Trade with Johnny from Cards from the Quarry

I'm back with another package from my Tradebait blowout.  This package come from Johnny of Cards from the Quarry.  I sent him a few nice Rockies hits and he sent over these cards.

 I'm not a big manu-relic fan but they have grown on me recently.  I think the whole jersey scandal put it into perspective for me.  As long as I think of Manupatches, Bat relic Cards, Jersey relic cards, Pants relic cards, or table cloth relic cards as rarer inserts and not as hits I can justify picking them up.  Obviously they don't hold the same value they once did but after all, they are mostly paper and scraps of discarded material.

I do like this Cal Ripken retired number patch though as it's one of the nicer manu-relics Topps has put out in recent years.

 This card was a bit of a surprise throw in.  I really like the card and I think Fleer did a great job making a unique card.  But Jon Miller sucks.  A lot of people like him but I don't know why. Orioles fans are always saying they liked him as an announcer and they love to hear him on ESPN.  He routinely butchers players names and just gets annoying after while.  Hearing him and Joe Morgan together was like nails down a chalkboard.  I'm not even sure who has the call on the Laughable ESPN coverage of the Sunday night game of the week anymore.  ESPN has been irrelevant in my book for about 8 or 9 years now.

I've seen different versions of this  Nick Markakis card plenty of times.  Something caught my eye this time though.  I started to wonder whose arm was sticking into the picture trying to make a play.  After close examination I did finally deduce that the lettering on the jersey was from the Diamondbacks.  So I went searching for when the Orioles last played the Diamondbacks prior to 2010.  2009 obvious but not it.  2008 nope not this time.  2007 Yes.  Topps used a 3 year old photo to make Nick's 2010 Topps/Topps Chrome card.
Another thing I hadn't noticed before was the blue sweat bands Nick and the mystery D-Backs 3rd sacker was wearing.  Why were they both wearing blue ones?  The only occasion that I could think of might have been Fathers Day.  BINGO!
It was Sunday June 17th 2007.  Nick doubled in the bottom of the eighth and stole 3rd and then scored on a Miguel Tejada groundout.  The Orioles lost their 8th straight game that day 6 to 4.
So who was the mystery arm?  None other than future (at the time) Oriole Mark Reynolds.  He played the entire game at 3rd so it has to be his left arm.

Thanks Johnny for sending the cards so that I could go on 2 mini-rants and play mystery photo identification!

Trade with Jordan of Triple Play Autos

Here comes yet another tradebait clearance trade that I finished up with Jordan of Triple Play Autos.  I'm not even sure I've posted half of my trades stemming from my clearance posts, but I'm going to give everybody their due credit for trading with me.  Onto the cards that Jordan sent:

You don't see many cards of Gus Triandos and this TCMA from 1986 is the only modern card that I own of him. I've started a PC of Triandos though he doesn't get much cardboard love these days.  Most of the cards I have of him (Read:  all but one) are from his playing days in the '50s and '60's.

Here's a Nick Markakis Refractor from 2007 Topps Chrome that I wasn't expecting in the package.  regardless I'm happy to have it.

 Here's the centerpiece of the trade.  A Chris Ray Autograph from 2007 Upper Deck.  I had gotten his autograph TTM back in spring training 2010 so now I have a certified copy.  I always liked Chris when he was with the Orioles and followed him even after he left the team.

An interesting fact about Chris is that he makes him home in nearby Ashland, Virginia.  He went to college in Williamsburg, VA. at William and Mary and then was drafted by the Orioles.  Chris and his brother Phil just recently opened a brewery called Center of the Universe Brewery in Ashland.  It's right off of Interstate I-95 if any of you guys or gals are traveling through Central VA.  Here's a link to their site right here: Center of the Universe Brewery.

I'll close out the trade post with a Miguel Tejada relic card from 2007 Topps.  I wonder if Miggy is finally done in affiliated baseball after being released by the Orioles Triple-A team this past season?

Thanks Jordan for the trade!

Trade with Ryan of The Great Orioles Autograph Project

This trade comes to me from one of my greatest trading partners, Ryan of The Great Orioles Autograph Project.  Since our collections aren't that much different, we tend to send each other cards quite a bit.  Here's the latest version of our trade:

Tucked away in a huge stack of Brady Anderson cards was this little gem from 1997 Studio.  It's actually a diecut which is hard to see in this scan.  The diecutting actually follows the crown of the batting helmet and is printed on acetate.  This is a pretty rare card numbered out of only 5000!

No bones about it, I love Upper Deck Masterpieces.  I'm somewhat surprised that I haven't been able to acquire more of the bordered versions of Nick Markakis and Cal Ripken.  Maybe I've miscalculated the popularity of the product and a lot of people are hanging onto the parallels.

Here's another great looking card in person but scans like crap!  This Ripken hails from 2000 Pacific Prisms.

Here's one of the centerpiece cards of the trade in an autograph of Juan Guzman the lesser.  As far as I can tell this Juan Guzman never made the majors but was a pretty highly regarded prospect around the year 2000.

My other centerpiece card is of Walter "Val" Majewski.  As I alluded to with my Keith Reed autograph card last week, why didn't Val get more of a shot to stick with the big club?  Oh yeah, we had whiner Jay Payton, Victor Zambrano and Deivi Cruz on our team!

Thanks again for the trade, Ryan!  It's always a pleasure!

Trade with blog reader Steve D.

Here's yet another trade post stemming from my tradebait clearance blowout.  This one comes to me from Steve D., who I've traded with before way back when this blog came online in 2009.  Steve sent me some really neat cards this time.  Lets have a look:

Here's an Adam Jones Sepia parallel from this years Triple Threads.  In my opinion, you don't go to Triple Threads for the base card and parallel designs as they are just a side show for the BIG MOJO HITS that you can find.  Triple Threads, Sterling, Tribute, Museum Collection, Tears One (yes I said tears) and now Five Star are all huge rip offs in my opinion.  I'll pick up any of the cards at a small fraction of the price of wax and let the "big boys" waste their money ripping the packs open.  It makes me cheap but at least I can afford to take my wife out to a nice dinner every now and then!

Here's a card from my Top 10 Most Wanted list.  Its been a while since I've knocked any cards off of it and it kind of just sat on my sidebar for months lonely and neglected.  Not anymore!  I've added a few new cards of interest to see if I can knock a few more off of there!

Here's Roberto's double play partner for a period of time in Baltimore.  Me thinks Circa is the epitome of cards in the late 90's.  Loud and gaudy!

My Allen & Ginter set collection has come quite far over the last 6 months.  Considering I started June with just a handful of base cards and I have 2 complete sets, its a big improvement.  I'm still working on 2006, 2008, 2009 (my biggest need), 2011 and 2012 so please check to see if you can help me out right  here.

I'm also putting together the 174 thru 1980 Topps sets together ever so slowly.  Just an observation about this card: I think Pat Zachry looks a lot like R.A. Dickey!

Thanks Steve for the trade!

Trade with Doug of Buck Store Cards

This trade was not technically part of my tradebait blowout but it ended up so.  Doug of the Buck Store Cards blog found the following autograph cards at a card show in Canada at 3 for a dollar.  I'm really happy that he thought about me when he was digging thru the bargain bin!

I was really high on Keith Reed when he was coming up thru the Orioles system.  As much time and effort as they spent developing him in the minors, you would have thought they would have given him more than a handful of playing time at the Major League level.  Thats the Orioles of the mid 2000s though.  We'd rather employ the likes of Marty Cordova, Russ Ortiz, and Brandon Fahey!

I don't know too much about Corey Shafer other than a few cards that I have of him.  He does have a nice autograph that resembles his name!

Scott McGregor has been around the Orioles Organization for a quite a long time filling various roles.  He pitched some really good games for the O's during his tenure as a player including the World Series in 1983.

This auto of Bob Milacki kinda blends in with the warmup jacket he's wearing but I'm still happy to have it.  Bob was a key member of the Why Not? Orioles of 1989.  I wonder if we will look back 20 years from now and think the same about Miguel Gonzalez of the 2012 Buckle Up Orioles?

Thanks for thinking about me at the card show Doug!

Trade with Brad of Brad's Blog

Here's another one of my hauls from the tradebait blowout that I had going on last week.  This one comes from Brad of Brad's Blog.  We swapped a few autograph and relic cards.  You can see the cards that I send him in his trade post.  Here's the awesome cards he sent:

 I have an Earl Weaver autographed 8x10 but this is my first autographed card of him.  I'm not sure how many different ones there out there but I can now say that I have one!

 I'm also very proud to have my first Tsuyoshi Wada autograph card too.  I believe Brad pulled this one from his case break of this year's Topps Chrome.  I was somewhat surprised to see Wada have a rookie card in this year's products because I thought that you actually had to make your MLB debut before there would be a card made.

 I also snagged this Adam Jones Black Refractor and

a Mark Reynolds Sepia Refractor for my player collections. Brad had some really good luck pulling Orioles from Topps Chrome this year.  I've opened 4 or 5 retail packs and came up empty!

Thanks Brad for the trade!

Trade with Adam of Thoughts and Sox

The fruits of my labor are beginning to trickle in.  This was a quick 1 for 1 trade with Adam from Thoughts and Sox.

This Brian Roberts Black Bordered mini from 2009 Goodwin Champions arrived at my house yesterday, which is the same day the Orioles traded Robert Andino (last years starting 2nd baseman) to the Mariners.  More importantly, there was also an entry on Steve Melewski's blog about the health of Brian.  He came all the way back from a herniated disk in his back and concussion issues only to tear the labrum in his hip this season.  He's been working out at his home in Sarasota and hopes to be 100% come the beginning of Spring Training.  Let's hope so O's fans, as we're all pulling for him!

Box Break: 2012 Bowman Chrome

I bought this hobby box of Bowman Chrome on sale at Dave and Adam's during their Black Friday preview sale about 2 weeks ago and I just got done opening and sorting out what I got from it.  My tradebait posts from last week has been taking up a lot of my card time but that's ok!  I'm glad to be able to send the tradebait I offered to people that will appreciate them more than I do for cards that I want or need.  There's still a bunch of cards left so take a look over them if you might be interested in making a trade.

So onward to the BowChro box I got:

This year's Bowman design looks great all chromed up.  I got a nice assortment of refractors as you can  see.  Not much to write home about.

Here's my colored refractors.  Not much to see here but I think Spankee or dkwilson might be interested in the Upton blue though.  (I don't know why it looks purple in the scan).

Here's my autograph card from the box of JR Graham.  I'd never heard of him before this card but at least I know he touched it.  I'm a fan of the Bowman Chrome autographs because they are on-card so I'm nearly 100% sure they are authentic.

I also got a few inserts in the box.  I'm a fan of the Futures Game inserts even though I hadn't heard of either of these guys.  I think their generic sounding Latino names might be the culprit though.  It's not a knock on the guys themselves, it's just that the names aren't really that memorable since they are somewhat generic.  I'm not as big a fan of the Franchise Favorites inserts.  It's not because of the Yankees card I pulled either.  Robinson Cano continues to follow me around in every box I open though!  The insert set just reminds me too much of Legendary Lineage and Timeless Talents.  I wasn't a fan of those either!

Here's the one card that makes me call this box a success.  I know it's just a dinky Nick Markakis refractor card.  Just thinking about all 330 cards being paralleled though, it's a tougher pull than you might think to pull your favorite team or even your favorite active player.

I got a bunch of cards for my set that I'm building but it's hard for me to say I wasn't a bit disappointed. My inserts and refractors were somewhat crappy and the autographed prospect card was an unknown to me.  Maybe Graham becomes a superstar one day and I become a thousandaire from the card!  Everything pictured is for trade except for the Markakis!

Massive Tradebait Closeout: Part 3

Here's part 3 of my massive tradebait close out.  I've had some of these cards for quite a long time and I think that its time to move them out of my collection and onto somebody that would appreciate them more than I do.


So here's the schtick:  I'm going to send everything that isn't traded or sold to my COMC account.  Most of these cards are relic or autograph cards but there is some serial numbered stuff in here too.  I'm giving the blogging community the first crack at everything.  Most of these cards aren't in high demand so I'm not looking for much in return since they are lower level relic cards or autographs.  There are some pieces that are posted that I value a little more highly though, however.  I'll listen to any trade offers you might have.  I'd love to knock off some cards from my wantlists including (but not limited to):

Orioles relic or autograph cards
Orioles cards from my various wantlists
Set fillers from my set wantlists
Any Topps base cards from 1974 thru 1980
Unopened packs of cards from 2012 Bowman Platinum, 2012 Topps Chrome, 2012 Bowman Chrome

I will also sell the cards to you a good price if you prefer to go that route.


Here's the last set of 7 scans.  Please let me know if you have any questions about the cards pictured.  Don't forget to check out my last 2 posts as there are a lot of nice cards that would love to find a forever home with you!

Massive Tradebait Closeout Part 2

Here's my second post of trade bait.  I think I've reached a point in my collecting that I have too much stuff laying around in boxes that isn't doing me any good other than giving me something to dust every few weeks.  I need to start converting these cards into things that I actually need or collect.

So here's the schtick:  I'm going to send everything that isn't traded or sold to my COMC account.  Most of these cards are relic or autograph cards but there is some serial numbered stuff in here too.  I'm giving the blogging community the first crack at everything.  Most of these cards aren't in high demand so I'm not looking for much in return since they are lower level relic cards or autographs.  There are some pieces that are posted that I value a little more highly though, however.  I'll listen to any trade offers you might have.  I'd love to knock off some cards from my wantlists including (but not limited to):

Orioles relic or autograph cards

Orioles cards from my various wantlists

Set fillers from my set wantlists

Any Topps base cards from 1974 thru 1980

Unopened packs of cards from 2012 Bowman Platinum, 2012 Topps Chrome, 2012 Bowman Chrome

I will also sell the cards to you a good price if you prefer to go that route.  

Here's the next set of scans.  I've got one more group to post tomorrow in addition to the post last night.  Please let me know if you have any questions about the cards pictured:

Massive Tradebait Closeout: Part 1

I'm going to try and kickstart my trading since things have been a bit slow as of late.  I was sitting here in the mancave the other day just looking at all the cards I have up for trade and how I could get rid of the stuff just taking up space.  I decided to send most of it to COMC but I want to give the blogging community the first hack at claiming cards they want. I've had some of these cards for quite a long time and I think that its time to move them out of my collection and onto somebody that would appreciate them more than I do.


So here's the schtick:  I'm going to send everything that isn't traded or sold to my COMC account.  Most of these cards are relic or autograph cards but there is some serial numbered stuff in here too.  I'm giving the blogging community the first crack at everything.  Most of these cards aren't in high demand so I'm not looking for much in return since they are lower level relic cards or autographs.  There are some pieces that are posted that I value a little more highly though, however.  I'll listen to any trade offers you might have.  I'd love to knock off some cards from my wantlists including (but not limited to):

Orioles relic or autograph cards
Orioles cards from my various wantlists
Set fillers from my set wantlists
Any Topps base cards from 1974 thru 1980
Unopened packs of cards from 2012 Bowman Platinum, 2012 Topps Chrome, 2012 Bowman Chrome

I will also sell the cards to you a good price if you prefer to go that route.


Here's the first set of scans.  There will be 2 more sets popping up over the next few days so keep an eye out for those.  Please let me know if you have any questions about the cards pictured: