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…

Classed up My Pro Graps Collection

I’m slowly coming back, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been working quite a bit behind the scenes.  I even started bindering stuff up recently.  Here’s something rather nice from the wrestling/non-sport binder:

Sportkings Bruno Sammartino mini..

Classy as balls…

Blaster Stuffs Part 1

Awhile back (mid-November I think) I picked up some blasters at Shopko.  All $20 ones were on sale for $14.99, and I had a thing for $10 off a $40 or more purchase, so that knocked an extra $2.50 off each of the four I picked up, making them $12.50 apiece.  They were all 2010, topps206, topps Heritage, topps Chrome (all baseball), and Bowman Platinum (football).  So here’s a look at what I pulled from 206 and Heritage.  We’ll do the Chrome and Platinum another day.

My only two probable keepers from the 206 blaster..

A few of the better bronze parallels. Might keep Cueto due to the epic hair on display.

A mini penny and a history card that’s actually baseball related.

The backs of the Historical Events cards for those that care..

The regular backed minis.

See? Regular backs.

Finally, the mini parallels.

The Baseball Caramels (Pettitte/Feliz) backs are 1:4 packs I guess. The Old Mill (Volquez) is something like 1:20 or 1:22.

Not a great blaster, but the the price being 37.5%-off helped.  Oh yeah, there was a King Felix base card that I’m too lazy to finish editing down to size that I’m keeping.  Also not pictured, Mike Leake RC, and hat SPs of Ryan Braun and Mantle.

Now then, onto the topps Heritage.

First up, some Baseball Thrills. Might keep a couple of these (Hornsby is going to Cards on Cards) unless someone else wants them.

Lots of star power on this one, and a keeper on account of the Ichiro-ness.

My other keeper. Then & Now Whitey & The King.

The shortprints..

Finally, the big hit of the blaster, a Jeets Chrome #’ed to /1961.

Not the greatest blaster, but much better than the 206, for the better keepers from more important personal collections and a better best pull at least.

Seeya next time, when I either get back to the Check Out My Cards stuff, do a trade post, or the second part this with the shinier blasters.  Maybe I’ll even do my best pulls of 2010 list, but probably not.

UPDATE: Can someone please tell me why the borders have gone all wonky in some of my recent posts.  It’s really annoying me. 😡

The new year begins…

COMC Order #4

We’ve officially come to the mini portion of the show.  First up, a little something from the excellent 2008 Upper Deck Goudey.  Heh…

Champions!

Big Ben- Two Super Bowls.

Bill Russell- 11 NBA Championships (the last two as a player-coach).  Also, holy sh*t!

Emmitt Smith- Three Super Bowls.

Tom Brady- Three Super Bowls.

19 championships combined.  There are no losers here.  C’mon LeBron & LT, prove you belong in the company of these men.  Hit Parade of Champions is another set I’m collecting, although I’ve never bothered to look up how many cards are even in the set (okay, 30 according the Baseball Cards Wiki… also, it’s probably too late Mattingly, Griffey Jr., & Yaz to become champions unless it’s in a coaching role).  I have seven, counting these, including two of the biggies, Kobe and the previously mentioned LeChump.

Someday I’d like to get a few cards from the original set it’s based on.  Narrowly missed on some hockey player from it once.  Finishing the modern remake is more pressing the moment though.  A card from an obscure set from 1954 isn’t likely to come through a trade.  I guess I did get a ’53 Bowman in a trade once, not to mention a freakin’ Walter Payton rookie through trading, so I guess I should never say never.

That’s it for this one.  More minis comin’ up next time, also continuing the heroic trend from these Champions, in a much more meaningful way.  And by meaningful, I mean the kind of heroism that tends to get you executed by the oppressive powers that be for doing your damnedest to usurp them and freeing your country from their tyrannical grip.  Seeya! 🙂

Bustin’ sh*t up in the name of freedom!

COMC Order #3

Now we segue out of vintage with a little last hurrah and into something a little… smaller, with this here quickie post.

1969 topps Deckle Edge Jim Fregosi, Maury Wills, and Jerry Koosman proving vintage never goes out of style.

Ah, wonderful affordable vintage.  I am slowly putting together this set.  I believe this brings me to five now, with Kessinger and Santo.  It’s a good one to collect if you aren’t concerned about condition.  Even the best players won’t set you back that much, and there are lots of big names of the day and Hall of Famers to be had.  The set is only 33 cards (plus a couple different player-same card number variations, proving topps has been pulling that s*** since at least the late-1960s!), so there isn’t a lot to track down.

Not quite minis in an official sense, but the slightly smaller than average size makes for a handy transition to the minis portion of our program, which we will start to cover in the next Check Out My Cards post.

PS: Still no winner in the contest yet. Go down a few posts and keep guessing!

Until our next…

Trade Bait and a Reminder

Reminder first… My box of ’09 A Piece of History is finally do to arrive today.  As such, I will be busting it in the early evening tonight, live on justin.tv.  The cast shall hopefully commence at around 7pm eastern/6pm central time (pending my cam and mic and the website itself functioning properly, of course).  Anyway, feel free to sign up at at Jtv and join me at the link then.  Or don’t sign up and just be an anonymous and vaguely creepy onlooker that can’t talk in the chat.  Whatever the case, just come by and check it out the box break in glorious crappy webcam-o-vision!

Now then, for the trade bait… Come and get it!

We got mini Chipper jerseys...

Two of 'em!

Maybe football’s your thing?

Not sure Vick will get any interest (which sucks cuz I've got two other jersey cards of him from back in the day too), but maybe the other two will get some interest...

How about teh shiny?

Lew isn't for trade, all the shiny is though!

Some crappy base too…

Pfft Yankees...

A few random Hall of Famers, mayhaps?

Dave Winfield w/ pinstripe

Goooooooose!

Woohoo, not a Yankee!

And finally, the coolest one of all.  Yes, even cooler than big Dave.  Don’t look at me like that.

I'm not sure I even want to trade this one, but if you can offer up something awesome, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire... The A-Team.

Wait, that’s not right.  But seriously, it’s going to take something especially great to get Ed from me.

Dave Winfield will take something a of above average specialness too.  I’ve considered collecting him for quite some time, so I can always keep him and start that collection if I’m not quite feeling the offer (or don’t get one).

There ya go.  If you see something you like, make your actual offer in the comments section please.  I’m a little (okay a lot, though slightly less so than Beardy :P) slow on the email draw, best if I can get the offers here and just mess with addresses via email.  And this way everybody will know what’s available and what’s been claimed, and what it might take to get any given card(s).  Fair enough?

Seeya when the sun comes up…

Small Trade Blowout Extravaganza

Since I’m still working on scans from my Secret Santa gift and the 45+ Warren Moons (amongst other things) from The Great Sports Name Hall of Fame and the cards from Marie and some random hits and you get the idea, and my A Piece of History box isn’t due till Monday, I don’t have much to post about at the moment.  Thank goodness for belated trade posts though.  Here are the cool cards I got in the various clunker-type trades I cashed in on awhile back, as well as a small trade with Baseball Dad.

First up, some cards from Roll Out the Barrel.

The four 2008 Sports Royalty cards were what this one was about.  For some reason I decided I wanted to collect all the non-baseball players in the set.  I’m not even sure how many there are, but I want ’em.  I need to update my wantlist to note that I have these three someday.  May as well list the mini too, since I listed the WBC refractors I have over there.  What were we talking about?

Oh yeah, he sent some Cubbies along for the ride too.  That was nice.  I need ROtB’s address to send him some stuff in return though (bubble mailer’s long gone).

Here are the main cards from Baseball Dad.

Sent a LaPorta jersey and a Crowe auto and a couple other random cards for these and a couple others.  The D-Lee refractor was a nice surprise, especially after the 2009 he had and the realization that I have so many cards of him that I decided I should just make him his own separate player collection.  It’ll be official once I have some room in the big binder or get a new one that I can put his cards in.

These are from Stats on the Back and Nachos Grande.

Sorry about the awkwardness of this pic.  I don’t know what the heck I was doing here.  Gilgamesh and Ichiro (and a not pictured for some reason Chrome Trading Card History of Alfonso Soriano) came from Nachos, and the rest came from Stats.  Well, except for the Red Moore.  I pulled him myself.

I really like the Hit Parade of Champions and am trying to collect that set as well if anybody has any to trade.  All I have are the Kobe above and LeBron.

Lots of nice cards, and even though the whole Clunker thing isn’t relevant anymore, the idea is excellent.  I may try to do this with some of my excess minor inserts and such someday.  Anyone got a catchy new topical name for it?

Finally, I leave you with this.

Flairamis!

Somewhere along the way, I think Aramis Ramirez became my favorite Cub.  I think this card also came from Roll Out the Barrel, but I’m not 100% sure.

Make like a pig and FLY!

Belated Night Owl Trade

I sent Night Owl some Dodgers a few weeks ago (or is it months at this point), and here’s what I got in return:

Starting it off with some Cubs and A&G wantlist minis...

I am unsure of what that Leon Durham is.  It’s not really a card, it’s on paper that’s about newsprint thick.  Whatever it is though, I do like it. 🙂

Straight outta 1960, it's 2009 Topps Hertage... and a couple Target blaster throwbacks

Makes me want to get some more actual 1960 topps Cubbies to go with my lone card from that year, great defensive innovator (and pretty decent hitter to boot) Vic Power.  And is Reed Johnson ever the right guy for an old school version or what?  The hustle & effort, man.  Granted, he’s gritty & hard-working because he’s no better than mediocrely talented, but still, hustle is a motivator for others sometimes… He will make a fine manager someday perhaps.

2009 O-Pee-Chee, approximately 1/8th of the Cubs base set... 😛

Wasn’t a fan of OPC this year.  Not to say that some of the cards aren’t nicely designed (though plenty of photography stinkers there are).  Not enough cards for the price of admission, considering the ginormity of the set.  If they were eight or more cards per pack with the same insert & hit rate for the $45 or so hobby boxes were going for when it first came out, I *might* have picked up a box.

This brings me to gripe I should mention to Upper Deck sometime if I ever get a live mic with someone with some stroke there.  Upper Deck does not seem to even be able to grasp the concept of low end (flagship VERY aside).  Even the surprisingly decent Upper Deck X suffers from the low end-itis a bit.

Let’s continue with the pretty pictures of baseball cards then, shall we?

Another OPC, some '09 Goudey, '09 UDX, Attax, and '08 Timeline

Thusfar, my favorite Upper Deck brand of the year is UDX.  Is that crazy or what?  I didn’t hate ’08 (one of the few, the proud), and the ’09 version was a vast improvement.  It’s the only baseball product truly geared towards kids too, aside from topps’ surprisingly excellent flagship.

Goudey was sometimes not pretty this year, but the Cubbies I received looked fine for the most part.  The Uncanny Valley ookiness is mercifully kept to a minimum.

I still don’t like the Timeline base design, but there is something about the blue on it that give it a certain I don’t know what.

Attax are Attax.  Rolling out a new game every year or two and never sticking with one can’t be helping the baseball CCG cause, I’m just sayin’.

Tristar & Bowman & a different Zambrano & topps Chrome

It’s a shame Tristar’s stuff gets no love, because most of their stuff looks very good, better than Boredom Bowman most years.

I think that’s the first ’94 Fleer Ultra Cubbie I’ve got.  I was going to say the mid-’90s (’94-’98ish), were a good place to start for my Cubs collection needs, but really, I don’t have that many from just about any era.  Vintage aside, mid-’90s is certainly a very low point, but I don’t even have that many junk wax era Cubbies, particularly of the non-topps persuasion.  I guess this is because while I’ve been collecting cards since 1996, it’s only been the last couple of years that baseball cards became my top priority.

Fonsie, just… try to come back healthy next year, ‘kay?

2009 Upper Deck Cubs

There they are.  Amazing that through all the horrible offseason moves, injuries, and just bad years in general, the Cubs finished over .500 in 2009.

Cards from the dark ages...

Well, the late-’80s/early-’90s were colorful, if nothing else.

'09 Icons & more '09 Allen & Ginter needs

Icons are kinda meh and the foil parallels are mostly fugly, but the blue does the halfhearted baseball design some good.  And there’s Fukudome, the whole reason for the trade in the first place.  Someday, I’m going to update my A&G trade page.

Someday.

Some great great cards from the man with one of the 5 coolest names in the sports card blogosphere (along with Wicked Ortega, Mojo Hand, Collective Troll, and yours truly, Lonestarr, modesty aside ;P).  Give it up for Night Owl one more time!

Oh, Mr. Owl, do you still need the Broxton All-Star card from Updates & Highlights?  If so, I will send it along with the Kershaw & any other stuff I might have.

That’s all for this post.  Just a reminder, only about a dozen guesses have been made in the contest so far, so keep ’em coming.  Remember, even if you’re guess is wrong, you’ll still be in the drawing for a chance at the four football cards.

Play again?

No Number?

Victor Dayf-go

I was going through the cards I got at Shopko, of which I’ll make a post of the Hobby Box soon (in theory anyway), but this is about something I noticed today (three days later).  There was something interesting in one of my Allen & Ginter packs that I didn’t notice when I first opened it.  I got a Victor Hugo (who shall henceforth be known as Victor Dayf-go for the remainder of this post) mini in said pack.  Well, the first thing I failed to realize that it was an SP mini.  Ironically, thanks to an old post of Dayf’s, I found out that SP minis fall 1:13 packs.  Dunno if the odds change in retail or not in them since I haven’t my blaster boxes or any packs still around.  But it gets better, oh yes.

So I turn the card over to see that there is no number.  Confused, I set out on the internet with the mission of finding out just what I have here.  Eventually I stumbled upon the previously mentioned Dayf post to find out that they fall 1:151 packs in Hobby Boxes.  Again, not sure if it changes in retail or not, or what, if anything being an SP does to those odds, but that is pretty fantastic regardless.

I wonder… if the odds hold true does that mean that the print run of the not numbered ones is roughly 50, #’d to 25 Bazooka Backs are roughly twice as hard to get at 1:301?  My inner stat geek is so curious I’d like to find out from Topps themselves.  And if it isn’t right I’d like to try and figure how it could be off.  Oohoohoohoo, so exciting.  I think I peed myself a little.

Not really, but statistical nincompoopery does make me a little tingly inside.  Weather phenoma has been known to get me that way too.  And history.  Heh.

Oh, anyway, here’s what the back looks like:

I knew there was a reason the A&G packs felt good...

As you can see, there is no number under his profession.  Pretty cool huh?  It does beg the question though… What do I do with all the cards of non-sport people I’ve accumulated from packs of baseball cards?  Should I do a Great Cardening post for them as well?

Thanks for reading.  I swear, one of these days I will get a proper post up thanking Shane and Marie great cards I’ve received.

Oh btw, I finally got your cards sent out Shane.  I hope they are up to snuff.  I am kinda worried honestly.  I don’t know how I could ever hope to match such an epic bunch of cards as what you sent.

One day I might actually get around to finishing The Great Cardening of 2009 Yankees post, too.  Someday…

‘Til the Crossroads…

Allen & Ginter, We got BOTH of ‘Em!

I picked up my blaster of A&G last night, and… I think I picked the right one.  Let’s see if you agree.

Pack 1

61 Adam Dunn

18 James Loney

271 Paul Lo Duca

254 Hunter Pence

131 Todd Helton Mini

Crack teh Code Promo

106 Brian Schneider

Pack 2

192 Yunel Escobar

196 Edgar Renteria

112 Akinori Iwamura

336 Allen Fisher SP- Arm wrestling champion.

WL16 Konstandinos Karamanlis. Greece The World Leaders- Prime Minister is his official title.

AGR-TPH Travis Hafner JERSEY- w00t!  Finally got a hit of a guy who I can say is difinitevely NOT the worst player in the pack. *dances awkwardly and moral victoriously*

Checklist Three of Four

167 Marie Curie

Pack 3

266 Matt Kemp

53 Chien-Ming Wang

WGV16 The Battle of Thermopylae The World’s Greatest Victories- Speaking of moral victories, I think it’s fair to say this battle was one.  They held out long enough for the forces back home to be prepared and ultimately win the war, but they all ended up getting killed.  Moral victory, no?

234 Jared Weaver Mini

166 Bram Stoker

42 Luke Scott

Pack 4

46 Chris Young (Padres)- Team Denotation will become important later…

74 Khalil Greene

5 CC Sabathia

335 Phil Hughes SP

120 Derek Jeter Mini

US39 Paul Konerko (Rhode Island) The United States of America

223 Nyjer Morgan Pirates RC

Pack 5

155 Troy Tulowitzki

90 Jose Reyes

126 Chris Young (Diamondbacks)- Wait for it… WAIT FOR IT… keep waiting… there it is… yes…

46 Chris Young (Padres) Mini- WHAMMY~!!!!!!!!!!! Back-to-back different people with the same names!!

72 Clayton Kershaw Dodgers RC

154 Jesse Carlson Blue Jays RC

Nice to get two rookies I have yet to pull from A&G or elswhere.  I am so sick of Ian Kennedy and Max Scherzer.

Pack 6

222 Jeremy Bonderman

47 Chad Billingsley

195 Russell Martin

343 Bengie Molina SP

9 Ian Kinsler Bazooka Back Mini

US18 Jonathan Papelbon (Louisiana) The United States of America- It might already be too late to stick this in with all the other cards I’m sending to Shane.

Checklist Four of Four

273 Jay Bruce Reds RC

Pack 7

101 Adrian Beltre

241 Ryan Garko

36 Michael Young

54 Takashi Saito Mini

Crack teh Code Promo

217 Friedrich Nietzsche

286 Pat Burrell

Pack 8

164 Jorge Posada

225 Roy Oswalt

111 Dan Uggla

305 Randy Johnson SP

177 Evan Longoria Mini Rays RC

US19 Tim Stauffer (Maine) The United States of America

252 Callix Crabbe Padres RC

I think I did pretty well for myself with this one.  A not guaranteed jersey, a couple of nice inserts, good rookies and a couple of nice minis.  Can’t ask for any better than that from a blaster.

Hit me up in the comments section if you see something you like.

Until our next…