Player collections and specialty collections. We all have some form of collection beyond sets and teams. For the most part, we try and get all of one player or another. For me, you can look at my Pierce Project, my Ben Petrick collection, and future projects of players that will go into Joe Crede and Tadahito Iguchi.
Then you have your specialty collections. Nick over at Dime Boxes has about 1.7 million of those. You have Night Owl with his awesome night cards, Robert and his Serial Insanity, GCRL's double play cards.... you get the idea. Me - I have a few specialty collections that I am working to get off the ground. I love throwback uniforms, as you find on my Thursday feature. I love miscut cards. GRCL made me love the turn at second. And I love high pants.
It's the high pants cards that is becoming a new love for me. If you look back in the game, the pants kept getting lower until a great majority nowadays wear pajama pants. It's rare when you find the players that get it just right. Totally proper would be wearing stirrups with your high pants, like...
Mr. Outman here. But, if you can get a decent looking high cuff going, you will be added to a new binder collection of recent cards showing players that still wear it right. So we get to see the likes of
Ubaldo Jimenez.
Juan Pierre.
Mark Ellis.
And Cody Ross.
My dilemma? To properly run this binder, I will have to add cards of players like this...
PED use aside - Clemens is a total A-hole. He's those cards I love to put in trade packages because I can't stand him. Now, I may have to keep them.
Ya know - the collection is really my choice. I guess I could decide on high cuffed cards that "look good". It's all subjective, right? Ok - you get a card, Mr. Clemens. I just hope there are none that show Barry Bonds high cuffed.
Up for another Repack Wars? You know the rules - best card of the pack. We have another 20 pack box for $20. Can I get my money back? Here we go!
Lead off pack is good old 2011 Topps. Pretty uneventful (remember that word - I'll be using it a lot this post), so I am giving the win to a great shot of a sawed off piece of lumber. I will start a binder page of these types of cards - they're pretty sweet.
The gods looked down on me this repack around and only saddled me with one pack of O-Pee-Chee. Sucked as usual, but at least they picked out one decent shot of Roy here.
2009 Upper Deck X. I'm picking the shiny out of this pack. The rest weren't so great and the die cut? More on that later. Keep reading.
Another 2011 Topps. Did better in this pack. A Cobb Topps 60 I need, so in the collection it goes.
Going back one year to the 2010 Topps release. Very blah pack. Let's give the nod to a presidential insert. Don't look too long into his eyes, though. Trust me.
2008 UD Piece of History. Never had a pack of these in an insert before (I don't recall). Since I picked a nobody rookie card as the best of the pack, you can guess how I feel about getting more of these. Zzzzzzzzz....
2009 Goodwin. Here was a great pack. The mini was nice. The other cards were great. But you can't beat a young Fisk.
Upper Deck Icons. This was a dreadful pack of boring players. I picked this card as the best because it's the worst. I get they don't want the Icons foil logo over the player, but did you need to make a card so incredibly off center? It took me four scans to get this image because the card kept tilting off to the left side and going unbalanced.
Ok - that last part is a lie, but you get my idea.
2010 Topps. They finally start "getting it" about their images. This card is pretty to all four corners. If you pay attention, you notice that is the home plate umpire making the call at 3rd. So we must be talking a drive to the left field corner that would pull the 3rd base ump away from the bag.
2011 Allen and Ginter. Talk about a pack of commons. That's all I have to say about this pack.
2011 Heritage. It's the Babe. That's all I SHOULD have to say about this pack.
2009 UD Timeline. If you have read my posts about repack boxes and all I have pulled and hit, you may have heard me say that the boxes are crap shoots at best. I say that now because this card is the best hit in the box. Rookie and serialed to /100. Unexciting, though.
2009 UD Baseball Heroes. When you have those three players on one card, with three vintage logos, you pass on the rest in the pack.
60's ORIOLE CARTOON LOGO BIRD HOT BOX! Seriously, we have a Jim Palmer from a 2010 Topps. Not a good pack, so this won by default.
Back to 2011 Topps Update. We have a diamond sparkle. Blah player, but the rest of the pack was worse. So congrats Rickie!
2011 Topps. See my comment about about Topps finally getting it with their images. Nice photo.
Above I showed an Adam Dunn as the best of a pack of Upper Deck X. Here is the other pack. My comment about the die cut? I am now the proud (?) owner of two Ryan Braun die cuts. Yup - same card in both packs. Ain't I a lucky guy....
Upper Deck Masterpieces. This was a great pack. I pulled another Clemente that I showed on a previous war, so I am going with Mr. Clinton here. His cap is a little goofy a-top his noggin, but it's a nice card.
The sunset card for Ivan Rodriguez in the 2011 Topps. You have to love the look of the old veteran giving tender advice to the up and coming youth. Ivan has been here before, so I like how he is just talking with Strasburg, trying to calm him down. Another example of the improvement with Topps picture selection.
Last pack is Upper Deck Spectrum. The purple on these are dreadful. And while I pulled a blue parallel of Pujols, a card of a pitcher at the plate kills. Right, Nick?
Well, that wraps up another repack. Not so great, and I probably didn't recoup all of the $20, but ripping twenty packs was a blast. It's kind of a guilty pleasure.
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.
Ya know what's cool? If you answered me, you are totally sucking up. and it's working. But seriously, there are a lot of cool things. In the purpose of this post, getting cards in the mail for no reason - that's cool. Jaybarkerfan recently put a little teaser post talking about the magic of one stamp. Well, one stamp is totally cool when it's attached to an envelope containing baseball cards. I guess I am lucky and/or loved, because the other day, I had a PWE that when I opened, made no sense to me. Trust me - it was sweet, but I couldn't figure out where I had purchased these cards. Luckily, I save enough of the addresses I mail to that after a little math, I figured JBF as the guilty party. So, in what way did one little stamp change my day?
Good guys wear green. Did it end there? Nope.
VINTAGE!!!! Awesome photoshop FTW! I bet the Night Owl can't write a headline like those.
Thanks a bunch Jaybarkerfan! When you work day is sucking (even from home), opening an emvelope with 7 cards that were sent just cuz can really turn it around.
It's important that as a blogger, I am completely honest with you at all times. As much as the internet is filled only with truths, we must be wary when something may not be totally honest. And that honesty can be minor fib, or it can be a huge falsehood. It all we do, it's vital that we make no attempt to deceive the person whom we are speaking with, whether in person or online.
Get to the point, Mr. Jeff!
Alright, Mr. Mason! Those Heritage cards I gave away for "Tis the Season"- I traded a bunch of them prior to the giveaway.
See, here's how it went down. Kerry from Cards on Cards has a want list, trying to complete the Heritage set. I had a bunch of that Heritage I never really liked. After a couple emails, I sent him a ton of Heritage. Then, looking at what I had left, I realized how much I detested the stuff and offered it up in the giveaway, just so I wouldn't have to look at the cards. So the giveaway were my leftovers - and I would give them away again if I had to.
Innocent by reason of insanity.
Anyway, as I was saying, we are talking here today about a trade with Kerry at Cards on Cards. Kerry had a need for Heritage, and I had a need for a couple things I saw on his trade bait page. One thing lead to another, and I sent him a nice load of cards. Finally my chance to show a few of what he sent in return.
It's always nice to add a White Sox auto to my collection. I've been watching some Morel's on eBay, but never pulled the trigger. Now I don't have to.
Two serialed refractors from a Heritage set I can tolerate.
Action packed of Wilbut Wood (I love the red jerseys) and lil' Luis Aparico. There were a ton of other White Sox cards, and I finally recvd my first micro.
That is a great card from when Cracker Jack knew what the hell they were doing.
So head on over to Kerry's blog and check out his wants. And always tell the truth.
I only have about 30 trades or so under my belt, but I am sure those with far more can relate to the trade that starts small and then just grows and grows. Partially because of asks, but mostly because of generous offers. In the email conversation, something is just sort of said without any intent of anything, but the reader on the other end picks up on it and makes an offer, which you are a fool to turn down. So the trade grows and grows. This is one of those types of trades. It started with an email I received from Patrick at Hot Corner Cards saying he had 3 cards on my want list. I will trade for ANYTHING, so the emails started.
And the three cards grew into a larger and larger trade. If you happen to see my wants page and notice my 07 and 08 A&G needs, that's Patrick's fault. See, he made mention about having some 2007 Ginter and could have some 2008 if he knew what I needed. Well, up goes the 2008 needs list, and the trade grew even larger. When the dust settled, I ended up with a crapton (it's an industry term) of 2007 and 2008 Ginter cards and bunch of White Sox, along with the cards that started the whole trade. I didn't scan all of what you have seen a million ways before, but let me say it was an awesome trade to complete. Well, technically, I am finishing the back half of the trade - Tigers for 2008 Ginter. That's going to ship in a few days.
The other day I got a bubble mailer. Oh yes - the '53 Bowman Pierce I won off eBay!!!
Got it for about $7 shipped. That was some fast turn around. So I open the package and it's a Pierce, but the wrong Pierce.
It still is a Pierce I need for the Project, but the eBay seller didn't send the '53 Bowman, this is a '58 Topps Mound Aces. Great card. Love the condition, but how do I tell him it's not what I expected? And then I looked closer at the envelope. "I know this address", I thought. So I did some email searching, and who's address should it be? Patrick's.
W
T
F
!
DUDE!!!! You've destroyed my 2007 A&G, murdered my 2008 A&G list, dated my daughter that is my 2012 Update wants - now you just drop a card like this on my lap "just cuz"? Are you some kind of angel?
So that's how one blogger made me work my tail off creating, then updating want lists, along with sorting, boxing, scanning and uploading. It was AWESOME! Go check out Patrick at Hot Corner Cards. You can't go wrong.
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.
