Well, it only took 19 days, but I’m finally posting the second half of the last batch of cards in the mail. The only problem with that is a whole new bunch of cards have arrived in the mail. I’ll be moving in just over a month so I’ll have to put the kibosh on eBay purchases so nothing gets lost in the mail.
Hopefully you enjoyed the thoughts and box breaks in the meantime, but without further ado, here’s a bunch of stuff added to my collection recently.
This first card technically wasn’t acquired through the mail. It was given to me at my card shop. I remembered reading about them and was happy to find out that my shop still had them lying around. I don’t have any of the other caricature cards since I didn’t bust any 2008 Upper Deck, but with the prices dropping (especially on series 2), I’ll probably bust some before too long.
I thought that it was cool when Topps starting doing Allen & Ginter inserts in their WWE Heritage packs, but now they’ve gone a little too far. This John Cena Xfractor is kind of ugly now that I have it here in person. The plain chrome ones are a little nicer looking, but A&G just shouldn’t come anywhere near chrome.
Here’s a Paul Pierce jersey card from the Murad set that I love so much. This one is numbered 42/51 and now that interest in Murad has cooled down, I actually obtained this numbered jersey card for a little less than the unnumbered version. Go figure. Now I just need the autograph cards to come down a little more.
Also from Murad, here’s a Rondo jersey in the unnumbered version. Prices finally dropped a little on this as well so I snatched one up. I’m not sure why Celtic Green comes out as brown on so many scanners. Probably user error, but all of the other colors look right.
I like jersey swatches of the away uniforms so much better. There are way too many boring white jersey swatches out there. I wish card companies would stick to using just away jerseys except for things like autographed swatches because it would result in much better looking cards.
For some reason, every time that I see one of these Glen Davis Echelon rookies for ninety-nine cents, I forget that I’ve already purchased one. I think two more have come in the mail since this one. Oops.
This card came from a pack that sells for around $40 for 4 cards. Yes, there’s one autograph per pack, but how many of those are going to be $40 cards? If you can’t get more than a dollar for one of the top rookies in the set, what kind of value does the set have? Topps was always fighting a losing battle in their high end sets without access to Jordan, Kobe and LeBron. They never did seem to get it right. I do love the design of Echelon, but the price tag isn’t quite so nice for what you get. 
Always a sucker for throw-in cards, I picked up this Rondo card from the same seller at the ever popular ninety-nice cent price point. It’s numbered to 2,999 and would be a rookie if it wasn’t an insert.
When the Celtics traded for Allen and Garnett the present looked great, but the future wasn’t so great without Al Jefferson. With the emergence of Rondo and Davis, the Celtics future looks bright once again. With a few more great draft day trades by Danny Ainge, the Celtics still be contenders once this new Big Three is dismantled.
Here’s a nice looking autograph card from Trademark Moves. I’m not quite sure what the name of the set had to do with the contents of the set since I never bought any. Did it have cards of player’s trademark moves? Michael Jordan tongue wagging, Joakim Noah complaining, Reggie Miller leg kick and Shaquille O’Neal uncalled offensive fouls are just some of the cards that they could have used.
There’s another Big Baby that’s numbered to 10, but the price always climbs higher than what I’m willing to pay for another version of the same card. I’m fine with that hole in my collection.
Here’s another card where the green swatch scanned brown. This swatch is from the NBA Rookie Photo Shoot which I wish that I knew before purchasing the card. Those patches are pretty lame as far as I’m concerned. Do they really need to get jersey cards out that quickly? If so, can you at least make them autographed as well.
Here’s an autographed refractor of Big Baby. I find it strange that these aren’t numbered. It’s a nice card though and a good example of a card using a clear sticker and still looking good.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is this Bowman Sterling card. While I do like the Celtics logo behind the autograph, I’m not a huge fan of cards that have a little box for the autograph. As the Finest card above shows, it is possible to leave a space for the autograph without building a little box for it or going to the extreme like this year’s Bowman Baseball.
I was so excited about Upper Deck Lineage when I first saw the sell sheet. but they really blew it when it came to execution. The base cards just don’t look or feel right. The best cards are the inserts which seems to be a common theme with Upper Deck (UD X Baseball as one example). The SE autograph cards are a great example of this. I’ve got a set of the originals and these are a great homage to that set. The best part was after passing on the first Davis that I saw posted on eBay that sold for around $12, I picked up this one for just over $3.
Why are there so many songs about rainbows? Probably because of all of the Topps rainbows out there. Every year Finest and Chrome unleash a whole new wave of rainbows upon the world.
This orange refractor is numbered to 199. I think there’s an autographed version as well. There are some low numbered Davis cards that have some big price tags. There are autographed patch cards from high end Upper Deck sets going for around $100. I’ll pick up everything else for now until I hit the lottery.
This is by far my favorite card that I got in this batch. Most auctions were ending around $12 - $15, but I picked this one up for just $4. This is a beautiful autographed card numbered to 99 from a product that these days costs about $150 for 6 cards. Seems like a huge bargain to me.
There’s currently a copy of this card on eBay that Davis signed with the inscription “Big Baby.” The seller is asking for $200. If that was the only one signed that way, it just might be worth it. That is one thing that Upper Deck is doing right in their high end products. They’re got more on card signatures with cool inscriptions.
There you go, there’s already a queue of box breaks and packages to post on here. I want to get them out there so that I can get my Topps Basketball Jumbo break posted. Good stuff in there.
2 comments:
The Chronology canvas auto cards are some of the nicest on-card autograph to come out in a while. $4 for the Glen Davis was a steal! $200 for the 'Big Baby' inscription is crazy - I am sure there were a number of them around when the product was first released.
I agree about the Chronology rookie autos. They took the best from Masterpieces and borrowed it for that set. Hopefully I'll be able to bust open at least one box because there are some great looking cards in that set.
I couldn't believe that I was able to get that Davis for $4. I expected it to arrive with a giant crease down the middle or something else that I didn't notice in the picture.
If there are about 25 or so "Big Baby" inscriptions out there, it's definitely not worth $200. That's what they are doing with inscription from this year's SPx baseball redemptions that are numbered to 99.
Thanks for checking out my blog. I checked out your blog and you've got an amazing collection and great blog. I wish I could bust all of that high end stuff. If I did, I'd only open 2 or 3 boxes a year.
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