One Last Etopps Delivery

I've been meaning to take one last delivery of eTopps cards from my portfolio- at least some select cards- before I'm done here.  Delivery is damn expensive ($12 first card, $1.75 each additional), but I'm getting worried that soon Topps is just going to pull the plug on the site (they stopped making new cards back in 2011, and recently took down the message boards) and my cards will be lost forever.  So I figured I'd bite the bullet and get the cards I really wanted and hope for the best on the rest.  I have a couple of complete sets that would be painful to ship, but I'm hopeful that someday there will be a special offer to clear out one's portfolio.

Anyway, my cards arrived the other day:

Four bubble wrapped blocks of shiny eTopps cards.  Aren't you excited to see them all?

Here they are out of the bubble wrap:

Sorry, I know that's a strange angle.  All the cards come in their own little zip-loc baggie.  So we'll take the next step and look at them all lined up out of the wrap and out of the baggies:

These are the T-206 cards.  They are every bit as beautiful as you think they are.  I still need about 8 cards to finish the set, but they are getting really hard to trade for on the site.

I didn't take an individual shot of the Matt Weiters card in the bottom left of the photo above.  But I managed to trade for one and took it in hand.  Why?  It's Weiter's only Topps card.  I learned that from a comment by a guy named Stubby on a previous eTopps post I wrote.  Thanks for the tip Stubby!

So the challenge of taking pictures of eTopps cards is that not only are they in hard plastic cases, the cards are shiny too.  So my picture styles aren't consistent.  Because I just kept snapping away until I got images that didn't have ridiculous glare.

As much as it ticked me off to pay that much for shipping, I absolutely love these cards.  Especially the T206s.  Here are a few up close for ye:

At some point, I plan to have this Willie Keeler card in it's original T206 form too.  For now, this will work.

I took a bunch of standard eTopps cards too:

 It's neat to have a couple of cards of Christian Colon, who has been mentioned on my blog many times before.

 I got this Mauer just because I thought it would be a nice looking card in hand.  I was right!

 See what I mean by shiny?  Isn't that Maddux gorgeous? 

I took all my Derek Jeters for delivery.  No way I'm leaving those at risk with the website.

These two are from the 2004 set.  As far as eTopps sets go, 2004 is considered one of weaker offerings, and the cards are very cheap to obtain up front before delivery.  But I have to say they are very striking in hand, and a great value in comparison to the other sets.  If I decide to take more cards in the future, I'm loading up on stars from the 2004 set.

I could probably get 2 or 3 more posts out of this haul, but you get the idea.  I will say that I'm not especially interested in trading these just because I wouldn't know what would be fair for them.  On the one hand, the degree of difficulty getting these in a portfolio, coupled with expense of shipping means I'd want something good for them, but on the other hand the initial "cost" per card doesn't warrant getting something good for them.  Mostly, I don't want to go to the effort to replace anything I trade out.

COMC Black Friday Parade: Wooo Pig Sooie!!!

This year, in football at least, was rough disasterous for my Hogs this year.  But we at least finished with a valiant effort and near win against LSU.  So I wasn't too despondent regarding my Piggies when it was time to shop the COMC.com  Black Friday sale. 

I realize that 99% of you don't care about the Razorbacks, so I'm going skip the effort of commentary on these cards and just show the pretty pictures.  The important thing to remember is all of these guys below are Razorbacks.

 

One quick exception.  These D-Mac Inception cards are the boss.  I guess it's almost time to say it hasn't worked out for D-Mac in the NFL, despite periodic flashes of greatness.  He just can't stay healthy.  No matter, he's still probably my all time favorite Razorback football player.  If he would somehow find his way to the Cowboys, I would pass out from ecstasy much like I did when Cliff Lee became a Ranger for a half season.

 

Ok, this deserves a comment too.  Knile Davis is a bad MOFO, and I'm predicting greatness for him in the NFL.  I'm ecstatic about getting this auto for a couple of bucks.

Ok, another quick comment:  poor Tyler Wilson.  I remember draft experts saying (before the draft) he was the most NFL ready of all the QB prospects in last year's draft.  He was recently cut by the Raiders.  It doesn't work well when my Hogs go to the Raiders.

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!

Pie Face Funded: Arkansas Connection Cards

Between the Razorbacks and the NWA Naturals playing in my area, I'm not at a loss for good quality baseball, even if it's not quite MLB level.  I picked up a few cards using my Pie Face Funds that celebrate the local dudes I've been able to see, including the Orlando Calixte autograph above.  Don't know who he is?  He's a guy I can go watch play here right now in AA ball, is who he is.

You know who Wil Myers is though, don't you?  I've actually been on the field with Myers once, although he probably doesn't remember me.  Or perhaps he does?  I mean I didn't actually talk to him, or even stand in his line of sight, but still, I COULD have made it into his subconscious mind. 

And I picked up a trio of awesome Cliff Lee cards.  Seriously, these Topps Golden Moment die cuts are underrated.  Pretty sharp cards, and sort of over the top in design.  Which I love.