[JollyElm]

Q: If Santa Claus fills in as the Buffalo Bills' defensive coordinator for tomorrow's Christmas Eve game, what is his main strategy going to be??

A: Blitzen!! Duh!!!


I present to you Collectorisms Part XII (Days of Christmas)


"Do you expect me to talk?"

"No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to roll your eyes."



***ALERT!!!!!!*** There is a lot to unwrap here (get it?), so take your time!!! Ho-ho-hopefully, laughs will abound!!!!
Before you do anything, scroll down to #829 and read it, so you will understand what's going on here.


No plastic straws were used in creating this horsereindeershit, and no Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifles were used to shoot any kids' eyes out.


The only way to survive this stupidity is to start chugging mass quantities of rum-rich eggnog!!!!!!!!!!!




783. Infelleribility
The oft-heard quip that whenever you run across anything Bob Feller related, it is virtually guaranteed that the piece will have his autograph on it.

784. Flipmiffed
Although you know once you sell a card, the new owner is free to do with it whatever he wants, you still feel peeved when you see him quickly turn around and resell his new acquisition for a nice profit...a nice profit that ‘rightfully’ should’ve been yours.

785. Counter-refitter
A swindler who is able to seamlessly insert a phony replica or reprint card into an authentic slab to replace the valuable original he has removed.

786. Creeptocurrency
The attempt by someone you don’t know to buy something off of you via a strange new payment method you’ve heard of, but know nothing about and have no faith in.

787. Ballpark Testament
The stories, photographs and memories reflecting a wonderfully personal and enduring love for your team’s long-gone stadium, which had been their home in your earliest days of being a baseball fan.

788. Bequeazy
The troubled feeling of knowing that the people you leave your collection to after you pass away aren’t going to care one iota about how much you cherished and slaved over it for years and years, they’re just going to quickly sell everything off and grab the dough.

See also: “Death, Where is Thy Ka-ching?” - an expression noting how some inheritors don’t have a clue how to profitably liquidate their loved one’s collection.

789. Numeralpha Male
Any player who is immediately identifiable by nothing more than the mere mention of a uniform number - like 3, 9, 21, 24, 32, 99, etc.

See also: Co-Meekual - when the same number was worn by two different all-time greats, but one of them takes a back seat when it comes to instantly coming to the mind of most fans.

See also: Surnameous - any player who is immediately identifiable by the mere mention of his first name.

790. See Sawcery
The act of trying to magically establish a proper asking price for a card whose past sales numbers have consistently and wildly fluctuated up and down.

See also: Moving Starget - when this process involves a serious Hall of Famer card.

791. “A long bird in a short sky” (AKA Longbirding) (idiom)
The realization that in order to sell an epic card of yours, you need something other than eBay - like an auction house or the like - to get the right eyes on it and have the best chance of maximizing the sales price.

792. Sellevation
The act of purchasing a higher graded version of a card you own, and then selling off the original to help defray the cost of the upgrade.

793. Flipomatic Immunity
As long as it’s not cracked out of its slab, a card - even a completely overgraded one - will remain at the number the TPG deemed it to be and will forever enjoy the fruits and values associated with that particular grade.

794. Dough Strings Attached
Always knowing that once you accept a card as a gift from someone, even if you didn’t really want it in the first place, you will somehow, some way eventually end up paying for it.

795. Flawer Power
The love and satisfaction of landing a key, rare and valuable error card or variation.

796. Slabflection Hindrance (also Flashing Blights)
The unavoidable fact that you cannot snap a photograph of a graded card without all sorts of distracting reflections and shadows clouding and affecting the image.

See also: “Lights, Camera, Refraction!” - a jaunty expression of this reality.

See also: Diffractured - any picture of a graded card markedly affected by shadows and reflections.

See also: Mirror Scrimmage - playing the game of looking at the distorted backwards images being reflected in the photo of a TPG slab or the glass of a framed photo and trying to figure out what can be found there.

See also: Reflective Detective - a person who enjoys engaging in this activity.

See also: Faceholder - a picture where the reflected mug of the photographer is plainly visible.

See also: Phonedemental - the one constant in each of these photographs is the appearance of the rectangular silhouetted shadow of the picture taker’s cell phone.

797. Rerunaware
When someone again bumps his thread by noting “Still available,” seeming to be alone in not realizing his asking price is unreasonably high for the card.

See also: Skyhighlander - a seller committing this ‘offense.’

798. Behemother Effer!
The frustration involved with trying to complete a very large set.

799. Omission Control
The various checklist cover-up approaches that Topps used to disguise the fact that certain card numbers in certain sets did not actually exist.

800. Slack Jacket
The protective ‘armor’ afforded by the thick, reflective slab which by its very nature makes light creases, wrinkles, gum residue or other surface issues - that were plainly obvious when the card was in hand - ‘disappear’ due to the effort now required to even realize there are defects to be found.

See also: Cloak and Swagger - when a card’s appearance is greatly improved by a slab’s ability to conceal its shortcomings.

See also: Flyinhearted - a card that technically deserves the low grade it received, but has the strong eye appeal of a much higher grade.

See also: Mysterical Blindness - if a card ensconced in a holder has flaws that are no longer detectable by the person viewing it, do those flaws actually even exist or matter anymore?

801. Monkeyshrines
Deceptively using “HOF” when selling a card to raise the player’s status sky high, but he isn’t in Cooperstown or any other major sport’s Hall of Fame, but ‘just’ a minor state, college or team version.

802. Factcertainty
Any beliefs or assumptions that you’ve devised about specific cards or sets that may not have ever been proven to be literally true, but are certainly valid enough to you based on personal experience.

803. Cross-Postmortem
When someone makes a point of stating the card he’s selling is also being posted in other forums, and your first thought is, “So, your attempt to sell it at that ridiculous price is going to die a miserable death on other sites, too??”

See also: Uppermosting - when someone points out that their (already exorbitantly priced) cards are listed for even higher amounts on eBay due to the fees.

804. Pennywise-Ass
A person who, after determining what someone paid for the card he’s trying to trade for or buy off of him, attempts to use the knowledge to gain some sort of leverage.

805. Screwveneer
A crease or wrinkle appearing on the surface of a card, but not going through to the other side.

806. Freejects
The cards from from the junk wax era that were so overproduced, easily found and worthless that you aren't able to even give them away gratis.

807. Strung-Upcharge
The futile irritation of, after following all proper valuation protocols with a card submission, the TPG tells you that based on the grades your cards received, you owe them significantly higher fees.

See also: Embittersweet - feeling furious that you’re being stuck with unwarranted additional grading charges, but finding some solace in the fact that a higher grade ‘turned’ your card into a more valuable one.

See also: Slabductee - any card being held hostage by a TPG until the submitter pays the ‘ransom’ of higher service level fees.

808. Uncommonplace
Searching eBay to find information on something unusual you picked up, but not finding a single listing for one, so you’re left not knowing whether the piece is very rare or so run-of-the-mill that it’s not worth the listing fees involved in trying to sell one.

809. Youtuberculosis
A condition causing any rational person, after clicking on a link to watch a video about sportscards or such, to continue clicking on more and more tangential sports (and beyond) links.

810. Edgehog
A card so off-centered that its image is a mere hair away from hitting one or two borders and being labeled as ‘miscut.’

811. Ripdated
After hearing that an all-time great has just passed away, being startled to find his death date - today’s date - has already been edited in to his Wikipedia page bio.

See also: Yesterdais - any old picture or video from a Cooperstown induction ceremony which captures the gathered assembly of elderly all-time greats.

812. Cripple Digits
From a buyer’s perspective, the crushing amount of increase in price a card gains between one number grade and just a single number grade higher.

813. Passersbuying
Grabbing something at a card show that you are unfamiliar with, but it looks cool and just jumps off the dealer’s table at you.

814. Crowd Ofcourseing
Starting a thread to find opinions on something, when you already know full well that every responder is simply going to agree with your thoughts.

815. Flinchworm
Someone who ignores a seller’s claim that his price is firm and tries to talk him into shrinking back and letting it go for cheaper.

816. Momprovisations
The impromptu tactics your younger self was able to develop in order to keep your baseball card collection hidden away and safe from your mother’s desire to chuck it all away.

817. Squanderlust
The impulsive habit of making rash baseball card purchasing decisions, so you’re always forking over way too much money and ultimately turning all of your buys into downright bad moves.

See also: Möbius Trip - the simple fact that no matter how hard you try to avoid it, you will continue going round and round, stumbling through the same types of poor purchasing choices.

818. Indivisualism
The simple fact that different collectors looking at the same card at the same time will only see what they choose to see, and will have widely different assessments of its shape, beauty, desirability, value, etc.

819. Open Mick Night
Any thread started to again have members pile on their reverence and adulation for Mickey Mantle.

820. Sleepstakes
Waking up to find the bid you placed on something the night before came out on top and brought you home a big victory.

821. Let’s Make a Steal
Any eBay ‘Pick Your Card’ auction which has you spinning the game show-like wheel to get to the card you are thinking of buying, and it ends up looking nice with a price that is sweet.

822. Filosophistry
PSA’s practice of first in, last out (FILO), wherein the cards submitted ages ago are endlessly ignored and put on the back burner, while cards newly submitted at substantially higher grading fees are graded and sent out quickly.

See also: WAH Qualifier (in development) - ‘WAH’ would only appear on the slabs of cards that were resubmitted in their holders to PSA in an attempt to to receive a higher grade, but failed to do so. It stands for “Wrong Again, Honey.”

See also: FU - the only ‘qualifier’ virtually every customer would slap on PSA these days.

823. Memoremix
When someone talks about the first pack he ever opened as a kid, and names specific cards it held, although he believes the story to be true, his account is most likely an innocent amalgamation of different baseball card rememberances.

824. Smarmistice (also Waratorium)
Praying to the heavens that any of the self-involved members who constantly assess every freaking thing by using the theoretical stat of WAR, would just for once give it a rest and take a different approach.

825. Magnitrickation
How enlarged or high-def scans of any of your cards will always make them look in ridiculously worse shape than they actually are.

826. Adjectivitis
The condition affecting eBay sellers who greatly overdo the use of descriptive words to sell their superb, awesome, glorious, marvelous, magnificent, exceptional, heavenly treasures.

827. Disgustimate
Asking for opinions on what a card in awful shape will grade at if submitted to a TPG.

See also: Slop Hop - the big boost in monetary value a very low grade star card gets the moment it is graded and put into a slab.

828. Shopscotch
The act of jumping around to different sites in a search for a card you want to purchase.

829. Christmas Reprieve
When your significant other spends the entire year carping about your ‘dumb little hobby,’ but relents long enough to surprise you with a hobby-related gift for the holidays.

See also: Elf-Actualization - when you buy yourself a nice hobby piece for Christmas.


And to all a good night...