I got a little busy: joined a new band, had the find of a lifetime while sorting which I'll get to at the end, and am preparing for a couple trips later this month. So I'll sneak in this update while I have half a moment.

SEPTEMBER 6
Jaime Jarrin, c/o home, 2/2, 1 week
Carlton Fisk, c/o home, 1/1, 2 weeks, $40

SEPTEMBER 7
Dick Tracewski, c/o home, 3/3, 2 weeks
Joe Tait, c/o home, 3/3, 2 weeks

SEPTEMBER 9
Monte Moore, c/o home, 2/2, 2 weeks
Dave Lemonds, c/o home, 2/2, 2 weeks
Steve Zungul, c/o home, 1/1, 2 months

SEPTEMBER 10
Steve Brye, c/o home, 3/3, 3 weeks
Enrico Ciccone, c/o Quebec Parliament, 2/2, 1 month
Mark Karpun, c/o home, 1/1, 3 weeks

SEPTEMBER 11
Fred Cambria, c/o home, 2/2, 1 week

SEPTEMBER 12
Syd O'Brien, c/o home, 3/3, 1 week

SEPTEMBER 13
Bob Heise, c/o home, 3/3, 1 week

SEPTEMBER 14
Al Spangler, c/o home, 3/3, 2 weeks

SEPTEMBER 17
Denny Matthews, c/o home, 2/2, 3 weeks

SEPTEMBER 19
Booker T. Jones, c/o home, 1/1, 2 weeks

SEPTEMBER 26
Charlie Hough, c/o home, 4/4, 6 weeks
Bob Gallagher, c/o home, 3/3, 3 weeks
Mel Behney, c/o home, 2/2, 1 month

OCTOBER 1 - Rangers Development Camp
David Garcia 1/1
Josh Jung 1/1
Julio Pablo Partinez 2/4
Jonathan Ornelas 2/4
Leody Taveras 2/4
Cole Winn 4/4

OCTOBER 5 - Rangers Development Camp
Sam Huff 1/1
Josh Jung 1/1
Davis Wendzel 1/1
Cole Winn 2/2
Leody Taveras 1/1
Julio Pablo Martinez 2/2
Jonathan Ornelas 2/2
David Garcia 1/1

OCTOBER 15
Hal Lanier, c/o home, 3/3, 6 months
Mason McReakin, c/o home, 4/2, 1 week, added a signed IC and a note

OCTOBER 22
Gene Clines, c/o home, 1/1, 1 week

OCTOBER 25
Ted Giannoulas, c/o home, 3/2, 2 weeks, added a note

OCTOBER 29
Tony Esposito, c/o home, 1/1, 2 weeks, $10

NOVEMBER 1
Pete Mahovlich, c/o home, 2/1, 2 weeks, $10, added an extra signed card

So yeah, quite a hodge-podge in there. Three that I paid for, which I rarely do, but I had some spare cash on hand and needed them for sets. Two IP outings. Fifteen new additions to the 1972 Topps project (plus three I bought on eBay). Two for the Topps/OPC Archives hockey set. Two for the MISL project. One for the Fleer Throwback hockey set. And three just for the hell of it. Clines finished the 1971 Topps dual with Cambria, McReakin pitched in the Braves org in 2018 and is a member of the Facebook autograph groups I run, a well-known mascot in Giannoulas (The Chicken!), and Jones is my first music-related success.

So, the new band. We're called The Nothing. Right now I'll likely be splitting time on drums and guitar. I'm most comfortable on drums, but as long as I can stick to rhythm guitar then I'm competent on six strings. We're still looking for a bassist and hopefully a lead guitarist (so that I can be solely on rhythm and the lead singer can stick to just vocals instead of both vocals and rhythm guitar). I do need to get a better guitar amp soon though.

Which brings me to the find of a lifetime.

With the baseball autographing season winding down in September, I figured it was time for a cleanup. It had been a couple years since I had sorted any new additions into my inventory of stuff. I had several boxes of unsorted/barely sorted cards across pretty much every sport, whether purchases, gifts, or stuff I had pulled from inventory and failed to get signed. So to clean up, organize, and just overall make sure I had my ™™™™ together so that I didn't forget something when pulling for an outing, I decided to spend a few months sorting. We're in mid-November and I'm almost done-- I just have to finish hockey R-Z and soccer. I'll be done by Thanksgiving.

Anyways, as I was searching and sorting, within the span of about 24 hours I found three BIG cards I didn't know I had, just sitting in boxes: Patrick Mahomes' 2017 Prizm RC, Mike Trout's 2012 Topps Heritage card...

... and the 2018 Topps Ronald Acuna Jr. bat-down photo variation.

I had pulled it from a random pack a while back. I remember even getting it in the pack and just going "Wow, an Acuna RC, cool" since this was not long after my friend Arron pulled the 2018 Pro Debut Acuna auto. I figured okay, maybe this would be a $5-10 card, not knowing about the photo variation. So I just stuck it in a box and forgot about it.

Over the next few months I forgot I had it, but saw a few posts on Facebook groups about the card heating up and going for big money and thinking to myself "Man, I never have pulls like that." So when I pulled it out from this random box, I was hyperventilating and close to shaking-- pretty sure my wife was about to dial 911.

I put it in a sleeve and case and immediately made preparations to run it over to Beckett-- along with the Trout, the Mahomes, my 1989 UD Griffey RC, and an old T-205 gold border tobacco card that my in-laws had given me. A month later, I picked them up yesterday...

Mahomes: 9 overall with subs of 9.5/9.5/9/8.5 (I knew the centering was bad)
Griffey: 9 overall with subs of 9.5/9.5/9/9
Trout: 9 overall with subs of 9.5/9.5/9/8.5 (somehow the surface got knocked down)
T-205 Tom Downey: 1 overall, no subs, which I expected; I mostly just wanted to protect it in a slab

The Acuna came back as one of the 32 best in the population report. There is one Black Label 10, and 27 regular 10s. There are only four 9.5s that have subs of 10/10/9.5/9.5 including mine.

Considering the range of 9.5s have all gone for $400-600 over the last two months, I'm hoping the two 10 subs and two 9.5 subs will get me $1000. I mean really, you cannot get a better 9.5, and I've only seen two 10s come up for sale, both of which accepted a Best Offer on eBay so I don't know the actual price-- only that they were originally listed at $3000, $2300, and there's one up now at a price of $2350. PSA 10s are going in the $1500 range. I figure a BGS 9.5 with 10/10/9.5/9.5 subs has to be about equivalent to a PSA 10, right?

So, I figure that's how I'll get that new guitar amp.

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