Thank you Diamond King!

I was lucky enough to win the randomization to take home one of The Diamond King's end of year contest prizes! He always gives away great stuff and is super generous. I am quite pleased with what I received including a couple of Phillies cards for the PC. The rest I'm sure one way or another will make it to other bloggers through trades and what not.

 

It didn't occur to me that most of these cards were horizontal. The Hockey/Baseball relic is pretty cool, I had never seen one of those before. Some solid names on this list, Wade Boggs, Jeff Bagwell Curt Schilling, CC Sabathia, Hanley Ramirez and Jim Rice. That'd  be a pretty solid team! 

The Ryan Howard is a keeper! The Mauer is pretty sweet, along with the other A&G relics. I am a fan of the framed mini look. 

Also, I have officially decided to chase every parallel in existence of Ryan Howard for 2014. If you have anything for trade please drop me a line and we can hopefully work something out.

Thanks for the contest DK and thanks for reading!

Trade with Lonestarr!

I recently completed my first trade with Life and Baseball cards! He writes an entertaining blog and was easy to trade with. He sent me a nice stack of different things and multiple sports!

 

Here's a sweet mix. Really like the Howard gold sparkle from last year and the Pat the Bat Diamond King card. Also, can never go wrong with a 1960s Topps card! I hope Utley is thinking about all the Home runs he is going to hit this year in that card. 

 

Randall was the man! The first true running QB who did it all! Cris Carter is the hall of fame receiver that unfortunately was traded! McCoy and Foles are the Eagles new order. I hope they bring the playoffs back to Philly again next year! This year was very entertaining to watch! 

The Tommy Bahama shirt is some sort of relic, its an interesting card. I really like the cognac parallel of Robin Roberts. I believe the Legends were Short printed so pretty happy to get this one in a trade!

I added about 20 relics/autos to my trade bait page (scans can be given upon request). If anything interests you let me know! Also I updated my Frank Thomas page, I am now over 600 unique Thomas's!

All good things!

Thanks for reading!

Trade with Coot Veal and the Vealtones!

I recently completed my 2nd trade with Coot Veal! He is a Tigers guy and I sent him a whole bunch of tigers and he did not disappoint with the return package! Two times I've been pleasantly surprised  with the nice mix of modern, vintage and hits!

Have a whole lot to show!

 

The John Callison is one of those post cards, my first one! Lots of cool Charlie Hustle cards and some other set needs! 

 

Here is the hit portion of the trade. A sweet Mike Schmidt relic! The card that started this whole trade was the Frank Thomas 4 way relic, really like the look of these cards. A Jumbo Joe Blanton auto, my first one, he wasn't great with the Phillies but a Philly none-the-less. Larry Greene hasn't quite made the majors yet but maybe someday! Jim Thome was a fan favorite in Philly hitting tape measure shot home runs when the new stadium first opened. 

 

I will never have anything bad to say about 1951 bowman! Love these cards very awesome. 

 

I really like the picture on the Halladay card, that was when Ruiz came out to congratulate Roy after his no hitter. As baseball fans know Halladay retired this year, hope he joins Cooperstown in 5 years. He was always a class act and with him on the mound you always thought you were going to win. 

Also the Billy Wagner card is cool. I know he kinda wore out his welcome at the end but to see him consistently hit 100 mph on the radar gun was something to see. 

I always enjoy the Frank Thomas portion of every trade package! Thanks to you guys out there my list has grown like crazy in the past year! The Big Hurt and The Big Piece are my two main collections and I am enjoying chasing everything out there!

Thanks for the trade and Thanks for reading!

I hit the Mother-Lode!!!

Poor titles aside, this post is actually about baseball cards. Ebay bucks are a wonderful thing for habitual spenders like me (albeit spending way less then last year). I decided to put mine to good use and pick up this awesome card!

This is the Mother Lode insert from Metal Universe! They are hard to hit being 1 in 288 packs, so it was much cheaper to just buy the one I wanted (for free!) This one cost me exactly 0 out of my paypal which is another big plus. The diecut is sweet, the scan unfortunately doesn't do it justice.

But saying "I Hit the Mother-Lode!!!" makes it all worth it!

On a completely different note, Topps Series 1 comes out soon! I haven't passed judgement on the design yet until I see the cards in hand. Also, I have not decided how I am going to collect it. I definitely want every Philly but trading for base cards usually isn't a problem. I may go after the purple Toys R Us parallels like last year (More or less broke even selling them and I have about 150 left over right now). Or I may try to create a super rainbow of Ryan Howard and get every parallel from every set this year of him, that could be a fun project.

Either way, no bad problems to have! How are you guys attacking (for lack of a better word) Series 1?

Thanks for reading!

A shoutout to Cardboard Habit!

I recently received a random PWE from My Cardboard Habit! He knows I'm a huge Phillies fan and sent me a card unannounced. Yes, I know I am making a big deal but its not everyday I get such a awesome card from such generosity!

Check it out!

The Phillies former Aces trio! Halladay as everyone knows has retired and in my opinion should be hall of fame material in 5 years. The guy was flat out amazing. Lee and Hamels are still around and hopefully looking to have some big years coming up! Hope they are stretched out though because they will need to pitch a lot this year for the Phillies to be successful.

Can't say Thank you! enough. (that was poorly punctuated)

Thanks for reading!

Trade with Chavez Ravining!

I am severely behind on my trade/thank you posts. I've made a few deals in the past week that I am quite happy with. I recently completed my first trade with Chavez Ravining! He is a Dodger blogger so I sent him all sorts of Dodger's cards and he sent me some cool stuff.

 

The Frank Thomas CD card is pretty awesome. It's super low numbered to 5,000! The hologram surprisingly scanned really well. A lot of the times it looks blank in the incorrect lighting. 

Also, if anyone has any of these CD cards I am interested in trading for them. By orders of my girlfriend we will complete this set! 

The Tijuan Walker is nice, it's on card and numbered out of 150. I've never purchased a pack of bowman sterling so I was pretty happy to get a guy I wanted. The Sweaney is a Philly guy, by reading the back I learned he is in rookie ball and I have no idea if he is any good but we shall find out in the future! Walker could be a number three starter in Seattle this year so I think he'll have a legit chance to stick in the majors! The Mariners will be fun to watch this year with the moves they've made this offseason (a whole lot more then the Phillies did).

Thanks for the trade! Look forward to the next one!

Thanks for reading and Happy Martin Luther King day!

Finally an Auto!

As I mentioned previously in this blog world, I am waiting on a Bryce Harper auto from Topps. I have been waiting since August 2012. I have personally decided to ask for a replacement in the near future. Two offseasons and he can't sign a couple hundred cards? I'll consider that Topps fault. He's only on the box of the product not like he was used for marketing or anything.

Anyways, I don't like to be too bitter but its really turned me off to redemptions. My first few went so smoothly, but I was naive to how much people are waiting on.

I decided to grab a cheaper Harper auto for my collection cause who knows what card I am going to get as a replacement!

I do like that this early auto of his has more then just the BH that you see on his newer cards. The grading didn't matter so much to me but I don't mind having a card protected so I don't have to worry about it.

I'm just happy to finally land an auto so I can clear out my Topps redemption page!

Thanks for reading!

First Trade of 2014!

I recently completed another trade with reader Scott. He's super easy to deal with and always delivers cool stuff.

Check it out!

 

Nothing like adding to the Big Hurt Collection! Currently have 576 unique ones! Always looking for more! The NNOF one is not the original unfortunately. That is still the holy grail but a bit out of my price range. 

 

 Happy to see the Topps Total card. I think there's over 900 cards in that set so opening packs to get that one would have been daunting. The bazooka card is pretty cool too. Always get surprised with odd ball sets that I didn't know existed.

What trade package isn't complete without 2 Leaf signature autos of such luminaries of Kevin Sefcik and Mike Williams! Very sharp looking cards though, nice add's to the Phillies Hits collection!

As a side note, I am now up to 55 different Ryan Howard auto's/relics! I have quite a nice little collection going! Quite pleased with it.

I have three trades in the works right now, so hoping to have a few more of these posts in the coming weeks!

Thanks for reading!

The Big Hurt!

As you guys and gals know I am a big Frank Thomas fan! I am very happy to hear that he has been inducted to the Hall of Fame on the first shot! He as well as Griffey were the two bell cow hitters of the 90s and deserve to be enshrined!

In honor of Big Hurt's induction I will show my latest pickup! I didn't pay much for it but it was one of those must have cards!

1994 Score The Cycle!

Always wanted to pull one out of a pack but never got that lucky. Happy to get one all these years later.

And since in my book The Big Hurt is a Five star.. I leave you with this.

Oh yea he also has a refractory finish in the sunlight (and no he is not a vampire)

And he has some Hot Numbers...

And lastly but not least he is NNNNN Tense!

Congrats Frank!

Thanks for reading!

A Pack Break from a while back!

I probably scanned these cards about 6 months ago. I believe I had one of those Wal Mart gift card things and seeing as how that was free money I spent most of it on retail baseball cards like any normal person should do!

I ended up getting some cool cards.

Castro is a bit googley eyed in that refractor. Never noticed it before. I liked the one per box legends refractors that they did. Sure they aren't worth anything cause everyone has one but they are nice looking cards. The Ichiro was the big hit! (I am literally sending it out to someone in the mail tomorrow)

I have a couple trades I need to show and some other cool stuff. I don't really subscribe to the whole card resolution thing though. I plan on buying a case of chrome but other then that I have no plans. I'll go for some Phillies team sets as usual and enjoy searching for the Ryan Howard 2013 Chrome Superfractor forever. I just hope its not sitting on some store shelf never to be opened. Or I may have to win the lottery and buy every single pack and case available.. that would be fun! 

Anyways, its early in the morning!

Thanks for reading have a great day!

Two booklet's or more!

I added 2 more booklets to my collection. (still need to buy those magnetic cases) I am always on the lookout for nice looking ones. That's pretty much the pre requisite for picking these up.

The Emerald's are numbered out of 18 and the Sapphire's are numbered out of 3! I also previously had a gold!

I'm not entirely sure there are other parallels, but if I happen to see one I'll probably get it. I'd love a 1 of 1 of course too.

I'm psyched for the NFL playoffs, the Olympics and spring training! All big events coming right up! My Fantasy Football team survived the regular season and made the wild card draft. I'm going to need some luck to win it this weekend! I have first pick in every round, 3 teams one week. Winner moves on, losers go home. (or you know to the kitchen or something) I am leaning towards picking Jamaal Charles first and waiting on QB cause Brees sucks on the road. Opinions are welcome!

Thanks for reading!