11 Random New Arrivals

It's getting to the point now where if a new card arrives at the house, I feel I've got to somehow scan it and talk about it here on the Card Hemorrhage blog, before filing it into its proper place in a box or a binder. That can't be healthy, can it? Validate from within? 

Anyway, here's a random assortment of things that I've picked up in various places the past ten days or so. I've got a real soft spot for these 2020 Onyx prospect cards, and if I can grab a guy like Richard Gallardo who just might be the next Nolan Ryan, and grab him for cheap, then why not, right? I've not heard of Mr. Gallardo, but he's in the Cubs organization, and did not get the call to the big club in 2020, which meant, due to our current global pandemic, he either had to sit the season out entirely or was dispatched to the Cubs' "alternate site", wherever that was. Let's see him in the bigs in 2021, throwing strikes to everyone except the San Francisco Giants.

Jim at Cards As I See Them blog had a mega Free Card Friday the other day, and somehow I got in fast enough to claim a few ringers. Walker Buehler? Why Walker Buehler? Man, I don't know. I like the guy. He's going to do great things for a while in our sport. Anyway, this 2019 Topps Heritage New Age Performers card is fantastic; I've got 2 more Beuhler cards to show you as well.

Also claimed this 1969 Topps Giants card of a Giants backup catcher named Bob Barton from the same Jim/Cards as I See Them Free Card Friday:

...and these two poorly-scanned, crooked 1972 Clay Carrolls to get me that much closer to completing the '72 Topps set (note: I'm not close at all):

...and this 1957 (!) piece of vintage glory. In this case, it's not me scanning the card poorly - the card itself is actually off-center.

I found another Joey Bart card I didn't have for my player collection, too. This one's a mini from the 2020 Topps 206 collection, with now-major league catcher Bart donning the "tools of ignorance" for the 2019 Richmond Flying Squirrels:

Finally, I just got wise to those 1974 Topps "Hank Aaron Special" cards, and I love 'em. There were six of them, and I bought two of them on eBay this past week. Cards on cards! I'll try and grab the other four in the near future and give 'em a poor scan on the blog once I do.

Card Blogs vs. Card Twitter

I'm definitely not the first to make this observation - in fact, Dime Boxes was spot-on about it just a few posts ago - but man, the tonal differences I've been seeing between card blogs and "cards Twitter" are pretty vast. Whereas the former seems to have a "rising tide lifts all boats / we're all in this together / I'll help you, you help me" sort of low-stakes collector ethos, in which the point is to both personally and collectively celebrate the hobby, the latter is all about BREAKS and ACT FAST and ROOKIES and RESALE and other unsavory things. If I may - can I use the word "douchy", perhaps? In the Twitter world, it's all about nailing (and then maybe flipping) a GAVIN LUX or a WANDER FRANCO or a CASEY MIZE card - except no first names allowed, because of course we all already know about these rookies who have barely sniffed the major leagues. LUX. FRANCO. MIZE. BART. "I just nailed an autographed LUX, bitches! Yeeeeahh! $249 if u want it now".

Include me out. I definitely prefer the more navel-gazing, contemplative world of the true collector/accumulator, and I reckon I've found that world here on the blogs. This is all my way of introducing my new LUX and FRANCO cards that I was able to procure on eBay for not a great deal of money. A few months back I wrote this and this bemused post about Onyx 2020 cards. I really like these cards, honestly, but I don't want to pay the proverbial king's ransom for them. I'm certainly not buying them to get rich somewhere down the road, as if that could happen anyway with a baseball card. My 1979 Topps Wayne Gretzky is probably only about a $500 card now anyway, and it's looking like my mother probably threw that one away back in the mid-80s.

But these Onyx cards are cool, right? One of these fellas becomes a superstar someday, great. So I got the Wander Franco and Gavin Lux cards to go with the ones in my previous blog posts, then added someone who plays in my favorite team's minor league organization whom I've never heard of: Alexander Canario of the San Francisco Giants ballclub. 99 cents on eBay. I think he might be the next Mike Trout. FLIP IT!!

A Few More Onyx Vintage Cards Arrived

Last week we talked a bit in this forum about the 2020 Onyx Vintage set, and how for a bit over $40, I received four prospect cards in their "hobby box". Granted, two of them had autographs, though one was a redemption slip for an autographed Luis Patino card, rather than the card itself. I wonder if they were counting on "breakage"?

I expressed a bit of chagrin about the whole thing, while also celebrating that these are beautiful cards and that feature every team's top 1-2 prospects, along with a few legendary players done up in the same style. I'm not sure I'll be buying a second hobby box - but let me say for the record that Onyx immediately redeemed my slip for the Patino autographed card, as you'll see to your left. Got it in yesterday's mail.

But then check this out. The entire reason I got interested in Onyx Vintage in the first place because they had a lovely card of San Francisco Giants prospect Joey Bart - whom I collect. I bought the hobby box for fortysomething dollars because I was hoping to land that card. I did not land that card. So I looked on eBay for a single. They're definitely out there, and most of the completed auctions for it are closing around $15 for the card.

Yet I saw another auction for 4 Onyx Vintage 2020 cards that started bidding at $2.25 - including the Joey Bart card. What the hell, I bid on the thing. Figured it would bid up to at least $15, and yet....I won the auction for $2.25. That's a bit better than I did on the hobby box, despite that these four cards don't have autographs. Ah, I'll just go to a bunch of minor league games this year with the cards in my hands and get the autographs myself, and......oh wait.

So here are my 4 new Onyx cards. I know Mackenzie Gore - he's supposed to be a beast of a pitching prospect for the Padres (have I ever mentioned that if the Giants don't win their division, it's the Padres I want to lose to? Always. Still true). I like $2.25 for four cards better than $40+ for four cards, how about you?

Got One Of Those Onyx Boxes Today

I took a flyer on a 2020 "Hobby Box" from Onyx Vintage, and got it in the mail this morning. I'd seen a scan of a Joey Bart card online, and immediately wanted not only that card, but the whole friggin' set. I'm not entirely sure that when I ordered these, I'd comprehended that there are only four cards in a $40+ hobby box. Here's what Beckett has to say about the 2020 Onyx Vintage set:

"2020 Onyx Vintage Baseball doesn’t get its checklist. Rather, it’s the look and vibe the cards give off. That said there is a small number of names that bring a retro vibe to the possibilities. The rest? Several of the top young players and prospects in the game today.
Hobby boxes are small, carrying just four cards. Two of them are autographs, though.

This isn’t an overly complicated set. For starters, the checklist is kept small to just over 30 players. It’s primarily prospect driven but there are a couple of young MLB players and a trio of retired greats as well."

Mine arrived in a well-designed cardboard box with a plush insert to hold those four cards together. Hey, I knew that there were only 32 cards in the total set, so wasn't expecting 32 cards, but I really did skim the fine print on this one, much like the terms & conditions we routinely breeze through on our app agreements and on everything else.

Listen, if Kristian Robinson turns into Trout 2.0, all is forgiven. Likewise with these other young men. Here are the other two I got, a couple of Valeras:

 

 

The fourth and final card is actually just a redemption slip for another autographed card from a prospect, this one for Luis Patino of the San Diego Padres - whom I've actually heard of; a "live arm" who was supposed to be potentially be up in the bigs right about now. Except there's no baseball. At least there are the cards, and the people who frantically buy them with one click without looking at the fine print.