Weekend Triumphs

Well the weekend was very very good to this Ozzie Collector. I picked up the Cooperstown Dufex for $59 shipped and the Topps Sticker for about 80. Both are a little higher than I liked, but given the rarity of both I was pleased with the purchases. I'm down now to 8 big ticket items. One of those, the '85 Kitty Clover has just been put up for auction. I'll try to get this bad boy on the cheap. If it goes above $50 I've got a buy it now I've been watching and a friend over at another forum that I can buy from.

Zeroing in on the big ones, then it's chasing for some of the smaller stuff.

1993 Cooperstown Dufex

So there's been a copy up for buy it now or best offer on the 'Bay for almost a week now. I wanted to put a bid in on this bad boy as well, but wasn't sure what he'd take. Well this week he's dropped the price and I put in an offer for $40. We'll see what happens. It's one of the few Ozzie cards priced over a hundred dollars I don't have. If I can pick up this and the '88 Topps Cloth along with my '93 Finest Refractor this will have been an amazingly productive month.

1988 Topps Cloth

Two nights ago my email had a nice little surprise. Someone has put up a bunch of '88 Topps Cloth cards on the bay. It basically seemed like the whole set including an Ozzie. With an opening bid of 74.99 that might be out of my price range, especially since I just dropped 59 on a '93 Finest Refractor. I'm going to have to check the budget and see if this one can make an appearance in my collection. Based on Beckett, and I know the lack of love they have in much of the collecting world right now, there's only 10 cards with a high price tag that I'm looking for and this is one of them. I guess over the next day or so I'll have to check my budget. I don't know when I'll see this one up for sale again.

Collecting the Wizard

I don't know of anyone who could give Ozzie Smith a run for his money as the greatest defensive shortstop of all time other than the comparable Omar Vizquel . As a life-long Cardinal fan, and one during the putrid early '90s, hope sprung eternal only because of one man, Ozzie Smith. When I starting making my own money after getting a summer job once I turned 13 I decided to collect who I deem to be the greatest shortstop ever, Ozzie Smith.

I don't know if this thing will be much more than a sounding board for my own thought on collecting the Wizard, but I'll create a want list soon and if anyone wants to do some trading I'd be down for that. I'd also be interested in straight up buying items as well.

My current goal is to pick up everything from 1978 to 1997. After '97 the hobby went to crap with short printing and serial numbered to 1 nonsense. The parallels of game used and game used autos and autos is asinine. Beyond that, Ozzie is not part of any mainstream set after 1997 that does not have a focus on retired players. Therefore if and when I complete my quest for everything before 1997 I'll see about the rest.

My blog reading of late has increased and I do wonder where my collection would stand today had I not wasted 7 years going to college and getting married. Regardless to complete my vision of what a proper Ozzie collection should be will require some time patience and good luck. There's some high dollar stuff out there that I need and some really hard to find stuff.

To the quest