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Showing off Customs & Cards While our AC is Busted

Greetings from mission control - where the lights are off, and game 2 of the ALCS is blaring so I can hear it above the 2 fans pointed at me.  The ALDS nearly killed me.  When you spend the first 12 years of your life as an A's fan in California, but have 28 years of Houston life under your belt, it is confusing who to root for.  This totally describes me last week. I was sad the A's lost, but it was a REALLY entertaining series.  The sheer amount of bombs hit makes me wonder if the playoff balls

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Custom Baseball Cards for Weddings, Anniversary Gifts, Births, etc.

Creating customs of monumental personal life events is my favorite.  Don't get me wrong, I LOVE creating Canseco customs for my personal collection and such, but there is something about creating anniversary gifts, baby births, etc.  I wanted to share a few here!  If you are interested in having one done for you, contact me at tanmanbaseballfan@gmail.com :) Wedding Anniversary Gift This was actually done as part of a trade to get some Canseco cards in my collection :)  My buddy sent over a few photographs and some relics from his wedding.  I created this! There are six pieces shown,

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BIGGEST Mailday/Week Ever! Pre-War Collection Reboot

If you are reading this anywhere near the time I have published this article, you may have a number of fears and concerns.  The Coronavirus has certainly changed the world we live in - at least temporarily.  As a baseball fan, one concern that afflicts you but maybe not anyone else around you is the delay of the season. As baseball fans, we endure the long, hard road from November until Spring Training.  When it gets here, it is like a breath of fresh air.  This is not something that has been afforded to us yet, so we wait with

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Creating Custom Rainbow Albert Pujols Extensions

Today marks the 31st anniversary of when I started collecting baseball cards, so I decided to have some fun! Things have gotten a little crazy these days with rainbows, but I can completely understand the allure of them.  As collectors, we oftentimes want to collect until completion.  Whether that is an insert set, full set, team set or even whatever theme we want to go after.  Having a goal to complete something - and completing it - feels good.  It gives our hobby some sense of purpose. Here is a rainbow I'm working on currently - I still need the

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Christmas, Customs & Nostalgia

Man, what a year!  Seriously.  2019 has been quite the ride from a hobby perspective.  This year, I have made appearances on various radio stations, was featured on television, published in Beckett Sports Monthly, designed my first official "real" baseball card set, and even became a pod caster! Book sales have been going well in my first year as an official author.  While I sell my book on Amazon, I've also had a number of folks reach out to purchase a signed a copy directly from me.  I thought it would be fun to do a graphic of the US

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Check Out this Website I Built!

If you don't know this already, I've been a website developer for nearly 20 years.  I started off by going door to door handing out flyers on my lunch break when I was in a job I HATED.  Eventually, I made a go of it on my own, and haven't looked back. Somewhere along the way, I got excruciatingly bored with building websites.  Then, it clicked.  My passion wasn't to build websites (though I was really good at it.)  My passion was to help others (in both business and ministry) - I could use my skills as a web developer

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My Jose Canseco Collection – In a Three Part Video Series!

Call it off-season depression, or whatever you want, but I am going through baseball withdrawal and figured now would be a good time to do what I've been wanting to do for quite a while.  I've been looking forward to putting together a video series of my Canseco collection post-supercollectordom.  I can hardly believe it, but it has been a year and a half since I stopped my relentless search for each and every card depicting the 40-40 man.  Time flies when you are having fun ... and having a baby :) BTW, Beckett is six months old today, and

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2 AM Project – I created a Homer Simpson Custom Card out of Junk Mail

You've heard of junk wax cards ... how about junk mail cards? Have you ever been thankful for a piece of junk mail?  Me neither, that is, until a few days ago.  When it came in, I knew the material looked familiar.  I held it up to a 2011 Topps Diamond Anniversary card, and sure enough - it was the same material ... just green! When I started doing customs, I would always look at different materials and wonder to myself what could be used to create customs that would be fun.  No joke, I'd literally be standing in the

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Before There Were Baseball Cards

Listening to a good baseball game on the radio is like soul food for my ears.  As a numbers guy, I find myself oftentimes looking up statistics from players and teams while I've tuned in.  My brain will run statistical scenarios on current players to see how they may stack up against our heroes of the past.  Doing this got me to thinking how in tune we are to the game and its players, and how card collecting helps bridge the gap from being a fan to feeling truly connected. On September 1st, Justin Verlander pitched a no-hitter.  I heard

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Custom Art Piece Created using Andrew McCutchen’s Dreadlock!

It has been a while since I've posted a custom, and I thought some folks may get a kick out of this so I figured I'd post it! From the charity auction ... The cut dreadlock The pieces ... Front... ...and back! (With embedded MLB authenticated hologram) Hopefully McCutchen will sign on the acetate just under the dreadlock, which will finish the project off quite nicely! Creepy? Cool? Maybe a little of both, but I enjoyed the heck out of putting this one together :)

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