I'm the top

One of the great parts of the blogging community is the immense number of contests that are active. One blogger after another is either celebrating an anniversary, celebrating a success, clearing stock or just making an excuse for fun. I'm overdue for a contest, in fact. I completely missed my 6th year of running the blog. I'll figure something out.

I enter them from time to time. Do I notice the post before sign up ends? Are the winnings items that fit my collection? How much energy to enter? I certainly don't enter them all - maybe 50% at best. So odds of winning are usually pretty low. But even a broken clock is right twice a day, and I pull out the impossible ever so often.

Kerry over at Cards on Cards runs a couple NCAA contests a year - one for bowl time and the other for March Madness. Every time I enter, I tend to get out of the gate fast, then fall apart and end up in the middle of the pack. Well, this past NCAA basketball tourney, I was certain to end another year as the bride's bride's bride's bride's maid, and not the bride. And then the final was played, and some how the math went my way. The winning were a blaster of GQ and a blaster of Kerry's choice, which ended up as Archives. Some nice cardboard came from the Archives blaster, and maybe I'll actually finish building the set. Love that image on the Bench.

And here's the Gypsy Queen blaster. Nice SP with the Honus, and a logo swap Happ for the PC. Not sure why I scanned the Mengden. I think it was the similarity to it being a pic of Rollie. Kerry added some bonus cards to the mailer.

We have color, with a sepia SC Thomas, blue Prizm and B&W Donruss Abreu.

Some rookies. Hoping Carson figures this out. I think the Sox should turn him into a reliever. His starts are dreadful.

Couple for PCs, and a nice Chrome Moncada. Yoan isn't tearing it up, but he's still just 23, so no need to start freaking out. I think he is developing nicely and will fit in well at second for a few years.

Last in the mailer was a dozen plus to help with the SC build. I didn't intend to scan the Correa and Bregman, but interesting how Topps selected similar images for the left side of the Astros infield. Thanks again, Kerry.

The blogosphere's resident crazy man Wes from Jay Barker Fan Area 40 is having a year long (?) goodbye to the blog and running contest after contest. Unintentionally I entered and one the first one he ran and came out at the top of the randomizer. Some nice additions in the mailer with the die cut Big Hurt, a refractor of a Sox minor leaguer, and that sweet Drabeck Fleer numbered to 100.

These were the contest winnings. A nice auto of Andre Fili, currently 18-5 and scheduled to fight again next month. The lower card, Daron Cruickshank is number 9/148. He is 20-10 and currently with the Rizin Fighting Federation, but has not had a bout for almost 2 years. Thanks Wes. Reconsider leaving, would ya?

2 blasters and a fat pack

All weekend, I was hitting my big box hoping to find someone that "accidentally" put A&G on the shelf early. So far, no luck, but I plan to head out after I schedule this post. But looking that close at the card aisles reminded me I completely forgot that Stadium Club just dropped. In three different stores, I made separate purchases. It was a reminder that you should avoid buying blasters from different stores, because half of the 2nd blaster was dupes of the first.

I blame myself.

I like Stadium Club, so let's look at a few cards, if you haven't already. And if you have, well, feel free to click over to another blog. There's always a chance I could post something better tomorrow.

Retail has exclusive sepia parallels. Not the best selection of players. At least the D-Backs unis look a 100 times better in this color.

Here is an advantage of dupes - binder needs. Then again, it's cheater Ryan Braun. Maybe you need to give back your award, jerkface.

Nice card for Porcello. Sports Illustrated shoot? And that Vogel-monster scan is so you can see what his card looks like, P-Town Tom.

Did Koufax ever take a bad picture?

Great card!!!! Love that Topps has forever chronicled the screwing around of Andrus and Beltre.

I ripped a box of SC last year (I'll probably do one this year), but in that box, I pulled a Crystal Ball card of Mike Trout. Well, sure enough, the first blaster Trout'd me again with a rare card.

Instavision is a case hit, so nice for this to drop out of a blaster. The inserted image is foil board, which is why is scanned so bright. I could make back the cost of the blaster on this card if I so desired. But that was not the only card from that blaster that was rare.

This is a gold Chrome Minted refractor, also a case hit. So one blaster - two case hits. I like when the odds fall in my favor. I could probably pay for the other blaster with this card.

And while I have a limited amount of base, I am going to say that the voting for card of the year ends with this year's Stadium Club. I have no idea how any other card released so far, or about to come out, will top this:

No idea if Topps shopped that one, and frankly, I don't care if they did. That is a great baseball image, and an amazing piece of cardboard. If it's fake, props to the guy that thought about it. If it's real, there is a photographer out there owed a Pulitzer.

Crazy little thing called love

Welcome to Independence Day, filled with all this hoopla and over the top patriotism showing love of this country. "World Leader" and "greatest country in the world" and all that other mumbo jumbo. It all sounds fine and dandy, but the truth is easy to find. But you gotta love that military, eh!

WE'RE NUMBER ONE (once in a great while, and usually not in something to be proud of)

Fortunately, there is plenty to love when it comes to those paper rectangles. When you get a mailer from the Night Owl, you know it's going to be good. Though, you don't really know what you will find. Greg must have found my want list.

The mailer started with 2017 White Sox team set. It scanned like crap, and I don't feel like taking a picture. You all know what they look like. Someone sent it to N.O. and he offered it up to me if I wanted it. Since I never buy the team sets, I did. I'm going to have to go back and pick up past years cuz I love this thing.

I mentioned Greg found my want list, and I am so thankful for that. I love 2008 Upper Deck, and I'm slowly trying to finish the huge set. But a half dozen from Greg helps. Also love Stadium Club. How great are those three cards out of the 10 or so I received? What's not to love about those images?

2010 Turkey Red Willie McCovey? LOVE IT! I am just 5 cards short of finishing the insert set. I have very few Obak cards, and I do love the 1919 Black Sox scandal (just finished reading The Betrayal), so any cards of the players from that team are welcome additions. And that AJ. Oh MAN I love that card! I really should work on the rainbow of it.

Love me some vintage. Egan and Beltin' Bill Melton are upgrades to the current cards I have. Night Owl asked if that Barber can be a filler on the '64 build. Hell - pen doesn't bother me, so I love I can clear another number from the want list.

My guess is Greg has gifted me at least a dozen pre 1960 Topps cards, and this Johnson is perfect, minus that paper loss of course. Otherwise, this card looks just pulled from a pack. Love his smiling face. Love how small he looks in that huge park in the background. Just plain love it.

There is a lot of love in this house.

LOVE THESE OUTFITS!

Roadtripping

So according to the people in the know, it's going to be mid 50's tomorrow in my neck of the woods and possible lower 60's on Sunday. That's why I have decided to drive up to the shores of Lake Superior this soon to be beautiful weekend and spend time in the cold and snow. The UP has plans on 3-6 inches of snow on Sunday.

61 degrees or 6 inches of snow?

Tough call.

Actually, I'm heading up with my wife to see our daughter. With luck, I should be home very late Saturday, so maybe I can enjoy a bit of the Sunday weather. So let's do a quick single image post.

2015 Stadium Clubs needs from the fellow Pierce collector Commishbob over at Five Tool Collector. With me ignoring the flagship release this year, I need to focus on my Wants lists, and '15 SC is high up there since there really aren't short prints to worry about. Love these three cards.

For my Hidden Gems collection, I really scrutinize a Stadium Club card as really the entire set could fit in there. Somehow I already had that Jackie card. I forgot to clear it from my want list. I decided that Jackie card deserved to go in Hidden Gems. I think it's a rarely seen photo that I gave it the thumbs up. According to Baseball Reference, that is either Ed Stevens, Preston Ward, Chuck Connors or Don Newcombe behind Jackie. I'm eliminating the last, not cuz of the bat in hand but because the color of the arm holding the bat.

I really want it to be Chuck Connors.

The stay at home National, the final day

The 2015 National is officially over. With luck, everyone that attended had a good time and secured some cardboard that made them happy. While mine, like other blogger's National experience was spent NOT at the National, I have still secured much cardboard that brings a smile to my face. For my last day at the stay at home National, we have three "vendors" worth of cards to show off.

First off is AJ from The Lost Collector. A nice out of the blue PWE arrived from AJ, loaded with White Sox.

Lots of great additions to a number of years in the Sox box. I have so few of the Heritage in the center. I was not doing much collecting at that time of the year. Nice shot of the Bull getting reading to destroy a baseball.

While that Pierzynski is a dupe for the throwback binder, it's a great photo and an underused uniform. AJ also gave me permission to sell the Fletcher auto and retire to Boca, so later losers - I AM OUTTA HERE! Thanks for the mail, AJ.

Jim from the recently deactivated GCRL (he warned me he would do it and sure enough he did) has been dropping PWEs on me for the past couple weeks. His latest hit a bunch of custom collections. My thought is we keep bombarding him with cards so he has to keep writing. At least that's my plan.

A new bunting card, on for the throwback, and the final for the DP binder. My thought is that Jim expected the Bodick on the right to make it into the throwback binder as well, since the reverse has a sweet uniform. However, that card is already obtained, so I just added a 2nd and put it with the other double plays.

That Sale is m first A&G for 2015, though I recently picked up my first rack pack - a relic of a local chef. My wife and I now have a bet on whether he will return it with a TTM as she is a huge fan of his and me, I'm not much into Food Network. The Shark goes into the Sox box and the SC Fisk is set filler. Thanks, Jim. Start a new blog, would ya!

Final vendor from the SAH National was one called ebay. Yup, I had a big pickup off of the bay of E. In fact, it's one of my most wanted. I have missed out twice on one of these cards, and all searches would return one up on the site with an insane buy it now of $50. Finally secured this beaut for under 10 bucks shipped.

Gotta have the Jedi card for my collection, and now I do. Thank you...er..... ebay....?

So the SAH National is over. With luck, next year is a real National trip. If not, we'll be at this again.

Clubbin'!!!!

Clubs. You got bright lights.

Lasers.
 

DJs.

Girls in skimpy outfits.

I was never a clubber when I was younger. 

But I care about Topps bringing back Stadium Club. If you read my post yesterday, I all but finished the base set of Stadium Club via a dime box, picking up 110 cards (though some were dupes for the throwback and DP binders). I had bought one mini box of Stadium Club from my LCS from gift cards my wife won at a pack war night. Otherwise, the rest (and most important) of the SC cards I have came via Chris at Nacho Grande. He ran a two box break, and since I had my chance to snag up the White Sox over all the Abreu hunters, I did. There are only 3 Sox in the base set: Abreu, Sale and Eaton. Luckily, I did very, very well.

The only base I received were two base Sales. One for the set and one for the binder. SCORE! I did luck out with this.

That's not just a die cut insert, but a rare diecut insert. Case hit rare. This are selling at about $75. I'm keeping it. Chris also ripped some other wax in the break and padded out the envelopes.

Just a sampling of what he sent. Compare that Dirty 30 to this year's release. Well done Topps. And then Chris wasn't done, as a few days later he dropped a PWE on me with Allen and Ginter.

Inserts! I am one card shorting finished the Floating Fortresses, and with the six Minds cards, I am now about thousand away from finishing that. Maybe less. Man - it's a huge insert set.

Thanks for the break, Chris, and for the bonus cards plus the A&G.