Supercollector? Well, Maybe…

I haven’t mentioned it here before, but I’ve been slowly working on my Brett Graves Project, in which I’ve been attempting to “supercollect” the cards of Oakland A’s prospect Brett Graves. Why Brett? Because he’s a local boy whose family I know; among other things I sing once a month with his mother and a few other friends at a local nursing home. Brett’s been making nice progress in the A’s minor league system, pitching in the Midwest League All-Star Game this past summer.

a page of 2014 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft #8

Although I pursue all Twins player cards, I don’t supercollect any of those players because:

• I only collect players while they were on the Twins
• I don’t (actively) collect minor league cards
• I don’t (actively) collect unlicensed products (post-2010 Upper Deck, post-2005 Donruss, Panini, etc)

So far the experiment is going well — even staying within reasonable costs, I’ve snagged a large percentage of Brett’s cards, including four printing plates. There are a handful I still need out on eBay, but until they have realistic prices, I’ll stand my ground. My checklist is based on research I’ve done, and there are at least a few cards I’m questioning their existence.

Also, some additional pickups…

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A Brassy Trade

I’ve been doing trades on The Bench almost exclusively for the past few months, so it’d been a while since I’ve traded with any of the neighborhood gang of card collecting bloggers. After finishing a trade with my Good Trading Buddy™ at Peggy’s, I had quite a few Braves cards left on my Tradebait webpage, so I contacted The Trumpet Man at Tomahawk Chop. Not only did he find some cards he could use, but he had some nice Twins cards I needed, cards like:

clockwise, from top left: 2008 Upper Deck SP^x Winning Materials Position #WM-JN Joe Nathan [27/75] (jersey); 2014 Topps Chrome Refractor Gold #144 Joe Mauer [14/50]; 2015 Bowman Chrome Refractor Purple #4 Byron Buxton [218/250]; 2014 Topps Finest Refractor Green #60 Joe Mauer [028/199]

I need to frequent the websites of the old gang again. Thanks once more for a great trade — trombone 7^th position salute to you, sir!

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A few others I’ve picked up:

clockwise, from top left: 2015 Topps Update All-Star Stitches #STIT-GP Glen Perkins (jersey); 2004 Fleer Hot Prospects #83 Trevor Plouffe [139/299] (auto); 2004 Fleer Hot Prospects #99 Matt Fox [120/299] (auto); 2009 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions Memorabilia Series #GCM-MO Justin Morneau (jersey); 2015 Bowman Chrome Prospects #BCAP-AM Amaurys Minier (auto); 2009 Upper Deck UD X #UDXJ-JM Joe Mauer (jersey); 2005 Donruss Prime Patches #45 Justin Morneau [148/150] (bat); 2004 Fleer Hot Prospects #89 Kyle Waldrop [159/299] (auto)