Back to the COMC Order

Heyo.  More keeper goodness for the pleasure of visual stimulation today on the show while I continue making trade offers on the Diamond Giveaway site in the background.  Still about 180 cards to move to get me down to 40 that I want, but that’s another post.  We were on baseball, yes?  Well then, to the scans!

YOU try scanning warp-assed chrome cards straight. EX-ARod sample, and an early American Ichiro, from Cardboard Icons' COMC, no less..

I require a sample..

$1 well spent. 🙂

Big Dave. I dunno why, but it amuses me greatly how much he absolutely dwarfs everyone else whenever he's playing analyst..

My inner-WBC wonk got the best of me. That's my first ever quad jersey though. It's niiiice..

Classic SPx, scanned spectacularly..

A crazypants Vlad insert, an early '80s oddball, and a Nomah #'ed /173..

Ol' Rock is plastic like a credit card. This is the back..

And here's the Vlad & Nomah backs. Vlad was also from Cardboard Icons..

Always hate on manu-relics until you have one in-hand. This is freakin' suh-weet..

GQ Papi jerseys..

Starting to think breaking the scans down before I posted was a really dumb and definitively time-consuming idea.  I mean, it probably makes for better viewing and reading this way, and it’s easier if you need to download or link to a particular card, but man does it take forever.  So let’s just get to the end of the (not Cubs) baseball keepers already.  I’ll give my Cubs and Bears a post of their own next.  Moving on down the line, we veer off course and take a side trip to funky(card)town.

The On-Deck Circle swatch featuring borderline Hall of Famer Carlos Delgado..

The swatch feels plastic and rubbery at the same time.  If the crazypants of the swatch isn’t enough for you though, it gets a little weirder still when we turn it over.

Foilboard shine on the back, but not the front... Cuz why not?

Foilboard doesn’t exactly work in scans, but you can tell it’s different than the front.  I dunno, it’s hella strange, but I likes it.  It’s unique, that’s for sure.  And it has rhyme and/or reason to it at least.  Who doesn’t love All-Star-related cards and swatches (besides roughly half of you)?  Can’t say the same for this next (and mercifully final) one though.

I... What? What is this, I don't even..

But... but why?

I don’t understand the point of this card at all.  Not complaining though, I must admit I enjoy the quirky weirdness of it all.  I’d be delighted if some could explain what the meaning of this is.  Blue archer needs background info badly.

And that is hopefully it for this one.  If I missed anything, I’ll throw it in with the Cubs and Bears next time, unless I decide to post up something else tomorrow.  I do have a couple other directions I could go if I feel like it.

Till then, mi amigos…

A Post? For Realz? ~~ Thoughts and Sox WBC

First, let me start by saying I’d like to post more often.  It’s not like I don’t have endless amounts of free time to post, because quite frankly, I do.  As you may know, I am Bipolar to a pretty serious degree.  As such, actual pressing responsibilities are pretty few & far between.  I don’t have a lot I have to do, though I have slowly been taking over more and more of my life the last 18 months or so.  The problem is, I just don’t have any useful discourse very often.  I don’t trade a ton because I’m so slow about it (again, no real excuse for the slowness, my baseball cards aren’t even horribly disorganized anymore) and my ability to scan stuff is limited to how often I go over to my parents’ place and actually leave myself enough time to scan between other stuff, since I’ve never gotten around to getting myself a scanner (not that I have room for one right now anyway).  And I’m not focused enough to stay fully up on the latest news, so I can’t really comment on the state of the Hobby that much, or whatever other pretty shiny piques my interest any given hour.  My funds are so limited that there’s no point in keeping that close of a watch on things anyway, since I’m not gonna be able to experience a lot of what the hobby has to offer, in pack/box form at least.

That all said, I do have a growing backlog of trade packages scanned and ready for posting.  So I’ll start with World Baseball Classic half of the still somewhat recent trade with Thoughts and Sox.  There were some great football cards too, but we’ll get to those another time.  Otherwise it’ll be daybreak before I finish this post, and I’m trying hard to not do that so much anymore.  So enough jibba-jabba, let’s get into it.

These are from 2006 Upper Deck Future Stars. Two or three cards shy of the 25 card base set, and I think one dupe.

These cards are super shiny and like Spuctrum, and are almost exactly as thin. They look ten times better though, with the solid colored world map in the background to even things out. The flags class things up a bit too.

Now we're getting to the parallels. The greens are #'ed to /499 and the red to /299.

The purples are numbered /1799 and are presumably the easiest parallel pull. Apparently there are three more levels of parallel as well, according to Upper Deck's checklist.

Not to be outdone, here is topps' chromed out 2009 Bowman version of World Baseball Classic subset/insert overkill. I love it though. The WBC is a fun event.

Last scan and then we're in the clear. Lots of shiny good stuff. Thanks again to Thoughts and Sox, and remember, if you want to dump your unwanted World Baseball Classic stuff, you can send it riiiight here.

.::~Outtro~::.

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~::.

Live Box Break Reminder + Bonus!

The 2008 Donruss Threads baseball box is due to arrive later today, and I will be busting it at 7pm east/6pm central/etc/so forth on justin.tv, so be there or kindly be square.  This is definitely a more interesting box than the ’09 Upper Deck A Piece of Sh**story, and let’s hope it’s better much much better too.  I mean seriously, Upper Deck… Gigli??  Even if was fairly enjoyable, mine had to be the worst box ever.  And what’s up with the missing hit?

Edit: I have yet to fall asleep, it’s closing in 40 hours since I’ve had any decent sleep, so there is a good chance I’m not going to be ready to cast by 7pm est/6pm cst.  I’ll let ya know for sure later..

Edit #2: Woke up just in time to hear the Threads baseball box and Playoff football bonus packs arrive at my door.  Those UPS dudes are STEALTH.  Still haven’t managed to see one, no matter how fast I get to the door.  They’re like… ninja tooth fairies or something.  Okay, back to sleep.  Will post when the break is gonna happen when I wake up.  Laters.. 🙂

Edit #3: I’m awake again, so I guess this thintg’s gonna happen tonight.  Gimme about 40 minutes to finish waking up and get a little food in and get everything set up.  That means I’ll be on at just after 9pm est.  Seeya then!

Edit #4: Going live right now.  Check out the break at the link above.

Edit #5: Threads kicked all kinds of ass!  I had a blast with this one, even though my only hit of a legend was a Dale Murphy jersey (a good card, but definitely weak considering the players available).  I ended up with one more than the promised four hits though, and the regular inserts were suh-weet, and where I got most of my most favorite pulls! 😀

Full reviews of this and A Piece of History with plenty of scans to come sometime this month hopefully.  Scans of the Playoffs Bonus Packs as well.  Also some scans of the blaster and repack from the other day too.

One more note, does anyone remember that post from Field of Cards with all the Joe Morgan cards that use the same picture?  Well, another one was discovered, lol.  But it’s still a hella cool card.

On that note, I’m done for tonight.  See y’all soon!

Now then, let’s make this post worth our while. Not that it wasn’t, but eh..  It’s time for an old school (ie no pictures) blaster break post.  This is 2009 Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects and it comes to us from Target.  I was just hoping to grab a couple fat packs in hopes of pulling a Purple Refractor and mayhaps an autograph since they are pretty easy pulls from them, something like 1:11 according to the break on A Pack to be Named Later.  They had none though, and no regular loose packs either.  All they had was just this one lone blaster of DP&P (I looked fairly thoroughly, so I’m pretty sure this was it).  So after much some waffling, I bought it.  And after the way my night went, I am so glad I did.  Here’s what I got:

Pack 1

BDP 4 Trevor Cahill A’s RC

BDP24 Jeff Stevens Cubs RC- Keeper! (I have no idea who dis dude is though… same goes for almost everyone in this thing though.)

BDPP49 Buddy Baumann Royals 1st Yr Chrome

BDPP50 Thomas Berryhill Braves 1st Yr Chrome

BDPP51 Darrell Ceciliani Mets 1st Yr

BDPP13 Seth Schwindenhammer Red Sox 1st Yr- Too many letters in last name!  I haven’t slept enough for this!!

BDPP22 Ben Paulsen Rockies 1st Yr Gold- Either make ’em thick or lose this crap parallel immediately plz.

Checklist

Pack 2

BDP43 Brent Leach Dodgers RC- Night Owl?

BDP3 Trevor Bell Angels RC

BDPP32 Jeff Decker 1st Yr Chrome

BDP40 Fu-Te Ni Tigers Chrome RC

BDPP9 Anthony Morris Nats 1st Yr

BDPP44 David Holmberg White Sox 1st Yr

BDPP65 Daniel Mahoney Marlins 1st Yr Gold

Pack 3

BDP39 Ryan Sadowski Giants RC

BDP21 Chris Tillman O’s RC- Beardy?

BDP16 Bud Norris Astros RC Chrome

BDPW31 Chipper Jones WBC Purple Refractor!- Ooh, nice.  A player I know!  And these purples be pretty slick.  Very very nice card.  Purple Refractors come two per blaster, it even proclaims “New!  Look for 2 Purple Refractors inside!” on three sides of the blaster.  Keeper, btw (on account of being WBC).

BDPP4 Virgil Hill Cards 1st Yr

BDPP41 Jonathan Meyer Astros 1st Yr

BDP11 JD Martin Nats RC Gold

Pack 4

BDP35 Jarrett Hoffpauir Cards RC- Micah’s distant cousin, according to the back of the card.

BDP19 Ryan Perry Tigers RC

BDPP68 Victor Black Pirates 1st Yr Chrome- Anyone?

BDPP54 Tyler Townsend O’s 1st Yr Chrome- Beardman again?

BDPP73 Mark Fleury Reds 1st Yr

BDPP8 Jobduan Morales Marlins 1st Yr

BDPP30 Cory Burns Indians 1st Yr Gold- Seriously, these gold parallels suck.

Pack 5

BDP8 Rusty Ryal D’Backs RC

BDP41 Casey McGehee Brewers RC

BDPP37 Andrew Bellatti Rays 1st Yr Chrome- Wow, this dude was born on 8/5/1991?  Anyone else feeling a little old right now? 😦

BDP55 Fernando Martinez Mets RC Chrome

BDPP69 Dallas Keuchel Astros 1st Yr

BDPP58 Robert Shields Mets 1st Yr

BDPP52 Derek McCallum Twins 1st Yr Gold

Pack 6

BDP53 Vin Mazzaro A’s RC

BDP40 Fu-Te Ni Tigers RC

BDPP61 Ryan Goins Blue Jays 1st Yr Chrome- Second dude from Dallas Baptist in the blaster.  Can you guess the other?

BDPP34 Brandt Walker Astros 1st Yr Chrome- Getting Astros at a rate usually reserved for Yankees!

BDPP20 Jamie Johnson Tigers 1st Yr

BDPP10 Telvin Nash Astros 1st Yr- See??

BDP6 Wyatt Toregas Indians RC Gold

Pack 7

BDP16 Bud Norris Astros RC- lol, now it’s just getting silly.  I haven’t even pulled a Yankee yet.

BDP55 Fernando Martinez Mets RC

BDP Kyle Blanks Padres RC Chrome

BDPW10 Chunhua Dong WBC Purple Refractor- Nice! I pulled China’s third string catcher for the ’09 World Baseball Classic (he was only 18 then, so it’s better than it sounds).  It may just be the lack of sleep talking, but I kinda want to collect the entire 35 card WBC part of the set in Purple Refractor form now that I have two of them.  Needless to say, this be a keeper!

BDPP7 Michael Belfiore D’Backs 1st Yr

BDPP14 Patrick Lehman Nats 1st Yr

BDPP46 David Hale Braves 1st Yr Gold- Like the pic, but border is fail.

This is it, the last pack is coming up.  Are you excited?  I hope so!

Pack 8

BDP50 Kyle Blanks Padres RC

BPA-MM Michael Moustakas Royals 1st Yr AUTOGRAPH- Yeeeeah!  I was good with the purples, but hitting an autograph made my fairly crappy night and current lack of sleep worth it.  It’s a sticker auto, and I won’t defend that, but these base autos fall 1:23 packs in regular sized RETAIL packs, so I won’t be complaining about it much.  Interesting (debateably) is that Buster Posey is in this bunch, and not the much harder Chrome autos (1:130 packs).  I hear he’s not too bad.

BDP44 Diory Hernandez Braves RC Chrome

BDPW31 Chipper Jones WBC Refractor- Keeper!  W00t, beat the odds twice in one pack!  Regular refractors fall 1:11 packs.  It’s almost as if this box was meant for me (as was the football repack box from Walmart that will require scans to go through).

BDPP64 Egan Smith Blue Jays 1st Yr

BDPP56 Ryan Jackson Cards 1st Yr

BDPP62 Chase Austin Marlins 1st Yr Gold- No Yankees!

Sorry to Marie and Sooz, and proof that it is possible to get no Yankees, in a blaster at least, for Yankee-hatin’ Yankee magnet Night Owl.

I’ll get scans up eventually maybe.  I guess these are for trade, but like a wiki walk gone bad, I’m in way over my head on trades at the moment, so it could be awhile before I get to it.  In the meantime, I’m gonna go… to… sleep.  I’ve slept two or so of the last 33-ish hours, so yeah.  Night-night, blogamaniacs.

Purple Refractors are made of win…

Trade at the Plate

I think this is the last trade I have all scanned up and ready for the postin’.  It comes from Brian @ Play at the Plate.  It’s a little different than the standard trade.  He touched upon some collections that rarely see any trade action.  When I first went through things, my first thought was that the selection of cards I received was “inspired”.  Behold!

Football! And random hot chick.

B hit on almost all my non-Bears collections with Moon, Moss, Cunningham, and Dunn.  Greg Olsen, I think is more athletic than skilled, but I like him.  And a Beautiful Person.  I covered the formation of the Beautiful People when I used to recap the show for a wrestling satire site back in the day.  Let’s just say they didn’t have the most amazing of starts, but they got better.  Only ever got three feedback, two right after I announced I was quitting.  I thought I’d try to get a gig at 411mania afterward, but I never did.  Was so totally burnt out after I quit and eventually got sidetracked with this whole blogging thing.  Maybe  More wrestling to come.

Cubs, Rhynos, Wrestlers, and Aki!

Aki for the now defunct Asian player collection.  Aside from the certain ones I collect, I just save them for Dinged Corners and Shot Not Taken now.

I think I had the Rhynos already, but they are always welcome, and if they are dupes, I will see that they find a good home.

More cards from the wrestling blaster, of which I received the entirety.  AJ, Booker, and Sting are keepers all, though only AJ and Booker do I actively collect.  What an antiquated sentence.

Also, Sarge! 😀

There we go!

Some excellent additions to the Hawk, Vladdy, Carew, and Billy Williams collections.  The Finest card in the center is #ed out of /1999 I believe.  I think Billy Williams is my favorite from this bunch though.  One of my greatest cards is a Billy Williams one, but other than that, I’m pretty lacking in his cards.  He and Fergie Jenkins don’t get nearly enough love amongst Hall of Famers.

More Wrestling, a lil' WBC, Angel and Kaz Ishii

Mmmhmm… Sarita.  Yes plz.

I said I’m just saving the Asian players for Ray and P&L, but I hope Night Owl can use this Kaz, because I sent it to him along with a couple cards he was wanting yesterday.

Angel Guzman is pretty good.  I have faith in the late innings if he’s pitching.

Still need a BUNCH of the chromey WBCs.  I guess this means I will have to update my wantlist… *sigh*

I dunno what Rob Terry’s been up to, since I haven’t watch iMPACT! in awhile or read any recaps.  He was pretty much just a big scary lookin’ dude that was too green to do that much last time I checked.  It matters little though, the hits were just icing on the cake, in this instance.

Finally, I definitely wasn’t expecting the Debra-worn swatch!  I had no idea there were any bloggers that collected wrestling cards in any sort of meaningful way, except for maybe Offy, and I definitely wasn’t expecting to see a card from as far back as when Debra was around.  That is really cool.

Thanks Brian, this was a great trade!

Stay tuned for a little trade bait late tonight/early tomorrow.

Fly me to the moon…

A Late Trade and a Call for Assistance

Hey everyone, I finally got a halfway decent night of sleep, so I’m feeling fairly sane & coherent at the moment.  Also my Fantastic Four Archives box arrived, though I won’t be letting myself open it before Sunday night, as my reward for the cleaning I have to do.  Right now I have yet another overdue trade to post, this one coming from Ryan’s Memorabilia Blog.  Here’s what I got:

WBC cards! I'm one of the proud few who actively collects them, so you're looking to get rid of yours, look no further.

That is the back of the Masterpieces framed parallel I received that was numbered.  Now let’s see the front!

Glorious Masterpieces Framed Parallels!

Three Griffeys!  I can do without many parallels, because often they don’t add anything worthwhile, or waste everyone’s time.  But these parallels… these parallels I lurrrrrrrrve.  I’ve said before that the slightly raised frames are the closest parallel that artsy/retro-type sets have to the refractor (of which that Yadier Molina is).  And they come in as just as many colors!

But seriously, while the base cards themselves look very nice, they aren’t that exciting.  Throw a variously pretentiously named colored border on there, and bam!… Whole ‘nother level.  Bruce Sutter deserves a frame.  And I didn’t even get to the Vlad Guerrero jersey, my first Masterpieces hit.  They are as nice as advertised, if anyone hasn’t gotten one yet.  Is there actually anyone that hasn’t gotten one yet?  If not, I highly recommend.

Now then, I have a request.  I’m beginning work on a post, a guide of sorts, to help beginner collectors.  It’s a sort of complicated hobby, and we can all use a little help sometimes.  And there doesn’t seem to be a lot of help coming from official channels.  I can say what I have to say, but I’d also like to get the opinions of other card bloggers, as well as any other collectors, people who do or have worked at the card companies if possible, anyone who might be able to give some perspective on the Hobby to as it is today.

I will use as much as I can that’s applicable.  Your experiences, collecting mindset, how you got into it, what you like, what you think of the current state of things, and your advice to new and/or long-absent collectors.  And hopefully I can make sense of everything and turn it into something useful to new collectors.

So spread the news please, because I want as much feedback from as many different perspectives as possible.  You can leave your thoughts in the comments, email me, or respond via twitter, whatever works for you.  Thanks.

Over and out!

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:

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

Until Our Next…