Some Finished Projects

No matter the topic when you finally finish a project you can help but step back and enjoy what you just finished. (Hopefully) Be it a car engine, school presentation, remodeling parts of your home or just a collection of cardboard. (for me it's most likely the last one) I finished up 2 separate projects recently. (both baseball card related) 1 which has been in the works on and off for the last 4 years or so but mostly off. The other I started not to long after the MiLB season was over.

The most recent project I have been working on was to complete a Rainbow of sorts.  In the hobby of sports trading cards a "RAINBOW" is when you collect all the color variations of 1 certain card. This is mostly done with cards with a chrome finish. Soon after the MiLB season started I ran out of live baseball games to watch in person so usually my fall back is to stock up on the cards I didn't get a chance to pick up during the season. Doing some searching I found a few cards here and there. For whatever reason or another I was checking out an ebay sellers past history and noticed be bought some cards that for the right price I would be interested in picking up. The player in question MIKESON OLIBERTO. He is not a household name in the MLB. Not even within Yankee Universe. The cards caught my eye 1 because I have talked to and watch Mikeson play live for the Tampa Yankees & 2 I knew these set of cards would eventually be near impossible to track down later. After sending messages back & forth with the seller we came up with some term for me to purchase the cards in phases in a way we were both happy. I may have over paid a bit but that's what happens sometimes. After having some of the harder cards to track I slowly chipped away and waited on other cards to come into the market and try to work down some of the prices. Mikeson has a total of 29 unique cards made for him. I officially own 20 of those cards and some have print runs as low as just 1 card. The other 9 cards that I am missing all have print runs of just 1 card. I am missing all 8 printing plates and the Top Dog the SUPER-FRACTOR. I am watching ebay on a daily and have asked around on some message boards. I think I am soon to the point where I will need to put out bounties for these cards. Who knows if they have even seen the light of day or ever will. They might still be waiting in a box in a random card shop just waiting to be bought. If you have followed my ever going Cardboard Therapy post you might have seen some of the cards pop up. But here it is in it's entirety the 2013 Bowman Mikeson Oliberto All-Most Full Collection Rainbow:

The second project doesn't have much explaining to the back story. In the later 2000's as in pre 2010 card companies were releasing cards such as Lettermens or By The Letters. These cards were usually manufactured patch cards with a letter on each one and if collected enough would spell out such this as players name, nickname or team. Collectors would spin this concept and make it into something a little more personal and create nameplates for themselves. I started the idea to do this myself before having my first son Zander. He was born in March of 2010. I originally wanted to spell out his name but for the life of me could never run across a card with the letter Z. Not too many people have that letter in their name to begin with and the card companies didn't just make these cards for everyone. With me being me I could only build the set made up of Yankee players. As time went on the project kept having to get put on the back burner as perused other projects that were a little easier to get done. Then I had another son and started picking up letters for Sebastian. His name would be a little easier to get done but again projects get moved around. Fast forward some time and we move into a new home & I start the process of making a YANKEE ROOM and figured that the easiest name plate would be our LAST NAME. Most of the letter were already in the collection as I have been picking up stuff here and there to get these names done through the time. Just recently did pick up a Yogi Berra Letter B to finish off what now marks another successful project. Here are some images of my accomplishment

line up of all the cards in the name plate

the location of the name plate within the yankee room itself

a close up of the name plate in the yankee room

As always with projects there can always be some tinkering to the "Finished Product." as with the Mikeson collection I am still missing those 9 cards could always update to lower serial numbered cards as I go. As with the name plate could always switch out the Letters as I continue to pick some up as the days of the off season continue to chip off the calendar. Hope you enjoyed the pictures of my recent projects and hope I didn't bore you with my back stories.