2014 Topps Tony Gwynn Rookie Reprint Thingy

I don't know if you would call this Tony Gwynn rookie reprint thing a card or simply a collectible.  It doesn't "feel" like a card.  Well, whatever, I don't care what we call it, I freaking love it:

Sure, it looks like a card here, but you would have to see it and feel it in person to know what I'm getting it.  It's got a cool black metal frame and the front and back don't feel at all like cardboard.  Here's a better angle on it:

These are included in Hobby Boxes of 2014 Topps, but I don't know the particulars beyond that.  I've seen several on eBay, and the checklist is short, but loaded with great names.  Not sure if I'll pick up any more, but I'm for sure impressed with this one.

Card Show Pickups: Graded Junk and A Pair Of Relics

It's been a while since I've been to a local card show.  They usually aren't that good.  But I took shot on the wild side and ventured out this morning to see if I could find anything I had to have.

Turns out, it was a really decent show today.  There were a few vendors I'd never seen before, and a couple were blowing out there stuff because they were exiting the hobby.  Unfortunately, my little boy got sick early into the show and I didn't get too far around the tables.  Fortunately, I hit a few good things while I was there. 

First, I came across a table that had a big pile of graded cards, priced a $1 each, or 6 for $5.  I found 6 that I thought were worth it:

I like the looks of Beckett Graded cards, and I'm always happy to add a nice Gwynn to my collection.  Yes, it's graded 8 and it's 1987 Donruss (which I happen to love), but it was under a buck.

I love this Mike Piazza card.  I have a pretty good sized Piazza collection and had never seen this card. 

 This Bagwell card is really cool in hand.  the foil moves in the light and hypnotizes me.

So this is not only a Graded 1989 Donruss Craig Biggio, it's the SECOND graded 1989 Donruss Craig Biggio I've purchased at a local card show.   Actually, once I took a second to look over the card, I realized it's a REPRINT of a 1989 Donruss Craig Biggio.  And it's graded.  7.5.  Don't judge me, I paid $.83 for it.  And Craig Biggio is a bad ass.

This was the last one I got.  I got it for reasons I can't explain.

I was pretty satisfied with this purchase.  I was also very satisfied with the $2 worth of cards I picked up from a dime box.  I've already sorted them and forgot to take a picture.  But I got several good cards for my sampler album.  You'll just have to trust me on that one.

Finally, I found a couple of cool relics for $2 each:

 It looks like someone mixed in some red with the whites on laundry day.

Baxendale is a former Razorback, so this was a great find for me.

Sampler Album Week: 1987 Topps

I mentioned yesterday that 1987 Topps is a set I get nostalgic for, along with 1986 Topps.  1987 was the first year I started anticipating the design of a set.  Previously, I didn't care at all.   Of course, back then we didn't (or I didn't at least) have means of previewing the look of the cards before they came out. 

So I didn't have a sense of the wood-grained magic of 1987 Topps until I actually saw them in the store and bought a pack.  1987 was a fun year for baseball cards in my opinion.  Fleer and Donruss also had some neat designs, and there were several exciting players to chase.

See if you can detect the loose theme in my 1987 Sampler Album Page:

I haven't been trying to "theme" my sampler album pages, but this one turned out pretty cool, with all of the players having a career in baseball outside their playing days.  All of these guys are or were executives or managers/coaches at some point.  Of course I'm partial to the current Ranger trio of CEO/Owner Nolan Ryan, Manager Ron Washington and hitting coach Dave Magadan.  Magadan needs to get on the stick though 'cause the Rangers aren't hitting squat these days.

Card Show Loot- Two of My Favorite Players

I had planned to dedicate a full week's worth of posts about the card show I attended last Saturday, but those plans went to crap.  But better late than never, so here we go:

First up, I picked up several nifty Tony Gwynn cards I didn't have.  My Gwynn collecting has slowed somewhat, but I'm still happy to add cool cards of him when I see them.  And when they're cheap.  All of these came from dime boxes:

 

While we're at it, I'll knock off the Adrian Beltre's I found.  All of these came out of the dime boxes too.  I wish there had been some cards of him in a Rangers uniform, but whatever.

Notice that I was too lazy to scan these individually. 

Cleve's Auction Night: Some Vintage and a Gwynn Jersey

Along with sparking my 3 year old daughter's interest in cards yesterday at Cleve's, I picked up my winnings from last Tuesday's auction.  I only spent $7 total, but got a very nice group of cards.

These 2 1966 Topps cards are in pretty decent shape.  A few minor creases here and there, but nothing really noticeable.    They're perfect for the sampler album, and with these, my 1966 page is looking pretty solid. 

I also picked up this 1955 Wally Moon, which is in great shape.  Besides a great unibrow, Moon has a very solid MLB resume:  1954 ROY, 3 time All Star, a Gold Glove and 2 World Series rings.

Speaking of strong resume's- I also added this cool Tony Gwynn jersey card.  It's kind of hard to tell from the scan, but the swatch is brown- the first brown jersey piece in my Gwynn collection.

Grades:

1966 Cepeda and Stargell Lot  $3:  A+  $1.50 each for vintage Hall of Famers?  C'mon dude!

1955 Wally Moon  $2:  A+    A 1955 of a very good player in NM condition?  C'mon dude!

Tony Gwynn Jersey Card  $2:  A+    A brown jersey swatch of my favorite all time player?  C'mon dude!

Tony Gwynn Rookie Patch Card

Crud, only 7 posts this month, and one was a re-run?  And my posts have been pretty short too.  Hopefully I'll get back on track this week, but for today it's going to be another short one.

I'm considering building the manu-rookie patch cards found in 2013 blasters.  Last week I added my favorite all time player- Tony Gwynn:

Even if I don't build the set, there are several of my favorites on the checklist like Gwynn, Darryl Strawberry, and Yu Darvish. 

3rd Blaster of 2013 Topps

I'm picking up my Hobby Box of 2013 from Cleve's (LCS) this Friday and I'm giddy with anticipation.   I have to say it's going to be hard to top the fun I've had from opening the retail blasters though.  I guess I've had some good luck so far with the 3 that I've bought.  Most of the comments on the first two I opened Monday revolved around the number of Bryce Harper cards I hit. 

I decided to pick up a 3rd blaster yesterday, and in my opinion, my good luck continues.  The only complaint I have is that this time I got a Commemorative Patch rather than one of those nifty rookie card reproduction patches.  But this was still pretty cool:

And, let me get this out of the way, I did get another Bryce Harper card:

I would rather have hit a Jurickson Profar, but I'm sure there will be one of those in the hobby box Friday.

My favorite card in the box though:

This card is so brown and so beautiful!  Great, great card!

I guess I also got one of those SP cards of guys reaching over a fence:

I'm a little dubious on this.  I already see a bunch of these on eBay, and I get one in a blaster so I'm not sure how "SP" these really are.  But it's a cool card nonetheless. 

And I got a few good inserts too. 

I really need to stop buying blasters, but I'm on a roll so until the lovely wife catches me, there's probably more to come. 

The Elation of a Filled Up Sampler Album Sheet: 1983 Topps

1983 Topps was a very strong set.  Not only was the design attractive, there were some marquee rookies included (Boggs, Sandberg and Gwynn).  I don't yet have the Sandberg or Boggs cards, but otherwise feel pretty good about the representative cards I have on this page.

Darryl Strawberry is part of the Traded set, but there are no hard and fast rules about how I conduct my sampler album business, so I included it.  It's one of my favorite cards ever, and the first "big" card I ever traded for.  I acquired it in high school, begrudgingly giving up a 1986 Jose Canseco to get it.  

Card Show Recap Part 1: The Cheapies

We actually had a really nice card show here this weekend, much larger in scope than the typical 3 dealer monthly shows in this area.  I only went because the show was in a location that was different than the usual haunts, and didn't go in with much in the way of expectations.

Turned out to be a good show for me, and I walked away with a nice variety of high-end-ish cards, and a budget friendly purchases.

Today I'll show the cheap cards.  I found a dealer from Tulsa that I'd never bought from before, and had a blast going through his 5,000 count boxes.  At 8 for $1 they weren't technically dime box cards, but close enough:

These were all purchased for my ever growing sampler album.  I started the sampler album this year when I realized I'd never complete every set Topps made.  However, I thought it would be cool to have an album with one page dedicated to each year.  Once a page is full, I'll swap out blah cards for mediocre cards, then mediocre cards for good cards, then good cards for great cards until I have a page of 9 awesome cards from each flagship set from 1952 to the present. 

I'm not collecting Topps Tribute, but these cards are really pretty and I had to have them for $.125 cents each.

These cards are pretty too, in an over the top holographic way.

Finally, some assorted cards of other players I like, or cards that I couldn't pass up at 8 for $1.

These cards, plus some others that I didn't bother to scan only set me back $5.  Tomorrow I'll show the more expensive cards, at least, compared to these.

Trading With The King

A few weeks ago, I won a Rod Carew Archives relic card off Listia.  Kevin from the splendid blog, The Diamond King, made me send it to him.  How did he do this?  By sending me a bunch of awesome:

Yes, the Michael Young relic is the big prize for me, but these shiny add-ins are what really made the deal a no brainer:

Thanks for the nice trade Kevin!

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.