Saturday was a first for me, having not one but two fellow cardbloggers hand-deliver boxes of cards to my door. How great is that?! First was Kevin from The Diamond King who was down in my neck of the woods Saturday morning for the local card show. Then in the afternoon, Rod from Padrographs dropped off another box while I was out walking Ruby. Plus I received one eBay pick up in Saturday's mail, one that happens to be a triple-bullseye for my collection: Christmas Card of a PC guy in my #1 set, 2004 Topps Retired refractors (and it was cheap). Oh, happy day! Starting off the recap with a roya ..read more

I think it was around 2017 when I decided I'd make a run at completing all the Topps flagship sets from the decade of the 70s. Part of my motivation for this was to really open up my wantlist and facilitate trading back when the blogs were boppin'. But then that all slowed down plus the covid boom bumped up vintage prices, and so the "last updated" dates on my setbuild spreadsheets haven't been getting updated as frequently in recent years. But I keep up with them in a "slow and steady wins the race" outlook. It had been years since I traded with Scott Crawford, and it took us a few months of ..read more

Quick pupdate: Happy to report Ruby is doing a lot better now. The tube is out and the stitches are scheduled to come out this weekend. She's always such a happy, high-energy dog that it was tough seeing her so miserable/drugged-up for those few days, but she's doing a whole lot better now. Just wanted to cleanse the blog with some better vibes after a stressed-out previous post, so let's grab something from my little stash of unopened packs and make a quick post out of it. Here's a pack of 1988 Topps. It's a set I like to work with for cardart because, well for one thing all 792 cards are e ..read more

All is not well at Baseball Card Breakdown HQ, with my dog Ruby getting a serious injury in a dust-up after she playfully surprised a mean dog at the park. Not life-threatening, but there's a pretty nasty gash on her side, now stitched up with a tube. It'll likely be a rough couple weeks of healing but she should be back to her over-the-top self soon. I'm pretty exhausted from all the stress and hours waiting at the emergency vet the other day, but glad that day is in the rearview now. I've been meaning to do another one of those posts where I get around to showing off some incoming cards I've ..read more

Eight years ago today, I posted about some Lyman Bostock customs whipped up in collaboration with a reader named Nolan. I'm delighted that he's taken me up on my call for a guest post to talk about his experience collecting this fascinating ballplayer with a tragic story.  - - - Lyman Bostock When I was around 12, baseball cards were my obsession. My life revolved around collecting. Didn’t matter what sets came out, I wanted everything. I was so excited when I found a very small stack of mid to late 1970s cards in a green plastic box at my grandparents house. The only card I ca ..read more

I'm now up to 7 "sign here" cards. Tino in center is my latest pickup. (Jealous, Lost Collector? lol) The seller first put it up at a hefty Buy-It-Now, but as the weeks went by he dropped the asking price and eventually I got it off him for a fair best offer. I'm thinking I'll try to add a couple more, then call this quirky collection good at an "even" 9 cards. Well, this is a short post, so here's some bonus content I may have posted on Twitter already. Check out this tree in my neighborhood with an attitude problem. Ruby had a great time out with the family at my wife's birthday lunch ..read more

I've got a small cache of rainy day unopened packs that I'm making a point of finally opening. I figure there could be cards in there to put towards my #cardart activities, so might as well. Let's get a quick post out of one. Here's an old pack of 1987 Topps that fell into my lap at some point. I'd most like to hit a Bo Jackson or Barry Bonds. McGwire, Canseco, or even Will Clark would be some other potential good pulls. Looks like this pack may have been through some inclement weather at some point in the past 37 years, as all the cards seem to be a little warped. Might not make for the ..read more

I still haven't bought any retail since covid, and while I like what I've seen of the 2024 Topps flagship design, I haven't been compelled to go out and buy any. But thankfully I still get the thrill of new-to-me cards with a little help from my blogger buds. Actually CardBoredom was a new one for me, under my radar for these past few months. But it's a really well done site/blog. I've been going back to read David's old stuff and interested to see what's next from him. I had read about David's attempts at replicating a wax pack, and was thrilled to receive one after he reached out abou ..read more

We're still thawing out from an ice storm here in Portland. Other than 24 hours without internet and a few days without mail delivery, we've gotten by just fine... just cold and a little stir-crazy stuck with a high-energy dog. There are a lot of fallen trees and branches in the neighborhood from the high winds. A house just a block over ended up with a tree sticking out of their roof, apparently getting a little national attention via Reddit. But yeah, once mail service resumed, I got some cool cards in the mail and so let's make a blog post. Boom! Here's my first "big card" landed in 2024 ..read more

I'll nearly always "like" any social media post that pops up in my feed with the #walletcard hashtag. I love to see meaningful cards out there playing an active part in someone's life.  I still think of myself as "the wallet card guy", but nearly a decade on, I realize I'm probably alone there and most people today don't make the association anymore. Sure guys were putting cards in their wallets since the tobacco card days, with the most famous example being Bob Costas doing so with a certain Mickey Mantle, but for what it's worth, the "wallet card craze" wasn't a thing in the modern ..read more