More and more trades... and a sweet purchase...

Well, I'll make this short and sweet! It's been a busy couple of mail days... First of all I'll show off two cards that I had Mike from Bad Wax put together for me... freakin' sweet... the Scott will be my first attempt at TTM since I was a kid. Thanks Mike!!!!

Next up are two cards from a recent trade with Larry over at Sewing Machine Guy. I sent him a slew of Heritage and a Torri Hunter relic card. In return I got these two beauts... and let me tell ya, that Chris Johnson card is all kinds of shiny and just plain awesome! Thanks Larry!!!! (By the way, your opinion about the "bonus packs" in blasters is shared by this Dimwit, I'll never understand it...).

Finally, over on Shot Not Taken Ray put together a bunch of trade bait lists, most notably one of some Hollywood memorabilia cards. My wife collects the Hollywood stuff so if any of you out there have anything to trade, let me know! We put together a bit of a mega deal, with me receiving 3 Hollywood cards for my wife, a Jay Austin auto (boy does he need to practice his signature) and a couple of Minnesota Twins trade bait cards. Rhubarb Runner are you reading?!?!?! Check it out!!!

I also got an ebay package in with 7 bronze Gypsy Queen cards. I debated quite a bit about what I'd do about additional cards that I purchased myself, and how it would affect the contest. Finally I decided that they wouldn't have any bearing on the giveaway at all. For all the cards that I get from you readers, you'll get an entry fair and square. For cards I purchase myself, that's just my fault for buying them and not being patient! I think I'm near the halfway point although I haven't really counted them in a while. If anyone has traded some to me and you don't see your name or correct count number in the tally list, please let me know and I'll review my records; please note that I won't post your name or quantity until I have the cards in hand. And come on people, there are great prizes up for grabs!!!!! I'll trade for the bronze borders so you will not only have the chance to win, but you'll get value back as well!

Have a great day everyone!

A trip to Target... benefits galore...

So, the wife and I went to Target amongst many other stops today on a somewhat lazy Sunday. Below are the spoils... enjoy... much trade bait for those who are interested...

A benfactor from Skokie...

To the anonymous benefactor by the initials "JM" from Skokie, Illinois: thank you very much. An unexpected and welcomed package showed up in my mail box today and I couldn't have been happier to open it up to find 51 cards from my 1978 Topps need list. I know I had a person or two say they'd send me some cards in exchange for nothing, but I certainly wasn't expecting this many! Thanks for the great cards and they already look great in the binder! Only about 180 cards left to complete the entire set! Getting so very close! Thanks to "JM" for helping me well along the way! If there's every anything you need, please let me know!

It's trade time... Mail Day and some trade bait!

I've got three mega deals to show off, then some mega bait!!! Without further ado...

First up is Michael from Nomo's Sushi Platter... this is our first deal but hopefully not our last! I sent him some Gypsy Queen Dodgers and a Brett Butler cut auto. In return he sent me a slew of Astros base cards and then this thing of beauty:

That's going in my Astros collection even though it lists him as a Phillie. A sweet printing plate, it'll look nice next to my 2010 A&G Lance Berkman black printing plate! Thanks Michael.

Onward (I know you're only here for the trade bait, but I'll get to that, don't make me put in a jump break!!!) next we have another great trade from Derek over at Tomahawk Chopping. Coincidentally, I just noticed that he had the nerve to go and get married on the exact same date as my wife and I did last year!!!! Haha! Congrats, I now have a blogger AND wedding-anniversary-sharing friend... oh ain't life grand! Especially when cards like these come in the mail:

This is the second trade we've pulled off, and we're working on a third as he persistently attempts to pull the Rickey Henderson card from my collection! Can't wait to post that trade as well!

The third and final trade is with my good buddy David (aka Rhubarb Runner) who's blog title name is unpronounceable and thus I won't try to type it. I think it's Latin for "I SEND AWESOME TRADE PACKAGES" but I cannot confirm that as I only really know English... back to the cards... months ago David teased me by sending the redemption card he pulled for a 2010 Bowman Platinum Chris Johnson auto/relic. Well, after months of waiting, I got it!!!! Along with some other Gypsy Queen needs and some more UD 20th Anniversary Cards in exchange for some more Twins goodness sent his way! Thanks David!

That brings my Gypsy Queen 1-300 base needs down to 2 cards! Woo-hoo!!!

Alright alright, you people want trade bait, well here you go, not everyone at once now...

The local card shop had a big bin of game-used and autos marked 50% off so I delved in and spent my weekly $20 on these three plus a couple for my personal collection. The Dawson is pretty sweet if I say so myself! The Perry I got mainly because of those powder blue uniforms Texas used to have and I just KNOW someone is going to be all over that Fielder/Pujols combo!

Have a great weekend everyone! Looks like lots of yard work for me, as we finally got some rain!

Quick Trade Post - Ryan H!

I got one package in the mail today... from Ryan H. (yes, there are multiple Ryan's out there and it's confusing the hell out of me when they all try to trade with me at once... I'm a dimwit I tell ya, I can't handle such things!!!!). He runs the blog "O" No!!! Another Orioles Blog. He admittedly lured me into a trade by offering up a bronze bordered Evan Longoria, he also offered up a couple SP's and an insert or two.... finally, he sent along an additional 13 UD 20th Anniversary cards (good googaly moogaly it's going to take me forever to put this set together), I'm not even 1/4 of the way yet so keep 'em coming!!!!). Well, here are some highlights!

Thanks Ryan! GREAT CARDS!!!!

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!