Sunday, May 22, 2016

Ladies From the Bay

The last group of cards from my recent eBay spendapalooza are a few of my favorite female athletes. 

Last year after the Women's World Cup I wrote a blog post about how the USWNT, and women's soccer as whole, deserves it's own trading card release. While this has yet to happen there are some cards out there from different Upper Deck and Panini releases. I was able to pick up relics of my two favorite members of the USWNT. Both cards come from 2012 Panini Americana.


#42/99

Tobin Heath's passing and chance creation skills are right up there with the best male players in the world. 


#12/99

Kelley O'Hara has an engine that never stops going. She is particularly adept at playing the ball in from the flank from the fullback or outside mid positions.

I also picked up cards from three Olympics stars.


#115/119

Katie Hoff made her Olympics debut as a 15 year old at the 2004 Athens games. She really became a star over the next few years winning numerous medals and breaking world records. However, her performance at the 2008 Beijing games did not live up to expectations. She failed to qualify for the 2012 London team and officially retired in 2015 due to health issues.


#50/99

Carly Patterson won the 2004 Olympic women's gymnastics all-around starting a string of, thus far, three straight all-around gold medals won by American women. I actually had the privilege of meeting her in person in 2005 and got an autograph at the time. I met her at her gym in Plano, TX. She was very personable taking a few minutes to talk with me and take a picture with me. She actually seemed surprised and honored that someone who was not in the gymnastics world would be interested in meeting her.


Meryl Davis is a highly successful ice dancer winning gold at the 2014 Sochi games with partner Charlie White after they took silver at the 2010 Vancouver games. Together they have won many other international titles. She was also the winner of the 18th season of "Dancing With the Stars".

Monday, May 16, 2016

More eBay Cards part 3

These cards all came from my favorite eBay seller.


#89/99

Sweet Tom Glavine patch from 2014 Topps!!


#39/45

I got this Chipper Jones patch for unbelievably cheap.


#82/99

Another addition to the HoF relic PC.


Refractor #166/499

Skaggs has yet to live up to his potential being hampered by injuries. He hasn't pitched in the majors since 2014 due to Tommy John surgery. This season he started in AAA to rehab but has had more arm issues. At the moment it seems like he may never reach his potential. But he's still young so who knows.


Shoemaker had a stellar rookie season in 2014 finishing a distant second in the AL ROY voting behind Jose Abreu. Last year he stumbled a bit and has gotten off to a slow start this year.


Archie Bradley is still at the very beginning of his major league career. He has a pretty high ceiling. Here's to hoping this work out for him! On a side note, I really like these autos from 2015 Strata. I may be tempted to pick up a box...


Red Ice #03/25

Penilla only made it as high as Class A in 2014 and last year played independent league ball. It looks like his baseball career will not amount to much more than that. So needless to say, I got this card super cheap. To be honest I only picked it up to use as trade bait with the couple of Twins trading partners I have. RhubarbRunner?

So every so often I post some cards I've bought off eBay and often I mention those come from "my favorite seller". I say he's my favorite because he always has a great selection of cards for really good BIN prices, free shipping, and he always ships super fast. I nearly always receive cards from him within 2 or 3 days of purchase. But another reason I like him is that he occasionally throws in extras! This time he included two bonus autos! 


Hawkins is currently playing in AA for the White Sox. He has shown some good power numbers thus far in his career and has a good shot at making The Show.



Olson is in AAA this year for the A's and has started slow. But he's put up good numbers the last few years and could find himself in Oakland eventually.

Friday, May 13, 2016

Baseball Trip

Hey guys, So in July I'm going to be going to be making a trip to Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia. I am planning on going to the Pirates @ Nationals game on Sunday the 17th and the Marlins @ Phillies game one Wednesday the 20th. The DC game is in the afternoon and the Philly game is in the evening. So I'm looking for good dinner suggestions in the areas around those ball parks. Anyone have any good suggestions?

Monday, May 9, 2016

More eBay Cards part 2

And here are the rest. You will notice a common theme...


This is a super duper shiny card.






#52/99

I actually have a few more cards from eBay that I have yet to scan. Hopefully I can get to them soon!!

Sunday, May 8, 2016

More eBay Cards Part 1

The title says it all!


#07/99


Purple Refractor #107/250

Parsons had a good first year of pro baseball in 2013 with Rome of the South Atlantic league. He went 7-7 with a 2.63 ERA and 1.021 WHIP. In year two with Lynchburg of the Carolina League he did not do so well going 4-7, 5.02 ERA and 1.354 WHIP. In 2015 he didn't pitch much spending time at three different levels. This year he seems to have had a rocky start to the season. So his stock my have been pretty high a couple years ago but it seems to have tapered off. But at just 23 he could still develop into a major leaguer. 


#46/75

Sammons, the perpetual number 3 catcher in the organization. He never really could stick in the majors and spent way more time in AAA..


The only non-Braves card in the bunch. 2001 Topps Archives auto of 60's and 70's fan favorite, two time All-Star and eight time Gold Glove winner Paul Blair.


2012 Allen & Ginter Martin Prado magenta printing plate



More to come soon..

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Show Box 4- 2016 Museum Collection, A Comparison

So the final box I bought was 2016 Museum Collection. Last year the one box I bought was pretty bad. So I was a little apprehensive about buying one again this year. But after watching some breaks online I thought the 2016 version was gorgeous, So I decided to pick up a box. I would like to compare my 2016 box to the one I got in 2015, hit for hit.

On-Card Auto

2015


All-Star first baseman of the hottest team in baseball.

2016


Mediocre platoon catcher for one of he worst teams in baseball. WHY IS THIS GUY IN A HIGH END PRODUCT.

Advantage: 2015

Single Relic

These cards aren't exactly comparable since 2015 had jumbo relics and 2016 had small prime relics. But it'll do.

2015


Jumbo bat relic of a sometimes decent hitting outfielder on one of the worst teams in baseball.

2016


Low end patch of one of the top closers in baseball and the hardest throwing pitcher in history.

Advantage: 2016

Quad Relic

2015


Boring quad relic of a Hall of Fame third baseman.

2016


Somewhat more interesting quad relic of an outfielder for my least favorite team.

So this one is a little more interesting. The Ellsbury card is nicer looking by virtue of three pinstripes vs one on the Boggs card. But Boggs is a Hall of Famer, so..

Advantage: 2015

Auto-Relic

2015


All-Star second baseman for a bad team.

2016


Overpaid for, mediocre, overrated, POS woman beater from my favorite team. If ever there was a Braves hit that I did not want to pull, it was this one.

Advantage: 2015

So, 2015 felt really crappy at the time. And still does. And I thought there was no way it could get worse than that box. But good lord it sure got worse. WAY worse. As far as "bang for the buck" goes I think this is the worst box I have EVER opened of any product. If there is one single worst box of an entire print run, I think I ended up with it. Museum is going to have to really impress me next year if I am going to drop money on it again.

Monday, May 2, 2016

Show Box 3- 2016 Gypsy Queen

Gypsy Queen is a set I fell in love with in 2013 when I started collecting again. Then I very quickly fell out of love with it in 2014 when it became more expensive without delivering better quality content. This is a product that should be no more than $80 a box. I would say $70 but since most of the autos are on-card it does merit an extra bump. GQ is a low-mid end product that sells at a high-mid end price. As such I haven't bought a box since 2013. But at the show..I dunno, it just caught my eye. Maybe it's because Cal Ripken is the cover boy this year and is a PC player of mine. So for whatever reason I took the plunge and bought a box, 



Purple Frame parallel 224/250


218/250


108/250


167/250


02/50



The Glove Stories inserts have always been mildly interesting but I really like this one of Billy Burns. Dark borders on cards are a favorite of mine so this one looks great to my eyes.




1998 me would have gone insane over this card.


As I slow-revealed this card left to right I saw the D-backs jersey and the P in the signature and thought "Yes! Goldy!" But then I saw the RC logo. -_-


Green parallel 11/99

Pulling a color auto from GQ is a pretty rare feat for me. As in, this is the first time ever.


So this was a bland box, I think. The McGwire relic was nice as was the gold Hank Aaron mini. But overall it was typical GQ. About $20 worth of content from a $100 box.

Meh.

Sunday, May 1, 2016

Show Box 2- 2016 Diamond Kings

So I was a big fan of Panini's resurrection of Diamond Kings last year. As such I was really looking forward to this year's release. My first box did not disappoint. 


Image variation

I was a big fan of the design of last year's base set and a HUGE fan of the cardstock they used that gave a canvas type feel to the cards. I think this year's set looks even better!! This might be, in my opinion, the best looking baseball card set I've ever seen. 


Image variation

The cards are so gorgeous.


Artist's Proof #05/99


Framed Parallel


#90/99

Now this card has me so confused. According to the checklist the framed cards numbered /99 are blue. The framed cards that are black are /1. This card is /99. The frame is black. I don't have a problem differentiating blue and black. It's black. My scanner made it a little brighter than it is in person. It's definitely black. Looking at eBay doesn't really help with this particular card but other /99 examples look a lot more blue to me than this one does. So I am wondering if perhaps this one was an error that received the wrong color frame. Any ideas?










The inserts were a the weak link in the 2015 version of DK. This year Panini knocked it out of the park. 


#78/99

I love pulling PC hits!!


Woo!!

Already redeemed. These don't appear to be live yet but Arrieta autos from Donruss are live so I don't expect these to take too awful long.

So like I said at the beginning this box did not disappoint. I know I most likely got a better than average box hits wise. But regardless of the hits Panini has produced another stellar edition of Diamond Kings. Topps will rue the day that Panini gets a full MLB license if they continue to churn out gems like this.