Throwback Thursday - 01.23.2014

Every Thursday, I post a card showing a ballplayer wearing a throwback uniform from my collection. Hopefully, he will be wearing it well, with proper pants blousing. I'll try not to duplicate a uniform. The picture may be from the front of the card, or the back. Enjoy the uniforms from years past.

Tim Hudson - 2001 Fleer Ultra - Philadelphia Athletics

Who gets post mail?

Lately, you readers have been on a tear, just loading up my mailbox. No complaints, mind you, but I really need to get my act together to scan, post and thank you folks. I did a recent clean off of my desk, which entails getting 10% or the cards into binders, and the rest moved to the stacks on the desk to my left. I still can't figure out this organizing thing.

It's like understanding me, only harder.

 So let's clear out the scan folder - image heavy post, I apologize.

First up is Pat at Hot Corner Cards. When he isn't doing a Tiger dump on me for my double play and/or bunting binder, he does a dump of OTHER teams turning two or bunting.

Ok, there are still Tigers, sometimes. Just tasty, vintage old English D's. Also, he gives me White Sox.

I think that Proly is actually in focus!

Robert from $30 a Week Habit dropped a PWE with two throwbacks.

That Delgado would have been on the sidebar "baker's dozen commons" list, but Robert made sure it's not.

First time envelope from Defgav of Baseball Card Breakdown. He made some goofy glow in the dark cards and I commented that I had to have one. Gavin sent me a couple.

I didn't get all "take a pic of them glowing" crazy with it. Just trust me they are pretty cool in the dark. Also, somehow, I won some cards from his site too, so I jumped on these two.

Both 3D in their own special ways. 

Kyle from....well, nowhere cuz he isn't blogging yet, jumped on a trade for a couple of the cards I pulled from the Panini Black Friday packs. I still have to mail my return package to him (getting all the TTS cards together) but he sent me his side.

Bunting, Pale Hose and double plays. And a nice Sale swatch.

Rob from Ranger Cards was looking for a place to dump some ChiSox cards. No. Brainer.

Good mix of cards that I needed to fill sets and some dupes for the DP, bunting and throwback binders.

Last, but not least, is my National Card Show date Julie from Funner Here. We just send stuff back and forth. She felt like she owed me a bunch of stuff with all my PWEs (hint to her and the rest of you - you don't) and sent a PWE over which was pretty sweet.

Love me hits to my Want lists (Darvish) and the ChiSox minis.

Being old hat at the National, she wasn't awestruck like I was because I completely missed this card. Hey - did you know the Blackhawks have won the Stanley Cup twice in 4 years? Did you know that  Dennis????

Jules gets in a lot of breaks. I think I benefited from a couple with these two beauts. 

Ok - time to move all those images to the "posted" folder.

Going high end

I am sure you all know of The Knight's Lance, Panini's blog. It's in the sports card blogroll, because if it wasn't, I really wouldn't know about it. Along with great info and previews of their upcoming products, they run contests from time to time. I have entered a few, and dangit if I didn't get an email about a week ago asking for my mailing address. I scored a free box of Panini America's Pastime.

I am not a high end buyer. I am sure I will get skunked, and those high ends are more of trading card gambling to me than collecting. I like my sets and my collections. But if you have any chance for free, never pass it up. The box came today, so I ripped it live.

If you don't want to hear my droning voice, or need a better look at the pulls, let's do some scanning.

Here's the two "base" cards from the box. Glad I pulled a player from a team I collect.

You either get 3 base and one insert or two and two. Appears I got the two and two. I like the designed on the Banks card. Has a nice old feel to it's look. The Lyons seems a little crowded, unless Tyler is really that huge a guy.

Here are my two guaranteed relics. I really have no clue who they are, and whether they would be considered great, good, okay or meh pulls. And in all that, these cards are up for trade.

It's a shame these are all sticker autos. That Ortiz makes the 5th hit of his I have pulled in my collecting career. Yes - FIVE! I have pulled 4 relics of him, and now this auto. If you want to count a SP image card from Topps, then six hits. Unbelievable. No clue how good Rusin may be, but it's a gold parallel numbered to 15. That Fernando, though, to me is the hit of the box. I am not sure what I am doing with it, so if you want to make an offer, I'll listen.

If you watched the video above - yes, I am an idiot. I said "Rockies" on the Johnson swatch, and he was never a hometown player in the Mile High city. I should have said "Diamondbacks", because that stripe is purple, and certainly not from an Astros uniform. I also seem to get a lot of Clemens, though this is the first hit I have of him. If you don't know, I am a Roger hater.

So that was a fun rip. Considering the price I paid, it was an awesome box. If I have bought that, well, I think I may have been a bit disappointed. However. if you see something you like, let's talk. I won't make any promises on what I'll accept in trade, but a deal can always be hammered out.

Throwback Thursdays - 01.09.2014

Every Thursday, I post a card showing a ballplayer wearing a throwback uniform from my collection. Hopefully, he will be wearing it well, with proper pants blousing. I'll try not to duplicate a uniform. The picture may be from the front of the card, or the back. Enjoy the uniforms from years past.

Tom Glavine - 1999 Topps - Atlanta Black Crackers

Bring on 2014

Alright, so we touched on the 2013 goals, showed off the hits. How about the direction 2x3 Heroes will be going in 2014.

Hi. I'm not going anywhere.

And I'm not going to drag this out - let's blow through my 2014 goals quickly:

Trades - Last year I set a goal of a trade every other week. I would double that, but that's pressure, and I usually fail under pressure. Sticking at 26. Simple and attainable.

Collection - Since the Pierce Project is complete, I think I will move to the Nellie Fox Project. Watch for a change in the buttons up top. Also, I want to push forward in the binders I have. If you check out my Zistle account, my double play binder is currently 357 unique cards, bunting is at 190, Petrick is 48 and I have yet to get my throwbacks online, but let's put them at about 200. Goals are to get the DPs to 450, bunting to 250, Petrick to 90 and throwbacks to 300. Again - simple. 

Organization - I have been doing very well in this category. I just need to get the throwbacks online, then catalog my ChiSox team sets. Anything more than those two are gravy.

Sets - Of all my goals, this is probably the most ambitious. I currently have 19 sets between my wants and A&G wants. I want to knock off 15. Sounds like a lot, but it should be pretty simple thanks to Sportlots, Just Commons and COMC. All total, I need under 400 cards for those 19 lists. Lot of SPs, but many of the sets are easy to fill online at the right price. Especially since the only 2014 set I will go after is Allen and Ginter. Maybe Heritage, but no other retail purchases. 2014 will be the year of the online and card show "blaster".

Blog - For those that follow, thanks. But I am not about the followers or the page views. I blog cuz it's fun and a great outlet for my stupidity that cannot be stated in 140 characters. However, I will be adding one feature - a most wanted commons list. This is where I hope you, the reader, help me out. I have such a list of DP, bunting and throwback cards, and I would be willing to bet many of you are sitting on a copy. Instead of my hitting up an online site, I am hoping to knock them out through PWE trades. So be on the lookout for the list, and help a brother out!

Overall - Others have touched on this, so I will as well: HAVE FUN! It's not about the big hit, or the rare pull. It's about what I like and what makes me smile. So if you get a package out of the blue, it's because it's fun. I may fail at my trade goal because of this, but who cares. I will not let money tell me how to collect. I get to do what I want.

2013 recap - what did I hit?

Before I reveal my plans for world domination with tomorrow's post of my goals for 2014, and since we already touched on how 2013 went, let's take a fast glance at what I consider my pulls of the year. Now, I did receive some amazing cardboard rectangles through the year, and I have showcased them in trade posts. These are the items I pulled directly out of packs during the calendar year. It's going to be up for debate whether they are awesome or not (maybe), but I think they are great additions to my collection.

Let's start with relics. We all know the whole "are they or aren't they" stories, plus Topps and their disclaimer about who the hell knows when the uniform the swatch came from was actually worn, but I still get some joy pulling a relic from a pack. Three of my fav pulls in this department.

I pulled the Vonn relic from a few packs of A&G at my LCS. The Brock bat came from a Black Friday purcase of a box of Golden Age. And also from my LCS is the Team 8 swatch pull out of Score hockey. The flip side has the Blues and the Jets. I did fairly well with relics out of repack boxes this year as well.

Moving to the John Handcock's...

The Jones was pulled about 6 weeks ago during my LCS pack war night. I hope she does well in Sochi so I can sell that card. Dent was a pull out of a Target 10 pack repack box. And the Hobbie came out of a rack pack from Meijers. Yes - damn retail keeps sucking me in to making purchases.

Ok, my highlights for the 3 best pulls of the year.

That's not just any black border Bourn. My LCS got in a few boxes of Topps minis, so I bought a few packs looking for anything to put in my Beckham rainbow. Pulled this in one pack. As opposed to the regular sized which are number to 100, these are a scant /5. Yup - I pulled #5/5. I wish it was a player or team I collected, but I am certain that me showcasing it now will have a comment or two about it.

I showed this before. I pulled this from a box at the National this year. Anything old timer makes me smile, so getting a bat relic of a HOF first baseman with a stellar career (last man in the NL to hit over .400) made this an amazing box, because if you recall the post, that same Golden Age box yielded me...

...this card, which is my vote for the hit of the year. On card, clean auto of another HOFer (a third hit in that same box was HOF Jim Palmer auto). I have almost pulled the trigger on a few Kaline autos. Yeah, he's a dreaded Tiger, but you give props where props are due.

Not so fast, buddy. Red Wings get no props here.

 There ya have it. Tomorrow, let's talk about the current year. 

Tis the Season update and recapping 2013

So another year is in the books. Since everyone is going over their 2013 goals, as well as looking towards 2014, why should I be any different? First off, let's do a quick recap of 2013, starting with the most recent event - Tis the Season.

That, fans, it what's called the "to be shipped" boxes. yes, those are all the cards I planned to give away this season. The total signups for the Great Card Dump was 42 brave souls. The 5000 count box on the left, plus the two outside rows in the middle shoebox are the cards, by team, I will be sorting through, coordinating and mailing out. Please, cut me a little slack as I do my best to get some even distributions to everyone. I will make sure you all get something decent in your package, as I have plenty of gold serials, Target/Walmart borders, sparkles and the like I will throw into the envelopes and boxes. The boxes in the middle are the minis, A&G and Topps that were claimed. At the far right are more claimed dupes. I think that's everything. I just think of all the space I will gain for VINTAGE!!!

Ok, let's revisit my goals for 2013. And we shall grade like we are back in high school:

Trades - 26 for the year. I'll be honest, I lost track. But I am positive I am well over that number. I still have 2 or 3 trades to complete for 2013, but I guess would be that I hit about 40 trades. A-

White Sox - organized and cataloged. I did do the Big Sort during the year, and for the most part, have over 90% of my ChiSox organized. Have a couple recently received stacks I need to get sorted, but I have all the dupes pulled out. The cataloged online part was an epic fail. Just no time. So all in all, I am giving myself a low C.

Sets - 10 complete. Again, I did not track how I did, but I think I completed 3 or 4 sets. I have put a good effort into the others, but still fell short. However, I did knock off the very first set I added to my want list, and for that alone I am going high C+.

Purchases - $25 per week limit. I am giving myself a G, cuz an F- is still too high a grade. There's always 2014 to get on track, right?

Specific collections. I had trifecta goals for Petrick (done), Crede (2/3rds), Iguchi (2/3rds) and Beckham (1/3rd). So I'll say a B on that. Want lists online - going B on this, because even though I never really started the Iguchi, Crede or Beckham collections, I did get my Petrick, Pierce, double play and bunting collections up on Zistle. Going to get the throwback binder posted soon. Pierce Project - complete, so A++ on that.

Tomorrow, I'll touch on my pulls of 2013. Shouldn't be too long a post. Then Saturday, let's setup the goals for 2014. I will also do my best to contact those that will be receiving cards so you have an idea when they ship.