Home Field Advantage - A New Facebook Group for Bloggers!

When it comes to hobbies...I have a lot of them! I often find myself not sure how to spend my free time as I have several different things that all fight for my attention. I also like to share whats going with my different hobbies, thus this blog and others that can be found in the left hand side bar. While this blog has no problems attracting readers or finding people to interact with and make trades with, that couldn't be said for some of my other blogs.

Enter Facebook. I quickly started to find different themed groups where I could eventually share my blog posts and help spread the word. I've been doing that a lot lately for my newest blog on video games. I'm not sure why, but it never occurred to me to look for baseball card groups on Facebook until the other day. However once I started to look, all I could find was a plethora of B/S/T groups. While there is nothing wrong with those, I was hoping to find a group that was maybe more trade friendly or just somewhere would I could post links to my newest post. After a lot of searching I couldn't find anything so I decided to make my own group.

The group is called Home Field Advantage. I know there are others that operate blogs that also keep up a Facebook presence so I'm hoping to find others that will find the group beneficial for their blog and/or for trading and what not. If you are on Facebook, have a trading card blog and are looking for another outlet to get more exposure for said blog or just want to chat or post want lists, join the group. It's currently set to Public so it should be easy to find.

Let's Talk Binders

I'm not sure if it's my un-organization that has me so worked up or just the fact that I'm excited about the new baseball season just around the corner and the new cards it brings, but I've been trying to get more and more cards sorted and placed in binders.

Just today I sat down to sleeve 2013 Gypsy Queen as I worked on my Want List and it hit me...maybe I'm using the wrong binder? I'm not talking O-ring versus D-ring. I'm using a 5 inch binder to hold on average two years worth of sets that I build...mainly Allen & Ginter and Gypsy Queen.

These big binders work well, but let's face it - they aren't cheap and they get heavy once fully loaded. It's also hard to turn a lot of pages at one time if I want to go to the set in the back of the binder. 

My question is for those of you that put sets or PCs in pages and binders, what do you do? Large massive binders for multiple years, like above? Or do you use smaller binders for each year of a set? If Topps made those nice padded binders for A&G and GQ each year, I'd consider buying those (even though those can be expensive). 

If you do use binders, do you stand them up or lay them down. If you lay them down, do you stack?

Currently I have about 6 of these 5 inch binders, laying flat on a bookshelf. I alternate the binders when stacking so they can kind of remain flat on the shelf, but it's starting to take it's toll on the bookshelf. Some of the shelves are sagging in the middle due to the weight...and the fact that it's a cheap particle board shelving unit.

I'm always curious to see how other collectors keep their collections organized so 1) they can enjoy the cards and 2) make it easy to find what they are looking for.

I would appreciate it if you'd share your thoughts, comments and collection/storage tips in the comment section below!

New Francoeur Cardboard

It's been a few seasons since Jeff Francoeur appeared on a Topps baseball card, but with a pretty solid season in Philadelphia last year Jeff returns to cardboard in 2016 Topps...even if he's in a Phillies uniform.

I've collected Francoeur since his rookie season w/ the Braves and I have tried to follow his career when he left the team, however in 2013 his games played w/ the Royals dropped to only 59. I'm not sure if he was benched, hurt or sent down to AAA, but until the 2015 season he only played in 32 games since he was traded to the Giants in the 2013 season.

When it was announced he signed a minor league contract with the Atlanta Braves in the winter of 2016 with an invitation to spring training, this baseball fan / collector was happy to hear the news. I still don't know what his chances are of actually making the team, but it's good to see Frency in a braves uni and having fun on the field again.

There are many reasons why I'm rooting for him to make the team, but one of those reasons is more baseball cards! Right now I'm chasing his 2016 Topps rainbow...

foil

inverse negative

black (23/65)

I still lack his several parallels: gold, Toys 'R Us purple, pink, clear and the framed version. I doubt the Platinum (1/1) will ever cross my collecting radar. While scanning these cards today I realized I bought two of the black parallel so after I return from vacation I'll be listing the extra on eBay - unless someone here wants to trade for it.

(13/25)

In my excitement of new Frency cardboard, I also went back and picked up this beautiful 2008 Upper Deck SPx Winning Materials patch card for cheap! 

Have you ever had a favorite player "disappear" from the majors for a few seasons, only to catch lightning in a bottle and return to the league? I guess with reprints and using retired players in baseball there is a good chance you can still find new cards of some players people collect, but when I picked up my last 2013 card of Francoeur I thought that would be my last.

I'm glad I was wrong.

2016 Topps - Let's Trade!

I know I'm a few weeks late to the party, but I had so much fun opening what I thought would be my only pack of 2016 Topps and well...here I am putting the finishing touches on my Want List and adding cards to my Trade List! 

For just buying retail hanger boxes and packs, I feel like I made a pretty good dent in Series 1 already. Decided to chase a few of the insert sets as well. I know there are others that are building this set so let's swap doubles. I don't even care if it's an even trade. I'm just itching to get back into cards now that life is settling down and the temps outside are starting to rise. Baseball is almost here and I'm ready! Are you?