Tag Archives: teasers

by

Cubs and Bears COMC Keepers

Heyo, Loneycakes (yeah, that better not stick) back with the Cubs and Bears portion of the latest COMC order.

Bears!

The Gale Sayers scanned rather nicely, but still doesn’t do the card the justice it deserves.  Easily amongst the 10 best I picked up this time around.

The Pog card is kind of a mess.  Think I might pop ’em out.

Can’t get enough Hester cards.  That’s a collection I’d love to expand dramatically.  Incidentally, and to unintentionally totally rip Fuji off with related question audience participation, do you consider Devin Hester a Hall of Famer, or at least well on his way to becoming one?

Orton, man… can’t let ol’ neckbeard go.  Wrecking the Pack’s perfect season plans was most enjoyable.

Forte is a parallel with a super subtle rainbow shine and is #’ed /250 I think.  It reminded me a lot of the shine on the lesser American Pie parallels, where you can’t even tell unless the light hits it right.

Finally, A-Train!  What a great looking card with a great looking autograph.  It’s on (or in I guess) card too.  All I need is a swatch to complete his trifecta, and they are cheap and fairly plentiful.

Cubs!

Corey Patterson… what could have been?  He was fading a bit when he got hurt that year, but would he have become legit if it never happened?

Welington looks like an embedded window ala the A-Train, but it isn’t.  It is on-card though.  I do believe this completes my trifecta for him.

Brett Jackson.  Please pan out, please pan out, please pan out…  Josh Vitters too.

The Ryno back..

Honestly, I don’t even remember buying this one.  But it’s pretty cool.  And I totally did forget something in the non-Cubs post, but it’ll have to wait.  They really should have a post of their own.  So stay tuned for that, along with one other keeper post.  Then we go to the trade bait end of things.

Until our next…

by

Diamond Giveaway Update

Since I haven’t mentioned in awhile and it’s all I’ve got handy, here is where I currently stand in the Diamond Giveaway.  I’ve managed to score several Diamond Die-Cuts via random vintage trading, and have finally landed a few keepers.  Behold, for I now have a screen grabber!

Vlad, via Carlos Santana..

Shin-Soo Choo, via Ricky Romero..

Big Papi, via David Price..

King Felix, via Roger Maris..

Aramis, via '66 Bolin, '75 Bumbry, '78 Pentz, Dierker, & McClure, '82 Cey, and '85 Ozzie Smith..

Not bad.  And if you’re wondering how I have 46 cards, I let go of the second Carlos Santana for 14 vintage cards because I was about out of trade bait.  A few of those netted me a Brian McCann Die-Cut which shortly thereafter landed me 31(!) more cards from 1973-1985, including several stars (one keeper- ’76 Dick Allen) and a Cub.

See?

I peaked at 52 cards, but seven of them landed Aramis over the weekend.  So despite all the randomness, there is a method to my madness, and these are the rest of the Diamond Die-Cuts I’m after:

Ernie Banks

Starlin Castro

Tyler Colvin

Dave Winfield

Ichiro Suzuki

Adrian Beltre

I also have a secondary list of players I’d like to pick up any of (for various reasons) if possible.  These would be my main priority from the secondary list:

Mark Buehrle (for my dad)

Carlos Santana (3rd time’s a charm, right?)

Hanley Ramirez (still flirting with the idea of collecting him on occasion)

Andrew McCutchen (ditto)

I’m not sure I have anything anyone wants, but if you’ve got any of the above on the site (or any others really, whatevs, I’m not too picky or in a hurry or anything) and want to swing a deal for my random, mostly ’70s nonsense, and if you can find me… maybe you can hire– Wait, ha.  I’m game.

So that was a pretty boring post, but at least I had some pictures this time right?  Right??  Anyway, next time, a “Look for Vintage” Fairfield pack that didn’t suck.

‘Til the crossroads…

by

Flea Market Finds #1: Overview

Heyas.  Been a long time, huh?  Nothing’s really changed since last we chatted, except for getting a few more of the sketch cards from the previous post finished (and a few new ones drawn up), and a seriously loudass person moving in upstairs pushing me to the end of my rope with this lousy place.  Seriously, if anyone knows of a halfway decent place with no noise problems to speak of that falls within my modest price range, I’m so effing outta here.

Ah, but that’s not why you called.  I happen to have some fun stuff I’m getting prepared to blog about.  For the past several months, they’ve been holding a small monthly flea market at the shell of our once thriving mall.  I asked my dad if they had any cards when the parents made it out there at the beginning of the year, and he said they did, but didn’t elaborate.  So I’ve been wanting to go ever since, to see what was there myself.

On Saturday, I finally made it out there.  I wasn’t expecting much, but I had $23 with me just in case.  And am I ever glad I did.  There was a guy there with cards.  He didn’t bring the whole card shop (of which he apparently owns one nearby, according to the business card), but he had a very nice selection of cards to peruse.  He had cards available ranging from the late ’60s to within the past couple years, in baseball, basketball, and football.

He seemed to be an old school Beckett-adhering type, but his cards were priced to move.  He mentioned to another person there that wandered by that his philosophy was that if a kid saw a cool card they liked, they should be able to afford it, which sounds like an awesome philosophy to me.  As such, the vast majority of his singles were $1, and almost everything on up seemed to be reasonably priced (I think I spotted a Felix Pie auto for $50 in the one little bunch hits behind glass, but that is easily forgivable when pretty much everything else was so reasonable).

He was also willing to deal, as you’ll soon see.  So I picked out a few singles I liked (9 in total, I believe), all but one marked $1 or $1.50 (the two of which he gave me for $1), and two random 25 card grab packs for $1 apiece that had interesting cards showing.  Then I came to the side of the table where he had several binders laid out, each with about a dozen pages full of cards in them.  They were marked $1 per page, or $10 for a whole binder.  As it happened, I managed to find a dozen random pages I like from the various binders.  So he stuck them all in one of the binders, and gave it to me for $7!

So yeah, I spent all $23 I came armed with.  In total, I ended up with about 170 cards, the vast majority of which I very much like.  Needless to say, I completely obliterated the number of cards and enjoyment I would’ve gotten out of your average blaster (+ maybe one $1.59 pack), and will be heading out there again next month.  There were many things I had to leave behind this time.

Anyway, the binder pages will make up the vast majority of the posts to follow in this little series.  I’ll go over them card-by-card, one or two pages at a time, because there is just so much random coolness in each page.

I’ll also be getting a few packages sent out over the course of this month, and a few of the cards from the flea market may even find their way into some of them.

1/3 of of one of the most iconic basketball cards of all time, and a small preview of the craziness to come...

Flea Market > Blaster.  It is a fundamental truth.

The fun has only just begun…

by

Contest and Interview Notices and a Poll

The Hall of Very Good has an interview legendary sports card artist Dick Perez.  Check it out!

JD’s Wild Cardz is holding an epic Olympic contest.  Go enter if it’s not too late.

Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes.  I did nothing at all to celebrate, unless sleeping all afternoon and into the evening counts.  I did get $50 total from parents and relatives though, which will either go for a box or two of cards or the thing of 48 ridiculously expensive markers at the art supply place that is just over $50, marked down from over $200!  Can always use more markers, more choice of colors the better, right?  Of course, if they are gone by the time I can get there again (likely), it’ll be a moot point.

Still though, I’ll take a poll.

Finally, check back tonight or tomorrow for a little something cool I’m in the process of even as I type this.

Until our next…

by

Keyboard Unfail

The long national nightmare is over, I have a keyboard again. 😛

Let us touch on a few things quickly before I go hang with da fam and watch football and eat so much turkey and mashed potatoes & gravy that it starts dripping out my ears!

First, trade packages were sended out to M. Ryan of Ryan’s Memorabilia Blog, Brian of Play at the Plate, and The Don hisself, Mr. Wicked Ortega late Monday afternoon.  And you’ll be pleased to know that I found the DeMetrius Williams Sweet Spot auto, Mike.  It’s pretty ridonkulous.  I have no idea if there be mail service on Friday or Saturday (I make up for my slowness by being oblivious! :P), but if not, hopefully they will make it by Monday, and provide you all a slightly gentler landing coming back to earth after the long holiday weekend.

Addresses, I need addresses.  Who do I need addresses from?  I need addresses from Roll out the Barrell and Sooz of A Cardboard Problem so I can sends them stuff.  And I’d like to send stuff to Marie too, but I still don’t know if she wants any of the Linds/Canos/Martins/etc I have.

Ooh ooh ooh, here’s one for McCann Can Triple for when I finally get around to sending stuff to her late next summer (I REALLY hope I’m joking about that…).  Do you have many Braves hits, specifically Chipper Jones?  I got two Chipper jerseys in the five packs of 2005 topps Pack Wars I busted on twitter on Tuesday, and I was wondering if you’d like one of them.  I will scan them (and a bunch of other stuff) later today.  They are shiny.

I’ve gotten a TON of great cards in the last two days, and I can’t wait to scan them for you all to see.  So much stuff came on Tuesday and Wednesday that I didn’t even feel the need to stop in the card aisle on the way out of Walmart when I picked up the new keyboard.  An embarrassment of riches, to be sure.  I received all my larger things from eBay, and received a trade from Wicked Ortega that had one of the greatest cards I have ever seen, so business is about to pick up on the ol’ blog.  And somewhere in there, I will reminisce(sp?) about Allen Iverson, one of the greatest basketball players that ever lived, who called it a career yesterday.

Until our next… HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

by

Blasters, We Got Blasters

I picked up  another ’08 Goudey blaster from K-Mart.  Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment.  At least if I’m gonna get a craptacular blaster, it’s half off right?  I’m starting to think I’m the only person who’s actually buying them, because the amount of blasters collecting dust never seems to get smaller.  I had my mom choose it since my luck has been so unflinchingly horrendous with blasters in general.  She didn’t do much better, but it wasn’t horrible overall.

I got a black & white  Derek Jeter for the unclaimed stack of Jeters waiting to be traded and couple more Red Sox to throw into my trade with Shoebox Legends.  And I got a Rod Carew and a Griffey for myself.  The real winner from this blaster though is whoever wants to trade for some Cardinals legends.  I got Stan Musial, Ozzie Smith Sports Royalty (the very last card in the last pack I believe), and Lou Brock.

This wasn’t all I got though.  I also went to Target and got an ’09 Upper Deck Series 1 blaster.  And it was good.  I had my mom choose that one too.  She did better on it.  Cards of note include 20th Anniversary Retrospective cards of Michael Jordan and Margaret Thatcher, O-Pee-Chees of Randy Johnson and John Smoltz, a Black Ultra Rare Chipper Jones Starquest, a Gold Rare Griffey StarQuest (which I am keeping), and an uncommon A-Rod (no commons in this one *le gasp*), and a spiffy looking team USA card.  The guaranteed jersey was even good for once.  I got Josh Hamilton.  Sure kicks the stuffins out of the Zack Duke jersey from the ’08 Series 2 blaster I got a few days ago at any rate.  Does anyone out there in blogland want it?  Or (almost) anything else from these blasters for that matter?  I’m only keeping the Cubs and Griffey, and the White Sox I already have a destination in mind for, but everything else is up for grabs.

I wanted to mention something about how these Upper Deck Cards look before I go.  To my eye the design is absolutely outstanding (special commendation for the bright and colorful Team Leaders subset) and even blows away Topps’ much improved ’09 effort.  The base cards and inserts are all colorful (and this year’s StarQuests are a huge step up) as well, something that Upper Deck is not normally known for, but I really like it.  Whatever extra creative effort that may have went into the flagship set in 2009 really paid off.

I noticed almost immediately there seems to be one thing amiss though… and that is the photography.  Not to say that it is bad in and of itself, but it seems like a lot of the shots are so up close and personal that you could smell the player’s breath.  It may be an effect of the bottom border being closed off, but I’m not digging it, especially with Topps’ borders being smaller than usual and a good deal of their photography actually being on par with some of Upper Deck’s better efforts from the past.

Ok I’m all done here.  Seeyaz next time, when I’ll have a couple of possibly worthwhile ideas to roll out before I start dropping the occasional sketch on ya.

PS: And I might finally have the cards for Dinged Corners sent out by then too.  I may need your address though ladies.  I had found it awhile back when I was almost ready to send it out in I think December of last year, but I believe the bubble mailer with your address is long gone now.  And lets just say the lot (which was about 80 cards strong as of December) has gotten a little bigger since then.

…

…

…

By about 3x…