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!

2013 Topps Allen and Ginter - Box Bust - Pack #16

Here we go, another pack this afternoon...

The Bastille!!! And Teddy Ballgame mini, not too shabby. Bonnie looking great in the blue dress. Bud Selig looking like a big . Boy I really hate they put him in a set, I really don't like him... booo...

Have a great afternoon!

2013 Topps Allen and Ginter - Box Bust - Pack #15

Wow, so we busted our case last night, and if you weren't following on Twitter, you missed out for sure...

I am going to try and get some posts up about what all the Hotwit and I got from our case, but I think those who have seen the twitter feed will agree we got a hot case. With autos supposed to fall one per 49 packs (so about every 2-3 boxes) we went gang busters and got 9 autographs total... it was ridiculous. Some great autos in there as well.

As for pack 15, compared to last night it is very "meh"... :)

But I can't complain too much about an all baseball pack! Seaver twice!

Hope you all have a great day!

Holy crap! I just realized this is my 1000th post on this blog! Wow! Can't believe I've been blogging this much for this long... it's a minor accomplishment, just goes to show you that I have a lot of drivel... :-D