Rookie Card Lot

A couple months ago, some one on Twitter pointed me in the direction of a lot of 463 Wallach rookie cards that were for sale at a very reasonable price.  Recently that seller reached out to me with an offer for another 58 Wallach's they had available.  The end result is the photo above.  

Here's an update on the new totals:

1982 Donruss: 262
1982 Fleer x13: 486
1982 Topps x43: 1,788
1989 Fleer: 562

1982 Topps Lot

That's 463 copies of the 1982 Topps Tim Wallach card spread out above.  I came upon them after a friend on twitter altered me to their being posted for a sale in a facebook collector's group that they're in. The asking price was more than reasonable, so I asked him to put me in touch with the seller, and now here they are.

For the most part they were all in great shape.  When I get lots this large I don't scour for "Gem Mint Tens" (that means "near mint" to collector's over the age of 40 who haven't learned the new figure skating grading scale younger collector's favor).  I look for off-centered cards, and cards with out of whack ink levels.  To me, those are the unique and exciting ones.  The color on all of these was more or less the same, but there were a few nice mis-cut ones that I posted pictures of below.

This lot of 463 makes the 1982 Topps Wallach the most abundant in my collection by a margin of several 100.  At last count 1984 Topps, 1987 Topps and 1988 Donruss were it's nearest competitors, and it was pretty close.  It isn't that close at the moment.

Updated Total:

1982 Topps x463: 1,743

Also mixed in for good measure, was one stray Andre Thorton.

1983 Fleer Lot

 

That's what 830 copies of the same 1983 Fleer card looks like when laid out on a table.  It's the most copies of a single Wallach card that I've ever acquired at once.  They were purchased on Ebay along with over 700 copies of Wallach's 1984 Topps card.  At less than 4 cents a card shipped, I'm hoping the seller as some more large lots lying around.

I have to tip my hat to Fleer.  In sorting through these over 800 copies of the card none stood out as any sort of manufacturing error.  None of the cards had any huge issues with ink levels or centering or anything else to make them stand out.  Just what I would consider ordinary variances from card to card.

The seller did let a few mistakes slip through the cracks, no doubt being fooled by that Expos logo in the lower left corner of the card.  These six cards were mixed in the lot.  I actually didn't have any copies of the Raines, so that was sort of a nice surprise.

Updated Total:

1983 Fleer: 1,054

1984 Topps Lot

 I recently purchased two large lots of cards from the same seller on eBay.  This lot of 780 copies of the 1984 Topps Wallach and a similarly large lot of 1983 Topps Wallach cards that I will post later this week (I need to stretch out my limited opportunities for new content).  My general rule of thumb for large lots is to not pay more than 10 cents a card shipped.  The seller of these two lots agreed to combine shipping and the result was I ended up picking these up at just over 4 cents per card.  I think it worked out well for the seller and myself.  He picked close to $40 and cleared out some shelf space and I picked up close to 1,600 new Wallach cards.

I'm not sure what sellers are holding out for.  The demand for a lot of 300 copies of 1988 Donruss Tim Wallach cards just isn't there.  At the risk of sounding arrogant, they're selling to audience of one.  If I'm willing to pay you $3.00 on top of shipping cost, that should be a no brainer.  Unless some people just like endless piles of worthless cards sitting in the their closets, of players they don't collect and sets they aren't building.  To each their own I guess.  Given the nature of this blog/collection, I'm well aware that I'm one of the last people who should be throwing stones from inside this glass house of mine.

The last decade or so, it's become increasingly rare for me to obtain more copies of a card than I previously already had.  On the rare occasion it has happened, it's usually some odd-ball release like the  Provigo food product set, or an O-Pee-Chee sticker that I only had 2 or 3 copies of.  I don't recall the last time I picked up more new copies of a main stream release than I already had.  But that's the case here, as the 780 new copies nearly doubled the 444 I had in my collection.  The huge addition makes this the second most abundant card in my collection behind only the 1982 Topps Wallach by a margin of just 16 cards.  It's conceivable that by the end of the year, 1984 Topps could end the 82's decade plus reign at the top of the list.

As far as the cards, I have to credit Topps for their quality control.  Nearly 800 copies and there were only three that stood out as I sorted through them.  Below on the left is what I consider a "nice" clean copy.  Moving left to right is one with ink levels that left it looking faded, then a slant cut, and finally on the far right a copy that was miscut on the top/bottom enough to show the top of the card below it (which would be Paul Molitor).   They're a little curved, but in my experience that eventually goes away once I get them sorted.  The slant cut card is odd enough that I'll move it into my pile of manufacturing errors.  The others, while unique, will be sorted with the others and stashed away like the ark at the end of the first Indiana Jones film.

I reached out to the seller to inquire why he (or she) had so many copies '84 Topps and '83 Fleer (and to see if they had any other lots they wanted to part with) but never heard back.  Someone spent a lot of time sorting these though and did a pretty good job too.  However, the five cards below did get mixed into the lot.  I can see how that would be a common slip up with the pink vertical "Expos" looking similar while breaking down nearly 800 completes sets worth of cards.  Hopefully this person cashed in on their Mattingly's and Strawberry's back during the feeding frenzy on them around 1989 or so.

Updated Total

1984 Topps: 1,224

Sportlots Pick-Up

Guess how many cards that is?  If you guessed 341, that's pretty impressive, but I'm sorry you still don't win anything.  I recently relieved a seller of his inventory of Tim Wallach baseball cards on Sportlots.com.  The phots above are a quick look at the haul.  I'm guessing I had probably hit this seller up once before at some point in some previous year,  and bought out all his early Topps and Fleer.  I'm not sure else how to explain why there was such a rich vein (to use a gold miners term) of early 80's Donruss to be had, yet aside from a nice pocket of 1985 Fleer, nothing else to be found for Topps or Fleer.

There were some nice little milestones and oddities to be found in this purchase.  The 31 new 1982 Donruss pushed that cards total over the 200 mark.  Donruss still trails Fleer (242) and Topps (1,187) in the rookie card totals, but it just gained a lot of ground.  1983 Donruss, 1984 Donruss,  1985 Donruss, 1991 Leaf, 1991 Stadium Club, and 1994 Topps all reached the 100 card threshold, and 1985 Fleer is now just outside of it.

The 33 '84 Donruss are more copies of that card than I have picked up in the last five years combined.  That's a set (like '89 Upper Deck) that I theorize people hoard more than they probably need to.  I believe it's an artificial "scarcity."  The 37 1985 Donruss increased my total by nearly 50%, and 41 1991 Stadium Club increased my total by 58% (after not picking up a single copy in 2017).  The Panini Canadian Top 15 was the biggest increase, the 17 new copies more than tripled my total bringing it up to 22.  I know this may seem counter intuitive to my stated mission, but it bruises my "ego" a little when ever I find a seller has more copies of a card available than I have in my collection.  Thankfully, that doesn't happen very often anymore, and each time it does, it becomes that much less likely to happen again.

As far as rare stuff, there was some of that too.  1985 Leaf was the first copy I've come by since 2015.   The 1988 Red Foley Sticker (in the blue b.p. jersey) was only my second copy ever and first since 2014, and the 1991 Red Foley was also my first since 2014.

All in all, it was a nice little pick-up and good way to start the year.

Updated Totals:

1982 Donruss x31: 204
1983 Donruss x22: 125
1984 Donruss x33: 150
1985 Donruss x37: 115
1985 Fleer x25: 94
1985 Leaf: 31
1988 O-Pee-Chee: 14
1988 Red Foley: 3
1990 Upper Deck x6: 258
1991 Bowman x7: 57
1991 Donruss x10: 240
1991 Donruss MVP x8: 215
1991 Fleer x4: 167
1991 Leaf x16: 104
1991 Panini Canadian Top 15 x17: 22
1991 Red Foley: 2
1991 Stadium Club x41: 111
1991 Ultra x2: 74
1992 Bowman USA x10: 52
1992 Donruss x12: 182
1992 O-Pee-Chee x3: 19
1992 Ultra x9: 126
1993 Topps x4: 148
1994 Topps x20: 107
1995 Topps x12: 47
1995 Topps Cyber Stats x4: 19
1994 Score Gold Rush x3: 12
1996 Collector's Choice Silver: 7

Large Sportlots Purchase

I realize I haven't been posting a whole lot of cards of late.  It was starting to bug me, so I went ahead and unloaded on the seller with the largest number of remaining Wallach cards on Sportlots.com.  "Jessecar" is now 717 cards Wallach cards lighter, and my total is now well over 12,000. 

It's always a little weird when I make a large purchase like this.  It's a bit annoying to think that some dealer had more 1990 Leaf Wallach cards sitting around in a box, than I had after actively trying to amass them for 20 years.  But each time it happens, I figure it's that less likely to happen again.  "Jessecar" was able to sell me 37 1990 Leaf Wallach cards.  I only had 30 previously.  However now I have 67, so the odds of someone having 67+ is pretty slim.  I take some solace in that.  Then again, finding someone able to sell me more wouldn't be a bad thing either.  

The cards arrived in the boxes seen above.  I really like the way these boxes look inverted, and am thinking that going forward, I'll be doing the same with my boxes.  Below are some shots of the actual cards.  I didn't go to crazy with the photos, but it's enough for you to get the idea.  Updated totals are also listed below.

Updated Totals:

1982 Topps x36: 426
1983 Topps Stickers x16: 29
1984 All-Star Game Insert: 7
1984 Topps x9: 185
1985 Leaf x4: 27
1986 Donruss AS x2: 10
1986 Leaf x5: 20
1986 Sportflics x2: 7
1986 Topps x5: 163
1986 Topps AS x4: 390
1987 Donruss x73: 338
1987 Donruss Opening Day x2: 19
1987 Fleer x37: 138
1987 Hostess: 2
1987 Leaf x16: 37
1987 Red Foley: 2
1987 Sportflics x14: 35
1987 Topps Tiffany: 15
1988 Donruss x10: 570
1988 Donruss AS x9: 28
1988 Donruss Baseball's Best x12: 28
1988 Fleer x12: 186
1988 Fleer Award Winners x2: 18
1988 Fleer Glossy x2: 5
1988 Fleer MVP x2: 8
1988 Fleer Star Stickers x24: 67
1988 Hostess Disc: 2
1988 KayBee x5: 23
1988 Leaf x4: 32
1988 Red Foley: 2
1988 Score x4: 189
1988 Topps Big x17: 38
1988 Topps Glossy Send-Ins x4: 12
1988 Topps Mini x9: 22
1988 Topps Stickers x13: 16
1988 Topps UK Mini x59: 75
1989 Bowman x28: 113
1989 Donruss: 211
1989 Donruss Baseball's Best x5: 12
1989 Fleer x12: 178
1989 Fleer Glossy: 4
1989 K-Mart x5: 28
1989 Red Foley x2: 3
1989 Score x8: 118
1989 Upper Deck x51: 135
1990 Donruss x2: 195
1990 Fleer x5: 193
1990 Leaf x37: 67
1990 Panini: 3
1990 Red Foley: 3
1990 Topps x6: 249
1990 U.S. Playing Cards x10: 21
1991 Topps x2: 117
1991 Topps Cracker Jack x3: 5
1991 Upper Deck x5: 145
1991 Upper Deck CL x3: 100
1992 Bowman x9: 34
1992 Leaf Black Gold x2: 7
1992 Pinnacle x26: 54
1992 Red Foley: 2
1992 Topps x8: 119
1992 Topps Micro x3: 6
1992 Upper Deck x7: 157
1993 Donruss McDonald's x4: 7
1994 Finest: 4
1994 Leaf Limited x8: 11
1994 Pacific: 6
1994 SP: 28
1994 SP Die-Cut x4: 10
1994 Stadium Club Rainbow x8: 10
1994 Topps Gold x11: 23
1994 Upper Deck Electric Gold x5: 10
1995 Collector's Choice SE Silver x3: 7
1995 Score Gold Rush x2: 6
1996 Collector's Choice Ser.1 Silver x2: 5
1996 Collector's Choice Ser.2 Silver x3: 5 

Huge Purchase via Sports Card Forum

For the 2nd time since creating on account on the site about a year ago, I successfully negotiated a large purchase through "SportsCardForum.com."  This purchase was from a user named "Bobby."  If your serious about buying large quantities of cards, he asked me to go ahead and give out his email, so contact me if you want to send him a need/want list.  I found him to be reasonable with his prices, easy to communicate with, and quick to ship.

This purchase ended up being for 1,096 cards (135 different).  I never really know what to expect when making a purchase like this.  I'm always surprised by something.  In this case, it was the '88 Leaf Canadian Great card.  For whatever reason, it's been very elusive to me and I only had 3 copies, until 19 additional ones arrived with this group of cards.  The Canadian Greats are probably the high point of this purchase for me.  There was also a Near Mint copy of the 1994 Upper Deck Electric Diamond, a card I previously only had one copy of and my copy had a significant crease(s) running through the middle.

 

These cards arrived in one flat rate box, with three rectangle boxes and an envelope of '89 Bowman neatly packed inside.  Thankfully they were already sorted by year/brand making my job of integrating them with the rest of my Wallach collection much easier.

 


There were a handful of statistical milestones reached with the arrival of these cards.  Which probably doesn't mean much to anyone besides me, but my love baseball cards is rooted in the love of the numbers on the back as much as anything else, so for the purposes of this site and my collection, I find them to be very important.

10,000 Total Cards - This is going to get it's own post, but it's a huge milestone for me
1988 Donruss 540 copies - '88 Donruss has moved past '87 Topps for the most abundant card in my collection.  '87 Topps had been my most abundant card for over 20 years.  Both cards also became the first ones to break the 500 copy threshold with '87 Topps coming in at 506.
400 Club - The 1988 Topps base card broke the 400 mark, upping my total to 401.
200 Club - The 1985 Topps base card reached 218 copies.
100 Club - The 1989 Score card came in at 100 on the nose

Updated Totals for all Cards in the purchase:
1982 Donruss x2: 138
1982 Fleer x4: 56
1982 Topps x8: 377
1983 Fleer x6: 68
1983 Topps x3: 158
1984 Fleer x10: 77
1984 Topps x8: 152
1985 Donruss x14: 66
1985 Fleer x4: 44
1985 Leaf x8: 21
1985 Topps x26: 218
1986 Donruss x20: 96
1986 Fleer x18: 90
1986 Leaf x8: 11
1986 Topps x6: 138
1986 Topps AS x26: 294
1987 Donruss x31: 254 
1987 Fleer x3: 87
1987 Leaf x5: 13
1987 O-Pee-Chee x3: 8
1987 Topps x10: 506
1987 Topps Stickers x3: 4
1988 Donruss x70: 540
1988 Donruss AS x6: 16
1988 Donruss Baseball Best x2: 11
1988 Fleer x14: 168
1988 Fleer Baseball AS x5: 8
1988 Fleer Star Sticker x 11: 40
1988 Leaf x15: 26
1988 Leaf Canadian Great x 19: 22
1988 Score x16: 169
1988 Sportflics: 4
1988 Topps x11: 401
1988 Topps AS x36: 336
1988 Topps Glossy Send-in: 3
1988 Topps UK mini: 11
1989 Bowman x31: 77
1989 Donruss x17: 179
1989 Fleer x11: 149
1989 Score x11: 100
1989 Topps x12: 325
1989 Upper Deck x4: 73
1990 Bowman x13: 43
1990 Donruss x13: 189
1990 Fleer x33: 171
1990 Score x9: 116
1990 Topps x14: 199
1990 Upper Deck x8: 120
1990 Leaf x3: 24
1991 Bowman: x10: 27
1991 Donruss x14: 91
1991 Donruss MVP x9: 81
1991 Fleer x12: 64
1991 Leaf x11: 46
1991 O-Pee-Chee Premier x3: 15
1991 Panini Top 15: 4
1991 Score x10: 79
1991 Score Franchise x20: 66
1991 Stadium Club: 32
1991 Studio x4: 32
1991 Topps x13: 94
1991 Ultra x3: 27
1991 Upper Deck x27: 127
1991 Upper Deck Team CL x5: 86
1992 Bowman x2: 22
1992 Bowman Gold: 20
1992 Donruss x9: 86
1992 Fleer x12: 41
1992 Leaf x5: 27
1992 Pinnacle x4: 23
1992 Score x14: 30
1992 Stadium Club x2: 8
1992 Studio x4: 14
1992 Topps x14: 90
1992 Topps Kids x15: 25
1992 Triple Play: 41
1992 Ultra x5: 78
1992 Upper Deck x10: 136
1993 Donruss x2: 43
1993 Flair x2: 16
1993 Fleer x6: 20
1993 Leaf x16: 34
1993 Panini x4: 9
1993 Score: 14
1993 Score Select x6: 16
1993 Stadium Club x3: 22
1993 Studio x5: 21
1993 Topps x12: 62
1993 Topps Gold: 22
1993 Triple Play x7: 22
1993 Ultra x10: 21
1993 Upper Deck x11: 44
1994 Collector's Choice x4: 19
1994 Donruss x5: 22
1994 Fleer x8: 23
1994 Leaf x5: 22
1994 Pinnacle x7: 19
1994 Score x12: 38
1994 Score Select x2: 14
1994 SP x3: 22
1994 Stadium Club x4: 18
1994 Studio x3: 13
1994 Topps x7: 46
1994 Topps Gold x4: 11
1994 Triple Play x8: 24
1994 Ultra x12: 23
1994 Upper Deck: 47
1994 Upper Deck Electric: 2
1995 Bazooka x6: 17
1995 Collector's Choice SE x3: 14
1995 Donruss x3: 20
1995 Flair x2: 10
1995 Fleer x3: 13
1995 Leaf x4: 12
1995 Leaf Limited: 3
1995 Pinnacle x4: 16
1995 Score x3: 22
1995 Stadium Club: 12
1995 Studio x2: 14
1995 Topps x4: 22
1995 Topps Cyber Stats: 7
1995 Topps D3 x5: 10
1995 Topps Embossed x3: 6
1995 Ultra x7: 25
1995 Upper Deck x2: 17
1996 Collector's Choice ser.1: 9 
1996 Collector's Choice ser.1 Silver x2: 3
1996 Collector's Choice ser.2: 7
1996 Donruss: 12
1996 Flair Gold: 2
1996 Ultra: 3
1997 Collector's Choice x7: 13
2003 Topps Fan Favorite's: 9
2005 Topps Rookie Cup: 32

Minor League Card Lot Purchase

The above package of cards may not look like much, but it's probably the single greatest package of Wallach cards I have ever received.  It's only 32 cards, 8 different.  But those three of those 8, are three cards I didn't previously have, and a fourth is a major upgrade of a card I only had one of.  I don't know if I've ever received three Wallach cards I didn't already have at one time.  Perhaps twenty years ago when new cards were coming out, but certainly not since the inception of this blog.  Three of the four cards in this package that I did already have, were cards I only had one of.  Everything about this package was awesome.

I stumbled upon this website almost by mistake.  I clicked on some random card blog that I'm pretty sure I had never read before and it mentioned this site that sells minor league cards.  It's very bare bones.  Nothing to browse.  Just an email address.  So I went ahead and sent an email to the guy, and he responded, quickly.  A week later this arrived in my mailbox.  Despite the barebones website, the package was very slick.  You can see the custom paper the cards are wrapped in, and the sleeve with the MiLB hologram (probably recycled from a team set, but who cares).  If you collect a particular player, I strongly encourage you to check out the site and send Dave Weber an email, click the banner below:

Below are the cards I received.  I intentionally obscurred four of them.  They'll be the subject of upcoming post.  But as you can see, my Albuquerque Isotope collection just grew considerably.  Thank you Dave.

Updated Totals:

2009 DAV x4:  5

2009 Multi Ad x4:  5

2010 DAV x3:  4

2010 Multi Ad x3:  13

Large Purchase Aug. 2012

 I picked up a large lot of Wallach's from a dealer out of the Pacific North West who will remain anonymous.  A little over a 1,000 cards.  I'd say 2/3 of them are from '88 and earlier which is great.  Nothing new in the group, and some odd exclusions (i.e. lots of '91 UD, but none of the '91 UD Checklist) but anytime I can pick up a lot this large at a reasonable price is a welcomed event.