Contest Winnings from the Great Kahuna

The Big Kahuna ran a contest a little while back and I was a lucky enough to be the winner.  I was sent a huge prize package that I was very grateful for.  

Turkey Red Chris Ray Relic, I love how the Orange swatch pops out against the tan motif of the entire set.

Back to back posts with Nick Delmonico.  He has baseball in his blood so I think he'll be a quick mover up the Orioles farm system.

It would't be Halloween time if I didn't post this 1999 Upper Deck SPX Albert Belle power explosion insert card.  I still think about those kids egging his house on Halloween because he wouldn't sign autographs for them!

There's one word that comes to my mind when I look at this 1999 Upper Deck SP Authentic Premier Performers Ripken:  Classy.  I really like the design of this card.

I'll close up this post with a 1994 Pinnacle Naturals Ripken.  I didn't even know this set existed until I got this card.  It's really shiny and the scan doesn't do it justice!

Thanks for the awesome prize package Kahuna, I thouroughly enjoyed looking thru the cards!

Couple of Auction Wins

I just wanted to show off a few of my auction wins that I've gotten over the last few weeks.

When I first saw these manurelic plaques, I knew I had to have the Cal Ripken version.  I really really like this card.  Topps really knocked it out the park on these shiny, heavy behemoths.  They even have the actual HOF plaque in the background for each individual player on the checklist.  It's a nice touch!

I "accidentally" won this card.  I was watching the last few minutes of the auction on ebay and put in a bid with about 1 minute left.  I was for sure that I would get outbid but luckily for me, I didn't!  I love the Orange jersey that Nick is wearing  BTW, this card is the gold refractor version and it's numbered 13/25!

Here's one of my Listia wins.  I'm still pretty new to Listia but I have had 12 or so autions.  I'm glad I was able to bid and win this card.  I hadn't seen one before and I was quite shocked to see it on Lisia!

My final auction win is this 2012 Topps A Cut Above Cal Ripken, also from Listia.  I used to love die cuts back in the day and they have made quite a comeback this year in Topps' products.  I just hope they don't overdo them so that nobody will care about pulling one after a while.

So as you can see I'm active on both ebay and Lista.  I don't have a bunch of Fans on Listia so if you have an account, don't be afraid to "Fan" Me!

Trade with Baseball Dad

I just finished up a trade with Baseball Dad who runs the Indian-centric All Tribe Baseball blog.  I'm Jack's "Orioles guy" so I usually get a good haul whenever the trade wins blow between our residences.  Here's a few of the highlight cards that I especially enjoyed from the package

This is probably my favorite Rodrigo Lopez card.  It hails from the 2003 Donruss Estrellas set.  I guess Donruss tried to fill the Spanish baseball card void left by Pacific with this set.  I took French in high school so O-Pee-Chee cards are a little more up my alley!  I love the photo on this card.  You never see this shot anymore!

You can't tell it from the scan very well but there is some serious die-cutting going on here.  The "Cuts" area looks like a bobcat scratched it and there's jagged holes in the card now.  Most diecutting these days are done to the outside borders of the card as opposed to inside like this one.

1995 Studio was quite a departure from 1994's release.  The base cards were silver but were done in the style of credit cards.  They are accually plastic like the sample credit cards that you get in those unsolicited offers you get in the mail.  Interesting concept but I'm not sure that the plastic baseball card really caught on.

Jack filled one of my needs from my 2012 Bowman Chrome Prospects list in the form of this Nick  Delmonico card.  Nick had a pretty decent 1st season in the Orioles organization all while battling a knee injury.  He bares some watching next season as he will probably play at High-A Frederick.

My favorite card of the package is this dual relic card of Javy Lopez from 2005 Donruss Throwback Threads.  I'm a big fan of Orioles relic cards that have an orange swatch in them and this one is no exception!

Thanks Jack for sending such an awesome trade package!

"O" NO!'s 2nd Group Break: 2nd Team Randomization

There were 15 spots in the upcoming break that were claimed by 10 different people.  So now we need to figure out who the unclaimed teams are going to.

I will randomize the list of teams that didn't get chosen along with the 10 group breakers 3 times each and then match them up.

Here's the list of the 11 "breakers" randomized 3 times:

And the unclaimed teams randomized 3 times:

So the here's the list of breakers and their teams (selected and random)

                              Selected                     Random(s)

Ryan H.                 Orioles                       Cubs

Community Gum   White Sox, Padres     Marlins, Astros

Buckstore Cards     Blue Jays, Expos      Royals, Brewers

Chris Mays             Braves                       Mets

GCRL                    Dodgers                     Pirates

dawgbones             Phillies, Yankees       Red Sox, Twins
Roy-Z                     Rangers, Mariners     Tigers, Diamondbacks
madding                  Cardinals                   Angels
Tim Byrd                Rockies                      Giants
Jack H.                    Indians, Reds             Rays, A's

I will permit team trading.  All trades must be completed before the 1st group of packs is busted.  Most likely this will be on Monday evening after dinner time. This weekend is going to be somewhat busy but I might be stuck inside on Sunday with Sandy moving up the coast.   I must receive an email from both of the team trading parties or comments from both parties consenting to a trade in this post only.

Box Break: 2012 Topps Update Series

I'm way late to the party when it comes to this years Update series but the longer you wait to buy a hobby box, the less you have to pay for it!  I bought this box at the CSA show the weekend of October 12th-14th for 48 dollars.  It was a bit of an impulse buy but I think I made out rather well on this box.  Actually, I can't think of a better flagship hobby box that I've opened in terms of the cards I got out of it!

I picked the second to the last box from the bottom of the pile.  Apparently I got the right one since there were 3 Orioles parallels in the box.  Strangely enough, the Jason Hammel gold sparkle came out of the same pack as the base card did.  As a matter of fact, most of the gold sparklies came out of the same pack as the base card did.  I got a ton of the regular gold parallels that I'll be listing at the end for trade.  I need pretty much all of the Orioles except Hunter and Hardy.

I also did fairly well on Orioles inserts too.  I got the Ripken and Jones Golden Moments, as well as the Palmer Golden Greats!  Not too shabby but I still need another copy of each to finish out the team set since each of these will be heading into their respective PC binders.

I was pretty stoked when I got Matt Kemp's SP variation card.  Then I realized that there would be a feeding frenzy between Spiegel, Plaschke, and Night Owl to see if they can trade me for it.  Anybody want to take bets on who sees it first?  HAHA!  I think the SP variation cards are pretty cool ever since Topps has been inserting them into packs.  The jersey variations and the diamond sparkles are/were stupid.  I really want a Jim Thome Orioles card but I don't have 200 bucks to spend on one.  The Jose Reyes and Albert Pujols jersey variations were dumb too.  If you really wanted them in their Marlins or Angels jerseys that bad, why not wait another month and a half and get them in Heritage as base cards?

 I think I may have bought into the whole Harpermania hype a little bit.  I haven't gone crazy buying his cards or anything but I have been lucky and pulled quite a few from packs.  I guess that happens when you buy a lot of Bowman products!  The streak continues with the Golden Moments, the 1987 mini, and the All-Star card (not shown).  I think he does have a bit to learn about playing baseball at the top level but I do respect the way he plays the game with his hair on fire.  I think the maturity will come with age and as long as he keeps his mouth shut and lets his bat do the talking, he'll win over more fans.

Here's my hit of the box, and it's a goodie!  Yonder Alonso seems to have a bright future out there in San Diego.  There are regular versions of this insert and then there's the #'d to 10 gold sparkly version that I have!  These cards are one in 16,680 pack pulls!  Holy Crap!  That's 463 hobby boxes worth!  I haven't quite decided what to do with the card yet but I'm leaning on putting it on eBay or COMC if no Padres fans can blow me away with an offer.  What do you think I should do with it?

Here's all of the inserts and parallels that I pulled from the hobby box and the retail packs I opened.  Everything is for trade!

Gold Sparkle: US63 Laird, 65 D. Norris, 78 Durbin, 108 Loe, 140 Duensing, 159 Sheets, 191 Abreu, 239 L. Scott, 257 J. Quintana, 261 Oliver, 278 Pettitte
Gold Bordered: 57 Betancourt, 254 Humber, 199 Dunn, 262 Marcum, 331 Pujols, 334 Rizzo (missing some foil on the front), 351 Hart, 369 Street, 373 Car-Go, 425 C. Zambrano, 436 C. Perez, 453 Garrett Jones, 515 Bloomquist, 519 Gio Gonzalez, 546 Thornton, 600 Kershaw, 656 C. Santana, US11 Ankiel, US49 Burnett, US82 Wigginton, US83 C. Lee, US109 Marte, US153 Maholm, US161 Dozier, US223 Logan, US293 Victorino, US300 Kotsay, US328 Soto
Blockbusters: BB-2 Sabathia, 4 G Carter, 6 Buhner, 9 Ryan(2), 13 Cespedes, 17 Hunter, 20 D. Ortiz, 24 Carlton(2), 28 J. Santana, 29 M. Ramirez
Golden Greats:  GG-81 Banks, 88 Griffey Jr, 89 Brock, 92 R. Jackson, 97 Boggs, 98 Spahn, 99 Stargell
1987 Minis:  TM-101 Goldschmidt, 107 Bumgarner(2), 112 Darvish, 115 Beltran, 118 A. Jackson, 121 Latos, 132 Rice, 136 Beachy, 144 Trumbo
Golden Moments: GM-U5 J Santana, 9 M. Cabrera, 12 Granderson, 15 Castro, 17 Price, 21 Banks, 26 Yount, 45 Tulowitzki

Lastly, here's my needs list to complete my set:

13, 17, 25, 33, 41, 45, 47, 54, 55, 57, 60, 67, 100, 111, 123, 127, 159, 166, 171, 186, 197, 224, 232, 247, 249, 251, 267, 270, 288, 293, 305, 316, 327

Something a little different

First off, I want to thank everybody for their quick action in claiming and subsequently paying for their teams in my latest group break.  The boxes have been ordered and hopefully I can start ripping and posting the results soon.  The end of this week thru the beginning of next week is looking awfully busy though!

I've got a case of the Mondays, so here's something a little different to show off:

I requested this autographed picture from the official Wheel of Fortune website. The wife is a big fan of the show so I also got her a copy too.  I can tell that they are actually signed and not an autopen signature because the signatures are oh-so-slightly different and the placement is a little different too.

Pat is a pretty big baseball fan and hosts his own radio show about it.  He's attended Orioles games in the past and has actually been in the booth during a 2011 Spring Training game vs the Red Sox!

Vanna, has one of the nicest smiles on TV, and is never hard on the eyes to look at.  She's always dressed to the T's in fancy evening gowns.  She was also crowned "TV's most Frequent Clapper" by the Guinness Book of World Records in 1992!

Group Break Announcement: November 2012 "O" No's Affordable Group Break

UPDATE: ALL SLOTS ARE FILLED!!!

I think since everybody enjoyed the October break so much, I've decided to hold another group break for the month of November.  I had a lot of fun busting the packs and posting the results too.  It's a lot of work but also very rewarding.  So without further babbling, Here's the products that were going to break this month:

1999 Topps Stars:

There's a lot of cards to get excited about here.  Yeah the checklist is somewhat confusing, but the late 90's were like that for baseball cards.  Inserts are a tough pull but there are plenty of serial numbered goodness to be had here.  There's also a remote chance that we could pull and autographed rookie reprint card of Ernie Banks, Yogi Berra, Bob Gibson, Frank Robinson, or Tom Seaver.  Those are some heavy hitters (and good pitchers!).  Maybe we'll get lucky!

2002 Upper Deck Victory:

There's not a whole bunch of inserts in this box but there are gold parallels that are 1:2 pack pulls.  There's 360 cards in this box so everyone should get a nice pile of cards from their team of choice.

1998 Fleer Sports Illustrated World Series Fever:

This is another exciting box.  I remember opening a few blasters of this set back when it was on store shelves.  I've been a fan of this set for it's interesting insert sets and great photography.  I remember pulling a Magglio Ordonez rookie card that was the Extra Edition parallel.  As a 14 year old kid at the time, I felt like I had won the lottery!

So, 3 really nice boxes of cards to open.  I hope to start busting and posting the results on November 1st as everyone is coming down from their sugar highs of Halloween.


There's going to be 15 slots.  8 dollars gets you one team of your choice and a team to be randomly selected from the remaining unchosen teams. 14 dollars gets you 2 chosen teams and 2 randoms.  If you want more than 2 let me know, we can work something out. I'm not going to discourage international collectors, I just may ask for just a couple dollars more for shipping.

In the event we get cards with multiple teams on them, they will be randomed off as fair as possible among the participants.

***ALL SLOTS ARE FULL!!!***

Atlanta Braves - Chris M. - PAID
Arizona Diamondbacks -
Baltimore Orioles - Ryan H. - PAID
Boston Red Sox -
Chicago Cubs -
Chicago White Sox - Community Gum  Jon - PAID
Cincinnati Reds - Baseball Dad - PAID
Cleveland Indians - Baseball Dad - PAID
Colorado Rockies - Tim B. - PAID
Detroit Tigers -
Florida Marlins -
Houston Astros -
Los Angeles Angels -
Los Angeles Dodgers - GCRL - PAID
Kansas City Royals -
Milwaukee Brewers -
Minnesota Twins -
Montreal Expos - BuckStoreCards - PAID
New York Mets -
New York Yankees - dawgbones - Payment on the way
Oakland Athletics -
Philadelphia Phillies - dawgbones - Payment on the way
Pittsburgh Pirates -
San Diego Padres - Community Gum Jon - PAID
San Francisco Giants-
Seattle Mariners - Roy-Z - PAID
St Louis Cardinals - madding - PAID
Tampa Bay Rays -
Texas Rangers - Roy-Z - PAID
Toronto Blue Jays - BuckStoreCards - PAID

*** ALL SLOTS ARE FULL!!!***

Paypal is my preferred method of payment but I will except other methods as well.  Please contact me if you are paying a different way.  Please send your Paypal payments as a gift to family or friends to XXXryanhughes12XXX@XXXyahoo.comXXX . (Don't forget to remove the XXX's)

After claiming your team(s) and you pay, please send me an email (same as paypal address) with your name and address along with the team(s) you've claimed.  The sooner we get this filled up the quicker we can get to busting these boxes!

Don't Forget!

Check back here in less than one hour for the details of my second Affordable Group Break.  See you then!

Here's a teaser for the 3 boxes:

The night sky.
Top Level Win.
MLB Top Game Illness.

Just for fun, any guesses?