Salvador Dolly

This past Saturday was one of those beautiful days of total baseball/baseball card immersion.  For starters, there was a good card show this weekend, with about a dozen dealers (great for around here).  I spent about two hours at the show, which is a loooonnnngggg time for me since I start missing the kids after about an hour.  Ok, ok-  I start feeling guilty that the lovely wife is having to watch the kids by herself after watching them all week while I'm at work.

But there was a dealer with several 5,000 count dime boxes that captured my attention and were a blast to dig through.  I was able to make headway on many of the mid '90s pages in my sampler album that are so light.  I've got about 5 posts worth of other stuff to show as well, and will subject anyone who cares to these posts in the next day or so.

After the cardshow, I had to run by Walmart for a few things and found retail packs of Panini Prizm that I had to have.  I haven't seen much of anything on this set on other blog posts, but I'm pretty fired up about the set, despite the lack of  MLB logos.  I'll do show and tell with those cards this week also.

Finally, my baseball overload day ended with a few innings at a Naturals game.  I say a few innings because it was freaking cold.   It's been stupid cold here all week.  In fact, we had snow here this week people.  Snow.  In May.  In Northwest Arkansas.  So why did I bother going to the game if it was so cold?  For this, suckas:

Speaking of suckas, I'm a total sucker for Stadium Giveaways, as I've mentioned in the past.  This is the first Bobblehead I've snagged though, and it's a cool one.  Perez is a budding star with the Royals, and I was fortunate enough to watch him play several times while he was with the Naturals. The Bobblehead made well, too.  It's heavy and has nice detail on it. 

Since I'm talking about Perez, I guess I should show the two cards I picked up of him at the show earlier that morning:

These weren't in the dime boxes, but they were pretty reasonable considering Perez is somewhat popular around here.  I haven't talked much about Perez on this blog, but if anyone has some cool cards of him, I'm interested!

When The Cat’s Away, Napkin Will…

…pretty much not do anything about it.   Last week, I put the lovely wife on a plane for a much deserved four day mini vacation to visit some friends out of state.   After sort of being successful curbing my spending during August-erity, I figured these four days would be like a big window of debauchery for me.  By debauchery, I mean I would buy a ton of cards, and feed myself and the kids junk food the whole time.  I was going to go hog wild at Cleve’s and put in a bunch of write in bids for Tuesday nights auction.  I was going to write at least 20 blog posts and cue them up.  I was going to watch the Razorbacks pound ULM.  I took Thursday and Friday off from work and was only going to turn it loose!

Eh, it didn’t really happen that way. 

Oh my god taking care of two kids by yourself is exhausting!  I had a blast with them, but man they never slow down!    I took my two year old with me to Cleve’s while the six year old was in school, but soon came to my senses and realized taking a two year old into a store filled with expensive items that are easily torn was not too bright, so I got out of there before any damage was done, which is why I didn’t do a Cleve-view Sunday. 

And we ate pretty healthy.  And I have no comment about the Razorbacks.

I didn’t buy the piles of cards that I thought I would, but did get a couple of blasters of Topps Chrome:

I’ve noticed that Salvador Perez has been in each pack that’s had a Yu Darvish.  That’s great with me, since I’m trying to build up my Perez collection.   It’s two wins in the pack as far as I’m concerned.

In short, I didn’t really do much with cards and focused more on the kids while the lovely wife was away.  Are you expecting me to say time with the kids was more fulfilling?  Come on, of course it was.

Gypsy Queen Autos

Hey, I got a couple of Gypsy Queen Autos.  Hey, here they are:

Hey thanks for looking.

2012 Gypsy Queen First Purchase

Let me join in at what is sure to be a flood of Gypsy Queen posts in the blogosphere.  Gypsy Queen was by far my favorite set last year, and from what I saw with my purchases today, will also be in 2012.  I've been on the lookout for it the past few days and snagged a few rack packs today when I saw them available:

First, the base:

Again, there is a nice mix of vintage and modern day stars.  The Dwight Gooden card is fantastic.

Then the minis, inserted one per pack.  I didn't really go after these last year, but probably will this year.  They have all kinds of different backs, but I don't find that in the least bit interesting so I didn't scan them.

Here were the inserts I pulled.  Once again, these look awesome to me.  The Kinsler Sliding Stars card may be my favorite card of 2012 so far.

 

I'm very tempted to make a run at completing the bronze paper parallel set.  At 300 cards, that's pretty daunting though.  

 How about a run of Yankee Legends?  Half of my bronze paper inserts were Yankee greats.  Not complaining about that at all, but I still couldn't help but think:.  "No more Yankee my Wankee, the Doon need food!"

 Finally, my only hit, but it was a nice one.  Love the gray flannel on this Steve Carlton relic.

So there was my first taste of Gypsy Queen.  I may do something I haven't done in a while, and purchase a hobby box.  This is a great set!

Contest Winnings From Play at the Plate

Not only does Brian from the HOF level blog "Play at the Plate" have exquisite tastes in favorite teams, he is a very generous contest generator.  I was the lucky winner of a recent contest, (1 in 72 odds of winning- how about that!) and my prize came in the mail this week.  I had no idea what I won, and I was thrilled when I opened the padded envelope:

First was this very cool Ian Kinsler relic card that I did not yet have:

 I've seen this card before online and have been tempted to get it, but now I don't have to.  He also sent a very cool T205 mini of Ichiro that I thought I scanned but I guess I didn't.

As if that wasn't enough, he also sent a rack pack of 2012 Heritage!  Here were my favorite cards in the pack:

I'm most excited about the Perez card, simply because I saw him play a lot last year here in NW Arkansas.  This is my first card of him.  The Wash card is awesome and I'm tempted to try to get it auto'd TTM.

Thanks for the generous prize Brian, enjoy your time off, and go Rangers!