COMC setwork

Time for more from my recent COMC package.

Joy of a completed set: Ripken closes the book on 1984 Donruss for me. (I just put together a simple base set; no variations.) I'll need to remember to take a moment to better enjoy the set one of these days, maybe even get a post out of revisiting it, but in the interest of time, for now I'm tipping my cap to the Iron Man and filing him away. Chagrined I wasn't able to coax any trades for it atop my Double Dozen wantlist, I went with the cheapest specimen available, hence being less than mint. Well hey, my 84D Mattingly has a little crease, so it's not like I'm sending in my set to PSA, I just appreciate knowing I've got the complete set. I've previously completed Donruss sets for 1985 and 1990, eventually hoping to finish a run from 1981 through '93 or so. But '84 and '85 are my favorites (and 90D due to sentimentality), so I'm glad I've got those in my collection now.

A while back, Padrographs Rod gave me a near-complete set of 1991 Brockum RockCards. I finally picked up the one missing base card, plus 3 variations to extra-complete the set. I won't go as far as to call it a "master set" because there's also stuff like hologram inserts and promo cards which I won't be hunting down (I do have the Axl Rose promo, though; he's not actually in the base set). But yeah, the rock set is a nice complement to my 1991 MusiCards set and the whole "music" section of my card collection I've been beefing up over the past three years or so.

I can't say I'm a huge Yes fan, though that album with "Owner of a Lonely Heart" was the first compact disc I ever bought (well, I also bought Pyromania at the same time). Listened to that album a ton, but besides that I only know like a couple other Yes songs.

I'm not too educated on the metal band Exodus, and apparently neither is Brockum, as they mixed up a couple members in their back photos. I still don't really know which guy is which, but I just know how to tell the variations apart because cards #127, 141, and 198 each have "black shirt in back photo" and "white shirt in back photo" variations.

I may never finish my ambitious project of a black refractor parallel set of 2004 Chrome, but I still like plucking cards here and there when I can find them for a decent price. This quartet of commons includes a couple guys I remember rooting for when they were with San Diego.

And check out this pair of legendary hurlers. Full disclosure, the Clemens was a recent eBay pickup, not COMC, but I've been meaning to feature it on the blog and makes sense to toss it in here. I've hit 60% complete with my goal now, with 194 cards remaining (including some toughies like Yadi [RC], Ichiro, and Pujols). It's one of those "welp, if I live long enough, perhaps I'll be able to complete this before I die" projects. But hey, I love the look of these cards and working on the set gives me a reason to keep looking at them.

To a lesser extent, I really like looking at 2015 Bowman Chrome refractors, and sometimes I'll check who's available down in the "sort by lowest price first" inventory and try to add some color to my order. Sorry for the blurry photo.. the green one is Will Middlebrooks.

Yawn, dumb ol' 1989 Bowman, right?  

Wrong! 1989 Bowman Tiffany!

You'll have to take my word for it that these babies are glossy. Love adding tiffany cards of guys I collect. Again, sorting by cheapest and seeing what catches my eye.

Looking at these after standard 1989 Bowman backs has gotta feel like you've had successful cataract surgery. I wish this could have been the default paper stock for Topps back then, though I'm sure the speckled, dark crap they used was cheaper, especially considering the huge print runs of the time. This tiffany factory set was limited to 6000 copies.

Also in my search for non-junk junk, I picked up a few 1988 Topps tiffanies.

Small black text on a dark orange background still isn't the easiest to read, but it's an improvement over that year's flagship. (Worst Topps flagship backs ever?) Ok, Hendu is from the Traded set, so the difference in quality isn't as dramatic.

A curious search for Winfield's restaurant didn't turn up much, but apparently it was called the U.S.A. Border Cafe, located at Broadway and 100th Street, serving Southwestern fare from 6 PM to midnight daily.

That'll do it for today. I think that covers everything in this COMC shipment besides a pair of (non-vintage) Mantles that completed a project for a future post. Thanks for stopping by.

Cards and a comic from Rod

Rod from Padrographs popped over one of the past weekends and kindly handed me a box of random cards as he's done several times before. I'm very lucky to be his neighbor!

There were a lot of fresh 2021 cards in there, mostly Heritage, which I was happy to see since I don't rip current product much anymore. Lots of PC needs for me.

And all the young dudes.

Haha.. More cheesy Cal Ripken Holiday Inn cards among the HOFers.

Here we've got a couple spare Padrographs, including a custom of Paul Quantrill (Cal Quantrill's pop), plus a nice pair of Gavins. That's my first non-sticker autograph of John Gavin. The holiday Lux RC was a very welcomed sight too.

Fun assortment of non-sports.

Happy 4th of July!

And Rod gave me one non-card item...

Nocterra comic book. Very cool, but what's really cool about it...

Glows in the dark! This will be going on display in my Glow-in-the-Dark Museum (basement bathroom).

Big thanks as always, Rod!

A Five Star Christmas

Thanks everybody, for the birthday/Christmas well wishes.

When I tell people my birthday is Christmas Eve, they often respond saying they feel sorry for me, assuming I got screwed out of presents. Haha, they never met my family!

They spoil me rotten every December 24/25 and this year was no exception. In addition to the Topps Tribute box I posted about yesterday, I also got these boxes of cards under the tree. Definitely more than I was expecting, especially the bonus Ghostbusters box, but I'll get to that story another day.

Today I'll be recapping the 2017 Five Star box. Just 2 cards per box (both autos), so it's a gamble.

Woah! I lucked into a nice Cal Ripken, Jr #'d 9/15! Definitely a sweet pull of an all-time great.

If anything is a little bittersweet about this pull is that I already have a couple nice Ripken autos in my collection. Would have rather pulled an auto I don't have yet, like say Ichiro, Jeter, Mariano, or even Judge. But Cal is still among the best names I could have possibly pulled, so I can't complain. I'll happily add this to my Iron Man PC, though if anyone wants to make a compelling trade offer, I'd listen.

As for my second auto...

Well, it's not as exciting as Cal Ripken, but still a solid pull of one of today's top pitchers, Noah Syndergaard. I'll take it! I seem to have a knack for pulling hits from the Mets rotation, as in recent years I've pulled a couple autos of Steven Matz. I also have a Zack Wheeler auto. (Just my luck, I don't have the best guy, deGrom). But back to Thor, he's been the subject of trade rumors lately, with my Padres being among the interested parties.

-  - --o

2nd Day of Christmas

Sorry if my last post was confusing regarding the contest/draft thing. I'm just trying to do a little something nice for friends 'o the blog, while also trying to get some action on the blog during what's usually a slow time of the year. So the plan is I'm posting for 12 days in a row (12 Days of Christmas), and on each post, there will be a new winner. On day one, it was Chris. Now on day two, it'll be the first eligible person (listed below) to comment on this post choosing a prize from the prize pool. (Update: Congrats Brett Alan! He picked the shiny Topps Fire lot.)

Sport Card Collectors
Collecting Cutch
Bulldog
Julie Owens
Brett Alan
Fuji
John Miller
TSHenson
shoeboxlegends
The Lost Collector
Jafronius
Tony Burbs
Chris (The Collector)
JediJeff
madding
Nick (Dimebox)
Billy Kingsley
night owl
Jon (Penny Sleeves)
Dennis (Too Many)
Trevor P
Zippy Zappy
Bo
Nick Vossbrink
Corky
P-town Tom
gregory
GCA
ketchupman36
Jason (HeavyJ)
Greg Zakwin
CrazieJoe
Marc
Brian (Highly Subjective)
Coast To Posts
Rob
Laurens
SumoMenkoMan
Jeffery Turri
Mark Hoyle
Twitch
Rod (Padrographs)
RAZ
Nick Sheren
Larry Presnall

Prize Q - 6-card lot of shiny Topps Fire parallels

1982 Topps Traded Cal Ripken! (Joy of a Completed Set: 1982 Topps Traded)

Here's a nice add for my collection: Cal Ripken Jr.'s top rookie (year) card! As a kid, my all-time best pull from a pack (circa 1991) was an '82 Topps Ripken RC that he shared with Bob Bonner and Jeff Schneider, and now many years later I've complemented that with his Traded counterpart.

If I hypothetically had several copies of this card, I'd have one for the Iron Man PC, plus I'd throw copies into the Niekro and Stargell PCs for the heck of it (seeing as they're name-checked in the cartoon/trivia area). But since I've only got the one, it goes to the setbuild.

I completed 1982 Topps through trading last month. And not long after, picked up a 1982 Topps Traded "complete set; No Ripken" for less than a blaster at the last card show. So #98T here completes the mainstream '82 Topps run for me. Feels good!

The Sacred Five

There's an unofficial Blog Bat-Around going around of narrowing down your collection-- if it came down to it-- to just 5 of your favorite collecting passions. Like if your significant other gave you an ultimatum to shed all but the 5 favorite avenues of your collecting pathways. Or maybe times are tough and you just need to sell part of your collection for financial reasons. Whatever the cause, that's a tough question to think about! Let's see how I do.


1. Topps Retired refractor autographs

"My babies!" I credit this product for getting me to dive back into card collecting after a couple decades away. (Topps Archives got me to stick my toe in the water, but Topps Retired got me on top of that diving board.) I like the base cards and regular autos, but the refractor autos are king. If I were forced to split the 3 sets up separately, 2004 is the one I'm keeping, no question (see header), though I'd be sad to see 2003 and 2005 go. Just recently picked up the above '05 Cal Ripken refractor and it's a great looking card!


2. Vintage sets

I'm really proud of building my favorite old sets over the past few years. In order, I completed 1973 Topps, 1971 Topps, and 1965 Topps. Currently working on 1957 and 1964. I've put a lot of time and effort (and $) into these and think I'd feel a big void if I had to part with them. Like, I might not have many Koufax cards, but if his name comes up, I feel good knowing I've got his '65 card, as an example. And all the lesser-known non-star guys filling out the set are fascinating too. Vintage set collecting is great. If money were no object, I'd go nuts on all of them, but as it stands, I just pick a few of my favorites to work on.


3. Player collections

Ok, this one is a cop-out because I think I've got well over a hundred player collections, making up a good portion of my collection as a whole. So for this exercise, I should parse them out (as I organize them in real life) into 3 main categories: HOF (all-time greats I like who are in the Hall of Fame, plus Pete Rose), Retired (fan favorite guys who aren't in the Hall), and Active. If I could only keep one of these 3 buckets, I would probably have to go with the Retired guys, as they are typically the most fun for me to collect. I just finally added Bip's two minor league cards from back before the Padres snagged him in the Rule 5 draft from the Pirates.. and I absolutely love them. (Can you imagine if Pittsburgh held onto Bip? They would have been a championship dynasty of killer B's with Bip, Bonds, Bonilla, Bream, Bob Walk, doug draBek, Rafael Belliard.) Anyways, yeah, I don't think I could give up those PCs. Guys like Dick Allen, Nate Colbert, Bill Madlock, Rod Beck, Ken Caminiti, Fred McGriff, Khalil Greene, Julio Franco.. all high among my favorite guys to collect. It'd be hard to say goodbye to my HOF PCs (Hoyt! No! Gwynn?!) and active PCs (love my good Trout cards), but that's how it goes.


4. Guys From Granite

Collecting cards of guys who went to my high school gives me a personal connection to my collection. "Remember your roots" and all that. Cool to think these guys walked down the same halls as me as a teenager on their way to Algebra II or whatever, and then went on to become pro ballplayers. There might be some "living vicariously through them" stuff going on here.


5. [umm... arg?!!]

Man, that's too much of a Sophie's Choice for me. In the running would be:
Christmas Cards (cards serial numbered 12/25 and 12/24)
Gavins (guys like me named Gavin)
Glow-in-the-dark cards
Modern sets (my completed sets from the 80s plus projects like my 2004 Chrome and 2011 Topps parallel setbuilds)
Pride PC

Gun to my head, I might have to go with my non-sports cards as my final pick. Lumped into that would be my Girlie Cards, Ghostbusters auto set, Goonies auto display, MST3K, Simpsons, and Star Wars cards, among others random stuff.


Stuff that would be first on the chopping block?

Other sports... sorry football, basketball, and hockey.
Random Padres cards.
Various rookies, hits, and "doesn't fit elsewhere in my collection" stuff.
Non-card stuff like figures, bobbleheads, postcards, etc would also be gone, not that I have much to begin with. (Hopefully I could hang on to my small collection of old toys.. GI Joe, Transformers, etc.)

But thankfully, it was all just a theoretical bad dream. I can keep on collecting whatever I want. Whew!

How about you? What would you keep/part-with if it came down to it?
Thanks for reading.


BONUS CONTENT:

On this day in 1989, Bo Jackson leads the AL to victory in the 60th All-Star Game.

Made another animated card gif. Tried something different with the back of an '89 UD. This one isn't taking off on Twitter nearly as well as the Satchel Paige one I made the other day (170 retweets and 450 likes! Wow, that's gotta be my most popular tweet ever), but still fun to make and people seem to like 'em.

Getting some help with 1982 Topps from past me (+contest update)

When I first got into card collecting in the early 90s, I bought a lot of 1982 Topps packs. My local card shop had a box on the shelf, among the oldest unopened product he had available. I was fascinated by what to me as a kid seems like "old timey" vintage cards. So I'd often pick up a pack or two when I'd go in to spend my weekly allowance.

I eventually amassed probably about half the set from packs. Flash forward several years, the bulk of the cards were purged in anticipation of my move out of California. But I hung onto 20 or so favorites among the keepers I moved with me. While I tend to keep these "childhood collection" cards separate from my "grown-up collection" for sentimental reasons, I've been slowly integrating them.

And as I now close in on unfinished business from ~27 years ago, working on finally finishing '82 Topps, I figured I'd turn to the shoebox of childhood cards to see if past-me could check off any of my remaining needs.

Gotta start with the big boy. This was probably the best pull of my childhood. I vividly remember unwrapping the wax pack as my buddy Doug and I crossed the street walking home from the card shop. My eyes lit up and I proudly showed Doug the Cal, "Yes! Check it out!" That was a great day.

So there's the top card from '82 Topps taken care of.

And here are a couple Pirates cards that were on my wantlist. It was a thrill for me to have a playing-days Willie Stargell card; kids of '91 were taught/reminded about him thanks to the puzzle pieces in 1991 Donruss. As for the Pirates rookies card, I always dug Johnny Ray, in part from his [not really] inclusion in the "We Didn't Start the Fire" lyrics.

Three more needed cards that I happened to pull from packs years ago include old timers Tony Perez and Jim Palmer, plus a Dave Righetti rookie.

Here's where my 1982 Topps needs stand today, 6/19: (check my main wantlist for future updates.)
1 Steve Carlton HL, 2 Ron Davis HL, 5 Nolan Ryan HL, 59 Gedman, 66 Howe/Ryan TL, 81 Palmer IA, 110 Fisk, 185 Phil Niekro, 200 Brett, 201 Brett IA, 244 Linares, 337 Rose AS, 346 Seaver AS, 450 Bosley, 475 Trammell, 481 Steve Carlton IA, 492 Price, 493 Lemon, 496 Grubb, 497 Jim Anderson, 498 Bergman, 499 Mirabella, 505 Nettles, 535 Lance Parrish, 540 Dawson, 553 Winfield AS, 557 Gossage AS, 579 Brett AS, 582 Luis Pujols, 586 Fingers IA, 600 Winfield, 610 Rickey Henderson, 650 Yaz, 716 Stargell IA, 721 Luzinski IA, 754 Joe Morgan, 760 Buckner, 780 Rose

If you can help with any of those and would like to swing a quick trade, please get in touch! I'm pretty sure I've got several of these in PCs, so I may go ahead and raid PCs to knock off a few more numbers for the set if I don't get much trade traction.


Ok, now I've got the matter of a pending contest to get to. Thanks to all who entered, and for the friendly comments! Here are the entrants in chronological order:
shoeboxlegends
Jeremya1um
P-town Tom
Jon
Billy Kingsley
Rod (Padrographs)
Sport Card Collectors
Doug Hoback
The Turrdog
Tim B.
Matt
night owl
CrazieJoe
Mark Hoyle
The Lost Collector
Robert
Jafronius
Larry Presnall
ketchupman36
gcrl
JediJeff
Nick
Greg Zakwin
jasongerman9
Corky
Fuji
TSHenson
Bo
Julie Owens
Matt Stupienski
Brett Alan
EP

Randomized to just assign numbers (not pick a winner) gives us this:

We need to find two winners, and I'll do my usual thing of adding some extra randomization to the mix so I don't feel dirty if my friends win. Let's use tonight's 6/19/2018 A's @ Padres game to help randomly pick the winners. To spread it out, let's say Winner #1 is the combined number of runs for both teams in the game (so for example, a low-scoring 1-0 game would make Brett Alan the winner). Winner #2 is the combined number of runs + hits + errors for both teams. If it goes over 32, we'll cycle back around through the list. In the unlikely event both winning numbers are the same, we'll have a do-over for Winner #2 another day. Sound good? Good luck!

(Update: Congrats to Sport Card Collectors [6 runs] and Robert [21 runs+hits+errors]! Both bloggers I'm very familiar with and guys I've traded with before, so should be able to put together nice prize packages for you two. Thanks again, everybody!)

some set gets

My 1957 Topps setbuild crept over 20% complete thanks to a few recent pickups, with baby-faced Don Zimmer here being the highlight.

Funny thing about 1957 Topps is it was released in 5 series, but it's actually the 4th series that's the most scarce. So its "high numbers" can be deceptive. My '57 needslist had a couple long stretches of red "needs" rows that depressed me every time I looked at it, but thankfully these guy helped me break up the solid red with a dash of green "got it!" rows here and there. (Actually, most are marked with yellow "upgrade would be nice" though that's really for just in case someone has a nice copy to trade me or I stumble upon a good one cheap at a card show or something.. I don't plan to ever go out of my way upgrading this set. Whatever beat up cards I get will be just fine for me. I almost regret buying the nice Hank Aaron I did because it's destined to be out of place with the vast majority of my set.) Was very happy to find good deals on these from a seller whose cards I had already loaded up my cart with.

These too! Thanks to Cal and the late Darren Daulton here, I'm now just two cards (stickers) shy of completing the Glow Stars subset of 1993 UD Fun Pack.

Just need #80 Ryne Sandberg and #191 Kirby Puckett, if anyone can help me out. They're sneaky buggers. When I finally complete it, I'll have to do a gif-filled post of them all glowing in action. It'll be glorious.

Remember that Trader Jack Padres set I got recently from gcrl that was only missing the Garvey? A friendly guy on Twitter offered me a Garvey and didn't even want anything in exchange. Super nice of him! Thanks a ton, @TeeOhEmm

Next up, part one of a trade package from Tim B.

Lots of additions to my 2011 Topps parallel frankenset.

And I actually needed all of them, so he obviously took the time to check numbers on my list, not just blindly sending any he found. Very thoughtful.

Can't believe I still haven't hit the halfway point with this ridiculous project of mine. Currently at 563 cards down out of 1284, good for 43.85% complete. Yep, it's definitely a long-term goal.

More from Tim's generous trade return soon.
Thanks

Late addition!...

Good ol' mrhaverkamp surprised me with a PWE of 2 '87 Bohemian Bread needs! Both a bit creased, but good enough for me! Down to just Flannery, Gwynn, and Dravecky. Big thanks, Jim!

Underachieving Archives

The checklist for 2017 Archives has been released. I already pre-ordered a couple boxes a few months ago for the third year. I've got a love/hate relationship with the product. I credit Topps Archives for pulling me back into collecting in 2012. I remember I was taking a curious look on eBay to see what was up with the hobby. The modern designs didn't really interest me at all, but then there was this "throwback" set with comfortingly familiar designs and plenty of retired stars of yesteryear, and it really spoke to me. I dipped my toe in the water ripping a blaster or two.. didn't pull anything all that notable, but got enough of a thrill to hop back into the collecting pool.

Since then, I bust a box or two annually. But my enthusiasm for the product has been waning, gotta admit. Last year was a big success for me because I pulled (a redemption for) a Ken Griffey, Jr "Father & Son" 1/1 auto black parallel. So that was cool as hell. But besides that one card, the boxes pretty much sucked. The base cards were virtually identical in both boxes. A couple weeks later I took a chance on a blaster hoping for some variety, and again, just more of the same cards! Three rips resulted in a ton of triples, with pretty much only the parallels and inserts being different. It's a decent sized set, too. I remember Fuji was trying to finish the set and had an ample wantlist. I emailed him, confident I could knock off several numbers for him. But no, I ended up looking like a fool. Fuji must've busted nearly identical boxes to me, because I couldn't even muster up a single need for him in my entire tall stack of 2016 Archives. No reason to have such horrible collation. It's nothing new for Topps in recent years, but still.

But let's move the bitching to 2017 Archives. As Night Owl mentioned recently, one of the designs this year is 1982 Topps, a design Archives just used back in 2013! So many great designs they haven't used in the product, yet they're already beating dead horse designs, like they did with 1980 Topps (bringing it back in 2014 after just using it in 2012). It upsets me more than it should. It's just so lazy. I've talked about how it'd be a dream job for me to work at Topps working on cards, and specifically I'd love to be project manager of Archives and get it back on track. It could be a great set if they'd just put in a little more effort.

I haven't looked too hard at the checklist yet (and will likely avoid blog posts with early reviews), trying to save some surprise for when I bust my boxes, but I did take a look at the Fan Favorites Autographs checklist. Some expected big names (that I'm sure will be very short-printed) such as Aaron, Koufax, and newcomer to Topps autos, Derek Jeter. In a change from recent years, there's no 80s film tie-in this time out. However, there are a lot of non-player baseball guys this year, such as sportscasters and fans. I was disappointed not to see Vin Scully on the checklist (auto or otherwise). I know Topps signed him to a contract a few months ago.. Put him in sets! If he's not in 2017 Ginter, I'm gonna be pissed. The worst "Fan Favorite" inclusion is Skip Bayless, the idiotic asshole sportswriter/TV personality that everybody hates. If I pull that card, I will burn it.

As for positive surprises on the auto checklist, I was happy to see MLB's Ambassador for Inclusion, Billy Bean get his first certified auto. And it's a Padres card at that! (The only Padre auto in the set, however.. boo.) But yeah, I'll have to score one of those autos for my Pride PC at some point. Members of the cardsphere are also happy to see the likes of Tim Wallach and John Smiley get some certified-auto love. Rusty Kuntz is another fun one.

So anyways, yeah, I hope my boxes treat me well this year. Until then, here are some older Archives cards I've picked up recently.

1986 Topps is a set I'm not all that crazy about.. but mess with the border colors and you've got me! This Moises Alou blue parallel looks awesome, even if the shade of blue is just a bit off from the EXPOS text and position circle.

I was getting addicted to these blue border 86s and ended up with Teddy Higuera, too. This one doesn't look as good as the Alou thanks to the tan BREWERS, but is still kinda cool.

I wouldn't mind adding more colored parallels in the 1986 design in the future (there are also red and purple, I believe), though these 2 satiated my fixation good enough for the time being.

This isn't exactly the same as today's Archives, rather from back when it was a chiefly a reprint product. I'm still kinda trying to complete the Archives Reserve Future Rookie Reprints set. Never been a big fan of these reimaged multi-player rookies with only the one main guy, but Cal was a big name to check off my list.

And Barry Bonds is another one. I don't care much about them being graded, but this one popped up significantly cheaper than I tend to see raw copies priced for, so I pounced on it. Not sure why PSA mentions a "gold border" as I'm pretty sure all copies of this card are like this.. basically a Chrome-style reprint.

And the backs, in case you were interested.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend, everybody!

2016 Topps Triple Threads box break

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas Day. Mine was very nice. Finally saw Rogue One.. I really liked it. Then a great dinner with the in-laws and popped in Scrooged on dvd.. classic. I got some awesome gifts including my first smartphone (Google Pixel), nice noise-canceling headphones, and of course cards.

This post wraps up my trilogy of holiday box breaks. First there was 2016 The Mint (including an incredible pair of Trouts), then 2015 Tier One (with a David Wright /5 auto), and now we close with 2016 Triple Threads.

This is my first time breaking any Triple Threads. The fact the autos are mostly stickergraphs is a turnoff for me. If I'm spending a lot on a box of cards, those autos better be on-card. But this showed up in Dave & Adam's Black Friday sale at a decent price, and I thought it could be a fun break, so I went ahead and added it to my xmas wishlist.

My in-laws were nice enough to put it under the tree for me. So here we are. Let's see what I got!

Mini-box #1 had some solid base cards. David Wright on the blog back-to-back days.

Ooh, here's a nice hit. Jorge Soler triple relic auto. And the signature is on-card! And all 3 relics swatches look different, too, which is a definite plus. It's #'d 40/99. Soler was a key role-player on the WS Champion Cubs team this year, though earlier this month he was traded to the Royals for Wade Davis, as Chicago needed to fill their closer vacancy with Chapman defecting back to New York. Here's hoping Jorge flourishes down in KC.

Speaking of switching teams, Taijuan Walker was sent to the Diamondbacks in the Jean Segura trade last month. This is a decent looking relic, #'d 32/36.

The parallels in the first minibox were excellent and both dudes I collect. Kris Bryant #/250 and Ted Williams #/150.

Mini-box #2 had base cards of a couple guys I collect, Big Unit and Pooh Holes.

Again, I did well with the parallels. Mike Trout #/340 and Freddie Freeman #/250.

Oh, for fuck's sake! If you remember my break yesterday of Tier One, I pulled a 1/1 auto of busted pitcher Alex Cobb. Well, now here's a 1/25 relic/stickergraph to go with it. Looks like I'm being forced into becoming an Alex Cobb supercollector. Though honestly I'd be fine going the rest of my life without ever pulling another Alex Cobb card.

Boom.. here's the hit of the box (or at least right up there with the Soler auto), a triple relic of 3 HOF Orioles: Eddie Murray, Cal Ripken, and Jim Palmer. The swatches aren't too exciting in their plainness, but it's fine. Numbered 25/36, this will likely go in the Steady Eddie PC, with all due respect to Cal and Jim.


So there was that box. Not too shabby.. though if it was my hard-earned $150 on the line rather than a gift, I might be a bit let down by it. But yeah, some #'d parallels of guys I collect, a hell of a Jorge Soler card, and a HOF triple relic.. solid box. But now my high-end box breaking days are over, for about 12 months, anyways.


The day after Christmas is an exciting day in our house because it marks the beginning of The Festival of Lightsabers, which is where we watch a Star Wars movie every day between Christmas and New Years. Got an early start this year with Rogue One in 3D on Christmas, and will slide right into A New Hope tonight, then maybe "flashback" to Attack of the Clones tomorrow, followed by Revenge of the Sith (skipping Phantom Menace this year), before jumping back to Empire, Jedi, and the Force Awakens (which I just got on BluRay for xmas). (Update: RIP Carrie Fisher.. that fuckin sucks!) Speaking of Disney, I also got the DuckTales redux PlayStation 3 game which I'm excited about, as the NES original is an all-time favorite of mine. Fun times.

Thanks for stopping by! And to paraphrase Tiny Tim, may the force be with us, everyone.