An Out of the Blue Ernie

In the past week lamented that I didn't own a Ernie Banks card. While going through some cards tonight attempting to get organized I found out that I was mistaken.

That a 1958 Topps All-Star. It appears that someone had this card taped to the wall. Other than that it's in great shape. I love the colors on this specific subset; the blue background is about as flashy as 1950s Topps ever got.

Ernie holds a special place in my heart. Not only was he Mr. Cub, but he always spent the first four years of his career here in Kansas City with the Monarchs.

I'm certainly glad that I had that I picked this up, even if I didn't remember that I had it.

1974 Topps Need List

One of the goals I made when I rejoined the hobby in 2008 was to put together Topps sets starting in the year of my birth, 1983, and work my way back to 1952. As of January 2015 I've completed 1983 through 1976 and am halfway done with 1975.

Here's the first completed page:

1975 is complete.

I've moved on to 1974. My needs are as follows:

1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 14, 20, 27, 36, 38, 47, 51, 56, 58, 61, 69, 70, 91, 100, 116, 122, 126, 127, 131, 137, 142, 144, 151, 152, 165, 168, 173, 181, 182, 184, 192, 198, 206, 211, 217, 232, 245, 251, 258, 263, 270, 277, 283, 293, 300, 334, 341, 347, 350, 356, 370, 383, 397, 399, 406, 410, 414, 435, 440, 450, 456, 459, 485, 487, 504, 517, 522, 529, 530, 566, 567, 569, 575, 578, 599, 605, 610, 636, 637, 652, 657

Updated 1/6/2016

2008 Topps Silk Needs List

One of the main reasons I've kept up with cards through the collecting highs and lows since my return to the hobby in 2008 is my desire to finish the impossible: put together the complete collection of 2008 Topps Silk cards. That's 200 cards, all numbered to 50.

I first mentioned putting together this set on one of my old blogs back in November of 2010. At that time I had 70 of the 200 cards. I'm now up to 199. You can find the gallery on the right.

Here's what I still need:

#5 - Ken Griffey Jr.
#6 - Nick Markakis
#8 - Erik Bedard
#11 - Yovani Gallardo
#25 - Cole Hamels
#31 - Mark Buehrle
#37 - Adam Dunn
#45 - Alfonso Soriano
#54 - Chien-Ming Wang
#67 - Ubaldo Jimenez
#72 - John Smoltz
#74 - Ryan Braun
#100 - Ryan Howard
#190 - Evan Longoria
#199 - Josh Hamilton

Updated 4/24/23

Another year, another relaunch

Hello. This is Greg, aka @grogg, formerly of Lake Effect Cards and Nearly Mint (at wordpress). I'm starting this site as a clean slate for me to discuss topics in more than 140 characters. Primarily I'll use it as a way to track and document my baseball card collection, but I'll likely touch on records and other things, too.

One thing that I enjoy doing is making galleries of sets so that I can see what I own without digging my cards out of the closet. You'll find these galleries on the right side, along with the standard wantslists and blogrolls you've come to expect from blogs of this ilk. I also hope to develop a few regular feature ideas I have floating around in my head, as we all know that it's easier to blog when you have a set idea to expound on.

As my friend @giantspod put it, this has been my "hey guys, I'm really going to post here" post. Now comes the hard part. Posting here.

@grogg that's always the best part. And I always lead off with an optimistic "hey guys I'm really gonna post here" column

— Danny, TGaGaaCB (@GiantsPod) January 28, 2015