2011 Spring Training TTM Success #4

It looks like Joe signed this card with a dried up sharpie. Oh well. Hopefully if Joe fulfills his potential, I will have plenty more opportunities to get his autograph.

Trade with Chris of Nachos Grande

This was a quick and easy trade with Chris from the world famous Nachos Grande blog. I sent him a couple of the 2011 Topps Diamond Anniversary Parallels along with some inserts from he needed for his master set. In return, I asked for a starter set of 09 Upper Deck Goudey and this card:

This is the Target Throwback version of Nick's base card. If I could only get my hands on a Black Bordered #'d to 60 I would have the entire rainbow of 2011 Markakii. Obviously not counting the 1/1 Platinum, 1/1 Canary Diamond, or any of the printing plates. I'm not made of money! I really do like the feel of the old-timey cardboard. Like I said before, that is one of the main reasons for me to build the entire 3 year run of UD Goudey baseball.

Thanks Chris for the trade.

Box Break: 2009 Upper Deck Goudey

This is the final box I purchased with a portion of my Virginia State Tax Refund. After my great success with my 2007 Goudey Hobby Box, and the disaster 2008 Goudey "Box Break", I had no idea what to expect with my 2009 Goudey Hobby box. I ended up being pretty satisfied with it overall.

I addition to pile of base set cards (the real reason I am building all 3 UD Goudey sets), I have a nice selection of SPs for trade:

208 Nolan Ryan, 216 Robin Yount, 226 Reggie Jackson, 227 Carl Yastrzemski, 253 Chipper Jones, 279 Ryan Howard, 265 Ernie Banks, 278 Manny Ramirez, 292 Derrek Lee, 296 Vlad Guerrero

Here's a list of the minis that I have for trade too:

Green Back: 100 Ethier, 102 Penny, 114 Hardy, 186 Kazmir

Blue Back: 65 Fowler, 120 Liriano, 208 Nolan Ryan

Here's the 4 in 1's that I got. I like the idea of these. Most of the foursomes make sense (young lefties, Asian players) while others make me scratch my head.

Red: 5 Jeter/Jackson/Berra/Ford, 29 Schmidt/Howard/Yount/Fielder, 38 Reyes/Rollins/Ramirez/Guzman, 53 Sizemore/Hafner/Martinez/Shoppach. 62 Wright/Zimmerman/Upton/Maine, 74 Matsuzaka/Wang/Fukudome/Ichiro, 77 Liriano/Kershaw/Price/Hamels, 89 Berkman/Lee/Tejada/Oswalt

Blue: 79 Beltran/Lee/Quentin/Guillen, 91 Zambrano, Johnson, Halladay, Hudson

Green: 52 Hamilton/Kinsler/Byrd/Young

I was fortunate enough to get this Jeremy Guthrie Autograph card from one of the first packs from the box. This is the first time in my pack ripping career that I have pulled an Oriole auto from a pack. I've traded for O's auto's, gotten them in person, gotten them TTM and even have had other bloggers pull them in some of the Group Breaks that I've been in, but never pulled one myself. It took a minute for it to sink in and after the initial shock in the very next pack, I get a Green Back Mini of Guthrie. Wow!

The outside of the box boasts one Autograph and one Relic card per box (on Average!).... This box was not average. I ended up with 3 relic cards from the box:

These relics are ones that only BA Benny could love (just kidding of course!). If you can look close enough, Saito is pictured as a Dodger but listed as a Red Sox player and Hoffman is pictured as a Padre but listed as a Brewer. And sticking with the tradition of me pulling Orioles AL East rivals GUs and Autos I get this UD 20th Anniversary Jason Giambi. For BA Benny's Sake, I think Giambi had already moved back to the A's and onto the Rockies by the time this card was produced! Alas, at least he was listed and pictured with the correct team! All 3 of these are for trade if anybody is interested.

Since I am pretty far away from having the complete set, (1 thru 200) I might buy another box or just try to complete it by trading with all of my great readers. I should have a want list up really soon so keep an eye on my wantlist (linked to the right, in my sidebar).

Contest over at The Daily Dimwit!

Head over to The Daily Dimwit and get signed up for Sam's contest:

http://www.thedailydimwit.com/2011/03/this-contest-is-easy-and-hopefully-fun.html

Everybody likes free money!

"Box Break": 2008 Upper Deck Goudey

Well this is a "quasi" box break of 2008 Goudey. The "Diet Coke" of box breaks (just one calorie!). Due to a SNAFU at the internet company where I bought my 2007 Goudey hobby box and forthcoming 2009 Goudey hobby box, I was refunded my money for the 08 hobby box. I was told they were sold out when I placed the order. So being the impatient collector that I am, I basically took the money that was refunded to me and went to my local Dollar General Store and bought 24 packs (the same amount of packs in a sealed retail box but reatailing for about 20 bucks more) of the 08 Goudeys. In hindsight I should have just shopped around the internet a little more and found another Hobby Box.

So now I feel kind of stupid by basically wasting 20 bucks and not ending up with much more than a chunk of the base set and a couple of Shortprints.

Shortprints: 208 Ryan, 213, Molitor, 214 Yount, 226, Gwynn, 227 McCovey, 232 Thomas Jefferson, 239 Grover Cleveland, 246 James K. Polk, 255 Utley, 270 Guerrero, 279 Cynthia Cooper, 279 Cynthia Cooper (Yep a double shortprint!), 294 Josh Beckett, 327 Terry Bradshaw

Minis:

Red Back: 6 Scherzer, 43 Dye, 85 Towles, 87 Hochevar, 98 A. Jones, 113 Perkins, 137 Catfish Hunter, 146 Bay, 165 Ichiro, 279 Cynthia Cooper (AGAIN!)

Blue Back: 30 Youkilis, 104 Fielder, 160 Cain

I guess the only thing "good" I got out of these packs was this numbered parallel of James Monroe:

I also won a nice lot of 08 goudeys from ebay and ended up with these Parade of Champions cards:
Woot! I got my first LeBron and Tom Brady cards. Oh yeah and the Rocket. 3 of my least favorite athletes of all time. Please for the love of God, somebody make a trade offer for them.

So there you have it, a "box break" of 08 Goudey. Maybe since I did so well with my 07 box, fate is kicking me in the ass right here. Why do I continually fall into the retail trap?

Box Break: 2007 Upper Deck Goudey

I'm just going to start this off saying that this was one of the best boxes I have ever busted! Stay with me till the end and you'll see why.

I used part of my tax refund from the Virginia State Government to treat myself to some wax. I used all of my Federal refund to pay off my credit card so I needed to do something nice for myself!


I have always been interested in the Goudey line that Upper Deck put out from 07 to 09 but the shortprints really turned me off. I HATE SHORTPRINTS. I decided to swear off the shortprints and just collect the base sets, cards 1 thru 200 for each year, and use the shortprints as trade bait.


I like the o7's because they are the same size as the original 1933 Goudey cards. I really like the feeling of the cardboard in these cards. It just feels old timey and UD did good job of capturing the charm of the original set. Though I am a little perplexed at why UD made a parallel set of Red Lettered Backs that are basically the same collation as the Green Lettered Backs.


Here's the list of shortprints that I have for trade: 207 Fisk, 209 Kaline, 215 Mattingly, 222 Gwynn, 234 Maddux, 237 Santana, 252 Pujols, 254 Howard, 260 Wright, 270 Igawa, 278 Howard, 286 Verlander. If you need scans of any of those, just ask!


Here's scans of the two BIG MOJOZ HITZZ promised on the outside of the box:
Uninspiring at best. I can't complain about on card autographs and not everybody gets a Ripken Autograph in their box. These are for trade.

Now, this is where the box gets good. There are two box loader packs that are promised on the sell sheets for this product. One (1) card pack that is inserted on top where you are promised a Sports Royalty card. I got Peyton Manning. Not bad. He's for trade if anybody is interested.

The second box loader pack is inserted in the bottom of the box underneath all of the regular packs. These packs are inserted 1 or 2 per 12 box case. I was very lucky and got one! The outside of the pack promises 1 buyback and one insert #'d to 15 or less. Here's the Goods:

I got 2 inserts! BADASS!

The Yogi and Reggie insert is part of the Doubleheader insert set. I have no idea what kind of value it may have. The Teixeira is part of the Diamond Stars insert set. Both are hand-numbered and are great looking cards. I have no idea what to do with them at this point.

And now without further delay, the 1933 Goudey Buyback:

I've never heard of Fred Frankhouse but I could really give a crap! IT'S AN ORIGINAL 1933 GOUDEY Card. This becomes the oldest card I own by about 25 years. I nearly fell out of my desk chair when I saw this beauty! Sure the corners are rounded a bit but it doesn't have any creases and the color is fantastic. I LOVE THIS CARD!!! It's definitely not for trade and is going straight into my personal collection.

So there you have it. One of the best boxes I've ever opened. I hope you guys and gals out there share in my excitement about the Goudey Original I pulled!

I'm gonna work on the Green Lettered back set along with the Red Lettered Back set. I won a lot of about 300 of the Red and Green backs on eBay for nothing more than shipping costs so I should be pretty close on both sets. Look for a wantlist later this week.

Cal Ripken Cardboard Appreciation #11

1993 SP #8

It's been a while since I've done a Cardboard Appreciation, so here goes. I remember going to a card show way back in 1993 and getting this card. I think it was at The Showplace in Richmond, Va. Back when then I was 10 years old and getting to go to a card show 80 miles away was a big deal.... Now I live about 15 minutes down the road from venue! Anyways, I remember my dad and I going. He was searching for racing cards while I was searching for Cal. I distinctly remember buying this card. This was the first "premium" card of the Iron Man that I owned! I think I paid 50 cents for it and according to Beckett Baseball December 1993 it was worth 75 cents (The famed Jeter Rookie card booked for measly dollar!). This card has been quite an investment for me because in Beckett it goes for $6. Even more so, it is one of the great memories that I have of my dad and I going to a card show.

Tomahawk Chopping - A Contest Shout-Out

Derek over at Tomahawk Chopping - Carboard and More is running a contest! He's going to buy cards for you! Here's the link my fellow bloggers:

http://tomahawkchopping.blogspot.com/2011/03/contest-time.html

You must enter by the 3rd of March! Good Luck!