Quick Morning Post!

Happy New Year's Eve everyone! In the next week (work permitting) I plan on doing my retrospective of 2014 and my look ahead to 2015. It's not necessarily setting any goals but more of a let's have some guidelines for the new year.

With that here's a shiny Ryan Howard!

This is the foil board parallel (out of 25) from this year's Stadium Club. It seemed like an enjoyable product this year (I haven't had the chance to open any) but I was more then happy to grab this card for about a dollar!

Hope everyone has a nice day/evening!

Thanks for reading!

Trade with Catching up with Collecting!

He was nice enough to contact me about some Phillies cards I might be interested in a while ago. Then sent over a pretty nice mix. I didn't want to post until I at least sent something back. I finally (very belatedly) sent some cards on Saturday (should arrive hopefully before new year's!), so now I can show off what he sent me! (I have no idea if that was a run on sentence but I'm sick at the moment so I'm not re-reading it).

Check out some cards!

 

J Roll is officially no longer a Philly, but he will go into the Phillies Hall of Fame (possibly the baseball Hall of Fame) after he retires. Ryan Howard is still here, at this point the Phillies obviously don't want to eat the money, so who knows he might play again for them this year. They know they don't have the team to compete right now and not too many young players that are ready yet. Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels could determine the fate of the Phils this year. If they are truely aces like they are paid to be it would give a big boost to their trade value as well as the team itself. 

I loved the Pence trade when they snagged him from the Astros.. hated the Pence trade when they gave him away to the Giants. For some reason Pence was getting a lot of the blame for why the Phillies weren't doing well. He clearly can be a part of a championship team if the parts are right (see Giants). Oh well hindsight is 20/20 but for the record I was right! Chooch might have one year left and then be done, he's had a nice run as a catcher. It's tough to continually take that wear and tear on your body. (I played catcher once in little league, that was the last time).

Lots of randomness in this post, but thanks for reading and thanks for the trade!

A Package from Too Many Verlanders!

I recently received a nice surprise from Too Many Verlanders! He is a Michigan guy (I went to Penn State, we can forgive him!) and he also likes the Tigers. He was kind enough to provide a very large milestone in my Ryan Howard PC.

Behold Hit number 100!!!!

Pretty sharp looking card that I did not have previously! Very happy to get to the nice round number of 100 autos/relics of Ryan Howard (before he leaves Philadelphia).

He also included a few baseball cards...

 

Really like the Jimmy Rollins picture. That was at the parade when the Phillies won the World Series in 2008. Easily a highlight of the last 30 years of Phillies baseball. Highly entertaining team to watch. They were just one of those teams that it didn't matter if they were down 2-3 runs in the 6th inning. They were going to come back against anyone. Good times! 

 Thankfully, I did not witness the Eagles game on Saturday (was busy) but I heard how ugly it was. The Eagles would've been eliminated anyway if the Cowboys win out but to lose to the Redskins is just plain bad. The Skins had nothing to play for and the Eagles forgot how to play football. Embarrassing. We'll see what the Eagles will do in the off season. Always fun!

Thanks for the cards and Thanks for reading!

A Ryan Howard Auto!

I recently picked up this auto. It's not pack pulled but it was already slabbed which was nice. It's a nice rookie auto of my current main PC Ryan Howard.

Not the cleanest auto in the world, but now I have this one and a few of the Bowman's Best auto's from 2003.

I received a couple packages in the mail the last few days. Work's been a little crazy but I will scan and show off sometime soon! Return packages are also still in the works, most likely after Christmas.

Everyone have a happy holiday and thanks for reading!

Trade with Infield Fly Rule!

I recently completed my first trade with Infield Fly Rule! He dropped me a note and said he had some cards for me. We quickly came to an agreement. He sent super quick, and hopefully the cards I sent have arrived. He sent me well over 100 different cards. It was quite a nice lot to go through. I scanned a small sampling of a few!

 

That's a nice shot of Daulton. Saw him recently in person, looked really good considering he was diagnosed with Cancer last year. Rollins hasn't officially been traded yet (maybe I think), so enjoy the last few days he's still technically a Phillies player. 

 

Can't beat that shot of Mitch Williams with a head band. Rockin' it! I always liked Jim Eisenreich. Even on those terrible teams in the 90s the dude just hit constantly. The 4 years he played for the Phillies, he hit over .300 each year. He should be the next hitting coach! 

The moustache look is fantastic as well. I just can't pull it off. A few Frank Thomas's, always much appreciated (nearing 700 unique!). Thanks for all the cards!

Maybe next year I'll write a blog goals post, I tend to aimlessly go for things. I did attempt to get every Ryan Howard parallel this year.. did get quite a lot, but def not all of them. It got expensive real quick. I will definitely continue trying to get Vintage Phillies Team sets.  Have made great progress the last couple years. Working on the 60s as a main focus right now and then onto the 70s!

Thanks for reading!

Old School Box Break 1994 Finest!

Every card show in King of Prussia there's usually 3 dealers with all unopened product. Always like to take a look to see what they have. Steel City Collectibles (whom I've purchased from before) happened to have 3 boxes of Finest reasonably priced. 1993 Finest although fun would be way out of my price range for a single box. There was 2 Series 1's and one Series 2. Figured one of each was the way to go.. so I bought two, went and met Mr Dawkins and then came back and bought the last one!

I had no idea how often refractors landed per box so as we were opening we (my wife and I) made sure that we were under a light to check for the rainbowness! Also, each box had a pretty cool boxtopper on top!

I didn't scan a ton of base cards, but here's one!

 

It's stated that the all star cards and rookie subsets are not any rarer then the base cards, but those subsets only come one per pack. So kinda rarer, but not worth any more or less.

 

These were the 3 box toppers. Two out of three ain't bad! Happy with the Maddux even though he killed the Phils in the 90s. Always happy hitting a Philly! Lenny Dykstra! Only dud box topper was Troy Neel!

 

In three boxes, we hit 8 refractors. Pretty solid. There's a whole lot of green in this set. If you do not like that color, this set is not for you!  If you can't read the scans the players are Brian McRae, Scott Servais, Tom Henke, Jose Mesa, Scott Brosius and Jeff King.

Two big "hits"!! Orel Hershiser refractor and Sammy Sosa refractor! Pretty awesome to actually get two bigger names from the set.

These boxes were fun, who knows if I got full value if I were to sell. The Sosa and Hershiser are clearly the most expensive cards. I could easily see getting all scrub refractors though. Overall, lots of fun though! I like busting these older boxes. Also, a big plus is the cards were a little sticky, but not a single one was damaged. (When we opened 1994 Score, about half the cards were stuck together like a brick).

Thanks for reading!

Philly show Recap Finale!

Overall, In conclusion, etc etc, the card show was a lot of fun and am looking forward to the next big one in March. I have a few more pickups to show off as well! Some of these are spoken for and some aren't but never hurts to ask.

Check it out!

 

The George Brett is one of those 3000 Club inserts, just a cool looking set. The Ripken scanned kinda funny but its actually a hologram! The Frank Thomas.. goes straight to the PC! The numbers keep climbing, gotta catch em all!

 

Here's a few Mets cards, I don't collect Mets particularly but I owe some people and I know they'll like them. The Etopps Wright caught my eye. I always want the Phillies from the sets but I feel like they are all overpriced on ebay. The Montero I may hold onto for a bit to see if he becomes good. I think he's one of their good prospects. Pedro will be in the Hall of Fame soon!

Here's a few Pirates cards. The Autofacts that is a bit cut off by my scanner is of Adam Laroche. Always nice to see on card autos from Tier one and inception (and not have to buy the boxes!). The blue chrome's are a nice subset and refractors this year were tougher to hit (based on my own case breaking experience). I never heard of Willy Garcia but its a Bowman on card auto!

Thanks for reading and following along! I'll return to my usual semi randomness shortly!

Philly Show Part 2 .. Baseball Cards!

Before getting to meet Brian Dawkins, we did get to look at baseball cards and find some cool things! There seemed to be a couple new dealers and some regulars that we always go and have some nice conversations with. Always lots of boxes to look through! Fun to search for some hidden gems!

I will just stick to the Phillies portion of the pickups for this post. (and one other card)

 

Didn't go too crazy with vintage this time but was able to find a couple hard ones. The Frank Herrera is a high number, same with the Art Mahaffey! They are a pain to find and all quite pricey. Inching closer to completing a few more 60s team sets! 

 

Here's some new Ryan Howard's. The relic is from 2011 Gypsy Queen, which is super expensive so I was happy to grab the single. The Super Poweres Mike Schmidt is a psychedelic looking card, who doesn't enjoy that! Picked up some prospect autos just cause I didn't have them, Jake Sweaney and Severino Gonzalez. No idea if they are going to be good, hope so!

The Cody Asche is my first auto of his, and its on-card! I actually quite like this Triple Threads design. The Cord Sandberg is the green parallel from Bowman Platinum. The Barry Bonds is a base card from 1993 Finest! Great set, had to pick it up when I saw the card.

That's all for now, stay tuned for more baseball card goodness!

Thanks for reading!

Philly Show Part 1 (I met a famous athlete!)

If you're a regular reader you guys and gals know that I attend the Philly Show in King of Prussia on the regular. It's worth the drive usually and always tons of vintage and other cool things to see (wish I made way way more money haha) I saw a Mantle 1952 rookie graded a 4... only 20K! This show usually has a pretty good lineup of Flyers/Eagles/Phillies that sign. The headliner this time was Brian Dawkins! The price wasn't outlandish so my wife and I decided to go for the auto and meet him! Glad we did, it was great.

We got lucky and the ticket we had was number 24, so not a whole lot of people in front of us when the signing started.

Here's a pic of me with Dawkins!




He was gracious enough to shake my hand a 2nd time and smile for the picture! We had a nice discussion about which pen to use because the pen I had brought wasn't working as expected. We ended up using a silver paint pen to sign this...

The Dawkins is evident in the top right! Looks nice! The long term plan is to get Corey Simon, Jevon Kearse, Donovan Mcnabb, Brian Westbrook and TO to all sign it! That's the goal! It is currently framed and hanging up but can be easily be popped up if the opportunity arrives for the next player! All in all a super positive experience with Dawkins. He seemed to take the time for every person was super gracious to everyone. It was really nice to see that.

Next up will be actual card purchases. Got some cool stuff and some things that will be on the way to other people sooner or later!

Thanks for reading!

A sweet PWE!

I received a pretty awesome PWE from Fantastic Catch! He saw my post about the great Brad Sorenson  auto that I picked up from ebay (99 cents!) I mainly picked it up because I liked his first name.. now I have some additions to this side PC!

 

If you can't read the pictures, these cards are of Brad Davis, Brad Evans and Brad Sorenson.. they all have one awesome thing in common!

 I also received these 2 Phillies cards in the PWE! I did not have many red foil parallels and I know I didn't have a sealed copy of Chris Roberson's rookie card from Topps Chrome (not sure where they come sealed like that).

Thanks for the surprise, made the mail fun!

On a side note, I went to the Philly show today with my wife! It was a ton of fun, had quite a haul. Some of it is scanned but still have quite a bit to sort through! I'll be posting some things and I'm sure will have some more to post down the line. (I have about 2000 new cards to sort!)

Thanks for reading!

A surprise package from Home Run Apple!

I recently received a surprise package in the mail from The Home Run Apple! He's been semi dormant on his blog lately but if you want to send him stuff, he likes the Mets! I am going to the King of Prussia show this coming weekend (can't wait always enjoy it!) I usually don't bother with buying any of the autographs, but I couldn't resist getting a ticket for Brian Dawkins! (60 bucks not bad) I plan on having him sign this Lithograph print that I recently got (for free!) I'll be sure to take a pic once it's signed. Should look pretty cool! There's other players on the lithograph so the long term goal will be to get them all but we'll see how that goes! Either way getting the all pro safety and meeting him will be neat!






Went off on a bit of a tangent there. This was supposed to be a thank you post! I'll be sure to try and find some cool Mets cards to send back though at the show!

As you can see this is a nice Bob Boone on card auto from Topps Archives. That is definitely a plus for the archives sets. It's nice to see all the on card autos! 

Here's a sampling of some of the other cards that were sent over. I like the gold parallels from Archives as well. They look nice in person. Always appreciate getting a numbered Cole Hamels from a high end set. That's a card I probably would not have acquired but now I have it! Look at Jayson Werth before he become a caveman!

Hope everyone enjoyed Thanksgiving and is able to get back into the swing of things!

Thanks for reading!