Saturday, March 26, 2011

More Fleer Autographs

Two more Cardinal autographs from 1999 Fleer – one from the Greats of the Game set, the other from the Sports Illustrated set.

The Brock is a double. We have the Forsch, Gibson, and Schoendeinst. The Musial is really pricey or we’d go for all the Cardinals in either set.
1999 Fleer GOTG Hrabosky Auto1999 Fleer SI Brock Auto

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

2006 Fleer Tradition Hobby Box

My little sister had a weekend dance competition two weeks ago. She did a good job even though she was sick. She actually made me sick too. My dad surprised me with a hobby box of 2006 Fleer Tradition for me to open a few packs at a time between dance routines. I’ve been asking him about the box for awhile because a store had them on sale. I was pretty sad when I found out the last box was gone but my dad was the one who got the last box!

I liked this box because there are at least three different Adam Wainwright rookie cards in the box. My box only had one Wainwright base card but there were others in the box that I liked. I did get a complete set in my box but I don’t know if I’m going to keep it.

These are a base card of Albert, an insert of Albert, and an insert of Ryan Howard.
2006 Fleer Trad Pujols Base2006 Fleer Trad Pujols Triple Crown2006 Fleer Trad Howard Grass Roots

These are an insert of Prince Fielder, a Goudey mini insert of Jason Giambi, and a Michael Young jersey card.
2006 Fleer Trad Fielder Blue Chip2006 Fleer Trad Giambi Goudey2006 Fleer Trad Young Jersey

Dad: $28 for the hobby box (36 packs, 10 cards per pack). Definitely worth the price of admission as a little diversion during the dance competition. I forgot to scan a throwback card though… just imagine the Pujols base card with a black and white picture on Heritage-type cardboard.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Diamond Code 17: The Last Series One Code

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Diamond Card 16: Who?




















Dad: I graduated high school and enrolled at U of I in 1989. I don't know who this guy is either...

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

A Unique Mini Book Relic!

Here’s one we’ve never seen before. I took Isaac to an out of the way hobby shop over the weekend and ended up buying a few packs for him, two of which were of last year’s T206. The first pack was uneventful but the second pack had a giant gap between the top and bottom cards which turned out to be this:

2010 T206 Hamilton Pence Mini Book Back

Pretty cool mini-book dual relic card numbered to 99, especially since Hamilton has a few pages in Isaac’s favorite player binder. But it gets better:

2010 T206 Hamilton Pence Mini Book Front

The Pence bat is pretty blah but how about that Hamilton swatch? We weren’t sure what it was but figured out pretty quickly that it’s the lower label on the front of Hamilton’s jersey. Isaac thinks it might be worth more than a typical mini book relic from this set (about $20 based on recent ebay transactions) because it’s more unique than a plain jersey swatch. If he’s right, he’s thinking about flipping it – if not, it already has a spot with his other favorite player cards.

Monday, March 14, 2011

First Box of 2006 Artifacts

My dad bought some boxes of 2006 Artifacts. I don’t know how many boxes because he will not tell me. He let me open a box while my sister was at dance. There was only one Cardinal card of Scott Rolen that I already had. The four hits were bad. We got TWO hits of the same guy!

The Chavez jersey and Atkins auto are up for trade. The two Broussard’s are already taken.

2006 UD Artifacts Chavez Green Jersey 15 of 2502006 UD Artifacts Broussard Jersey 143 of 325
2006 UD Artifacts Broussard Jersey 269 of 3252006 UD Artifacts Atkins Auto 456 of 800

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Arizona Finds

Dad here – I took my bi-annual trip to Arizona last month. While I could not, sadly, find time time to hit any Spring Training sites I did make a stop at Batter’s Box on the drive North and visited an antique mall on the return drive.
I picked up a few things for Isaac at Batter’s Box. The shop focuses nearly entirely on vintage but I did find these at very reasonable prices: much cheaper on ebay – especially for the Pujols.

2010 AG Roberts Bat2011 Topps S1 Pujols Black Leather 55 of 99

The antique mall, the Brass Armadillo, had a ton of baseball display cases but I didn’t have time to ask the clerks to unlock each and every one just to see if they had anything interesting. One case had these two staring out at me. I grabbed both for less than $20 total... not bad for two HOF’rs. Not sure why they’re in screw down cases but it makes scanning difficult. I’ll take these out of the cases and re-scan so they’re better in focus.
AZ Antique Finds

Saturday, March 12, 2011

2011 Topps Jumbo Box Summary

We were lucky and got a pretty good box. We got the three hits we were supposed to get -

Dominic Brown Auto, John Lester Leather Name Card, Geovany Soto Jersey Card
2011 Topps Brown Auto2011 Topps Lester Name Plate2011 Topps Soto Jersey
Our bonus "hits" were -

Clayton Kershaw Sparkle, Miguel Montero Printing Plate, Andrew McCutchen Black Border
2011 Topps Kershaw Sparkle2011 Topps Montero Printing Plate 1 of 12011 Topps McCutcheon Black
Aside from getting some Cardinal hits, the only way it would have been better is if my Dad let me open all the packs at once instead of over a month.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Diamond Cards 14 & 15: The 1970's



Thursday, March 10, 2011

Southtown Sluggers

My dad took me to Southtown Sluggers last month. It is a small shop but full of new and old cards. We got four cool cards from the buy one get one free box plus a few packs. For $12, I got four cool relic cards – three of them borderline hall of famers.

2006 Artifacts So Taguchi Jersey 239 / 325
2006  UD Artifacts Taguchi Jersey 239 of 325

2003 Jim Edmonds Bowman Heritage Jersey
2003 Bowman Heritage Jim Edmonds Jersey

2005 Donruss Greats Lee Smith Jersey
2005 Donruss Greats Lee Smith Jersey
2005 Diamond Kings Larry Walker Dual Bat 36 / 100
2005 Donruss Diamond Kinds Walker Dual Bat 36 of 100

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

1999 Fleer Sports Illustrated Lou Brock Autograph

I picked this up (two of them actually – by mistake) on ebay for surprisingly little money… around $10. I’ll have to check the other card but maybe its because the “L” in Brock goes off the card.

I haven’t looked at a checklist but it looks like Brock, Gibson, Hrabosky, Slaughter and Musial are the only Cardinals in the set. I’ve entertained thoughts of collecting all of the Cardinals in this set but the Musial is really, really pricey for some reason.
1999 Fleer SI Brock Auto

Monday, March 7, 2011

2002 Topps Want List

Isaac turns nine in exactly two months (!!!!!) and asked if we could build the Topps set from his birth year. So... I found an ebay dealer who had open hobby cases of both Series 1 and Series 2 cheap (like less than $20 each ppd) so I bought two boxes of each.

Series 1:  I thought for sure we'd have a complete set between two hobby boxes especially after the first box. That box had us 44 cards short or 88% of the base set. Alas, the second box only had 20 of those 44 cares so we're 24 cards short. We did like the inserts sets and will post the trade bait in a separate post.

Series 2: The first box was excellent and had us just 11 cards from the complete 354 card set, or 97% of the base set. The inserts aren't as varied as the first series but we did get a monster hit... odds-wise any way. The odds of pulling a Prime Cuts Relic Auto are 1 in 8927 packs and we pulled one numbered 10 of 50. Too bad it was of Wilson Betemit.

Here's the list from google docs. Let us know if you have any problems accessing the list. We have a ton of dupes, obviously, so if anyone else is interested in building this set let us know and the partial set is yours!

Ike's Cards 2002 Topps Want List

Aside from the "easy" inserts, we did not get any hits in either Series 1 box. We did get a relic in each of our two Series 2 boxes.

Wilson Betemit Prime Cuts Bat Relic Auto. Odds 1:8,927 packs.
Greg Maddux Aces Jersey Relic. Odds 1:1,180





Saturday, March 5, 2011

Diamond Cards - Lucky #13

We got greedy and entered another code to see if we could three die cut cards in a row. We didn't.

Diamond Cards - Two In A Row!!!

Hammerin' Hank Diamond Die Cut

Diamond Code 11 - That's More Like It!

Diamond Die Cut - Mariano Rivera

Friday, March 4, 2011

Diamond Card - 10 is a Champ!

Champ Summers...

Fan IQ - Topps Offer Update

We posted about the Fan IQ Topps giftcard offer last week - $40 e-gift
cards for $20. We received some emails questioning the validity of the
offer and the integrity of Fan IQ. This, of course, was after I had
already sent payment.

I'm happy and relieved to report that all is well. We received three
$40 gift cards this morning for the advertised price of $20 each!
Now --- what to order...

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Thorzul’s March Group Break

Thorzul’s March Group Break is open. Thorzul has always been lucky pulling Cardinals for us. These are my favorites from last month.
Diamond Kings Jim Edmonds regular card and brown card.
2005 Diamond Kings Edmonds Base2005 Diamond Kings Edmonds Brown Frame
Diamond Kings Lou Brock insert.
2005 Diamond Kings Brock HOF Hero
And finally, the best Cardinal of the break. I wish he could have pulled the gold Sabathia for himself but I really like this gold Pujols numbered 34 of 50.
2007 Piece of History Pujols Gold 34 of 50
Dad – Isaac has been begging me to help him do a group break. I really like Thorzul’s Pick ‘em Plus One format (I need to trademark that) but am hesitant to make the plunge b/c of time and $$$ concerns. I’m more worried about the time really, as I *think* the cost may actually be lower as we’re usually just interested in the Cardinals out of the boxes we open --- so even just a few people signing up is better than eating the entire cost. So – how much time and effort are we talking about? Thoughts and input appreciated.

Diamond Cards 7 - 9



Wednesday, March 2, 2011

2006 UD Ovation Adam Wainwright

Another numbered 2006 Ovation rookie card, this time of our injured Ace – Adam Wainwright.
2006 UD Ovation Wainwright RC 378 of 999

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Codes 4 and 5 + The Freebie

Fourth - 1992 Brady Anderson






















Fifth - 1977 Jay Johnstone






















And the bonus free code was for - 1992 Wally Whitehurst