Cleve’s Auction Night: Shhh Don't Tell The Lovely Wife

Somehow, the topic of Cleve's weekly auction hasn't come up this week with the lovely wife.  Bless her heart, she had two sick kids to deal with while I was traveling.  So showing off my latest grabs from Cleve's probably wouldn't be a great idea.  But she shouldn’t get too mad, since I only spent $12, which was the least I’ve ever spent there I think.  I once again had to miss the auction while traveling, but put in a few write in bids.  I didn’t get a lot this week, but did win the auction I was mainly targeting:

 

I am slowly building 2011 Chrome, which may be my favorite set of the year.  I’m only interested in the base set and some parallels of Rangers and a few other players.  One of the auction items was a lot of Chrome, with about 45 base cards and a handful of parallels, peppered throughout with Rangers.  I figured I could feel good about putting down a write in bid for the same amount I would pay for a rack pack, and sure enough, it was enough to win.

The base was what I was after, but the inserts will pay for this auction.

I also got this sweet magnet snap case for $2 that happened to have an autographed card from the super nice UD Exquisite set inside it.  I figured the snap case was worth the $2 alone, and the auto would make good trade bait.

To round my haul out,  I picked up a shiny autograph card of Andre Brown.    I don’t know who he is, but it came in a screw down case (not magnet) and was a pretty card.  It will make good trade bait too, I bet.

Grades:

Topps Chrome Lot $8.00:  B+  This pushed my chrome set from 26% to 39% complete, and I have some extra parallels to sell or trade.   Since I couldn’t attend the auction, I had to put in a write in bid, and thought $8 would be enough.   I wonder if I could have got it for less had I been at the actual auction.

UD Exquisite Kelvin Jimenez $2.00:   A-  It’s hard to argue with a autograph card from a premium issue that’s numbered to 75.  The nice magnet card holder made it a no brainer, and I’m frankly surprised I got it.
 

Topps Platinum Andre Brown Auto $2.00  B-:  It’s a shiny autograph in a screw down holder.  I guess I would do it again, but I’m not real excited about this one.  I remind myself it was only $2.00 and that makes it ok.

Shiny Rangers

I'm headed to Dallas on business today.  I'm hoping to see the Rangers play Friday night.  I intend to go by the stadium at some point no matter what, and hope to have some good blog material while I'm away.  In the meantime, I received some new set pickups in the mail this week:

I picked up the sepia, black and blue Michael Young chrome parallels.  The sepia is nice, but I have to say, I think I like the plain ole' base card of '11 chrome the best.  I'm anxious to see one of the atomic refractor cards though.

This is my first look at Topps Marquee, and I'm kind of relieved that it doesn't do anything for me.  The photo is pretty cool though, with Ichiro horning in on the action.

Wax Wednesday- 2011 Topps Chrome

Does anyone use the term “Boy Howdy” anymore?  It’s a term that I heard and used a lot in growing up in West Texas.  I didn’t think anything of using it until I moved out of state to go to college.  I remember one of the first days my freshman year, all of the guys from my dorm room floor got together for a meet and greet and when someone asked me if I was a Razorback fan, I said without embarrassment “Boy Howdy, am I!”  It was months until I heard the end of the mockery that ensued.   I think when we all started taking ourselves so seriously in the 90s as a backlash to the ridiculous 80s, terms like “Boy Howdy” were almost ridiculed into extinction.  That’s my pop-sociologist diagnosis.  

Please humor me for a moment while I dust off the term“Boy Howdy” for this post.

Boy Howdy, I like Topps Chrome!

I picked up a couple of rack packs today and am thinking seriously about building this set.  I’ll wait until the newness wears off and take another look, but these are sweet, sweet cards.  And I will echo what I have heard from others in saying that the curling issues seem to be solved. At $8.99 a pack they are expensive though, and I suppose I could build a base set off the secondary market much more cheaply later this fall.   Enough from me, here is what I got:

 While they didn't curl much, these slippery little suckers are still difficult to scan.  Lining these up on my scanner was like playing air hockey.

No major pulls, although I’m happy about the Orange Pujols and Stanton.   I guess I actually did pretty poorly on these packs, as I didn’t get any numbered cards or hits.  But the quality of these cards alone made them worth the purchase. 

GWAG12!!