Checklist Chipaway: 2003 SPX Winning Materials

We're putting the finishing touches on this set in the Doon household, compliments of this Roger Clemens addition:

These are my favorite excessive, over the top cards of all time.  They are low numbered (most of mine are numbered to 375, this one is 175 but I don't care about consistency here), contain a couple of jersey pieces, and a sweet little rubber home plate insert with a team logo on it.  I love it!

There are 42 cards in this set, and I have 39.  The last card I expect to get for a reasonable price is Hideki Matsui, but so far that one has been tough to track down.  The other two cards are Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams, so I'm saying for all intents and purposes I'm done with this after I find the Matsui.

But if I hit the lottery or receive and unexpected bonus from work I'll hunt the Mantle and Williams too.

Checklist Chipaway: 2003 SPX Winning Materials

I am getting sooooo close on this set with this Bernie Williams addition:

I've just about picked up all the "affordables" from this set, and now just need Rogers Clemens and Hideki Matsui.  Neither of them will be that cheap, but won't be way out of my range either.    After that, I'll need Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams, and I doubt I'll feel like spending the money needed to acquire them.

But I'll be fine with a near complete set, and I'm anxious to start showing complete pages of it soon!

Checklist Chipaway: 2003 SPX Winning Materials

I added another piece to the little 2003 SPX Winning Materials set I've been building for forever now.  This was one of the tougher ones to get at a good price:

It's a stunning card, except for the small crease beneath the Reds logo.  I can live with it though, and that flaw is probably the only reason I was able to get this at a relatively cheap price.   

Checklist Chipaway: 1996 SPX Hologram

I’m travelling all week, and I guess I’ll need to bury myself in work for a few days.  What a great opportunity to cue up a bunch of COMC.com posts to keep the blog churning!

I took advantage of the free shipping promotion last month and picked up all sorts of good stuff.  I was able to hit on several sets I’m chasing.  Granted they were small bits of progress, but progress all the same.

Today I’m showing the cards I got for a set that’s not even on my main checklist page, but one that I’m sort of building in the shadows- 1996 SPX Holograms. 

 

These are very cool cards, and the checklist is short but solid.  I was able to get good deals on some of the superstar cards I was lacking, and now mostly what I need will be affordable off of sportlots.com.   

I’ve collected a little over half the set, and need these remaining 25 cards:

#           Player
3              McGriff, Fred
8              Canseco, Jose
11           Edmonds, Jim
12           Salmon, Tim
14           Sandberg, Ryne
15           Grace, Mark
22           Bichette, Dante
23           Walker, Larry
26           Fielder, Cecil
29           Bagwell, Jeff
33           Piazza, Mike
34           Mondesi, Raul
35           Nomo, Hideo
37           Molitor, Paul
38           Cordova, Marty
39           White, Rondell
40           Isringhausen, Jason
41           Wilson, Paul
43           Jeter, Derek
44           Boggs, Wade
48           Smith, Ozzie
50           Caminiti, Ken
53           Fernandez, Osvaldo
54           Buhner, Jay
59           Carter, Joe

 Jeter won't be cheap, so I may save him for last unless someone has it to trade? 

Checklist Chipaway: 2003 SPX Winning Materials

This week I picked up the Hideo Nomo card from the SPX Winning Materials Set, and now have 36 of the 42 cards.  This set is about as gimmicky as you can get, with the low numbering, jersey relics, busy artwork and mini home plate, and I think that's why it's one of my favorites ever.

Checklist Chipaway: SPX Winning Materials

Quick post to show a lot of 4 2003 SPX Winning Materials cards I received this week.  Got all of them of eBay for pretty good prices.  I am now only 7 cards away from completion. 

Checklist Chipaway- SPX Winnng Materials 2003

I'm still stunned over this:

Lost in the shadow of yesterday's package from the Cardboard Junkie, was another addition to my 2003 SPX Winning Materials set:

This is the only Blue Jay from the set, and that's too bad, because it's really nice.  A Roy Halladay would have been excellent.  I'm 74% done with 11 cards to go.

Checklist Chipaway- SPX Winnng Materials 2003

First of all, sometimes I love being wrong.  The lovely wife thought I'd thrown quite a pity party for myself with that post, by the way.  I'll spare you all extended recaps from my teams this weekend, but the Rangers and Razorbacks made Saturday a very fun day.  I will pat myself on the back for calling a disastrous start for the Hogs, but they showed a ton of fight and put it on the Aggies after halftime.  It also looked bleak early for the Rangers, but it's hard to keep all those bats silent for too long.  I'll just give a big "whatever" for the Cowboys gift wrapping that game for the Lions.  I'm not even going to pile on Tony Romo.  Some targets are just too easy (unless you are Tony Romo-  oooh, rim shot).  I was absolutely dead on about my kids though- they were total animals all weekend, but it's not so aggravating when your teams are winning.
Here was something else that made me smile on Saturday:

I am now about 70% done with this 2003 SPX Winning Materials set.  This Tejada card is very sharp, with the cool A's logo and the green jersey.  I'm going to be extremely proud of this small but tough set once it's done.

Checklist Chipaway 2003 SPX Winning Materials- Ichiro

There once was a fella named Doon

Who blogged like a total buffoon

But he felt so angelic

Winning this Ichiro Relic

Cause this set would be knocked out quite soon!

(67% complete- 14 cards to go!!)

On The 7th Day of Brycemas

My Harper gave to me:

(7)  Random, Yet Important, Cards:

My freaking scanner!!!

1999 Flair Warren Morris- This was one of the first cards I bought when I cashed in on the Harper Auto.  I’ve had no luck finding this card cheap for years now, and couldn’t bring myself to pay over a buck for it, plus shipping.  But since I had nice card fund, I decided to put this set out of its misery and add the last remaining card.  For the first time since my blog started, this card is off the Most Wanted list. 

Along the same lines, I was able to knock out my final 2 Diamond King Base Cards from 2003.  Hard to believe I didn’t have the Tony Gwynn already, but I didn’t.

With these two Reel Time Cards, my 2002 Stadium Club Set is now 100% complete.  There are some relic card inserts for this set, but I’m going to pretend they don’t exist and call this set done.  Also shown is a Topps HD Game Defined Mark McGwire.  I was actually a little miffed that this was an aluminum parallel card, even though it is a rarer card than the standard Game Defined Card.  I bought it on Sportlots and the listing did not have an image.  I probably would have got it anyway had I seen it was a parallel.  This is not my first loose interpretation of a complete set with HD.  Man, HD was nice.  I wish it would be re-issued.

Another SPX 2003 beauty.  This. Card. Is. Awesome.  Greg Maddux is a guy who I appreciate more and more with time.    Craig Biggio is the other one.  I really should have more good cards of them both.

Checklist Chipaway: 1996 SPX

Received another batch of cards in the mail today.  This time, I was able to clip off a dozen cards from the 1996 SPX set on the Super Duper Checklist.  I am sure these things were super expensive when they came out in 96.  I got all of these cheap off sportlots.com and moved this cool 60 card set to almost 50% complete.   I'll probably grind out getting the next 15-20 cards over the next year or so, but once I get to around 80% complete, I'll feel the momentum and knock it out.   As with most cards like this, the scans don't do them justice although they came out better than I expected:

On the off chance anyone has some of these that they are willing to trade, here are the cards I am lacking:

1	Maddux, Greg
2	Jones, Chipper
3	McGriff, Fred
5	Ripken Jr., Cal
8	Canseco, Jose
11	Edmonds, Jim
12	Salmon, Tim
14	Sandberg, Ryne
15	Grace, Mark
16	Thomas, Frank
22	Bichette, Dante
23	Walker, Larry
26	Fielder, Cecil
29	Bagwell, Jeff
33	Piazza, Mike
34	Mondesi, Raul
35	Nomo, Hideo
37	Molitor, Paul
38	Cordova, Marty
39	White, Rondell
40	Isringhausen, Jason
41	Wilson, Paul
43	Jeter, Derek
44	Boggs, Wade
48	Smith, Ozzie
50	Caminiti, Ken
51	Bonds, Barry
53	Fernandez, Osvaldo
54	Buhner, Jay
55	Griffey Jr., Ken
57	Rodriguez, Alex
59	Carter, Joe

Checklist Chip Away: 2003 SPX Winning Materials

Sometimes when scouring for cards I need, I find that when it rains, it pours.  I have been slowly building the 2003 SPX Winning Materials set for years now, and will at times go 6 months without seeing a card I still need available for a reasonable price.  I scored about a month ago with the Albert Pujols card from the set.  Two weeks ago, I managed to find 3 of these beauties that I needed and snagged them.   They just arrived last week:

Gwynn Wynn

Man, eBay and PayPal just make it really difficult for a card addict like me to stay in control.   It's too easy to say "yes" to an auction.   My lovely wife may disagree, but I think most of the time I am relatively disciplined on buying cards.  I don’t typically buy expensive items or boxes, and I usually don’t pull the trigger on something that I know is a steal unless it falls under my collecting solar system.  I also don’t buy general “lots” of cards that don’t list specifically what those cards are.

Last week I made a couple of exceptions to my rules.  I bought one rather expensive jersey card and will post about when it arrives.  I also bought this:

A lot of 200 Tony Gwynn cards.  I stared and stared at this auction as the time to bid ticked away.  I don’t need 200 Tony Gwynn cards.    I want 200 Tony Gwynn cards, but I don’t need them.  The item description didn’t list the cards either, other than listing some of the brands in the lot,  so I knew it was likely a bunch of junk wax.  But no one had bid, and if I could win with the lowest bid, the cost would wind up being pennies per card.  Not a bad way to build the binder of one of my favorite all time players.  I put in my bid and watched the auction come to a close, alternating from hoping I would win to hoping someone would outbid me.  I wound up winning.

The box arrived yesterday and with a slight sense of dread, I dug in to see what I got, mostly expecting a bunch of this:

Some junk wax, but cards of Tony Gwynn are cards of Tony Gwynn, so no problem.  So that was part of the box, but I was pleasantly surprised by the overall contents.  There were a lot of shiny cards:

A few Topps Finest, as well as the Super Cool Plastic EX cards, one which I already had (1999), and one which I didn't (1998).  Maybe I should try to build the 98 set once 99 is done. 



And there were several of hologram/sportflics type cards that I dig:

I love those SPX hologram cards.  And these are my first UC3 cards.  The little pinwheels in the background of the Cyclone Squad card spin around when you move the card.  I'm sure I looked like an imbecile watching them spin 'round and 'round as I drooled over this card last night. 

I’m glad to say that I didn’t already have at least 50% of what was in the box.  My Tony Gwynn collection is now my largest single player collection, surpassing Darryl Strawberry.