Birthday Blaster: 2014 Topps Update

My 31st birthday was last Friday the 5th and my 4 month old daughter surprised me with a blaster box of 2014 Topps Update.  Here's the most interesting cards I pulled out of the box.

While I am happy to have a red bordered parallel of an Oriole show up in my box, I wonder what Topps was thinking in the case of picking a photo of Nick Hundley.  Sure it's a fun photo but years from now when I'm flipping through my album of 2014 O's team sets, I won't think that I will think much of Topps "spoiling" the card.  Actually I don't think much of it now.  Surely there is a more "boring" photo they could have used to commemorate Nick's season with the Orioles.

Moving on, I pulled this decent looking insert of the hottest player on the planet.  Not much else to say other than its for trade.

My guaranteed manu-relic happened to be of a player I respect but a team I detest.  I don't need this card so it's for trade.

I guess it's appropriate that the first blaster box that my daughter buys me that I get a pink parallel out of one of the packs.  The particular odds on pulling a pink parallel is 1 in 230 packs.  Upon closer inspection, you can see he's wearing a pink necklace, presumably for Mother's Day. So doing a little bit of research, Elias did pitch 5 innings on Sunday May 11th.  He left in line for the win up 7 to 5 but the bullpen blew the lead.  Any Roenis Elias supercollectors out there need this card?

Here's another one of those pesky red bordered parallels.  Man, there were 20 of those suckers in this box, I would have much rather just had the regular old base cards.  Anyways, I was sad to hear about Taveras crashing his car and passing away.   Drinking and Driving don't mix.

Here's a list of all of my 2014 Topps Update cards I have for trade:

Blue Bordered Parallel: US-118 McHugh, 132 Colvin, 243 Chavez, 266 Smyly, 272 Ellis, 293 Koehler
Red Bordered Parallel: US-35 Stroman, 56 Street, 89 Drew, 113 Taveras, 117 Lackey, 136 Navarro, 144 Rondon, 157 Smith, 163 Santiago, 167 Francoeur, 195 Laird, 225 Avilan, 232 Carroll, 268 Shoemaker, 274 Withrow, 285 Allen, 291 Mcgee, 324 Amarista, 327 Gomes
Red Hot Foil: Us-120 Wolf, 314 Dickerson
Gold Bordered Parallel: US-226 Coghlan
Pink Bordered Parallel: US-220 Elias #d 26/50
1989 Mini Diecut: TM-BB Butler, CG C. Gonzalez,  Vizquel
Fond Farewells: FF-MM McGwire,  PM Molitor, WS Stargell
Future is Now: FN-GP1 Polanco, JA1 Abreu,  OT2 Taveras, NC2 Castellanos, YV1 Ventura, MW1 Wacha
Power Players: PPA-AG Gonzalez, FH Hernandez, GS Stanton, JU Upton, MTR Trout
World Series Heroes: WSH-JP Papelbon
World Series MVP Manu-Relic: WSP-MR Rivera

Multi-Trade Post

Everybody knows that trade posts do not usually yield a high amount of views or comments but I feel that they are very necessary for my blogging.  I like to personally thank my trade partners with an email letting them know I got my package and I also like to shoot up a trade post so I can let everybody else know that there are incredibly generous collectors all over the world.  I didn't trade much during the baseball season this year but I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things.  I think from here on I will be featuring several different trades in one trade post.  So here is a quick recap of the last 5 deals that I've made:  

This blue sparkly Dylan Bundy came to me from Night Owl.  We've traded at least once a year over the the last few and he always comes up with quality cards I can add to my collection.  The only problem with this card is the picture itself.  I hope Dylan makes an appearance with the Orioles this season so that Topps has another picture to make cards out of.  I'm sick of seeing the same photo on all his cards.

Night Owl also sent along these 2 '89 diecut minis for my team set.  My scanner decides to trim the edges of these cards making them into regular rectangles.  I actually wish they were rectangles with the original white borders instead of diecuts but I'm not making the decisions at Topps on how to make cards. 

These 1993 Upper Deck cards came to me from a relatively new blogger by the name of Jimmy who runs the S.Mack Talk blog.  He's still finding his footing here in blogger land so go on over and check out his blog.  Yes I'm building the 1993 Upper Deck set.  In my opinion its Upper Deck's best base set and I'm using the cards for a future project.

If you read blogs you probably know where these minis came from.  Nachos Grande, the Allen & Ginter and Legos wizard made these awesome custom mini Ginters and included them in the package. I think these might be 1/1s since I'm not sure if he has sent a Manny or Crush out to anyone else.

Chris also included this Electric Diamond parallel from the 1994 Upper Deck set of Mike Devereaux.  1994 UD is such a let down from '93's effort but this card stands out for awesome photography.  I'm really thinking about sending this card out to Mike to see if I can get it autographed.

This Frank Robinson manu-relic comes to me from a guy named David Gao.  I don't think he has a blog but he was interested in some of my Cardinals tradebait.  I don't immediately recall what I sent him in return but I'm happy to have this card for my collection.  I'm not the biggest Frank collector around and I still hold a bit of a grudge since he kinda ruined my National experience a few years back by having everybody who bought tickets stand in line for half the damn day.  I coulda been roaming the show floor but instead was stuck in line because my ticket had already been scanned and I was told if I left the line, I wouldn't be allowed to return without buying another ticket.  I know its kind of a silly reason to hold a grudge but I'm an imperfect person.

Thi cards was send to me by a guy by the name of John.  I don't think that he has a blog either but he did have a Zistle page that I was able to pick out some 2014 Topps cards as well ans this Shawn Green Rookie card.  The last card I'm going to show off is a Blue Jays card?  Yeah, it's for my somewhat unnannounced-but-you-can-find-the-wantlist-here-on-my-blog project.  I'm going back through the years collecting rookie cards of all the "big name" players.  I guess you can call it my personal fan favorite rookie card collection.  I plan on making a full post about all of my PC's in the near future so stay tuned for that.

Thanks again to Night Owl, Nachos Grande, Jimmy, David and John for trading with me.

So Long Nick Markakis...

Enjoy him Braves fans!

A Tour of my Man Cave part 2: the Other Side

I hope everyone enjoyed seeing part of my man cave in my previous post.  I would say that I'm very organized and I know exactly where every card in my collection is at any given time.  Some people might say I'm OCD about my cards but honestly if it wasn't this organized, there'd be no way I'd know exactly what I have and don't have.  Anyways, on with the show:

 I guess this is where you could say the magic happens.  I've got my scanner/printer on the far left, my label/postage printer next to it, my scale, toploaders and penny sleeves, my "Cards of the Moment", a stack of blog business cards in front of a box of tradebait I have stashed away for people I trade with on a regular basis.  You can also see my Mac on the right of the picture.

 Just to the left of my printer is where I keep my 3 Cal Ripken PC binders as well as my Nick Markakis and Nolan Reimold binder.

 Above all of those I have a shelf of Orioles knick-knacks.  Bobbleheads, action figures, statuettes, signed baseballs.  There's a little bit of everything up there.

 Farther to the left is my signed 8x10 collection.  All of the Orioles greats are up there.  The cool thing about each of these is that I got to meet each and every player!

Here's the meat of my signed 8x10s.  There's Cal, Eddie, Brooks, and Palmer.   I've met each one of those guys too!  So that pretty much wraps it up for my man cave.  The only thing I didn't show is my TV and my Xbox 360 and games.  I'm pretty sure everybody knows what all of those things look like though.

A Tour of My Man Cave

I've seen several bloggers do tours of their Man Cave / Card Rooms in the past and I've decided its time to show of "O" NO!!! World Headquarters.  It's only taken me nearly 5 years and over 500 posts to get around to it!

Here on the left is where the bulk of my tradebait is located as well as my complete sets.  You can see down on the bottom 2 shelves my "Lifetime" Topps collection.  All of the base sets from 1983 thru 2013 and the update sets from 2005 thru 2013.  I haven't started 2014 really seriously yet so if anybody has extras, please let me know.

The middle shelves with the 6 3200 count boxes is where all of my commons are held.  I can help out on bunches of sets from 1988 thru 2014. I used to have about 15 or 16 boxes of commons but I either donated, gave away, or even sold of a bunch of extra stuff I didn't need.

On the top shelf is where I have tradebait sorted by teams.  In these boxes is where you'll find star players as well as inserts, parallels, relics and even a few autograph cards.

This Rubbermaid container is where I keep all of my shipping supplies.  You can see all of the yellow bubble mailers inside.  There's also my tape dispenser, index cards, and envelopes inside.

 

This rack is where most of my Orioles PC is housed.

Here on the top shelf is a box of odds and ends Orioles stuff as well as trade bait.  I seem to acquire a fair amount of trade bait from my own team.  Next to that box is the relic box where all the bits of jerseys and bats are.  On the far right is where all of the Orioles autographs are housed.

The next shelf down is where my Ultimate Rookie card binder (more on that in an upcoming post) and my Star Players binder is.  The 2 binders on the right are empty at this point in time.

The next 2 shelves is where my Orioles Team Set binders reside.  Each team set is in a binder categorized in alphabetical order by year.

The bottom shelf is where a my favorite Orioles players binders live.  The unmarked binders the the right of those also house player collections like Adam Jones, Chris Tillman, Manny Machado, and Chris Hoiles to name a few.  There's also my "One card of Every Oriole" binder, my "Failed Orioles Prospect" Binder, and my "Orioles Parallel Insanity" binder.  More on those later.

We'll stop here for now and I'll finish it off in part 2.

Last Chance for my Last Chance Tradebait.....

.....before I offer a different way to get my Last Chance tradebait.  Confused?  Yeah, I thought you'd be confused but maybe it will drum up some views here.  In my last post I offered up a bunch of cards that I'm trying to get rid of that I don't need anymore.  I got a couple of people interested in the "set lots" but I also got a good amount of people interested in team lots.  I'm going to list what I have left below and let anybody who wants the cards to claim them before Sunday evening.  After that I'm going to sort them out by teams and offer them up in my next post.  I'm not looking for much of anything in trade.  If you don't even have anything to trade me, just help with the shipping cost and I'll send them to you.  Enough rambling:

2012 Topps Heritage ~50 cards
2012 Topps series 1 ~100 cards
2011 Topps Heritage ~100 cards
2011 Topps ~150 cards
2010 Topps A&G ~20 cards
2010 Topps Heritage ~75 cards
2009 Upper Deck O-Pee-Chee ~125 cards
2009 Upper Deck Icons ~30 cards
2009 Upper Deck Goudey ~50 cards
2009 Upper Deck ~75 cards
2009 Topps A&G ~20 cards
2009 Topps 206 ~50 cards
2007 Upper Deck ~75 cards
2007 Topps Update ~150 cards
2007 Bowman ~50 cards
2007 Bowman Chrome ~50 cards
2006 Upper Deck series 1,2,update ~200 cards
2006 Topps ~50 cards
2005 Upper Deck ESPN ~35 cards
2005 Bowman ~100 cards
2004 Upper Deck ~150 cards
2004 Fleer Tradition ~75 cards
2003 Upper Deck ~100 cards
2003 Donruss ~150 cards
2003 Bowman Chrome ~25 cards
2003 Bowman ~100 cards
2002 Upper Deck ~150 cards
2002 Bowman ~150 cards
2000 Topps ~75 cards
2000 Bowman ~150 cards
2000 Bowman Chrome ~40 cards
1999 UD Choice ~200 cards
1999 Topps Opening Day ~150 cards
1999 Topps ~50 cards
1999 Fleer Tradition Update ~75 cards
1999 Bowman Chrome ~75 cards
1998 Collector's Choice ~75 cards
1998 Upper Deck ~40 cards
1998 Score ~75 cards
1998 Fleer Tradition ~50 cards
1998 Bowman's Best ~50 cards
1997 Collector's Choice ~75 cards
1997 Donruss ~50 cards
1996 Fleer ~50 cards

Last Chance Tradebait

When I cleaned out my commons boxes over the past few weeks I ended up with about 12,000 cards that I don't need anymore.  I'm not sure how to rid myself of them at this point so if anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.  But, before I open it up to the general public, I'd like to offer them up to the blogging community first.  Claim whatever you want but know that I can't fully cover the shipping costs.  Throw me a few bucks Paypal and I'll send them your way.  Or, as always I'm definitely open to trades!

I'm not going to count each stack so the figures here are just my guesstimation.

2012 Topps Heritage ~50 cards
2012 Topps series 1 ~100 cards
2011 Topps Heritage ~100 cards
2011 Topps ~150 cards
2010 Topps A&G ~20 cards
2010 Topps Heritage ~75 cards
2009 Upper Deck O-Pee-Chee ~125 cards
2009 Upper Deck Icons ~30 cards
2009 Upper Deck Goudey ~50 cards
2009 Upper Deck ~75 cards
2009 Topps A&G ~20 cards
2009 Topps 206 ~50 cards
2008 Upper Deck Goudey ~50 cards
2007 Upper Deck Goudey (reds and greens) ~100 cards
2007 Upper Deck ~75 cards
2007 Topps Update ~150 cards
2007 Bowman ~50 cards
2007 Bowman Chrome ~50 cards
2006 Upper Deck series 1,2,update ~200 cards
2006 Topps ~50 cards
2005 Upper Deck ESPN ~35 cards
2005 Bowman ~100 cards
2004 Upper Deck ~150 cards
2004 Fleer Tradition ~75 cards
2003 Upper Deck ~100 cards
2003 Donruss ~150 cards
2003 Bowman Chrome ~25 cards
2003 Bowman ~100 cards
2002 Upper Deck ~150 cards
2002 Bowman ~150 cards
2000 Topps ~75 cards
2000 Bowman ~150 cards
2000 Bowman Chrome ~40 cards
1999 UD Choice ~200 cards
1999 Topps Opening Day ~150 cards
1999 Topps ~50 cards
1999 Fleer Tradition Update ~75 cards
1999 Bowman Chrome ~75 cards
1998 Collector's Choice ~75 cards
1998 Upper Deck ~40 cards
1998 Score ~75 cards
1998 Fleer Tradition ~50 cards
1998 Bowman's Best ~50 cards
1997 Collector's Choice ~75 cards
1997 Donruss ~50 cards
1996 Fleer ~50 cards

After all of these it's mostly just a bunch of junk wax, if you are interested in any cards from that between 1995 and 1986 please let me know.

All of My 2014 Tradebait

I've been terrible at posting my pack breaks during this year.  I realize its next to impossible to when nobody knows what cards I have to trade to get one going.  Listed below is my entire list of 2014 cards that I have for trade.  You can also find my entire trade list just below my blog's banner as well as my full wantlists.  Let's get some trades going!

2014 Bowman:
State Flag Parallel: 13 Gattis, BP59 Neuhaus

Blue Border Parallel: 212 Rosario #d 392/500

2014 Bowman Platinum:
Gold Parallel: 48 Molina, 61 Latos
Ruby Parallel: 46 Pedroia
Prospect Refractor: BPCP47 Stroman, 51 Odor
Prospect X-Fractor: BPCP91 Sardinas
Prospect Purple Refractor: BPCP952 Glasnow, 89 Arroyo, 95 Paulino

Prospect Red Refractor: BPCP38 Giolito #d 24/25
Top Prospects Diecut: TP-CE Edwards
1989 Bowman is Back: 89BIB-GS Stanton, JB Baez

2014 Topps:
Red Hot Foil: 5 Lynn, 232 Owings, 154 Iannetta, 493 Tejada
Green Border Parallel: 439 Bradley Jr., 490 Morrison, 381 Smyly
1989 Mini Diecut:  TM-32 Davis, 39 Banks, 53 Canseco, 63 Gonzalez
Breakout Moment: BM-14 Myers, 24 Griffey Jr.
Future Is Now: FN-5 Profar, 13 Cespedes, 22 Fernandez, 31 Wacha, 32 Wacha, 40 Bogaerts, 41 Bogaerts
Power Players: PP-191 Perez
Saber Stars: SST-8 Cabrera
Upper Class: UC-15 Longoria, 45 Sandberg, 48 Aaron

2014 Topps Update
Blue Bordered Parallel: US-118 McHugh, 132 Colvin, 243 Chavez, 266 Smyly, 272 Ellis, 293 Koehler
1989 Mini Diecut: TM-BB Butler, OV Vizquel
Fond Farewells: FF- PM Molitor, WS Stargell
Future is Now: FN-GP1 Polanco, YV1 Ventura, MW1 Wacha
Power Players: PPA-AG Gonzalez, FH Hernandez, GS Stanton

2014 Allen & Ginter:
SPs: 306 Ryu,  310 Alonso, 314 Arenado, 322 Konerko, 326 Olt, 328 Wilson, 334 Johnson, 338 Pettitte, 340 Eckersley
Mini: 26 Jenkins, 42 Lake, 139 Ellsbury, 144 Oberholtzer, 185 Bautista, 212 Fister, 232 Smith, 325 Strawberry
A&G back mini: 50 Hernandez, 79 Adams
Black Bordered Mini: 118 Schefter, 267 Clancy
World's Deadliest Predators: WDP-10 Hyena
Air Supremacy: AS-04 P-51 Mustang, 13 F-15C Eagle, 19 Hawker Hurricane
Coincidence?: AGC-02 King Umberto and the Waiter
Festivals and Fairs: FAF-06 Songrain Water Festival
Worlds' Capitals: SC-07 Washington DC, 16 Mexico City
Natural Wonders: NW-09 Marble Caves, 16 The Wave at Coyote Buttes, 19 McWay Falls
Pastime's Pastimes: PP-JB Bautista, MC Cabrera, PF Fielder, RD Dickey, SS Strasburg, TT Tulowitzki

2014 Topps Chrome
Refractor Parallel: 8 Cespedes, 25 Bogaerts, 56 Jeter, 73 Weaver
Purple Refractor Parallel: 11 Aoki, 27 Kuroda, 159 Hosmer, 210 Santana
Xfractor Parallel: 12 Almonte, 146 Freeman, 195 Gonzalez
Orange Refractor: 182 Trumbo, 188 Wong, 194 Teheran, 196 Kipnis, 212 Anna

Sepia Refractor: 102 Moore #d36/75, 209 Lambo #d17/75
Topps Shelf: TS-GS Stanton

2014 Gypsy Queen:
SPs: 302 Jackson, 311 Goldschmidt, 318 L. Gonzalez,
White Paper Parallel: 111 Banks, 229 Lester, 271 Cobb, 258 Carlton, 143 Pedroia
Mini Parallel: 87 Minor, 91 Ozuna, 107 Encarnacion, 123 Hernandez, 136 Stargell, 142 Cole, 185 Brett, 243 Kemp, 246 Brantley, 270 Mattingly, 292 Feliz

Mini Red Parallel: 135 Gio Gonzalez #d 87/99
Dealing Aces: DA-MS Scherzer, YD Darvish
Debut All-Stars: AS-PF Fielder
Glove Stories: GA-AR Rizzo, CC Crawford, JI Iglesias
N174: N174-CK Kershaw, YB Berra, MS Scherzer, MR Rivera, YP Puig

Gypsy Queen Relic: GQR-AS Andrelton Simmons