. It would probably make extra money selling the supplies or at least the binders, or heck supplies cost could be figured into the processing/organizing fee.

This would not be a grading/authorizing/verification/slabbing service there are plenty of those kinds of services. I haven't thought all the details out on if graded cards would or could be entered into the mix, probably not.

An obvious problem would be the cost of shipping cards in those volumes. More so on the company sending out the neatly organized collection in spiffy new binders (or boxes). Keeping a huge inventory of all the needed supplies would initially be a pain: Having a large inventory of the right kind of binder, the binder pages, penny sleeves toploaders, card boxes.

Then there is the space needed while organizing. A nice clear table large enough to hold a bunch of cards and some assorted supplies. There might have to be some sort of limit to the number of cards sent to be organized at a time "x" number of 5000 card monster boxes worth.

For right now I need to actually start doing all the sorting, organizing and proper storing of my own card hoard first. I have a problem of knocking down card piles and having to restack them and in the process their original "order that they came in" gets totally messed up. Someone else blogged about knocking over leaning pile towers of cards some months back sorry I forget who it was. Messy unorganized apartments don't help either.

hmm. I stumbled upon this link: "How to Organize Your Trading Cards" It is a "Simple" guide to organizing your cards too simple. Sadly it is way too simple and looks to be geared toward beginning collectors not seasoned collectors that are re-organizing for the zillionth time. There are other "similar" links including this one: "How to Organize Baseball Cards". Again not really for seasoned collectors ((Sigh!))

Another problem I have that contributes to my collection not being totally organized is my backlog of neat and fascinating cards and oddball sets that I have waiting in the wings to be blogged about. I have one set that I started a post about. I don't remember when I first wrote it up. I have updated it several times, and I still need to get the cards scanned. I had to add the set to zistle since it was such an oddball set.

Related Links:
How to Store and Organize Trading Cards
5 Easy Steps to an Organized Sports Card Collection *


*This seems to be the best advice I've seen yet. I already do some of what is mentioned in the article.

**Sorry for the blurry pics they were quick and dirty shots taken with my webcam handheld.

Random card thoughts

Sometimes I get into a little bit of a blogging funk and think "Why bother"? Any cards that I get, unless they truly are 1/1s, are just one of thousands, maybe tens of thousands and are most likely going to already be blogged about somewhere, or part of a preview review of some product that is coming out. The one thing that keeps me going when thinking like that is the thought that my take on the individual card is unique. I might be the only one who actually likes a particular card or set out of the hundreds (or is it thousands?) of card bloggers out in the blogiverse (Blogsphere to most).

I don't do those custom jobbers like some bloggers do. Well I don't normally make custom cards, I do have a digital one (front only) as part of some of my logos. I wonder how many of them (the custom cardmaker bloggers) actually print-out their creations? Or do they just keep them digital like E-Topps sort of was mostly? 

I do know that there are some super popular trends, or at least continual trends of the card manufacturers that I really can not stand *cough*rip cards*cough*. I could list them here but I don't want to offend any of my two or three regular readers that may like those particular trends.

**Sigh** Negative thinking often reminds me that most of my collection right now resembles a hoarders nest. I know what I want to do with most of it but gettting motivated to do it and taking the time it will take to do it is one of the things I lack right now. Oh and Yes I do use zistle.com (My Zistle) I am far from having EVERYTHING listed there.

Sometimes I wish there was an organizing company that you could ship a box of cards to with instructions on how you like your cards organized and they will sort and organize and put your cards into binders for you, or whatever containers you prefer. If I knew I could make money off doing that and "retire" from my regular job I would maybe consider doing something like that.That whole concept however would be impractical and would cost tons to ship the cards and then you would have to wait for your cards to be returned, and insure your treasure for tons and determining how long it would take to organize and... Oh it just wouldn't work out for anyone. Or would it? Getting fellow collectors to help you organize wouldn't work either because they would be envious of some of your collection and pester you for some of them. Some more devious collectors might even try to "palm" some cards off of you. OK forget I said any of that organization stuff.

OK now just to keep up with the randomness of this post here are some random cards (fronts only):

1972 Topps Baseball 11 Bobby Valentine Dodgers

 1976 Topps Football 145 Roman Gabriel Eagles

1984 Fleer V 21 "Ready For Action" 

Faye Grant as Juliet "Julie" Parrish

I feel like showing a ton more cards for some reason. OK maybe one more since the Hockey season will probably NOT happen this year here is a card I don't have anymore I either sold it or traded it away. It was my first freebie from sportscardforum I had won it in one of their forum contests. I think it was a new members contest.

2006-07 Upper Deck "Be A Player" Signatures -

JS Jason Spezza Senators

OK so there you have it how much more random can I be? Oh one final thought If you are following me and have my blog linked on your blog, but I don't have yours linked Please let me know so I can reciprocate.