Trade POSTS!!!! Gotta love some tradin'...

Hey everyone, the wife and I just got home from our first Astros game of the season... an embarrassment at the hands of the Reds, apparently Homer Bailey is unstoppable. Needless to say we're old and didn't stay until the end. I got free tickets through an old high school buddy who is now the Astros "Director of Entertainment" which, from the product on the field tonight, I'm assuming he's not in charge of the actual team... GREAT seats though about 10 rows up behind Astros' on-deck circle. I was very happy to yell at Carlos Lee a few times.

Onward, I know you came here to read about trades and not the Astros' latest attempt to deepen their fans' collective shame... so first up we have Ryan G over at "This Card is Cool", who worked his tail off to get me some Astros hits in exchange for a couple of nice mini's from my own boxes, the Bard "leather" and the Victor Martinez sepia tone /99. We built up some more trade material and I also pulled in a 2011 Topps Silk of Michael Cuddyer that I flipped to Rhubarb_Runner (I'll get to that trade later this week, it's a doozie!). So, here's the highlights of my end of the deal:

The Biggio is especially sweet as it is numbered 65/88, the Bagwell is 92/125, both solid hits and great additions to my collection. My Bagwell "hit" collection is pretty low in quantity, so I always appreciate anyone who runs one of these down to send my way. Thanks Ryan!

Next up is my blogger buddy Derek from Tomahawk Chopping, this is the first of two trades we consummated within a weeks time. The second trade should show up later in the week and I'll get that one posted probably around the same times as the previously mentioned trade! This trade involved quite a few cards from my 2011 GQ want list and a couple of bronze bordered cards, so he's the first to officially net entries into the contest! (You didn't think I'd go the entire post without mentioning that right? By the way, even if you send me one that I already have, you still get an entry! I can use duplicates to trade for ones I need!!!) He sent me 18 cards from my want list as well! So, here's what he sent my way:

Vlad and Matt Kemp, I know I've got another Kemp headed my way from the duplicates from the group break, so that'll be one I have available for trade!!!! Thanks Derek!

Next up is Matt Hickes from Cardboard Anathema: he sent a long a nice stack of "Great Ones", "Home Run Heroes" and "Future Stars". Plus a bronze border and an SP, as seen below!

Stupid scanner cut them off... me and the scanner are going to have a serious discussion later tonight and if he doesn't get his act together, he's getting the "Office Space" treatment... Ok, sorry scanner I didn't meant it, just stop cutting off the bottoms of the cards! Great cards, thanks again Matt!

Finally, I present to you a "token of appreciation" card received from one of the greatest-named-blog bloggers, Spankee over at My Cardboard Mistress. He just posted his video of cards from the group break, and gave me some props... he also sent me 2 UD 20th Anniversary cards (yes, I'm still collecting this ridiculous set!) and this great vintage card of a bygone Astros manager:

BY GOLLY IT'S GRADY!!!! Sorry, I feel the need to speak country-fied whenever I see someone named Grady... alright, that's it... it's bed time... goodnight blog-o-sphere... oh yea, on a totally unrelated note, it looks like we're going to be moving... like to another state... like Alabama... this summer... Mobile here we come! That's that "big news" I mentioned a few weeks back, life is about to get crazy!!!!

My wife is entirely too good to me...

So we went to Target for Mother's Day stuff (mom, if you're reading this, don't watch the video because I totally say what you're getting... you've been warned!!!!!). Anyways, I was checking out and my wife wonders over to the baseball card aisle and grabs me some goodies. A pseudo half serious/half joking argument ensues and I'm sure the guy on the security cam or any employee who overheard us thinks we're insane. She was using her personal "fun money" (money we set aside to just buy whatever we personally want) to get me stuff and I didn't want her to spend it that way... but ultimately she won out and bought these for me... enjoy the video and I say again that my wife is too good to me and I adore her...


The WANT and FOR TRADE lists have been updated. I ended up getting some cards that were already in trade packages headed my way, so when I physically get those I will get those added to the FOR TRADE list as well. All the green borders are for trade, as well as the hit... can't believe I pulled another...

Trade with Napkin Doon and Baseball Cards Rule... Site Updates

I set up a couple of trades during the week and got the cards in... in the scan below, the top three cards come from Napkin Doon. The Oswalt and Pettitte were featured on his trade bait post and I was able to get them both, along with some additional Astros like the SWEEEEET Biggio card shown, for the Josh Hamilton bat relic I pulled from Gypsy Queen. Very nice cards! Thanks Napkin! The bottom card is a Cracker Jack Berkman relic from Ben over at BaseballCardsRule that I got in exchange for the Oswalt jersey card I pulled from the group break Ovation box. I already had that relic card, so getting it in the break made it a duplicate and was able to trade it to a fellow Astros blogger. Thanks Ben!

At this point I now have almost 2 full 8-pocket pages of Berkman relics and a full page of Oswalt relics. I think I may go ahead and shut down acquiring any more of these two players' relics; although I am still open to trading for either of these guys' autographs, of which I have ZERO. Also, I'm done with Carlos Lee. No offense to anyone except him, but I have no desire for any more of his cards, no matter how nice, shiny or full of relics and autos they are. He's an albatross of a contract and the bane of my collecting existence.

I also picked up another 1/1 card recently... as you can see below... this is my second 1/1 Richard Nixon card from Masterpieces. Jeff from I Am Joe Collector pulled another 1/1 of Nixon in his latest case, and I would have LOVED to add it as well to my collection, but alas I don't think it's in my price range. If anyone wants to buy it, and let me trade for it from you I'd be more than willing!!!! He has the Red Border 1/1 currently, and now I own the Blue Border 1/1 and the Artist Proof 1/1.

I also got in my cards from Nachos Grande's Gypsy Queen Group Break. He offered up his final four unclaimed teams: Astros, Royals, Blue Jays and Angels at a discount so I went for it. I got a few cards I needed for my overall set, including an SP. I also got a Hunter Pence bronze border! Astro and Bronze, gotta love it! Thanks for the great break Chris!

I did a little bit of organizing as well today and yesterday, cleaning out 2007 Bowman Heritage from the "need list section" and from the corresponding binder. I just don't think I was going to get the rest of that set through trade and I'm not quite motivated to buy the remaining cards, so unless someone happens upon the want list by searching the blog, I'm not going to worry about completing it at this point.

I also have decided to only collect the Kimball Mini's inserts from 2011 Topps and have reduced my want list to only those cards. That will also free up a lot of inserts FOR TRADE, so keep an eye out for my 2011 Topps available spreadsheet to come soon.

Finally, I have added a separate area in the side bar that links to my AVAILABLE FOR TRADE cards. I started using Google Docs spreadsheets and I LOVE them. Easy to use, update on the fly and share live. Currently I only need to add my 2011 Topps cards which are available. I should be able to get those up today or tomorrow. I will be getting more and more of these spreadsheets up as time goes along and I get organized a bit.

Also, a quick reminder about my current contest running on the blog! You know this will be pimped on pretty much every post from now until the contest concludes, so the faster you all help me, the less you'll have to read about it! Hahaha!

Have a great weekend and Mother's Day!

2011 Gypsy Queen FOR TRADE List and CONTEST ANNOUNCEMENT!

Wow, alright everyone... I spend a large part of my morning putting a Google spreadsheet together with my 2011 "FOR TRADE" Gypsy Queen checklist.

I updated my "want list" on the side bar with the cards that I got from the card shop yesterday as well as from trades that I'm expecting in the mail within a day or two. Amazingly I'm down to just 5 base cards needed!!! One of which is Nolan Ryan's Rangers base card, which Brian over at Play At The Plate is sending back to me from the group break (because he got duplicates and he's awesome like that), so once I get that I really only have 4 base cards left! Woo hoo!!!! Additionally, in looking through my cards I realized I wasn't too far from completing all three of the insert sets (Home Run Heroes, Future Stars and Great Ones) so I went ahead and added those to the want list as well.

CONTEST TIME!!!!!!

Alright, so that leaves me with the following plea and contest... I am trying to put together the bronze border 100 card set numbered to 999 per card. I currently have 20, so I'm 1/5 of the way there... plus Brian is sending back a Ryan bronze border duplicate as well, so that'll be 21. There is a need list on the side bar, actually more of a "this is what I have" list but you get the point. I will trade for these cards and be more than fair with the trades, as you can see from my "For Trade" spreadsheet, I have plenty of cards to send from this set! However, I am also going to run a contest "Nachos Grande" style. Chris, I hope you don't mind me stealing your concept a bit... it's a great idea and I'm standing on the shoulders of a giant in running my contest this way...

Just like his contest, each card you trade or send my way will get you an entry into the contest. Once my 100 card set is complete, I will be giving away 3 prizes.

Third Prize will be a jersey/auto card from your favorite team that  I have in my collection. If I don't have a card from your team, I'll go out and get one for you. 

Second Prize will be this card:

And finally, the GRAND PRIZE... a card I pulled a few weeks ago and tried to sell on eBay but got no offers surprisingly... Certainly it should draw some interest here:

Well, hopefully that is enough to entice some trade offers on the bronze border cards! I will trade for each and every one of these you have, but of course if you just feel like sending me some of these merely for the contest entry, I'm totally OK with that. Please let me know what you're sending ahead of time so I can update my want list accordingly! With the one Brian is sending me from his group break duplicates, that's 1 entry! Derek over at Tomahawk Chopping has two in the mail headed my way in a trade, so he unknowingly gets 2 entries! I'll get a sidebar tally going after I post this. Let me know if you have any questions!

Lookie what I found on my way home from work...

I had to stop by my local card shop to grab some pages for my binders... and well I just so happened to find a few packs of Gypsy Queen at the local card shop and I couldn't resist... here are a couple of highlights... two "hits" out of three packs...

Yep, that's a "leather" Mickey Mantle #'ed 10/10. I've put it up on eBay but if there are any bloggers out there who want to make an offer for it, I can take it down as long as it hasn't sold.

This card is another one in my long history of pulling not only just Dodger cards, but also Matt Kemp cards. Of course, this one is for trade. Have a great day!

I got hooked on Gypsy Queen...

After the group break last week, I was solidly hooked on Gypsy Queen. I wanted more... I know, I sound like an addict... I have admitted this... well, three boxes later I'm left with nearly a complete set and a nice stack of hits... I don't have video, because the shop owner wanted to watch and see what I got, so I opened them all there at the shop and he hooked me up with a bunch of supplies for spending so much money... So, first of all, let's go with the mini's:

The top scan shows the front of course... the Gonzalez and Bard are "leather" print cards #'ed out of /10. Then the Victor Martinez is sepia toned #'ed out of /99. Then there is the sweet 1/1 Print plate. I REALLY love the way they did the printing plates this year, they are very nice looking with the borders overlaid on the plate. Finally the bottom row are the "hobby exclusive" variant minis from the mini-boxes. Again, pretty nice. Next up is the bronze border parallels (needless to say I had much better luck with these than in the group break):

I'm a bit confused after going and looking at the sell sheet (which we know that Topps liberally deviated from). If you have any to trade, let me know. Since they do only go to card #100, I want to complete the entire set. For those in my break who got multiple cards of the same player, I'm definitely interested in trading for those duplicates. Finally, we have the hits which also turned out rather well for me:

Needless to say, much better than the group break. As for the relics, 3 HOF'ers and an MVP are nice, then the redemption auto for Frank Robinson to top it off. Cashner seemed to have signed about 10,000 of these cards because I've seen them pop up everywhere, including the group break. Neftali and Nolasco are solid auto's. Of course with only 9 hits in three boxes, I was short 3 hits, so I have mailed those UPC's off as well for redemption from Topps. We'll see how this goes. All hits and mini's are up for trade. I have a bunch of red-back mini's, and of course 9 mini's of the "insert" sets available as well. Not to mention that I have a BUNCH of duplicates at this point for trade of the base and (3) SP's for trade as well.

I'm a total of 36 SP's and 22 base cards from set completion, so if there is anyone out there looking to make a swap to clear out each other's needs, let me know.

Have a great Wednesday!

And now for something completely different!

So the wife and I traveled to Austin, TX this weekend and saw our favorite band, The Decemberists, in concert for the third time since we started dating. She had been a fan for a long time, but she had never seen them live until after we got together. We've now seen them here in Houston and traveled to Austin and New York City (where I later proposed) to see them. This show may very well have been the best, because they finally played our favorite song. A 9 minute sea shanty called "The Mariner's Revenge Song". No, this has nothing to do with that team from Seattle, but rather the old time pirate-y mariners... enjoy this interpretation...


And yes, I pre-posted this on Sunday and accidentally posted it live... then took it down... and then re-scheduled it for Tuesday... so, for most of you this will be "new" and for the rest you may have seen it briefly on Sunday... oops... they don't call me the dimwit for nothing!

Trade and Group Break Results from BA-Benny!

Mike from BA Benny and I have had all kinds of epic trades going back and forth between Houston and New York. Well, the cards shown below are the highlights of our latest trade! (Mike your cards are in the mail in the morning!)

That's a black border from this year of Keppinger numbered to 60, then an Oswalt jersey card and then the grand centerpiece of the trade, the Jason Castro signature from Razor, very nice! I threw in a few other cards from the trade. Hopefully Mike will enjoy the cards I'm sending his way as much as I'm enjoying mine! Thanks again Mike, another great trade!

Next up, a smattering of cards from his group break... one of the most awesome group breaks I've been a part of. Every time I refreshed my Google Reader, it seemed there was another video from Mike opening packs (of course except for that period of time his computer crashed, but not his fault... haha!) Thanks for the group break Mike, it was great!

I am fairly certain that I can say that I didn't have any of the above cards before this break! Great job Mike and can't wait for your next break!

Have a great week everyone!

2011 Topps Series 2 Want List

GREEN = PENDING TRADE


Base:
DONE!



Kimball Mini's:
83, 80, 76, 67, 58

SP Variations: Nolan Ryan

I will trade for ANY Astros base parallel.

Inserts:
Any Astros SILK card.
Any Nolan Ryan insert/auto/relic.
Jumbo Relic: T60JR-HP Hunter Pence
Nolan Ryan Glove Leather manufactured
Any other Astros featured in the manu-patches

Updated 11/27/2011

Product Review Time! Thanks to EasyCanvasPrints.com!

As some of you may have noticed recently, I gained an additional blog sponsor with EasyCanvasPrints.com!!!!!

My wife and I had been talking for a while about getting a canvas print from our wedding to adorn and empty wall in the home. Well, this opportunity was just too great to pass up! After a couple of e-mails we agreed to pay for some of the shipping in order to get the print size that we wanted. Also, I had to track down our wedding photographer to get better resolution prints to use, as the originals we had were too low res. Well, needless to say it turned out great.

First of all, I'll go over the website interface. It honestly couldn't have been easier to put together the print that we wanted. First we chose the 30"x40" size photo print because we wanted a larger than usual photo. Then, we chose the 1.5" thick border and the picture wrapped border. Again, every step was easily laid out and couldn't have been easier to select the options that we wanted. We went through our catalog of photos, several hundred and finally picked the one wanted and uploaded it. The final step was to crop and move it onto the template so it would be laid out exactly how we wanted it.

Overall, the design process was an A+.

Shipping was next. It was ordered on Tuesday the 26th, and promised by May 7th. However, they did an amazing job and our print shipped on Friday with expected FedEx delivery by the 2nd. FedEx outdid themselves and actually delivered it yesterday! We were out of town (in Austin at The Decemberists concert, it was awesome) but my in-laws stopped by our house and picked it up off our porch. The only think I wish I had done is set it up for "signature required delivery" but that's because I live in the ghetto and have had stuff stolen off our porch before! My mistake, not theirs. It all worked out though and when we got back in town this afternoon we had to stop by the in-laws' house to pick up our dog and package!

Upon opening up the box, we were pleasantly surprised to see exactly how much padding and shipping prep was done to insure there was no damage to the canvas print. First there was bundled butcher paper protecting all four corners, then there was bubble wrap encompassing the entire print, and finally there was saran-style plastic wrap enveloping the entire print. It was all done in such a way as to protect the product from pretty much any shipping obstacle.

Overall, shipping was another A+.

Finally, we get to the actual product. Here it is fresh out of the box:

And to give a bit of perspective, here's a picture of it with me standing next to it!

It came out great! It was solid and sturdy. The canvas stapled to the frame all around the inner frame and the resolution was amazing. Truly a great job by EasyCanvasPrints.com. If you ever have a need for a canvas print, I wouldn't hesitate for a second to head to their website and start my order. This is one site that definitely lives up to it's name!

For the actual product, my wife and I give it an A+. We are completely satisfied and grateful for the chance to work with this company and provide you readers the chance to see their work. Thanks again to the team at EasyCanvasPrints.com!!!