RIP, Mr. Cub…

Just basically been crying off & on for the past 20 minutes.  I was just going to post stuff I got in a trade when I got back tonight.  I don’t think the words to describe the importance and awesomeness of Ernie Banks have been invented yet.  I… I dunno what to say.  I’m just gonna leave these artistic renditions of the brightest and most revered star in my team’s rich history.

By Dave the Cardboard Junkie..

I guess that all these

tears mean I still have a soul

Thank you for all the

memories of your great life

in the greatest pastime, Ernie

By me..

We’ll miss you forever, Mr. Cub…

Shot Taken

The Orange Goblin..

Finally pulled the trigger on another trade with my most frequent trading partner, Shot Not Taken!  Lot to get to, so with relatively minimal textual commentary clutter and just pure card porn, here is what came my way.  Roll that beautiful bean footage:

Assorted Bowman and a couple Ernies..

This Kree-Skrull War puzzle was an unexpected surprise. 🙂

One Little Corner..

Space is the place…

Martial Mastery..

And of course, minis!

Triple Threat..

Best of WWE..

It is kinda hard to tell, but that Booker T base card is actually a bronze parallel.  The normal foil logo on the base cards is red.

According to my wantlist, I actually still needed this base card!

Hall of Famer & Superb Owl-winning QB, Roger Staubach!

Angelina Love-o-graph..

Roger & Angelina were consolation for a card I inquired about that wasn’t available.  I’ve been wanting an Angelina Love auto for awhile now though, & Staubach will be made available for trade.  He should net me a nice return and turn this into a technical three-way deal, if one comes along.

Very seriously considering adding Kane to Single Page Sensations..

Trouty Mays Lava Flow!

This card is so much more gorgeous in person.  So much so that I decided to acquire a full page of Panini’s Black Friday Lava Flow parallels.  This goes on the Trout page, but I’ve already acquired Bryce Harper and Kevin Durant for the Lava Flow page.  So just a heads up that I’m looking to trade for some more if anyone in the blogosphere has any.

What appears to be black on this is actually bronze-ish foil. Scanners are fickle mistresses..

I also picked up a Nomah RC shortly after this arrived.  Now if I could just trade for or find a good looking sub-$15 to buy (well, when I’m not completely broke again) for a possibly all-time record speed trifecta acquiring.

Finally got a Rizzo hit! 😀

Awesome way to close this post.  And that be that.  Even my attempt at sparse commentary turns out to be not all that sparse.  Thanks again for being a prime time trading partner, Ray!

Until our next…

A Trade Post?!

Ryno!

Yes indeed… Having successfully fished for artistic complements, now we’re going to do an actual, honest-to-goodness trade post.  I’m no good at getting these up even when I trade regularly, but here goes.

These come to us from Brad’s Blog.  Let’s have a look!

Old timey-ish Cubby baseball mans..

Mostly…new…timier…Cubby…baseball…mans?

The big fellas..

Love dat Ichiro, although I’m unsure where exactly they pulled the black swatch from (the undershirt?).  But anyway, this is only my second relic of him even though I’ve collected him basically since I started blogging in back in the long long ago of 2008.  The manupatch is one Topps’ better efforts since they started doing them, in my never humble opinion.  The ® being on the patch itself also greatly amuses me for some reason.  And the Chris Sale is #’ed /50 and is a fantastic addition to my newly reinstated Single Page dedicated to him.

Seeing as this will basically be the first time I have managed to get out during daylight hours since it dipped below zero for three days straight a couple weeks ago, my end of this deal finally going to go out today.  It was supposed be out immediately before that stretch of frozen hellscapedness, but I didn’t make it out until like 8pm that Sunday, and my sleep cycle has been super broken ever since.  I am still a wreck of a human being, in case you were wondering.  But I did throw something extra I remembered I had that will hopefully make the wait a little more worthwhile.

That’s all I got for now.  A few other trades are being prepped for February, & I might be able slip one more small one into this month.  Who knows what happens next?

The Shadow knows…

Return is Imminent

It has been way too long since I posted anything, and I’m not even sure how many tweaks I’ve made to my collection at this point, let alone how many have actually stuck.  But I’ve still been updating my lists on occasion and scanning stuff.  And despite my own computer being barely functional at this point and not being able to temporarily borrow mom’s spare computer because her laptop is doing strange things, I have every intention of blogging with a certain degree of regularity again in the near future.

I may also have another project or two on the horizon, but we’ll see how that pans out before I have anything.  The point is, regardless of what I write, I need to do a whole helluva lot more of it.  I don’t have an eta for when business will start to pick back up around here, but barring something going severely wrong, it eventually will.

I guess that’s all for this dispatch from the desolate hellscape I call a life.  As I wander off wistfully into the pre-dawn haze, I leave you this morning with this magnificent sketch card by everyone’s favorite pony enthusiast.  Behold!

Ernie Banks Sketch Card by Dayf..

Let’s play two…

Card Draft II Countdown Part 1: 25-16 + Extras

Lovely parting gifts..

With Scott Crawford on Cards‘ Trade Bait Draft III probably happening tonight (If you got $20 or a good trade to offer him, and an hour or two free, hit him up!), I thought it was way past time to start showing off my stuff from my first go-round in his draft’s second iteration.  With the five bonus rounds and five extra throw-ins, I ended up with a total of 30 cards, but I’m only going to count down the drafted cards.  The extras are at the top of the post.  And now, without further adieu, let’s count ’em down.  In my opinion, here are 25-16:

#25

2011 Bowman Mike Moustakas Bowman’s Best Prospects..

A late-round set need pick for a set I’m waffling pretty hard on whether or not I want to finish.  My love of Bowman’s Best stems from 1996-1999, not from the product’s first year, which this set is aping.  Keeper (for now I guess).

#24

1974 Topps Goose Gossage..

Chosen entirely for the sake of “Hall of Famer in a White Sox uniform”.  I don’t even particularly like Goose, because his opinions on baseball invariably annoy me on the mercifully rare occasions he voices them.  Available for trade, because I don’t want to look at Goose every time I pass the shelves the White Sox cards I give my dad are on when I’m at the parents’ place.

#23

BowChro Jameson Taillon die-cut..

I like Taillon and think he is going to be very good.  The only reason this one is so low on the countdown is the card itself.  Topps has gone crazy with the die-cuts the since 2011, but these are one of the very few that don’t really do it for me.  Available for trade.

#22

Kurt Suzuki Heritage Chrome Green Refractor..

Although I like that the refractor color matches the player’s team, Suzuki is pure trade bait, most likely for Shot Not Taken if he needs it.  He has no less than a dozen hits I have varying degrees of interest in, and three I absolutely have to get whenever we trade again.  Plus he always seems to pull a few wrestlers I like when he busts pro graps cards, so it’s no wonder we trade so often.

#21

1969 Topps Johnny Podres..

It’s a cool card, no doubt, but mostly a case of picking the best card still remaining on my draft board.  Available for trade, especially if you have a fairly equivalent Cub from the around that time.

#20

Laser Emmitt Smith Sample..

Even though I don’t actively collect samples and promos anymore (or think that highly of Emmitt Smith as a football player), I can’t say no to a little blinged out ’90s greatness.  Available for trade.

19

1974 Topps All-Star Catchers Fisk/Bench..

Chosen for the Carlton Fiskiness of it all.  Goose started it off, and here is the second appearance in a long run of ’74 Hall of Famers (and one all-time what could have been) in varying degrees of rough condition.  Many more to come.  Reluctantly available for trade.

#18

1986-87 Fleer Maurice Cheeks..

This is a great card, and it only fell this far down the list right before I started writing the post.  It was #12 when I got the list back out to start this up.  Oddly, I’ve only ever owned three cards from the legendary ’86-87 Fleer set, and all three of them have been 76ers (Dr. J and Moses Malone were the others).  Reluctantly available for trade.

#17

2013 Topps Yu Darvish ’72 Mini..

YU!  I dunno about these mini sets of sets that were never mini in the first place.  I think Topps may be scraping the bottom of the barrel of their endless nostalgia crazed wankfest.  Yeah, wankfest.  They are clearly in love with themselves and their history, despite how INCREDIBLY MEDIOCRE that history is.  Yeah you never made a bad set from 1971-1985, but a lot of what came before is only well thought of because it’s old, and you’re still spotty as hell and losing ground in modern times.  You NEVER even innovated a damn thing in 25 years of relatively uncontested ruling over baseball cards, and really cards in general.  So, I think you and your history kinda suck!  And I will never, EVER stop resenting you for your current exclusive deal, or MLB for giving it to you.

What can I say I’m a Paul Heyman Upper Deck Panini anyone willing to put up a decent alternative to Topps guy.

But I’ll take a YU! every chance I get.  This, despite my rant, is a reluctant keeper.  At least until I finish and can start upgrading my Yu Darvish page.

#16

2011 Score Colin Kaepernick RC

What a thrill to watch last year.  Even Kaep’s early struggles were of the rather epic variety (the infamous halfback toss to nowhere that, iirc, eventually cost the Niners that game).  Can’t wait to see what he can do over a full and hopefully healthy season.  I’ve never seen a running QB with such deadly timing on designed runs.  Just unreal what he can do.  It is never a good idea to anoint a team, but the 49ers are built to compete for championships for years on end, and it will be a huge disappointment if they don’t get at least one.

That’s it for the first of what will most likely be three of these countdown posts.  If Card Draft III does end up being tonight, I will hopefully be able to get the countdown done before the next bunch of cards arrive.  Thanks for stopping by!

Until our next…

Diamond Gallery #2: The Diamond Die-Cuts

As mentioned last time, my first Diamond Giveaway order (of four full 25-card orders total) arrived last Friday.  It was the free one, and contained most of my Diamond Die-Cuts. So here they are now.  Enjoy.

Shin-Soo Choo..

They are nice & shiny all over.  The only thing that could make them better is if they were in the much prettier blue or purple Walmart or Toys B Fun versions. They are great as is, but red doesn’t do it for me.  Give me the darker, cooler colors any day.

Andrew McCutchen..

The  diamond in the background glows almost as much as it shines.  This is especially true of the black diamond.  But we’ll get to that in due time.

Big Papi..

I ended up with most of what I was after, but I never was able to land Ernie Banks, and I’m still a little tweaked by that.

Dave Winfield..

There were way too damn many Yankees in this set, but it’s hard to argue with most of them.  Only Swisher and Teixeira are really debatable, and the latter only because he’s sucked in 2012.  Still, I’d have taken out both of them and either Maris or Munson and a few of the lesser Braves and added Johnny Bench, Joey Votto, and Matt Kemp, amongst others.

CarGo..

I’m not sure what I’m going to do with CarGo and the others that aren’t players I specifically collect or are otherwise spoken for.  Ya better bring it if you want one though.

Longo..

I’d like one of the few of these I still want or need in return (Ernie Banks, Carlos Marmol, Tyler Colvin, Jackie Robinson, and Reggie Jackson, amongst others I potentially accept).  In lieu of that, make a specific offer of something pretty darn nice.  I sunk way too much time into this and I’m not just going to accept any ol’ thang for these bad mamma-jammas.

Chris Sale..

Alexei..

These are the two White Sox I picked up for my dad’s little collection of things I pull or pick up cheap.  I miiiiiiiight be able to let one go if you have the ammo to deal, but I’m not moving both.

Adrian Beltre..

2012 All-Star starter, future Hall of Famer?  After the unspectacular-yet-steady early years and lone monster contract season with the Dodgers and somewhat awful stretch with the Marinerds, he’s really turned it on since leaving the M’s and seems to be getting better with age.  The numbers are starting to look Hall of Fame quality for 3B.

Aramis..

Speaking of guys closing in on Hall of Fame numbers at the hot corner.  Aramis maybe isn’t aging quite as gracefully (or perhaps it’s just the Brewers relative irrelevance when not in the playoff hunt), but he’s still playing fairly decent up there in Milwaukee.  And if the Brew Crew completely fall out of playoff picture, look for Aramis to catch fire and look and make people take notice of his offensive prowess again.  It’s what he does, kinda.

Ichiro Suzuki..

To hell with that one name BS.  It doesn’t matter if how amazing someone is, this ain’t soccer!  And “Fred” ruined it for soccer anyway.

King Felix..

And now the pitching half of what was a two man team for most of the last few years, King Felix.

Vlad..

Why is this guy not in the majors right now?!  He had his worst season last and still hit .290!

David Wright..

One of two die-cuts likely bound for Long Fly Ball.  Don’t worry though Wright fans, because I have another on the way.  For the same reason I couldn’t get Ernie, I’m a little tweaked to still have the second David Wright.  I tried EVERYTHING to deal the second Wright for Ernie, but no matter how ridiculously lopsided in whoever the offers were going to’s favor, I got jack and diddly to show for it.

RickyRo Black Diamond #’ed 48/60

Check the black diamond’s dark, ominous glow.  This is what made this order free, and the other die-cut most likely bound for Long Fly Ball.

Starlin Castro..

Goin’ bigtime with the last two.  2011’s NL Hit (and error) King, Starlin Castro!

Ryno!

Finally, one of the only two die-cuts I actually hit myself (though I guess I only unlocked 34-ish cards total), Ryne Sandberg!  Although, come to think of it, I hit this and the Black Diamond Gaby Sanchez that eventually became RickyRo in just 30-some shots, so I actually did incredibly well, I guess.

That’s it for this one, sports fans.  The Diamond Giveaway (which I keep wanting to hash tag and not space…) is over, so please make your final selections and proceed to checkout.  Thank you for shopping your local Diamond Giveaway.

Until our next…

Sketch Cards Complete!

Andre Ethier.  I know where are lots of Dodgers fans out there..

Blue Jays ace Ricky Romero.  Bound for Long Fly Ball once we get a deal worked out..

Mr. Cub!

Real people seem to come out better in Watercolor pencils, though skin tones are still the hardest thing.  If you want to see Hank Aaron before he gets to Dayf, check the Home Run King out on my deviantART (like 10-20 minutes after I post this post EDIT: It’s up).  Do keep in mind, however, if you are signed in on dA, I have a few NSFW pieces on there, so tread carefully if you decide to further explore my gallery.

That’s all for this one.  As ever, my thanks for stopping by!  Take care everybody, beat the heat (also the Heat), etc, etc…

Until our next…

Cards from Marie and Matt

I got my prize winnins from Cardboard Problem and a fresh trade from Heartbreaking Cards at the same time and scanned them at the same time, so I might as well post them at the same time.  Plus I’m not sure which came which on one of the scans.  I may have mixed them on it, I dunno.  Anyway, pretty pictures ahoy!

These be from Marie. It appears the Cubs drew the better artists in Chicle, judging by these three. All solid, and Ernie is outstanding! Love the scoreboard shot! And the Prince is cool cuz I used to have a small collection of the guy and clever cuz the ticket is against the Cubbies. The terrible, terrible Cubbies. *le sigh*

The *literally* big prize. Johnny Mize cabinet card. Though a Cardinal, it's one of the prettier looking cards in the entire set, in my rarely humble enough opinion. And three mini 206 Cubbies (only one still with the team) for scale and because I couldn't fit normal-sized cards on the scanner bed with giganto Mize. I mentioned something somewhere about this being my first contest win, but I actually won a contest at White Sox Cards awhile before. Slipped my mind due to how quick that one went down (half hour, give or take).

And the rest, maybe. But what nice filler it is. All-Star Classics is one of my absolute favorite sets of the entire past decade. Been wanting a box for eons.

Now it gets confusing, though it’s a perfect segue from Marie to Matt I guess.  I don’t know which one these all came from, though the more I think about it, I’m pretty sure there is some from both in this scan:

If there's a choice between keeping Big Z or Dempster, I'm keeping Big Z. Every. Single. Time. Also, I heart blue refractors. 🙂

Now it’s definitely on to the Heartbreaking part of this post.

The King Felix collection gets some rare lovin' thanks to Matt. Noice.

Even though the D-Lee collection was officially closed almost immediately after this (but well before he was actually traded), that mmiddle row is freakin' sweet. And a new Kosuke (the Documentary one)!

Finally, the two cards that keyed this trade in the first place, the blue Fukudome & Vlad parallels. Also a cool D-Lee segueing into his tenure with the Cubs.

Great awesome cards.  Marie and Matt should both be expecting something in the mail before too long.  And with that, I’m outta here.

Until our next…

2008 Donruss Threads Baseball Box Break & Review

Get excited, it’s finally time to do a box breakdown.  This is for 2008 Donruss Threads Baseball, if you didn’t catch the title of the post.

I’m sure there’s plenty of reviews & stuff out there already, so I’ll make the summary bit short & sweet.

24 packs per box

5 cards per pack

4 hits per box (at least two autos)

Threads is all legends and prospects with nothing in between (though being from 2008, some prospects have already made their MLB debuts), so if you ain’t down with that, I’ve got two words for ya: DON’T BUY. 😛

Not being licensed by MLB, there aren’t supposed to be any MLB logos or team names anywhere on the cards, but the attempts to remove them from the photos are often half-hearted at best, though some are fully removed.  Overall, lack of team names and weakly obscured logos don’t detract from things, though the fully removed ones are slightly jarring if you’re paying enough attention to notice.

As you can see, any partially obscured team names are left alone, and most hat/helmet logos are half-assedly dealt with at best.

The design is pretty decent I think, and I like how deep into the legend barrel they dug to pull out Frank Howard and some others, including Hall of Famers, that you unfortunately rarely see on cards nowadays.  It definitely allows this set to tap into a bit of the epic fun factor of the topps Archives & All-Time Fan Favorites sets from the early aughts.  It’s nice to see Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe too.

O hai

The short set is 100 cards, and there are 120 per box, of which about 14-15 will be inserts/parallels (more on that shortly).  That leaves room for a few duplicates in every box, but you should still be able to complete the set.  Not so fast my friend.  I came up well short of the finish.  I haven’t gotten around to collating it yet, but I think I came up at least five cards short of the complete set.

Aparicio & Trammell, just because...

Now then, the regular inserts and parallels.  You are promised 10 per box, one each of the following: Diamond Kings, Century Stars, Century Legends, and Green Century Proofs.  The other six are a random assortment of the above, as well as #ed base parallels, College Greats, Dynasty, Generations, and I guess Baseball Americana.  With six being random, there’s a good chance you won’t pull everything.  I didn’t get any Baseball Americana or Generations in my box, whereas Drew from drewscards pulled two Baseball Americana, but no Generations or Dynasty inserts.  I pulled one of the latter.

Century Legends Duke Snider & Ernie Banks (Keeper!), and Century Stars Nolan Ryan

The Century Legends are designed to look classy, and the Century Stars are designed to look fun I guess.  Both succeed.

Bob Feller base parallel #ed 15/100

My awesome base parallel pull. 😀

Pulled three Diamond Kings. Nolan Ryan and Ernie Banks are #ed /250 because the Threads logo is shiny I guess. :d

There are a crap-ton of Diamond King parallels, starting at /250.  Fuller is the regular base version, which isn’t numbered.  They used the same picture for Mr. Cub’s Diamond King and Century Legend (The two Century stars I pulled share the same photo as the players’ respective base cards, as well).  The photo recycling thing is annoying to start with, but within the same set?  Pathetic.  Come on, man!  And for the love of pizza, quit using the same picture of Joe Morgan already!

How many freaking times has that same picture of Joe Morgan been used with various cropping and/or filtering since the beginning of the '00s now??

It’s a cool card & all, but that picture’s been used on seemingly every single Joe Morgan card made since 2000.  Ask Field of Cards about that.  Poor guy’s haunted by that image.  He was even in attendance for my live box break on Jtv when I pulled this.

Halman Green Century Proof /250 & Molitor College Greats..

Halman came out of the pack in bad shape, with a dinged corner damage along the bottom edge.  Disappointing, and the damage will continue…

Emilio Bonifacio /1874, Keaton Hayenga 1/100 (woohoo eBay 1/1!), and Ryan Patterson /775 sticker autos..

Bonifacio was pretty beat up right out the pack, and Hayenga wasn’t minty fresh either, which is unfortunate because it’s the first time I’ve ever pulled the first or last of a print run.

Now, you see I pulled three autos.  There were two game-used cards, so that means I pulled an extra hit.  Donruss was always cool like that.  Getting more than promised seemed to be the rule rather than the exception for them.  Here’s my other two hits:

Century Stars Dale Murphy jersey /100

My weak link of the box.  Dale Murphy would be a really cool pull usually, and I guess he kinda still is, but considering how great the legend checklist is, this is probably one of the weakest possible legends you can get.  And, this is the only legend hit I got.  Oh wells.

Time for the grand finale!

Madison Bumgarner game-used something?... /100

Even at full size it’s kinda hard to see, but there are two parallel grooves in the swatch running the length of the swatch vertically.  I dunno what the deal is, but the swatch is super thick too.  It’s practically bursting from the window.  Whatever the case, I’m calling this a patch… err, being Donruss, Prime Jersey (which is probably more accurate than calling most special swatches a “patch” anyway), until proven otherwise. 😛

Now for grades.

Price: A This is a great product at under $50.  It’s fun and there’s a fair chance at a great pull.

Condition: C I think only the three cards were noticeably damaged, but they were kind of important ones.

Pulls: B Bonifacio has made it to the majors already but not been great.  Hayenga has potential.  Patterson is going on 27 and hasn’t made the show yet, though he might be decent if he ever does.  Murphy is cool but a weak legend.  Bumgarner is easily the hit of the box.  The regular inserts and the Bob Feller parallel are what bring it up from a C to a solid B.

Fun: A+ This was easily the most fun I’ve ever had busting a box of cards.  I may get another box of Threads in the future.

Final Grade: Solid B It has it’s flaws, but it’s just a fun product.  You’ll be close to the complete short set even if you do get too many dupes, the regular inserts are fantastic, there’s pretty decent big hit potential for the price, and it all looks pretty good, sticker autos aside.  There is much to like here.

Thanks for reading. 🙂

Until our next…