A Pretty Great Repack Box

After I returned my bike, I planned to just get something cheap to break the fiddy dollar bill I got in return so I could re-deposit half of it.  My first four packs of 2015 Topps weren’t very good though, and the dupes were already starting to pile up.  So I bit the bullet and grabbed pretty much the only other thing of interest to me that Target had: a $20, 20-pack (plus bonus) repack box that was almost completely devoid of junkwax.

Here’s the breakdown:

One 1991 Score

Three 2012 Panini Triple Play

One 2013 Bowman Platinum

Three 2014 Topps Series One 8-card blaster packs

Two 2014 Topps Series One 12-card retail packs

Four 2014 Topps Heritage

One 2014 Topps Heritage Jumbo rack pack (20 cards)

One 2014 Gypsy Queen

Three 2014 Topps Series Two 12-card retail packs

One 2014 Allen & Ginter

Bonus Item- Three loose 2014 Topps MLB Chipz

It sounds like a pretty lame bonus, but it turned out to be significantly better than expected.  Take a looksie, won’t you?

Poker chips are a somehow apt metaphor for pack-bustin’..

Turns out that gold-bordered glow-in-the-dark Tulo is actually pretty rare and reasonably valuable.  A run through the very few sold listings had them going for $5-20 a pop (with Jeters in $50 range), depending on the player.  The only two gold borders up for the bidding at the time were a Travis d’Arnaud Gold/Glow-in-the-Dark and Jose Reyes Gold/Blue, which sold for $13.01 and the opening bid of $9.99, respectively.  So this seemingly silly, innocuous bonus item was probably the hit of the box.  But this little repack had more going for it than just the bonus.  Much more, as you will see below.

Every once in a while, the gamble pays off..

Hit #1!  Yeah, there’s more on the way.

Flagship inserts..

Seein’ red..

Great name, one of only three Cubs, Bonifacio is #’ed 1282/2014, and Keppinger is 228/2014..

Topps Series One proved much more interesting than Series Two even without the sweet Zack Wheeler relic.  Better inserts, and the Target Red parallels aren’t something I see much of, even if there weren’t any huge stars.  Cosart, JD, and the series dos Hoz aren’t too bad though, and everyone is at least pictured (Cosart became a Marlin at the trade deadline) on teams that should trade easy enough.

Princert, Altuve base mini, Cuddyer SP, Choice RC..

GQ was meh, as it usually is.  But I never buy it anymore, so it was nice to find a pack in there.  It’s a meh that tastes a whole lot better when it costs $1 than when it costs $3.

Alen Hanson Top Prospects, Gary Brown base, Richie Shaffer chrome..

Bowman Platinum is the shiny version flipside to GQ’s old-timey style pointlessness, but it has been fairly forthcoming with the marginal prospect autographs & such for me, especially in 2012.  I don’t buy at full price anymore either, but it also makes for decent repack filler.

Mercifully, the only junkwax..

 

1991 Score wasn’t terrible, as junkwax goes.  A RC of a solid player who had nice, lengthy career that included a couple monster seasons and a stint with the Cubs & a couple late career Hall-of-Famers is the best you can really hope for in a pack like this.

Heritage base..

My resemblance to Holmberg is kinda uncanny..

The repack was heavily weighted towards Heritage, which is another product I’d never normally buy on its own, but am quite happy to get in numbers in a repack.  Despite my snarking to liven up the uneventful rack pack in my first post in ages over at APtbNL, that’s probably what ultimately made me decide to keep the repack while I was wandering around Target desperately trying to find something cheaper.  The McCutchen is fantastic.

Heritage inserts/SPs/parallels..

Outside of the red Yadi (my only complaint about this box is all the damn Cardinals inserts!), there wasn’t really anything all that special in there.  Just low level inserts & a trio of highly trade-able SPs.  I’d already pulled my hits before I got to them though, so it’s cool.

From the rack pack..

Quite possibly my only keeper from the entire box came out of the rack pack, so that helped too.

Captain Marvel Jr. insert and Giancarlo base mini..

Finally, main event time.  Allen & Ginter is consistently the best, most fun product Topps puts out every year (though 2014 had some legit competition for once, in the form of Finest and Stadium Club).  I’ve pulled a few hits & some rarer minis & other such nonsense (sea monkey card, flower card, World’s Biggest Mini SP) over the years, but the following, while not all that extraordinary, might still be my best pull to date.  Easily top-3.  Feast your eyes…

Kipnis Everdeen..

This Jason Kipnis is the first auto I’ve pulled out of retail in seven years of buying Allen & Ginter packs & blasters, and it is a beaut.  The funny thing about this outstanding repack box is that I had just started carrying that Prosperity Bean TJ sent in my Nerd Week prize pack that very morning.  Maybe it’s legit, maybe I’m just a superstitious and cowardly lot, I dunno.  I’m mostly just happy to have pulled some nice stuff out of a repack after the disaster that was January’s Greatest Chase repack/turd.

Anyway, that pretty much wraps up this post.  Let me know if anything strikes your fancy, and thanks for stopping by.

The Harrowing Adventures of a Nerd Week Contest Winner!

A winner is me..

The prize for winning The Junior Junkie’s Nerd Week Contest arrived yesterday, and I nearly paid for it with my life!  That’s an exaggeration, but the box was huge (over $18 to ship!), and I was on my way out, so I stupidly decided to carry it over to the parents’ place with me.  Conditions were also way worse than I was expecting, and my main shoes are super old generic Shape-Ups types with no traction left on them.

Basically, it was a recipe for disaster, and, long story short, disaster indeed struck.  I ended up crashing and burning pretty bad on hidden ice patch close to halfway between here and there.  I hit the back of my head on the sidewalk, but I popped back up pretty quickly without difficulty, no wooziness or anything that would indicate being concussed.  A couple of folks I had passed a short ways back quickly came to my assistance helped me get my bearings and everything I dropped.  Very grateful to them for that.

The pain was mostly gone within a couple of blocks of continuing on my way, and any lingering head pain has minimal and infrequent, though I will get checked out if the random, brief little twinges of discomfort persist.  I finally managed to make it over to the parents’ place without further incident, and after getting cleaned up, I was finally ready to cut the tape and dig into the box!

The box in question..

And so I dug, and dug, and dug some more!  There was a LOT more in there than the DVD.  Are you ready to be as blown away by the thought and effort and generosity that went into this amazing prize package as we (the parents were very impressed too) were?

The note..

Here’s the handwritten note TJ sent, congratulating me and running down the contents.

The original prize..

Of course, the DVD was in there.  Say what you will about Family Guy in general, but the Star Wars specials are always straight up inspired.  Gonna enjoy this. 🙂

Are you ready for some football?!

I’m taking this back to the parents’ place next time I’m over, because it is small and plushy and can safely be thrown around over there during the rare lulls when we aren’t skewering anything and everything on TV MST3K-style or talking about generally geeky and/or nerdy things when dad, my little brother, and me are all there at the same time.

Original art by Jason Goad..

I love art.  I am an artist (allegedly), after all.  But I can’t afford much original art beyond relatively cheap sketch cards very often, so this is was a super awesome thing to find in the box!  It’s a fantastic piece and I absolutely love it! 😀

A trio of CDs..

Styx and The Who will definitely get some airplay around here, and I’m not quite as down on Dane Cook as most, so I’ll be giving that a listen at some point as well.

Under the CDs, you can sorta see the corner of one of the pair of monstrously huge Pinnacle screwdown holders.  I swear I took a picture of them along with everything else, but I can’t find it.  Anyway, they are so ridiculously thick and heavy that they might legitimately be able to stop a bullet.

St. Joseph’s Prosperity Bean..

I didn’t know what this was because I’m a lazy millennial, but mom seemed to recognize it and thought it was pretty cool.  I read a little bit about them when I got back to my place.  Very interesting, and I will be keeping it on me.

Mardi Gras beads!

I’ve always wanted to go to Mardi Gras (because I’m sure my antisocial arse being around hundreds of thousands of loud, crazy, drunk people for an extended period of time would go just peachy), but thanks to TJ, a little bit Mardi Gras has come to the frozen wastes of the Midwest.  He notes they’re the real deal in the above letter, so I can’t help but wonder what he had to do to acquire them…

Anyway, I’m just glad he sent beads and not the terrifying New Orleans Pelicans King Cake Baby.

The last thing you see before you die..

There aren’t enough NOPE gifs in the world… My apologies for the impending nightmares, ladies and gentlemen.  We should probably just move on with a quickness.

Various Asian candies..

There were four different things in pouches, and my trying them out went badly.  I definitely haven’t acquired these tastes yet.  The Lychee was the best in a walk, and it kinda tasted like accidentally getting fruit-scented soap in your mouth.  But the experience was still worth the while and very much-appreciated.

You know, we’ve gotten this far and haven’t even made it to the cards yet!

Ah, there we go..

But they were there, and they were many.  I tore off the old shipping labels on the outer boxes before I took the pictures, just to be safe.

So many cards!

The top box had tons of Ryne Sandbergs, Mark Graces, and a random assortment of other Cubbies.  The bottom had miscellaneous non-sport stuff and some unopened junkwax era packs, most of which I will be drawing on the backs of at later dates.  Twas also home to the blue and silver beads.

The completely full box was bananas, with large amounts of 2012 Panini Golden Age, 2011 Panini Americana, and 2012 Topps Summer Olympics, as well as some Goodwin Champions, Allen & Ginter inserts, more random non-sport and entertainment cards,  and the occasional hockey card.

The big pack sittling in the middle of everything is a pack of 1986 Donruss All-Stars, which may be posted on A Pack to be Named Later at some point, and the rest will get a post of their own here once I’ve scanned some of them.

Since around half of the set was there, I’m definitely going to chase the Summer Olympics set now.  The other big stacks didn’t have enough for me to justify it, but I’m keeping a Single Page of both Goodwin Champions and Golden Age, as well as the vintage-ish Star Wars cards, and probably a fair amount of other things.

My canvas..

Finally, this card not part of the prize package.  This card is for a commission.  On the back of this 1989 Topps Traded Ken Griffey Sr. card, I will be drawing Ken Griffey Jr. from his RC, the very next card in the same set.  I loved the idea and will get to work on it as soon as my body stops being so creaky and achy.

For this commission I was paid $12, and even the money was worth mentioning.  Check it out!

$2 bill!

Yes, that is a two-dollar bill.  I’m pretty sure haven’t seen one of those since back in the late-1990s when I got one back as change at one of the last card shows held at the local mall.

The flipside..

Easily the coolest looking piece of US currency that still spends.

There you have it.  This has to be in the running for the single greatest card blog prize package ever made.  The amount of time, thought, effort, and money that must have went into this making it possible boggles the mind.  I know TJ puts a ton of effort into his collection and his posts, so maybe it comes as no surprise he’d go all-out on a prize package, but I am still beyond honored and humbled to be its recipient.

Thank you, TJ!  And thanks to everyone for stopping by!

It was worth the pain…

 

Now and Then, Here and There

’61 Post Ron Santo..

Time marches on

BowChro Bryant/Moran Dual-ing Die-Cuts..

The days pass

1995 CARDZ WCW Main Event Booker T..

The weeks, the months, the years…

2014 Topps WWE Chrome Adrian Neville NXT Prospects..

As we wander through our lives

Trifecta-completing Brandon Phillips RC..

Lost spirits on this lonesome path

Alshon Jeffery Inception Purple #’ed 41/99..

Uncertain and unwinding

D-Lee Atomic Refractor..

The wrinkles on our brow get a little deeper

Big Cat RC..

The glasses on our face get a little thicker

Rizzo Red, White, and Blue Prizm..

Seasons come and seasons go

Leaf Sports Heroes Dominique Moceanu Red auto 1/3..

Champions are crowned and the losers go home

The greatest RC photo of all-time, Purple Cracked Ice edition..

We lose ourselves in the past

Fridge RC!

Longing for our glory days, safe and certain

’75 Bill Madlock..

Engulfed in the rose-hued haze of memorialized time

’58 Vic Power..

While trying to live for a future left in doubt

Billy McKinney Mini Orange Refractor #’ed 8/50..

When all we have that’s a given

Finest Warriors Taijuan Walker..

Is the right here

2014 Bowman Platinum Carlos Santana Magenta Printing Plate..

And the right now

Bowman Heritage Soler Road to the Show..

Until our next…

What the Future Holds…

I guess I better get to the 2015 round of resolutions I cannot possibly keep while we’re still in the afterglow of a new year’s dawning.

Collection Goals

15 trades- I think I got close enough to my goal of a dozen last year not be entirely disappointed in myself, so let’s up the ante.  I already have two that are slowly coming together, one with longtime frequent trading partner Shot Not Taken and another with Baseball Card Breakdown.  I’ve also pulled out some odds & ends for a few other bloggers, and I’ll start sending out emails to the lucky(?) perspective trading partners soon.  I also reserve the right to add the two I got in just under the gun in 2014 if they get me over the hump at the end of the year, since their actual arrivals did and/or will take place in 2015. 😛

Finish the following Single Page Sensations- I am over halfway done on almost all of the following, so I’d like to finish as many as possible.

Cubs: Albert Almora (5/9), Javier Baez (8/9), Kris Bryant (7/9), Tyler Colvin (6/9), Ron Santo (6/9)

Other Baseball: Dick Allen (6/9), Roberto Alomar (7/9), Albert Bell (7/9), Carlos Santana (6/9)

Bears: Charles Tillman (6/9)

Basketball: Luol Deng (7/9)

Wrestling: Victoria/Tara (7/9)

BenchWarmer: BenchWarmer model (none over 3/9)

Baseball Sets: 2011 Topps Legend Variations (6/9), 2011 Topps Diamond Anniversary Legend Variations (8/9), 2012 Topps Museum Collection “Canvas Collection” Baseball (8/9), 2014 Topps Museum Collection “Canvas Collection” Baseball (6/9 if I keep Strasburg)

Football Sets: 2013 Topps Museum Collection “Canvas Collection” Football (8/9)

Add 2 new licensed and 5 new personal Raven sketch cards- The former are crazy expensive for a B-list team character and there just aren’t a whole lot of either to go around.  I think these are pretty reasonable numbers to strive for though.

Finish both the licensed and PSC DC Comics miscellaneous Single Page Sensations- I am starting the year at 4/9 licensed and 3/9 PSC.

Complete any other sketch card Single Page Sensation- Lots to choose from, but I’m over halfway done on but a very few.

Blog Goals

Write 80 new posts- Again, we’ll up the ante a juuuust a smidge from 2014.  I did a good job of posting with a fair degree of regularity when I was actually here and posting in the year gone by, so I think I can average a little better than 1.5 posts per week in the year to come.  I’m not going to make any requirements on the number of non #collect-focused things this time though.  I feel that was a small contributor in falling off the map so early last year.  I’m stupid (not true, but I am very, very lazy), so I’m going to keep it simple.

Art Goals

Complete 50 new sketch cards- I managed 38/50 last year (1 side of that weird Marvel two card puzzle was completed).  That was close enough to not feel too much shame, especially in light of how much I managed to draw in total.  Still, this isn’t close enough to up the ante, so I will give the same number a good go again in 2015.  Paul Molitor (repurposed) and Boromir of Gondor (artist tile) are the first two in the queue.

100 total new works- I’m pretty sure I coasted past this number last year, and if you consider the multiple pictures on single pages as individual works, then I did even better.  Everything was unofficial, however.

Finish 30 old sketch cards- I barely finished any old cards in 2014, and I don’t feel like I did a very good job on what I did do, so I’m making this a point of emphasis in the new year.  I’m off to a good start, having already finished seven oldies on January 2nd (also colored most of two others).  I’m also happy to report my coloring seems to be back to nearly as strong as it was at the height of my powers a couple years ago.

You can keep track of my 2015 art progress HERE.

Writing Goals

Finish a first draft of any novel idea- I barely got anywhere on anything last year, and while I’d like to say a more stable computer situation would have helped, I’m not so sure…  There can be no excuses this year though.  I just bought the one I’m currently writing from a month ago, and I hope to have a laptop, and the additional mobility that entails, to go with it by spring.

Here is your reward for sticking around to the bitter end: Please enjoy my best pull of 2014, a Meryl Davis autograph! ♥

Aaaand that’s all for this post I guess.  There are plenty of other things I’d like to accomplish in 2015, but these are the most pressing and/or well-defined.  A bit simpler than last year, and I’m sure I’ve probably broken a couple resolutions already, but thanks for stopping by!

Until our next…

The Junkwax Revitalization Project! #1

No matter the canvas, an artist gotta art.  And so begins The Junkwax Revitalization Project, where I take worthless junkwax era commons…

1987 Topps Bob Sebra..

…like so, and transform them into magnificent *cough* works of art.  Now let the transformation commence!

Tim Raines repurposed sketch card..

Bob Sebra digivolved to… Tim Raines!  This is actually the fourth card I’ve transformed (Frank Thomas on a 1990 Topps Ron Karkovice was my first, teehee), but bumming around the card blogs a lot ever since I got my new computer just over a week ago has me in the mood to blog again and Rock is fresh, so here you go.  If I get to blogging with some degree semi-irregularity again, maybe this will become a regular segment.  Me drawing on old junkwax is going to keep happening regardless.

This card is available for sale or trade.  Feel free to throw a little cash and/or some cards I like (lots of various wantlists on my sidebar, and I’m looking for quality over quantity right now) my way if you’d like this beaut or wish to commission one of your own.  I’ll even draw on a junkwax star or something older or newer (provided it’s not glossy) if you’re feeling particularly kinky. ;P

That’s all for now.  Thanks for stopping by!

(Oh wait, also a quick shout out to the Legend hisself for being the only person to vote on the twitters when I put who to draw on this card up for the choosing)

Until our next…

Pure Card Porn

Billy Williams RC!

I’m miserable and cranky and pissed off about so many things I don’t even know where to begin, so I’m just going to show off a 12-pack of card porn to lighten the mood, because the mood definitely needs lightened.  So let us take refuge in the cards… These are all mine, picked up by various means over the past few months.  Yes, including that beautiful beat up Billy Williams RC at the top of the post (cost: $3 on COMC on Black Friday 2013).

Frank Thomas Jersey & Card Frame..

This was also part of the trade with Shot Not Taken.  It didn’t make it into that post for the simple fact that it was still in my backpack and didn’t get scanned until around two weeks later.

2009 Draft Picks & Prospects Neftali Feliz Purplefractor RC..

This came out of a random discounted fat pack I stumbled across towards the end of last year.

Roxxi Printing Plate Autograph..

Possibly the earliest pickup here.  Cool printing plate with a sticker auto stuck on it of perhaps the single most underutilized woman in the history of TNA’s Knockout division.  And that’s saying something, when they also severely underutilized Ayako Hamada, who might be the single most talented lady wrestler in the world, and of course my girl Sarita, who has gone onto to bigger success in both Mexico and Japan.

2013 Bowman EJ Manuel Orange parallel #’ed 54/299..

The back compares him to competent game manager Alex Smith.  I don’t know how to feel about that…

2008 Donruss Elite Extra Edition Cat Osterman Collegiate Patches Autograph #’ed 160/250..

It is the realest shame Panini ran this concept into the ground so fast, because this card, much like Cat herself, is absolutely spectacular.

Bloodlines Liz Carmouche auto..

Here’s a fearsome and fantastic addition to my fledgling Girlrilla page, which is now up to TWO.

Milk Duds Billy Williams..

More Billy Williams!  This time it’s super beat up vintage food-based oddball goodness.

2003 Topps Traded Shin- Soo Choo Gold #’ed /2003..

I’ve been jonesing for a new addition to my Shin-Soo Choo page for awhile now, and this is what I came away with.

BowChro Aramis RC..

The desire to break 100 cards with another player does not preclude me from getting more cards of future Hall of Famer Aramis Ramirez.  This was one of a half dozen newbies of him in my latest COMC shipment.  They may crop up here & there over time.

Heroes & Prospects Andre Dawson Jersey..

Whine about lack of logos all you want, you big babies.  This card just oozes class. 😉

’09 iMPACT! Booker T auto #’ed /60..

Closing out this post with my favorite wrestler of all-time!  Booker T autos are extremely hard to come by cheaply (dog tag auto aside), but I managed to secure this bad mamma-jamma on COMC for $8.  It’s even an inscribed version.  Unlike every other WWE reject, Booker never won the TNA World Title, but they did create a brand new vanity belt (later renamed and became their midcard title) specifically for him.  So I guess he’s got that going for him, which is nice.

That’s all for now.  Time to go work on some half-baked novel writing or some such.  Thanks for stopping by, and we’ll be seeing y’all again real soon.

Until our next…

More Collection Transactions

I decided I needed to make a few more moves.  The Prizm mini-master set, Sarita super collection, and a few other things are taking up my attention and I don’t see myself getting around to any of these things anytime soon.

• Dock Ellis, Felix Hernandez, Monte Irvin, Andrew McCutchen, Anquan Boldin, Kobe Bryant, and Lolo Jones are officially removed from the collection, though I may keep a little of the little I have of each of them.

• 2012 and 2013 Bowman Silver Ice, 2012 Golden Moments Die-Cuts, 2012 Finest Faces of the Franchise (most are still on COMC, they’ll be available for trade once I have them shipped), 2013 Topps Emerald parallels, and 2012 Topps football Mini Tall Boys are removed from Single Page Sensations.  A couple others are on the bubble.

• I added a page for miscellaneous collections.  This is just a place for the random stuff that doesn’t fit in my collection anywhere, but I like enough to keep anyway.  (Note: I may be willing to part with certain things from the miscellaneous page, so don’t be afraid to ask if you see something you like over there)

• Everything I removed from the Single Page Sensations page in this round of cuts that I’m not keeping are now on the trade bait page.  Everything I am keeping went to the miscellaneous collection page.

• The only additions I’m making are probably putting Starlin Castro back as a full, if super halfhearted, collection and strongly considering a Kerry Wood Single Page Sensation page.

• Have some nice cardboard goodness on the way out:

Shulkie sketch cards by two of my favorite artists via the Blowout forums..

Thanks for stopping by. 😉

Until our next…

Collection Transactions

It occurred to me the other day my collection needs some restructuring.  My tastes have been weighted more towards non-sport/multi-sport offerings/pro wrestling offerings of late.  I’ve also come to realize a fair number of my collections are of players I don’t really care about very much.  The expectational baggage of some of those collections are wearying and only serve to keep me from things I like better.  So some full-on collections are being reduced to Single Page Sensations, and some Single Page Sensations are being dropped entirely.  There will be a small number of new things will be added to the lists, however.

So here’s how it shakes down.

• Ernie Banks, Starlin Castro, Matt Forte, Brian Urlacher, Charles Tillman, LaDainian Tomlinson, Allen Iverson, Derrick Rose, Deron Williams, and AJ Lee are now Single Page Sensations.  Whatever I decide not to keep will be available, though that’d just be base and low-level inserts in most cases.

• Banks and Castro are governed by similar rules to Rod Carew.  Banks gets a page each for vintage and modern.  Starlin gets one each for his RC/Prospect years, later inserts/parallels, and hits from any year.

• Chris Carter, Jason Heyward, Dave Winfield, Robert Griffin III, Steven Jackson, Maurice Jones-Drew, Julius Peppers, Julius Erving, Danny Granger, Scottie Pippen, Tamina Snuka, and Kaitlyn are removed from the collection.  Though a Trifecta of any of them would still be welcome, virtually all of the few cards I have of each player/wrestler are available for sale or trade.

• Greg Maddux, Marian Hossa, Dustin Byfuglienis, Mia St. John, Michelle Baena, and Gina Torres are added to Single Page Sensations.

• As for sets, 1969 Topps Deckle Edge, 2009 Topps Unique Unique Unis, and  2011 Topps Lineage ’75 Minis are removed from the collection.

• BenchWarmer Kiss Cards are added to Single Page Sensations

• The stickers and Lawler sketches from 2012 WWE Heritage, and the mini master set of 2012 Panini Prizm baseball has been added to sets, though Prizm still needs filled in.

• I also attempted to organize the pages a bit better by breaking down baseball and football into Cubs/Bears and other players, and separating BenchWarmers from non-sport.  They are kinda their own (sexy) beast.

That’ll do it for now I guess.  Hopefully ratcheting down a few collections will have the added effect of quality over quantity in the long run as well.  Only having a single page to work with, and pressure to rush into completing it in a timely manner, might push me to try for nicer cards when they cross my radar, and reignite my love for some of these guys.

Oh, here’s a card on the way out.  Eve Torres autos finally fell into my price range after she ditched the WWE.

You gotta BeliEVE!

Until our next…

More Collection Tweaking

I’ve been playing with the direction of my collection again.  After seeing a post on someone else’s blog, I was inspired to try something a little different.  Thus, Single Page Sensations was born.  As I said on that page, I think collecting single pages of random players and sets feeds into my random scatterbrained collecting habits while also reigning them in a little and giving them a certain degree of focus.

It also allows me to drop a few collections without completely getting rid of them.  As such, I downgraded Felix Hernandez, David Ortiz, and Shin-Soo Choo from baseball, Luol Deng and Hakeem Olajuwon from basketball, and Steven Jackson, Thomas Jones, and Julius Peppers (as if I ever traded for hardly anything from the latter two anyway), as well as putting a few relatively recently deactivated collections into the single page category.

The ground rules for the single page project are thus:

• Oversized cards do not count toward a Single Page Sensations player collection.  Tobacco card-sized minis don’t either unless I decide I really like it or something.

• For sets, a regular player I collect can’t be included.  Single page players are fair game, but the card used for the set does not count against the player collection.

• For sets I’m collecting a regular and parallel version of (2011 Legend SPs), each page must have an entirely different group of players.  No overlap will be permitted.

• The number of cards for a set depend on the dimensions of the set in question.  Standard cards (and larger minis) fit 9 to a page, but pages for bigger sets don’t fit as many, and the Tobacco-sized minis stuff fits more.

• These single page collections are malleable, and I may be willing to away trade certain cards from them, or trade for certain other cards as to replace what I already have as they become available, so don’t be afraid to ask.  I’ll also try to note what cards are locked in and what might be tradeable as collections fill up.

And that’s about it.  Here’s to some joyfully completed pages.  Come at me, bro.

The key return from my trade with All the Way to the Backstop.

~~~~

Finally, in other news, does anyone out there have any damaged or super fugly relic cards of decent-to-great players you don’t care about getting much in return for?  I have a few options of my own, but I could use more for when I start trying to make my own relic cards.  I could also use any thick blank decoys anyone has on hand as well.

That’s all for now.  Thanks for stopping by!

Forever a work-in-progress…

Ultra-Pro for the Busy Mom?

Ap-parent-ly! Oh the puns…

I don’t know if this is brilliant or ridiculous, I just know I needed some of the pages for bigger cards and the single one for one of my bigger Raven sketches.  You’d think if these were specifically for coupons for non-card collecting women/parents/whoever does the brunt of the shopping/whatever/etc, that they would be somewhere more visible than the card aisle with the rest of the card supplies!

Is you biological clock ticking yet?  How about now?