A mini tease: the final cut

So if you were watching/reading my blog over the weekend, you heard about a large purchase of minis from my LCS. It was work to sort and arrange the cards, but all the work in complete. How did it all end up? I was getting to that.

There were a grand total of 920 minis in the box. The two Upper Deck Goodwins were nothing wonderful, so I won't even discuss them. There were 18 T206 from a couple years. Lots of different backs - Piedmont, Polar Bear, Baseball Caramels and Old Mill. Here's my choice of the best.

Not too shabby. I like those Historical Events on the bottom. I have 6 of them - I think the set is 10.

Next lowest number in the box were 2011 Gypsy Queen. I more than tripled what I had with the 31 in the box. Again, here's the best in my book.

 

I had none of the insert minis. I now have this Great One of Rogers and a Future Star of Matusz. I have two of the black minis with this Thome and Ian Desmond. That Yaz is just a great picture.

More great 2011 minis. Look REALLY close at the Kershaw in the middle. This is one of the color variation minis that came from a hobby box of 2011 GQ. These are guesstimated to be a run of 135 for each card. All you Dodger fans salivating? I am going to make it real easy - if you want that Kershaw, I need a replacement color variation mini. These were only from the first 100 in the set. There are a few players out of the first 100 that would spark me to trade for Clayton.

There were 44 minis from the 2012 Gypsy Queen. Out of those cards I pulled 8 SP variations.

And also got my 2nd hit in the box (I call that Clayton #1).

Larry Body sepia mini 82/99. Great card.

2011 Allen and Ginter next. Here is where the first dupes showed up. From the base and inserts, I had 85 cards. However, while sorting them, I realized that I am not going for the set, so I just pulled the couple I wanted for the group. What I did end up with was a lot of cards for the mini subsets. While I was not able to complete any of the subsets, I did get a great start on all of them.

I never got to appreciate the 2011 mini subsets, so it was nice to get a good run at them all. That Shawn Michaels I featured on a SIL many months ago. Now I have the black bordered version.

2011 Topps Kimballs came in with a whopping 245 cards. Prior to this purchase, I had about 40 Kimballs in my binder. Now, I have a complete set above 101 and half the set below that. The previous owner of these minis must have went bonkers buying 2011 Update, considering the number of duplicates I have over 101. Forgive me, but I'm not scanning for this section.

Lastly comes 2010 Allen and Ginter. At a jaw dropping 513 cards, this just floored me. I wish none were duplicate, but I ran about 28% dupe in the base and about 21% with the insert sets. However, I am just over halfway to a complete 2011 minis set, and completed so many of the insert sets. Lord of Olympus - 1 short. Sailors of the Seven Seas - complete. National Animals - 10 short. World's Wordsmiths - 1 short. Monsters of the Mesozoic - complete. The owner also was going after ad backs as more than half were just that.

The xray card is what makes A&G fun. I hope we get more like that in 2013. There is my third hit in the cards with a 4/25 Bazooka back of Lanekoa Texeira. And 10 year old me just wanted to post that Lord of Olympus card.

Boobies!

 So that's how I did. It was fun and I certainly got a lot for my money. Not counting the box of 100 pages I got in the deal, the minis came out to 6 and a half pennies per card. Factor in that $20 box and the minis drop to just over 4 cents per card. 

So - who needs minis??? Head on over to the new mini trade bait page and pick out what you want. Then, get over to my A&G wants page and decide what you have that will help me. Then, we trade. Baby steps, folks. I'll get there with baby steps.

Every Little Step with Mike Tyson & Wayne Brady from Mike Tyson

Three times a mailday.

If you are wise (or stupid) enough to follow me on Twitter, you would have seen me tweet today:

How to make a bad day better? Watching my postal worker double back because she forgot to put 3 manila trade envelopes into my mailbox. WOO!
— Jeff Wilk (@jedijeff13) February 21, 2013

So what did all that mean? It meant that three great envelopes showed up today for me to enjoy, and in the long run, share with you all.

First comes Adam from Arpsmith's Obsession. Adam needed Cooperstown. In return, Adam sent me a Topps Pennant cards, some A&G for my "Collect all the Ginter" task, and a card I won from his Super Bowl contest. I picked an Adam Lind auto.

That Lind is a little corny, but like the manu-bat I received a couple weeks back, I have wanted one of these. Thanks Adam!

The second envelope really isn't a trade, and I am not sure if you call it winnings either. Dave at the awesome Tribe Cards ran a pack ripping all during the 2012 season. You simply picked three teams, players or whatever, Dave ripped a pack a day and then sorted and shipped you what matched your selections. If I recall, I picked Mark Buerhle, White Sox and throwbacks for my choices. Or maybe double plays, cuz I got a few of those too. Heck - I can't remember. I do know I received a good 25 free cards from the ripping, including gems like these.

Nice!!! Also scored a couple monster cards....in size, that is.

Who wouldn't like oversized Fisk cards! Dave is running the pack a day ripping for 2013. Not sure if you can still signup, but you can get more over at his blog. Thanks Dave.

Last comes from the awesome Jim at GCRL (Garvey, Cey, Russell and Lopes). Jim and I share a love of DP cards. Looks like he had some extra that he decided to drop on me out of the blue, along with some Sox and a nice group of throwbacks. Here's a little peek.

Oh baby - I had NO IDEA Topps thought about throwbacks on cards prior to 2007 or so. Now the hunt is on for earlier cards. But the highlight of the package was this baby.

But that is no normal Howard A&G base. It is the LAST A&G base card I needed for 2012. Set - complete! Thank you so much Jim for knocking out my first Allen and Ginter base set.

If you have any A&G to get rid of, I have moved my needs to their own wants link above. I have yet to post a 2006 or 2010 needs list because both are so ridiculously huge. Hoping to find another path to narrow down my needs on those years before I put out an ask. But you know hpw to get a hold of me.

So to Adam, Dave and Jim - multiple high fives for a great trip to the end of the driveway.

HIGH-FIVE HOLLYWOOD! from Almost Twins