Slick Ginter

I’m a fan of the Allen & Ginter sets that have become a staple of Topps’ yearly release schedule. The only thing that I’m not a fan of is how difficult it is to complete the set.  You don’t even get enough cards in one box and then when you factor in all of the short prints, completing the set becomes more of a chore. Buying the complete set is no fun and so 2011 was the first year since I returned to collecting that I didn’t purchase a box of Ginter.

Topps did something different with 2011 Allen & Ginter that they hadn’t ever done before which was offer a factory set. This wasn’t just any factory set though, this was a limited edition, serial numbered to 999 factory set. The weird thing is, in this day and age, one of these sets ends up being worth more broken up than it is complete. There are a ton of team and player collectors out there.

I found someone on eBay who had broken up their set and had the singles listed at very reasonable prices. Pair that up with combined shipping and I’m a customer. The cool thing about getting all of these from the same person is that the serial numbers all match.

I picked up all of my favorite Sox along with Stan “The Man” Lee. Glossy Ginter cards are a first, but it brings me back to the days of the Topps Tiffany sets. Those cards weren’t serial numbered like these are, but they were pretty limited compared to the print runs of the regular cards.

Check Out My Triumvirate Cards

A while back, I posted some of the Stadium Club Triumvirate Basketball cards that I had picked up cheaply at a card show. It was my first time seeing the cards which led me to tracking down any of these cards from local teams or players that I collect. The first place that I looked was CheckOutMyCards where I was able to locate a few. I just took delivery the other day after some cards sold so now I have these to share with you.

First up is one-time Patriot Curtis Martin. Martin is the fourth highest rusher in the history of the NFL. The Patriots found something special when they took a chance on Martin who had slipped in the draft to the third round due to injuries in college. Martin would only play in New England for three seasons before leaving for the Jets along with The Tuna.

It’s always fun to play the “What if?” game in sports. What if Martin had stayed with the Patriots? With a running game, does Drew Bledsoe still get hurt? Does Tom Brady end up starring for a team other than the Patriots? Say that Bledsoe still gets hurt, how dominant would a Patriots team have been that featured the surgically precise Brady along with Martin carrying the ball? If the Patriots don’t overwork a 31-year-old Martin in 2004, like the Jets did, do injuries still limit Martin to 12 games the following season? (That season being his last.)

These Triumvirate cards are incredibly cool. Although this is a Stadium Club card, this is printed using Chrome technology. The die cutting on this card is amazing. Not only do you have the puzzle piece edge, you’ve got the word Triumvirate in the top left corner, holes in the top and bottom right as well as ovals around the player’s name. The scan of this card just doesn’t do it justice at all.

Whenever I discover a cool looking set, I check to see if it contains a Mike Piazza card. If it does, I’m going to want to acquire it for my collection. This was no exception. While I will probably never end up attempting to complete this Triumvirate, I’m really glad the I was able to pick up this Piazza for my collection.

This card has so many cool things going for it. First off, there’s the glove stitching along the right edge of the card complete with die cut holes. What you might not be able to tell is that the stitching is all little die cut holes. That little detail makes this card incredibly cool.

While I have no plans to complete the Dodger Triumvirate, I want to collect all of the trios of local players that were produced. There are Triumverates out there of Celtics, Patriots and Red Sox. Once you put all three cards together, you’ve got yourself a cool image:

These Triumvirate cards from 1999 come in two flavors. The Nomar is Luminous while the Pedro and Mo are Luminescent (Refractor). The die cuts on these cards make it look like the Red Sox are playing inside of a baseball themed crib or prison cell. I’m not a big fan of Nomar or Vaughn, but I love Pedro. This is a nice addition to the Red Sox collection.

 

Technorati Tags: Mike Piazza,Curtis Martin,Nomar Garciaparra,Pedro Martinez,Mo Vaughn,Topps Stadium Club,Triumvirate

Panini Prize

A while back, I entered a Panini contest that they had posted on their blog. They post contests frequently and I’ve got to say that they are an extremely generous company. Tracy Hackler is all over Twitter and the blog interacting with fan at a level that you don’t see form any of the other card manufacturers out there. Topps can be close, but they go through some long stretches of silence. Upper Deck needs to hire someone more professional to man their social media accounts. That’s all beside the point though.

Panini asked their readers what they liked the most about one of their upcoming football products. I commented because it seems like Panini finally was releasing a set that mastered the autographed manufactured patch. The letters were thick and made of a material that the Sharpie didn’t bleed into. My comment was picked randomly and I was notified that I was a winner while I was laid up after my kidney stone surgery.

Today, while at work, my wife sent me a text to let me know that I had a large envelope from Panini waiting for me at home. I couldn’t wait to get home and open it up. The last time that I won something from Panini, it was a Kobe Bryant autographed card. What would arrive this time?

Panini sent this amazing autographed 8x10 of Heisman Trophy winner and #1 pick Cam Newton which I’m guessing was signed at the rookie premiere. To me, this goes above and beyond what I’d expect to receive as a prize from a contest where I just shared my thoughts on a product. I’ve got to run out and get a frame for it and find a place to hang it in the man cave.

Thanks Panini!

 

Technorati Tags: Cam Newton,Panini,autograph

A Card So Nice, I Acquired it Twice

Those of you who watched the video of my first replacement package that I received from Upper Deck might recognize this card. Well, it’s not this exact card, but it’s pretty darn close. I ended up taking a liking to the Jeff Green card that I was sent, but it wasn’t anywhere near close to what I should have been sent for the Michael Johnson. In retrospect, I should have asked Upper Deck if I could have held onto the Green and just sent back the other card in exchange for the Pierce.

That being said, I ended up with this card cheaply on eBay ($7) and I think I like it even better than the card that Upper Deck sent me. That card had green foil which kind of got lost in all of the other green on the card. This card has gold foil which I like with these colors a lot. The only other difference is the numbering. The card that I was sent was numbered to 49 and this card is numbered to 199. Really not a huge difference. Everything else about the card is the same. I’m just glad they didn’t pull an SPx with this card and have one of the windows empty on a lower numbered version of the card. This is an event used jersey so they could wrap the whole card in material and still have plenty.

I know this is a higher numbered version of the card, but I think that the acquisition cost of this card helps back up my feelings that Upper Deck didn’t send me enough for the Michael Johnson redemption card.

 

Technorati Tags: basketball cards,Jeff Green,Upper Deck

A Bunch of Babies

I’m going to stick with the parallel theme for one more post. I’m all for picking up parallels cheaply, but I won’t break the bank for them. I definitely enjoy picking them up in batches because it makes the whole process a whole lot easier.

Here’s a trio of 2007-08 Topps Luxury Box Glen “Big Baby” Davis rookies. First up is what I think is the base card which is numbered to 699. The base card has some nice team color stuff going on in the design. I’m guessing that the other two parallels are the bronze (/249) and silver (/75) which leads me to believe that there is also a gold version out there as well.

The best part of this acquisition is the story. This package was mailed from the Philippines back in January. It got lost somewhere along the way and then had another postmark from April 29th when it got back on track and then it arrived to me in May. I had long given up on these cards so it was a total surprise when they showed up. I’m usually not a fan of buying cards from the Philippines for this very reason, but I took a shot when the three cards sold for a dollar plus three dollars shipping.

 

Technorati Tags: Basketball cards,Glen Davis,Big Baby,Topps Luxury Box

1999 Topps Stars: Piazza Constellation

One great thing about people busting up cases or collections is that you can sometimes grab a group of cards together that would sometimes be a pain to gather individually. This was a good example of that.

I’m not sure if this person busted a lot of Topps Stars or decided that they weren’t going to collect Piazza any longer, but I was happy to add this small stack of cards to my collection. The Super Novas card is an insert and the other five cards are all different variations of the base card. At the top left is the base version of the base card. Below that is the one star version. Continuing counterclockwise, you see the two star, three star, and four star versions. The picture gets closer and closer in each and the background changes a little. There are also different colored foils used on the cards from bronze to silver, gold, silver holofoil and gold holofoil. It’s cool to see the cards all together. If only these parallels were serial numbered then this constellation might rival a Masterpieces rainbow.

 

Technorati Tags: Mike Piazza,baseball cards,1999 Topps Stars Baseball

Check Out My Cards: Themed Edition

Since all of the new wax boxes out there currently are priced way too high for what they deliver, I’m going to stick with picking up singles. There aren’t any redemption cards (expired or otherwise), you always get the players that you want and you can pick up inserts for less than what it costs for base cards out of new packs. These are my most recent acquisitions from CheckOutMyCards.

More Sportscasters! One thing that I’ve noticed about my COMC cards is that they tend to really follow my collecting fickleness. You see a card on there and you can pick it up right away. After I busted my box of Pinnacle Zenith and pulled some Epix cards, I ran to COMC and picked up some more. When I became obsessed with the Sportscasters inserts, I ran to COMC and picked up some of those. Above are Jim Palmer /30, Miguel Tejada /50, Tejada /55, Prior /25 and Pedro /35.

Here are some more of the beautiful Masterpieces basketball inserts. I love the cards in this set that focus on players with the Finals trophy or personal awards that they’ve won. Here’s Steve Nash with his MVP trophy along with OJ Mayo and Donte Greene. It’s a shame that there wasn’t ever a full set of Masterpieces basketball produced. The relics and on-card autographs would have been beautiful. It’s too bad that producing such a set costs to much and that the brand died out, but it sucks that basketball was the only sport that didn’t get a set.

Bryce Brentz is currently tearing up Single-A pitching. He should be tearing up pitching on that level, but it’s good to see since last year in Lowell at the rookie level he struggled. Since I didn’t pull it out of my box, I picked up the blue parallel from Topps Debut which is numbered to 369. I also picked up the 2010 Upper Deck USA insert card. The last card in the trio is the blue parallel from 2010 Bowman numbered to 399.

I’m usually not a fan of Topps’ higher end stuff, but I took an immediate liking to this Piazza Tribute bat card from the moment that I saw it. It’s a redemption card and it is numbered to 75 so I thought that I did pretty well when my $5 offer was accepted. Here’s one of the previously mentioned Epix cards. This is one of the All-Star Moment cards. This set is full of variations and I don’t think there’s any way that I’ll ever gather them all up. You really don’t even see the common cards all that often because there’s not much of a demand for them.

Last, but not least, are a trio of Red Sox cards. First up is a card that many people may not have ever seen. This Dwight Evans is from the “TV set.” Back in 1990, Topps offered up some team sets for sale through a TV offer. There were team sets for the Cardinals, Cubs, Mets, Red Sox and Yankees. There was also an All-Star set for collectors who didn’t happen to collect one of those five teams. I’ve been chasing this Dwight Evans for a while now, but they were always overpriced on eBay and then there was the shipping factor. So, when I saw this copy on COMC for under a dollar, I jumped on it. I love the way that the card looks. The design is simple, but it looks great. Nice big picture of Dewey during his follow-through.

Next up is a 2007 Masterpieces jersey card of Big Papi. I didn’t pull one out of my case, so I picked one up for a coupe of bucks on COMC. I usually have a hard time turning down a relic card when you can buy it for less than the cost of eBay shipping.

The final card was the first card that I purchased in this batch of cards. I had been looking for this Buchholz Bowman Sterling rookie for a while, but the prices had been pretty high on eBay. I picked this up for $4 which was good at the time. After his start this season, it might be a little high. There are tons of copies of this card available in graded form which doesn’t really appeal to me at all. Still, this is a great addition to my Buchholz player collection.

I’ve already started up a new batch of cards with another card for my Celtics Retired Numbers collection. I need to add some funds so that I can send in the remaining hits from my Masterpieces case and turn those into some more cards for my collection.

 

Technorati Tags: CheckOutMyCards,Dwight Evans,David Ortiz,Bryce Brentz

A Couple of Great Friends

I’ve recently added a few amazing things to my collection thanks to a couple of friends (who just happen to be a couple).

The first is this awesome autographed photo of “The Mayor” Sean Casey. My friend was having a private signing and if that wasn’t enough to participate, it was to benefit Sean’s charity, Casey’s Clubhouse. That made things a no-brainer.

Casey was a player that I always liked. He always seemed to find a spot on my fantasy teams thanks to his great average and good power. I was excited when he signed with the Red Sox as a free agent and he was having a great year with the Sox before sidelined with injuries. His stat line from his final year with the Sox is still a great one and he was a great spark off of the bench. That would end up being his final season in the majors. Casey is now retired and working for the MLB Network.

Also included in the package was this great surprise. An autographed Casey card from the 2008 Topps Updates & Highlights set. I’m not 100% sure, but I think this may have been Casey’s final baseball card. There may have also been an Upper Deck First Edition Update card, but I don’t think that I’ve ever seen that one.

The second item is a set of these awesome Pirates autograph cards which were designed by my friend (and the other half of the couple). She’s got what many would describe as a dream job of doing graphic design for the Pirates. When I saw a preview of these that she posted, I knew that I had to have a set and they showed up in the mail yesterday. These are great cards and would look great autographed. In fact, the Doug Drabek was sent with an autograph included. I got 48 different cards which included current players, past players, coaches and even ownership and broadcasters. Great stuff.

 

Technorati Tags: Sean Casey,Pittsburgh Pirates

Upper Deck Replacement Package

Here’s a quick little video detailing the contents of the package that Upper Deck sent back to me for my damaged Upper Deck Draft cards.  I’ve got to say, I’m extremely happy with the quality of  the video from my new webcam.  The autofocus is amazing and the image is crystal clear. Check it out:

 

 

Technorati Tags: Upper Deck,Michael Jordan,customer service,2009-10 Basketball Draft Edition

More eBay Acquisitions

Since I’ve had some money in the PayPal account as of late, I’ve had a steady flow of packages coming in from eBay.  There aren’t many here, but there are some really cool ones that I wanted to share right away.

First up is a Brian Westbrook 2009 Upper Deck SPx Shadow Box insert. I just wanted one of these in my collection ever since I first saw pictures of them.  Now that I own one, it is just as cool as I thought it would be.  One strange thing is that the sides of the card aren’t straight up and down, but they’re at an angle instead.  The bottom layer is a little smaller than the top layer of the card is.

Upper Deck put college versions of these cards in their 2010 SPx set and they continue to be popular inserts to pull especially since they fall just one per case.  The autographed versions go for big bucks.

The Bryce Brentz collection continues to grow with the addition of this blue refractor numbered to 199.  I got to see both Brentz and Vitek play at the annual Futures at Fenway event and hopefully will get to see them play this summer if they’re with one of the local minor league teams.  I’ve yet to make it up to Portland, but want to do so this year and need to get back to Pawtucket, Lowell and Brockton.

It’ll be interesting to see what I think of these cards in a few years.  Will Brentz be starring for the Red Sox, will he be a bust or will he get traded away to another team like top prospect Casey Kelly did this offseason.

I’m still beaming over the eBay win.  The two Reggie Lewis jersey cards that Panini has produced have been red hot since their release; regularly selling around the $20 mark. This auction ended at $21.01 at 11 PM EST/8 PM PST on December 28th. This auction ended at $22.19 at 10 AM EST/1 PM PST.  The auction I won ended at $5.50 at 1 AM EST/10 PM PST.  All of the Reggie Lewis fans were asleep on the East Coast and I got one heck of a steal.  This is a beautiful card numbered to just 100 copies and you can’t beat the price that I got it for.

 

Technorati Tags: Reggie Lewis,Bryce Brentz,Topps,Panini,Upper Deck,Baseball cards,Basketball cards,football cards

Recent Ebay Acquisitions

Anyone who has been following this blog (or its previous incarnation) for any length of time knows that I collect some strange stuff and love all kinds of oddball items.  It helps that a lot of these oddball items don’t sell for much money.

Jeremy Piven’s role as Ari Gold on Entourage has gotten him noticed by everyone, but I’ve been a big fan of his for years.  I love his delivery and the type of sarcastic humor that seems to be his specialty.  I own a copy of PCU on VHS and think that his two minutes in Cameron Crowe’s Singles rank as one of the all-time best cameos in a movie.  Eddie Vedder and Chris Cornell also have great cameos (for their unintentional hilarity) in the movie.

I’m not a huge fan of Razor’s products.  The head of the company seems to be a shyster and there’s always been a shady aura around the company.  That being said, I couldn’t pass up this card for .99¢ plus shipping.  Who knows if it is from a shirt that Piven ever really wore or not.  I’ve seen a lot of his clothing show up in charity auctions so it is entirely possible.  The card itself is pretty ugly.  There’s no picture and the design is just bland.  The big white swatch is just begging for an autograph.  If I ever found a reliable TTM address for Mr. Piven, I’d send this right off to him.

Jeremy is a big Bears fan so I figured that arranging the letters in this way was appropriate. I have no clue where I stand on this catch phrase, but the letters keep popping up for a buck and I keep buying them.  It’s too bad that I didn’t hold off on collecting this because someone recently posted the whole set at a really good price.  I was tempted to buy it in spite of the ones that I already had.

When I won this card, I wasn’t sure yet if I already owned it or not, but for $6.19 delivered I figured that I wouldn’t mind owning a second copy of this rookie refractor numbered to 199 if it was already in my collection.

As I type this, Big Baby is at the free throw line against the Pistons after collecting a big defensive rebound late in the game.  Davis had a little bit of a rough time when he was starting in place of Garnett especially when Shaq was healthy.  With the second unit, Davis fills the role of the guy waiting just outside of the lane for a pass from a penetrator who draws his defender.  Shaq is that guy in the starting lineup.  Davis doesn’t yet have the outside range that Garnett has and when he got those shots in the flow of the offense, he wasn’t hitting them as often as Garnett does.  He’s back to being a beast now that he’s coming off the bench again and has renewed his quest for a 6th Man Award.

One eBay seller had both of these Big Baby on sale for $3 a piece with free shipping so I couldn’t refuse.  Normally you are paying $3 just for a shipping fee, so this looked like a great deal to me.  Once I got the cards, I wasn’t disappointed.  These are beautiful, thick cards with a foil board sheen to them.

The two cards do look similar, but I’m fine with that for a couple of reasons.  First off, there are different pictures used for the two cards.  Second, there aren’t other versions of these cards out there with big blank spaces where the jerseys are on these cards.

Compare the Davis SPx cards to these Pierce cards from Panini.  First off, there would usually be an ugly version of these cards with a blank space or team logo in place of the jersey swatch.  I think that Panini spared collectors from those travesties in National Treasures.

You can still see the trademark Panini laziness in the fact that these are essentially the same card with a different hole cut in the front.  Boring.  How difficult would it be to produce a second card with a different picture?  Does it really save that much money on product costs to print up the same front for both?  *Yawn*

Clay Buchholz doesn’t have too many rookie cards. I think there’s just this one and Bowman Sterling.  This one costs too much locally so I finally picked one up for a good price on eBay.

This officially completes my Trifecta of Buchholz.  I’ve got an Allen & Ginter auto and a Bowman jersey card.  I’ve got to get my butt in gear and start posting more of those.  Off of the top of my head, I think I have Dwight Evans, Mike Piazza, Clay Buchholz, David Ortiz, Ken Griffey, Paul Pierce, Glen Davis, Al Jefferson and Delonte West.  I might also have some random ones where the whole Trifecta exists in one card.

I also added a new Buchholz memorabilia card to my collection.  I’ve had my eye on this card for a little while and finally won it for the right price (a dollar plus shipping).  You can pull some beautiful cards out of Sweet Spot, but it’s such a huge crapshoot and there are always some terrible clunker autos.  The singles are great if you can pick them up at the right price though.

This is a lot of cards that I didn’t think I had a shot of winning at the price I did.  For just over $12, I picked up a Bryce Brentz refractor auto /500 as well as two refractor versions of the base card.  I’ve seen auctions for the non-refractor version of the auto close higher than this one did.  I still haven’t picked up any Vitek autos, but I’m putting together a nice little Brentz collection.

This is another card that I’ve had my eye on for a while now.  A couple of copies of this card went for $20 and more because they just weren’t showing up on eBay and everyone trying to collect the name needed them.  I waited and got the card for $5.50 plus shipping.

Hrbek still has a decent fan following and his better cards see some action when they show up on eBay.  It’s always easier collecting a player who isn’t a member of one of the local teams because you can usually find their cards for good price.

Here’s a great looking Hrbek auto out of 2009 Sweet Spot.  This one cost me a little over $20, but I had a little bit of money in the PayPal account and really wanted this.  The black numbers on the front looked weird to me since I’m used to gold numbered, but that’s what they used that year.  I think that I have a Sweet Spot auto of the majority of player that I collect because the cards are just so beautiful looking.

I forget now which blog I first saw these cards on, but once I saw them I knew that I had to add one to my collection.  It just so happens that there’s a Piazza in the set so not only do I get to add one of these cards to my collection, but I also get to add something to one of my player collections.

This is a great acetate card that pictures one of my favorite players in front of the Green Monster from the best park in the league.  These cards look even better in person with the etched foil and large player picture.  Great stuff.

This last card is one that I had to pick up since I already had the black version.  I’m not anti-manufactured cards as long as they look nice.  All cards are manufactured.  It doesn’t matter that much to me if the card is just a flat piece of cardboard, a think piece of cardboard or something with a letter or bat embedded in it.  If Topps goes back to the well once to often then I may tire of these cards, but right now I’m enjoying them.

So, there you go.  A little bit of this and a little bit of that.  Hope you enjoyed!

 

Technorati Tags: Mike Piazza,Glen Davis,Kent Hrbek,Bryce Brentz,Jeremy Piven,Clay Buchholz,baseball cards,basketball cards,autographs,Topps Upper Deck,Fleer

Mailday and Panini Laziness

I was rooting for Panini to put out some great products when they took over the NBA trading card license from Topps and Upper Deck, but so far I've been mostly disappointed. The only boxes that I've purchased are one box of the flagship set and one box of the Hall of Fame set. I really wanted to like Studio, but the fact that the base cards are designed for autograph and relics ruins them. The fact that Panini mostly guarantees "hits" and not autographs means that a lot of their boxes don't even come close to being worth what you have to pay for them. Hopefully things improve in 2011. I'm very excited about the upcoming Donruss set. They are by far the best base cards that Panini has "designed" for the NBA to date. I put designed in quotes because they're reusing an old design.

That being said, there are some nice Panini cards out there. The Skylines cards in Studio were one example. Check out these four Celtics cards that I mentioned recently in a previous post.

Most of the cards in the Hall of Fame set are great looking. The Famed Fabrics cards are very nice looking. That's where the good design ends unfortunately. The Old School card suffers from bad design with that huge empty area where the Celtics logo is just waiting to contain an autograph sticker or jersey swatch. The two Big Baby cards are a good example of Panini's laziness. First off, Davis is a Prestigious Pro? I'm a big fan and I don't even think that I would say this. It's just another reason to throw more cards out there and then they make it worse with a floating jersey swatch in the card. Want to see another example of this? Check out the picture below.

Here's where things get even worse. I've seen the same card come in jersey and patch versions, but this is a new one on me. You can find this card with a square window over the jersey swatch as well as die cut windows of Pierce's number 34. This is the kind of crap that really has to stop if Panini wants people to take them seriously.

Why do I have these cards if they're so terrible you might ask. Well, they were all available very cheaply which made it worthwhile to add to my collection. Buying singles is a lot different than slapping down a wad of cash to purchase packs or a wax box. While I have no problem picking up Panini singles, especially with how cheaply many of them sell for, I have yet to be motivated to purchase many of Panini's wax offerings.

Dewey

This lot just might be my all-time favorite eBay auction win.  99 different Dewey cards for $6.75 shipped?  Yes, please.  It doesn't come close to the $54 book value stated in the auction title due to the condition of the cards, but there is some nice stuff in here.  The '75 is very nice and the '79 O-Pee-Chee is by far the oldest Canadian baseball card I have.  One day I'll track down an O-Pee-Chee Dewey rookie, but they always go for an arm and a leg when I see them.

Speaking of an arm and a leg, that Dwight Evans Sweet Spot 1/1 is already up to $215 with 7 days left in the auction.  Looks like that one won't be coming to my collection.

It's the oddball stuff that makes this lot fun for me.  There are a couple of Kellog's 3-D cards and a few Classic cards from the board games.  It's all topped off with some newer cards that I don't have yet.

Hope to have two new box breaks posted on Monday.  I also still have a backlog of breaks from my big shopping spree to get posted.

Jon Lester Mojo

...and suddenly I've got an impressive Jon Lester collection, but that's getting ahead of myself. About a week and a half ago, I received an e-mail from Mojo letting me know that he really wanted my Kobe Bryant Rookie & Stars patch autograph that I had won in the Panini Adrenalyn photography contest. Always one to entertain an offer, I took a look at what he had to offer and what he had to offer was impressive. We exchanged a few e-mails and my end of the trade arrived in the mailbox on Friday. I'll start with some of the extras and work my way up to the meat and potatoes of the trade.

I didn't have any Jon Lester rookies prior to this, so these were welcome additions to my collection. Now I've got a great Jon Lester collection. What's that? These aren't all that impressive. Hmm, there must be something else in this package to prompt that first sentence up there.

Next up is a 2008 Donruss Threads Anthony Rizzo Diamond King. I haven't purchased any of the unlicensed baseball stuff that Donruss/Panini has done since losing their MLB license. So, it is safe to say that this is my first card from this set. This card is serial numbered 7/100.

Rizzo might have been king of the high school diamond, but at the time that this card was produced, he had yet to be crowned king of any minor or major league diamonds. The Donruss crystal Ball was working because he's currently ranked 3rd amongst Red Sox prospects after a season in AA Portland that saw him hit for power, but not much average. He was named the Sea Dogs MVP and the Red Sox Minor League Player of the Year. Jon Lester got all of the press because he was in the majors at the time he battled cancer, but Rizzo defeated cancer himself in 2008.

Here's the Dice-K card from last year's Topps World Baseball Classic redemption cards. The terrible diamond cut on these cards would be a harbinger for many mis-cut, mis-printed, damaged and missing cards to come from Topps in 2010. It's a refractor and it's of a Red Sox player, so I'll take it. Whether or not Matsuzaka is a member of the Red Sox roster when Opening Day rolls around is under a lot of debate. He could be traded to lower salary, but if he's still around he'll easily be the best 5th starter in the league. I'd like to see him stick around.

Next up is a gold Aaron Bates from Topps Unique that's serial numbered 15/25. Bates doesn't currently rank amongst the top Red Sox prospects, but that doesn't take anything away from the coolness of this card. I like the design of the Topps Unique base cards, but I probably won't ever own too many of them unless I go digging through a singles box for them. The packs and boxes cost way too much for me for what you could possibly pull as hits. It was great for those who are only looking at the serial numbers, but a lot of the big hits were ugly looking cards.

Josh Reddick is part of the new crop of youngsters knocking on the door in Boston. We got to see a lot of these youngsters last season due to all of the injuries that plagued the Sox. Two-thirds of the starting outfield spent the majority of the season on the disabled list. Reddick currently ranks 8th in Boston's farm system and is on the 40 man roster.

This green foil parallel from TRISTAR's 2008 Projections set is numbered 16/50. This is a nice looking set. I've purchased a box of the special packs containing only Red Sox Prospects and liked what I saw.

To be honest, I don't even know what set this Carlton Fisk card is from. I thought it might have been All-Time Fan Favorites, but that doesn't appear to be the case. What I do know about the card is that it has Pudge's complete career statistics on the back which is very cool. The card is numbered out of 99 on the back and has the cool old-school Topps logo on the front.

As a Sox fan, you can only ask "What if?" when it comes to Fisk. What if management back then hadn't played games with Fisk's contract negotiations and he remained with the BoSox rather than signing with the ChiSox. For starters, I'd probably have no idea who Rich Gedman was.

Oh, here's another Jon Lester card. Is this the one that lays the ground work for a kick-ass collection? This is a relic card that's numbered to 102 from 2009 Topps Ticket to Stardom. Here's a nice ticket stub from Fenway Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. The ticket has a photo of Ramon Hernandez bunting the A's to victory over the Sox. On a Jon Lester card? This will be interesting to have in the collection in a "Topps really produced shit like this?" kind of way.

Jacoby Ellsbury had a really tough 2010. He missed over 90% of the season, stayed away from the team while rehabbing his injury and ended up alienating fans as well as teammates. He's an amazing talent on the basepaths even if he doesn't get there via walk as often as a lead off hitter should. Here's hoping that he can put a disastrous 2010 behind him and rebound next season.

This card is from 2007 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects and features a jersey swatch from an All-Star Futures game-worn jersey.

On the other hand, Clay Buchholz had a brilliant 2010. He finished with a 17-7 record and 2.33 ERA. If not for an injury that wiped out 3 to 4 starts, Buchholz might also be mentioned as an AL Cy Young Candidate. As it is, I don't see too much difference between his stats and the players that are getting all of the attention. The only thing that Buchholz didn't do was strike out a ton of batters.

Those of you who have been reading the blog for a while are probably sick of me mentioning that I was lucky enough to witness Buchholz no-hitter. Because of that, I've put together a little bit of a Buchholz collection. I've got an Allen & Ginter autograph, this relic card and now just need a Bowman Chrome rookie to complete the trifecta.

Here's another card from 2008 Donruss Threads. This is an autographed Lars Anderson limited to 474 copies. I'm not sold on using the Diamond King name with prospects, but Donruss was probably trying to cash in on the nostalgia of the brand.

Anderson is currently ranked 4th in Boston's farm system and once he's ready for the Majors it will give Boston the flexibility to move Kevin Youkilis back to the hot corner. It can't hurt to have two top prospects at first base and it'll be fun watching to see if Anderson or Rizzo ends up being the first baseman of the future in Boston.

When I started watching basketball, Bill Walton was a member of the Boston Celtics. So, even though I'd later find out that he only spent two years with the team at the end of his career, the fact that I first saw him with the Celtics on a team that would go on to win the 16th Championship makes me always associate him with the Celtics. So, when I saw this card I definitely wanted it in my collection.

Elite was yet another Donruss product that I never purchased any packs of. I got my fill of multi-sport sets in the 90s thanks to Classic. This is a cool card and one of only 100 copies in existence.

This Big Baby card is one that Mojo had let me know about a while ago, but until recently I didn't have anything to send off in order to acquire it. This is actually one of Baby's better looking autographs with the only flaw being that it slips off of the sticker a little at the bottom of the G. This card is the gold version and is numbered to 25 copies.

Davis has been huge so far for the Celtics this season. He is now the first person off of the bench which will be important in order to keep Shaq and Garnett rested for the playoffs. Davis has been playing the center position late in the 4th quarter of games due to Shaq's free throw problems and has been playing well. I wouldn't be surprised if his name came up at the end of the season in 6th Man Award conversations.

Here's the card that I've been teasing throughout this whole post. It's a Jon Lester 2007 Sweet Spot black bat barrel red ink autograph card numbered to 5. This is the type of card that you may not even see for sale let alone have the opportunity to own. So, that card alone lays the groundwork for a great Jon Lester collection that I think I shall now begin. I'll pick up one or two higher end rookies and then a nice looking relic and build from there.

Thanks to Mojo for the great trade. I didn't think I would end up trading the Kobe for a handful of cards, but then again most people don't have a collection full of cards such as these to draw upon.

Panini Prize Winnings

I’m a little late in posting this, but I now have my Kobe Bryant autographed card that I won in a Panini Adrenalyn related contest.  Upon ripping open the envelope this is what I found:

The card reads, “Once again, thx for coming out and taking such a great picture.”  For reference, here’s that picture again:

Technically, the contest called for a picture of yourself with the bus, but I snapped these pictures as my wife was taking our daughter to the car as it was starting to rain.  This stop was before the contest was announced so I was hoping that the judges would be lenient.  While I wasn’t anywhere to be found in the picture, I thought that it did a great job of capturing the coolest stop on the Adrenalyn Tour, the Basketball Hall of Fame.  So, I submitted the picture, waited and ended up being selected the winner of the contest.


The really cool thing about this prize was how it was shipped.  They didn’t just take the card, throw it in an envelope and ship it off.  This card came in a special box worthy of their big name exclusive.

Upon opening the box, this is what I saw.  This is a 2009-10 Panini Rookies & Stars Kobe Bryant patch autograph.  If you’re not going to get an on-card autograph, this is by far the next best thing.  The athlete touched the jersey swatch and it looks a hell of a lot better than a sticker, especially the gaudy silver ones.

Here’s a look at the back of the card.  The serial number is 128/199.  While I can’t say that I’m a huge fan of Kobe, you can’t deny his place in basketball history and now that LeBron ran off to Miami with his tail between his legs, Kobe is certain to be the best player of this generation.  It’s kind of cool to have an autograph of a player of that caliber.  That being said, if anyone out there had the patch autograph cards from Timeless Treasures of someone like Bill Russell or Larry Bird I definitely think that a trade could be arranged.

Thanks again Panini for an awesome prize!

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