2011 Topps Finest

I certainly can't afford to open boxes of Topps Finest, but I still like the product.  Recently singles from the set became available on sportlots.com, and I picked up a few to see if I wanted to build a base set.  There are a a good amount of the base cards for $.18 each on sportlots.com if you are interested.  Here was my first sampling of Finest 2011:

 Stantons and Strasburgs at $.18 each are hard to pass up.. of course I needed 3 of each.

No, my two year old daughter didn't set these up on the scanner for me.  These things were hard to line up.  Not only are they slick, these cards curl, and pretty aggressively too.  Right up there with 2010 Topps Chrome as a frame of reference, which is a little disappointing for a premium set.  I don't think I like them as much as 2010 Finest, but they are pretty nice looking.  I'll likely pass on building the set, but if I see a good, cheap starter lot on eBay I may change my mind.

Blog World Top 5 Players

This week I ran a sort of informal poll as to who are the top 5 current players to collect from a long term "value" standpoint.  Here are the results according to the responses I received:

1 Tie:  Albert Pujols
1 Tie:  Ichiro
3: Roy Halladay
4: Derek Jeter
5: Jason Heyward

That looks like a pretty solid list to me. 

There were 9 commenters who listed both Pujols and Ichiro, and after a quick spin through the randomizer, the winner of some cards arbitrarily picked by me is.....

Captain Canuck!

Thanks for playing Captain.  I don't think I have your address from any previous contests, so please email me when you get a chance.  Here is what I will send you:

I'll find another Ichiro to round out the prize to 6 cards.  I know, it's nothing huge, but not a bad payoff for giving a quick comment on my blog right? 

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.