2011 Spring Training TTM Success(es) #2 (and #3)

I got these on Friday the 25th of February!

Koji is a good TTM signer. I got him on a custom I made about a year and a half a go that I also sent through the mail. Now I have 2 signed cards! I think that it's interesting that on all of the TTM stuff I have of his, he only signs his first name. All of his certified autos actually inserted in packs and what not, he signs his full name.

Mike Moustakas is probably the next big thing for the Royals. He might make the team out of Spring Training but the Royals might send him to triple-A for a month or two to keep his service time in the majors down. I had doubles of this card so I decided for the cost of time and 2 stamps it was worth the gamble. I'm really happy I did because the Autograph looks great!

Thanks for looking! Hopefully a few more Successes come back to me in the next few weeks!

OH NO!!!'s Poor Vintage Collection #4

The cards that are featured in this recurring theme were found by my father strewn about the floor of an abandoned farm building near my childhood home. There were approximately 1000 cards that laid undisturbed from the late 60's to early 90's when he discovered them. Most are in poor condition because exposure to the elements. He recently gave them to me and I will feature them here on my blog.

1963 Fleer Carl Yastremski

No you aren't seeing double. I don't really like putting the enemy teams on my blog but couldn't resist on these cards of Yastremski. I have two of these bad boys but they are in bad, bad shape. The Yaz on the left is terribly wrinkled in its lower left corner and has some water marks on it. The Yaz on the right has a little better color but still has some issues. There is some paper loss in the upper left and lower right corners. The back probably has about 50 percent of the original printing on it.

Trade with Derek of Tomahawk Chopping

I recently made a smaller trade with Derek of Tomahawk Chopping - Cardboard & More!. I helped him with some 2010 Topps Chrome, 2008 UD Masterpieces and threw in some 2011 Topps for some new additions to my collection:

This card is my favorite of the trade package. I love this shot of Nick the Stick from the 08 Masterpieces set. Hell, I love most of the the cards from the 08 Masterpieces set! I guess that's why I went and completed the whole dang thing including the SPs!

Here's a few new Ultra Iron Man cards from 07 Fleer Ultra. I didn't have either one of these. I'd say I have about 35 of the 50 cards in the set now. I've seen way more of these Ultra Iron Man cards than I have seen of the Cal Ripken Chronicles from 07 Upper Deck. I'm trying to build the complete set of those too but they just aren't as plentiful. If anybody has any let me know, I'd love to trade for them!

Here's another Nick Markakis I didn't have before. I'm not big on the unlicensed stuff that UD put out towards the end of their baseball run. Something about Signature Stars, Ultimate Collection and '10 UD series 1 just feels "dirty" to me.

So there you have it, another trade in the books. Thanks a lot Derek, you always seem to come up with some great cards for me!

2011 Spring Training TTM Success #1

I got home from work yesterday and patiently waited for the mail. Sometimes my mail comes at 9:30 in the morning sometimes it comes at 8:30 at night. Really, there is no telling when the mail will arrive most days. Anyways, last week I sent out 24 TTM requests to players in Orioles camp, Braves camp, and to former Orioles players in other team's camps. Here's the first success of the year:

Chris Ray signed this card and returned it to me in 1 week flat. He has one of the more legible autographs that I have in my Orioles collection. He's currently in the Seattle Mariners camp on a minor league contract. I liked Chris when he was with the Orioles. When he blew out his elbow in 2007, it started a long process of him working his way out of the O's future plans. He was traded to Texas before last season and ended up with the Giants. Either way he got his World Series Ring! I hope Chris has a good season this year (just not when we visit Safeco or he visits Birdland!)

Showing Off the PC

2008 Bowman Chrome Draft Picks Refractor Autograph Gordon Beckham #'d 160/500

I apologize for the crappy scan. In person this card looks awesome! I got this card about a year ago as I was "catching up" from a few years away from the hobby. This was my promised hit in my hobby box of 2008 Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects. This card currently had a "Book Value" of about 80 bucks but I would imagine after Gordon's sub-par season last year, the "actual" value is probably lower. The back of this card alludes to Gordon "Gets high marks for hard work" so I would hope for Pale Hose nation, he has a break-thru season. As long as he plays well against the 12 other teams in the AL and totally stinks against the O's this season, this card is staying in my personal collection!

Trade Bait

I'm going to post some cards here that may interest some of you guys (and gals). If you see anything you'd like, drop me an email! If you know someone who might be interested in any of these please point them to my blog, I'm always looking for new trade partners!

A couple of Angel relics and a couple Rangers too! The Upton Manu-patch is from this year's (2011) Topps. Sheets and Zobrist got cut off due to me jamming too many cards on the scanner!

Here's a few Autographs that aren't necessarily big name players but maybe for some of you team collectors out there, they mean more to you than they do me... For I was trying to get all of these cards onto the scanner so that's why the bottoms of the Humber and Fuld are cut off.

Here's a nice grouping of inserts. Two Yankee Stadium Legacies and couple of Topps Black Bordered Marlins. The Andre Dawson is an original back Reprint from this year's Topps and the Campy and Musial are also "would-be" Original backs from the Lost Cards from this year's Topps. I like the Matt Tolbert Black, it's just a nice action shot!

Make an offer, blog-o-sphere!

One of the Funner Contests...

Things are Funner Here is holding a contest in case you hadn't heard. Here's the link:

http://thingsarefunnerhere.blogspot.com/2011/02/contest-and-its-easy.html

Check it out and get yourself signed up if you haven't already!

Box Break: 2011 Topps Series 1

I know that by this point, everybody is pretty sick of hearing about 2011 Topps. Just about everyone on the blogs has opened some of this product and I know everyone has read about it. I'm going to try and keep this short and sweet. I bought 5 retail rack packs and 1 hobby box from a reputable internet dealer. The retail rack packs give you more for the money and I'm not paying 40 to 50 extra dollars for jumbo boxes that give 2 extra hits.

First, I like the design this year. Nice clean design. Better than 2010 but maybe not as good as 2009 for one reason I don't like the double team name around the baseball. It seems unnecessary to me. Put the team name on top of the ball and on the bottom put the player's position. I'm splitting hairs though. I'm not a huge fan of any of the inserts except the Kimball minis. Most of them are just updates from the 2010 version with a new name. I don't collect any of the insert sets so I could really care less about them.

I will go ahead and show off the diamond sparkle gimmick I got. Derek Jeter. It's already on Ebay unless somebody blows me away with a trade offer. I hate the diamond sparkle, new team photoshops, and pie in the face shortprints. On the other hand I really like the Hall of Fame player variations.

I'll also show off my relic. Robinson Cano leather nameplate. This manu-CRAP-tured stuff is just ridiculous. After 2 years of pulling AL East Rival's "relic" cards from packs. I officially hate ALL manufactured relic cards. I don't buy blasters of the flagship so I don't get any of these as a "bonus". Please, somebody take this junk off my hands. Somebody come up with a good trade offer for it.

Out of my hobby box I got this Black Bordered #'d to 60 of Jason Marquis. 1 in 100 packs, so I demolished the odds there. I noticed that the Gold bordered cards are a lot more scarce this year. I got 5 total from the hobby box and retail packs. Braun, Starlin Castro, Aardsma, Moyer, and Helton are all available for trade. I got a bunch of the platinum diamond parallel too but they are already spoken for.

I also got two original backs of the cards your mom threw out of 60 years of topps cards because she knew they would be reprinted anyways. The Andre Dawson came from the hobby box and the Musial came from retail.

I have tons of other inserts I'd love to get rid of so just drop me a line if you need any. I will now leave you with a card that makes me sick to my stomach.

Surprise Package from Crinkly Wrappers

I was just thinking about Ted of Crinkly Wrappers the other day and I received a surprise package from him the next day. I don't get many surprise packages but I think that Ted accounts for most, if not all, of them! Lets get right to the goods.

These two cards really stand out to me because they are from 1954 Topps! Ted has been working on the set and we in bloggerville are along for the ride. '54 Topps is the pinnacle of Orioles cards because of course that was the first year they existed!

I really like the nice shiny Brooks Robinson from this years 2010 Topps Tribute. I never realized that Topps Tribute cards are as thick as they are. I've never held any Tribute in my hands before now because I refuse to pay over $5 a pack.

I have seen tons of the 2007 Ultra retail packs in the "Power Packs" box at Target but this is probably the first card from the hobby version. I didn't even know they had a hobby version of this product until I started doing a little more research.

I am now only one blue parallel away from the team set of 2010 Topps Opening Day Orioles. Yay for me! If anybody has the Adam Jones, let me know.

This David Crouthers card just strikes me funny because at FanFest this past weekend (last reference, I promise! Maybe..), some guy was walking around with an official (not replica) Crouthers Orioles jersey on. It was no way him, but it could have been his father! It could be this very jersey Dave is wearing on this card because it did have #70 on the back.

Thanks Ted for the nice package of surprise cards! I hope I can get something heading back your way real soon!

Orioles FanFest 2011 pt.3

I'm going to finish my experience at Orioles FanFest in this post, I promise! I'm going to show off the 8 x 10's that I had autographed. The first one I want to show is this one:

Nolan Reimold burst onto the Orioles scene in May of 2009. Due to his excellent play and a walk-off homer against Toronto late that month I started to take a liking to him. He played well for the O's for the rest of the season. Last year he kind of hit rock bottom. Hampered by the recovery from his achilles surgery in the off-season and some not so nice off the field issues he pretty much sucked and was demoted to Triple-A. He returned in September and hopefully he will stay with the big club for the rest of his career.

Brian Roberts was sitting right next to Nolan at the autograph station and he penned this nice autograph on my 8x10. He also handed me a business card with information about his new charity he started.

This Nick Markakis 8x10 is the crown jewel of the day for me. Nick is my favorite current player on the Orioles and I'm looking for him to have a big season this year. His normal numbers were there last year except the absence of homeruns. Opposing teams pitched around him last year so he rarely saw pitches that he could yank out of the park. I was pretty excited to meet him even though I was a bit starstruck and couldn't muster any words.

I also had this 8x10 of Chris Tillman signed. The black sharpie doesn't show up very well on this particular picture but it is easier to see in person. I had already met Chris last year at FanFest. If you are interested in reading about that experience check out one of my very first posts in the archive. Chris is still very much a prospect. He just hasn't gotten the extended period of time in the majors to figure it out.

All of these signed photos proudly join my rapidly growing collection of Orioles 8x10. They Cal, Brooks, Jim Palmer, Eddie Murray, Frank Robinson, Earl Weaver, Boog Powell and Rick Dempsey.