Trade with Dustin of Coot Veal and the Vealtones

Another awesome trade that I completed recently was with Dustin of Coot Veal and the Vealtones.  Dustin has become one of my favorite trade partners over the last few years.  I even traded with him before he made it to Major League Blogging (*not a real league).   He sent me so many cool cards I had a hard time whittling this post down to 5 cards for the sake of brevity.  Lets begin:

I really enjoy adding new autographs to my Orioles collection especially if they are on-card.  Here is my second Brandon Snyder autograph but my first on-card one. While Brandon didn't make a huge impact with the Orioles he was able to play with Texas and is now with Boston.

Speaking of Boston, it still pains me to see Koji wearing "red socks" now.  He really endeared himself to the Orioles fans while he was here even though he was hurt a lot.  I think the only thing that I take solace in him being gone is when I seen Chris Davis manning first base!

Speaking of big burly first baseman, Boog Powell did it first in Baltimore.  Now he makes a mean BBQ sandwich in right field at Camden Yards.  I'm thrilled that Dustin sent this vintage "Booger" for my PC.

Speaking of boogers, PC's, I also found this Brady Anderson MLB Showdown game card in the package.  I've slowed down on the Brady PC as of late since I have most of his early career stuff (think over-production era) and some of the late 90's "off the beaten path" stuff can be somewhat harder to find.  MLB Showdown was underrated in that there were some obscure players in there.  There are Orioles cards of Trenidad Hubbard and Mike Trombley in some of their sets!

I'll close with another PC addition of Jim Palmer.  I don't have many Topps Pristine cards in my collection mostly because I wasn't collecting much when they were released.  Plus, me being a poor college student at the time kept me from buying the high end products.!   

Thanks Dustin for the awesome trade package!

Trip to Mint Urawa

While I was on my trip in Japan I was hopeful that I would be able to check out a baseball card shop.  I had read about Ryan G.'s experiences with some of the card shops in the Land of the Rising Sun so I did a Google search and luckily there was one right near my cousin's condo.  The shop's name was Mint Opa! Urawa. Ryan had visited this store before so I figured I'd be the second blogging Ryan to visit!  I had my wife and cousin in tow when I went so I didn't get as much time as I had liked to browse the boxes and boxes of cards but I did pick up some interesting items while I was there.  I probably could have stayed in there for a half and day and spent a ton more money but the wifey and cousin probably would have been bored to tears.

First off I was able to pick up this pretty cool Ichiro card.  If the design looks somewhat familiar to you, your eyes are not deceiving you.  Around the turn of the century Upper Deck made some Japanese cards out of some of the designs they issued for MLB.

Speaking of those designs, Here's a few Koji's that utilize a few of the American designs too.

Not all of the cards I picked up were Upper Deck.  I think both of these Koji's are from BBM (Baseball Magazine).  It would be really cool to be able to get all of Koji's regular BBM releases since I have a nice collection of his stateside cards.

I also looked for some other cards of the Orioles Japanese import Tsuyoshi Wada.  While he hasn't thrown a pitch in the big leagues yet he'll probably be there by the time the season is done.  While this looks like 1 card, it is actually 3!  I think these came from the Softbank Hawks team set from 2010 and seems to be an insert.  I'm glad I could get all 3 from the singles box!

I also found a couple of cards of Dennis Sarfate!  Pictured here is his regular BBM issue from this year and his premium Genesis card from last year when he pitched for the Hiroshima Carp.

Like I said earlier, I would have loved to have more time to browse the store but there was much more to do  in Japan than look thru cards all day.  I have tons and tons of cards that I don't look at home!  I don't have much to compare it to but it took a trip to the other side of the world to find a decent card shop.

I have one more Japan related post coming up so stay tuned for that!

Thanks for looking!

Trade with Ryan of The Great Orioles Autograph Project

I think this is my last Orioles FanFest related post, at least for this year.  In the weeks leading up to the big day, I had been in contact with Ryan of the Great Orioles Autograph Project about meeting up and swapping some cards.  He indicated that he didn't buy many 2011 cards and didn't have many Orioles from those products.  I happened to have a fair amount of doubles I was able to pass along to him and he gave me around 1500 Orioles and Oriole related cards.  I had great fun sorting through all of the minor league cards, oddball issues and cards of Orioles players in different uniforms.  I was able to use a fair amount of them for my various O's related projects and binders.  Here's just a few of my favorites that went into my PC binders from the lot:

I like this card for obvious reasons but it was Topps's first real insert card.  I always liked the Black Gold cards but never was able to get a Brady.

I just recently started collecting Koji more closely since we both have Japanese heritage (him more than me!)  The 1960 Topps design is one of my favorites of all time and when Topps Chromed them, I think they just look fantastic.

Here's a diecut Mike Mussina from Pacific's Crown Royale.  I still haven't figured out why its called "Crown Royale. LOL.  It really is a neat card though with the holographic foil in between the crown's "limbs".

Here is a card that I have been searching for for about 19 years now.  This card used the be the shiznit and I dreamed about owning one when I was a 10 year old little chap.  I think it used to book for about 100 dollars at that point so it was no way I could afford it.  I remember getting the factory set of Collector's Choice for Christmas or my Birthday in 1994 and it came with 3 gold signature cards.  I ripped off the factory seal and was quickly disappointed by 3 gold signatures of scrubs.  So I guess I'm thrilled to end a 19 year search for one of my dream cards. Thanks Ryan for making a dream come true!  Also, thanks for all of the other cards you gave to me.

Trade with Dustin of Coot Veal and the Vealtones

Dustin, from the awesomely named Coot Veal and the Vealtones blog sent me an email a little while back about a Miguel Cabrera GU that he was interested in and offered to send me some cards in return. We have traded in the past so I was happy to make the trade.  Lets look at some of the cards:

The Montanez and Ponson card finished up their respective team sets.  I'm surprised that it took me so long to get my hands on he Bowman Ponson card.  I'm still way far away from finishing up the Documentary Orioles though.  If anybody has any let me know!

This is the Refractor version of Josh's Bowman Platinum from last year.  I now have the trifecta (base, refractor, and gold refractor).  Josh's stock seems to be dropping in the Orioles system because he can't seem to make the best of his opportunities when he gets them in the majors.  Maybe he'll get his strikeouts under control and can reestablish himself as a prospect.

I'm real happy to have this black bordered Koji in my collection now.  The cool part is that if you turn the card over, it is the blank back parallel.  While it's not exceedingly rare, it's still cool in my book!

Here's the Zach Britton portion of the trade.  Both cards are new to me so I'm happy to have them.

From one promising young lefty to a (once) promising young lefty.  When I returned to the hobby in 1998 Matt Riley was the #1 Orioles prospect in the O's farm system.  He had a great fastball and a good curveball and was destined for stardom.  Sure he had attitude problems and a maybe was a bit lazy but he had potential.  Then he got hurt. Pretty much after that, he was done in Baltimore after that.  I guess I jumped on this autograph card because he was the first real prospect that I paid close attention to and fiended after his cards (as much as a 15 year-old kid could!).  I guess this card just brings me back and that is why most of us collect card in the first place: nostalgia.

Thanks Dustin for taking me down memory lane and sending such an awesome package!

Farewell Koji-san!

For the past few weeks the trade talk had been heating up around the Orioles best pitcher, Koji Uehara.  I have been watching the talk closely hoping that he would not be traded but now he is headed to the Texas Rangers.  His stay in Baltimore was frustrating when he was on the DL, but most of the time when he was on the mound it was lights out. His presence in the O's bullpen will be sorely missed.  Poor Jim Johnson, his arm will fall off now.

I was very excited when the Orioles signed him from Japan because of my Japanese heritage.  My Grandmother on my mother's side of the family was from Japan.

Here's a few of my favorite Koji cards.  I kind of have a PC of him, meaning when I see cards of him I pick them up but don't go out of my way looking for them.  (LMK if you have any you may have for trade)  Topps seemed to recycle the living crap out of the same few photos of Koji so there aren't that many "different" cards of him:

 This is bar none his best regular Topps card.  The Diamond Anniversary parallel really makes the card shine! (literally and figuratively!)

 This is one of the multi-recycle images.  This particular card is #'d 49/99 (blue parallel, notice the blue foil)

 The chromed up version of his 2009 Heritage card.  Man, I love 1960 Topps!

These 2 came through the mail during spring training this year.  He was an awesome TTM'er while in Baltimore.

As far as I can tell, he signs his full name on all of the certified autographs and only his first name on IP and TTM's.

Rangers fans, I know you are going to enjoy watching Koji pitch.

Best of Luck to you in Texas, Koji!

思い出をありがとうございます