The Ultimate of Mail Days...

Wow, so yesterday was one hell of a mail day! Plus I picked up a blaster of Americana Heroes and Legends while we were out and about... we'll start with the blaster...

While I was hoping for an astronaut relic, I was really excited to get a Tuskegee Airman relic. #ed out of /299, these are a bit tougher to pull and being here in Alabama, it's another unique reminder of our 2+ year stay here. I am only about a dozen cards from a complete set, so if anyone has any base to trade on this set, let me know!

Next up, a big chunk of cards from COMC.com... dang I love this site...

I thought these were the last 4 mini's I needed for my 2012 Mini set (any back, wasn't going for just regular this time). But when I went to page them, I found that my list was wrong and I now have a duplicated Scutaro. So, the Morneau that I actually need is now safely on it's way. That will complete all the cards I'm looking for from the 2012 set, except for the SSP Yu Darvish that I will never get my hands on.

7 more mini's from 2013 Series 1, at this point I only need one more (#41) and I'll be done. I am not quite sure what my motivation is to complete these set, other than the whole, "You started this, now you'll finish it!" mentality. There's no way I'm going this gung-ho on Series 2 or Update... meh...


This is where the real fun begins! Astros!!!!

I got to the point with COMC where I needed base cards to fill my order to 25 cards so I could get free shipping... thus the Clemens, vintage and Berkman base/inserts. Not too shabby.

The Red Schoendiest gets me to 31 autos from 2011 Gypsy Queen... only 12 left to go... this includes 2 that are on their way from eBay! Kranz is a NASA pick up, I have the auto/relic, now I have the relic. Houser is an Astros prospect we may hear from in a couple years. Had to pick up Altuve Triple Threads at the price they were offering. Drabek's auto was one I wanted for a while too! The Fontana is the refractor version of the base auto I already have! 

Here's a card that I had wanted for a while on the site:

Biggio certified auto... these things are hard to come by as he apparently was not a big signer in his playing days or just didn't get asked to do so very often. Either way, this card looks great next to the big jumbo swatch!

Finally, I have to show off my greatest eBAY purchase EVER!!!! The Holy Grail of my collecting goals... the card, as a kid, that I thought was un-obtainable. I drooled over many in card shop display cases and tried to haggle a few at card shows... but finally I have it... I know this is all a little Gollum-ish, but I've waited for SOOOO long to have one of these in hand!

1968 Topps - Card # 177... Mets Future Stars! Jerry Koosman and NOLAN RYAN RC!!!!!

Those who are condition guru's will probably tell me I overpaid and blah blah blah... I don't care, I know it's not in perfect condition, but maybe some day I'll overpay for a graded 10. But for now, this is awesome. I have a card that I couldn't be happier about. Slightly off-center? Yes. Some staining? Yes. Dull Corners? Yes. Prominently displayed in my baseball man-cave. ABSO-FREAKIN'-LUTELY!

20 years ago, as a 12 year old, I would have never dreamed of owning this card. It was $1500 in Beckett! Might as well dream for a Mantle rookie. But alas, the market crashed and this beauty is in my hands for well less than $200. SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!

Opening Day everyone! The Astros are going to shock the world!!!!! I figure a .500 record at the end of the year will shock the world, so that's what I'm hoping for! Have a great day everyone!!!!

Pick Ups From The LCS

So I made a pledge to spend more time at my LCS digging through boxes and finding stuff I wanted rather than buying hobby boxes and being disappointed. So I had some free time yesterday and ended up picking up this lot of cards:

I didn't have a Uecker, now I do! A few nice Nolan Ryans, a scary looking Jim Wynn.. and the jewel of the scan, an Aaron/Clemente/Allen league leaders card. I didn't have a "vintage" Clemente or Allen, now I do.

Some Houston love here... Watt and Reed RC's, a couple of Bagwell serial numbered cards, 2 Twins cards for Rhubarb Runner (or any other Twins fan for that matter) and a Nolan Angels insert. The Carew is numbered /299 and I couldn't pass it up. There is no way you get a modern player to pose like that on a card these days... just won't happen. The Elite is a 12th round pick for the Twins, who knows, he may be the next Jack Morris or the next Todd Van Poppel...

Finally, some vintage Astros! So what if I hate Joe Morgan, that card is awesome. Love me some vintage looking Astros cards and Grady Hatton is a manager I don't think anyone messed with... he looks pretty pissed at the fact his photo was being taken.

Thanks for reading!!! (Oh, and I've looked all over Mobile, AL, not a single pack of 2013 GQ to be found yet!!!)

***After I hit "Publish" I noticed this is post #900!!! HOLY CRAP!!!!***

Top 10 Cards From A Re-Pack - #7

Here we go with card #7 from the "Best of the Re-Pack" series...

Brian McCann gold parallel... not too shabby... my packs were littered with Braves on a ridiculous level. This was one of the nicer looking cards in terms of design. Not too shabby...

Top 10 Cards From A Re-Pack - #8

This series is getting me depressed already... top 10 cards... and this is #8...

Tchaikovsky is more exciting than most of the baseball players that I got in this re-pack. Crazy, eh? It's a Musical Masters mini!

Ok, so I did get a cool card in the mail yesterday. I saw three of these pop up on eBay last week after literally not seeing a single one for 6+ months... so I snagged the one ending earliest just to get it done and over with... not too shabby, won it with a single bid. Not a lot of competition for this guy's auto I guess!

This leaves me with just 14 more autographs to get from this set... 29 down... seriously, if you have any GQ 2011 autos to spare that I don't already have, you will get the better part of any deal we put together!

April 2013 Gypsy Queen Group Break Update

Hey guys, for those participating, I have the linked Spreadsheet showing the current status of who is "keeping" what, and who is "sharing" what as far as duplicates go... As I stated in the original e-mail that I sent to you guys, if I haven't heard from you then I've kept your name in the "keep" duplicates column until I hear from you otherwise. If anyone sees any errors in this table then please leave a comment or e-mail me to let me know what needs to be changed, I may have missed updating. Product goes live next week!!!! Next weekend should be a glorious 3 days of busting, collating and sorting! Can't wait!

Have a great day everyone!

Top 10 Cards From A Re-Pack - #9

Here's card #9 from the re-pack...

A sweet lookin' mini of Mike Napoli and with the A&G Shield on the back. This is #9 folks, the 9th best card (in my opinion) that I got from this re-pack. Does this adjust your expectations for these posts or what?!?!!?

Top 10 Cards From A Re-Pack - #10

So I bought one of these:

And I figured, I'd do a series of posts showing off the 10 best cards I feel I got out of this thing... #10, an awesome HOF'er:

Aaron just looks awesome in the picture and I love the design on this one! Alright, moving along, tomorrow we'll have #9!

Two Queens for the Book

I picked up a couple cards from SportLots.com the other day... one finishes off my regular set of "Gypsy Queens" from 2011 Gypsy Queen and the other puts me within 5 cards of finishing off the "Tarot Card Back" Gypsy Queens from the same set!

Sweet! All I have left for 2011 Topps Gypsy Queen are 5 Tarot back Queens, 2 regular back mini's and 14 autos! How freakin' sweet is that?

Oh, and big news is coming in the next 5-7 days... I've crossed off a major card from my all-time want list... a card I've wanted since I was a kid. A card I thought would always be out of my reach... well, it's on it's way and I can't wait for it to get here!

No, YOU check out MY cards... part 7...

Wow, I got off track and forgot about these posts... haha! Here's today's entry a couple of rainbow uniforms:

 J.R. Richard would be sharing every one of Nolan Ryan's accolades if it weren't for the stroke that derailed his career. The guy was electric. Great auto! Love this card!

Cesar Cedano, this guy was awesome. Glad to see he's back with the Astros this year in a development role.

Well, that wraps up this COMC purchase! But no worries, I have another one coming down the line in a few weeks!

Facebook Trade and eBay Pick-Up

I recently completed a trade with Andrew S. on Facebook... I sent quite a few cards his way and ended up with these awesome cards:

 Wow, those Berkman's sure do shine, the one on the left is #'ed 14/15, while that dirty one on the right is #'ed 38/50. Love the dirty pin stripes! I thought the coin cards were cool because of Joe Morgan as an Astro of course, but the U of Alabama because of my current residence. If someone around here offers me something for it, I'm game but I may just keep it.  Thanks Andrew!

Next up, a pick up from the old Bay of E.

Another silk collection card bites the dust! Hunter Pence, #/'ed 1 out of 50! eBay 1/1!!!! Woo hoo!!!

Silver Slate Pack from February Group Break

Here's the video of busting the silver slate redemption pack from the February Group Break.

Scans after the page break...

@prpalomo Twitter Trade!

A fellow Astros fan (yes, there are more out there) on twitter, Philip struck a deal on an Astros-for-Astros swap! I had been amassing quite a few duplicate hits lately and I sought out another Astros fan with the same problem! Here's what I ended up with on my end:

Since Dominguez has been an Astro, Topps hasn't exactly thrown out a bunch of cards for him. So I'm forced to go after Marlins hits. Thanks Topps. Singleton will be a star (or that's what we're banking on, the kid has a sweet swing). Peacock is a new addition and he's making the case this spring for a spot in the rotation. Although I think he'll end up in our long reliever role. The Peacock and Dominguez are both #/ed out of 299! Thank Philip! Hope we can swing another Astros-for-Astros deal again soon!

Change Is The Only Constant

Based on a lot of frustration lately, and my declining enjoyment in the hobby, I have decided to discontinue the monthly Daily Dimwit Group Breaks. Over the past few months, I’ve watched close friends and bloggers invest in my breaks, only to get little to nothing in return. I know that each break is a gamble, but I am just at the end of my rope. With the extension of the licensing agreement with Topps and MLBP, I feel that new and future products are not going to be equitable to all involved. This may be a bit of a case of sour grapes, but I’m tired of seeing teams (like my Astros and other “small market” teams) get screwed over by the fabulous marketing team at Topps. The bias shown towards certain teams, especially the Yankees, has reached the point that I can no longer just keep shelling out money to Topps. I feel that we have exhausted almost all of the pre-2008 products to the point that I’d just be re-hashing old products. Additionally, companies like Fleer and Upper Deck are either gone or no longer honoring the redemptions in their products so that cheapens a non-Topps break even further. The last couple months of selecting products for the breaks has been stressful, and it shouldn’t be.Overall, I will be taking a step back from the hobby. I originally took a break from the age of 16 until 28, when Allen & Ginter caught my eye and I found the joy I once had in building a set and collating cards. Even so, Topps has bastardized this set and turned it into something unrecognizable from its original form. Gypsy Queen captured my interest in 2011 and I am still working on putting parts of that set together, and I will continue. Topps took GQ and bastardized it the next year by overproducing it. Looking at the checklist for this year, with 70+ each of autos, relics and mini-relics and about 4 kinds of short prints/variations… they’ve done it again. In some of the preview images of the 2013 set, I’ve noticed that in a set based on drawn images (not stock photography), they are re-using the same images from last year’s set! How lazy can you be? “Hey guys: just slap a new border on this and those dumb collectors will never notice!!!!” I’m bitter, yes, very bitter. I hate what Topps has done to degrade the hobby experience.

Am I going to stop collecting? No. But I am going to be changing the way in which I collect. For those of you with COMC portfolios, expect to see more and more of your Astros cards sell from those portfolios. For those of you with Astros cards sitting out on eBay, expect to see them get sold. Local card shops, you’ll be seeing me in there more often sorting through boxes and selecting what I want. I’m going to collect smarter. Hobby boxes for $100, with 3 guaranteed hits and a snow cone’s chance in hell of something I actually want in my collection? No more. My LCS is not going to be too happy with my lack of spending at trade night, but it’ll be focused on seeing what others pull and have available for sale/trade. I may still gamble on a high end pack like Triple Threads from time to time, or pick up a lot of trade bait off eBay for the sake of facilitating trades with my readers but I won’t be pulling in 2-3 hobby boxes a month as I have for the past year plus here in Mobile . Call it sour grapes, call it burnout, whatever it is I’m tired of the feeling I have walking out of the card shop, it should be fun and it’s not as much fun for me anymore. As my wife, she saw my face last trade night after I completed a hobby box and felt all kinds of buyer’s remorse.

How will this affect the blog? Well, first of all the lack of group breaks will be the biggest change. For the reasons mentioned above, as well as the time and effort it takes to put these together, I just don’t have the resources to keep doing it. Next, my collection focus is going to shift. I am going to finish off the few sets I’ve got in my want list on the side bar. I want to put those to rest. My main focus is going to be the 2011 Gypsy Queen cards that I am still chasing. About 15 autographs, 2 regular back mini’s and some Gypsy Queens … then I may go after the red back mini’s. 2011 GQ will keep me busy for some time for sure. I also plan on going back to the first Colt 45 set of cards, getting organized and starting to look at what cards I need for each team set of Astros Topps cards from club inception to current. Other than that, it’ll be a lot of posts from COMC/eBay. My trade bait will most likely dwindle, and hell I may end up just sending some of these cards out to those of you who I know collect certain teams with the hope that you will send something back in due time. There is trade bait I’ve been sitting on for more than a year, it’s not bait then, it’s dead weight. It’ll become someone else’s card soon enough… hahaha…

For the loyal participants in the group breaks, you don’t know how much it means to me that you all put your money in my hands, and then watched those hands fondle all your cards. I was ecstatic to pull some awesome cards over the last couple of years. The 1/1 Gallardo bat knob coming to mind as one of our best pulls. I loved seeing the excited comments of those who got a hit or card that they were genuinely happy about receiving, cards that I knew would go into a personal collection. I was happy to see cards end up in the hands of guys and girls like myself, who just wanted great cards of players and teams that they collect. I generally feel that all the participants from my breaks enjoyed the breaks, and I tried to be as accommodating as possible. I know I never really busted any of the crazy stuff out there like National Treasure but I like to think I picked stuff that the general audience would want to bust. I hope you have enjoyed the ride.

I’ve done my fair share of moaning and complaining. Topps just doesn’t respond to my twitter rants any more, and probably rightfully so. As an Astros fan, I don’t matter to them. My pockets aren’t as deep as those fans of major market teams. Topps won’t even notice the lack of my money in their coffers, because realistically whatever I don’t buy will just end up being ripped by some other guy out there. But as I mentioned above, COMC and eBay sellers will start seeing more from me. Change is a good thing, and change is coming to this blog. It will probably mean less frequent posts, but hopefully higher quality.

Thanks for those who actually read all this, I love the community we have here online. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I will still be active and still be reading. Not going anywhere! 

Dimwit out...

GYPSY QUEEN GROUP BREAK UPDATE & Redemption

Hey everyone, I sent an e-mail to all group break participants in the 2013 Gypsy Queen Case Break asking for some basic info. If you could please double check your e-mail and let me know if you did not get an e-mail from me, I'll resend if you'll provide me with a valid e-mail link. My email:  samuelpair@yahoo.com. If you did get the e-mail from me, please just read it through and respond so I can record your answer!

There is only 1 team left in the break! Miami Marlins for $15 as of today. So, if you want the Marlins hurry up and claim them! The price will drop to $10 on April 1st and if they aren't claimed by the GQ release date then I'll keep 'em!

Oh yea, I got this in the mail today, a redemption redeemed from Panini:

It's numbered /25... I just wish it was a better subject, it's a sweet looking card. I'm still due one more redemption from them. I was hoping this one and the one I'm owed would go unfulfilled so I could trade them in for a Texans card or two, but Josh Cooper had to go signing stickers!

Also, for those in my 2013 Topps Series 1 break, I'm still waiting for the Silver Slate redemption cards... both for this break and the personal ones I sent in. So maybe I didn't get them in fast enough, or Topps is being slow on shipping... we'll see...

Alright, good night everyone!

No, you check out MY cards... Part 6...

COMC has really upped their game since the latest re-design of their site and reformat of their shipping policy. It makes it a lot easier to get the bulk of cards that you want without paying out the nose on shipping. They have provided me absolutely no compensation for saying this, I just love the site.

Today I have a bit of a tribute to pitching, the Nolan and Sandy kind of pitching: strikeouts and no-hitters!

What an awesome dual relic of Oswalt and Nolan Ryan. Great card! The Classic Singles has a nice dark blue swatch from Nolan's Astros days and I couldn't be more happy with it. Surprisingly, this is my first "vintage" Sandy Koufax card. No, the condition isn't perfect but then again I'm not one of those guys who gets all up-tight about condition when it comes to vintage, in fact I'm more of a fan of the vintage card that has been shown a little love. This will go in my Astros vintage binder since Cuellar is #2 in ERA on this card, but the real star of this card to me is Koufax.

I'll wrap these posts up tomorrow with a couple of awesome cards of lesser known Astros... oh wait, all Astros are lesser known... haha!

No! YOU Check Out MY Cards!... Part 5

I really like these series of posts... I love showing off my COMC purchases... so, today we have some Roger Clemens awesomeness...

I am a huge Roger fan and I can care less what has been said about him. He was a great Astro the couple years he was here. OK, so the cards... top row, could it get any more awesome? I love having Pettitte/Clemens dual cards. They were such great friends and they helped bring a World Series to town. The relics on the top left card are cool and all, but they pale in comparison to the patch madness on the right. Upper Deck may have screwed themselves on the whole MLB license deal, but for a while they produced some pretty awesome cards (even if the validity of the "game-used" tag is questionable). Bottom row, got a nice pin stripe on the far left of the SP Reflections card, even if it seems to be a blue Yankee stripe... and then the Pristine is "Uncommon" but still #'ed /200. Not too shabby.

Have a great Tuesday... stay tuned for tomorrow, I have some flame-throwing pitchers to show off!

No, YOU check out MY cards... Part 4

Bagwell and Berkman will go down, in my mind at least, as the best 2 first-basemen in Astros history. Berkman did play OF for a while but eventually settled in a 1B. Bagwell ranks only behind Biggio and Ryan for me. A great player and a great guy. So here are some cards I picked up:

The two Sterlings are even more awesome in person and each numbered /199. Sweet lookin' cards! The only thing I'd change about the Stellar Stat Men would be the picture, it's too grey-scale, you can barely see it. A great 4-some of cards!

Two More Blasters of Heroes and Legends

So, after the Jim Lovell success the other day, the wife and I decided to pick up a couple more blasters of Heroes and Legends just for the heck of it... I was pretty happy with the results:

Amazingly, Charles Duke has an Apollo 11 connection as well, as he was the CAPCOM (capsule communicator) in Mission Control who spoke directly with the astronauts onboard the crippled ship. He hater became the youngest astronaut to step foot on the moon at age 32... I turned 32 last year... boy am I a loser... haha!

As for Sally Ride, what can I say that hasn't already been said, a pioneer and a great advocate for science education. Awesome card. Looking at the checklists, it looks like I've gotten pretty fortunate over the last 3 blasters to get 3 NASA/astronaut relics. There are a lot of soccer, Olympic and other pop culture cards in there. I may have to look out for sales on Hobby Boxes for this stuff.

If anyone has base cards, I'm about a dozen short of the complete set, send me an e-mail and we can exchange numbers. I have plenty of base dupes if anyone is looking for anything from this set. Thanks!

No, YOU Check Out MY Cards... Part 3

Well, here we go with part 3... which will feature a couple cards of Morgan Ensberg:

The card on the left is a trifecta! Rookie, auto and jersey! Had to pick it up on the cheap! On the right, we have the aptly named "Awesome Artifacts" set card of Morgan with a huge pinstriped swatch of jersey. Numbered /45, from my experience these are one per case. Pretty cool card and I was very happy with the final price I paid on it.

Tomorrow we'll take a look at some Astros first-basemen. Have a great Sunday everyone!

No, YOU check out MY Cards - Part 2

Ok, so I showed off some basic Topps inserts yesterday... today you get 2011 Gypsy Queen!

Three more autographs to add to my collection. I have found a semi-official checklist of 43 autographs. It encompasses all the ones that I've seen or know are in the set distribution. So with these three (plus the one at the end of this post, I am up to 27 out of 43.

Not too shabby, picked each of these up for under $5 each. 

Next, one of the inserts I'm still chasing... I only have one more "regular" back Queen to get, and a handful of the "Tarot Back" inserts as well.

This wasn't part of my COMC purchase, but it is a GQ auto I needed!

This was an eBay pick up and for the price I paid, I wish I had bought it a year and a half ago when Sale was still a relative unknown. Oh well, I am glad I have it in my collection now!

Finally, the wife and I picked up a blaster of Americana Heroes and Legends last night in a moment of weakness, and boy am I glad we did. Check out what I hit in it:

I am a space nerd, as evidenced by my Gene Kranz auto/relic. Jim Lovell is awesome, the guy who piloted the crippled Apollo 13 capsule back to Earth, and sadly the guy who never made it to the moon. This is an instant keeper in my collection! I love these astronaut relics. The one thing I wish Panini did was explain if this was a space program related piece of fabric or if it was just a piece of clothing worn by Jim Lovell. Either way, it's cool to me!

A Little Series Known As "No, You Check Out MY Cards"

So, I have been putting more and more money into COMC.com as I find it to be basically a clearinghouse of cards that I want at prices I'm willing to pay without the haggling or bidding process known as eBay. I got a shipment in yesterday and I'll be showing it off in various stages... today's group of cards: 2013 Topps Inserts.

Got the die-cuts and "The Greats" inserts a lot cheaper than I thought I would. The Rasmus was a throw in when I got down to having very little money left. Not too shabby. This "The Greats" set is going to be a pain to piece together, since they were such difficult hobby pulls to begin with.

Speaking of "The Greats" insert set, I pulled off an eBay auction win the other day for a relic card from this insert, where the subject doesn't actually have a card in the insert set. Imagine that Topps! How about you make the relic set a parallel of the insert set and vice versa... geez... alright, here's the glorious card I procured!

Bask in it's glory. It's #13/25 and it's MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE!!!!!!!! The day after I bought this one, another one sold for half of what I paid for mine... but I'm not bitter... Love the picture they used! Classic Biggio. Just wish there was an insert in the set to match it. Maybe series 2...

Finally, I got a trade in from a twitter trader... picked up a /80 Jonathan Singleton autograph from Tristar:

I probably over-paid for it, but it's a nice looking card for sure!

Thanks for stopping by!

Group Break Box #2

Here's the video:


As always, scans after the page break:

Group Break Interrupted

This group break is hereby interrupted by some awesome cards my wife, the Hotwit, pulled. She, as you all know, is a big Hollywood collector. Dave and Adams had a bunch of their 2011 Donruss Americana products on sale. So with some of her fun money, she picked up 5 blaster boxes and 2 hobby boxes... here's the loot:

Wow, lots of movie poster relics. The vibrant blue swatches you see are all Grace Kelly, not a bad haul. She's featured on dual relics with Cary Grant and Gary Cooper, not bad company either; all numbered  out of 499. The pale green swatch is the one and only Marilyn Monroe, hers is numbered out of just 350! Next up, two Gregory Peck brown swatches, with the dual relic being with Audrey Hepburn. Finally, a highlight since she's such a Gone With The Wind fan, a Vivian Leigh dual relic with Marlon Brando! Nice!

Josie Davie and Selma Blair autos, not too shaby, the Matinee Legends are VERY nice especially since they are numbered /49 and /25 respectively. Who the hell is Barry Pearl? And Katie Hoff rounds out the autographs out of these boxes. She really loved opening this stuff, if anyone has spare movie poster relics for trade, let me know as she'd love to get more!

And The Group Break Begins!!!

The boxes showed up today and my apartment manager's office happened to be open still when we pulled in the complex at 6pm... so I got the boxes and here's the first video - 2005 Topps Cracker Jack:

Scans of the hits after the page break:

A Redemption Arrives

So about a week ago, I noticed the status on one of my many Topps redemptions had changed from "Pending" to "Shipped". Oddly, there was no confirmation number, I kept checking back in and no updates, and no card in the mail. So I sent a few e-mails to Topps Customer Service, nothing happened (surprise surprise). Finally, out of irritation I sent a tweet to @toppscards. They hilariously responded, if you follow me on twitter, you probably saw the conversation. For those of you not following me on twitter, why not? (@thedimwit).

So, they said to DM them with my phone number (which means they had to follow me, SCORE!) and yesterday afternoon I got a call personally from Vince at Topps Customer Support. Vince explained that when it changes to "Shipped" it just means they've shipped it to their "Fulfillment Center" a.k.a. "Tristar Fullfillment Services". And that Tristar would then provide the tracking number once shipped. So I figured I had a couple more weeks to wait...

Ironically, when I got home yestereday from work, there in my mailbox was a little yellow envelope from Tristar Fulfillment Services... just sayin', there is still no tracking number in Topps.com's redemption site... ok, so here's the card I got yesterday:

Not too shabby. Semi-legible auto, great condition on the card, no smudges or bent corners. I don't know this Derek Norris guy, other than I know he went from Washington to Oakland in the Gio Gonzalez deal. But I'm sure with the Astros' move to the AL West this year that I'll get to see this guy play against us a bit. It is firmly in the trade bait category, so all you A's fans out there: I expect a bidding war. Haha!

A Trade With Matt

Matt over at Cardboard Conundrum and I recently completed a trade that involved a bunch of hockey and Cubs stuff headed to North Dakota and a bunch of Texans heading back down here to Texas:

Crick was a rookie and got valuable experience down the stretch due to some injuries. Casey is a Rice product who is a hybrid FB/TE and who I really hope the Texans re-sign this off-season. I asked for the Schaub/Johnson card because they are the best QB-WR combo I think Houston will see for a VERY long time. This is my first Schaub single relic as well. Finally, I feel I need to justify picking up the David Carr card. I have great memories of David Carr, mainly his first game as a Texan, the great defeat of "America's Team" (don't ask me, I didn't get a vote). I wanted to have at least one of his cards in my collection, and this one was pretty cool as it has not only 2 different jersey swatches, but also a cool piece of his game-used HELMET! How cool is that?

Thanks for another great trade Matt! Hopefully I can restock on hockey and Cubs cards fast enough to get more again some time soon!

March Group Break 2nd Team Randomization

Here we go everyone...

1) Chris - Atlanta
2) peterson - Baltimore
3) Matt Perry - Boston
4) jaybarkerfan - Chi Cubs
5) JediJeff - Chi White Sox
6) Joe Average Card Collector - Colorado
7) Baseball Dad - Cleveland
8) The Dimwit - Houston
9) Spiegel83 - LA Dodgers
10) Jeffrey - NY Yankees
11) The Dutch Card Guy - NY Mets
12) Madding - St. Louis
13) Play At The Plate - Texas
14) buckstorecards - Toronto
15) CaptKirk42 - Washington

Here's the randomization:

 1) Chris - Atlanta & Arizona
2) peterson - Baltimore & Oakland
3) Matt Perry - Boston & San Francisco
4) jaybarkerfan - Chi Cubs & Detroit
5) JediJeff - Chi White Sox & Minnesota
6) Joe Average Card Collector - Colorado & Pittsburgh
7) Baseball Dad - Cleveland & Cincinnati
8) The Dimwit - Houston & Philadelphia
9) Spiegel83 - LA Dodgers & LA Angels
10) Jeffrey - NY Yankees & Milwaukee
11) The Dutch Card Guy - NY Mets & Tampa
12) Madding - St. Louis & Miami
13) Play At The Plate - Texas & San Diego
14) buckstorecards - Toronto & Kansas City
15) CaptKirk42 - Washington & Seattle

Dave and Adams apparently overlooked our order somehow and it didn't ship on Wednesday when I ordered it, I had to complain Friday and they said it mistakenly didn't make it to the shipping department some how. So boxes will be in some time this week. Hopefully I can pick them up from my apartment office before Friday, but if not then the first box will definitely go up some time Friday evening. But that gives everyone all week to trade teams!!!! So trade away in the comments below!!!!

Thanks everyone!

Mail Day, A Mistake At Target and A Contest

First up, mail... two packages in today... one from eBay, one from a blogger... first, ebay:

Another GQ auto in the book... this makes 26 out of the 48-ish on the un-official checklist... slowly going to get there... then pray someone accidentally ships me a Koufax, Aaron and Ripken... 

Next up, Adam from My Cardboard Mistress. We had been trying to hammer out a deal for a long time... and finally he pulled something I could use!!!!

How about the elusive 2013 Astros hit????? I stalked a few of these online before Adam pulled this beauty! He also sent along a bunch of Astros and a bunch of Texans... great stuff Adam, you're awesome.

Ok, so this next part I'm a bit ashamed of... I had sworn off Heritage after the checklist showed absolutely no Astros outside of the base cards... and the planned Astros/Colt .45's SP set was scrapped because Topps was too freakin CHEAP! Seriously, they apparently didn't have enough of our money to get the job done. Geesh... well, in the series 1 blasters there was a coupon book and being thrifty, I figured why the hell not... and now I think, Why the hell did I do that??? Here's the inserts from my box:

David Price is Chrome refractor /564. Most exciting card in the box for me... I did pick up 3 of the Astros from the base set: Dominguez, Lyles and Lowrie (yea, the guy is now with the A's, awesome). Anyways, here's the deal... I picked up 3 of the short prints (one of them is a red border and is a SP number). It's contest time...

You get one guess per day, I will reply to your comment if you get 1 or 2 correct but I will not say which one you got correct, if you don't guess any correct, I won't leave a comment.. guess which three players' SP cards I got. The first commenter to put the pieces together and get all three will win the entire stack of cards from my blaster and 2 gravity feed packs that I bought (87 cards total). If no one guesses them all by next Friday, then I'll just keep these cards and use them as trade filler... have fun!

Trade Night and Mail

First of all, there is one slot left in my March Group Break. Go snag it... now...

Ok, now that you have come back it's time to show off some cards.

Saturday was trade night at the LCS, and I had a blogger buddy guest show up: Wes from JayBarkerFan's Junk made the trek from Northern Alabama. If you read his blog, he's been showing off the ridiculous number of cards he picked up while he was down here in Mobile. Wes seemed to have a pretty good time. I did too, here's the highlights of my loot:

I picked up a hobby box of Topps Magic. By the end of the box, I regretted it. I now have (2) Andre Roberts autographs.... joy... if I had remembered that Wes was a Cardinals fan, I would have ninja-star tossed this card across the tables to him, maybe it'll be in my next package headed his way.

Another tale of regret, I bought a few packs of Donruss Elite Edition.

The lack of a license is killing this product. Hopefully MLB gives one to Panini soon because the overall feel of the cards is great and the Bruce Maxwell is actually an on-card auto. Not too shabby...

Alright, next is a random package from Jeff over at 2x3 Heroes. I'm not sure what he was thinking other than to add some padding to the package for the Gold Bougesevic.

Auto of Peter Tom Willis, why? Why Jeff?!?!!?! I got another of these gold Bogusevics at trade night. So I now own at least 2 of the 2013 out there... thanks Jeff!

Finally, a trade with twitter follower @jeffgehringer. We worked on a trade for a few days, I was distracted in Houston with the funeral of my grandmother and finally got a deal completed upon my return to Mobile:

Cosart! Awesome... a couple relics of DeVier Posey, can't complain as long as he recovers from the Achillies tendon rupture. Keshawn Martin auto /99: SWEET! But what I'm most excited about is the Andre Johnson RC! I've wanted one for a while and Jeff was more than willing to part with it! Thanks Jeff #2 of this post! 

Alright! Thanks for stopping by everyone! The group break cards, hopefully, will be here by the end of the week. If not, it'll probably be next Friday before I can get to the apartment office to pick up my packages! So, we'll see how it goes. I tried to time the order so that they'd get here this Friday. Oh well.

March Group Break Update

Boxes are ordered and on the way. If you haven't made payment, please do so.

One spot left for the taking! If no one claims it by Friday morning, I will take it. Thanks guys!

March Group Break - Sign Ups Are FULL!!!

Alright, I've got two great products this month:

2005 - Topps Cracker Jack - Two Hits Per Box - Parallels and fun surprises!

2004 Donruss Diamond Kings - Two More hits - this set is all about the artwork.

I am doing a bit of a smaller break this month, with the BIG Case Break coming up next month. This will be the normal (2) teams for $15 - one your pick, the second randomized. Normal rules apply for team claiming: Leave a comment on this post. Once 15 slots are full, I will randomize the second teams. Any teams that have moved will go to the current incarnation. All multi-player base cards will be randomized among the teams on the card. 

Please make payment as a gift via Paypal to samuelpair(at)yahoo(dot)com

Alright, claim away!

Arizona - 

Atlanta - Chris Mays - PAID

Baltimore -peterson- PAID 

Boston - Matt Perry - PAID 

Chicago Cubs - jaybarkerfan- PAID

Chicago White Sox - JediJeff - PAID

Colorado - Joe Average Card Collector - PAID

Cleveland - Baseball Dad - PAID

Cincinnati - 

Detroit - 

Houston - The Dimwit - PAID

Kansas City - 

Los Angeles Dodgers - Spiegel83 - PAID

Los Angeles Angels -

Minnesota - 

Milwaukee - 

Miami - 

New York Yankees - Jeffrey - PAID

New York Mets - The Dutch Card Guy - PAID

Oakland - 

Pittsburgh - 

Philadelphia - 

Seattle - 

St. Louis - madding - PAID

San Francisco - 

San Diego - 

Tampa - 

Texas - Play At The Plate

Toronto - buckstorecards-PAID 

Washington - CaptKirk42 - PAID