Trade #hand: the quest for Lord Stanley

Today starts the glorious post season of the NHL. First team to 16 wins gets the raise the holy hockey chalise. I feel if the man (whomever) is between the pipes for my Blackhawks can get hot, we'll go far. In fact, that is pretty much the main need of any team in playing from here on out - a goaltender that can stop anything and dang near everything that comes near his blue paint. Weak goals are a death knell (looking at you Luongo). For a quick blast of my playoff predictions, I have the Hawks and the Rangers in the finals, with, no shock, my guys taking it in 7. Now, should my beloved Hawks fail to make it to the finals, look at Nashville to get in. Tough grinding team in Tennessee.

All that being said, let's have a gander at the package I received from Robert at $30 a week habit. The best part, I find, at getting my collecting habit focused and organized is the ability to hit a lot of wants/needs lists and make a significant dent. It was a pleasure getting Robert a lot of older cards for an older set, and he returned in kind with a great envelope that warmed my hockey heart.

Love the sparkle, though I find those boys seem to scan......what's the word? Crappy. But I do love looking at the glitter-ness of them. As in past trades, you see 6 cards that I currently own zero. Well, owned zero BEFORE the trade. Now I have all 6 of them.

Oh yeah - BLACKHAWKS!!! Say what you want: the red sweater is the greatest uniform in sports, bar none. Stick it Yankees, BoSox, Lakers, Colts, etc.... Indian head sweater FTW. That OPC logo card is the bomb! Now, while I said above that if the Hawks don't make it, the Preds would, I still wouldn't mind the Dead Wings knocking them off, just for the great joy of the Hawks/Wings in the post season. Pure hated....



And we end with the joy of joys from Robert's envelope...

Danks relic (NICE!), Jackson refrector #22/562 (NIIIIIIIICE - lowest number I ever owned!), Quentin #49/99 (NICE!), and a Thomas Sweet Spot #528/599 (NICE!)

Thanks again Robert! Great guy - check out his blog linked above and help him out if you can. At least give his writing a read; I think you will like it.

Sunday SIL: H-B-K! H-B-K!

One of the coolest parts of Allen and Ginter in the influx of non-baseball cards. From the alternate sports (skiing, skateboarding and soccer), to great minds of the world, historical figures and the like, A&G gives you a nice range of interesting cards you normally wouldn't find.

I really like this Shawn (Hickenbottom) Michaels card for a ton of reasons. I like wrestling. There....I said it. I know it's just entertainment and there is no intention to injury (though injuries are a common occurrence in the sport). I enjoy the story lines. I like the larger than life figures. I like the skills on the microphone ripping the future opponent with well crafted jabs.

I always loved the Heart Break Kid. High flying, super styling and cocky, HBK always gave you back your price of admission. To me, the GREATEST story line in wrestling was Degeneration X. Michaels and HHH started years of fantastic story lines and brilliant works. Now granted, the height of DX occurred when Shawn was laid up with a serious injury. But there is still nothing better than watching HHH and Billy Gunn "invade" WCW events and use their incredible mic skills and quick wits to create some classic moments. And then when Shawn returned, the recent year's DX bits were a Vince McMahon HHH and a Shane McMahon Michaels. Just.....just watch this and laugh



This is a card of a guy I like, equal to a White Sox or a Blackhawks card, in my book. And he is also a guy not afraid to be real and say it like it is. He lived a pretty crazy life, but then got focused and got saved. It was no mystery in the wrestling word that Shawn was a Christ follower. I found it quite courageous that he professed it clearly when he retired from the ring.



Christ is risen. Happy Easter. 

Organzied, with issues & a mystery

Well, I think I pretty much have everything sorted out. All the important sets are in order (for the most part) and all the other cards are in boxes. I think I will sort those out by team for ease of searching. Maybe....I don't know. But I have a dilemma. With all the blogs I now read, I see posts about amazing pulls, great trades and show finds. Virtual high five from me for sure. It's been making me think of the best pull I ever had. I usually pack myself to death, so without getting a full box, you are usually crap shooting to get a decent card. That being said, it took a while and I finally remembered the best card I pulled - 2009 Allen and Ginter mini with a Bazooka back numbered to 25. When I first pulled it, I was shocked that it was hand written on the back. It took a while to sink in how special this card was. And right now, I am unfortunately using the term "was", cuz the hell if I can find the card. Can't even remember who was on the face. But I know I had it in my hand and it wasn't some dream. I have spent the last week searching high and low. I find packs here and there about the house (bad organizing, remember), but this card is eluding me.

My son (now 19) was into cards for a while, so just on a whim, I hit the shoebox (literally) of the cards he has....just maybe. Found a ton of great cards I had all but forgotten about, as well as these relics/auto in his box. Not too shabby a group of cards to be hidden in a shoebox in the basement. That hockey auto stays, but I'll consider any offers to the other cards. That holds true on my trade bait page. If you see anything you want on there, email me. You would be pretty darn surprised how easy going I am in regard to trades. I would rather the cards be loved by someone instead of me just leafing past them to the stuff I truly enjoy.

I found a couple other quite "interesting" cards in the shoebox. Anyone remember these from the 05 Bowman Heritage set?

Don't make fun of my uniform.

Some Google searches claim returning one of these would get you a Mantle reprint. The back reads that you need to mail in the card before the date on the reverse side. Well folks, you are looking at the reverse side. No date. So....when do these expire? And DO they ever expire? 45 cent stamp, right? Well, let's roll the dice and see if a) the PO box is still valid and b) if they honor the redemption as, technically, the card never expired. I'll keep you posted.

If any of you have an idea where that Bazooka back is, could you let me know.

South side vs. North side

That's the truth, too. No decent pizza north of the Eisenhower.

Trade #FabFour: Here Comes the Sharp

Did a little trade with Matt over at Cardboard Conundrum. Matt, sorry it took me so long to get those cards out to you, but hopefully, they are in your hands right now. Life - yuck. Matt's a hockey collector, so +10 manna in my book right there. Researching his needs, I found a TON of cards he needed. I think it ended up being close to 100. I just recall it was two 55 count plastic cases I sent out. There was one thing on his trade bait that caught my eye - would a crapton of commons be a fair trade for a Blackhawks relic card? To my enjoyment, Matt had no problems accepting the offer, and even asked if there was anything else that caught my eye. The usual "if you have anything White Sox, I'm game" came off my fingers. Matt came through with flying colors if you asked me - a relic and an autograph for all those set completion cards. Matt - you rule!

Just what is that Leaf logo covering up, Wilson?

A very nice 96 Leaf Wilson Alvarez auto was Matt's choice to include with the 11 SPX dual Patrick Sharp jersey relic. Fantastic additions to my cards. Matt still has quite the needs list, so give his blog a look-see and help him out. 

What have I learned in 4 trades? Saying "Any White Sox will make me happy" and not being specific seems to get a great response from people. They may think it's nothing much, but to me, I am super joyous. So much so, I have finally created a macro that will save me the time of typing it in my emails.  I have preset my computer that when I type in the following command, it will randomize a series of phrases parroting the "any White Sox is fine with me" theme. Here....check it out - it's cool.

format c:

A screen capture AFTER a disk failure. The internet is amazing!

(oh crap.....)

96 amazing hours

I am not sure if you would call it a buying binge, but since Thursday, I have bought some packs, couple rack packs and a couple blasters. And oh, the treasures inside. Let's start with last Thursday. I have had a $10 gift card to Target burning in my wallet. Time to break it out. So I hit the bullseye, grabbed a rack pack of Heritage (yeah, I know I said I am not liking them, but there are a few inserts I like), and I also picked up some Opening Day. Rack pack pull? Well take a look:

Oh hai

Knew immediately what to do with it. SOMEBODY needs to give me their mailing address (hint hint). But let's continue. Friday I had the day off. Needed some supplies (got my 15 up pages before I knocked over my stack of minis from my desk. Jeff 1 - Disaster 0).

Dropped off a couple cards for a signing event at my local card store and grabbed some packs of Goodwin Champs. And this pretty baby comes out. It's a black bordered mini of the great Robert Johnson. This is awesome to me for who Robert Johnson is. For those unaware, you will first send me all your 52 Topps graded 9 or higher as punishment for me typing the next sentences. Johnson is one of the greatest blues musicians of all time. He is the basis of the character that pals with Everett, Pete and Delmar in "O Brother". The story is that Johnson met with the devil at a crossroads and sold his soul for his musical talents. And what musical talents he got in return. Just pause in your reading, click on either this link or try this on and listen to the great Robert Johnson. And btw - that is just one man on one guitar.

Moving on. Had to run back to Target again (other stuff needed) and somehow I got pulled to the card section. Had my eyes on that newer "blaster" box that has 5 2012 Topps packs, 2 hobby Heritage and a refractor card. So grabbed one, along with a couple packs of Lineage. The Lineage packs contained a Halladay diamond sparkle card (hmmmm.....I wonder where THAT is going) and a Kaline cloth sticker. The 5 packs yielded this nice pull:

How you like my Conrad Pooh impersonation?

Not bad for a blaster box. Yeah, it's a Cub - I won't comment on that. Oh, and the Heritage packs gave me Pedroia refractor #1327/1963. Saturday was a 11 Topps blaster box series 2 on clearance at Wally World. Two diamond codes (they are still redeemable) and a Latos Padres throwback patch. Sorry, I stole this scan from eBay. I got lazy:

You still stole my heart, Jeff

And we come to Sunday, where I was able to get this card for $11 with shipping off eBay:

He stole this image too. POLICE!

Maybe some would say I overpaid. I'm not sure, but $11 for a certified signature of a White Sox great? I'd pay that anyday. So a good 4 days for sure.

Sunday feature: Stuff I like #2

For this day's SIL, we are going back almost 14 years, stepping out of the card realm while staying in sports. Behold, the wondrous joy of the ticket stub:

Oh $15 sports ticket, how we miss thee

 I am sure many of you reader (again, no typo) will recognize the category of the item, and have a few dozen yourselves as souvenirs. But this one is special. It is the one and only time I was in person when I team I liked won a championship and got to hold a trophy aloft. If you have ventured through my profile to my older blog (I need to get back to that puppy), you will find a post that details my history of unfortunate circumstances that screwed up the full enjoyment of the championships I could have experienced real time, but because of the fickle finger of fate,  I would be elsewhere. This game was in person and I got to share the joy with 18k+ fans.

I love ticket stubs. Just now, going through them to find this one stub brought back some great sports memories. I am missing a good half of them as I never remembered to save them well (by tossing them in a top drawer), so a good lot of the game memories rely on my synapses. This one I saved. And then the Wolves go a sign a minor league deal with the Canucks. Nitwits....