Month: June 2015

Danger of Plain White Envelopes

~ danieladubay ~ 1 Comment
Plain White Envelope Danger-Daniel DuBay
Plain White Envelope Danger-Daniel DuBay

As a card collector on a budget, I personally never minded plain white envelopes. I knew that cards could get damaged but I have never been one to be anal about the condition of cards. I can handle a small ding here and there if it means that I get an awesome card for my personal collection at a good price. As a college student on a limited income, I know that cards are excess so I can’t spend a ton of money when I do buy them. The $2 to $4 difference that most sellers give you for shipping cards in plain white envelopes-from now on referred to as PWEs- has always been helpful because little things like that are the difference between eating at Taco Bell after class or eating the better food on campus. I always thought that people that complained were a little obnoxious about it, until something happened to me. (No, I am not referring to the people who charge you $2 to $4 for shipping and still send you card to you in a PWE. There is a special place in hell for those people.)
As you can see from the picture, my opinions were about to be changed. That is the picture of a PWE that was supposed to have a card that I paid for. The card was missing because the envelope got so damaged during the shipping process. Thankfully the seller refunded my money when I sent him the picture, all $2 of it for a Greg Monroe jersey card.

This got me thinking, what can be done if you ship a card in a PWE. (Full disclosure, when I run contests in the near future, I will be shipping the cards in a PWE, unless the winner wants to pay for a bubble mailer.) In the past, I always wrapped the cards in a piece of paper but I know that is not enough. The best answer that I could come up with, would be to wrap the majority of the envelope in clear tape. This would allow for the address area to be still be legible and you can make it not get in the way of machines reading the stamp. If anyone has a better way to improve shipping in PWEs, I am all ears and would love to hear suggestions-snarky comments about well just use a bubble mailer will be ignored.

Happy Father’s Day

~ danieladubay ~ Leave a comment

Happy Father’s Day to everyone. Whether you are an actual father, a step parent, godfather, or a father figure, you are important and I hope your family celebrates today with some good cards for you.
In a a perfect world, I would have some Father’s Day packs to review here. I went to my local comic book store, where I rarely buy cards because as I said they are a comic book store, and they didn’t have any. I could have driven to my the card shops but I did not have gas or any extra money to spend to spend so I didn’t bother. I was curious of the odds because I see people posting a lot of amazing hits from these packs but they don’t say how many packs they opened to get to that hit. I am not posting this as a pity party for me. I am posting this because I want you to know that any review by me will be from an honest person. A lot of collectors make it seem like they have an unlimited supply of money to spend on cards. I am not one of those collectors; I just wish I was. Everything I get, I get on the cheap or from gift cards.

Now I would like to share with you an awesome story about my father. My father is dead now, and we did not have the best relationship when he was alive but looking back, I realize just how hard he tried in his own way. My father and I bonded through sports. We may have not talked a lot but with sports, we didn’t need too. We could throw the ball around or watch a game and that was quality time to us. I look back fondly on those times. One season, he was on the coaching staff for my football team and I made all stars that year. I don’t think that it is a coincidence. It was through football that I have my greatest memory with him.
I remember it like it was yesterday. I was in 2nd grade. Even at that age, I knew the magnanimity of the events going on in the NFL. You see this year was Joe Montana’s last season as a 49er. Everyone knew that he wouldn’t wear the gold helmet anymore because Steve Young was dominating and was younger. The 49ers had no choice but to get rid of one of their Hall of Famers and they elected to stick with the younger Young. The last game of the season Montana was due to get a few snaps. Even as a kid, I would have let you name my first born to get into that stadium. My dad was a die-hard 49ers fan since he was born in San Francisco, even though we lived in Los Angeles suburbs. My dad still had family in San Francisco and they were going to the game. I don’t know when my dad told me we were going but I do know that I was excited. It was my first football game and I was going to see Jerry Rice, Joe Montana, and players like Eric Davis, Merton Hanks, Kevin Fagan,Tom Rathman. All of whom I was legitimately happy to see. To put a cherry on top it was a Monday night game-a fact that looking back is an anomaly in itself as they don’t play Monday nighters anymore on the final week of the season.
I remember a lot of what happened during the game but honestly that is irrelevant to me. All I care about is my dad took me to the game. A MNF game, that was Joe Montana’s last in gold, on a Monday night in the rain at Candlestick Park, 400 miles away from home. Thanks dad.

Thanks MLBPA Players Choice

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You know those contests on Twitter where you ‘retweet’ to win something that you know that you will never get. Well this is the story of how I won, one of those contests. A few months ago, I was having a really bad day. I suffer from anxiety and depression. Some days are better than others. This was one of those extreme days where I had to put everything on hold and say ‘I need a time out for a little bit.’ So I did something that no one can get away with in this day and age of technology, I turned my phone off and didn’t go on my computer. I watched Netflix while I studied until it was time to get my nephews from school. It was in the car waiting for them at around 1:30 and a little bored. Consequently I finally turned my phone on. My phone blew up with notifications. This wasn’t normal, as I don’t get a lot of messages. It was all people congratulating me on winning a contest. I won a beautiful signed Clay Bucholz jersey. As a low end collector, I own only one other autographed jersey and it is that of an NBA journeyman that I paid $12 for; so this was a nice surprise.

They didn’t say which jersey that I was getting until I won it, but I was so happy that it was Clay Bucholz. He is one of those of those player who I accidentally started collecting. The type of collection where you suddenly look one day and go ‘I sure have a lot of his stuff,’ so you actually start collecting more of that player.

With depression you need every win that you can get. This wasn’t just a win, this was like adding a championship. It was great. The package arrived within 2 days and I waited about a month to open it for when I was having another bad day. Below are the pictures. I would like to thank MLB Players Choice again and I suggest following them@MLBPAClubhouse. I regret not posting the pictures on my Twitter earlier.

BucholzJerseyWornJsyBuch

Bid Board Finds #1

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Right next to my college campus is a card shop. It has an amazing bid board that is perfect for a low end collector like myself. Nothing fancy but tons of good stuff. School is not in session so I won’t post a lot of these, as I won’t be able to regularly stop in there. I went out of my way because if I had winnings, I didn’t want to lose them as the bid board rules are that you must pay before 2 weeks is up.
Today’s haul:
– a 1954 Topps Gair Allie in beat up condition but that is to be expected for a card of this age
– HIT Allen Hurns autograph
– SAGE Brian Leonard autograph
– National Treasures Chimdi Chekwa autograph
Total cost: $4.50. Over half of that was for the 1954 card as the owner has been posting a lot of vintage and I wanted one. I don’t know what any of the cards are worth or if any of the players besides Allen Hurns are good but I really don’t care. I looked at them as lottery tickets anyway. I always bid on the autographs on the board that are under a dollar, and occasionally I get some. I am happy because I basically paid the cost of a single pack of cards and got all of this.

20150606_212142

Welcome to the dot com

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As you can see, I made the plunge and bought angrycardcollector.com. When I wrote the letter, I wasn’t expecting to start a blog. I posted a few things venting about the industry but they were not consistent. What has been consistent in the time since I wrote the letter is me becoming a part of the online collecting community. Twitter has helped the community in a different way. I am still a small fish in that community but I would like to become a bigger fish. A lot of that is because I do not give away cards for the sake of gaining followers. If you follow me on Twitter, I want it to be because you like this blog or like me; I don’t need followers who freeload. That said, a lot of these people who run those contests are good people. They are an important part of the community. A lot of them do more than just post contest. I would like to highlight them on here.

I may be frustrated with collecting but the fact is: I won’t quit collecting; so I figured I may as well document my exploits in collecting in the process. I keep saying that I am a minnow, swimming with sharks in this community. Minnows never get any love so I am taking upon myself to tell our story; yes our story. I know that there are a lot of us who have been pushed aside by the card community because we don’t come in with our pockets full of gold. What people fail to realize is that we are the ones who keep coming back because we love the hobby. I just want to make sure that there is a hobby that I can come back to.

Welcome to AngryCardCollector.com,
Daniel