$28.80 Is Why I Don't Mail Often

*coffee is ready, already poured a cup. steamy, hot and fresh. the best cup*

*takes a sip*

Well, I made a few trades on Twitter/X last week that required me to mail some bubble mailers, something I haven't done since Christmas.

I can see why after I had to pay for it.

To mail out three bubble mailers, it came to almost $30.

THIRTY BUCKS.

PROOF:

 

(ignore $10 of this, my wife had to mail out a package as well which don't get me going on how long that took to get to it's location and the travel path it went.....)

I basically spent money on a blaster box to send these out. I don't even spend the money on a blaster box.

And do you know how many cups of coffee that could be as well?

Yeah. I think outside the box.

I find spending that much money to ship absolutely ridiculous thinking about the lack of contents in each package.

Let's break it down shall we?

 

Flat package, small bubbler, one card, staying on the east coast with me to NJ. $7.50!!!!! SEVEN DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENTS. Remember when you could mail on your own coast or zone and it was just a couple dollars? Pepperidge farm does (some of you will get this reference)

Kansas was the second location. A little further and the fullest package of the three so I expected more. This one was $10.38. Which didn't make sense since I paid $7.50 for one card in my supposed zone. I thought the further away the more it costs?

Then the final package was to Illinois, a lot less cards and is closer than Kansas, but cost more. This one finished with $10.92.

Make it all make sense.

This is why you rarely see me send anything bubbler or do any form of trading that way. I really, really have to want something to fork out all of the extra funds I don't always have to mail this way.

I can't imagine what it must cost to send something out of the USA. Another thing I won't do.

 

I would rather send three of these for under $3 any day. Which is why I ask for stamps for Christmas every year.

Let's also quickly discuss the way mail has been recently as well. I have had two packages that were incoming with cards partially opened, the bubblers you pay more for are taking longer to be received than the PWE's, I have had some incoming packages lost from eBay, and I feel like sometimes they must drive their cars over the packages before delivering them because they are covered with dirt and more.

Let me know in comments if you feel the same way or what your thoughts are on the rising costs of using USPS or how you feel they are doing or what your preferred version of mailing is.

I hope everyone has a great Wednesday, well except the USPS. They owe me many cups of coffee.

*final sip of the post*

*Coffee Card Blogger Out*

Card #100 Of 2026 Has Arrived

*coffee is in hand, blogger is finding time to blog, let's go*

*takes a sip*

*takes another, it's -13 so far today, needs all hot coffee can intake*

Well, I have reached the second minor milestone of 2026 and I reached it at the end of February, two weeks after I reached the first minor one. 

It's card #100 of the year. Doesn't seem like many when you really break it down.

With this newest update, this means I am now averaging 1.69 cards a day over a 59 day span which is more than what I was averaging two weeks ago when it was 1.14 cards a day.

Hopefully, my numbers will continue to increase as the year goes on.

Without further ado, Card #100 of the year and it's a shiny one at that.

This card, a 2025 Mosaic Bang Mosaic Parallel of Brian Burns, comes via my friend @TCovCards11, he sent me a few goodies and after I got down adding them to my yearly total, this was card #100.

Thanks again to TCov for the cards and for helping reach this goal.

Hope everyone has a magnificent Monday. Stay warm.

*takes another sip*

*Coffee Card Blogger Out*

5 Things I Did In The Hobby Last Week

Welcome to the next edition of 5 Things I Did In The Hobby Last Week. I am glad a few of you have reached out and let me know this is one of your favorite segments on here. I like information such as that.

But, for those of you that are new to this segment, here is the background to it:

This series is once again related/played on by Elon Musk's email to government officials in February 2025 asking them about what five things they did.

Also, once again, this is not about politics. I just liked the idea.

*its best to never post politics, make friends, not enemies*

Here we go onto my five things.

1.As always, I did a lot more social media posts across my planet of them. I started doing Rodney Hampton, Eli Manning updates along with small mail day posts on there since it's much faster to send out a social media message than putting up a big blog post.

If you want to catch up on stuff you missed out on, here is a list of all of my social media channels:Cards Over Coffee YouTube Channel is for cards:

Cards Over Coffee - YouTube

Matt's World Of Fun YouTube Channel is for everything else:
Matt's World Of Fun! - YouTube

On top of this, I have two Facebook accounts, Cards Over Coffee and Sport Card Collectors,

Twitter/X: Coffee Card Guy

Instagram account: Coffee Card Guy

Bluesky as Cards Over Coffee

There you have that. Now go check me out on those!

2. I bagged up all of the cards to hand out to my girls basketball team that were both donated and from my own collection. They turned out to be a big hit!

  

Side note, my party went great even though I did blank handing out the custom shirts to them and trying to remember what I wanted to say about each girl.

  

3. I finally packed up a few PWE trades! I have so, so many more to mail if I can find the time.

. 

I have a few bloggers I want to send to and a couple other friends. Hopefully can get to those soon.

4.I got rid of the stack of cards that were in front of my TV stand for months. Only problem is, I moved them from in front of the TV into a box to be taken care of at a later date. So, I got rid of one mess to make another basically. These are the cards I also need to add to my TCDB collection so I did keep them by their stacks to make that easier when I have time.

5. Since I made those PWE trades, I had to dig stuff out, which meant I had to put stuff away they weren't interested in. Usually I let that sit around forever, this time, I just took care of all of it without having to create the mess in my card area again.

And there you have it. Five things I did in the hobby last week.

I hope to keep this series going when I have time to post on it.

*takes this posts final sip*

Tell me five things you did in the hobby last week or make a comment on mine. I will make sure to read and comment back on all of them.

Have a great Thursday!

*Coffee Card Blogger Out*

One Down, Nine To Go!

We are only two months into 2026 and I just posted my Top 10 I want to acquire in 2026 list a few weeks ago and one of those ten have been acquired!

A couple weeks ago, I received a message from long time friend Stephen on Instagram, @keyon_korner, that he was about to acquire one of the cards from my Top 10 list and send it to me just because.  

What a great friend he has always been. 

Within a few days he did just that and threw in a very low numbered bonus card as well that I will show off below.

The main card he sent is the 7th card on my list, though none of these are in any particular order of which one is most important.

90's collectors, try to not be jealous of this one...

 

I now officially own the 1995 Summit Ground Zero parallel Curtis Martin card. One of the toughest ones I needed for my set chase!! I am not too far away from finishing this one now!

Only, 35,53,60,64,71,79,103,109,125,136,137,138,159,160,169,174,177,178,179,180,182,188,189,193,195,196,197,198,200 remain and I will finally complete this bad boy after 31 years.

I guess I should have added completing this set as one of the Top 10 cards I want to add in 2026. Maybe I should do a set version of this list.

Speaking of the Top 10 list, here are the other nine cards I am looking to add in 2026 if any of you have them,

1. 2024 Prizm (not draft) Caitlin Clark base rookie. 
2. 1994-95 Collect-A-Card Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The New Season - Acetate Character PlastiCards #CS-6 - The White Ranger. 
3. 1994-95 Collect-A-Card Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The New Season - Acetate Character PlastiCards Lord Zedd 
4. 1998 Fleer Ultra Gold Medallion Peyton Manning 
5. 1997-1998 Metal Universe Base Michael Jordan 
6. 1996-1997 Metal Universe Base Michael Jordan
7. 1995 Summit Ground Zero Curtis Martin 
8. Pop Century Ed O'Neil Autograph. 
9. 1997 Topps Chrome Refractor Jake Plummer Rookie 
10. 1992 Bowman Mariano Rivera

Now onto that really cool bonus card I mentioned above that Stephen sent along as well,

Check out this 2014 Select Blue autograph parallel /5 of Andre Williams, who is one of my bigger Giant player collections and this a new one for it. Really sweet card, more so in person.

Thanks goes out to Stephen for this great mail day and for helping me knock down a big set need.

I will hopefully be able to finish this set now that Stephen gave me the big boost. This was one of my favorite parallels of the 90's.

Hope everyone has a great Wednesday night. I know I am after looking at these two cards again.

In comments, let me know what big card are you still missing in your set chase?

*Coffee Card Blogger Out*

I Wasn't Prepared For This

I wasn't prepared for this....post. I have no coffee, I have no card pictures uploaded to talk about, and have no idea what I will talk about in this post but at least tonight I finally have the time to put a post up.

I wasn't prepared for this....new college homework assignment. I had to interview someone in my potential future career when I graduate college but I didn't know that the assignment was more than just an interview. The fun part was I chose Sport Card Marketing for my job chase and got to interview the one, the only, Susan Lulgjuraj or as some call her Sooz. (formerly of Beckett, Topps and Goldin)

I wasn't prepared for this.....the piles of sport cards I kept telling myself I will get to sorting but they just sit there and stare at me like a puppy who was left home alone by their owner.

I wasn't prepared for this...the amount of snow we have had this winter. Yes, it will be great for my well when spring hits and it melts to fill it up since it ran dry last year, but for now, it's been such a pain to drive in.

I wasn't prepared for this...March is literally a week from today. I haven't gotten my wife's birthday gifts for the 15th yet and I turn another year older on the 19th (never prepared for that).

I wasn't prepared for this...family visiting next week. I have school, appointments and a house to clean.

I wasn't prepared for this...collectors actually wanting to trade and my card room being a mess and unable to find the right cards for them.

I wasn't prepare for this...a friend of mine on Instagram contacted me and told me he was going to send me a card off from my list of cards I wanted to add in 2026. The card is now in hand and came along with a friend that was /5 that I didn't know about. 

I wasn't prepared for this...no football on TV, no girls basketball to coach. Offseason stinks.

I wasn't prepared for this...storing cards by player that need to be added to my TCDB collections in front of my TV so it's been a challenge to try and turn it on.

I wasn't prepared for this...having plenty of stamps on hand, but not having time to mail out cards to others to get some trades done.

I guess the next time I post on here, I better be more prepared.

What's something that you weren't prepared for that's coming up or happened recently?

*Coffee Card Blogger Out*

*that's the one thing in this post that I prepared for typing*

It Was A Fun Ride

Good Morning Coffee Card Enthusiasts!

*takes a sip*

The weekend has come and gone again and so hasn't my basketball season.

We did pull out the win, but the last girl didn't make her shot which was disappointing. Her teammates tried, us coaches tried and the girl tried multiple shots. The ball just wouldn't fall in.

But, overall, it was a pretty successful season as a head coach. We finished 5-2. We had 9 out of 10 girls make a basket. Every girl on the team bonded. Every girl grew tremendously by seasons end. I am proud of this team and everything we accomplished together as a family. That's what I built our culture on.

So much a family that I got us all matching shirts. Remember that post about a month ago where I traded off the Ohtani Topps rookie and a few other cards, well, this is what I did with it. I got them custom shirts with jersey number, name and same front logo as myself. They just showed up last week which is good timing as they arrived in time for our end of the year celebration on Wednesday.

I can't wait to give them away, but I am also really sad that it's all come to an end. I have seen these girls since November so it's been something I have gotten used to and will be weird/sad not having to spend hours writing up practice notes, drawing up plays and practice drills and posting on the team website every other day.

Next year I plan on coaching again and will be coaching 5th/6th grade and will hopefully have some of the girls I had this year return.

It was a fun ride.

*takes a sad sip with a small tear in the eye*

Another fun ride for me has been collecting Mikaela Shiffrin who is in this year's Winter Olympics and was someone who trained skiing only about twenty to thirty minutes from my house which is super cool. She is also very talented and even though I am not watching the Olympics, I am loudly cheering her on from a distance.

 

My latest add was the Metalized Subset Dots Parallel from Skybox Metal Universe which is numbered to 199.

I need to add this to my TCDB collection at some point. I believe I am still third or fourth place when it comes to collecting her. She was included in the recent 2026 Topps Chrome Winter Olympics product so maybe I will try to add some from that product as well.

I hope everyone has a great rest of your Monday. Some Monday's are better than others, I am currently doing school work while I am typing this so you know how mine is going.

*takes a final sip*

*Coffee Card Blogger Out*

Card #50 Of 2026 Has Arrived

*coffee is in hand, blogger is finding time to blog, let's go*

*takes a sip*

Well, I have reached the first minor milestone of 2026 and I reached it in February. It feels like it took awhile to get here, but, it's here.

It's card #50 of the year. Doesn't seem like many when you really break it down. 

That means I am only averaging about 1.14 cards a day which I am sure is well below what everyone else is averaging.

I will need to work on this as the year goes on obviously.

You can check out my numbers anytime you come on here as they are updated daily in the right corner of this blog along with other coffee type decorations.

*takes a sip*

Now onto the reveal of Card #50 on the year.

 

It's the 1999 Topps Chrome Lords Of The Diamond LD8 of Juan "Gone" Gonzalez that I got from a Twitter RAK from user @CraigCaruso . 

This is a new one for my Unfinished Cup set. I need to update the numbers on there soon so I know what's left to the chase.

Thanks again to Craig for the card, thanks for those of you also who are reading this today.

I plan on doing more mini milestone posts throughout the year.

In comments, tell me how many cards you have roughly acquired so far in 2026. I am curious to compare!

Well, I need to get back to school work and enjoy the last few sips of this current cup of coffee, *takes a sip*, of coffee remaining while I do it.

Have a fantastic Friday!

*Coffee Card Blogger Out*

5 Things I Did In The Hobby Last Week

Good Morning Coffee Card Friends!

Even though I have a ton of homework this week to do, I wanted to get a post up quickly.

It also allows me to update you on our last game.

Which as you can see went very well. And guess what....GIRL NUMBER 9 made her basket!! One game left on Saturday, one girl left!! Can I pull this off? We will see. I have drawn up two crazy plays to try and get things open for her and I hope it works. It will be a practice thing the next couple of nights.

I am hoping it will all work out. I will update you guys next week on that. Otherwise we are 4-2 currently and played a pretty dominating game. Our final opponent won't be an easy one.

*takes a sip hoping for the best*

Welcome to the next edition of 5 Things I Did In The Hobby Last Week. I am glad a few of you have reached out and let me know this is one of your favorite segments on here. I like information such as that.

But, for those of you that are new to this segment, here is the background to it:

This series is once again related/played on by Elon Musk's email to government officials in February 2025 asking them about what five things they did.

Also, once again, this is not about politics. I just liked the idea.

*its best to never post politics, make friends, not enemies*

Here we go onto my five things.

1.As always, I did a lot more social media posts across my planet of them. I started doing Rodney Hampton, Eli Manning updates along with small mail day posts on there since it's much faster to send out a social media message than putting up a big blog post.

If you want to catch up on stuff you missed out on, here is a list of all of my social media channels:Cards Over Coffee YouTube Channel is for cards:

Cards Over Coffee - YouTube

Matt's World Of Fun YouTube Channel is for everything else:
Matt's World Of Fun! - YouTube

On top of this, I have two Facebook accounts, Cards Over Coffee and Sport Card Collectors,

Twitter/X: Coffee Card Guy

Instagram account: Coffee Card Guy

Bluesky as Cards Over Coffee

There you have that. Now go check me out on those!

2. I cleaned up the floor going into my card room. I just kept stacking and stacking and stacking stuff and not finding the time to get it off of the floor. This past weekend I took some time out to finally get it done.

    

  

3. With my end of year party next week for the girls, I started gathering some cards to give them.

.  

Some I have taken from my own collection, others have been donated by great people on Twitter/X.

4.I have been trying to trade more and by trading more that takes time.

 

So I have been pulling out trade stuff as I go along. Now I just need to finish up some of these trades and need to pack up others to make them official. Such a process. I wished I had time.

5. I uploaded some pictures in the drafts here for a couple new posts that will be typed up when I have time for them. I didn't take a screenshot of them because that would ruin the posts so I guess you will have to stay tuned!

And there you have it. Five things I did in the hobby last week.

I hope to keep this series going when I have time to post on it.

*takes this posts final sip*

Tell me five things you did in the hobby last week or make a comment on mine. I will make sure to read and comment back on all of them.

Have a great Thursday!

*Coffee Card Blogger Out*

Hidden Gem

Early last month, my wife messaged me from work that she and her co-workers wanted me to pick up some Dunkin' and make what they call a MattDash run. Not to be confused with DoorDash, but MattDash doesn't get paid with anything but a lot of thank you from nurses.

So, I took the adventure and grabbed myself a coffee while I was there. The great part about that, was they were running a promo where they were giving away little tote bags with a donut of your choice with the purchase of any beverage.

 

This was the little tote bag I chose.

And my choice of the donut for the day was a strawberry frosted.

After finishing that up, I still had this kind of cool collectible bag and didn't have any ideas what I would do with it other than keep it as a collectible.

That's when I decided to get creative and use it for today's post and call it Hidden Gem.

Because I literally hid a gem card inside of it.

I picked this card up after I saw someone on Twitter have one and I felt influenced to have one myself.

  

I like unique cards with unique relics I haven't seen before. I am not sure how hard it was to pull one of these as I can't find a lot of details on it, but, it's still a cool addition.

Good coffee, good donut, good card. Sounds like a win to this Coffee Card Guy.

Hope everyone has a Magnificent Monday.

Below, tell me your favorite donut flavor.

*Coffee Card Blogger Out*

Blog Bat Around Again: The Post Without Words (let the picture(s) speak) Football Edition

 

*Coffee Card Blogger Out* (yes I know, these are words but deal with it haha)

Cards I Want To Acquire in 2026

Yes, there are close to 300 cards on my Top Want List, but some cards stand out more than others.

That's where today's post comes into play.

These may not be the most expensive cards on a list, but for me these are the key ones I am looking to add before the end of the year.

1. 2024 Prizm Caitlin Clark base rookie. This is the best rookie I think of the Jordan of WNBA. She made the sport popular and grew it. This is a must have for anyone.
2. 1994-95 Collect-A-Card Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The New Season - Acetate Character PlastiCards #CS-6 - The White Ranger. Growing up a huge Power Rangers fan, this card is a must have of my favorite Power Ranger.
3. 1994-95 Collect-A-Card Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The New Season - Acetate Character PlastiCards Lord Zedd My favorite Power Rangers Villain!
4. 1998 Fleer Ultra Gold Medallion Peyton Manning I once owned this card in my youth as I pulled it from a pack, it's time to bring it home again.
5. 1997-1998 Metal Universe Base Michael Jordan Cool, iconic card.
6. 1996-1997 Metal Universe Base Michael Jordan See Above
7. 1995 Summit Ground Zero Curtis Martin One of the last better cards I need for that set chase!
8. Pop Century Ed O'Neil Autograph. I loved watching him in many movies and shows!
9. 1997 Topps Chrome Refractor Jake Plummer Rookie. Have you seen the photo they used on this card? Super cool.
10. 1992 Bowman Mariano Rivera. It's the GOAT closer, so, yeah.

If I can get at least one or maybe even two of these accomplished, that would make my year.

Let me know in comments what are the top cards you are hoping to acquire before this year is out! They can be big or small or a little of both. 

The year will go by faster than you think, I mean I had this idea ready for the second week of January and here we are in February already!

And bloggers, feel free to use this as a new post idea if you need one :)

Have a great day full of blessings.

*Coffee Card Blogger Out*

Mail Days Make It All Better

I knew going into yesterday's basketball game, it was going to be a tough one.

I just didn't know how tough was going to be.

It was painful. Two girls took over the entire game and shut us down. They had more AAU players than us and had more 4th graders playing. Experience will always dominate.

But, through the pain of a loss like that, there are still some highlights.

For one, we made some great defensive plays once we shifted things around, we had a girl make two of her three free throws which was a drastic improvement, and once again most importantly, we had another girl make her first shot early on in the game and another was so close. That now makes 8 out of 10 girls who have made a shot with two games left.

This was the first loss as a coach I felt harder than the other I have. I think it hurt more because of the girls that sat there with glum expressions on their face with more questions than answers that I couldn't even give them. But, what I did offer them was hope. That even though we fell and fell hard today, you can only go up from here. We will rise again. You just have to believe it. I know I believe it. 

We have two practices to turn this around this week before we play a team we already beat in the first game in the year. I know these girls really need a boost and hopefully I can keep practice upbeat this week and that we will have positive momentum moving into the Saturday's game.

But, even though I am feeling kind of glum myself today because I feel how they do, I have a fun mail day to share from the blog Legend Night Owl Cards that makes things better.

 

Greg sent me an incredible variety of items starting out cards from my favorite era, the mid to late 90's. No other cards will ever hit me the way these do.

No card company even comes close to these now-a-days. It's all focus on autographs and jersey cards. Give me these any day.

I may not collect today's baseball cards as much as I once did, but I can never turn down a shiny card especially one with a fun photo as well.

One of my favorite non-sport sets. I am still around 8 away from completion.

I watched a ton of horror growing up. I don't own a single Jaws 2 card so this is awesome. I used to avoid water because I was afraid a shark would snag me.

NEW GRIFFEY ALERT!! 90's throwback and all, it's a beauty.

T'hen came two non-sport relic cards from Allen And Ginter I always welcome regardless of who they are.

Stand up comic Brody Stevens who I guess starred in the first two Hangover movies and passed away a few years ago. RIP.

Malcolm Gladwell is an author, something I always dreamed of being so this is a really cool addition.

This was a great mail day. One that takes away some of the glum.

Thanks Greg! I have more Dodgers to send your way soon!

As always I will keep you all updated on how our next game goes. This is a busy week ahead, I have family up from Nashville who still haven't gotten their power back from that storm, I have basketball of some form every night, and I will be in week 2 of college second semester and still trying to navigate my way around the new classes that require more. I am hoping for at least one more post this week but I will see what time will allow.

Thanks for reading! Have a great rest of your Sunday and week!

*Coffee Card Blogger Out*