A mid-high grade 1956 Topps Basic Set “The Hard Way” from scratch

A passive, zen-like approach to sourcing and cherry-picking the highest quality, cleanest, and most centered examples of the toughest variations to find from auction houses, shows and other marketplaces, and documenting the process and costs involved.

Sourcing high-grade 1966 Topps Football cards to build a set from scratch, centered and clean

As fans of a rewarding challenge, the ’66 Topps Football series offers a nice balance of being an affordable high grade small run of only 132 cards, with a small population of expensive cards in high grade, but mired with paper and printing issues.

Collecting ’86 Fleer 9’s while hunting for 10’s

The 1986 Fleer Basketball series is a very satisfying set of cards to source centered and clean.

The Thankfull Adams petition to the Probate Court of Massachusetts Bay for dissolution of the estate of Elihu Adams

When Elihu Adams, brother of founding father and second President John Adams, dies in 1775 during the Seige of Boston, he leaves a wife and three children who needed to dissolve his estate to settle outstanding accounts. This is the history of how and why his widow’s petition came to be, and how the death of her husband was resolved during the birth of the nation. Read more about the petition.

Frank Westlake 1967 Hells Angels Janis Joplin Party Poster

This poster is basically a Janis Joplin hippie prison-release benefit concert before she was famous and sponsored by the Hell’s Angels. Posters don’t get much cooler than this. See what the Hell’s Angels were like before a few bad apples ruined it.