A Single Of Paul Konerko

This 1994 Upper Deck Minors is the only Paul Konerko card I have ever decided to keep.

Glad I did as he's had a great career.

And in my lifetime, after Frank Thomas, when I think of the black White Sox jersey I think of Paul Konerko.

Konerko vs Angels pitching:

.289/24/71 in 130 games.

Pretty close to owning them.

Completed Angels Team Set - 1970-1992 Kellogg's

So, probably a good 6 months ago I was able to finally finish all of my Kellogg's Angels Team sets.
I didn't want to take the route of posting them a set at a time but had always intended on doing all the sets as one post. I thought it would be more cool like that.  It was a massive and long-time effort to get this collection done.

Unless I missed the post, I think Night Owl was still working on the finishing touches of his Dodgers Kellogg's team sets post as well.  And I know for a fact that his post will be (or was) much more interesting that this will be.  He's much more personal, I'm more of just the facts, Man.

Let's see what Kellogg's provided in the way of Angels cards for 14 straight years, plus 2 more later.

1970

First issue of Kellogg's cards, and a great issue at that.

Single cards came in boxes of cereal, but a set could be had through the mail.

Kellogg's cards are notorious for curling and cracking, that's why I keep mine in hard top-loaders.

Fortunately I found two cards without cracks for this inaugural team set.

1971

These are considered the scarcest of the Kellogg's issues as it was not offered on a mail-in basis.

If you wanted a set of these you bought a lot of cereal.

There were a lot of variations in the information on the backs of this issue as well.

I figured if I have at least one of each Angel I was good for the set.

1972

Less cards in this Angels set and in the set as a whole.

These cards were a bit smaller in size too.

Lots of variations in this set too.

1973

In 1973 Kellogg's took a different path by doing away with the 3-D in an effort to get rid of the cracking a curling problems.

A 54-card set could be had for $1.25 and two Raisin Bran boxtops.

Dang, if I only knew!

1974

Back to the 3-D we all know and love.

Thank you Kellogg's for not giving up on a good thing.

My Nolan Ryan is the worst card of all my Kellogg's Angels.

Hopefully he can be replaced sometime.

1975

These again were a bit scarcer than some of the other issues even though a set could be obtained by mail-in.

The Nolan Ryan cards from Kellogg's were by far the toughest for me to obtain.

Higher prices and lot's of competition on online auctions.

1976

The first 3 cards in the main set were short-printed, but neither of these Angels are one of them.

Kellogg's is starting to deviate from their standard design now too.

The Mickey Rivers card was a tough one to include in the Angels set.

He's not included on most Angels team set lists.

He's pictured as an Angel but the team on back is the New York Yankees the team he would play for in 1976.

I opted to include him.

Shockingly no Nolan Ryan in this set.

1977

Same ol thing here, except this was the last design that had a player photo on the back.

The Grich card has been left off of some Angels team lists since he's in a Orioles uniform even though the back lists his team as the California Angels.

Again, Ryan gets left out.

1978

Tony The Tiger took the place of the player portrait on the back of the card.

Lyman Bostock is pictured in his Twins uniform but his team is listed as California Angels.

1979

First of the narrower designs by Kellogg's.

This made the curling and cracking problems even worse.

Lot's of variations in the stats and copyright logos in this set.

One of my favorite Frank Tanana poses.

1980

Still even narrower.

I like it though, it's part of what makes the Kellogg's issues so unique.

Ryan makes a comeback on a massively over-produced card.

I think I have no less than 5 in my collection, they could be had so cheap.

1981

From skinny to big overnight.

And no mare buying cereal boxes to get the set which was ONLY available as a mail-in.

1982

Kinda getting back to their roots again as far as design, but still only available by mail-in.

Are gone the days of  the excitement to be had by digging to the bottom of a cereal box to reach that card?

1983

The 14th consecutive year for Kellogg's cards.

And they mended their ways by inserting cards into cereal boxes again.

I went from the age of 6 to 19 during that span

That's a lot of cereal Man.

1992

There was also a Kellogg's 3-D set issued in 1991 that featured Baseball Greats, but apparently no Angels fit that category.

This 1992 set featured All-Stars of which Rod Carew was one.

And cards could be found in boxes of Corn Flakes.

This was the last Kellogg's cereal issue.

Now I need to focus on Hostess!

More Listia To Be Had

Nice little 4-card lot of random Angels.

Titled "LA Angels Young Stars."

Although Trout is not so random.

1997 UD3 PROmotion #22

Unique Salmon card I needed for binder.

2001 Topps WWHT1

Didn't know about this card for the Angels team set.

Happened upon it during a Nolan Ryan search.

Picked up this Angels lot above for this card:

2004 Upper Deck Vintage 272

I've been Oleruding lately too, looking for John Olerud cards I need.

1999 Upper Deck Ovation #8

There's that embossed baseball stitching that I love on cards.

1992 Snyders Washington Sports Heroes #6

2003 Upper Deck Franz Snyders #4

These two came in a lot that included other Sports Heroes and Snyders cards that I don't want.

Most of them are Mariners cards, so they'll eventually go out to a Mariners collector.

Another lot of 90's era Oleruds.

And another Olerud.

1999 Pacific Prism.

Not the most flattering shot of John,doing a little turkey-necking there.

There was a Yasiel Puig card in this lot I won, but he's a Dodger and I don't collect him.

So I cut him out.

My scanner made this look like a refractor, but it's not a refractor.

Maybe it's an indication that my scanner is getting ready to bug out on me.

Good stuff on Listia still to be had.

There's more coming in the mail.

Ebayer Sells Salmon Shipped On Ice

I much prefer to buy a card lot than individual cards.  Usually I can find a good lot where more than half of the cards I actually need.  The others I can usually trade or fit into another collection, like a player collection.  Such is the case here.

More than half of these cards I needed in my Angels team sets, most of the other half fit nicely into the Tim Salmon binder (which means it's a dupe to the team set Salmon).  A few went into the Tim Salmon trade stack.  I can always find another Salmon collector.

I got this 9-card lot for 50-cents, plus 3 bucks shipping.

These 3 are my favorites of the lot:

1997 SP Special FX #32

1997 Topps Finest Masters #246 Common

1996 SPX Gold #12

And for clarity, they weren't actually shipped on ice.

Good Things Come From Nebraska

Good things came my way from A Red Sox Fan In Nebraska.  Lot's of good things.

Lot's of goodies on this page.

Dig the Troy Glaus Polar Bear mini and the 2002 Fleer Tradition Tim Salmon.

Speaking of Tim Salmons in the mix, here's a buttload more.

And even more with a really cool Tim Bittner 2005 Press Proof.

I just sent two other Tim Bittner cards in the mail to get his autograph on.

I wanted to make sure that I got the keep the Press Proof that's why it wasn't included.

I'm seeing a sweet shiney Garret Anderson 2005 Absolute Memorabilia and an New To Me 2002 American Pie Jim Abbott.

And that's only about half of what Brad sent!

Angels Win The West, I Win TTM

Both players came back in 7 days from Anaheim Stadium.

Usually in a season I'll send a bunch out to Spring Training, then send a bunch more out with a couple weeks left in the regular season.

So far, so good.

Patriotic Resistance Is Futile

Quick drive-by of my local card shop.  Finding no new baseball junk to go through I caved to my resistance of collecting football cards.  With that said though, I do have a Patriots team collection but not nearly on the scale of my Angels team collection.

I've somewhat limited the Patriots collection to pre-1990 cards, that way I can avoid the unending amounts of inserts and parallels that dominate the later years.  And I don't go gang-busters trying to accumulate them either.  It's more of a hit-and-miss or on a whim effort.  I really dislike going to the card shop and not coming away with something.  That's partly why I gave in and went through the football boxes to pull Patriots.

These were my first cards for the 1985 and 1986 team sets, and I was able to get about half a team set each.  Someday I'll get around to posting a checklist.

Calvin Pokey Reese TTM

22 days from his home in South Carolina

From Battlin Bucs

It started out with a 2014 Panini No.1 Mike Trout.

What better way to start.

Then I saw a 2003 Bowman Draft Picks BDP22 signed by Jeff Davanon.

Awesome.

And then there was the stacks:

Lots of good stuff I needed in there.

Thanks Bucs.

Small Sampling From Nachos Grande

Just a small sampling of the cards Grande sent my way. I picked out a couple of Garret Anderson because, well, he was awesome.

2004 Topps Total TT34

2005 Upper Deck All-Star Classics Box Scores ASB-19

Even though Blalock hit a 2-run homer in the 8th to put the AL ahead, and for the win, Anderson was elected MVP after going 3-4, run 2 RBI

Didn't he win the Home Run Derby too?

Yes he did.

And all this the year after he won a World Series title.

I love you Man.

1979 Topps From Off-Hiatus Baseball

Big chunk of 1979 Topps towards the Big Set.

That there's a whopping 64 cards to check off.

Much thanks to Off-Hiatus.

Trade From $30/Week Habit

2011 Topps Chrome Purple Refractor 453/499

2011 Topps Gold 1702/2011

2001 Fleer Triple Crown 064/284

2013 Topps Chrome Orange Refractor 

2013 Topps GOld 1885/2013

2005 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia  236/250

Numbered, refractors, and parallels always make me very happy.

2003 Leaf Certified Materials Mirror Red Bat 117/250

He noted that this card was from the National.

Very cool.

Dave Rhode TTM

 Dave answered a few questions too.  Did you know that his nickname was Road Dog?

406 days from his home in beautiful Newport Beach, CA.