About Those Projects....

Yeah, I made some promise about finding specific cards from specific sets.  I made a tab at the top of my blog where I was supposed to track the projects and report on my progress.  That hasn't happened for a few reasons.

1.  I am writing about half of the posts that I have made in previous years

2.  A limited amount of posts means that I really have to think about which cards are deserving of a post versus what cards are not deserving of a post.

3.  Picking up a single card from a set I am trying to finish is not always exciting.

I know there are very good ways to solve these problems and I am planning on addressing them in a post sometime next week.  So, here is a quick update on where my set projects are versus what the little tab up at the top of my blog says......



1.  1999 Molten Metal Xplosion 

It's done.  It took forever to get a copy of the Pedro Martinez card that was ridiculously expensive because that card is ridiculously difficult to find.

The box that this set is in weighs more than any other set in my collection.  At least it seems that way.  I should take it to the Post Office and stick it on the scale.  It would be fun.  

2.  1999 Topps Gallery Heritage 

Done too.  These cards deserve their own post.  It doesn't even have to have words, these are just really nice cards.  

3.  2002 Bowman Futures Game Autographs 

I have had the opportunity to finish this set, but I am being a bit picky about the cards.  The surfaces of the card are glossy and the autographs tend to smudge off.  For example, I already had a copy of the Ryan Ludwick autograph.  I bought it long ago when he was on the Cardinals.  The autograph is basically gone.

I found a fairly clean copy for my set....

There are a couple of imperfections there.  If I find a really clean version I might trade up again, but I am not really sure I am going to do much better than this copy.  Mint seems to be a pipe dream with this set.

My latest card from this set is a Dennis Tankersley.....

He is a St. Louis native who never quite turned out the way he was supposed to turn out.  Again, I have seen a lot of copies of this card, they are not expensive, but I waited until I was able to find a decent copy.  I went with this card.

In conclusion, I have not finished the Bowman Futures Autograph set.  It has nothing to do with time or effort and everything to do with being picky.

Set Project #1 Update- Thanks Pedro

Back in 2016 I said I was going to work on a few set projects and post them on my blog.  I made a few handy little pages at the top of the page and started out pretty well.  I found cards, I posted the cards, and I crossed them off my checklist.  Seemed like a great idea that was going well.  There are actually a few finished sets up that tab, but probably not nearly as many as there should be.  

So far I have finished the 2001 Archives base set, an insert set from the 2000 Skybox EX-Century set, and the 1990 Upper Deck set.  I have a cool Topps Gallery Heritage project going that is actually just about ready for a completed project post and a Bowman Autograph set that is almost also done.  

My most frustrating set has actually been the first set project, that I started back in April of 2016, which was the 1999 Skybox Molten Metal Xplosion cards.  Also known as the metal card set.  

As of late 2016 I was done to just a handful of cards.  I actually found them really quickly and then I was down to just one card.  I hate when this happens.  One card means that you are going to sit and watch all the different card sites.....waiting......waiting......

A few years ago I put together a 1998 Topps Tek set and I got down to just needing Jason Kendall.  It took forever and that was for Jason Kendall.....

for the Molten Metal set I was missing one Pedro Martinez card.  There were literally none up for sale on Ebay, COMC, and Sport Lots which are my usual shopping destinations.  I went to a card show, in Raleigh, and that felt like a wild goose chase trying to find one baseball card in a really big exhibition hall.  It might have been there, but I kind of gave up at a certain point.  Not a great idea.  

Welp, I finally found Pedro.  Not expensive, but I ended up with 10 others cards from the set that are dupes.  Can't complain to finally cross this set off after a year and half in the works.  Here is the card.

I will do another set project post in the next week or two.  Thinking about doing a few more junk wax type sets similar to what I did with the 1990 Upper Deck set a few months ago.  1990s large set with a big whole where I can find a cheap box or wax packs.  

Things I Am Sorting Part 5

We are getting near the end of the first two projects that I listed at the top of my page.  I still need to put up a post about my progress towards completing the 2001 Topps Archives set, but my Molten Metal Xplosion set is almost completely crossed off.  Here is a list of the cards I needed out of the set heading into last week.

2 Jose Canseco

11 Miguel Tejada

20 Pedro Martinez

23 Matt Williams

46 Javy Lopez

50 Andy Pettitte

79 A.J. Hinch

95 Omar Vizquel

99 Mike Mussina

105 Roberto Alomar

114 A.J. Burnett RC

121 Manny Ramirez  

I had actually failed to update the percentage of the set that was completed on my Projects tab after I made my last post on this set.  The page lists my progress at 55%, but I was actually at 92% of the complete set.  Well, that was until I received another batch of these cards in the mail along with a nice surprise from a generous collector.  

Here are the new cards I added to my Molten Metal Set:

A few new cards.  If you check the list above you will notice that the Kerry Wood card is not actually there, but the collector who traded me this lot of cards threw in the card as a bonus.  It's not a dupe, it's actually a promotional card.  This is a look at the back of the card....

I had not even thought about collecting a promotional sample.  A nice little bonus on top of the regular 150 baseball cards in the set.  The lot of cards scanned above actually takes 5 off of my list of 12 cards, leaving me with just 8 left to find.  It brings my completion percentage up to  95%.  

Things I Am Sorting Part 4

A few months back I started a pair of set projects and added a new tab to the top of my blog.  I have been really good about finding cards on the list, but have yet to post an update on my progress towards completing the two projects.  I am going to do a little update on one of the sets in this post.

Over the past several months I have made a few trades, bought a few singles off of private collectors, and also made a few purchases off of Sports Lots and COMC to make progress towards completing the 1999 Skybox Molten Metal Xplosion cards.  Most of the time I have picked up a few at time to save on shipping costs and I have tried to keep the cost in trade, or dollars to less than $2 max for a card.  There were several on COMC for example that were listed above $2, I made an offer below, and if they did not except it I walked away.

Here is one lot of cards that I picked up two weeks ago:

Three pretty fair players.  I paid $4.00 for the lot, and since the cards are metal, the seller sent them in a plain white envelope.  Not much worry with these cards bending or having the corners dinged going through the mail.

Here is what the stack of cards I have picked up over the last two months looks like compared to the cards that I started the project with....

The stack I started with has Edgar Renteria on the top, new cards have Larry Walker on the top.  Looking at the checklist of cards I needed I was at 55% completion at the beginning of the project.  In all, I have added a total of 56 cards to the set and jumped the completion rate all the way up to 92%.  Just 12 more cards to add to finish this one up.

Here's what it looks like all sorted out.....

I feel like I should place them on a scale and see how much they weigh at the end of the project.  The stack looks nice, but the weight of a complete set of metal cards is pretty cool.  My projects page is updated and I will do a post on the Archives set progress soon.

Things I Am Sorting Part 3

I have not posted an update yet on the two set projects that I undertook a while back, but the cards have been slowly trickling in over the past weeks.  The set has been a little bit trickier to assemble than I imagined it would be when I first broke the cards out the box and typed up my list.  Here is a look at the stack of cards I have added and need to sort into the cards that I already had.....

If it looks like a lot of cards, maybe too many, you're being observant.  Here are some of the things that I have run into while trying to run down the cards I need:

1. It's not too difficult to find sellers and traders who have these cards who are willing to part with them as a lot.  Meaning, I can pick up several cards by trading away other doubles from other sets helping a fellow collector do the same thing I am doing, complete a set.  Buying lots of these cards is generally not expensive either.  However, buying and trading for lots also creates doubles which is why the stack in the picture above looks a lot bigger than what it should be considering the set is not complete.  
2. There are certain singles in this set that are for sale, but are ridiculous in price.  I like this set, it looks cool, and I know that there are other collectors who feel the same way about it.  Still, I am not sure that the cards in the set are worth upwards of $10 for a single.  Yet, some of them cost that much on Ebay and COMC.  I have out waited one person and found a star player from the set for about $2 while the only copy of the card on COMC was $8.  Of course, the other problem with over priced cards on sites like EBay is that collectors use them as a reference point.  The card costs $10 there, or on COMC, you find a collector who has it and the first thing they do is reference the sites and quote you the same price.  I want a complete set, but I am not going to get ripped off putting it together.  
3. There are cards that are seriously difficult to find.  Seems to happen every time I try to put something together from the late 1990s.  Like the Topps Tek Jason Kendall card.  

Anyway, I just had 9 more cards from the set show up in my mailbox yesterday afternoon.  Here's a look at the cards.....

A little bit more detailed post about the cards I have added, and the ones I still need, will be up later this week.  

Set Project Number 1: 1999 Skybox Molten Metal Xplosion

In sorting out of all different types of cards the past few months off away from writing I had all kinds of options to place here for my first set to work on completing.  I am actually listing a second one on the Projects In Progress tab at the top, but not dedicating a post towards the completion of the 2001 Topps Archives set.  The pile of cards that struck my interest the most was a stack of 1999 Molten Metal Xplosion cards.  I had actually started working on completing this set about two and half years ago and gave my last update roughly two years ago.  

At the time of my last update the work on the set felt long lost, so I am not quite sure what adjectives I could use to describe a project that has sat for years.  I am not going to worry about, but rather set out to do something about it.  Currently I have 82 out of the 150 cards, shown below in case you don't remember what the cards looked like: 

I still need a total of 68 cards, or 45%, of the cards in this set to complete it.  The cards are not too difficult to find and there is not any one card which stands out as something that would difficult to find.  I have one or two trades lined up for a few of these cards as we speak and I have found a few others on COMC and SportsLots.  I am going to put my time frame on this set at two and half months.  In other words, I am going to try to finish it off by the end of June.  The cards I still need to add are listed below:  

1 Larry Walker

2 Jose Canseco

3 Brian Jordan

4 Rafael Palmeiro

6 Dante Bichette

11 Miguel Tejada

13 David Cone

15 Ruben Rivera

20 Pedro Martinez

22 Randy Johnson

23 Matt Williams

24 Sean Casey

26 Ryan Klesko

28 Geoff Jenkins

29 Bob Abreu

30 Vinny Castilla

31 Will Clark

34 Richie Sexson

35 Derrick Gibson

37 Greg Vaughn

39 Steve Finley

40 Chuck Knoblauch

41 Ricky Ledee

42 John Smoltz

44 Jim Edmonds

46 Javy Lopez

47 Jim Thome

50 Andy Pettitte

51 Juan Encarnacion

52 Travis Fryman

55 Brady Anderson

57 Edgar Martinez

58 Garret Anderson

62 Tom Glavine

66 Fernando Tatis

67 Carlos Beltran

68 Charles Johnson

69 Raul Mondesi

71 Barry Larkin

77 Mariano Rivera

78 Livan Hernandez

79 A.J. Hinch

81 Rusty Greer

84 Kevin Brown

85 Chan Ho Park

86 John Olerud

91 Mike Cameron

93 Rickey Henderson

95 Omar Vizquel

96 Craig Biggio

99 Mike Mussina

101 Andruw Jones

102 Pat Burrell RC

104 Darin Erstad

105 Roberto Alomar

113 Troy Glaus

114 A.J. Burnett RC

115 Dave Justice

121 Manny Ramirez

122 Barry Bonds

126 Jeremy Giambi

130 Mo Vaughn

138 Alex Rodriguez

140 Juan Gonzalez

141 Tony Gwynn

144 Scott Rolen

147 Roger Clemens

149 Vladimir Guerrero

On A Major Skybox Molten Metal Kick

I have had a strong bounce back on my Molten Metal set project.  After leaving the project alone for a month or two I have been able to add a couple of different lots to my growing collection during the past week.  I managed to pick up three cards in a trade last week and picked them up out of my mailbox yesterday.  I am now at 84 cards out of 150.  My goal is to get to 100 before the end of April.  Go Team!

More Molten Metal

I picked up my pursuit of the 1999 Skybox Molten Metal Xplosion set after a brief hiatus.  Earlier this week I managed to pick up six new cards to my set.  I managed to find another nine cards through a trade with another collector.  All nine cards were needed to help complete my set.  Here's a look at the new additions to the set:

It had been awhile since I had added a card from this set, so I was not quite sure where I was with the set.  I went back through my cards this week, accounting for these 9, and found that I am now at a total of 81 cards.  That brings me up to 54% of the set.  There are more cards in the mail too, so I will be adding more cards onto this project soon. 

1999 Skybox Molten Metal Xplosion Set: Update #1

I am going to stay aggressive, yet smart, on picking up the cards that I need to complete my 1999 Skybox Molten Metal Xplosion set.  I am going to try to pick up at least one card every week.  So, here we go with this week's update:

Entering the week I had a total of 39 out 150 cards for a total of 26% of the set.  This week I managed to add a total of 21 new cards.  One came from a small pick up on Ebay that cost me a few cents which netted me a copy of the Travis Lee card from the set.

The other twenty cards from the set I picked up were generously sent to me from Tony Burrell, he's a Facebook trader with the greatest and largest Pat Burrell collection anywhere.  Very generous and I am grateful to get off to a great start on this project.  Here's a look at the twenty cards I received from Tony.

The 21 new cards bring my total for the set up to 60 cards, or 40% of the set.  I am hoping that with a few days off next week for Thanksgiving break I can cross the 50% mark.  I need 15 cards to do it.  Go team.

1999 Skybox Molten Metal Set

I am still working on my reorganization project which I started several months ago.  These things always take a lot longer than you'd think they would and I probably have not been too great about giving enough updates here on my blog space.  If you follow my Twitter feed, and can stand me complaining about NC State's football team every Saturday, it's clear some days that I am sorting and organizing my cards as quickly as I can.  I even post pictures sometimes.  Here's the finish product for all of my 2001 sets. 

Somewhere along the line I started posting some of the completed sets I pulled out during the process and posting them in this space from time to time drawing attention to some of the cards I have enjoyed collecting during my thirty years in the hobby.  I think I even started posted the 2013 sets that I was working on and posted the completed set and favorite inserts when I finished them off.  Somewhere along the way I lost my footing and have disappeared from posting both updates of my reorganization project and the complete sets I am assembling out of the cards.  I will do a little better starting right now.  I have a few sets planned for the next few weeks and will post a few sets too. 

I am working on my 1999 cards at the moment and spent part of my day off working on sorting out the Skybox Molten Metal set along with the Pacific Private Stock.  More on the Private Stock set next week.  I bought my first box of Molten Metal cards while I was working my summer job after graduating from college.  My summer job was that cool.  I split a box with one of my bosses and loved the cards.  The base set is a total of 150 cards and is shiny and glossy like every good late 90s set.

1999 Skybox Molten Metal Jim Edmonds

 

The set really is not far off from several other Fleer/Skybox sets which were released around that time, but I just liked this set better than most of the others.  The base set had some of my favorite players like Jim Edmonds, Ray Lankford, Fernando Tatis, Mark McGwire, etc.  I was pretty much exclusively a Cardinals person at that point in my life.  The set lacked star power, in terms of the rookie cards, but there are still some solid rookie cards on the checklist. 

1999 Skybox Molten Metal A.J. Burnett

The rookie cards in the set mainly include guys like A.J. Burnett, Jeff Weaver, and Pat Burrell.  Solid Major Leaguers who enjoyed good solid careers, but you are not going to knock down the door to find or pay for their cards.  Burrell was really popular at the time the set released, but Burnett and Weaver caught up, if not passed him later on in their careers.  All three cards are now available for less than a dollar if you really want to pick up those cards. 

All the base set cards in the Molten Metal set are fine and good, but the real draw to this set is the inserts and parallels.  Fleer did it right.  Let's start with the parallel. 

1999 Skybox Molten Metal Xplosion J.D. Drew

The parallel set, Metal Xplosion, was a full parallel set to the base set made out of metal cards.  Leaf had done this a few years before with the Leaf Preferred Metal set, but these cards did not have a goofy piece of plastic wrap over the card and the Skybox Molten Metal cards are die-cuts.  There were no serial numbered parallels or rainbow color variations in this set.  Just really cool cards.  I have about two dozen cards from this parallel set, but have always thought it would be a cool challenge to assemble.  Maybe someday.  One more cool insert set. 

1999 Skybox Molten Metal Derek Jeter Supernatural Fusion

It's hard to tell from the scan, but the right-hand side of the card is a picture of Derek Jeter made out of little pin holes.  A card shop owner, who shall remain nameless once told me that these cards were an example of pointillism.  Hmmmm....

Not quite the same thing.  Anyway, the Jeter is a really cool card and is part of a fifty card insert set which Skybox seeded at a rate of two per box.  I actually did collect this set for awhile and got through about half of the set.  It's not too hard to find, but there are serial numbered version of the card which run at 500 and 50.  The 500 versions have a slight premium and the 50 can have a significant depending on the parallel.  Also could be a good future project, especially since I have half of the set already.  More 90s sets next weekend.