Are You Calling Me Yella?

I should take a moment to express my appreciation for all of the nice things that you guys said when I made my announcement that I was wrapping this blog up on March 4th.  I truly wasn't expecting that and feel very humbled and appreciative by the comments.

I certainly didn't mean to give the impression that writing this blog was making me miserable.  I still have fun with it, it's just that it's getting hard to find time for it, plus I just don't think I have much else to offer in terms of content.  I do still have some cards I want to show, including some of these parallels from 2014 Topps:

2014 Topps is really growing on me.  It seems like the consensus on the set is "meh" but I really like it.   I also love the yellow parallels, or "yella" as my West Texas born Mother would say.   It's kind of a goofy face on Wil Myers (of whom with which I've shared a baseball field with which of whom).

I do like the photography on most of the cards I've seen so far though, and I'm beyond thrilled that Topps has captured a card of Adrian Beltre getting his head touched (he doesn't like that you know!)  I'm for sure building a rainbow of the Beltre card:

I know the red and blue are Target and Walmart, and the red crystally thing is in all retail, but I don't know the story on the green.  I haven't seen it in any boxes I've opened yet.  Anyone know?

Cleve's Christmas Auction Lone Win

I'm sad to say I didn't win the 1952 Bowman Stan Musial I wanted.  It went for about 20% more than what I was comfortable bidding.  I'm glad I was outbid by a decent margin.  If I had lost by 5 bucks or something I would have been agitated to no end.

But I did get the other item I bid on:

I don't yet have an autograph of Adrian Beltre in a Rangers uniform, and I guess technically I still don't.  This is more like an autograph of him in Ranger pajamas, but it's still awesome! 

A Look At A Few Things From Cleve's Christmas Auction

And I won't be able to afford any of it.  Well, almost any of it. 

Let me take a step back.  I assume most of you who read my blog know that my LCS has a weekly auction that I either attend or submit write in bids for,  and I've come home with some great things over the years.  Every year, Cleve- the owner, has a Christmas auction that features some unreal cards and collectibles.  Most of this stuff goes for big money.  This year should be no exception.  I won't be bidding on any of the "big" items, except one:
 

 I figure this is my best chance to get a Stan Musial for the 1952 Bowman set I decided to start building.  So I put in a big bid on it and have my fingers crossed.

The only other card I bid on was this Adrian Beltre auto. 

Otherwise, I won't be chasing the other stuff, but I won't let that stop me from showing you the goods.  There are about 300 items up for auction, and below are some that I thought were worth sharing:

 This 1954 Wilson Franks Ted Williams is pretty rare I believe.  Cleve expects this to be one of the highest priced items of the night.

I'm really tempted to call and put in a bid on this tobacco card.  I don't remember the details on it, but it's a beautiful card.

And of course, there are tons of Mantle cards and an autographed bat:

And a few other goodies that would be great to have if I were rich:

I've never seen these Topps "Push and Pulls" but they're very clever, and I hope Topps redoes these with Archives sometime.

 Greg Maddux auto

Wish me luck on the Musial!  I doubt I post again until after Christmas, so I send my best wishes for a wonderful Holiday season to you all!

The Lost His Mind Collector

I'm interrupting my COMC Black Friday parade to show a group of cards that my good pal AJ from The Lost Collector blog sent recently.  He periodically sends great stuff out of the blue, and this package was no different.

First, the star of the PWE in my opinion:

An exfractor of the best player on the best team of all time, the 2014 Texas Rangers.  That's just my guess anyway.  My estimates conservatively predict a 140-22 Rangers record next year, with Beltre flirting with .400 and 60 home runs.  This is based on a complex algorithm-formula type thing I do in my head that I can't begin to explain to you in this forum.

Next is a neat oversize card from 1986 Donruss:

I like this card as a stunning reminder of how rough it used to be rooting for the Rangers.  Gary Ward was the "All Star" choice back then.  I'm going to pull this card our every time I get frustrated with a modest losing streak from the Jon Daniels era Rangers.

Finally, this:

 I assume AJ sent this because he thinks this is how we look and behave down here in Arkansas.  I'd take offense, except for this true story from my childhood (which took place in Texas, thank you very much):

I have an Aunt ("Genie" we'll call her) who is best described as a free spirit.  She lived about two hours from where I grew up in the panhandle of Texas.  I had no inclination that she had any interest in WWE (WWF back then) wrestling.  I did though.  Big time.  I would always try to attend WWF events whenever they made their way to Amarillo, Texas.  One year, "Hacksaw" Jim Dugan was in Amarillo, pairing with Hillbilly Jim to take on King Kong Bundy and Andre The Giant in a tag team match.

I looked out in the crowd and noticed someone holding up a sign that read:  "King Kong Is A Ding Dong!"  I grabbed my friend who was with me and was getting ready to make fun of the rube that had brought that sign.  But then I looked down at the sign holder- it was my Aunt Genie.  I slunk down in my seat the rest of the night.

Thanks for the painful childhood reminder AJ.

COMC Black Friday Parade: Beltre Beltre Beltre!

Yesterday I showed off the Ranger cards I picked up on COMC's Black Friday sale.  Well of COURSE I bought some Adrian Beltre cards too!  Behold:

This is one of those Blue Sapphire rookie reprints found in Bowman 2013 products.  I paid like $.50 for it.  I think that's pretty incredible when you consider this particular card was inserted in boxes of Bowman Inception, which I think cost something like a kajillion $ a box.  So it wasn't cheap to get this card, even as a toss in to the rest of the product.   I know this isn't the card that collectors are buying the boxes for, but still.  Seems pretty amazing to get this card for nothing, but maybe I just don't get it. 

I think all of these cost around a buck each.  I'm building quite a nice Beltre relic collection.

Finally, a added this acetate card from 2013 Pinnacle.  It's a sweet card, and I would be all over this insert set if only the team logos were present.  Man, I wish they had a liscence!

Triple Threads Beltre

Look at me! What is this, like 3 or 4 days in a row with a post?   Anything to avoid work I guess!

I called you all here today to take a look at my new Adrian Beltre baseball card.  It's from 2013 Triple Threads:

 

There's a lot I love about this card.  But that glove icon is lame.  It looks very kid-crafty to me.  Didn't stop me from buying it though!

The Rangers Through Sepia Colored Glasses

Yeah, these scans look terrible.  But I got a couple of Sepia parallels of two of my favorite players and had to show them because I have a blog and that's what it's for.

The scans are terrible, but the cards are not.  I'm shooting for Darvish next.  And I would probably have already bought an Andrus, but Andrus wasn't included in 2013 Chrome for some reason and I am plenty steamed about it let me tell you.

2013 Finest Cherry Picking

I wouldn't say I would NEVER buy a box of Topps Finest, but I don't see the point.  With a little patience, you can pick up the base cards very cheaply off sportlots.com, even some of the refractors.  I know the same can be said about pretty much all sets, but Finest seems to have a really pronounced  gap between retail price, and secondary market prices per card. 

I am a fan of Finest in general, but not sure if the 2013 set does it for me.  There are a couple of neat insert sets this year, and I may get the Rangers that are on those cards.  Otherwise, I find the base set a little boring.  It's just a scroll of dots across the card with FINEST at the top.  No logos or anything.  Maybe some will like the simplicity of the design, and maybe I will too after some time to pontificate on the matter.

Anyway, I ordered a handful of cheap base cards off sportlots.com and they arrived Saturday.  The Beltres above are all different- the one on the left is an x-fractor, the center is the base and the right is the standard refractor.  I may chase the red and green and other color versions of the Beltre card too, and make a cool rainbow page in my Rangers binder.  Below are the other cards I got, just because.

Cleve's Auction Night: Back To The Goodie Box Days

Not only has my blogging come to a near stand still, my bidding activity at Cleve's auctions has been nearly non-existent.   I suppose that is no coincidence.  I've been putting in a few write in bids, but have been on quite a losing streak to a bunch of "card-blockers" who manage to out-bid me at the last minute.

Thankfully, my losing streak came to a halt this week with some solid auction wins, starting with a fantastic 1997 Bowman set, already in a binder:

Whoever made this wasn't messing around.  The "1997 Bowman" is print, not stickers.  I'm happy with this win, not only because I think it's a nice set, but because the work of putting it in a binder has already been done.  There are some nice rookies in this set:

Beltran

R.A. Dickey- although the value of this has dropped this year I think.  For a while it was a pretty hot card.

And my favorite:  Adrian Beltre

There are several other good rookies to show (Halladay for one), but I'll move on to my other wins.  Like this:

I may have overpaid on this ($4), but I don't care. 

The Puig was the only single card I picked up this week.  Besides it and the 97 set, I picked up my first goodie box in a long time:

I've been avoiding goodie boxes lately, mostly because 90% of the cards in them are junk, or things I simply don't need.  But this one looked very interesting so I put in a bid.  I was pretty surprised I won, mostly due to the inclusion of some the cards you immediately see in the picture.  Namely:

3 over sized A&G cabinet cards.  I don't have any of these.  Aren't they sort of hard to get?  And the players are really good- Cabrera and Cano.  The Roller Coaster card is really cool too, but has a small crease in one of the corners.  I paid $7 for the box.  The cabinet cards should about cover that don't you think?  Plus there was this:

This 1985 Donruss Puckett rookie is not as mis-cut as my scanner makes it out to be.  In fact, it's in very good shape.  I figure I got my money's worth with the above 4 cards right?  Right?

Among the rest of the some 200 cards were some decent player lots:

These were the lots of players I happen to like, but there were also around a dozen cards each of Clemens, Garciapara, A-Rod and Bagwell.

 Grades:

1997 Bowman Set in binder:  $6  A :  This set has a ton of great rookie and base cards.  It came complete in a nice, neat binder ready for the bookshelf.

A&G Puig Rookie  $4  B :  I have little interest in Puig, but I figure I'm not going to get this card any cheaper.  At least until a couple of months from now.  Crud, I should have waited on this one.  Oh well.

Goodie Box  $7 A+:  The cabinet cards are cool, and there is enough good stuff to spread around to my binders, listia and trade packages (most everything is available for trade).

I'm not totally back alive and kicking yet in this hobby, but Tuesday's auction helped get some momentum back!