Cleve's Auction Night: Choke, Choke, Choke...

That's what I could envision the crowd chanting at me Tuesday night at Cleve's auction if the auction were held in front of a live audience.  I guess I'll see how things look after I lay out the cards individually on this post, but I have a nagging feeling that I failed miserably.  Maybe the Rangers Game 6 performance rubbed off on me, I don't know.  Maybe a tense couple of weeks at work had me off my game tonight.  Whatever the reason, I don't think I did very well overall.  I was very excited at the start of the auction, since it was the smallest crowd I'd ever seen there, meaning less competition for the stuff I wanted.  Yes, my arch nemesis was there, but as it turns out we had only one minor skirmish that I will get to tomorrow.  My main enemy tonight was myself.   Enough talk, let's look at cards:

Actually, I'll just tell you about the first buy, since I don't want to spend the time taking a picture of it.  I bought a box of about 100 Bowman Chrome rookies from 2008-2010, with the bulk of them at 2010.  I guess I was hoping the 2010s will fill in many of the holes I have on this set that I kind of sort of still would like to complete.  This purchase started the night off on the wrong foot for me, since I really had no use for these cards. 

Things went from ho hum to stupid with the next purchase: 

The son of a crazy man, Cutter Dykstra is not a hot prospect.  And this auto, while at least on card, is from Razor, which does nothing for me.  Why the hell did I buy this?

Next, I picked up this Howard Johnson bat card:

At least this is of someone of whom I was a fan.  This is actually a pretty cool looking card, so $2 is ok.
Next, is a Hall of Famer I got for $3:

This is my first Triple Threads 2011 card, and if you haven't seen these unity cards yet, they are really pretty.  A low numbered jersey card of a Hall of Famer for $3 is nothing to be embarrassed about. 

So yes, I stumbled out of the gate, but with the Alomar Triple Threads, I at least feel like I got a nice, premium card.  Maybe I didn't do so bad after all.  The first two purchases were duds though, let's face it.

Here are the grades for the first 4 of 8 purchases I made:

Bowman Chrome Lot $4: C-  Sure, it will likely fill some holes in my 2010 chrome set, but I had already dropped that set from my Super Duper Checklist.
Cutter Dykstra Auto $2: F  Yuck.
Howard Johnson Bat Card $2: B-  It's pretty cool looking, but I didn't need it.
Roberto Alomar Triple Threads Jersey $3: A-  I don't get the feeling Alomar is a hot target for collector's, but he is a Hall of Famer, and this card is really lovely.


I'll cover the last four purchases in part two tomorrow, and discuss my face off with my arch nemesis.  He really needs a nickname.  His bidder number is 339.  Maybe I'll call him Evil 339.  I'm open to suggestions.