Trading Mania - Adorable Edition

Here's another trade that I just sent off. Reader NMBoxer won a card from my Fastest Box Break Ever post on A Pack A Day. I sent her the Babe Ruth she won, plus a Kei Igawa card she mentioned she wanted. A little later on, I received a package of Braves cards from her in appreciation. Here's some of what I got.

Both Tim Hudson Variations from Bowman Heritage, plus a Yunel Escobar RC,

A whole bunch of early nineties Braves including Rafael Belliard, Marvin Freeman, Terry Pendleton's first card as a Brave, Dave Justice and this card of Jim Vatcher stretching to loosen up for one of his 27 lifetime at bats for the Braves.

A few newer cards including Renetria, Millwood, Odalis Perez, a Trey Hodges rookie, a Tim Hudson card I've never seen before, and this delicious Frenchy. Golly, this is a nice looking card!

A bunch of vintage Topps stuff including a Mark Lemke Rookie that will soon be featured in The 792, Rick Mahler, Bruce Benedict, Rick Camp, Joe Boever, two Zane Smiths and my favorite player growing up, Big James Robert Horner. I had this card when I was a kid, but it fell into a crevicein the headboard of my bed and when I found it a decade later it was pretty jacked up. I got a replacement, but it's way out of focus. This one is actually nice looking and will be going into my team set book.
This card is just awesome. You know it's true. The Atlanta Apes would be a good nickname for the team if they ever change it from Braves. Plus this guy looks a little like Brian McCann when he's rockin' the full beard. I keed, I keed, I love ya Mac.

AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!! JASON HEYWARD CHROME!!!!!! THEY SENT A JASON HEYWARD CHROME CARD! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Holy schnikies, I've been wanting this card ever since I first saw the checklist for Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects! Heyward is going to be a beast in 2013 or so. This is incredible. I can stop buying BDP&P now. Thank you thank you thankyou!

I was planning to send them a thank you gift when they first e-mailed me that they'd like to send me some cards, but the Heyward caused me to fatten the package until I really couldn't squeeze anything else in there. According to the e-mail NMBoxer and her daughters collect Asian players, so I found a bunch to send. Here's a sample:


Along with the cards, I got a nice note and a drawing. The note says "Dear Dave, I hope you like the Atlanta Braves cards we sent you. (I do) I like baseball players that have smiles on all the players faces." Here's the drawing:

The Braves and the Mets are facing off for the NL East crown! This is really really cool. Since she likes baseball cards that have smiles on the players faces, I sent a bunch of them as well.

I hope they enjoy all the cards, although now that I think about it, in NMBoxers' original e-mail she mentioned that it was getting ridiculous how many cards were piling up. I think I might have just sent them more than they sent me. Oops. Well it's always better to have cards you collect rather than ones you don't, so at least the universal card balance is in a little better order today.

The Allen Ginter Project : Card #24 N22 Racing Colors of the World

This is part two of the DavidB Nineteenth Century New Years Extravaganza post. Now you can partly see why I bought all that other stuff I didn't need for my type set. I did manage to find something to help fill out that second page of cards. These three cards are from the N22 Racing Colors of the World set. These cards show the official racing outfits of some of the world's most famous stables of the time. The silks are shown off with the help of some rather large-chested ladies, who quite frankly are much more the ultimate reason this set exists. Horse racing was extremely popular at the time and A&G dedicated two other sets to the sport, the lithograph N32 World's Racers set and the N52 Racehorses set which were sepia photographs. In contrast, 19 Allen & Ginter sets were wholly or mostly comprised of pictures of girls. Horse racing was popular, but there was at least one pastime that was much more popular. These cards were all part of a single lot, but let's show off my riders one at a time.

First up is the stable of William Lakeland. Lakeland was an American trainer whose horses included Domino, who won an incredible amount of money in his races, and Tea Tray, who is immortalized with a card in the N32 set. William's green and white silks are modeled by a good looking lass who seems to me like she belongs in the 1920's and not the 1880's for some reason. These cards all show the subject in front of a pastel background, some of which have no border like this one. And you thought 1991 Stadium Club was the first full-bleed border card set. This card is pretty beat up, but it displays nicely enough. There are a lot of wrinkles, someone went crazy with a push pin at the top and the hole... Well, I'll talk more about the hole later.

Up next is the stable of Sir George Chetwynd, who is blatantly British. If you have the audacity to spell wind with a y you're either an English Baron or a hippie artsy type. Since hippies rarely force their equine brothers to run all out for filthy lucre, we can safely assume the baron thing. Chetwynd Farm produced one of England's great horses, Isinglass, who won the English Triple Crown. Sir Chetwynd and his trusty steed Isinglass sounds like a minor subplot from King Arthur or a Book of Tolkein's Lost Tales, not a common race horse. The stable colors appear to be mustard and chartreuse, which are as unfortunate as the position the apparently hunchbacked model is in. There is also a significant amount of paper loss on the front (but not the back, surprisingly) and the large hole evident on the other cards doesn't actually go all the way through the paper on this one for some reason. This card has the best back with only a small amount of paper loss. This is another example of a full-bleed variation of this card.

Finally we have William Hendrie, the galloping Canuck. Hendrie was the start of a very successful horse racing family and is in the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame. William's yellow and brown silks are filled out nicely by this lovely Canadian damsel, who also plays defense for the Maple Leafs in the racing offseason. This card is probably the most attractive of the three but is very beat up. Bad creases go through the waist and neck and the pinholes are up top along with a black... thing... that I don't want to touch. It looks very suspicious and is embedded into the card. That weird round hole seen on the other two cards is going through her hand. I don't know if that hole was punched or burned or what, but if you line up all three cards it goes through all of them at the same spot. These are some really beat up beater cards. This one does have a white border around the card, but neither variation is more scarce than the other.

The back is typical A&G with a fancy title on top and a full checklist of the set. As you can see, the vast majority are of American and English stables, with a handful of French and a single representative from seven other countries. The backs of these cards are just as fascinating to me as the fronts. The detail put into these titles is really nifty in my opinion and I love some of the crazy old fonts.

So now I have three examples from the N22 set so which one goes into the official type set? All three have some pluses and minuses. Holes aren't good, but Hendrie hides them a bit better than the others. I like to have a full back on a card, but the only one that does has a big chunk missing from the front. It's going to be tough to decide, but I can say definitively that Sir Chetwynd is not going to make the cut. This is why:


What. The hell. Is that.

I thought that chick looked a little skinny. I'm putting this in a card saver, filing it away and I'm going to try not to think about it.

So it's down to Lakeland and Hendrie. I must say Hendrie has a lot of things going for it. Two big things for starters. My, that girl has some pendulous bazonkas. She's also apparently very well versed in the proper useage of a riding crop. Kidding aside, it's the more attractive lithograph of the two. The colors are brighter, the pastels are pastelier, it's a better pose and the yellow and brown are more visually striking. Plus there is a small but real possibility that the guy is related to Phil Hendrie which would be very cool. However, Lakeland is the better looking card.There's virtually no paper loss on the front, the creases aren't breaking up the picture and there's no black schmutz embedded into the card. The girl's not unattractive either and that is a factor in my decision. So I have one card that looks better and one picture that looks better. So which one do I choose?

Lakeland is American. Hendrie is Canadian. The Toronto Blue Jays are Canadian. Need I say more. I Blame Canada. William Lakeland is the official card for the set, at least as long as I don't find a better looking one.



One other thing, I promised last time I would tell you how much all this crap cost. I got this lot and all seven other cards in that last post for two dollars. No, not two dollars per card, not two dollars per lot, just TWO DOLLARS. For all of them. Shoot, the shipping was almost twice that. I would have paid two dollars for just one of the N22s to knock that one off my list. I just got lucky I had to work the night davidbvintage was blowing out a lot of junk. That's not all I got that night though. I got one more card, a really spectacular awesome card, which I will share in part three.

2009 SCD Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards

From The Latest Finds, the official blog for the SCD Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards, the 2009 edition of the price guide will include a free DVD edition of the catalog in PDF format.

If you're not familiar with the SCD Standard Catalog, it's better known as "That big 'ol book that you really need to have if you're serious about that whole baseball card thing". Methinks it's high time I upgraded my copy.

Don't Jinx 'em John

I don't mind that John Donovan wrote an article about all the 'clean' players in baseball, I'm just not thrilled that he chose my favorite player as the poster child for non-juicing.

I don't think any of the players in John's article are up to no good, I just don't want to hear their names (especially him, him and him) even mentioned in a good way in an article about that stuff. Besides, it's just too dang easy for crap like this to happen nowadays with internet rumors and useless media outlets all trying to dig up the stinkiest dirt all the time. I don't want to hear about allegations or non-allegations or any of that junk anymore, I just want my game back. Stay cool, Larry. Stay cool.

The 792: Gallery 307-324

Here's another batch of Ben Henry's The 792. I just got a massive checklist update from Ben last night, so you guys will be in '80's clover for at least a couple of months. Enjoy...

307. Dave Sax, 1986
308. Jesus Vega, 1983
309. Mike Witt, 1985
310. Dave Parker, 1980 *
311. Rickey Henderson, Turn Back the Clock, 1987
312. Reggie Jackson, Turn Back the Clock, 1987
313. Gary Gray, 1983
314. Frank Pastore, 1986
315. Kirk Gibson, 1981 (RC)
316. Sammy Khalifa, 1986
317. Tom Nieto, 1988
318. Ted Simmons, 1985
319. Greg Swindell, 1987 (RC)
320. Barry Bonds, 1987 (RC)
321. Earl Weaver, 1986 MGR
322. John Smiley, 1989
323. Bill Lee, 1982
324. Alejandro Pena, 1984

Another update will be up this weekend! For real this time!

*Thanks to reader Greg for providing this scan.

1-18 19-36 37-54 55-72 73-90 91-108 109-126 127-144 145-162
163-180 181-198 199-216 217-234 235-252 253-270 271-288 289-306
307-324 325-342 343-360 361-378 379-396 397-414 415-432 433-450
451-468 469-486 487-504 505-522 523-540 541-558 559-576 577-594
595-612 613-630 631-648 649-666 667-684 685-702 703-720 721-738
739-756 757-774 775-792

Get Him To Sign On The Line Which Is Dotted

Looks like new Falcons GM Thomas Dimitroff has found a coach, Jags defensive coordinator Mike Smith.

It's not a flashy name or a high profile guy and I know absolutely nothing about him at all.

Good.

Get him to sign today and put his ass on a plane to the Senior Bowl.

And NO dinners at the Blank mansion! Leave the man alone Arthur! Let him focus on football!!!

DavidB Nineteenth Century New Years Extravaganza

While everyone else was out partying and getting drunk and freezing their butt off in Times Square on New Year's Eve, I ended up having to work that night. Yeah, that sucked but it did allow me to do a little eBaying during the slow periods (which was all night, to be honest). I ended up getting a nice haul of ninteenth century tobacco cards that evening from seller davidbvintage. David B is a pretty big seller of some seriously nice vintage cards and he was having an end of year blowout sale. I managed to hop on the clearance train and pick up some... well nice isn't really the right word... let's say some cards that I will appreciate in my collection. I got a LOT of cards that night so I'm going to break my haul up into three posts. First up is cards from the Random Crap department.

I'll start off with stuff you're familiar with. I won a group of four assorted Allen & Ginter birds. The first one is from the N5 Birds of the Tropics set. You may remember my Great Bird of Paradise card from a previous post, this one here is a Concave-Casqued Hornbill.


It's a good looking picture of a strange looking bird with a weird name. That big lumpy thing on its head is called a casque, and apparently it is concave. The front of the card is pretty, however the back is not. Squeamish people should look away now.


Blearggh! That is the most disgusting looking glue damage I've ever seen on anything, let alone a trading card. It looks like some sort of fungus or disease and believe me, it feels pretty awful too. Every time I touch it, I want to scrub my hands with Lava soap. This is one card I wouldn't mind getting graded just so I never have to touch it again. The front is really good though and it would display great in a picture frame or something. Here are three more birdies for you that are not nearly as horrible.


This trio is from the N13 Game Birds set. I already had one of these cards, I just haven't gotten around to sharing it yet. Hey, I gotta spread these posts out to keep you coming back for more, don't I? From top to bottom we have a Rail, a Red-Head Duck and a Rock Ptarmigan. That's a pretty diverse group of birds there, the rail lives in wetlands, the ptarmigan live in the Arctic and ducks are pretty much everywhere. I'd never heard of a ptarmigan before I saw this card. Apparently they are tasty though, since they've earned the name 'snow chicken'. Bring on the ptarmigan McNuggets! All three cards are decent looking although they all have a little paper loss on the back and some paint chipping on the border on the front. The birds themselves look pretty good though. Not as good as my other Game Bird, tease, tease. Ok, enough with the birds already. Time for some manly cards.

These next three cards are from the Kinney Brothers Tobacco company. Kinney Bros. were based out of Manhattan and were one of the major competitors of Duke and Allen & Ginter in the 1880's tobacco market. At least, of course, until all the competitors consolidated into the American Tobacco Company in 1890. If you have aT205 or T206 card with a Sweet Caporal back, then you have a card from a Kinney Bros. product. Sweet Caporal was one of the first popular tobacco brands, and was created when F.S Kinney added sugar and licorice to his tobacco mixture. Kinney Bros. produced over 30 trading card sets to promote their products including these three:


This one here is from the N244 Military series. That could very well be ol' Jebediah Springfield himself. This is an absolutely huge set of cards for the time at 622 total including all the different variations. You can see some galleries down toward the bottom of this link. The set is not only enormous, but there are some extremely scarce cards from the set that make completing one a very difficult challenge. If you look through the archives of the Vintage Non-Sports Chat board, you'll find a few very cagey expert collectors close to completing the set. Unfortunately since there is more than one collector hunting for those last few cards, it seems that no one wants to talk about them lest they give away what they are looking for. This card is a very colorful Private from the City Guards of Springfield, Ohio.

This card features bright colors and has liberal use of gold metallic ink. Other cards in the series have a much more subdued background. These cards are prized for their highly accurate depictions of military uniforms of the time. There are also cards of foreign troops, historical troops, coats of arms, military decorations and even a couple of historical ships. The back has a checklist of all the cards in this particular series. There are other backs with various advertising on them as well. This one would be in very good condition if not for the big chunk out of the corner.

Here's another nice card with a bite out of it. This is from the N226 Naval Vessels of the World set. This is a series of 25 famous ships from the navies of the United States and Europe. This set has a little bit of a 1962 Topps feel to it, the extremely detailed lithograph of the ship appears to have the corners curling in, and the ship's name and an advertisement can be see in in the surrounding gold border. This card is of the British battleship the HMS Colossus. Once again a good looking card is spoiled by a missing corner, this time taking away the card's Union Jack.

The back has a checklist of the 25 card set. I wouldn't mind finding a card of the USS Atlanta, a protected cruiser of the 1880's navy that ended up being featured in several trading card sets of the time.


Here's the last one from Kinney, a horsie! This is from the N230 set, Famous English Running Horses. Racing was a big-time sport in the 1880's so racers were a frequent subject on cards. This one is of Tristan, who won the Gold Cup and the Hardwick Stakes in 1883. I don't know if that means he won two races or if he got the Gold Cup for winning the Hardwick, but I do know that jockey George Fordham looks snazzy in his red, white and blue racing silks. According to Wikipedia, Tristan won the Hardwick Stakes and the Champion Stakes three years running from 1883-1885, so this is one bad mofo of a horse. The back has an ad stating that 25 of the cards could be exchanged for a great big 8 by 10 cabinet card of one of the racehorses. These cabinets are number N239 in the American Card catalog, and I will never ever see one, even if I do collect 25 of these things. Heck , I'm having a hard enough time finding a racehorse for my Allen & Ginter set, I'm almost ready to draw a picture of Old Planter on the back of this card and be done with it. At least this particular card isn't missing bits.


Well, there's the majority of my big haul from DavidB. Seven beater cards and not one of them fills a slot in my Allen & Ginter set. Heck, I'm about a sixth of the way to a Kinney Bros. type set now, which is one thing I do not need to be starting with 2008 Topps hitting the stores soon. So why did I do it? And how much did I pay for all this junk? WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?! These answers will be revealed in parts two and three...

Card Of the Week 1/21/08

First of all, apologies and condolences to Thorzul, who is in deep mourning today. I had no dog in that fight last night and I was still shocked and appalled by what happened in that game. Just what we needed... another Boston/New York matchup for ESPN to obsess over for two weeks. Dammit, why couldn't the Cowboys have won the NFC? At least then we would have Jessica Simpson to look at during the Super Bowl hype fortnight. Yeah, it's going to be an absolute slaughter that will make the Bears - Patriots matchup look like the Ice Bowl, but I'll be watching it. You'll be watching it. EVERYBODY will be watching it. It's like, a law or something. At least Tom Petty will be doing the half time show so there won't be any nipples popping out or Prince Devil Shadow Penises. With Tom there's far more likely to be doobage than boobage. We'll also be eating crap the whole time and drinking enough beer to dull the pain of an awful game. You want to jump start the economy? Want a real stimulus package? President Bush should order a true College Championship game to be played this weekend between LSU and Georgia. That way people will have two straight weekends of buying junk food and beer. Bull market, here we come!

Oh well, what's done is done. After the Packers game was over, I grabbed my vintage football box looking for cards to represent the Gnats and the Patsies in the Super Commercial Transmission Event XXLMNIVXRQ. I was just hoping to find a couple decent looking old cards to throw up in a post commemorating this year's upcoming snoozefest. Oh, but I found more. Oh so much more. I found two of the nastiest, most beat up and abused old oddball football cards out there. I didn't just find a couple of cards to illustrate this year's Super Bowl matchup, I found not one, but TWO Cards of the Week. This week, the card I deem worthy to represent the 2007 New York Giants:


This is a 1971 Topps Football game insert of Fran Tarkenton, quarterback for the New York Football Giants. This card has apparently been on the wrong end of a scrap with Lawrence Taylor. I scanned it at 300 DPI so you could get the full experience of just how awful a card this is, but the scan still does not do it any justice. It's stained, scuffed, worn down, written on, creased and just plain abused. There's enough wrinkle lines on the thing to keep a palm reader busy for hours. The back of the card isn't much better:


More stains, plus an H written on the card. I think the kid who had this card marked the cards to help him win any football games played with his deck of '71 inserts. This card is marked H for horrible. You can also tell from the borders that the card is slightly miscut as well. That's a 15-yard flag for unnecessary piling on condition wise. Fran Tarkenton isn't exactly the first player you think of when you mention the Giants. New York traded for him in 1967, had one decent season with Fran leading the team, then traded him back to the Vikings in 1972. Tarkenton went on to win an MVP and lead the Vikes to three Super Bowls (Ok, so he lost them all) while the Giants waited 15 more years to win their own championship. The card even sucks for the card game as Sir Francis ends up scrambling for a two yard loss. I'm a big Dawg fan though, which is probably the only reason why I bought this disgusting looking card of a Georgia great. My favorite part of the card is this:

"How are you, gov". Pretty rotten after seeing this mangled card, but I'll live. Why the kid who abused this thing would write that on the bottom, I'll never know. And did they even sell 1971 Topps Football cards in England? "Gov"isn't really in common usage here in the states. Here's a completely useless and random tidbit about my ancestry. My grandmother had an uncle whose nickname was Gov, and apparently I look just like he did. Perhaps this is a message from the after life from him. A message that says: "QUIT BUYING TERRIBLE CARDS, THEY AREN'T WORTH ANYTHING YOU KNOW". Thanks Uncle Gov, but no one will stand between me and my Tiptons.

Once again, apologies to Thorzul for posting a dirty rotten Giant and a lousy Viking at the same time. I just saw this card and immediately knew it was The One. Just wait till next week though, I have something just as spectacular in store for the Patriot fans out there.

Mailbag - Vintage Card Prices and 1987 Topps Questions

I got these questions in my e-mail a little while back and I thought I'd share my answers for all those shy people out there who don't want to post a question or an e-mail. Feel free to make your own suggestions in the comments.

First up, a question about vintage card prices.

Just a few questions about the vintage card market and how find prices on these cards I have a few and would like to know the value of what i have......any help would be appreciated.

Thank You very much

Devin

A quick way to find an approximate value on a vintage card is to check out current auction listings to see what the card is selling for. Do a search on eBay or Beckett for the card you have and gauge the prices of the ones for sale. You can also search closed auctions to see the final price on eBay. There is also a website, SportsLizard, that has a price guide that you can search that is based on these listings.

There are also several books you can get with pricing for vintage cards. Beckett's Baseball Card Plus Magazine has many different sets listed including vintage sets. It is $10 and comes out every 2 months. The current issue has Pete Rose on the cover. It is better for more recent sets though and does not list every card for every set.

Beckett also has a small price guide that can be found a bookstore for under $10 called the Beckett Official Price guide. It is a paperback book that has complete checklists for some of the major vintage sets but doesn't have everything.

If you are looking for a book with prices for just about every card, the Sports Collector's Digest Standard Catalog of Baseball cards has just about anything you could think of. It is a very large book and costs about $40 although it can be gotten more cheaply online. If you don't mind an out of date version (and a new one will be released in a couple of months making the current one out of date) they can be gotten much more cheaply than that. Older cards don't fluctuate in
value as much and a copy a couple years old would still be a good reference and could probably be gotten for about $10 if you looked around. This is the best reference for all baseball cards I've found. Your local card shop would probably let you have a look at their store copy if you asked or you could browse a copy at a bookstore if you only needed to look up a couple of prices.


Now one about a neat wrong back card.

Hey
Saw your website, excellent advice, do cards not drugs.
I am very new to this and hope you can help me. I have a Roy Lee Jackson TOPPS 1987 card. However, on the back is Dwayne Murphy's info and part of that is even cut off.
I heard that error cards could be worth something.
Thanks for any help
Best Regards
and wishing you an awesome 2008!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Anne-Frédérique

Hi there, that's a pretty neat card, but unfortunately it's a pretty common error and there's not much demand for it. Regular cards from that set are only worth about a nickel each or so, and a miscut back like that is usually considered a defect. There are however some people who specifically collect that type of card, but it's probably worth only worth a few cents at most unless you manage to find someone who really wants it.

If you have any oddball questions about card, let me know and I'll do my best to answer them for you. Just be warned I might post it and make you internet famous for about 15 seconds!

Trading Mania - Really late package to White Sox Cards

Ok, I suck. I got involved in a bunch of trade discussions a week or so before Christmas, put a bunch of cards together and then got waylaid by Santa Claus. One of the trades was with Steve, the proprietor of White Sox Cards. Here's how it happened.

I did a live box rip on A Pack A Day of UD Masterpieces and I said anyone who commented could get a free card. Steve commented, but said he didn't want a card. I really like his blog, so I decided to give him one anyway along with some Sox cards for his collection and contacted him about it. He said thanks, and pointed me toward his want list. I checked it out, printed up a copy and started looking. About that time Santa and his elves kidnapped me and drug me to about 500 family get togethers while simultaneously dumping a lot of work stuff on me. Stupid Santa! By the time I finished up with all that crap and managed to recover, we were already over a week into the new year. I had a pile of random Sox stuff I picked out but I was still looking though his list. In the meantime, Steve had looked through my want list and sent me a package of stuff. So now I'm slow and I got stuff from him (and others - I'll get to them in future "I suck" posts) without sending anything in return. However, I have finally gotten my act together and gotten a package ready to send. Steve probably made out in the end though, the longer I took to get it together the more stuff I added out of guilt. Here's the skinny on the deal:

What I got from Steve:

Some UD Masterpieces that helped complete my set:

And a pile of Topps Updates and Highlights from my want list.

Not bad. I completed a set and I got further toward completing another one that I don't want to open packs from.

Here's what's going out in tomorrow's mail:

A few from Steve's wantlist,

An assortment of scruffy old socks from Topps, 1954-1986,

A few Sox biggies picked out of the star box,

And some completely random stuff I ran across in doubles boxes while hunting for other cards.


Better late than never, and I'm guessing a White Sox fan will enjoy this stuff.

Here's what I learned from this:

1) I need to get organized in my trading. I haven't done a whole lot of it online and I've got an auction routine of winning, printing out the invoice, sending the payment and getting the cards. I'm not used to people sending me stuff before I send something to them and it weirded me out a little bit. Plus flagging the e-mails from trade offers doesn't help when you get two or three dozen e-mails a day. Everything is being written down, flagged and saved online from now on for reference so I don't lose stuff.

2) Ease up on the trades where I need to look through every card I own. It's not that bad until you start doing it for four or five different trades.

3) Get the stuff together and out ASAP. I've got the supplies ready to do that now.

4) December sucks. The whole damn month.
4a) Never try to trade in December.

Hopefully now I'll have things under control. If I've snubbed you on a trade or you're still waiting for something, shoot me an e-mail. Getting all this stuff mailed by tomorrow has been this week's project.