COMC Black Friday Parade: Torii Hunter

My COMC.com Black Friday posts got interrupted mid stream, so I'll quickly give my last two groups of purchases the attention they should have gotten two months ago.

I'm a Torii Hunter fan.  Not a SUPER fan, and I try not to pick up too many of him in that silly Angels jersey, but I like the guy and add cool cards of him when I see them.  I happen to find several on the COMC.com Black Friday sale for around a buck each:

The Lost Collector Strikes Back

I thought it was a bunch of big talk on AJ’s part.

I didn’t think he could top what I had sent him.

He did.   I think he has won.

First, some background as to what I’m talking about- although some of you already know.  A while back, I “won” a box of 1990 Topps wax at auction for a few bucks.  The top packs in the box were basically ruined, by water I suppose, and some of the cards in the packs were pretty disgusting.  I showed pictures of these cards.  AJ, the smartass proprietor of the blog “The Lost Collector,” made a smartass comment asking if the Rance Mulliniks card in one of the pictures was available for trade.

So, I packed up the Mulliniks card in a nice snap case and sent it to him.  I thought it was pretty funny.  AJ thought it was funny, and wrote a funny post about it, and vowed revenge.

Later he sent me a note, innocently asking if I was interested in a couple of Topps manu-rookie card patches.  Indeed I was!  He sent them, along with his revenge, which totally floored me.   First things first though,  lets take a moment to appreciate the manupatch cards: 

These are so cool!  Especially the Banks.  I'm making pretty good progress on completing this set, and these are a huge help!

But wait, there was more.  How about a Torii Hunter Relic:

 Nice!  And some Rangers:

 

The Incredible Shrinking Kinslers

 
And then, well, I thought this was very nice:

What he’s referring to is that Cleve's (the LCS) has a vending machine that my kid's love.  They get all sorts of cool, random cards from it when we visit.  Recently, Cleve placed a vintage Mickey Mantle card in the machine.  I don’t think it’s been pulled yet, so who knows, maybe my kids will get it!   So before I get to the last part of the package, let me thank AJ for the great cards and the kind gesture for my young ones. 

Now that that is out of the way, let’s get to the final piece of the package.  AJ's revenge.  It came in the form of this envelope, with an ominous warning, and a single, solitary card:

 
What was in the envelope?  I..... I.... I'm sorry, I can't reveal it.  This envelope will forever be the "Rosebud" of this blog.

But, I will tell you the first words out of my mouth were:  “Holy S*&t.  Check mate, AJ wins.” 

Then I laughed.  The lovely wife saw the contents and covered her mouth with her hands and stared at me in disbelief. 

Then I hung my head in defeat.

Then I "laughed" some more.  Congratulations, "AJ", you are the master.
 
Wait. 

On second thought:

 (Skip to the 1:40 mark to get to the point of this clip)

I'm Coming to Get You
Rambo: First Blood Part 2 — MOVIECLIPS.com

It's not over yet.

My Torii Hunter Masterpiece

It took a year of eBay auto searches, but I finally scored this earlier this week:

Yep, it's a really good looking card of one of my favorite players.  You would think getting a good looking card of one of my favorite players should take, like, 30 seconds to find, not a year.  However, the degree of difficulty on this went up several notches because it's specifically the 3rd card of a little set I wanted to complete.  I found cards 1 and 2 about a week apart last year, so I thought this third one would fall into my lap in short order.  It didn't, but the wait was worth it.  Here are the other two cards I had, lying in wait for their brother:

Since these are only numbered to 18, I guess logically I should have realized that it probably wouldn't be that easy to find the third card I needed.

Well, everyone can relax now because card 3 has arrived, and I am able to complete my "Unity Relic" set.   At first, I was disappointed in how the finished product looked:

After much deliberation, I realized that I didn't necessarily have to line them up in the order I bought them.  After consulting my 3 year old, we realized that we could use the stadium in the background as a guide to help us get them in order,  a la:

Holy crap that is cool.  That's way freaking cool.  I wonder if there is any way I could get Torii Hunter to autograph these, but with one big autograph that stretches across all 3 cards?  How sweet would that be?

Brother Wes- The Patron Saint of PWEs

Wes from Jaybarkerfan's Junk is at it again.  Seriously, if the baseball card blog community ever evolved from community to cult to full blown religion, I would like to nominate him for Sainthood.  In fact, St. Wes is how he will be known going forward on this blog.    Here are a few things I got in one of his famous PWEs last week:

Some old, some new, and several candidates for the sampler album.  Thanks again Wes, you are the man!

Trade With Six-4-Three DP

I recently completed a first time trade with Michael from Six-4-Three DP ( a fantastic blog by the way), and was really happy with the results.  He was showing some of the 2013 Topps he had busted recently and had a Target-Red parallel of the Adrian Beltre base card.  I was interested in it and a trade was born.  Here is my loot:

This was the card that started the trade.  I much prefer these Target red cards to the Walmart Blue.

Mike also added a nice handful of Cliff Lee cards, my favorite being the 1972 mini.

He also added a whole bunch of current and former Rangers.  I'm very sad to include Michael Young in the "former" pile.

I'm always happy to get cards of Darryl.  The 1991 base card already has a home in the Sampler Album.

Michael also sent me several Torii Hunters, but this one was so cool I decided to single it out.  I've never seen these 2003 Fleer Avant cards (he sent a Rafael Palmeiro too-see above), but they are really sharp cards.  The border has a canvas like texture and the image is unique as well.  Very nice cards!

Thanks for the great trade Michael- I hope you enjoyed what I sent at least half as much as I enjoyed what you sent!

Unrelated Cards I Got In The Mail Last Week...

The blog is on autopilot for a few days this week as I journey out to San Francisco to meet with some Walmart.com folks.  I hope to heaven that as you read this on Wednesday, I will have by then been in attendance at the Giants-Mets game Tuesday night.  As I type this, I understand that our chances of getting tickets are at 80%. 

Anyway, I got these two cards last week, and didn't have the gumption to give them each a post, although they are cool enough I probably could have:

I requested this for delivery from the Topps Diamond Giveaway site on the last day deliveries could be requested.  I think that was June 20th.  It arrived on July 27.  I really like these cards.  I want some of the 2012 die cut cards too,  but all I ever get when I plug in my codes are those stupid virtual coins.

I also got this Nick Schmidt card for $3 delivered.  Schmidt was first round draft pick out of the University of Arkansas by the Padres, but had his career interrupted and almost ended due to injuries.  He's back with the Rockies farm system and doing pretty well.  I would have wanted this card anyway since he is a former Razorback, but I'm glad there is still hope for him to make the big leagues.

Breaking Jaybarker Fan's Junk Jinx: Part 4 Other Guys

I think I proved my point folks.  After three jinx breaking posts, the Rangers take 2 of three games on the road at San Francisco, with two of the games being shutouts.  I'm not sure what will happen from here on out, but at least I know that I, single-handedly, was responsible for them getting a series win.

Since the Rangers are off today, I thought I would show the other stars that Wes included in the big box of cards he sent:

The Halladay and Pujols cards are Topps Chrome, and I really, really like them.  I think these are the first I've seen from the 2008 Topps Chrome set, and I'm tempted to tack this set onto my master checklist.

I'm not sending jinx vibes, anti or otherwise, through the air on these Torii Hunter cards.  It's a weird thing having one of my favorite players play for the enemy, but I just can bring myself to root against Torii. 

Even though the Rangers look to be getting back on track and are starting a home stand tomorrow, I'll get back to some more jinx busting posts tomorrow and try to ensure they stay on course.

Jaybarker Fan's Junk Has Jinxed The Texas Rangers.

It has probably dawned on some of you who deal with me or follow my blog that I can be forgetful or downright absent minded at times.  The lovely wife would give a big "amen" to that notion.  I say this because I finally realized that the big box o' Rangers I received yesterday came from Wes at Jaybarker Fan's Junk.  

Wes is a god among men, and yes I'm still giddy about all the cards he sent.  I've looked through them a few times now and keep discovering gems.

We actually did complete a trade a few months ago, but the return address and initials on the box yesterday just didn't jog my memory.  I'm telling you my mind is pretty fried from work right now.  I'm also taking it upon myself to be stressed about what's going on with the Rangers, since you know, it's my problem to solve.   Which brings me to the explanation for the title of this post:

I see no other reasonable conclusion than to blame the Rangers recent woes (losing 3 of 4 to the A's? come on!) on Wes for sending that big box of Ranger cards.

I received the cards yesterday.  The Rangers lost yesterday.  The Rangers lost again today.   I also assume the cards were in transit for about 3 days before I got them.  The Rangers lost 2 of 3 of the games on the days those cards were in transit.

Those of you who don't understand this kind of stuff would probably think the easy solution would be to get rid of the cards or send them back.  Well that's absurd and makes no logical sense in terms of breaking jinxes.  And besides, I like the cards and don't want to give them up.

The best solution will be to make some jinx breaking posts over the next few days and expose these cards to the world and therefore take away their jinx inducing powers.

Since it's too late to do anything about today's game (yikes Yu Darvish), I'll show the really nice hits that Wes sent that feature players from other teams and a non-current Ranger.

Let's start with this awesome Torii Hunter card:

 The pinstripe is fantastic!

A relic of Tony Gwynn!

Wes also added this auto of Chris Howard, but the best part of this card was the write up on the back:

"Chris worked for the White Sox and the Red Sox before joining the Rangers last August."

"Worked?"  Was he an accountant or something? I've never heard of playing baseball referred to as "work" other than as the title of George Will's baseball book "Men at Work." It doesn't make it sound like his time with the Red and White Sox was enjoyable.

Anyway Wes, while it's unfortunate that your generous shipment has put the Rangers in a tailspin, I'm still very excited about the cards.  Let's see if we can't turn things around in the next few days. 

Stealing From The Topps Museum

I think this is a steal at least:

I got this Topps Museum relic of Torii Hunter off eBay for about $5 shipped.  It’s a huge jersey swatch and numbered to 10.    I’ve seen this exact sames card with print runs of 35 and 50 go for more, so I guess that’s good for me.  Frankly, the multiple print runs of the same card befuddles me a little.  The differences in the runs on this particular card are pretty subtle.  I think the frames around the swatch are different colors and that's about it.   Seems kind of silly to me.  Whatever, I’m just happy to have this!

Trade With The Dime Box Master

Nick from the prolific blog “Dime Boxes- the Low End Baseball Card Collector’s Journey” will heretofore have his blog referred to as the “Dime Box Master” for short on this post.  Or I guess I could just say "Nick's Blog" for shorter.  Or "Nick's" for shortest.

Anyway, I completed my first trade with him recently, and was able to help knock out some of his Heritage needs.  I was certainly happy with what he sent in return.  The best card wasn’t even one that I was expecting.  I was expecting this Nelson Cruz sticker:

Poor Nelson Cruz.  He will have that misplay of what should have been the final out in the World Series follow him the rest of his career.   If life were fair, people would also remember the walk off grand slam he hit against the Tigers in the LCS.  But life isn’t fair I guess.  I’m still a fan though, and I still remember the LCS grand slam, and my guess is that he will be just fine this year.

Nick also sent a nice group of other players I collect.

 

But the best part was this:

A 1984 Fleer Darryl Strawberry rookie.  I would ask if he found this in a dime box, but I probably don't want to know the answer.  About 20 years ago, I would have gone to great lengths to get this card.  I still love it, and as an unexpected add-in to the trade, it’s an incredible bonus!  That would have been worth the trade on its own.  Very excited about this, and I’m very appreciative of the Dime Box Master.    Keep up the great work on your blog Nick. 

But, I still can’t believe you passed on that 1971 rookie Concepcion for a dime.  That pains me every time I think about it.

eTopps In Hand Delivery Part 2

No talk, on with pictures:

These are the first 2010 cards I've taken in hand.  They're not bad, but not the best eTopps has done.

I took a few of my favorite players. The Hunter and Halladay on the right are from the 2003 set, which I think is the nicest base set eTopps has released.  The eTopps logo looks more like a medallion than just a printed logo.  The 2 Hunter cards on the bottom are from the 2007 set, which is much nicer in hand than I expected.

Finally, I took a handful of NFL stars. The Tomlinson cards at the bottom look GREAT.  I especially like the card on the left from the 2007 set.

A Cool Deal From Coot Veal- Part 2

One of the great things about getting a large trade package in the mail is that it can be stretched into two blog posts, and requires very little thinking on my part.  I am always in favor of very little thinking.  Today I’ll show the cards of my favorite non Rangers/Razorbacks, courtesy Coot Veal and the Veal Tones:

Darryyyylllllll….. Daryyyllllll……. Darryyllllll…..  Darryl Strawberry was the man.  Period.  Oh, what could have been with that guy. 

A group of cards from two of the smarter players I collect.  At least I know Keith Hernandez is smart.  It seems like Al Leiter is too.    The Hernandez Fan Favorites card is numbered to 199 and is really sharp.

I probably shouldn’t root for Torii Hunter, him being an Angel and all.  But he is an Arkansan, and he’s just hard not to like. 

And finally, some Tony Gwynn.    He was good.

Dustin, thank you for a great trade, and I hope you enjoy what I sent!