Another one bites the dust

The remainder of the Sportlots purchase of last weekend arrived on Thursday.  Two more envelopes of singles that finished one set and helped me get closer to finishing 3 others.

The victim this time?  2008 Upper Deck, Series 1

It's nice to get another set out of the way.  Actually, it feels really good to start getting some of these sets that have been hanging over my head for quite a while completed.  Sad to say however, that the two sets I've completed this week are just the tip of the iceberg.

I currently have 2 sets that are both just one card away from completion...

2002 Upper Deck Series 2 (need card # 521)

Baseball or not, this man died way too young...

2012 Topps Series 2  (need card # 334)

His next HR gives him 12 straight 30 HR seasons...

Then there's two sets that are in need of nothing but SPs......

2008 UD Masterpieces

Forget kid in a candy store...he runs the candy store now!!

2011 Topps Heritage

looking over his shoulder at Hechavarria

Yep, the Heritage is going to be a bitch to complete with about 50 SPs to obtain, while the Masterpieces is down to 14 SPs to go with the acquisition of the Donny Baseball card shown above.

By the way, if you missed last nights post....got a little Contest going on.  Tell me your opinion, don't be shy.

Thank you for reading, Robert

What to do, what to do

Ever since I pulled the Tony Gwynn auto from the A&G hobby box I bought, I've pondered what I should do with the card.  I'm not really a Tony Gwynn fan and autographs don't do a whole lot for me (unless they're from my favorite teams...of course).

I bandied about the idea of selling the card, something I haven't done in a couple of years (at least).  I decided to look at eBay and see if/what other N43 autos of Gwynn were selling for.  I found 2 auctions for other copies of the card, shown here and here.  I will also tell you that the 2nd seller had his card originally listed as a buy it now for $199.99 for 30 days. 

I also told you all a while back that I would do a contest to celebrate my 25000th hit on the blog.

Please answer this question for an entry in the contest:

If this were your card, what would you do and why?

You have to assume that this card was in your possession.  I don't own it, you do. 

I'll even give you a few days to think about it.  Place a comment on this post before the contest closes on Monday the 3rd at 11:59 pm EDT.

Be honest.  You're not being judged here.  I'd just love to know what people would do with the card.

I'll give away another auto that I pulled from the A&G box I busted....plus some packs as well.

Thanks for reading (and entering), Robert

Well that was easy. Topps Chrome set completed!

2011 Chrome that is...

It only took a little over a year, and a lot of procrastinating, but I finally received the final 2 cards that I've needed to complete the set in the mail today. 

For a guy who prides himself on completing sets, the mere fact that I probably waited, oh, about 4 months to pull the last 2 cards off of Sportlots this past weekend has me ashamed.

Anyhow, they are here and ready for me to show off....

Eric Hosmer RC #170...Derek Jeter #20.  I was able to get the Jeter at the lowest price offered on Sportlots, 18 cents.  The Hosmer cost me $2.50 (yes, that was the cheapest one there...).

That's set #15 in the books, and the Fab Five has its number 1 set completed. That means the other 4 move up by 1, and the 1986 Topps set moves into the #5 position.  That set only has 125 cards remaining for completion.  Not bad for having never purchased a pack from that year.  Also, I only need 10 more completed sets to hit my 2012 goal of having 25 sets complete.

I likely will not be putting this years Chrome or Finest sets together, so the only cards I'll be seeking from those sets are the Blue Jays and various parallels there of.  I honestly don't know if I'm even going to attempt to put together the A&G set (that rant in an upcoming post), even though I purchased a hobby box to participate in the Gint-A-Cuffs contest.  Besides, with the '11 Heritage and '12 GQ sets that I've started, and all their short prints/variations, I should be quite busy chasing those over the next few weeks (months?).

With the group of sets that Topps is releasing currently, it seems as if I'm going to be spending my budget over the next few weeks trying to clean up the old sets that I have been working on for quite a while now, especially those in the Fab Five. I actually am glad that I'm in this mood, because the past 3 months has been a whirlwind of new sets, trips to card shows, and other endeavors that has left my computer room/card table in a sorry state of disarray. 

By the way....I mentioned something last week about a contest...Thursday....I promise.

thanks for reading, Robert 

Saturday wasn't a total write off

Even though I took the day off of posting on Saturday, I didn't take the day off with respect to dealing with my collection.  I decided to take the time and put the '64 Topps cards that I do own into binder pages.  Even though I barely own a quarter of the set, there were some pages that had 6 of the 9 cards. 

If I do say so myself, even though the pages below aren't full (yet), I still think they look great!  The league leader cards featuring Aaron and Killebrew make a great start to this page. 

Poor scanning..Kirkland and O'Dell are in better shape than the scan shows.

The 4th page is scanned below, cards #28-36.  A lot of solid pitchers on this page...Osteen, Perranoski, Jim Perry and Dean Chance.  If you're not sure who Dean Chance is, take a look at his '64 stats and you'll see one of the greatest pitching seasons for a team that barely finished .500 on the season. 

Sammy Ellis had a pretty decent rookie season in 64, finishing 15th in MVP voting.  Sammy's "career year" was in '65, when he won 22 games for the Reds with 15 complete games, and 2 saves. 

The whole point of this post is to show what the cards look like in pages.  Great!!  As I was placing the cards in the pages, I marveled at how great they looked.  All along I've been pretty sure that I was going to complete this set as a long term project.  Now that I've placed them in pages, I'm even more sure that I'll work this set to completion, even with the big price tag on some of the key cards.

These pages will look even better with cards of Clemente, Rose and Koufax in them.  I'll be sure to show them off when I do get them.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Blue Jay Monday: 2010 Topps Gold Travis Snider

Jays fans and analysts have been talking about this guy for what seems like an eternity.  Drafted by the Jays in the first round of the 2006 June draft, Travis Snider got his first shot in the big leagues at the age of 20, hitting .301 in 73 ABs during the 2008 season. 

Travis was part of a very surprising trade pulled off by the Jays at the deadline, being sent to Pittsburgh for reliever/spot starter Brad Lincoln.  That trade was one of the rare "baseball" trades, in that both teams traded players for a specific need. 

So far, Travis has played well in Pittsburgh, hitting .292 in his first 25 games.  It appears that Travis is going to get the chance to play every day here, as the other two youngsters that had started the season on the big club, Alex Presley and Jose Tabata, have both spent extended periods down in AAA Indianapolis.

If Travis plays similar to his Twitter account name (@Lunchboxhero45) in Pittsburgh, he will be loved by the fans.  There is nothing that Pittsburgh fans love more than a player that has no problem getting dirty and playing hard.  Travis may have to change that number though, because he has donned the number 23 for the time being since Erik Bedard currently wears 45.

I decided to change it up a bit tonight, and instead of letting the Randomizer choose the card that was featured, I flipped through a bunch of pages that I have yet to put into a binder, and saw the inspiration for tonight's post.  The Topps 2010 Gold card featured here is #'d 499/2010 card is pretty cool.  It shows Snider finishing one of his many dead pull swings, which should bode well for him in Pittsburgh. The right field porch at PNC Park is definitely hitter friendly, and I believe that there should be a lot of dents in the Clemente wall for years to come.

thanks for reading, Robert

Sakic Sunday: 1990-91 Upper Deck x3

1990-91 Upper Deck, probably the last set that I can remember collecting without having to deal with some kind of insert/parallel/jersey card inside.  (Don't even speak of the holograms that were in the packs, the players featured were barely recognizable to me.)

I used to own a ton of these cards.  Multiple (in the teens) sets were hand collated.  I don't know what it was about this set that sent me scurrying every time I had an extra dollar to the LCS. 

Needless to say it was very easy for me to find the Sakic cards from this year for my PC.  There were actually 3 cards of Joe Sakic in both the low and high numbered series.

If you look very closely at the low series base card on the left (#164), you will see that the 'A' on his jersey has recently been replaced with the 'C', so recently that you can actually still see the 'A' underneath.  I can't recall another card out there of any player that has something like this.  What's interesting is that the captaincy of the Nordiques that year was shared by Sakic and Steven Finn, both of whom replaced the recently departed Peter Stastny.  Instead of naming either Sakic or Finn captain in the 91-92 season, Mike Hough was given the C.  Sakic regained the captaincy the next season and remained the captain until his retirement.

The cards in the low 300's were team checklists with each team having one player artistically represented on the front, with a list of players featured in the set and their card #'s on the back.  They were also numbered in reverse order of the league standings the previous season.  Thus, the Nordiques were featured first (#301) because of their last overall finish the season before. 

The high series, #'d 401-550, featured many of the up and coming rookies, Canada's junior team, and all the players from the 1991 all star game which was played in Chicago.  Joe appears to be right at home from the relaxed look on his all star card featured on the right.  Needless to say, Joe would appear in a few more of those during his career. 

The 1990-91 Upper Deck set will always be one of my all time favorites, largely because it was the first hockey set that I chased after a decade long absence from collecting in the 80's.  Great photography, multiple player photos and a set size that was not too difficult to complete, I'd love to see more sets like this now.

Thanks for reading, Robert