Well, That Didn't Last Long...

Ok, so my self imposed hiatus, death of the blog, end of the Dimwit, whatever you want to call it, is kind of over. I say kind of because this blog won't be what it once was... I've gotten a lot of cards recently and I want to show them off. I have no trade bait any more, everything is on my LCS's consignment shop eBay site and selling quite well I may add. Thus, I've been able to add some pretty sweet cards to my PC.

Plus, posts will be limited to what I can write before work, when I have time. I won't pressure myself to get a post up per day. I will have fun with this. I will enjoy it. (Yes, I'm talking myself into this, just let it happen people). So, to start this off, here's one of the sweeeeeet cards I've picked up in the past 2 and a half months...

Pretty sweet! Nice autograph, chunk of patch and a bat! Pretty mundane now with Triple Threads and Five Star right? Well, check out the back!

Yep, that's a 1/1! This was obtained 100% from the store credit I ended up with from my trade bait sales. Not too shabby. Makes it all worth it! Thanks for stopping by everyone!

And Now A New Journey Begins...

October 8th, 2008 I posted my first post here at The Daily Dimwit. Through the past 5 years, it's been a fun trip through the hobby. I've enjoyed countless trades, group breaks, gift packages and random stuff showing up in my mail box. I hope I've sent a fair amount of the same out to you all as well. But as the saying goes, all good things come to an end. I've been overwhelmed with other things lately and collecting has definitely taken a back seat to the rest of my life. I still buy stuff now and then but my joy has slowly disappeared from the hobby. I have a desk full of stuff I have no idea how to get organized and a collection that, while focused on Astros past and present, is pretty aimless.

I've got a few trades to wrap up. Mainly with Matt (Cardboard Conundrum), Greg (Plaschke) and Chris (Nachos Grande). I'll probably keep some of my want lists up to date just in case bloggers out there stumble upon my page but there will be no more regular posts. I have tons of trade bait that I have no idea what to do with, maybe I'll just hang on to it all for the future. Maybe baseball card collecting will capture my imagination again and I'll re-start this blog. I do have a package to go to The Dutch Card Guy as well. I can and always will be able to be reached at my e-mail address (which isn't hard to find on this blog if you really need it.)

I want to thank all of you who have commented, shared, traded, bought, given, received, participated, enjoyed, hated, criticized, encouraged, read, watched, listened, e-mailed, won, lost or otherwise. You have made my blog enjoyable for the past 5 years. Baseball cards were my muse, you all were my audience. Hopefully the BOO's were few and the HURRAYS were plenty. I'll keep reading all the great blogs out there, I'd list them all but I would certainly leave someone out and I do not mean to offend.

Thanks again everyone. All good things must come to an end, and with that, I say goodnight.

Another One Bites The Dust

I turned out to be the only bidder on this one. I was pretty excited to get it at the opening bid as well! Another 2011 GQ Auto from my needs list bites the dust!

Awesome autograph! Great picture! Great card!

Astros Extras!

Any Astros collectors out there in search of some hits? I have lots of duplicate hits and wouldn't mind trading! All of these are available:

 Front:

 Back:

Have a great Monday everyone!

A Trip to the LCS, The Worst Box of Platinum Ever and Random Packs of Shiny

Wow, I've got a lot of cards to throw up on the blog today... I went to the LCS yesterday and blew through my monthly card money. I left a bit disappointed, mainly because the box of Bowman Platinum that I bought blew chunks. Pathetic. Anyways, I'll get rolling with the scans of purchases, eBay pick ups, and some random packages!

Refractors... Myers and Wacha not bad! Don't worry, it goes downhill fast from there...

Color parallels, nothing spectacular but they sure do look cool scanned!

And some prospects... don't worry Greg, the Seager is already in your massive pile, I sure hope you're finding some ridiculous Astros out there in LA for me.

All that, to lead to this:

And here we encounter the crap that was this box. First of all, two autographs of the same guy in one box?!?!?! Don't care that one is a refractor, this shouldn't happen. Joe Panik auto relic? It'd be fine if I wasn't already holding a couple of these from last year as well that no one wants. And two Braun inserts! The cardboard gods are horribly upset with me for some reason.

The wife and I then went on errands that included a stop at Target... where I got a Topps Chrome blaster, or as I call it - $20 worth of regret:

At least I got an Altuve out of it... oh, and while I was at the card shop I got 3 packs of Bowman Chrome:

The Bruce is out of /199 and the Samardzija is out of /35. Not bad.

Ok, so while at the card shop, after the Platinum box o' crap, I went for a box of Tier One...

Nieuwenhuis? Meh. Fielder redemption? Meh. Braun relic - I effin' hate myself right now. I should have just walked out after the Platinum box...

My LCS owner had a surprise for me, a replacement hit for a box I bought at last month's trade night, I was shorted a relic/auto from 2013 Topps Platinum Football and here's what I got:

That's a pretty awesome patch! It's numbered /1000 but still a nice card, I'll be rooting for Keenan Allen to succeed now.

Finally at the LCS, I picked up 3 packs of Tribute, because I truly hate my life and had money to burn...

I wonder if Topps will do a triple relic now that Reyes is on to the Blue Jays??? It's a nice looking card and sadly the best one I got from the days purchases in my opinion. Strasburg is just another pitcher now in the eyes of collectors and the Perez /35 auto is nice, just wish he played on a team that actually had fans who traded. Plus, I already have a Perez auto from Tribute /99. The gods mock me...

Onto some mail, which was much nicer to me than purchases were this weekend:

The black is /50, Singleton played the second half of the year at AAA Oklahoma, so these Corpus Christi cards of him will be pretty rare. Glad to pick these up!

Next up, The Dutch Card Guy send me a "just for the hell of it package" because we have been working together to get cards sent to him over there in The Netherlands! Thanks bud, I love the Folty auto for sure!

Finally, some cards from Jeff at 2x3 Heroes. These arrived in a good ol' PWE! Thanks man, I hadn't seen any of the Cooperstown cards yet and glad to get these two Nolan's!

Wow, what a day of cards!

If any of the non-Astros stuff interests you, please shoot me an e-mail or leave a comment! I would love to get some trades going! Thanks for stopping by!

eBay Mail Day... and Group Break News

Picked up this beauty to add to my Topps Silk collection! I love this one!

Only $7 on the old Bay of e.

An update on my question about the group break. Sadly, I've decided to pass on doing this group break. Once going over the checklist, I decided that Topps' decision making left too many teams with little to no chance of getting anything worthwhile and I'm not going to have all my blogging friends spend $20 a pop to watch a select few walk away with most of the hits. On a selfish note, the Astros have zero hits other than an /25 box topper redemption that involves all 5 teams from the AL West. Meh, I'll pass. If one of those 5 guys decides not to sign their stickers, everyone gets screwed. Thanks a lot Topps. Grrr...

Anyways, maybe some time soon on another product... or not... as you can tell by my post frequency of late, I am a bit burnt out again after the A&G spree that we went on. Although I am not as close to stepping away from the hobby as I was before the A&G spree. I'm having some fun with it again. I'm trying to get all my trade fodder uploaded to Sports Card Album but I'm finding that much more labor intensive than I had thought. That and I have way too much trade bait that no one wants!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Group Break Anyone?

Anyone up for a group break of 2013 Topps Chrome? 4 boxes, $20 for a 2team slot? I need to know if anyone still has interest... I will let the comments decide... not picking teams yet, just let me know general interest...

Another eBay Pick-Up

This here gives me 2 of the 4 plates from A&G this year... I'm up to 6 printing plates for Jose Altuve, always looking to add more!

Would be really cool to get all 4 of a card some day!

Trade Day!

I got a couple of packages in the mail yesterday! The first is from Dennis over at Too Many Verlanders. He's always on the lookout for Tigers and Michigan alum. He spotted a Denard Robinson card I recently pulled and he sent over a nice stack of cards!

Dennis went out and picked up a few cards off eBay that I had my eyes on. The Springer die cut is just ridiculous. Another silk to add to my growing Silk Collection. And the Singleton Auto/Relic which people around here are overvaluing for some reason, a few got pulled at my LCS and they wanted a king's ransom for it. Anyways, glad to pick one up. I scanned in the Bagwell card because it's the most amazing Bagwell card I've seen in a long time! The scan does it no justice, it's just awesome. Thanks Dennis.

Next up, Greg aka The Night Owl who surprised me with a nice package of cards. Greg, your cards are headed to you today!

The Saban may just stay in my collection as a reminder of my Alabama livin' days! The Springer was what I was going after in the deal! Always love some vintage Ryan cards as well!

Finally, a card I picked up for $1.26 on eBay. Cavan was drafted by the Phillies this year but passed that opportunity up to go play ball at Notre Dame with his older brother. $1.26 is not bad for a patch card numbered /99!

Thanks for stopping by everyone! Have a great day!

A couple of trades... and a couple of pick-ups...

Good morning everyone... what a way to start a Monday! Over the weekend and late last week, I got several packages in...

First up, from reader Andrew:

I can't say I'm a huge fan of Panini's logo-less cards, but the actual card design is pretty sweet and it's numbered /25 and what a great auto by the Toy Cannon. Thanks Andrew!

Next up, an eBay pick-up. I told myself that I wasn't going to buy any boxes of Tier One and I'm darn near close to picking up all the cards I want from that set for far less than the cost of a box. Here's the first relic I picked up:

What a great looking card! Another one out of /25! The OCD part of me wishes the pinstripe matched up closer, or if they are going to call it a triple relic, to use three different colors/types of jersey, but who cares because they PUT AN ASTRO IN THE SET!!!!!

Another eBay pick up, I got in a bidding war with FieldLevelView for a different one of these, and ended up getting this one for about the same price in the end...

I really like the silk cards from A&G this year, they look great and anything numbered /10 is just awesome. Goes to show you that it doesn't have to be a quad-patch-RC-Auto-SICK-booklet-bat-knob to get my attention. :)

Finally, a trade from a blogger that I hadn't had the pleasure of dealing with in a while, The Troll. Mainly because he's been on a bit of a hiatus, but something about A&G this year has awoken the troll from his peaceful slumber... he sent me some A&G, I am sending him some A&G, everyone is happy!

As we all know, I didn't bust much retail this year so I didn't get many of the Curious Cases inserts on my own. I still need a few but the Troll was able to clear off 4 of my needs, plus some great mini's! Thanks bud!

Have a great week everyone!

No, I Have No Idea Why...

Why did I buy these?

What am I going to do with these? Anyways, the Young and Swisher at the end are "Silver" and "Gold" parallels... so there's that... some of you are going to start getting surprises in trade packages!

Maybe I should throw the Swisher at Chris Olds and see if he still thinks Topps does nothing but make awesome products... hahahaha... just kidding Chris, don't unleash the Beckett mafia on me.

2013 Panini USA Champions - WANT LIST

Hey guys, I've bought a couple of boxes, and I'm working to complete some of the insert sets in case anyone has bought any of this stuff...

National Teams "Certified"
126, 127, 128, 130, 131, 134, 135, 136, 139, 140, 141, 142, 145, 146, 147, 153, 154, 156, 158, 159, 160, 162, 165, 169, 170, 172, 174, 175, 176, 177, 179, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186

Highlights Insert:
1, 4, 6, 10, 11

Pride Inserts:
1, 2, 4, 7, 9, 12, 14, 17, 18, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26

Thanks for anyone who can help! I've got plenty of duplicates and an extra complete base set as well.

Trade With Ken at Cardboard Hogs

A while back, I posted a DeAngelo Hall patch that I got from a football product. Ken from Cardboard Hogs then started negotiating a trade, which was interrupted when Yahoo decided anything with the word "Dimwit" needed to go to my spam folder...

Long story, short... I sent some Redskins cards his way, I got some sweet Texans loot! Here's the highlights!

The Mercilus is numbered /99 and the Walter out of /49. Great cards! Thanks Ken!

Crazy Trade Night!

Hey everyone! Last night was the LCS's Trade Night... and the wife and I went a little Football Crazy. Got some nice stuff though!

First up is a full box of 2011 UD Sweet Spot College Football, which I actually won for free from the A&G Pack War!

That Baldwin is numbered out of just /75 copies!!! SWEEEET! The McShay is a short print extra, ended up with quite a nice box, since you're only supposed to get 2 of the helmets per box anyways! Awesome!

Next up, Topps Finest!

Ok, so obviously the Posey is from last year's Strata! But I pulled a Marcus Wheaton auto/relic from Finest and quickly traded  it for the Posey since the guy behind me was a Steelers collector! Win/win for both of us! The Denard Robinson is awesome! Sweet patch and nice auto, hope he does well in Jacksonville, just not well enough to beat my Texans!

Next, we have this year's Panini Rookies & Stars. I'm not in love with this set, but got some nice low numbered auto's!

The Taylor is out of 25, and the Nassib is out of /32. And how about an EJ Manual sighting???? Finally, they had some left over Father's Day packs, and if you bought a box of Rookies & Stars, you got a Father's Day pack... well, mine had this awesome Patrick Peterson Pro Bowl card with a piece of end zone pylon included! Unique and I love it!

Here's the newest product on the market, Topps Platinum football. Out of all the footbal we ripped, the Hotwit and I loved this one the best. Another guy in the shop pulled a 1/1 Robert Woods auto/patch refractor from this set, pretty awesome.

The Stefan Taylor is numbered /50 and I love the way the design of the card matches the team colors! How hard of a concept is this to master???? Another guy pulled a Christine Michael Seahawks card like the Taylor above and man did it pop with the neon green, grey and blue. Nice set, I was shorted a hit in my box, but my shop owner is going to help me out with getting a replacement from Topps.

Next to last, are some A&G, I bought some more and ended up with some more trade bait. I think/hope this is the last of A&G I buy this year. I'm all Ginter-ed out. Although if anyone is looking for full sets, full insert sets and more, I've got some for sale at low prices, I just need to get rid of this stuff! Let me know if you are interested!

Finally, the Hotwit and I busted a box of Panini Golden Age! And we got a bonus 3rd hit from the box:

The FONZ!!!! Nice extra auto! Kranepool? Meh! But Bob Hope will fit nicely in the wife's collection, as will the Winkler!

All the cards shown in this post (minus Fonz, Hope and Posey) are up for trade if anyone is interested!

Trade With Matt From Doc Holoday

My buddy Matt runs www.docholoday.com, and I blame myself for getting him back into this lovely hobby. I recently went home to Houston and met up with him and his family for a bit. I took him a complete set of A&G he bought from me as well as some mini's he needed and a Red Sox auto. He rewarded me with some cards he had set aside for me!

Hey, Sam Montgomery, learn how to sign your name. I know they don't "teach" much at LSU, but certainly you haven't made it this far in life without being able to sign your name. Ridiculous. Hopefully he plays better than he signs autographs. What an awesome swatch on that Bagwell card! And finally, a Carlos Pena card... I don't know what to say, the guy is now on the Royals after we released him. It's /10, so that's a plus...

Thanks Matt for another great swap of cards!

Trade Post!

I made a trade with Ryan over at "O" No!!! Another Orioles Blog a little while back. He waited to ship his part with my group break results from 3 boxes of Topps Mini. I didn't get anything too exciting from the break, other than the fact that the Astros had a TON of cards in these three boxes, a big surprise considering Topps hates us right now. Thanks for the break Ryan and thanks for the trade, got to add this beauty of a refractor to my collection:

Andrew was a 5th rounder in 2012 and has had a very good year in 2013 with 104 RBI, 9HR and a slash line of .280/.380/.429 through 124 games. He's also stolen 24 bases while making only 1 error all year in CF. Not too shabby, could be a guy to look for in a few years. This one is numbered 221/500.

Really? More A&G???

Ok, so the wife and I stopped by the card shop the other day, and were antagonized by our friend Bobby to buy some more A&G. Well, it was Bobby and the store owner Nathan, who kindly informed us that the first half of the case he had seen opened in the store didn't have the case hit pulled... so here's what we ended up with (and yes I know we have a problem) after busting 4 more boxes:

More jersey swatches! I've gotten the feeling that the bat relics are shorter printed than the jersey relics. Has anyone read or seen anything to verify this? Seems like the bat relics are selling a bit better than the jersey relics as well, don't know if I'm just reading into things too much or what...

And I got autos!!! 5 out of 4 boxes. The odds of this happening (much like the autos in our case) are not in our favor and I gotta say I'm pretty happy with the results of these boxes:

Cain, he of the perfect game against my Astros, is a nice auto to pull for sure! Harvick? I'm not a NASCAR guy but it's a nice auto nonetheless. Heath? I had literally never heard of him before this set, but the auto seems to be selling well in the secondary market. Cingrani is a good rookie to grab this year, seems to be having moderate success with Cincy. Finally, Axl Rose redemption #2 in my pocket. I have them both listed on eBay and they haven't sold quite as fast as I thought they would. I'm hoping if people get wind of him actually signing these cards, that they'll start moving again at a brisker pace. The Rose is the only one I have on eBay right now, everything else is up for sale/trade if you want to make an offer!

Box Break - Packs 22, 23 and 24...

By the way, I have reposted my Want List. I didn't bother re-listing what I had for trade, just because I have an ENORMOUS pile of duplicates. I do have (4) full sets of "Martial Mastery" and (1) full set of "Civilizations of Ages Past" available as well if anyone is going after those...

Let's get this over with... all the hits are gone, so who is really going to read these last three pack posts anyways... hahaha...

There's some nice cards in there! I like the last one though, the King Tut card, that's a nice insert mini for sure!

This box was pretty blah, and if I had been in Gint-A-Cuffs I'm sure I'd have scored about 80 points.

2013 Topps Allen and Ginter - Box Bust - Pack #20 & 21

Another day, another pack or two... ready to be done with these posts... lol... so I am doing two packs in this post!

Two decent packs! Love the Abe Vigoda card! Not so hot on the Chanel card, stop A&G, just stop. Kimbrel relic to round out the hits for this box. Rather "meh" across the board. Love the Kershaw mini as well!

Box Break Interrupted... again...

Got a couple things in the mail.

First up, from blog reader and twitter friend Trey (@treyjyert) held a twitter contest and I won this awesome Brandon Barnes autographed 8x10!

Brandon is one of those high energy/crazy guys. I love what he brings to the team and he plays an amazing defensive CF. Thanks Trey!

Up next is something I saw and just had to go after. I thought it was pretty cool, and no one was bidding on it. So I got it for the minimum bid of $10 and was pretty dang happy. For some reason, I really like printing plates. I think they are very unique and as an engineer's son, I think I have a mind that is intrigued by the way things work, the process and understanding how things are built...

That's the yellow printing plate used for the boxes of Panini USA Baseball Champions 2013. What am I going to do with this? No clue whatsoever. But I had to pick it up. The seller didn't do a great job with shipping protection and it got a healthy bend in it (you can't see it in the picture) but nonetheless it's a cool piece of 1/1 awesomeness. As far as "how things work" I still don't understand the process of how these plates are used, as I would think the lettering should be mirrored on a printing plate but 99% of the plates I see show regular text... if someone can explain, you'd be my hero!

2013 Topps Allen and Ginter - Box Bust - Pack #19

Here we go with pack #19...

We have hit number 3 of the box... rather unimpressive, and a bit damaged on the bottom edge, just like the Starlin Castro I pulled as well. Damnit Topps, you had one job: get the relic in the pack without damaging it! Oh well, it's not like I was going to sell it or even find a trade partner for it... lol...

2013 Topps Allen and Ginter - Box Bust - Pack #18

This afternoon's pack has to be better than this morning's, right?

Definitely, with Cal and Johnny Bench included in the base. The black border mini is nice as well. I was able to complete my insert set of One Little Corner, as well as one more which Dawgbones has already purchased. Was certainly hoping to complete a few more of these...

2013 Topps Allen and Ginter - Box Bust - Pack #17

Another pack this morning...

Kind of a blah pack. Amazingly, from 2+ cases, I'm still short on the mini insert set of the Codes, Ciphers and Cryptographs. I'll be re-posting a new wants list soon. Thanks for stopping by!