Week in review: I didn't know Topps was still doing this

I splurged this week.  Part of my trip down south was a trip to the Hard Rock Casino.  After a successful visit to the blackjack tables, I decided to treat myself and purchase a hobby box of 2014 series 1.  I'll share a couple of cards that I didn't expect to pull out of the box.

A couple of years back when I bought a hobby box of  Heritage, I pulled a buy back card of Chuck Hiller from '62 Topps.  I remember being happy about the card, except for the giant foil logo that Topps pasted on it.

About halfway through this years' hobby box, I pulled this card.

I have this card already for the '73 set I'm putting together (sporadically), but I have to check to see if this is an upgrade.  I'm thinking it probably is.  To be honest, I don't even mind the Topps 75th logo in the upper right corner.  For me, it really doesn't take much away from the card.

In the next pack, I was shocked to pull this card. 

Even with the 75th anniversary logo in the upper right corner, this is the nicest '57 that I own.   I've only purchased a handful over the past couple of years, but sometime down the road this is a set that I'd like to try and put together.  There is only a very small crease in the top center of the front, but other than that this card is in great shape.

Total spent on cards this week:  $65 + tax

Yea, it's probably more than I should have spent, but it was "found money", and I didn't have to wait for the box to be shipped.  Plus spending money at a  B&M card dealer is probably a good idea every once in a while. 

I may have pulled a pink, a black, and a few red parallels, but for me these were the best pulls of the box.

Now it's time to put the set together.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Falling further behind is a good thing

It's the middle of winter.   I know that when I get up in the morning, my work day will already have been decided for me.   A huge storm that is hitting the eastern seaboard is going to dump a foot or more of snow on eastern PA, which means I will be calling a ton of customers to tell them that we aren't going to be picking up packages.

Yet, my pile of Blue Jays that sits beside me here on my "desk" keeps growing.  Guys are digging out of tons of snow, and cards, to send me another pile of the latest and greatest in Blue Jays cardboard wonder.

One of those fine gents is Max at the Starting Nine blog.  While I was on vacation, Max sent me an email (that I didn't read until after I got home) stating that more Blue Jays were on my way.

Fantastic. 

How about we start with a near complete team set from this year's series 1.

I know that there is at least a couple of more Jays cards out there. Mark Derosa throwing a football is one, and Melky Cabrera is the other that I remember.  I haven't seen Reyes, Dickey or Lind anywhere yet, so I'm assuming they will be in series 2. 

It scares me to think that 10 players times the infinite # of parallels means a lot of chasing this year.  I think I'll stick to something more attainable, like building the base set...

How about some Chrome goodness for your viewing pleasure.   There's even a refractor of E-squared for your troubles.

I don't wear ball caps anymore, but if I ever did buy another one for the Jays, it would be the one Roberto Osuna is wearing on the right.  Simple.

I took a look at the Killebrew/Bautista card and wasn't sure if a comparison between the two really was in order.  Then I took a look at Killebrew's stats, especially in the early 60's.

I had no idea the man played in the outfield for three years between 1962-1964.  I always knew him as a third/first baseman.  His 142 HRs during those 3 years led the AL.  Both of them played both the infield and outfield back and forth during their careers.  While Jose hasn't had quite the extended level of power numbers that "Killer" had during his career, with a handful of big seasons potentially ahead of him, Bautista might start to resemble Harmon's career a little more.  Time will tell.

I really like the Hudson T206 and the Delgado Turkey Red cards as well.  A lot of people didn't like the Jays logo with the Maple Leaf predominantly in the background, but for me it worked.   The bird looked a little goofy, but still I had no problems with it. 

This final card in the package is my favorite.

Normally, anything unlicensed and devoid of team logos is something that I would avoid.  But this card really jumped out at me when I saw it.  I don't know what it is...maybe the "band of brothers" is what grabs me, or the quality of the pics of all 3 players.  If I ever get around to doing a Blue Jays countdown, I'm sure that this will fall somewhere in there.

Yes, I've only fallen 16 more cards behind in the great sorting process, but a reminder of summer during this brutal winter is definitely a good thing.

Max, as always thank you very much!  A great package!

Thanks for reading, Robert

Mini, regular and Giant

Pat strikes again.  While I was away, a couple of PWE's (I'm starting to think this stands for Pat's White Envelope) from the Hot Corner were part of the mailings I had to go through.

No complaints here, Pat hit two of my favorite collecting pastimes.   Jays and serial numbers.  You know, the usual. 

Let's work our way up size wise, as the post title indicated.

First, the minis.

 

To be honest, I don't even remember if I have any of these.   I'm too lazy to look at the gigantic Excel spreadsheet of Blue Jays that I have.   That comes another time.

Pat started me off with some Blue Jays for the 2014 Topps team set as well.

Regular size of course.

Well, at least 2 out of 3 are still with the team.  Rajai Davis signed a deal to take his 125 steals over the past 3 years to Detroit.  Maybe that will open up some room for Anthony Gose to make the club.

Finally, the serial numbers.  Two Giants.  The first 2014 Topps cards to hit the 1500 card behemoth.

Serial Number 1142

No slouch for the first 2014 gold card here, as Buster Posey appears for the third time in the set.  Buster's card is the 33rd Giant out of 50.

Serial Number 883

Right behind Buster was this Brandon Crawford 2014 Topps gold card.  The Giants are now at 34 out of 50, and the SNI set total is now 1087/1500. 

Won't be long before 1100 is here.  Thank you for the cards Pat, as always very much appreciated!!

Thanks for reading, Robert

North vs South, part 2

OK, so it's not all about the baseball cards.  I did not know that Abraham Lincoln was shot 5 days after the surrender of General Robert E. Lee.

Huh...

Enough of the history lesson, back to the cards.  After thinking about it for about 5 seconds, I'm sure that I faired  better with the southern cards simply because I bought more.   3 rack packs instead of the 2 I bought above the Mason-Dixon line.

I pulled my first two Super Veteran cards, a couple of OK shortstops...

How about some more inserts?

That's already the 2nd Yu Darvish I've pulled for the "future is now" insert set.  The same goes for Jean Segura.  Instantly, that becomes a bit of overkill for me.

I only pulled one mini, but it was a pretty good one.   Michael Jack Schmidt.

Looks a little bit like Chuck Norris?  Just a little.....

I'm declaring that Buddy Boshers is currently the best name in the major leagues right now.   Don't argue, it's true.  

How come every time I pull a Jason Frasor card I hear Howard Cosell's "Down Goes Frazier" call from the 70's?  Jason and Elvis are headed to Texas.  Paul Goldschmidt is headed to Arizona if Daniel is in need.  Garrett Jones might be the only player that I can remember that lost 2 jobs in the same summer.  It'll be interesting to see if he's a regular again in 2014 for Pittsburgh now that Morneau and Byrd have flown the coop.  The Cabrera/Mauer/Trout is the first gold that I pulled with a serial number below 1500. Alas, I already have #274, so I think I'll send this one to Pat ( I received your PWE's Pat, thank you again!)

Feeling blue?  Not here, although you may experience a sense of deja-vu in a moment.

10 days away and my scanner skills have gone to hell

 

The Bogaerts and Middlebrooks cards are headed to the Swing and a Pop-Up blogmeister Bert.   You may recall the Trout and d'Arnaud cards from yesterday.  Yes, they are blue dupes.  Brandon Morrow becomes the first blue Blue Jay to fly into the house, and I will be chasing the colored rainbow again this year.  Sean Doolittle is actually Daniel Bryan, don't let anybody tell you different.  (Yes!  Yes!  Yes!)

Now, so far I haven't pulled any of the Yellow, Pink, Black or Camo or clear parallels.  But seeing all these parallels this year immediately put something into my head (for a change).

The Night Owl blog is one that I enjoy immensely. Greg is probably the one blogger that I've followed the closest since I started blogging a little over 2.5 years ago.  Greg has one feature that I enjoy called "define the design".  Greg does a great job of taking past and present Topps flagship sets, and finding a nickname that describes the set.  Sometimes on his own, sometimes with help from the blogosphere.  The sea turtle set is my personal favorite.

With the insane amount of parallels that Topps has included this year, I immediately thought of a candy I loved as a kid...

Now, while Life Savers doesn't really define the design, they do describe the mountainous amount of parallels in the set (at least for me).   While someone out there will come up with a great/clever way to describe the base set design, 2014 Topps will forever live on in my mind as "the Life Savers set". 

Butterscotch does remind me of the gold parallels....

thanks for reading, Robert

North vs South, part 1

I'm back.

I spent the last 9 days languishing in the sun in south Florida, trying to get away from the misery that has been our winter here in western PA.  It appears that my wife and I picked a good week to get away, as there were a couple of storms that dumped some snow and ice on the region while we were gone.  We came home last night to an inch and a half of ice on the car, and wearing only hoodies with no gloves, the first 15 minutes back in reality weren't fun.

But enough of that misery.  You're here for the cards....

On the Friday before we left, my wife wanted to stop at Big Blue and pick up some travel size soap/shampoo for our trip. 

I almost made it through the month of January without cracking any retail.  I decided to become one of the last to the party, and picked up a couple of rack packs of Series 1, along with a blister pack of some hockey cards that I haven't purchased in quite a long time.

Let's start with old reliable, shall we?

The first card from the first pack yielded Julio Teheran, not a bad way to start off the season. 

As far as parallels go, I usually do a pretty good job of pulling decent cards for other peeps, and this years start is no exception.

The next couple of days you're going to see a lot of colored parallels and inserts.   Unless they are Blue Jays, they are up for grabs, so don't be shy about speaking up.

Speaking of inserts, as you may know, I have never really cared one way or the other about them.  Again, unless they are Blue Jays, they don't usually mean a great deal to me.

There are a couple of Mets here that are headed to Max (thank you for the envelope sir, post to come later this week!!)

The '89 minis, I like.   Again, I tend to fly in the face of conventional wisdom, but my thought process is that the minis remind me of the base set.  Since I like the base set, it stands to reason that I will enjoy the minis.   The fact that I've done fairly well so far with the players that I've pulled doesn't hurt either.

As each scan comes across, I'm reminded that I still owe people some goodies.   The Banks is headed to P-Town Tom, who sent me a great card a while back that I never acknowledged (sorry Tom, I'll try and get a nice package out to you shortly). 

Now, to coincide with the "North" theme, I purchased a blister pack (I believe that's what they are called) of 2013-14 Black Diamond Hockey.  I haven't purchased any of these in quite a long time, maybe over a decade if my memory serves me well.  The cards are exactly as I remember.  

Shiny.  Silver.  A bit of a gamble. 

I'm pretty sure the formula is still the same.  Single Diamond are the base, Double Diamond a little more rare, Triple Diamond even rarer and Quad Diamond difficult as hell to pull (at least for me).

It's always easy to tell at least the "level" of card that you've pulled.  The James Neal in the upper right is a double diamond.

I did pull one Maple Leaf, but was kind of disappointed in the player selection.

Don't get me wrong.  A Leaf is a Leaf.  But in a premium set such as this where 5 card packs go for $3, Frazer McLaren is probably the last Leaf that should be included in this set.  O-Pee-Chee?  For sure.  Upper Deck base set?  Sure why not.   Frazer should not have been in the BD set. 

It was also humorous to me that the triple diamond rookie that I pulled out of a pack was sent to the minors two days later...

Who knows, I may get adventurous during the winter and try and build the Black Diamond set.   It's been a long time since I chased one of these. 

All in all, a fun way to break my month long streak of not purchasing any retail.  Tomorrow I'll look at the southern portion of the retail purchases I made while on vacation.  

I fared better in the South than the Confederate army did.  Yes, I'm using these posts to learn a little Civil War history.  It's not my strong suit as far as American history goes...

thanks for reading, Robert