That’s My B-Oyo

I keep going to big comic book conventions and I’m not sure why. I really only buy new issues of comics and I’m not looking to pick up any vintage issues or dig through long boxes looking for bargains. There are only a handful of artists that I’ll stand in line for in order to obtain a sketch. I can’t stand a room full of people who don’t know how to act when out in public. I don’t mean to further stereotypes, but the best analogy I can think of for how people travel through a Comic Book Convention is a game of electric football. I never have this problem even when walking through the most crowded of sports card shows.

That being said, I took a different approach to this year’s Boston ComicCon. Since I knew that I probably wouldn’t end up spending a lot of money there, I decided to spend the money before the convention on commissions to pick up at the convention. That part of my play went very well. I also have a tendency to find some nice sports collectibles at the ComicCon which seems to be a completely unexpected result. Last year, I picked up the Rondo and Shaq McFarlane figures for $10 a piece. This year, my purchase was a little smaller.

I’ve had my eye on these Oyo mini-figures since I first heard about them. I’ve been collecting the blind packed LEGO minifigures and have a bunch of the LEGO NBA minifigures. LEGO did release a generic baseball player in one of their minifigure releases, but a licensed product is so much cooler.

These Oyo figures have more articulation to them than your typical LEGO minifigure. First off, these little guys have elbows. That’s huge for sports figures. As you can see in the picture, David Ortiz can actually hold his bat. The second thing that you might notice is that these figures also have knees. Look at that leg kick.

Each figure comes with a bat, glove, ball and home plate shaped base. With the multiple accessories that come with each figure and the high level of poseability, you can do a lot with these figures. Oyo has gone pretty deep into many rosters so you can set up the majority of many MLB teams. If a particular player hasn’t been made, you could by the generic figure that they have for each team as a stand-in.

Just about the only negative that these figures have going for them is the price point. The MLB license must have been pretty expensive. LEGO minifigures can be purchased for anywhere between $2.99 and $4.99. The suggested retail price for these figures is $12.99. The only reason that I purchased the ones that I did was because they had a price tag of $10 on them. It still seems a little steep at first, but the extra articulation and accessories make it worthwhile. I would definitely buy more of these at $9.99, but I can’t see myself paying $12.99.

Overall, I love these figures. Oyo did a great job on making the tiny little heads resemble the players they are representing. The accessories are great and the articulation is awesome. The price point is a little high, but I’m hoping that future releases might be a little lower in price. These are definitely worth checking out if you happen to see them somewhere. You can also order them on the Oyo website.

Fenway Park Open House: Visitors’ Clubhouse

While the Red Sox Clubhouse was shut down early in the day to be used by players, there was absolutely no line for the visitors’ clubhouse. I really, really want one of those 100th Anniversary folding chairs.

Fenway Park Open House

To celebrate Fenway Park’s 100th Birthday, the Red Sox held an open house. The big draw to this open house was that just about every part of the park was open to the public. This has never been done before. What I really got excited about was the opportunity to peek inside of the Green Monster. It was a really quick peek, but it was well worth the wait. Luckily, I showed up early and didn’t have to wait too long. Once I was wandering around the park, the line grew extremely long. This picture was taken from the roof level seats and you can see part of the line coming down the third baseline. At this point, the line was extending down past home and around towards the home dugout. You’ll be able to see that as I post more pictures.

The Red Sox Open House ended up drawing over 50,000 people. The middle of the day was a little jam packed because there aren’t a ton of things to keep fans entertained. This is why there were huge lines on the field, free autographs had a line 2 hours long, seeing the Red Sox clubhouse had a huge line until they had to shut it down when players needed to use it. I made the most of it though since I’ve already been on the field numerous times, I went there first before it got crowded and then stayed away from it for the rest of the day. I saw the visitor’s clubhouse, Royal Rooter’s Club/The Nation’s Archives (Which will be open to the public on future tours), Absolut Clubhouse, and a few other areas not usually open to the public. There were a few hiccups, but I had a great day. Hope you all enjoy the pictures to come.

Check Out More Cards

I had a couple of big sales on CheckOutMyCards out of the blue and decided to put those funds to good use. It’s interesting to see how my collecting has changed. In the 90s, I would pick up new stuff almost exclusively at card shows. I would pick stuff up at card shops as well, but not as frequently. These days, I might have a new card arrive to become part of my collection every day of the week. It’s always a pleasure to see a package arrive from COMC since a whole bunch of new cards will be added to my collection.

First up are a couple of 2011 Finest Tom Bradys. I’ve been slowly getting back into football due to Panini driving me away from basketball cards. When I saw that this year’s Finest offering pictured Brady in the Patriots throwback uniform, I had to have it. For good measure, I decided to pick up both the base card and refractor version of the card since they were both very affordable.

Whenever I get the chance, I’ve been adding Bryce Brentz autographs to my collection. If I remember correctly, this all started when I pulled one myself and from there things have snowballed. Both of these Brentz cards are from In The Game. The cards look nice even without any logos on them. The autos are on opaque stickers, but they go well with these designs. The only additional thing that I’d like to see on these cards is serial numbering. These days, a little detail like that on a card can make all of the difference. Brentz is currently the 8th ranked prospect in a loaded Boston minor league system.

Here’s a little bit of old and new. I picked up an off-center Dennis Johnson rookie and a black bordered parallel from Panini’s Basketball Hall of Fame set. Like most Panini products, this set is best acquired card-by-card. Every single card in this set with the exception of maybe 1% of the cards produced can be acquired for less than you’d pay buying them by the pack. There seem to be a lot of singles on COMC for around a dollar a card which is perfect for me.

Sticking with off-center 1978-79 Topps cards, here’s a Cedric “Cornbread” Maxwell rookie card. It’s not quite as bad as it looks in the scan. I guess I inadvertently cut off the right edge of the card.

I have to chuckle a little bit at Upper Deck including Dee Brown in the Immortals section of the 2009-10 hoops set. I think these are short printed. Eventually, I’ll need to pick up a second copy of this card since I need one for my set and one for my Dee Brown collection. Dee had one of the best dunks ever in the Slam Dunk Contest, but in no way is he an immortal.

BRAINS! Like a zombie, I’m always on the lookout for Brains. Bobby “The Brain” Heenan was the best thing about wrestling in the 80s and 90s. I probably mention this every time that I post cards of The Brain, but his humor was really the only way to make it through some of the terrible matches from the 80s when half of the WWE roster consisted of jobbers.

These Brains all come from 2010 Topps WWE Platinum. The first two are part of the Platinum Performance insert set with the second being a green parallel numbered to 499 copies. The final card is a green parallel of the base card and it is also numbered to 499 copies.

As a kid in the 80s, my two main player collections were Dwight Evans, who played for the hometown Red Sox and Kent Hrbek who played for the Twins. It was pretty random when it came to deciding to collect Hrbek. I noticed that he popped up in a few of the 44 card retail sets that I had purchased and that I had a good number of his cards already.

Though the selection may have been random, I knew what I was doing when I picked Hrbek to be one of my player collections. Like Evans, Hrbek was insanely popular with the hometown crowd, but his abilities weren’t as widely known to the majority of baseball fans.

I couldn’t remember if I already had the 1982 Topps Traded Hrbek XRC, but for the price it was listed at, I wouldn’t mind picking up another one. This would almost definitely be in better condition than anything I would have had from my collection in the 80s. I knew I already had both the 1982 Topps Future Stars card and Hrbek’s 1982 Donruss rookie, but there purchases were made solely for condition upgrades.

The Starting Lineup Talking Baseball card might be the only new addition to my collection. I remember this game being heavily advertised when it came out, but I never owned it. The game came with the AL and NL All-Star teams, but the rest of the MLB teams could be purchased on additional cartridges. The cartridges came with cards of the players included on the team rosters. These painted cards stand up well next to current releases such as Masterpieces or Chicle.

Not too long ago, I finally picked up a Kevin McHale rookie for my collection, but this isn’t that card. This is a reprint from 1996-97 Topps Basketball. Topps has been doing this rookie reprint thing for a while now and have produced so many iconic basketball cards. It’s a shame that they can no longer produce basketball cards.

Here’s another card from current basketball card serial killer Panini. Panini relies far too much on serial numbering to create value in their products. They are lazy in design and uninspired in execution. I won’t even get into their tremendously horrible customer service because I’m sure that all of you are sick of hearing about it.

This Robert Parish rookie is the real thing, but right below it is the chrome version of his rookie reprint which like the McHale is from 1996-97. The Heritage insert from Studio is one of the nicer looking Panini inserts that I’ve seen. Of course, the player is way over to the side to make room for a jersey swatch that is shoved into some of the cards. The main thing that these cards have going for them is that the autographed versions of these are on-card autographs. Wrapping things up is another Panini Basketball Hall of Fame black bordered parallel. Who knows, I may complete the Panini HOF set by the time that their exclusive license runs out and Topps can (hopefully) make basketball cards again.

You know that any package that comes in the mail from COMC is going to include some Mike Piazza cards. This is one of the better batches that I’ve gotten though.

First up is the 1997 Donruss Preferred X-Ponential Power insert numbered to 3000 copies. I’ve had the Tony Gwynn from this set for a while now and think it’s the coolest card that I’ve ever seen. The background is printed on clear acetate, it’s die cut and there’s a good amount of holofoil accents. Once I obtained this card, I was willing and able to trade away the Gwynn which promptly went into a trade pile that will some day be headed off to Fuji.

Next up was a card that I picked up mainly for nostalgia reasons. Back in the 90s, I was completely hooked on watching Don West pitch sports cards on the Shop At Home network. These Elite Dominators were available exclusively through the network when you purchased a box of 1993 Donruss for $99. That’s a huge markup on those boxes for one extra card numbered to 5000 copies. You did have a chance at autographs of Juan Gonzalez, Nolan Ryan, Don Mattingly or Paul Molitor, but there were only 10,000 autographs out of a total print run of 100,000 Elite Dominators. Not terrible odds, but at $99 a box it wasn’t a great gamble either.

I picked up a couple of cards from great 90s Upper Deck insert sets. The Generation Next Era has a motion hologram on it that moves as you tilt the card. The Mickey Mantle Long Shots is printed on that classic Upper Deck holofoil, not the garbage that Panini uses these days. Both of these sets were retail exclusives, but redemption cards for the complete sets could be found in hobby packs.

To round things out is a 2010 Sterling. It’s a great looking card, but Sterling is ridiculously expensive for what you get. I’m perfectly happy just picking up the singles.

One of the few sets that I liked from Panini last year was Totally Certified. It wasn’t quite the original Certified and it wasn’t quite Dufex, but it was a nice combination of the two. I liked it until I busted open a box which reminded me how bad of a value any Panini product is. I ended up picking up the base card, red parallel, red jersey card and Fabric of the Game card pretty cheaply. To top things off, I also picked up the Crown Royale card which is a great looking base card.

The Totally Certified base card is numbered to 1849, the red parallel is numbered to 499, the red jersey card is numbered to 249 and the Fabric of the Game is numbered to 299. Does anything numbered this high really matter? You can usually pick up a card numbered to 499 for the same price as one numbered to 1849 (and I did). These days, unless the numbered is double digits or lower, it doesn’t seem to have a huge effect on the card.

These jersey cards were were purchased for $3.50 and $4.00 which is about the same as a minimum bid plus shipping on eBay. Does this make you happy if you open a box that sells for over $100 and pull a jersey card of one of the top players in the league? This is $60 box content.

I had already finished this set a while back, but I hadn’t noticed that one of the U cards had a crease from the bottom edge to the “relic.” So, when this one popped up cheaply, I had to grab it. These cards are a perfect example of serial numbering not meaning everything. These cards are numbered to 55 copies and don’t carry a lot of value while this year’s Topps manufactured relics are numbered to over 700 copies and sell very well.

There you go, a pretty big batch of cards. Normally, I would have broken this up into smaller posts, but I hadn’t posted in a while and have a ton of other things to write about so you get a marathon post. Thanks for reading and don’t forget about the Red Sox Frankenset. Where else can you possibly win prizes from trading away Red Sox commons?

Red Sox Frankenset

I took advantage of a week or so of not feeling well to start a project that I had been thinking of for a while. That project is a Red Sox Frankenset. Not only do I want to assemble a set of Red Sox cards numbered from 1-792 (which could be impossible, I haven’t researched it that thoroughly), but I want to represent as many players and different sets as possible. I’m going to run a contest that’s going to last the remainder of the year to reward people in helping me in putting this set together.

Here's the checklist so far.

I will trade for cards just like I normally do and points will be rewarded with the following criteria:

• If you trade me a card that goes into the binder you will be rewarded a point.
• If you trade me a card of a player that isn’t yet represented in the set you will get an extra point
• If you trade me a card from a set that isn’t yet represented in the set you will get an extra point

So, you can earn up to three points for each card that you send. I also reserve the right to award bonus points at my discretion. If someone sends me a vintage Ted Williams to put into the set then there are going to be some bonus points awarded. I’ll keep a running tally of the points going on the blog and at the end of the year will reward prizes to the leaders. I’ll offer up some sets I’ve got from case breaks, older sets that I’ve got multiples of, cards of the team/player that you collect and other cards that I acquire throughout the course of the year.

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.

My Epic New York Adventure – Part 1

I’ve been talking about it enough, but the weekend finally arrived and I made the trip out to New York and the White Plains card show. I hopped on a bus at 1 am to make the trip into New York City. Sleeping most of the way is the best way to make this trip. It took a little longer than scheduled due to snow along the way, but that actually worked in my favor. Upon arrival, I set up camp inside of the McDonald’s on 42nd Street for breakfast and to wait for my friend to get to the city.

It ended up being a good thing that I got to the city nice and early because the roads were a mess. Driving was slow and most of the roads were reduced to just one lane. We still got there in plenty of time though and got to browse through a fairly empty show for a couple of hours until the weather improved. I started off by finding tables that I’d want to return to after checking everything out. I didn’t notice any singles that caught my interest. I’ll start off this recap with some of the individual cards that I picked up.

I won’t post pictures of all of the cards that I picked up for a quarter, but here’s a sampling. The Chief Team MVP is printed on holofoil that can only be seen along the top and on the top right, a Chaunsey Billups stand-up card in the shape of the NBA Championship trophy is a nice addition to the Celtics collection, Piazza Pacific Vanguard High Voltage from 2000, Juan Gonzalez 1996 Fleer Ultra Power Plus followed by the 1997 version and finally a regular sized card made up for 4 Cracker Jack minis including Kent Hrbek.

When I saw these, I couldn’t pass them up. Most were in great shape and for a quarter, I couldn’t pass them up. This is such an iconic set and while I may never have a Bird rookie of my own, it’s nice to have most of the other Celtics. I like how you get a picture of Parish in a Warriors jersey for their scoring leader card and in a Celtics jersey on his regular card.

The same dealer with the quarter cards also had some dollar boxes, so I sorted through those for a little while. Here are a few of the Piazza’s that I pulled out of the box. 99 UD Encore Homer Odyssey, 94 Leaf Gamers, 00 UD Ionix Pyrotechnics (on nice holofoil), 00 UD Ionix Awesome Powers (Yeah baby!), 98 SP Authentic Sheer Dominance gold and 95 UC3 In Motion. I may have already had the In Motion card, but for a buck I’ll grab another one.

This last batch came form a table that had a bunch of dollar boxes. They were well picked through by the time that I got there, but this table was packed every time that I passed by. 07-08 Echelon KG, 07-08 Triple Threads Big Baby RC /99, Delonte West 05-06 Ultimate Collection /50, Chris Slade second year refractor (this is from when refractors were about one per box), 08-09 Topps Sam Jones vintage orange refractor /199 and Jim Edmonds Sportscaster /50.

There was more, but this is the cream of the crop.

Check Out My Dewey Cards

My favorite player when growing up, Dwight Evans will probably always be my favorite Red Sox player. Dewey was an amazing fielder with a cannon for an arm. He wasn’t a slouch with the bat either once Walt Hriniak revamped his swing in the early 80s. A few more better offensive years early in his career and he might have gotten a little more Hall of Fame consideration. Maybe if he did somersaults on the field he would have been elected.

Here are three serial numbered cards from an Upper Deck set and two Donruss sets. It’s nice to see that current day Panini is carrying on the tradition of laziness started by Donruss. You didn’t have any other pictures of Evans to use? The design on both of those cards is brutal with the giant spaces looking for relics to be inserted. The final card is perforated and has a logo on it from the final year of Memorial Stadium. None of these cards will be entering the list of my favorite Dwight Evans cards, but I got them cheaply so they’re not part of my collection.

A Special Night

To say that this post has been a long time coming is an understatement. It concerns one of the few bright spots that occurred during the final month of last season for the Red Sox.

Every year, I try to purchase some Red Sox tickets for a game on or close to my birthday. This season was no different and it led to me purchasing tickets to see the Red Sox play the Toronto Blue Jays a couple of days after my birthday. My wife was still recovering from her spinal fusion surgery, so she wouldn’t be joining us at the game. I picked my daughter up and we made our way into historic Fenway Park.

Normally, I’m the type of fan who gets to the park right when the gates open and stays until the last pitch is thrown, but I knew that wouldn’t be the case for this particular game with my daughter in tow. We got to the park about 30 minutes before the game began, grabbed food and settled into our seats. This game would be Tim Wakefield’s eighth attempt at his 200th win and early on it looked like it would go the same way that the previous seven attempts had. The Red Sox gave Wakefield two leads that he quickly gave away by serving up long balls.

At the end of the fourth inning (and back-to-back homers by Ellsbury and Pedroia), we made our way out to Yawkey Way. For the past few years, the Sox have started blocking off the road during games making it only accessible for ticket holders. There are food vendors, musicians and other performers to be found out there before the game begins and during games it’s a nice place to go if you want to get away from the crowd. Yawkey Way is also where the Red Sox were setting up Wally’s World, some fun things for younger kids to do if they get a little bored during the game. I’d rather have my daughter miss a couple of innings and see the ballpark as a fun place than get bored and dread a trip to Fenway.

This trip would leave us a little disappointed though. It seems like the team stopped setting up Wally’s World once the school year started back up figuring that there would be fewer kids at night games. They still had the fast pitch set up and it was free for kids, so I watched my daughter do that a few times. I think he top speed was 24 mph which seemed pretty good for a 5 year old with horrible mechanics.

Other than sharing my love of baseball with my daughter, I’ve also been introducing her to some of my other hobbies. The hobby that she’s taken the greatest interest in is collecting pressed pennies. They have one machine in Fenway and I hadn’t pressed any pennies there since they updated the designs. I had a bunch of change left over from our penny pressing adventure two days earlier so we each got to press a complete set of four for our collections.

The scan isn’t all that great, but the four pennies are: 2007 World Series Champions, I Believe in Magic, Red Sox Nation and Go Wally! The Green Monster.

While we were pressing our pennies, we kept track of the game on a nearby monitor. Hi-5s were exchanged when Pedroia hit his second dinger of the game, this time a three-run shot. We got a celebratory ice cream in a helmet and returned to our seats to eat it. We rose to sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” and that was just about all that my daughter had left in the tank. When the 7th inning ended, it was already 9:30 pm and it takes about an hour to get home from Fenway. We made our way home and ended up missing the seven-run 8th inning, but it was fine with me. Beating the crowds on the subway ensured that we got seats which was important because my daughter fell asleep halfway home.

Ten years ago, I never would have thought that missing two innings of a game, including one where seven runs were scored, would be a perfect day at Fenway, but when you factor in the time I spent with my daughter it was just that. We’ll stick with minor league games for the majority of baseball games that she goes to, but I want to make sure that she experiences Fenway Park as she grows up. Sure, her favorite thing about the park right now is that Wally lives there, but it gets her into the park and someday she might want to go for the baseball itself.

Quick little addendum to this story: Thanks to a co-worker, I was able to go to the game the next day as well. It was a day game and I was already leaving work early for a doctor appointment. I got to see the pre-game festivities for Wakefield. I also had the opportunity to see history made for the second day in a row, but Daniel Bard blew that. If he hadn’t blown the lead and Papelbon had gotten the save, I would have seen him become the first player to get 30+ saves in their first six seasons. He did achieve that milestone, but not on that afternoon. Bard’s September meltdown was one of the biggest reasons that the Sox fared as poorly as they did to finish the season. It was probably that month that led to the Sox dealing for a new closer to replace Papelbon rather than handing the job to Bard. Whether he’s still the set-up guy or moves into the starting rotation remains to be seen.

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

Case Break: 2011 Topps Update: Box 6

The Chrome case ended with a bang, let's see how the Update case does.

Daaaaaaaaaaaryl! Daaaaaaaaaaaryl!

Hosmer and Cobb highlight the diamond parallels from this box.

Lots of stars here perfect for team and player collections.

I was a little disappointed in the collation of the insert cards. I would have liked to have gotten closer to sets. Now I see why busting multiple cases is the way to go. I won’t be doing that though.

Next year: Topps Terrific Trios, it’s a game changer!

Now to track down the Kimballs that I need for series 1 and 2. Still hope to bust a jumbo box of each.

A nice batch of young stars here, but they’re ToppsTown so no one cares.

Julio Teheran hot box! The nameplate has been claimed, but the autograph is still up for grabs. The Lester is going into my collection, but I may have to send it in to Topps for replacement first. It’s got two soft corners. Any Yankees or Noesi fans out there? I’ve got a ton of Noesi stuff available from this and Chrome. The Cobb is nice and I always liked the silk cards. I’ve got a few of the Murad silks in my collection.

 

Technorati Tags: 2011 Topps Update Baseball,box break,case break,Julio Teheran,Jon Lester

Collecting For A Cause

During the season, The Red Sox Wives foundation ran a special fund raiser where a donation of either $10 or $10 of non-perishable food allowed you to select one autograph from a Red Sox player. Since I work 10 minutes from Fenway Park, I figured that I would check it out after work. I’m glad that I decided to go. It’s always good helping out a worthy cause, but I got to do so and pick up some nice items for my collection.

The Sharpie was running out, but this is still a nice Beckett autographed picture. It’s not an official collection, but I’ll add any autograph to my collection of someone from one of the World Series winning teams. Beckett was part of the 2007 Champions. The Papelbon looks even nicer and he was here for both the 2004 and 2007 Championships. He can be a bit of a dope, but he’s also one of the most dominant closers ever to play the game.

I like what they chose for the autographs for this giveaway. For those of you out there who have ever requested a fan pack from the Red Sox, these pictures might look familiar. These are the pictures that the team includes with those mailings. Items like this are perfect for autographs are these are awesome additions to my collection.

Case Break: 2011 Topps Chrome Baseball: Box 12

BANG!

So long non-vintage vintage inserts. At least this box produced two Sox. I’ll have to pick up copies for my own collection though.

Lookie here, it’s the same exact two Red Sox players again. You definitely can’t complain about pulling two inserts of Big Papi and Pedroia. Cano is a refractor. Both Kemp and Cano are available (unless Night Owl wants the Kemp).

Another insert set, another Kemp. You know the drill.

Holy Schnikies did this box ever deliver. The red Belt /25 sold for $33.54 and the Cashner Sepia sold for $9.99 (paired with a standard refractor). We haven’t even gotten to the autos yet and this box has almost already paid for itself. The Bautista and Rasmus are available.

And behind door number 12…a zonk. The Revere is a refractor and he’s having a great final month of the season, but there isn’t a huge demand for his cards. Noesi, more like no sell. Oh well, good thing this box had those great refractors in it. That’s what I really like about this product, you’ve got so many chances to pull big cards. The Black Heritage refractors go for good money, the /99 and /100 refractors do well if you’ve got the right player and the /50 and /25 can do well for almost anyone. Combine that with the fact that there’s a very good rookie auto crop this year and you’ve got a great product for busting.

Well, there you go. No wait, there’s one more card that has to be posted:

This is the redemption card for the standard autographed cards. This card sold for $40 on eBay. 3 to 4 years from now, that could be a steal or it could be a bust. To me, it just means another overachieving box. Pretty cool that redemption pulls bookended the case in box 1 and box 12. Those were both huge pulls.

Thanks for following along. I’m going to get a case recap up which includes how each individual box has done as far as sales go. I had a lot of fun busting this though and feel like I did very well. Thanks for following along.

 

Technorati Tags: 2011 Topps Chrome Baseball,box break,case break,baseball cards,Topps,Brandon Belt,Andrew Cashner,David Ortiz,Dustin Pedroia

Case Break: 2011 Topps Chrome Baseball: Box 10

Both the Reyes and Cabrera are refractors. The Dunn, Posey, Martinez and Valencia are base. All are available.

Whatever happened to white bordered refractors? The Lester in the middle almost looks like one. Mr. Lester will be sticking with me. Everything else is available (but the Rangers and Dodgers may already be spoken for).

One extra Heritage refractor means one fewer colored refractor. Another disco Yankee. Hooray! /sarcasm The Tommy Hunter looks great with the blue uniform and the blue border. Hunter’s no longer with the Rangers so next year the orange refractor will be the one to chase. Both of these are available.

This was one of the better boxes as far as autographs go. The Mike Minor blue refractor sold for $9.99 and the Kimbrel base sold for $23.04.

 

Technorati Tags: 2011 Topps Chrome Baseball,box break,case break,baseball cards,Topps,Craig Kimbrel,Jon Lester

Case Break: 2011 Topps Chrome Baseball: Box 9

Just wanted to remind everyone that this great case came from Atlanta Sports Cards. Check them out the next time that you’re looking to pick up some unopened wax online. Their prices are extremely competitive and you can usually get a great deal there. This is the second case that I’ve broken which I’ve gotten from them and I’ve had a great experience both times.

So frustrating to be one card away on this set. I’ll have to trek out to a card show to try and pick up the last one that I need so that I can get this up on eBay.

The Lincecum is the refractor in this box and the rest are base. Lester is going right into my player collection, but the rest are available for sale.

The Belt is gone, but the rest of these refractors are available.

I was completely shocked that the Lance Berkman sold for $25.29. There seem to be a good amount of Berkman collectors out there. You never know what’s going to happen when you toss something up on eBay. All of the Berkman gold cards have been selling high which is good news for anyone pulling one. In comparison, I just won a David Ortiz gold refractor for $1.99. The Romero and Ramirez are still available.

Even though I did really well with this case, there is already some decline in the prices on the autographs coming out of this product. It’s unfortunate, but it’s going to happen with everything except the lowest numbered cards. The Pineda sold for $17.50 which looks like an amazing bargain compared to what Pineda’s first autographs were going for. The price should climb a little bit again when he wins the AL ROY award, but there will be a lot of these base autographs out there when all is said and done. The Chris Sale is still available.

 

Technorati Tags: 2011 Topps Chrome Baseball,box break,case break,baseball cards,Topps,Michael Pineda,Lance Berkman,Brandon Belt