Monday, September 28, 2009

OPC Snooze Fest

Inspired by the OPC Blaster break over at A Pack A Day I thought I'd pick up a pack tonight.

I thought the photography looked fantastic and wanted to see for myself.

I was let down, but will still likely pick up another pack. Anyone else out there collecting OPC this summer? Thoughts? I'll put these cards up for trade as well now that I traded off my Turkey Reds although I'm still looking for the various things contained within that post. Consider it a scavenger hunt.

My pack started with Bret Myers. Oh Bret Myers let me count the ways I loathe thee. First and foremost your card is boring. Let's just leave it at that.



Card number two, Face of the Franchise (Dodgers) and Bust of the Year, Russell Martin. Another boring face shot. Ho-hum.



Alex Gordon black border was the third card. Again, uninspired photography and this shot is apparently used over and over in the set from what I've read over at A Pack A Day.



This next card of Hanley Ramirez is supposed to commemorate a particular moment in 2008. According to the back of the card it commemorates the entire season and thus is dated March 8, 2008 . . . which is what - the start of spring training? Maybe I'm missing something.



We close out the pack with a boring shot of David Purcey and famed womanizer Omar Vizquel who I'm not sure even actually played last year for Texas. Maybe this is just an attempt at humor.

Well, I'll have to take another crack at the OPC later on. It didn't help that all the photos here were pretty lame and that I outwardly dislike three of the players in this pack. Not to mention my endless fantasy letdown from Alex Gordon over the past few years.

I still say everyone out there should rip at least a pack of OPC to see what you get.



Turkey Red Inserts For Trade




Just a quick Monday afternoon post to hopefully generate some trade talk.

I've got some Turkey Red inserts from the 2009 Topps set that I'd like to send to a good home. I'd also send my Brian McCann Topps CBR-BM (Career Best Bat Relic) to a good Braves home for little to nothing. I won't appreciate it. I've also got a Jimmy Rollins Turkey Red laying around as well.


In return I can think of a couple of specific things I'm looking for:


2009 Goudey #198 Shairon Martis
2009 Goudey #200 Cristian Guzman
2009 Goudey Any Black #'d parallels
2009 Goudey Any short prints from 200-220 (I have but a few)
2009 Goudey Graphs Marlon Byrd (don't ask)
2009 Goudey Graphs Lou Marson (again . . .)

2009 Topps Any Gold Parallels
2009 Topps Any Black Parallels
2009 Topps Legens of the Game (Except, Reese, Speaker, Mize, Maris, Munson, Wagner, Palmer, Pujols, Maddux, Molitor)

Alright, let's do some trading!

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Chrome Anyone?

I'll start this off with a question for those of you who collect Chrome. What's the draw?

As far as I can tell, these are just "chromed-up" versions of the Topps base set, right? I'm saying that as if its a negative, but don't mean it in that way. I'm curious if there are people who collect both these and the regular Topps cards as well. I know very little about the product other than it seems to re-use the same photos from the base set and there are some variations.

I'm willing to be educated on this set and the merits and importance.

I did purchase a retail pack at Target the other day, just to take a look for msyelf.

I ended up with Kosuke Fukudome, Kaz Matsui, Erik Aybar, and an Xfractor of Jesse Chavez (RC). Nothing exciting for my collection, but I can throw them up in trades if someone out there needs/wants these cards for their collections.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Goudey Short Prints (Clap Clap, Clap Clap Clap)



In no time at all, my playoff baseball fever will begin to set in. I hate the years (READ: almost all of them) when the Brewers are nowhere near a playoff race, but while my baseball watching goes dormant in August and September it does eventually come back to life for October. And I've even latched onto the Twins fleeting hopes of a playoff birth. But annnnnnnnnnnnyway, that's not why I'm posting this morning/afternoon.

I'm back to solicit the world for more help finding the various short prints I need from 201-300 in the 2009 Goudey set. I really only have a handful.

I've gotten a few of these in trade from the good people out there, and I'd like to trade for more. I'll update my need list for the Heads-up and Sports Royalty cards sometime tonight or tomorrow, but in the meantime feel free to point me to your trade lists or leave a comment with what you know you have for trade.

Friday, September 18, 2009

Nick Swisher, You're My Hero



This is a well overdue blaster-break post that I've had queued up since, oh I don't know, June.

Look at this card. I mean, REALLY look at it. I'm sure your eye is first drawn to the halo encircled yellow triangle of lightening. Right? But then you make your way over to Nick Swisher. And he's doing what? Slapping 'five' with all his adoring fans? What is taking such a high level of concentration that he needs to have his tongue protruding from his mouth? This is easily my favorite card I've seen in the Topps set this year. Right down to the guy wearing a Bears hat at Yankee Stadium (I've since been corrected that this was not in fact Yankee Stadium, but instead Legends Field - my next comment still stands however!). You know, I've never been there, but I sure as heck wouldn't be caught dead wearing a football hat to Yankee Stadium. Couldn't his buddies have chipped in to get him a Yankees cap or something from the pro shop?

Okay, while I could spend an entire post reflecting on this card, I won't.

Let me get this off my chest though. I was totally duped when buying this blaster. The Series 2 blasters come with some sort of commemorative patch. But the 8 packs were only 8 cards per pack, and one of those was a Topps Town card.

You might be asking yourself, so what? Well, here's what. Topps Series 2 packs are $1.99 for 12 cards. This blaster was $19.99 for eight 8 card packs. Total of 64 cards plus this patch that comes inside. That breaks down to $0.31 per card. If you bought 8 packs of Series 2 Topps off the shelf at $1.99 a crack, you'd get 96 cards for $15.92. That breaks down to $0.17 per card.

Now, I admit I didn't see it was 8 card packs inside the blaster, but I had no reason to suspect that was the case. So if you think about it, I got what is basically $10 worth of Series 2 cards (17 cents times 64 cards) plus a patch for $20. I paid $10 for a lame patch card. Are you kidding me Topps? I had buyers remorse after I cracked open the first pack.

Now if I had landed a Jim Palmer, Robin Yount, or Paul Molitor patch I'd have been fine. But I didn't, so I'll complain. Here are the other cards I liked from the blaster:


Pujols Legends of the Game



Maddux Legends of the Game in the sweet throwback unis



Career Best Rogers Hornsby



Jimmy Rollins Turkey Red. To note, I'm not collecting these inserts, and this one along with my series 1 TRs are up for trade.



Who started the whole "OH MY GOD THEY MIGHT BE READING MY LIPS" trend? I find it to be, by far, the most annoying 'I do it because everyone else does' trend in all of baseball.



Lookin' good forty-nine! Lookin' good! I may need to start a Yo! (c)(tm)(r) collection soon.



One more OSM card for the road. Jered Weaver. The hair, the look on his face, the "pose". Everything about this card challenges Swisher's card for the top spot in the 2009 Series 2 checklist. If you can beat either of these, let me know.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Today Was A Good Day



Oh boy, it's Carlos Gonzalez Goudey day.

I stumbled across an outstanding card collector over at Shot Not Taken named Raymond.

He had just busted open some A&G cards and was very excited to find a framed relic of Ichiro. It was a jersey relic, and I had the matching bat relic to pair up with it. So I offered it up in a trade.

And just as karma would have it, he happened to have bought "only a handful" of Goudey packs this year, but without those few cards happened to have Carlos Gonzalez. After a bit of negotiating (really just more like "I dig your A&G minis"), he agreed to send over a few of his black bordered minis with Carlos to complete the trade.

Little did I know that he'd send over all the minis he had. And due to an outstanding evening I once had in Seattle approximately a year ago that oddly enough, involved a unicorn, I was stoked to pick up the A&G Unicorn Creates of Legend, Myth, and Terror. If only I could have landed that relic. I'd give anything for that relic!

Well I won't spoil the surprise for Raymond, but I did include another card in my trade for him after finding out a little more about what he collects. I'll let him show it off on his site once it safely arrives in New York (and sorry for the delay over the holiday weekend).

I was also happy to find out that not just one person, but two people had the Bob Gibson and Kevin Slowey cards I needed to fill out my base Goudey set. Mr. Collective Troll - I apologize but you were beaten to the punch by my good friend Alex, my friend's 5 year old son, who oddly enough tucked them away in a binder earlier this summer, only to lose the binder somewhere in his room, only to have his dad happen across said binder. Alex then offered up the final cards I needed for my set in exchange for a Joe Mauer relic I received earlier this season from Ryan at Card Cache.

I don't think Alex could be more excited to get the Mauer jersey card. He'd been telling me all summer how bad he wanted it and I told him if he could finish my Goudey set, I'd do it. And I'm a man of my word. Little did I know what fate had in store for me, however . . . (to be continued in my next post)

Friday, September 4, 2009

2009 Goudey: The Obsession Continues

So yes, I'm more than mildly obsessed with this set. I've got an idea for a longer post that's floating around in my head to try to explain it, but for now, I've got an agenda.

Thanks to one Goudey blaster and one fantastic blogger I was able to nab both the Bill Hall and Ben Sheets Brewer relics. Let's forget that neither of them actually play for the Crew anymore.

What I'd like to do is lay my hands upon the other Goudey Memorabilia and Goudey Graphs from this year's set. And yes, I realize we're talking about guys like Prince Fielder, Robin Yount, and Paul Molitor but I'm sure there's also someone out there dying to deal off their JJ Hardy Memorabilia card, right?

I'd really like to know if anyone out there is holding any of these memorabilia or autographed cards. Whether it's working out a trade offer or brokering a sale, let me know if you've got one of these and we can hammer out a deal.

Sure, I could buy them on eBay, I'm sure, but I really like getting to know the other people out there collecting, and this is the best way to do it, in my opinion.

So leave me a note or shoot me an email and let's make a deal.

Also, someone HAS to have that Kevin Slowey card, right? And as you'll soon find out, I'm just down to Slowey and the Bob Gibson on the base set. I'm so excited to finish it, someone please share in that excitment with me by letting me know what I can trade you for either of those cards.