Trading Day Pt. 1

Two trade packages arrived (last) Monday.  They were good too, scratching a few wantlist items that rarely get itched.  Or something.  Um, anyway, here is the first, from the BA Benny hisself.  And believe it or not, I actually sent my end of this one out first, and in a timely manner.  What?  I’m not lying!  It’s true, I swear!  Oh, hey, is that Bigfoot making out with the Loch Ness Monster? 😛

Less talk, mo’ card pretty!:

Random Player/Team Collections..

Several 2009 Chrome WBCs, including one familiar face..

2009 U&H Propaganda Posters, Randy Moss that didn't fit on the player/team scan, and the Bird Hit Parade of Champions that started the whole thing..

Great stuff, it’s good to focus on set needs and rarely touched upon collections sometimes.

.::~Outtro~::.

Quickie Pack Break & Some Chrome

I bought a fat pack of the new American Heritage, and here’s what I got:

16 cards per pack

51 Civil Rights Movement- Heroic Movement

6 Boyd “Buzz” Wagner- US Army Air Corps Lt. Colonel

57 American Red Cross- Heroic Group

59 ASPCA- Heroic Group

125 Flight 93- Event

118 Battle of Guadalcanal- Event

110 Lewis & Clark Expedition- Event

MOH-43 William Halford Medal of Honor (1:2 fat packs)

141 Barack Obama/Abraham Lincoln SP (1:4)

HJ-7 Lincoln Makes Presidential Bid A Hero’s Journey (1:4?  Cannot remember)

77 Herbert Hoover- Humanitarian

93 August Wilson- Playwright

43 Det. Frank Serpico- Finest (Police)

95 John Steinbeck- Novelist

27 Mary McLeod Bethune- Founder: Bethune-Cookman University

23 Sojourner Truth- Writer/Abolitionist

I really like these.  Even my little brother thought some of them were pretty cool.  This, I believe, is a set worth building.  I’d like to get the previous set too.  Historical stuff geeks me the f*** out.

I also have a few more Chrome for trade (must…stop…buying):

Base- 32 Mark Teixeira, 37 Carlos Delgado (horrendously off-center), 47 Even Longoria, 51 James Shields, 61 Conor “I’m too cool for a second n in my first name” Jackson, 102 Mark “my last name makes spellcheck ‘splode” Buehrle, 105 Jeff Francis, 119 Hank Blalock (horrendously off-center), 135 Chipper Jones, 143 Adrian Gonzalez, 184 Shairon Martis Nationals RC (Horrendously off-center), 206 Brad Nelson Brewers RC

Refractors- 36 Juan Pierre

X-Fractors- 217 Brett Cecil Blue Jays RC

PS: @Wicked Ortega– Did you get the two emails I sent?

PS2: LOL, I just realized the irony of pulling the Napoleon Bonaparte mini a few posts ago…

Pack Breaks Cuz I’m Depressed

Lots of crap is going on, bringin’ me down.  So I’m gonna do one of the handful of things that make me feel good when I’m feeling like crap.  Bust some wax!

We got a retail pack of ’09 Allen & Ginter and a fat pack of ’09 topps Chrome.  We’ll do the A&G first, just because.  Let’s get to it!

2009 Allen & Ginter retail (6 cards)

207 Jack Cust

111 Jason Giambi

66 Alex Rodriguez

346 Dominique Wilkins- Keeper!

259 Napoleon Bonaparte Regular Mini

NP33 Hanley Ramirez National Pride- Keeper!

That was a good pack!  A couple of keepers in there, so I’m feeling a little better now.  I’m typing these up as I open them, btw.

2009 topps Chrome fat pack (7 cards)

186 Trevor Cahill A’s RC- Jeez, we’re now three for seven on A’s.

59 Zack Greinke

W27 Alex Rios World Baseball Classic- Keeper!

97 Dustin Pedroia Refractor

42 Kosuke Fukudome- Keeper!

22 Justin Morneau

174 Matt Tuiasosopo Mariners RC

Nice!  Two more keepers.  A 4-13 keeper count is very good.  I’m very pleased.  I wasn’t really sure if I would feel better or not after busting some packs.  After all, it is easily my most hit-or-miss way of feeling better, being squarely at the mercy of fate.  She was kind today though, bringing a smile to my sadsack self. 🙂

That’s all for now, folks.  Thanks for reading! 🙂

Until our next…

Blogger’s Saving Throw

SOMEDAY I will complete the 500 Home Run Club post, but that is not tonight.  Tonight we take it easy, take it slow.  Yeah, we’re just gonna touch on a few pressing issues, just for the sake of doing a post.

• First thing first.  I mentioned it on twitter, and it’s half the reason I haven’t felt like blogging for the past few days.  It kinda bummed me out.  My Allen & Ginter cards fell on the floor a few days ago.  Fortunately, relatively few were damaged, and only a half dozen severely so.  Unfortunately, most of the severely damaged ones were intended for Night Owl.  I’m really really sorry, but a few of the A&G meant for you are pretty much ruined.  The bat card, the SP, and the base Dodgers are undamaged, but I think most of the regular base have had it.  Again, I am really sorry about this.

• Moving on, I’ve wasted a s***load of money on several 2009 Topps Chrome fat/rack pack things.  They have seven cards and one or (usually, judging by my packs) two parallels or inserts per pack for $5.  As of right now, I’ve sworn off of them.  Here is what I have of them to trade.  Take note, most of the first two packs, typed up in a recent post, fell in a separate incident and were damaged beyond saving, and a select few already have potential homes.  Anyway, here is what is available.

Base-

1, A-Rod, 9 Mike Lowell, 12 Stephen Drew, 25 Garrett Atkins, 27 Francisco Liriano, 62 Chase Utley, 69 Max Scherzer, 94 Joe Mauer, 196 Rickie Weeks, 113 Magglio Ordonez, 124  Joe Nathan, 132 Derek Lowe, 142 Yovani Gallardo, 178 Scott Lewis Indians RC, 179 George Kotteras Red Sox RC, 190 Andrew Bailey A’s RC, 194 Elvis Andrus Rangers RC, 217 Brett Cecil Blue Jays RC, 218 Derek Holland Rangers RC

Refractors-

118 Andy Pettitte, 139 Ryan Howard

X-Fractors-

108 Howie Kendrick, 187 Jesse Chavez Pirates RC

• Here is a random pack break of ’09 Score football, for the heck (trying hard to cuss less) of it:

230 Hines Ward

193 Brandon Jacobs

119 Matt Schaub

154 Davone Bess

17 Martellus Bennett Young Stars

335 Devin Moore Seahawks RC

106 Donald Lee Glossy Parallel

Pretty cool looking cards.  I want to get all the Bears in this set, and Cutler if he isn’t in a Bears uniform.

• It’s a purely theoretical assumption, but hopefully asking here will be the simplest way.  I sent out packages to Baseball Dad, Indians, Baseball Cards, and Random Wax (Is this a name change alert? I haven’t been paying much attention for a few days…) and Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Genius.  I believe they went out last Monday.  Have any of you gotten them?  And was there anything useful for the former two gentlemen?

• Oh, so you can see just how in over my head I am when it comes to trading, here’s my overall Trade/Send Stuff Queue and how far along everything is.  Note that the order of readiness doesn’t mean order it will be sent (aside from the first one), size of the package and my random sense of focus-ness will determine that:

Night Owl (EDIT: SENT!)

Dinged Corners (EDIT: SENT!!!!!!!!!!!  After this monster of a package, I had to go buy more cases to send cards in.  They’ve gone up in price… >.<)

Cardboard Junkie– Being a Lonestarr Special, I suppose this one is Nearly Ready.

Sooz– Nearly Ready, Jeter Sketch Card just needs finished.

Marie– Must Email; but all potential cards are organized.

Wicked Ortega– (EDIT: EMAILED)

Beardy– Must Email; but pretty much all potential cards are organized.

JD’s Daddy– (EDIT: This trade is ACTIVE.)

Wax Heaven– SASE About Ready, just need to finish Andrew Miller Sketch Card, which isn’t as far along as I thought or hoped. (SASE is for ’09 UD Football Heroes inserts, btw Mario)

Nachos Grande– Must Email and Organizing; slightly further along than ones below.

McCann Can Triple– Organizing.

White Sox Cards– Organizing.

Sharpe Since ’92– Early Stages.  Was it just for random A&G minis?  In any case, I must see what else I can offer.

Shot Not Taken– Where To Begin…

Wow, that is madness… I didn’t even realize I had that much stuff in the works.  And I bet that isn’t even one of the longest trade queues going.  Now if I only had an even remotely acceptable excuse for my slowness and/or laziness. *le sigh*

I guess that does it for now.  If I forgot to put anyone in the neverending conga line of trades/sends that should be there, let me know please, and I will correct it.  Back to looking over Night Owl‘s epic checklist.  His cards go out around Wednesday-ish.  The rest… I don’t know.  I’m sorry.

… Did I mention I’m sorry? 😦

Pack Breaks & Sketches

I got a couple fat packs of ’09 Topps Chrome at Walmart, cuz that’s what was available.  Seven cards and I guess two inserts or refractors per pack.

Pack 1

175 Bobby Parnell Mets RC- I am so sick of pulling Niese & Parnell rookies this year… I guess Max Scherzer found his anti-collection successors.

68 Jay Bruce- Jay Bruce got a Rookie Cup?  Really?  I didn’t think last year’s class was that weak.

129 Jeremy Bonderman Blue Refractor #ed /199- Blue refractors are nice, and less… odd, than bronze. For a flagship at least.

164 Ryan Zimmerman X-Fractor- Who needs an arbitrarily limited regular refractor of random color when you can have this?  The X-Fractors this year are officially SICK~!!  Gone is the s***ty over-the-top “static bling” of recent years, replaced by this much more subtle look… THAT MOVES~!!  This is the closest thing I’ve seen to an Atomic Refractor in years.  More of this plz.

90 Johan Santana

168 JD Drew

185 Everth Cabrera Padres RC

Checklist 3 of 3

Pack 2

97 Dustin Pedroia

147 Garrett Anderson

W8 Kenji Johjima World Baseball Classic- Have I mentioned how awesome I think the World Baseball Classic is?  I loooooooove it.  Keeper!

21 Brad Hawpe Refractor

19 Rich Harden- Keeper.

110 Jonathan Papelbon

121Francisco Rodriguez

Even if 2009 Topps Chrome’s design was total arse, it’d still be somewhat worthwhile entirely on the strength of it’s easily obtainable X-Fractors.  Fortunately, it looks good and has good photography from what I’ve seen too, so it’s a big winner all-around.  This probably won’t be the last of this I pick up, it’s right up there with Upper Deck X.

Also, to make up for lack of Chrome pictures (not that a scan could ever hope to convey the epicness of this years almost Atomic Refractor-quality X-Fractors), here’s a couple quickie sketches I did with a sharpie while sitting around downtown earlier this month:

Quickie Sharpie Sketch

Quickie Sharpie Sketch #2

Not too bad for 40-50 minutes combined when I’ve never done straight ink before I guess.

Until Our Next…