A great Tony Gwynn auto to top off the PC

My Tony Gwynn PC has really been beefed up nicely lately. The big hit was a 2004 Retired refractor auto /25 last month. And last week I added an awesome signed "college years" card. Now I've landed another Gwynn I've been hunting for, this 2013-14 Upper Deck Black card featuring Tony from his days starring on the Aztec basketball team.

Terrific looking card! Love the afro on Tony yelling for the rock, and the sleek profile as he takes it deep to the hole, from back when Tony was a lean, mean, sporting machine. The gold ink auto on the black matte canvas looks fantastic. Yep, this is definitely a highlight of my collection. I'd say the triforce of my Gwynn PC would be the Retired refractor auto, the minor league card, and now this.
Do you think that term will catch on?

Triforce n. - 1. [Collecting] The 3 best cards within a PC or minicollection. 2. [Video games] An omnipotent sacred relic, representing the essence of the Golden Goddesses who created the realm of Hyrule.

It's no Best Binder Page that Junior Junkie came up with-- that I hope to maybe take my turn at one of these days, though I know I'm very late joining in.

I don't collect college/alumni cards nearly as hard as some other collectors do, but I love Gwynn SDSU cards. I'm a fan of his purely because of his career with the Padres, but it's really a cool coincidence that my favorite player happened to go to the same school I did. It's been said before but Gwynn was an excellent baller, setting Aztecs records for assists in a game (18), season (221), and career (590). He could have no-doubt played in the NBA but since he was a bit short compared to those big guys, he decided to stick with baseball.

My Gwynn collection is at a nice place right now. With this card secured, I can't think of any other "white whales" swimming wild out there that I'm dreaming of landing. It's pretty much all gravy from here on out. Maybe his OPC rookie card would be a nice addition someday, but not that big of a deal to me. I'll continue to pick up Gwynns here and there, of course, but going forward I'll probably rely more on trades and less on purchases. If I never added another card, I'd be content with the PC I've built as it stands now. That's a good place to be!

Playing a couple old CD-ROM ''cards''

A couple shows back, I picked up Cal Ripken and Roger Clemens "PowerDeck" inserts that Upper Deck put out in 1999. These are mini cd-roms that are shaped so they can fit in a standard-sized pack of cards. I get a kick out of quirky stuff like this, and was just kinda curious about these "cards" and wanted one or two for myself.

I've got a backup old laptop with the "snap on the center" style cd drive to allow me to safely play them without fear of their odd size/shape potentially causing trouble.

So if you're like me and were curious as to what digital delights are on these, here ya go!

Yep, each card basically contains a lo-fi minute-long highlight reel. (Uploading the .mov file to Blogger makes them even lower-fi.) That's about what I expected. Kinda cool, I guess!

The rest of that 94 Collector's Choice box

I was going to make a "clever" title of "Pro-Collector's Choice" or some other pseudo-controversial phrase like that, but I pussed out. But yeah, here's the second half (or so) of my 1994 Collector's Choice Series One box. The first installment saw a Chipper silver signature parallel and some other neat looking cards. Now let's finish ripping the rest of the box.

First up, the signature parallels:

The lone gold signature of the box (ie, the only card with potential to have monetary value) is Allen Watson. Sigh.. oh well.. You don't buy Collector's Choice for the hits. That Griffey checklist might be the best o' the box. Other big names here are Bonds, Belle, and Bernie. Tim Salmon (obscured under Bernie) was probably a hot card when this set first hit shelves.

Next are a few more probable "keepers"..

A couple nice final tributes in Brett and Ryan. And some decent rookies. (Although none of these are "true RCs", I'm sure, what with draft pick cards n' such.) Butch Huskey was the original Rock Shoulders.. a guy you had to love for his bad-ass name if nothing else. (Champ Summers is another one that comes to mind.)

Here's Sandy Alomar fleeing for his life from psycho Turk Wendell. Then below, Chris Gwynn tries to uncomfortably squeeze past an Oriole (perhaps foreshadowing for the ALCS?) while Mark Grace lobs a baseball at his head. It's not easy being a Royal.

So there you go. Again, I would love to dump a chunk of my 94 Collector's Choice stack on you, so please let me know if you have even the slightest ounce of interest in any cards from this set! Of the cards pictured, really the Griffey checklist and Nolan Ryan non-checklist are the only cards that are off the table. Lots of dupes, too. Dupes within the same pack, even! If that happened today with the tiny packs they give us, that'd be inexcusable. But with how many cards you got per pack/box back then, it's hard to complain. Again, a fun/cheap wax (foil) ripping fix.

See ya next time.

Another hobby box? Breaking 94 Collector's Choice

My card spending got a little out of hand in September, as you may have noticed with my posts over the month. Hobby boxes and vintage Clementes, oh my. I'm reeling it in for October/November "Ach du lieber, No-eBay-vember" as I'm calling it. You're all welcomed to observe it together with me. I'm discouraging any eBay purchases besides possible exceptions for top tier collecting focuses, which for me includes 2004 Topps Retired autos and seldom-seen main PC hits. Especially with my employment situation on shaky ground at the moment (looks like my last day is penciled in as November 7th), I simply can't spend so much on cards for the next several weeks. But I've got some neat stuff in the pipeline that I'll be showing off.

That 2014 Donruss box I won really triggered a hobby box ripping bender for me.. that lead to 2006 Fleer Showcase and shortly thereafter 2006 Ovation. I recently went looking for inexpensive hobby boxes online and found a 1994 Upper Deck Collectors Choice Series One box for pretty cheap. 36 packs! 12 cards each pack! Oh, those were the days.

Sure, it might be considered "junk wax" to some, and the only hits to possibly pull are (facsimile) "signature" parallels, but I figured it was a cheap ripping fix. I originally stopped collecting in mid 1993, and I've never ripped any Collector's Choice. These cards are known for their quirky photography, and not their "sick mojo hits". I've gotten a small handful of these cards in trades and whatnot in recent years, but don't have much from this product.

So here we go! I'm not going to post a pic of each pack, as 36 is quite a lot, but I'll show a bunch of highlights. While I should be a good blogger and scan all these cards and talk about them individually, perhaps over several posts, what I'm instead doing is taking a photo of several cards at a time. Sorry, but it's the time-efficient way to go (aka I'm lazy). But I'll break it up over a couple posts.

First up are the "silver signature" parallels. These come one per pack, a similar concept to Topps Gold parallels of the early 90s. Each card is the same as the base except there's a foil facsimile autograph on the front. There are also rarer "gold signature" parallels, but those are only about one per box (I haven't pulled one yet).

Above are  my silver signatures up to this point. Seems to be heavy on Braves, with the best hit being the Larry W. Jones, Jr. I also like the Woody Williams (what is his real name? Looks like he signed "Grepy." Oh, Gregory), otherwise these are all available for trade.

Next are what will likely stick around in my collection via PCs and whatnot.

That Griffey is pretty amazing. How have I never seen it before? You'd think it'd be an iconic card known far and wide. Like, if that photo was on his '89 Bowman card or something... wow.

The Rickey/Alomar duo at the bottom look great jumping away from each other like guys in a buddy action movie jumping to safety as a bomb explodes. Actually, even teammate Paul Molitor above seems to be getting in on the excitement, though he'd be the one you think got killed, but then he eventually appears from the smoke and rubble, coughing and bruised, but he'll be alright, and the movie has its feel-good ending.

Finally, here are just a few (of the many) interesting photos that caught my eye. Great set. I'll post part 2 of this box soon. If anybody out there is working on completing the full set or a team set, let me know, and I'd be happy to thin out my stack on you.

2006 Upper Deck Ovation hobby box (trade bait!)

Remember recently when my grocery store surprised me by stocking 3 random old hobby boxes for $49.99 each? I went with the 2006 Flair Showcase box, passing on 2006 Upper Deck Ovation and 2008 Bowman Chrome.

I had such a blast busting the Flair box that I went ahead and picked up a box of 2006 Ovation too. But no, I didn't go back to the grocery store for it, instead I actually won one on eBay for $36 shipped. Seems like a pretty good deal, and quenches my curiosity for this other "mystery (to me) set". I don't even know what these cards look like.

Let's break 'er open!

There are a lot of similarities between the packages of 2006 Flair Showcase and 2006 Ovation, with both being black boxes with some red background and Ken Griffey, Jr. swinging. Both are really Upper Deck products, so I guess that explains it somewhat.

First impressions: Wow, these are kinda weird cards! I can't think of the word.. but you know, when parts are raised up? Embossed, I guess. Like, these cards would be great for a blind person because you can "feel" the players and textured background. Kinda like those Action Packed cards from the early 90s. Design-wise, these cards remind me of Bowman, with the obvious unique feature being a huge baseball harvest moon in the background.

First pack packs a Konk. And Padre legend Reggie Sangers.

I'm seeing red with the 2nd pack. Griffey, Pujols, and V-Mart.. nice pack.

The 1st insert of the box, Jose Contreras.

Another insert, this one a Cuban DH who never played US ball, Yoandy Garlobo.

A few big fan favorites in this pack.

Jeter. I wonder what he's up to these days? Anybody hear anything about him lately? lol

This pack boasts the only serial numbered cards in the box, oddly: Vernon Wells (201/499) and forgotten Padre prospect Ben Johnson (730/999).

A few big names and an insert.

Some more popular guys and a Big Papi insert.

There's a PC hit for me in the Giles.

Love Derrek Lee. I call him Crime Pup because he reminds me of McGriff in many ways.

Highlights here are Pedro and Peavy, another PC guy for me.

Here's a non-numbered V. Wells, plus a couple Teixeiras and a Wright.

Some decent guys here, with Thome rising to the top.

Here's the only auto of the box, former All-Star Jose Contreras. Could be worse, but definitely not the best name to pull. It's "cut auto" style, which is slightly better than a sticker, but still well below on-card. Sucks to cut off the top of the signature like that. The jersey number inscription is a nice touch. When this set came out, he was coming off the finest year of his career, helping lead the White Sox to their first World Series Championship in decades. And now I've got his autograph!

I like the Miguel Cabrera card a lot.

Second-to-last pack. Nothing too exciting.

The last pack is kinda funny: 3 duplicates from earlier in the box (I looked it up and the base set is only 84 freakin' cards!) plus the hit of the box, a Jeter relic. I had to throw that puppy in a penny sleeve ASAP. At first glance, it's a boring plain grey swatch.. but let's take a closer look...

Look at the glorious stitch through the width of that piece of fabric! I like it. That takes it from being a $5 card to instead a $9 card, in my estimation. But maybe that's just me.

So there you go, $36. That was fun. But glad I didn't pay $49.99. Now is the time to strike with unloading Jeter cards, but I think I'll hang onto it since I have really no good Jeter cards besides a UD Prospects rookie. I also like the Griffey and the Miggy. And the Giles and the Peavy. And Vlad and Ortiz. Maybe the Smoltz, Reggie, and Pujols. And Braves are set aside for Johnny, Red Sox to Hoyle, and Brewers to Tony L. But otherwise, these are up for trade, so just let me know if you're interested in anything. Thanks!