Baseball Card Box Of Chocolates

As if I needed any more reason to worship the lovely wife...

I have often been tempted to purchase one of these value packs at Target.  10 packs for $10 is a great deal, and at a minimum, you get a pack of 206 and 2010 Heritage.  I've always passed because I felt I should spend my money on packs I "needed."  I came home today to find a value pack, plus a rack pack of 2011 Topps Series 2 on my night stand with a sweet Valentine card that I will keep to myself.

This is a perfect gift for card collectors on Valentines Day because of the assorted nature of it.  I opened it with more of a sense of fun than anything I've opened in a long time.  There was no feeling of hoping to avoid doubles, hoping to get a big hit, or hoping to not get the "wrong" thing.  It was so much fun to open because it was a little of this, and a little of that.  Kind of like going to a wine tasting.
Here was what was inside:

 I haven't opened Upper Deck Wax since forever, so this was a great excuse to do so.

That's such a pretty picture.

And I was very happy with what I got in the packs:

I've received a few of these UD StarQuest cards in trades.  Very nice insert set.  Getting Jeter and Griffey cards turns any pack rip into a win.

The Kinsler at the top of this pic came from a 2007 Topps pack.  The bottom 2 are from the 206.  I love the Queensboro Bridge mini card.  The Munson is a beaut too.

The Heritage pack yielded probably my favorite assortment.  I got Vlad as a Ranger and two of my favorite non-Rangers, Ichiro and Halladay.

I may have mentioned this in the past, but there is something about this Fleer Ultra set that I really like.  It's on the short list of sets to add to my master checklist.

Finally, I mentioned the 2011 Topps rack pack.  Can't complain about these pulls, with the Kimball Champion Aaron leading the way.

That was just fun!  It was a nice reminder of what opening wax is supposed to feel like.  Thank you so much lovely wife.  I'm a lucky dude!

Kinsler Shiny Swatch

I've seen a few of these Diamond Parallel "Topps 60" relic cards online here and there, and finally was able to get one on the cheap of one of my favorite players.  It came in this weekend:

I didn't care that much about the Topps 60 set in 2011, but this card is pretty sweet!

Diamond Success Again!

I have to say, I love the $14.99 value packs.  I didn't get a lot of great cards out of my most recent box, but yet again struck gold on with the Diamond Codes:

Now before my Yankee friends lay claim to this card, I will tell you that it is already gone.  I put up trades for Nelson Cruz, Neftali Feliz and Josh Hamilton.  I really didn't expect to get Hamilton, but very quickly after I posted my offers, this was in my portfolio:

That brings my Rangers collection to 3:  Feliz, Ian Kinsler, and Michael Young.  I may actually put together a whole team set!

More Diamond Giveaway Magic!

I'm still bouncing off the wall about getting a Michael Young Diamond Cut Card on the Diamond Giveaway promotion.  I liked it so much, I thought I would try to scrounge up all the other cards I had online and see if I could somehow trade them for either an Ian Kinsler or Nelson Cruz di cut card.

Long story short, look what showed up in my portfolio today:

Call me butter, because I am on a roll!

Basically this cost me a bunch of commons and a 1958 Bob Hazle.  I can pretty much get any of those cards on sportslots for nothing should I ever decide I really need them.  I would have not gone to the trouble to have those shipped from Topps (shipping would have cost more than they were worth anyway).  But I will have no problem paying a few bucks for these Kinsler and Young beauties.

Now I just need more codes so I can try to get a Cruz and Josh Hamilton.  Ah, Topps has me in their clutches as always....

Finally...

I finally unlocked a cool Diamond Giveaway card:

I have pretty much zero interest in Brett Wallace, and I posted a trade for a similar card of Michael Young.

And guess what?  No sooner had I started this post, and looked on the website to pull images of the other crap I had uncovered when  looky what was in my collection!  Not 20 minutes after I posted the trade offer too:

So my first thought was "YES"!  My second was:  Did I just screw up?  Is there something about Brett Wallace I don't know?    I mean, that trade got accepted quick! I'm wondering if I am missing something?  I didn't trade away the Black Diamond version of the card, so I know that's not it.  Whatever, I'm freaking jacked about this Michael Young card!

I also got a couple of vintage a while back that I may try to trade into something for my collection, or just have delivered with the Young:

I should be able to turn these into something I would think....

Big Fun Game Pick # 9

dawgbones passes on the steal, and selects door #6:

Topps 2011 young stars lot:  Strasburg, Stanton, Hellickson, Price, Prado and McCutchen

hiflew can either steal or take the final door #4.

You can cut the tension with a knife people....

Wax Wednesday... late again

Yet another business trip interferes with my favorite thing to do in life: opening baseball cards….. I MEAN HANGING OUT WITH MY FAMILY!   Even a short overnight trip leaves me homesick for the Mrs. and the babies.   I think I’m done with travel for a short while now thankfully.     

Recently, before my stupid decision to give up buying cards for Lent, I opened two rack packs of 2011 Heritage, and 1 of the $10 special boxes of Topps 2011 from Wal-Mart.  I don’t know what they are called, but they have 72 cards and a special “Blue Sapphire” insert.  Here are the highlights:

No hits on the Heritage, but I’m happy with the Strasburg, Hellickson, Posey and Pujols.  I’m leaning toward not building this set and using these as trade bait.    Of course, by now I have about 1/3 of the set, so maybe I’ll trudge through it.  I’m sure everyone is dying to know what I’ll do.

Nice box on the 2011 Topps:   Matt Holiday bat card, Heyward Sapphire insert and Pujols, Stanton and Chapman base cards.    Plus a card of Cliff Lee (Razorbacks) in Rangers uniform.  

Cyber Monday

Mondays will be my day to post about purchases I have made and received via cyberspace (ebay, sportsbuy.com, sportlots.com and COMC) and whatever the new etopps offering is for the week.  Etopps is off this week, so I'll pick up with them next week and dedicate a little time to that wonderful little website.

Not sure what I was thinking, but I let my mouth get away from me tonight and told my wife that I would give up purchasing cards for lent.  I think I have enough in the mail queue coming to hold me over for a couple of weeks and allow me to keep up a Cyber Monday regular posting.  I've also got enough wax to open over the next month or so to cover Wax Wednesday.  We'll see how disciplined I can be...

Who am I kidding?  I'll fail in this endeavor by Wednesday, if not tomorrow.  Especially after getting my hands on the sweet sh%&! I got in the mail this week:

 I've heard some moans about the 2011 manu-leather patch cards, but I gotta say they are cool to me.  I got these Nelson Cruz "glove" cards pretty cheap, and they will make nice additions to my Rangers/Cruz collection.  I also picked up a cheap 2005 Marcus Giles Gallery jersey, and UD Game Face Gear jersey of Jorge Posada.  The price was great on both, and they both help whittle away at my monster checklist.  The Damian Williams Auto/Gear card is out of my collecting range, except I'm a big Arkansas Razorback fan (and alum) and he was at the U of A for one year before transferring to USC.  And the scan does not do this card justice.  Very, very shiny.  Finally, I got a nice Nelson Cruz 2011 silk card #d to 50.  Is it cool to like silk cards?... 'cause I do, baby!

Wax Wednesday:

I’ve been trying to think of some consistent topics for regular posting.  To me, one of the more entertaining aspects of reading some of the baseball card blogs out there is seeing results of a pack or box break.  I don’t know why I think it’s interesting and I’ll spare you any hypothesis on the matter.  So I’ll create “Wax Wednesday” and open up something each week.  This will help justify my purchases to the Mrs.  “Honey, I have to do it… for the readers.”

So I started humbly and bought a rack pack of 2011 Topps.  Eh...  Here are the highlights.  No Diamond Giveaway card, but a nice Gehrig reprint.   Being a Rangers fan (more on my switch from the Mets to the Rangers another time), I was happy with the Felix 60 Card and the Andrus/Kinsler Card...

I was excited about the diamond parallel Jeter.  Until I noticed….

Notice the mis-printed Topps Logo in the upper corner.  &*$#(@!  I don’t want to keep it, and I don’t want to sell it.  First one to comment gets it if they want it.  Just send me your address via PM.. Hey, my first giveaway!