Sunday, February 28, 2010

That thing that Kimaloo do!

This is the Christmas card that Kimaloo and Pete (Dropped3rdStrike) sent me over the holidays!  This card is hand-crafted!!  It's like something you might find in a scrapbook, only much more incredible (to me, anyway).  If you didn't know, Kimaloo has her own art and design studio and is one of the greatest sketch artists I have ever known!  She even hand-sketched a Jim Thome card for me once!  That is one of my most-treasured possessions, and will remain with me even if the day comes that my Tribecards collection finds a new home.

Thank you so much, Kim and Pete!!

Mad Max strikes again

Max sent me another bubbleope of cards in early February and I am just now checking these out.  I had not seen the "Biography" cards that I can remember!  I also like the 'old school' logo in the corner of some of the 2009 Topps.  There are a lot of shiny cards, and I likes my shiny like a little kid at Christmas!  The standout in the package is the Shin-Soo Choo SweetSpot Swatch card!  AWESOME!

Thanks, as always, Max!!  These are wonderful cards to add to my collection!

Cards from the King

That is, cards from TheDiamondKing!  I've actually had these since BEFORE Christmas.  Had I posted them when I received them, I would have much more fodder for the 'great giveaway' in the area of football items, and you'll see why in a bit. 

The Indians included in his box cover a variety of companies and year models!  I was surprised to see cards from the 70's up to pack-fresh recent ones.  HOFer and hopefully one-day HOFers were scattered throughout the package, as well as some very cool serially numbered cards and several that I don't believe I have ever seen (like the Thome "Plays of the Week" card).  Following my own formula for card-gifting, he included many duplicates.  I like that style - it is a "hey, I have a bunch of cards I want to send, so here ya go!"  That's what I'm talkin' about!

I also enjoy the fact that he does not take collecting "too seriously," as evident in his note: "...hopefully there's one or two that make you smile."  And while there were MANY Indians cards that fit that bill, what made me laugh out loud (yes, literally) were the cards included as "filler."  The fillers can be found below the scans of the Indians cards along with some more ramblin' rabble to go with them.  Enjoy!

Here are some of the MANY Tribe cards Kevin included in the box he sent to me:












And then he included some "filler" cards that brought back images of the great "Sandy Alomar Jr Incident" from a couple years ago*.  What a wonderfully hilarious surprise!




But, TheDiamondKing did not stop there.  No, no.  He included a HUGE stack of Topps football mini sticker-cards.  The scan below does not even cover HALF of the stickers he sent.  And, as mentiuoned above, had I remebered these were in the box, I would have slipped them into various giveaway packages.  Alas, these will saved for some future giveaway.  Perhaps a "trick" of their own...



Thank you, Kevin for some GREAT Indians cards, along with a laugh that reminded me just why I love collecting, blogging about collecting, and swappin' cards!



*To catch you up on the "Alomar Incident," a few years ago, I held a "Trick-orTreat" giveaway.  Dayf took it upon himself to perform a "virtual TPing" of my 'house' as a prank.  The favor was returned when I sent him a box of hundreds of Sando Alomar cards.  I would guess he is still finding those things popping up in corners of his home to this day.  A more famous incarnation of a 'repeated-card offense' occurred even before the "Alomar" when a fellow blogger opened a retail box of cards from K-Mart only to find that every single card in every single pack had been replaced by Bip Roberts cards.  To this day, receiving a multitude of the same player from someone is called "Getting Bipped."

A Merry Christmas from one Tribe fan to another

For Christmas, Tim sent me a card made with own creativity!  Definitely one for the record books.  Thanks, Tim!

George Strait and the Red Hot Chili Peppers

Some of you may be reading the title of the post, checking the title of the blog to make sure you are in the right place, then scratching your head as to how this all connects.  Others of you, however, made the connection right away.  So, what does all of this have to do with baseball cards?  Well, the time has come to "Give it Away!"  Er, well, grammatically, "Give THEM Away," but that's not the title of the song sung by the two performers mentioned.

A long time ago, in a blog post far, far away, I offered up ALL the cards I had that were not part of my collection (or were not yet entered into my database).  During the process, it occurred to me that I should snap a picture of the "Last Great Tribecards Giveaway" in action:

 
Above, you see a part of the process.  On the left, stacks of cards with the teams I was not looking for at the time this was taken.  Basically, I had several boxes of unsorted cards which I went through 5 or 6 teams at a time.  If the cards were of the teams I wanted to pull out, they got put into the sorter you see in the upper right.  Otherwise, they were relegated to the stacks on the left until I was ready to repeat the procedure.  The 10-section sorter in the middle top area is where I sorted the selected teams based on each person that wanted that team.  It's either not as complicated as it seems, or is way more complicated than it probably needed to be.  I'm not really sure anymore.  Everything is something of a blur.
Once everything was sorted, each person's cards were placed in other sorters (in the photo above, one such sorter is seen mid-right).  After I completed each person's requests, I packaged the cards up for shipping.  Well, that was the theory anyway. In practice, I ended up with many, many stacks of cards divided by requester.  Once everything had been sorted and distributed, then I packaged them up:
 
The photo above does not do the sheer number of packages any justice.  The upper right portion is actually a large box that contains roughly 20 packages alone!  Now, what you may notice right away is differing sizes in packages.  Here's how that breaks down (for those interested... well, and for those not interested but who are reading along anyway):

First and foremost, the number of cards each person gets was determined by the number of cards I had for a given team.  Next, the number of people asking for particular teams affected the number of cards each of those folks receive.  Makes sense, right?  If 15 people ask for Yankees, each person (theoretically) will get fewer cards than if only 2 people ask for Pirates.  Another factor that comes into play is the number of teams requested.  Generally, most people received at least SOME cards from each team they asked for.  There are exceptions, of course, but I tried to spread the wealth as best as possible.  The one main exception to that was the "12 Days" requests.  The folks that had asked for cards during the "12 Days" giveaway were given extra cards because they have been waiting MUCH too long for their cards (in my opinion. As is turns out, you all are a bunch of amazingly patient and forgiving folks!!).

I only have three addresses that I'm missing, and those folks have been contacted.  What does that mean?  That means *ALL* the packages should go out Monday!! WAHOO!!

THANK YOU to everyone that asked to participate in the "12 Days" and "Last Great" giveaways!!  I hope you enjoy your cards as much as I enjoyed putting these together.  It's a lot of work, but knowing these cards are going to the folks that collect them makes it all worth it!  And those that asked for "anything" or "random oddball cards," you have no idea what you've called upon yourselves!

Poetic Justice Note: After I had sealed up all the packages, my son walks in with a binder full of cards he had been collecting.  He drops the folder on the floor and says, "Hey, you can give these away, too!"  AUGH!  Well, I'll save those for trading or some other giveaways later.  Who knows what will become of those yet.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

30-Day (almost) Update

I am making a quick stop here to let everyone know the status of things in Tribecards World.  Given the amazing response I've had lately, it is the least I can do!!

First up: Giveaway News: My apologies, but I can no longer take any requests for giveaway packages.  The response has been HUGE!! I am very excited about that!  I am taking advantage of the long weekend and hammering out the packs for mailing Tuesday if at all possible.  When my wife said, "you know what would make a great Valentine's Day gift," then pointed to the boxes of cards, I knew it was time to get these knocked out of here!  I will make a post, letting you know when the packages have shipped.  I plan on taking pictures because it really is a hefty feat.

Next Up: Packages received!  Thanks so much for the Indians cards I've been getting in the mail!  Do not fret - I will be posting pictures/scans of those once I get the big job out of the way and get back into the swing of posting on a more regular-ish basis. 

And, finally: Happy Valentine's Day!