CSA Card Show at Oaks this Weekend - Freddy Galvis, Ralph Kiner, Bob Boone, Mike Vick, Chuck Bednerick and More

Collectors Showcase of America returns to the Expo Center in Oaks - roughly 45 mins outside of Philadelphia on April 27th. 

I generally enjoy the CSA show more then the Hunt Auction/PhillyShow - Admission is cheaper ($5 rather than $7 or $8), parking is typically better.  The Valley Forge Convention Center can get really insane for parking.  Usually CSA offers an interesting complimentry auto, although this time out there doesn't appear to be one, and CSA also offers FREE admission on Friday. 

This weekends show is largely a football show for autographs, but they will be hosting Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner, Phils Alum and 1980 WSC Bob Boone, new Phils infielder Freddy Galvis and Dickie Noles (1980 WSC).  Kiner will be at the show on Sunday, with the Phillies appearing on Saturday.     

2010 Phungo #48 Dickie Noles

Among the Notable Football players are Chuck Bednarick (HoF), Mike Vick, Jeremiah Trotter, Mike Quick and Jack Butler(HoF).  

Heads up for anyone looking for good+ condtion vintage, I ran into one of my favorite dealers last wkend and he said he will be at the Oaks show - he had a bunch of nice looking early 60s cards to move.

Right now I am thinking team Phungo will be their late afternoon on Friday, and possibly Sunday. 

State of the Blog - Phungo 2009 and 2010+

2010 Phungo #48 Dickie Noles

Team Phungo has passed the 18 month mark in blogging. 2009 featured over 200 posts and we averaged roughly 1200 page views a month. Both are achievements that I am happy with and hope to maintain moving forward. In short it is a big thumbs up on this end. Just like Dickie Noles is telling us on the above Phungo card. You can tell this is a pose that Noles has struck many of times giving he thumbs up and displaying his 1980 World Championship ring. This picture was taken ast a Dickie Noles autograph signing for more info click here.

I do want to take a moment to look at some of the things that have happened at Team Phungo Headquarters this past year and figure out where we are headed for 2010.

Spot the Sig!

STS is likely the most succeful feature to come out of the Phungo brain trust. And I am very excited to see it succeeding so well over at Padrographs.

1959 Topps Set

I am very happy with how the 1959 set is coming. Ideally I would like to cut my needs list to finish this set in half each year until it becomes a manageable quantity of 20 or so cards. I was able to do this in both 2008 and 2009. I started building the set Thanksgiving of 2007 and by the end of 08 I was half completed. The December 09 Philly Show put me over the 75% mark with the Short Printed Bob Gibson Rookie Card.

2008 Topps Heritage

This winter I have also started a side project related to the 1959 Topps Set and that is the 2008 Topps Heritage Set. I plan on collecting the first 425 cards of the set. There are a slew of short prints beyond 425, but those are not important to me now. I have settled on cards 1-425, which does include some SPs but I have all but one of those and that is satisfactory at this time.

As of press time the heritage set is 70% complete.

Phungo Cards
After making the 2009 set of Phungo Cards, I wasn't sure I would still be involved in the blogging community a year later. I am really happy that I reaain blogging and was very happy to have put together the 2010 set of cards. The results were not quite up to what I had wanted, and because of time constraints, I compromised on several aspects of the set. I am pretty sure there will be a 2011 set of cards, although it may be an abbreviated set. One of my goals for 2011 is to produce cards for the teams that have yet to be represented on a Phungo Card.

Hall of Fame Thursday
This is a weekly feature that I ran for a couple months and found out what I already knew. I am not good with schedules - I may bring this back in a different form. Something like Hall of Fame Profiles so I am not married to the day of the week.

For the Collector

This feature is typically tied into another post. If I have the time I will look up recent ebay auctions for the card or player featured and see what they are going for. Not sure how much interest this information, until my Elvis Andrus post this past weekend.

Phungo 5

I am on the fence regarding P5 this year. It was a great experience and a lot of fun to do. Unfortunately the project takes a surprising amount of effort and I sort of fear that I would be able to add anything new to the questions a second time around. Something tells me Phungo 5 will be back, but I am not sure it will be nearly as robust this time around.

Year of the Trade

I wouild like 2010 to be the Year of the Trade. I find it unbelievable how many trades some people make. First off I just don't have that many cards I am interested in trading away. Secondly for all the Money I spend on cards, I doubt I have nearly as many cards as other collectors. Regardless, I am going to try and make 2010 the Phungo year of the trade. My goal in 2009 was to conduct a trade a month. I think I was pretty close. This year I would like to shoot for two trades a month.

This brings me to the 2009 $$$ breakdown

My biggest collecting goal was to spend less money then Chris Harris - which I accomplished - but you still can't beat an on-location box break. Seriously I just don't think I could spend $4500 on cards with out doing Brewster Millions Style.

Well in truth some days I did act like Brewster - I sort of bugeted myself $100/month but went way over. Some things were expected like Heritage Boxes and Vintage Card ebay luxuries. Other were not as thought out like bulk buying supplies that I looked at as lump sum investments.

By my calculations I ending up spending a bit over $2000 in 2009. It roughly broke down by venue as follows

$1100 Ebay
$550 Card Shows
$200 Retail
$120 Supplies and other Non Card expenses
$40 Group Breaks
$15 Trades/Postage
$0 Card Shops

Biggest surprise there is the ZERO for Card Shops. I didn't make it to a card shop once in 2009. All in all eBay is probably my most cost effective way to buy for my needs but it sure ate up the funds. It is addictive and I have already made a few (BIG) purchases in 2010.

In the next week or so I will try and do a break down by card type (New/Vintage/Autos) to see where the heck all this money is going.

Collecting Goals 2010

Beyond building the 1959 Topps and 2008 Heritage sets mentioned above, I will be adding to the Phillies Collection with a focus on collecting autos from members of the 2008 World Championship team. I will also be focusing on Vintage HOF cards this year.

Building a 2nd Vintage set will eventually become a goal - that set will likely be the 1971 edition of Topps.

Conclusions

I am happy with where Phungo presently and hope the Phils continue their winning ways. I figure I average about 30 page views a day, but that would be 10-20% lower if the Phils were not going through a favorable run.

Shortly I will be adding a poll for readers to pick out their favorite Phungo features and I will try to use that to base content for 2010.

Thanks to both my readers and all the rest of the bloggers out there that have keep this hobby/obsession fun and interesting.

Autograph Signing - Dickie Noles

I perused the BadWax autograph event list a few weeks back and found out that Marty Bystrom was signing autographs at a Nursery (botanical), of all places, near me. I had a little bit of free time and decided to check it out. Well......Marty Bystrom couldn't make it but Dickie Noles was good enough to show up in his absence. It turned out that Marty was in a golf tournament that weekend and figured he would only play on Saturday. Well Bystrom played well enough to qualify for the final. Regardless the signing was great. I showed up near the end and there was only one other person there that was really interested in the signing, everybody else was in the employ of Main Line Gardens near as I can tell.

Noles told a couple of stories and made several comparisons between the players of today and his own era both talentwise and money wise. Noles is still employed the Phillies and works for both their minor and major league teams. He also had several anecdotes about Phillies Dream week, which could almost get me to shell out the 4 or 5 grand it takes to go down there.

Noles was good enough to pose for some pictures and sign a couple of items I brought as well as a postcard provided by the venue. I am not sure but it appeared that Main Line Gardens may be somehow connected to the now defunct BC Collectibles. There were a couple of small display cases of autograph items and they appeared to be labeled the same way that one may see them in a BC Collectibles store.

Dickie Noles with World Series Ring (click to enlarge - and see Marty Bystrom ad in back)

This is a picture of Dickie posing and displaying his World Series Ring. As he said he has done this before and he has the pose down.

Main Line Gardens was hosting the signing as part of a Father's Day promotion, I hope they have additional signings. Thanks to them, Dickie Noles, and thanks to Bad Wax for publishing the listing.

Brush Backs - Shane Victorino - Dickie Noles

2006 Upper Deck #750 Shane Victorino

There has been a little bit of inside pitching during the entire NLCS this year. The Phils need to pitch inside to hitters like Manny Ramirez and Russell Martin. Similarly the Phils have batters like Chase Utley who like to stand right on top of the plate and will find inside pitches coming at them.

During game 3 the Dodgers and Phils almost found themselves in a brawl when a ball was thrown near Shane Victorino's head. Victorino saved his best response to the purpose pitch for a crucial at-bat the following night - a game tying homer in the 8th inning. This homer turned around game four and was followed by Matt Stairs mammoth go-ahead home run a few batters later.

Head hunting is nothing new to Phillies Playoff Baseball. During the Phillies Royals World Series in 1980, Dickie Noles only got into one game, a loss in game 4, but he is forever remembered in Phillies lore as the man who knocked down George Brett. Yes, The Phils did lost game 4, but they would take games 5 and 6 to win the pennant. Perhaps it was Noles inside heat that fired up the Phils and pushed them on to the Series victory.

2004 Upper Deck Legends Timeless Teams #193 Memorable Moments - Dickie Noles