Vacation Auto Post- 2012 Topps Finest

I picked up another handful of 2012 Finest base cards of www.sportlots.com last week and just had to show you:

I guess the "cool" cards to have with Finest are the colored parallels, but these base cards do it just fine for me.  Man, I wish that Cliff Lee card had him wearing a Rangers uni though....

Cleve's Auction Night: 2 Relics

Looks like I'm going to be in "write in" mode for the next two months at Cleve's, as my boy's soccer league has started and practices are on Tuesday nights and no way am I missing that.  On a related note, my two year old daughter is starting soccer this weekend, and that has me bouncing off the walls with excitement.  It should be hysterical watching a bunch of 2 year olds run around chasing a ball.

Here were wins from the previous auction:

This Mike Stanton Jersey was numbered to 36 and fell to me at $3.  I'm surprised there is not more demand for this power phenom.   I continue to find cards of him at great prices all around.

I bid $6 on this Kyle Drabek auto relic, and perhaps could have bought it cheaper if I'd been at the auction.  It's for trade if anyone is interested. 

Grades:
Mike Stanton Triple Threads Relic: $3  A+   A low numbered relic of a young star is always a no brainer at this price.

Kyle Drabek Triple Threads Auto/Relic: $6   B   Hopefully this is good trade bait to someone out there.  It doesn't really fit in with my collection, but still I think a neat card.

Sunday Cleve-view: Big Stuff For Razorback Fans

I won't be able to go the Cleve's auction this week, but I'm still doing my duty and giving you folks a preview.

I doubt this interests the majority of you, but two of the auction items are some very sweet Razorback pieces:

This is an autographed football commemorating the 1964 and 65 undefeated seasons, signed by the entire team.  Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson are the notable signatures.  There is also a vintage autographed basketball signed by the Razorbacks, but I didn't get a picture and forgot the year.

While we're on the non-card topic, Cleve also has some signed scripts for auction:

The MASH script is signed by Alan Alda and the Happy Days script was signed by the "Fonz", Henry Winkler.  I don't know the story on these two, but they look really neat-o.

Here's something I am interested in- a Tony Gwynn autographed SI with COA.  That would be nice to have.

 OK, I don't know what the heck is going on with my iPhone, but the image in my folder is turned correctly, but shows up turned when I put it on the blog.  This is a lot of 32 Topps Giant cards from 1964.  I would love to have this, but will try to be good this week.

Other vintage cards I would have liked to bid on:

And there are a couple of modern cards I would have liked too:

 For some reason, these manu-patch cards had my bidder number and small $ amount written on the bid sheet.  Not sure how that happened.

 I may have accidentally tripped over my shoelace and written in a small bid on this Piazza patch card as I fell to the floor.

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.

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!! 

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.