Gimme an A…and another A.

There’s a decent chuck of time from the late 90s to early 00s where I wasn’t collecting much at all. I’d buy a discount box at Kmart every now and then, but that was about it. It’s a shame because I love a lot of what card companies did during the 90s. A lot of these inserts appeal more to me than my 100th card with a swatch of a player’s jersey in it. In my latest package from CheckOutMyCards, I picked up a few of those inserts.

I actually have a Ken Griffey Jr Spellbound in my collection and while I like Griffey, he’s not a player that would motivate me to go out and collect all of the letters from his name. Mike Piazza, a player that I just happen to collect, is another of the players to have his name spelled out in the Spellbound insert set. These four cards were on COMC at a good price, so I decided that I start on my way.

What’s not to love about these cards? There’s a big picture of the player framed by foil and etched foil. You’ve got different pictures on the front and back which is always a nice touch. Putting this set together is also a very realistic goal since it is only six cards.

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.

Topps Support Failure

I feel like there’s far too much complaining that goes on in the hobby these days and I hate to pile on, but I feel like this is a story that needs to be told. When I opened my case of 2011 Topps Update, I was shorted a hit in one of the boxes. On top of that, it seemed to me that I was missing what should have been the case hit. I scanned my UPCs and receipt and mailed them off to Topps; following the directions given by them to make things easier when shorted a hit. Some time went by before I got an email from Topps Support asking me to call them. I called and spent time on hold before being told that my attached image didn’t go through and I would have to send it again. Why they couldn’t tell me this via email I couldn’t understand.

I ended up resending the email with the attachment time and time again with a smaller and smaller file size. Something is wrong with the Topps Support email because they should be able to get the tiny attachments that I was sending. Each time, the only response that I would get was if I Tweeted @toppssupport about the issue. Again, no clue why the email account isn’t being staffed properly. After months of back and forth (or more like back, pester Topps and then reluctant forth), I finally emailed them again with a link to the images hosted on Google. I got an email telling me that I had to send them the UPCs, receipt, etc in order to get my missing hit. That just goes to show that the people manning the Topps Support email really aren’t reading the messages that come in.

I finally got my image in the hands of Topps and waited a little while. The other day this card came in the mail:

At first glance, this looks like a great card to get from Topps. It’s a dual relic numbered to 50 copies with the real NL MVP on it. It’s only upon further inspection that things get a little shady. First off, there’s the fact that the Kemp jersey swatch has a pull and is unraveling. Second, the bottom right corner is smashed and feathered. Honestly, this looks like a card that someone else sent back for replacement that they then sent to me. Thanks, but no thanks Topps. I can’t even be bothered to contact them again about this. My time is more valuable to me. I see what awesome customer service looks like on a daily basis. If this is what Topps currently thinks of it’s customers then I’m not sure if I want to continue to be one.

2012 Topps Jumbo Box Break

I love Topps jumbo boxes. The fact that most of the time they contain a complete set is a huge plus, but you also get a guaranteed autograph and a whole bunch of inserts and giveaway cards. On the basketball side of things, I’ve pulled a  couple of rip cards and a Blake Griffin McDonald’s All-American autograph. As far as baseball goes, I haven’t pulled anything ridiculously good. Here’s what I pulled out of this box.

A lot of people have criticized this year’s Topps inserts for their Panini-like qualities and they’re right. Far too much blank space on there cards. I really hope that Topps doesn’t make a habit out of designing cards for the autograph variations. From this box (plus my one pack) I pulled Ryan, Molitor, Ripken, Banks x2, Reggie, Seaver (Reds), Cobb, Thome, Jeter and Seaver (ChiSox). Everything is available for trade especially if you are offering gold, red or blue Red Sox or 1987 Minis.

This is the Topps nonsensical pairings set of the year. I could do without these cards altogether unless they greatly improved the pairings. I pulled Molitor/Braun, Mattingly/Hosmer, Mays/Kemp, Robinson/Bautista, Sandberg/Uggla x2, Bench/McCann, Bob Gibson/Halladay, Joe Morgan/Brandon Phillips, Banks/Tulowitzki and Edgar Martinez/David Ortiz. Everything except for the Ortiz is available for trade.

Here are some more Panini inserts. I pulled Derek Jeter, Dawson, Prince, Braun, Jered Weaver, Paul O’Neill x2, Pujols, Brooks Robinson, Kaline and Aparicio. Trade me stuff for these.

I think these cards might be the worst offenders when it comes to mimicking Panini’s laziness. The logo holds the place of the relic and the grayscale image on the bottom holds the place for a potential autograph. It’s still not as bad as Panini because they do this with their base cards and insert cards, but it’s still pretty damn bad. Trade me stuff for these as well.

I think these might be the best inserts in Series 1 that aren’t minis. I pulled Gehrig, Ryan, Mays, Mays, DiMaggio, DiMaggio, Jeter, Clemente, Ripken, Aaron and Ruth. All of these are available for trade as well.

Ok, so maybe there are too many inserts in Topps Flagship. I pulled Lavarnway, Britton, Chapman, Hellickson, Kimbrel, Arencibia x2, Rizzo, Stanton, Dee Gordon and Arodys Vizcaino.Everything but the Lavarnway is up for grabs.

Here’s the gold parallels. I’ve got Betancourt, Teixeira, Dee Gordon, Jeremy Moore, Joe Benson, Kelvin Herrera, Scott Downs, Brian Matusz, Michael Taylor, Chris Parmelee and Mark Trumbo. All are up for trade.

I’m going to be putting this set together, so none of them are available for trade except the extra Jeter that I have which is only available for another mini that I need.

Here are the traditional hits from the box. Even though the Billingsley is a powder blue swatch instead of the typical plain white that you usually see, it’s still kind of boring. The basic jersey card has run its course due to overuse and overproduction. When some players have had hundreds of jersey cards, you know that too many have been made. I wouldn’t be that disappointed at all if jersey cards were to disappear from the hobby. At least limit their production a lot more and keep them all serial numbered.

Then there’s the sticker auto. What is there to be said about the sticker auto that hasn’t already been said. At least Topps is using clear stickers instead of the gaudy foil stickers that they used to stick on cards.

So, you’ve got a terrible autograph on a lazy, Panini-like insert card. That’s not game changing at all. The Byrd is available for trade.

The black parallels are a standard of Topps Flagship releases, but since this product is so hot right now the black parallels are selling for a lot more than then normally would.

I also think that a lot more people are chasing the black parallels since there aren’t any cards serial numbered to 2012. It seems like the increased production would have required a numbered parallel in every other pack so they just decided to leave them out this year. Seems strange to me to leave out the gold parallels in the gold set, but that’s Topps for ya.

This is where Topps hit the jackpot. These pin cards, the ring tops and the embedded coins are all beautiful cards with unique card designs. Check out the sale prices for most of the jersey cards from this set and then check out the sale prices for the rings, pins and coins. Big difference, isn’t it? Personally, I know that I’m more interested in a good looking card and innovation than and endless stream of jersey cards. The Ortiz and Pedroia pin cards are beautiful looking. Great job done by Topps on these.

Overall, I like the base cards and hopefully will be able to fuel a lot of trades with the inserts. When you factor in the wrappers for the redemption offer, the three hits, the Golden Giveaway cards and getting a complete set this is a great deal. Considering that I got this box for double digits when most places were selling them for $120 makes it an even better deal.

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 2

For me, I can’t stop by a card show without buying a box of something to break. I know that it barely pans out, but I love to do it and it’s too much fun. I actually didn’t go overboard and really enjoyed the two boxes that I purchased:

First up, this year’s Finest Baseball. Chrome and Finest both are bolstered by a really strong rookie auto crop. Since I had a lot of fun with Chrome, I decided to take a chance with Finest.

Everyone has seen the base cards over and over again, so I’m going to skip those. If you haven’t seen them or forget what they look like, just scroll down to the refractors for a refresher.

The Finest Foundation cards are refractors and the Finest Freshmen aren’t. I don’t really see the need for inserts in a set such as this one. At least make them limited and serial numbered so that you’re adding some value to the box.

I like the look for the Finest Foundation cards and could see myself searching out any Red Sox players that might be in the set. As for these two cards, they’re both up for trade.

Here’s the base card design again for those who may have forgotten it. These boxes have 10 packs and you end up getting an insert in each pack. It would have been nice to get a little more color in my parallels, but at least the regular parallels are serial numbered in Finest (/549). The Tulo is numbered to 299 and the Kimbrel is /199. All of these cards are up for trade as well and I’ll give preferential treatment to anyone who has any Red Sox refractors to offer in exchange.

There are two hits per box of Finest and that’s what is going to determine how good your box is. I had some good news and some bad news when it came to my hits:

• Bad News: Both of my hits were redemption cards. There’s nothing worse than opening a box and having nothing cool to show for it once you are finished.
• Good News: Both of the cards that I pulled redemption cards of are live so it shouldn’t be too long before I have them.
• Good News: I pulled what is easily one of the top cards out of the entire print run of Finest.
• 

 

 

 

 

 

Right there is a redemption card for the dual relic gold refractor autographed card of Eric Hosmer. For some reason, these gold cards are numbered to 69 and not 50, but it’s still a very low print run. That card is currently selling for more than what I paid for the box which is always nice. I’ve already redeemed the card and am eagerly awaiting its arrival in my mailbox. The only negative aspect of the card is that it’s a sticker auto, but other than that it’s a great looking card. The second redemption, for the Brett Wallace X-Fractor autographed card, is up for trade.

Anyone out there have any Finest singles? I’ve got half of the set from my box and plan on attempting to finish it. If you’ve got any singles, let me know. I plan on getting a list posted within the next few days.

One thing that I’ve been struggling with lately is collecting basketball cards. I love the sport, but I can’t stand Panini. They follow the same game plan with each and every set with a different design and name. It’s pretty frustrating because I want to buy some hoops cards, but I’m not a big fan of throwing my money away on more of Panini’s 4 jersey card boxes. So, I thought that I would try some football instead and decided on Supreme.

This stuff can be very hit or miss, but the hits are pretty amazing. The base cards themselves are beautiful, but it would be painful to spend this much for a box if you’re getting a crap hit and three base cards. Luckily, that wasn’t the case for me.

I ended up opening this box right at the dealer’s table because I knew that I wouldn’t be able to wait until I got home to see what I got. Behind the Tony Romo and Ahmad Bradshaw base cards, I saw a beautiful A.J. Green autographed relic rookie card numbered to 50. This card is selling for a decent price on eBay, but all of those have black jersey swatches full of holes. I think that this card is much better looking that any of the copies that I’ve seen on eBay. That’s a great looking orange swatch.

These packs end with a base parallel numbered to 99 or fewer. I had enough luck with the Green card so my final card was a Jamie Harper rookie numbered to 99.

I’m pretty happy with what I pulled, getting one of the better rookie autographs. There is some amazing stuff coming out of this product including Cam Newton and Tim Tebow autographs and legends such as Joe Montana, Jerry Rice and Joe Namath.

The only thing that I think Topps should have changed about this is that packs without autographs should have contained two jersey cards and no parallel. It sucks big time to plop down $80 - $90 for one of these boxes and only pull a jumbo jersey card or triple jersey card no matter how low the serial numbering.

So, I bought some great cards and pulled some great cards, but neither of these were the reasons why I went to the show in the first place. Stay tuned for the main event.

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 Piazzas

It wouldn’t be a delivery from CheckOutMyCards without some additions to my Piazza collection. There are a ton of sets from the late 90s and early 00s that I don’t have any cards from at all.

First up is the beautiful 1995 Leaf Gold Stars card which is numbered to 10,000 copies. This was a big deal in 1995. I traded away the Kirby Puckett that I had from this set and had to pick up the Piazza so that I’d have at least one of these great looking cards in my collection. That’s followed by a 2006 4-in-1 Bowman sticker card, 1995 Fleer/Panini sticker, Classic promotional phone card and 2005 Cracker Jack sticker.

Anyone else collecting back when card companies starting putting phone cards into packs? Classic/Score Board did it more than anyone else, but I think even Topps got into the act.

Since I’m not really impressed by the big “MOJO” hits that come out of higher end products, I’m perfectly happy just buying singles after other people pay way too much to bust open boxes. Topps Tribute is a good example of that. It’s a beautiful base card, but most people don’t even care about these base cards. Next up is a Sterling parallel that’s numbered to just 50 copies. 2007 Topps Hit Parade is a shiny foilboard insert.

The next row starts off with a couple of Triple Threads parallels. The first one is numbered to 559 and the second to 1350. The 2006 Trading Places insert commemorates Piazzas move from the Mets to the Padres as a free agent.

The bottom row contains a 2006 Fleer Ultra Midsummer Classic Kings card which celebrates his being named the MVP of the 1996 All-Star Game. Rounding things out is an Upper Deck 2006 World Baseball Classic card showing Piazza playing for Italy.

So far, 5 of the 29 cards that will be part of my next shipment are Mike Piazza cards. I picked up some cool stuff including one card that I grabbed as much for nostalgia purposes than anything else.

Check Out My Repetitive Cards

When CheckOutMyCards announced their shipping special right before Christmas, I decided to head on over to the site and shop around for some cheaper cards using the money that I had in my account there. Someone must have busted a case of this stuff because they had a ton of Piazzas listed at .50¢ a piece and so I grabbed them all.

I ended up with three copies of card 79 for home runs 2, 15 and 23 of the 35 that Piazza hit during his rookie season. I also grabbed 15 copies of card 80 for RBI 14, 17, 24, 27, 31, 35, 38, 40, 49, 54, 63, 75, 90, 92 and 112 of the 112 that Piazza hit in his rookie year. All of these cards are numbered to 150 which isn’t a lot, but it seems like a lot since there are so many versions of each card. I got a parallel with a lower print run in a trade with Community Gum a little while back. That one was numbered to 29. Why 29? Hell if I know.

I wouldn’t pay more than .50¢ a card for these things. It was a pretty terrible idea by Topps. It’s funny because I love Topps Tek, but I hate this. At least the different backgrounds on the Tek cards made things a little interesting from card to card. These Moments and Milestones are only good for teaching kids how to count.

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.

Check Out My Colored Sox Cards

I’ve found that CheckOutMyCards is by far the best place to pick up retail exclusive cards. These cards are no good for purchasing on eBay because the shipping is usually twice the price of the card. So, every now and then I’ll try a search for the various purples and oranges that Topps tucks away inside of retail packs.

The first card here actually isn’t a retail exclusive. This is a purple parallel numbered to 1799 from 2006 Future Stars. Next is an orange refractor from 2010 Topps Curvy Chrome. Batting third is a purple refractor from 2009 Bowman Chrome. In the cleanup spot is an orange Jon Lester refractor that looks really red in this scan.

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

Blast From the Past: 1993 Fleer Ultra Performers

One of the fun things about organizing your collection is finding stuff that you completely forgot that you had. Do I really have 3 sets of 1994 Upper Deck Fun Packs? (Boy did I love busting that stuff. So much fun.) I’m going to feature some of the smaller, oddball sets that I’ve uncovered as they go from the box they were in to their new home in my man cave.

Back before the Internet really took off around 1995 or so, everything done in the collecting world was done through snail mail. Once you factored in the amount of time that it took to process most of these offers, it really did feel like your cards were being delivered via snail.

I had a lot more free time back in those days so I loved taking advantage of these offers. Fleer had a ton of these offers and many of them were for the last cards to complete the Career Highlights set that you were pulling out of the packs. This set was a little different in that it was its own standalone set. I can’t remember for sure, but I’m thinking that you had to send in around $10 and some empty wrappers in order to acquire this set. I forget if this was advertised on the wrappers themselves or in magazine ads. The cards are very nice looking and feature some of the biggest stars of the time.

When it came to special offers such as this one, I almost always sent away for multiple sets. For this set, I’m glad that I had two sets shipped my way. At the time, I was a Juan Gonzalez collector and so one of these went into that collection. I also have a binder full of almost every 1993 Rockies card produced and the David Nied went into that collection.

This set was limited to 150,000 copies which seems like a lot now, but for 1993 that was a limited edition. Along with these 9 cards, there was also a Barry Bonds (never to be pictured in this blog) and a header card congratulating you on adding this set to your collection. You can see the serial numbering on the back of the Greg Maddux card. You get a matched set of serial numbers which is nice. On the back of the cards, they give each player a nickname of sorts. The Big Hurt is now “The Comiskey Cannon” while J.T. Show is “Snowballer.” (Clerks had not yet been released at this time or there’s no way they would have gone with that.)

There aren’t any recent completed auctions for this set on eBay, but a few of the singles have sold for a dollar or two. Smart dealers could make a quick profit on these back in the 90s. Most people wouldn’t send away for these sets and with the serial numbering you could average around $3 a card and do pretty well. Remember, this is the era when unnumbered Griffey, Thomas and Bonds inserts would sell for $10 or $20 all of the time. I know that we’d sell a ton of the Career Highlights cards both in the shop and at card shows

Topps Diamond Giveaway: Part 4: 20 Codes

Big hit in this batch!

 

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Topps Diamond Giveaway: Part 3: 10 Codes

Let me know if there are any cards that you want to trade for. I should post screen captures of my portfolio so people can see if they want to work out any trades for Sox.

 

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Topps Diamond Giveaway Redemption: Part 1: 20 Codes

These videos are barely watchable. The camera angle isn’t as good as I thought it would be. I should have worn a hat and clipped the cam to my bill. If you want to hear a bunch of ridiculous comments as I struggle through entering these codes, please watch.

 

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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