TwitterYoutube





Huge Mail Day – Bat Barrel Card Showing Point of Impact!

Years ago, I picked up my first bat barrel card.  I was super excited about it, but if I am being honest, I didn't really think much about one bat barrel being better than another.  A few years back, I sold it (along with most of my collection), and jumped out of my skin when I had the chance to pick up my first barrel again - I even have the recording of when it was pulled on Youtube saved on my computer! To me, this card is perfect.  The bat company name and nameplate are perfectly centered, and the

Read More

Putting a T205 Gold Border Christy Mathewson Under a Microscope

I've always loved T206 white borders.  The thought of having something to do with my favorite sport/hobby that predates both world wars was always intriguing to me.  Plus, the T206s are the most famous sports cards in history. A tobacco card issue that has always been in the T206's shadow is the 1911 T205 Gold Border.  In spite of the fact that it is numerical before T206, it was actually issued after.  The number designation given by Jefferson Burdick was a reference to the alphabetical order (Gold vs. White). The T205 Gold Border is much rarer than the T206 -

Read More

I’ve Acquired the ENTIRE 1919-21 W514 Complete Set – Babe Ruth, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Black Sox Set & Customs!

The 1919-21 W514 issue is a set of cards that has always intrigued me.  There are a number of key cards, and fantastic stories!  Being that the set is now 100+ years old, it also feels like history. Created right after World War 1, the simplistic artwork and low quality card stock serve as reminders of America dealing with the aftermath of WW1. Due to their meteoric rise in price recently, I sold my W514 Shoeless Joe Jackson and Babe Ruth.  The money was great, but I was sad to see them go.  I caught wind of an auction house

Read More

A Boy and His Collection – A Parable

Here is a parable that I wrote!  I draw this partially from personal experience, but think and hope you all can connect with this too. Listen to the audio version here!   Let me tell you a story of a little boy who went exploring with his family in the woods. Once upon a time, a family took a trip to go hiking in the woods.  They happened upon a stream of cold, crystal clear water.  The little boy was fascinated by the shallow stream, and crouched down to get a better look at the bed of the stream.  What he

Read More

Showing off my Custom Transformers Collection

I'm known for TL;DR articles, so I have posted the pics of my collection first, and posted the article below them.  If you love reading back stories and such, I hope you enjoy it.  If you just love eye candy, no hard feelings :)  Note the tag "Tanner Toys Collection" is to pay homage to an idea my parents had decades ago - they always thought it would be cool to start a toy store called Tanner Toys.  It never happened, so this is my tribute to them. If you collect anything, you are pretty much going to be labeled

Read More

Bringing a $200,000 19th Century Advertisement To Life

I think I now understand why why I get so romantic over 19th century baseball cards and collectibles.  They give a rich and vivid voice to a time period that has been largely forgotten by yesterday's fans and collectors - and unknown to fans and collectors of the present. Baseball and baseball card collecting in the 1800s is fascinating - there is no shortage of fun stories and history that have come out of this time period.  In the pictures below, you will see the likenesses of hall of famers, baseball pioneers, and players who reached larger than life celebrity

Read More

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

Read More

1909-13 M101-2 Sporting News Supplements – PSA Graded Beauties!

There's no way around it.  When you are going after something rare at auction you love, and you lose, it sucks.  You can internalize it as "the one that got away".  That's where our story begins. 1909-13 M101-2 Sporting News Supplements About a month or so back, I was browsing an auction house website and came across a near complete set (96/100) of an extremely beautiful issue offered over 100 years ago. Measuring in at nearly 8x10, the 100 piece set was inserted at a rate of one every other issue from 1909 to 1913 of Sporting News.  They feature

Read More

My 19th Century Custom Quarantine Project!

My 19th Century Custom Quarantine Project! First, I'll give it to you short and sweet.  If you want to read the entire article, keep scrolling, but if you don't care about the labor pains and just want to see the baby, here you go! I was alerted to an Iowa find that unearthed an 1889 Goodwin A35 Round Album - each Round has more in common with baseball cards than they do album pages.  They are considered to be the most premium baseball issue to come out of the 19th century and had been lost to the hobby for about

Read More

Transformers and Voltron

Hey guys!  I don't know why, but the nostalgia bug has bitten me hard.  I was susceptible to it anyway, being a baseball card junkie (I wrote a book "Confessions of a Baseball Card Addict") - no doubt, people thought I was a nerd.  Then, I started looking at Transformers & Voltron.  Nerd level ratched up to 10! I don't recall watching the cartoon much at all, but even as an adult, I always thought the concept of having a robot toy transform into a vehicle was brilliant.  Having several robots that can transform into a bigger robot?  Beyond brilliant. 

Read More

Archives