Check Out My Package…

…of cards.

When I sent in the remainder of my Upper Deck Draft autos to CheckOutMyCards, I decided that it was also time to bring home all of the cards that I’ve had collecting there the past few months.

First up is a Ray Allen Chrome from 2009-10 Topps Basketball. This is a set that I’d love to chase, but it’s probably out of my means especially with Blake Griffin prices going crazy. The Chrome Griffin isn’t one of his most popular cards, but it is still up there in price and has reached triple digits.

With the second year of Panini’s pathetic attempts as basketball sets starting, I’m missing Topps basketball more and more. This last set really was a great one with the combination of the base set and the Chrome set.  There were some fun inserts and a great design. David Stern hasn’t done a heck of a lot right with the NBA in recent years (I’m looking at you age restriction), but I’m hoping that he realizes that the Panini exclusive is bad for the NBA.

Here’s some more green Chrome. Paul Pierce just issued a challenge to Ray Allen to come and try to take his 3-Point title away. Hopefully the NBA is smart enough to let this happen. I know that everyone’s going to watch NBA All-Star Saturday to see Blake Griffin run away with the dunk title, but a Paul Pierce/Ray Allen shootout possibility would add something to that contest which never has really been all that exciting.

I think it would be fun seeing Rondo in the skills competition. The things that Rondo does with the ball are phenomenal. His combination of speed, ball fakes, court vision and ability to throw crazy passes with either hand from any point in his dribble make him a threat at all times on the court.

Here’s one of the few things that Panini did right in 2009-10: stickers. The player and team logo stickers found in packs of their flagship set were great. What makes me curious is why there wasn’t an NBA sticker album and set released in the US this year? I would have been all over that and Panini would have actually seen some of my card money. Just another missed opportunity by Panini.

I picked up two cards form this insert set that I’m trying to put together. Don Nelson won five NBA Championships in Boston as a Sixth Man and then went on to become a very successful head coach. Jim Loscutoff won six straight titles with the C’s. I’ve been slow going in putting this set together mostly because the cards are always overpriced on eBay and don’t show up often anywhere else.

I’ll finish off the Celtics section of this post with some Upper Deck ridiculousness brought to you by their 20th anniversary. Technically, these are four different cards. The only difference on the card fronts are the photo captions. The backs have different numbers and blurbs. These are cards 2426, 2428, 2429 and 2430 which leads me to believe that there might still be another card that uses this picture.

I understand that this was a huge set, but this level of laziness makes Panini look like the most creative set designer in the history of sports cards. How difficult would it have been to throw in a picture of Garnett, Rondo or Jesus Shuttlesworth?

I picked up this Lisa Fernandez card knowing that I would most likely not get a replacement for her autographed card that I was sending back to Upper Deck for replacement. I want to check and see if there’s an address out there to send her stuff to be signed through the mail so I can at least end up with one of her autographs in my collection.

Football? Did you accidentally stumble into another blog mid-post? Opening that box of Unrivaled sparked my interest in football cards again… a little. It probably won’t extend too far past Patriots cards, but that’s more than I was doing prior to that point.

Tedy Bruschi is a player that you just had to love. Time and time again he came up with huge plays in big games and was a big part of the Patriots defense that brought three championships to Foxboro. He always seemed to have a huge smile on his face and always looked like he loved playing the game. Hearts broke everywhere when news of his stroke got out especially since Boston sports fans all remember the tragedy of losing Reggie Lewis. His rehab and return to professional football were inspiring and he continues to do good by talking to others who have suffered strokes. Great guy and I’ve been looking to add this rookie card to my collection for a while now.

Wally! Wally lives in the Green Monster and was introduced to the world in 1997. Kids love him and that’s what matters most. I think he’s one of the cooler mascots in baseball. He’s also in one of the funniest SportsCenter commercials of all time.

While waiting in line for Monster seats one year, Wally spotted and took offence at the Grover zipper pull on my backpack. He thought that I should have a Wally zipper pull instead. Once you get super powers and can teach me the difference between near and far we’ll talk Wally.

I wasn’t sure at the time if I already had this Clay Buchholz card or not, but I figure that if I already have it that I can send it off to Night Owl for his Buchholz collection.

I live right outside of and work in Boston, but there never seem to be any shops that participate in these giveaway promotions. Everything is way out in the suburbs. I just looked at the list of participating stores for Panini’s latest promotion in Massachusetts and had to chuckle. I don’t think of the shops were anywhere near me.

I loves me some purple refractors. When I found a cheap one on COMC that was also of a Red Sox player, I had to grab it. Doubront is kind of in limbo with all of the relievers that the Sox signed this offseason. Doubront will get a chance to compete for the final spot in the bullpen during Spring Training. If he doesn’t win that spot, it will be interesting to see what they do with him down in Pawtucket. Do you stretch him out as a starter when the Sox are pretty much all set at that position for years to come? Do the Sox shop him around? It’ll be interesting to see what happens both on and off of the field this season for the Sox.

Next up is a trio of Big Papis. There’s a 2008 Masterpieces with a black border, 2009 Upper Deck OPC Preview (that never came to be and was part of the beginning of the end for Upper Deck) and 2007 Masterpieces with a green border. The colors probably have official names, but I’m too lazy too look them up.

2011 is going to be a transition year for the Red Sox. No longer will this team be powered by Big Papi, it will now be powered by Adrian Gonzalez with Carl Crawford setting the table. It’ll be weird seeing Ortiz go in a year or so since he was such a huge part of the two World Series Championships.

This card here is a Mike Piazza Pacific Card-supial from 1997 Crown Collection. There’s nothing too special about the front of the card. It’s a nice design using an awful lot of gold foil. You may not be able to tell from the scan, but the Dodgers logo is etched into the foil over and over again.

I hadn’t ever heard of these cards until I read about them on a blog. I can’t remember which one it was at the moment. Once I read about the special feature of these cards, I knew that I had to track them down.

This is the back of the Card-supil. It might be tough to tell from the scan, but there’s a slit in the card right above Piazza’s name on the back of the card. Above that, the picture of Piazza on the back of the card is in black and white. Everything else is just like you’d expect the back of a trading card to look.

The reason that this card is called a Card-supial is that it’s got a pouch just like a kangaroo. There are mini cards to be found that go into these pouches to complete the card.

Did somebody say mini card? Here’s the mini card right here. It’s got a color version of the picture from the back of the larger card and the player’s name in foil (which gets hidden in the pouch).

Here’s a scan of the two cards together. Everything’s now in color and the nice foil name on the mini is hidden. Kind of a strange gimmick for a card, but Pacific did this for multiple years. The only downside is that putting the mini into the slot of the larger card wrecks the card a little, but it’s worth it. It’s not like these cards are going to be leaving my collection at all. This will go nicely right next to the Pinnacle Zenith jumbo cards that I have with regular cards still trapped inside of them. I’m such a sucker for these oddball cards.

More Pacific goodness. You’ve got all kinds of gold foil combined with an acetate window. This card sums up the 90s pretty nicely.

I really miss Pacific and Pinnacle and all of the interesting things that they’d bring to the hobby. Sure, a lot of them were clunkers, but they were fun. I think that’s one thing that there just isn’t enough of in the hobby these days. I love that many bloggers out there make their own fun. There are tons of ways to collect and I love seeing all of the different collections people have.

Last, but not least is another Masterpieces card, this time of Mike Piazza. This is a 2007 something green. Right now I think I’m leaning towards a case of 2007 Masterpieces for my next break. The box toppers are so cool and the autographed case hit is even cooler. You’ve got Lincecum rookies and potential parallels of that along with on-card autographs and a set that’s still popular to this date with decent resale on singles. It seems like the cases might be drying up though so that may not happen. I’m also considering Baseball Heroes and Philadelphia football.

There you go. That’s the kind of stuff I search out on COMC.

 

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