More Recent Auction Wins

Alrighty, jumping back into the pool with something easy to post about.  This is becoming a pretty regular feature here on the blog.  Recent auction wins!  I'm a bit of a bargain hunter when it comes to ebay auctions but I also don't usually buy super popular cards either.  I also have the good fortune of working at a place where I have internet access all day so bidding on an auction at 10am on a Tuesday morning isn't really a problem.  I can peruse ebay all day long but can not read my personal email (stupid firewalls).  Looks like I'm rambling again.  Here's the cards:

Here's my first Nolan Reimold card that I won.  It's a Blue Refractor '05 Bowman Chrome Draft picks numbered 140/150.  Man I hope this guy stays healthy this year.  I know he could hit 25 to 30 homers if he did.  He'd be able to replace Mark Reynolds' power and strike out a lot less.

This black beauty is from 2010 Topps Heritage.  The Black Refractors are pretty awesome I think.  I really hope Nick stays healthy this year too.  Injuries haven't really been a concern for Nick the Stick during his career so I think last year was a fluke.  Let's just keep Captain Cheesburger's fastballs away from the wrists. BTW, this one is lucky-numbered 7/61.

The next Nick that won was this 2011 Topps Chrome Red Refractor numbered 2/25.  I own about eleventy billion different versions of this card through flagship, Chrome, and Opening Day.  I think the only version I'm missing is the rack pack exclusive un-numbered Orange Refractor.  How does that happen?

The final card that I'm showing off today is a 2009 Bowman Chrome Gold Refractor of Nolan #d 42/50.  Not a whole lot left to say about Nolan in this post.  Just stay healthy. *fingers crossed*

Here's my winnings from Listia over the last few weeks:




Oh right, I didn't win anything because I refuse to pay 1000 credits (approx $10-12) for a stack of late 80's commons.  The credits required to win a couple of Cal Ripken cards got way out of hand in my opinion so I refused to bid.  There seems to be more and more sellers starting to charge for shipping too.  No way am I handing over 2000 credits and 2 dollars shipping for a relatively plentiful mid-90's insert of Cal, no sir!  My patience with Listia is running thin, so when I finally spend the rest of my credits I'm closing my account.

See, I told you that I can put pictures on a post!  Hope you enjoyed the cards as much as I do.  Thanks for reading!

Fixing Bowman and Bowman Chrome

Hopefully, Topps reads this post and steals all of my ideas and makes eleventy billion dollars off of it.


After my last post, I realized that there is hope for Bowman and Bowman Chrome.  All it needs is a little re-imagining and retooling.  The last 2 years of Bowman has been buoyed by Strasmas and Harpermania and that has helped collectors gloss over the fact that Bowman has some problems and has for a while now.  I think the general consensus around the blogs is that Bowman is tired, bland, boring, and pointless.  Personally, I think that none of those is necessarily true but I can agree that it does need some work. Here's some suggestions that I think would make Bowman and Bowman Chrome more appealing to collectors:

1. Change the name of Bowman Draft Picks to Bowman Series 2.  It would create a little more continuity between the 2 sets and make the numbering system easier to understand.

2.  Stop putting Bowman Chrome Prospects in with regular Bowman.  Bowman can stand on its own and doesn't need Chrome to help prop it up.

3.  Use 1997 Bowman and Bowman Chrome as a template for the revamped version.  1997 Bowman had 441 cards in the set.  Bowman Chrome had 300.  Every player does not need a Bowman Chrome version.  Even the prospects don't all deserve Chrome versions.

4.  Obviously with the new rookie card rules put into place in 2006 you cannot have minor league players yet to make their major league debut in the base set.  So here is what I propose:

Bowman series 1:  Released sometime between mid-May and mid-June.
200 card base set including 40 to 50 rookies with a 100 card prospects set.

Bowman series 2:  Releases sometime between mid-October and mid-November
200 card base set including 40 to 50 rookies with a 100 card prospects set.

Bowman Chrome:  Releases sometime in late November to mid-December
200 card base set including about 40 to 50 of the best rookies from the previous 2 regular Bowman series.  There is a 100 card prospects set that chromes the 100 best prospect cards from the previous 2 Bowman Prospect sets.

So for the year:
Bowman series 1 and 2 totals 400 base cards with 200 prospects: 600 cards total
Bowman Chrome totals 200 base cards with 100 prospects: 300 cards total

5. The most radical thought would be to not photoshop any more jerseys on cards.  Since Topps has a license to show Minor League logos, they should show them on the prospect cards.  That way from year to year, if a prospect is still working his way up in the minors, he could be shown in a different affiliate's uniform.

Hypothetically Manny Machado could be shown in a Frederick Keys uniform in 2012 Bowman Prospects.  In 2013 Bowman Prospects he could be shown in a Bowie Baysox or Norfolk Tides jersey.  In 2014 when the takes the Majors by storm(!) he could make his Bowman Debut in an Orioles jersey.

I think that there could still be a Pro Debut set made by Topps, but they should use different pictures.  The new draft rules should help Topps get photographers to the minor league parks to take pictures of the new draft picks before the minor league season ends.

6. Don't over do it with the insert sets.  2 or 3 is probably enough and don't make them 100 or 50 cards.  Bring some sort off excitement back to insert cards by making them a little more rare and not 1 per pack.

7.  Get rid of the Bowman gold parallel.  It's kind of pointless. Keep the #'d Blue borders and make them #'d to 100.  Also keep the Bowman International parallels and # them to 250.

8.  The Bowman Chrome refractors could use a little tweaking.  Don't change anything there other than limiting the regular refractors to like 500, blues to 250, gold to 100, orange to 50, reds to 25 and superfractor 1/1s.

9.. The Bowman Chrome Autographs also needs a few tweaks. Put one Rookie auto and one Prospect auto per box.  Limit the print run on the regular autos to 1000, refractors to 500, blues to 250, gold to 100, orange to 50, red to 25, and superfractor 1/1's.

10. Bowman will have to add regular autographed rookies and regular prospect autographs.  1 of each per box.  Regular autographs #'d to 1000, International to 250, Blues to 100, and Platinum 1/1's.

Anybody else have any other suggestions?

Hopefully, Topps reads this post and steals all of my ideas and makes eleventy billion dollars off of it.

Birthday Breaks: 2011 Bowman Chrome and more

After kind of a crappy day at work I was finally able to get out of there and make it home.  When I got home my wife was waiting there with a birthday gift for me.  She bought me a hobby box of 2011 Bowman Chrome!  What a great gift since I'm working on the set.  Since I have a hard time leaving cards in their packs, I ripped everything immediately!  Here's the two highlight cards of the Chrome box:

This is not a gold refractor, its an Orange numbered 5/25.  I'm not sure if that is his jersey number or not but its still a sweet card.

It's like Deja Vu because I already got this card out of my box of Chrome that I bought.  But there is one difference!  This card is the refractor version of the autograph.  I really hope Jean turns out as a major league player because I now have 2 of his chrome autos.

Heres the insert cards I got out of the box:
Refractors: 86 S. Drew, 94 A Jackson, 197 Duda, 205 Espinosa, BCP191 Cain
2001 Throwbacks: 5 Taillon, 6 Myers, 7 Green
Diecuts: 5 Green, 12 Singleton,
Diecuts Refractors: 8 Allie
Bowman's Best Prospects: 56 Moore, 58 Colon

Also, when the mail finally came, there was a thick envelope from my in-laws among the other junk mail and birthday cards.  I opened it up and 2 packs of cards popped out!  1 pack of 2011 Topps series 2 and 1 pack of 2011 Topps Update.  Out of the Topps series 2 pack I pulled this card:

 Apparently my wife's pack picking mojo came from her mama!

Box Break: 3 Boxes of 2011 Bowman Chrome

I splurged on 3 boxes of Bowman Chrome when they went on presale earlier this summer.  For some reason, I've become enamored with Bowman Chrome over the past year and I'm probably the only one in the entire blog-o-sphere that has any interest in building sets of this product.  I think half of my decision is that I seem to have piles of Chromes sitting in my commons boxes as "leftovers" from building base Bowman sets and feeling guilty about it.  Also, I think I need a set building challenge.  Let's face it, building flagship Topps and Bowman sets isn't terribly difficult! These are going to be more of long term projects because buying cases of Bowman Chrome products is out of the question budget. Hopefully I can finds some lots left over on eBay that will help me towards my goal and then I can fill in some gaps with Sportslots and at shows.  So without further ado, here's the highlights of my 3 boxes:

We'll start off with one of the more rare cards from the break.  USA autographs are pretty rare in this years product so you know that a blue refractor is even more rare.  It is numbered but it's not that it really matters anyway.  Al seems to have a nice autograph at this point in his career (I think he is a high school senior and is eligible for the MLB draft this coming spring) but it will probably devolve into some scribble like most players autographs these days.

Speaking of scribbles, it leads me to my next mojo hit of a Canadian fella that will be tormenting the O's for the foreseeable future.  Does the facsimile autograph in anyway resemble "Brett" or "Lawrie" to you?

I don't have much to say about this Gold refractor of Youkilis other than it might fetch me a few bucks in trade value or COMC store credit.

This little sucker popped out of the last pack I opened  Wow, Orioles cards look great on the regular Orange and even better as Orange refractors!  If they weren't numbered so dang low, I'd probably have a couple more of them!  This one is #d 24/25.  I saw Ronnie play this past summer and he seemed like he doesn't like to sign autographs.  He just sat up on the railing while the other guys on the Baysox happily signed for me.  Maybe he just having a bad day or I went to the wrong game.

Here are 2 of my autograph cards that I was promised.  From the scouting report on the back, Swagerty seems like he is projected as a back end bullpen guy for the Cards though looking at his Baseball Reference page, he started and relieved this year.  Segura just got added to the Angels 40 man roster and his a highly regarded Top 100 prospect.  I will compliment each of these players on their penmanship.  It even appears Jean ran out of space and just meandered the pen back towards the start his signature!

And last but certainly not least, my redemption cards.  I'm not a fan of Topps' new bland design of these redemption cards.  It reminds me of some crap that Pannini would do.  Regardless, the refractor set of USA baseball card excites me a little bit and the Orange Refractor autograph of Jacob Turner is pretty exciting.  This is my second Orange refractor autograph of the year as I pulled a Sean Coyle from regular Bowman this past spring.  If there was another team that looks great as Orange refractors it would have to be the Tigers.  I haven't decided what to do with the Turner yet.  I might try to sell it on Ebay and see if I can turn it into a 1967 Brooks Robinson.

Overall I have no real complaints about Bowman Chrome this year. The cards don't warp up nor are they off-center.  They look great as always and the particular cards I invested my hard earned money in could not have been much better.  

If I had one complaint though, it would be the amount of cards per pack.  Across all of Topps' Chrome lines, I think packs should have 5 cards per hobby pack. 4 cards just isn't enough to make the casual collector willing to plop down the cash.  Don't get me started on retail as there are 3 cards per pack.  That's a buck per card.

In particular, I noticed in my 3 boxes that whenever there was an insert, refractor, or autograph, it took place of a base set card.  Why couldn't the "hit" take the place of a prospect card.  The prospect set only consists of 110 cards with the base set consists of 220.  If Topps can't add another card to the pack, don't short me a base set card to put in a hit!  

Here's the rest of the inserts and refractors that I will have up for trade:  

Refractors: 17 Granderson, 58 Hudson, 69 Hanson, 74 Hill, 90 Weeks, 106 Bruce, 110 Gutierrez, 121 C.Young, 140 Weaver, 168 Garza, 217 Cobb

Prospect Refractors: BCP121 Gast, 186 Brantly

Green X Fractors: BCP182 Sampson, 193 von Rosenberg, 218 Riordan

Purple Refractors: BCP136 Magnuson, 160 Cole

Blue Refractors: BCP121 Higashioka, 175 Lawrie

Gold Refractor: 166 Youkilis

2001 Throwbacks: Chipper Jones, Ichiro (english), Ichiro (Japanese)

2001 Throwbacks Prospects:  BCT13 Mesoraco, 14 S Miller, 15 Deshields Jr, 18 Chisenhall, 19 A Vizciano

2021 Diecuts: 4 Deshields Jr., 7 Ranaudo, 8 Allie, 12 Singleton, 17 Dominguez, 24 Turner, 25 Myers

2021 Diecuts Refractors: 3 Taillon, 11 Banuelos, 16 Tago, 18 Sano

Bowman's Best Prospects: BBP54 Singleton, 59 Archer, 60 M Perez, 64 Myers(2), 65 Turner