Black Friday Shopping and Cubs Mailday
It's been three years since I really dove in head first into the hobby world. Despite being a collector (off and on) since the late 1980's, I generally ignored the hobby world outside my own collecting.
On occasion, I would perk up with hobby news, such as the Alex Gordon rookie card craze in 2006. At that time blaster boxes were $10 and I was flipping them by the dozen for $40. Beginning in 2015 and 2016, I started closely following the Blowout Cards Forums and Black Friday 2016 was my introduction to the hobby sales.
Even as a Black Friday rookie that year, I did very well as I highlight my 2011 Topps Heritage Minors purchase in this post. It was a lot of fun waking up at 5 a.m. getting the coffee going, and keeping up with the Blowout Forums and waiting for the next sale to pop up every five minutes.
As the hobby got hot, the sales got cold in the years since, and it seems this year's Black Friday will go down as a big letdown. First, as I fired up my laptop and had the coffee going next to me, Blowout changed their sales. Instead of firing off one sale at a time, it released sales in waves of 40 items.
There is good, and there is bad with this type of Black Friday sale. If you were looking for a particular item, you could log on at one time and find it as opposed to being married to your computer/tablet/phone for half the day. On the flip side, that was the fun I had. Instead of paying attention to the sales, I drifted away and it was out of sight/out of mind.
I did make a couple purchases. The most recent Topps Heritage Minors release from 2019 was on sale for $40 per box. I bought six boxes. One will be opened, and the other five will sit sealed for a while. The other purchase was a few boxes of 2017 Elite Extra Edition at $30 per box. These will be opened.
My mailbox also had some packages of Cubs baseball cards. Three boxes arrived from Indiana, Washington, and Arizona. Ty in Seattle sent a package that had some Kris Bryant Topps insert cards.
Another Kris Bryant, and this one is sparkly. It's from 2019 Donruss and it's an Action All Stars.
A 2018 Topps rainbow foil Willson Contreras.
And the hit! A 2019 Topps Heritage silver foil David Bote. These parallels were new to the 2019 product. I pulled an Eloy Jimenez from a blaster box (I did sell it on eBay shortly after pulling it). These are a pretty cool addition to the product.
Dustin Jr. in Arizona is a 10-year old trader. His dad says he's really been working the room at card shows trading for Cubs cards to send my way. How cool is that?! He also made this really cool piece of art to send me.
Dustin's package included over 100 Cubs baseball cards. Maybe it's just for sentimental reasons, but I really like seeing current cards featuring Kerry Wood. I love Ryne Sandberg, Andre Dawson, and Ernie Banks....but do we really need cards of them in every product these days? I say no. Give other former Cubs a chance like Kid K.
Hey, look at this. A Mark Grace 1988 Topps Traded rookie card.
Long before little Dustin was born, and his dad too, Bob Buhl pitched for the Cubs. This is a 1964 Topps card of Buhl.
An Albert Almora 2019 Topps with the 150 Years stamp.
I've said it before, I love Panini Chronicles. Here are some Javier Baez cards from the 2019 Panini Chronicles set.
Mike in Indiana and I have completed a few trades, and this was our latest. One card I have never seen before is a 1999 Topps Finest Sammy Sosa Leading Indicators insert. It also still has the "Peel From Corner" film on the front side of the card.
A new Javier Baez card for my collection from 2019 Diamond Kings.
Duane Underwood autograph! Very cool!
And a Kyle Schwarber rookie jersey relic from 2016 Donruss.
One Million Cubs Project Stats Friday's (11/29/2019) Cards: 408
Friday's (11/29/2019) Packages: 3
January's Cubs Count: 9,343
February's Cubs Count: 8,980
March's Cubs Count: 15,704
April's Cubs Count: 11,651
May's Cubs Count: 7,273
June's Cubs Count: 7,690
July's Cubs Count: 10,803
August's Cubs Count: 11,929
September's Cubs Count: 9,127
October's Cubs Count: 15,675
November's Cubs Count: 26,656
Total Trades/Donations: 308
Trade States of Origin: Arizona (6) Alabama (5)
Arkansas California (22)
Colorado (5) Connecticut (17)
Delaware (2)
Florida (11)
Georgia (3)
Idaho (3) Illinois (29) Indiana (8)
Iowa (2)
Kansas
Kentucky (2)
Louisiana Maryland (12) Massachusetts (11)
Michigan (2) Minnesota (4)
Mississippi
Missouri (5)
Nebraska (2)
Nevada (2)
New Hampshire (2) New Jersey (15)
New Mexico (4) New York (29) North Carolina (6)
North Dakota Ohio (18)
Oregon (3) Pennsylvania (9)
Rhode Island (2)
South Carolina (2)
South Dakota Tennessee (8) Texas (10)
Utah
Vermont (5)
Virginia (2) Washington (6)
Washington, DC
West Virginia (7) Wisconsin (12)
Countries of Origin
Canada (1)
Korea (2)