My Ryan Howard Top Ten

I was perusing the blogosphere and came across Collecting Cutch's latest contest.. show off your top ten cards of your favorite player. As regular readers of this blog and everyone I talk too in any situation (grocery store cashiers love me, trust me) I PC Ryan Howard and Frank Thomas. Huge fan of The Big Hurt from the 90s and Ryan Howard was my favorite Phillies player of the Championship era that just ended. Since this is a Phillies blog we will be showing my top ten for Mr. Howard. (He was invited to my wedding but not sure if he got the invitation)

Without further delay..

#10--

From Topps Marequee the Titanic Threads Auto. Always was a fan of this set even though most of the swatches (all?) are plain. I like the look of the cards. It took me a while to track down this low numbered one and ultimately purchase it on ebay.

#9--

I have almost every parallel from 2012 Topps Museum Collection. I have to take inventory again but I might just be missing a couple one of ones and that's it. This patch was very elusive. I remember it hitting right after release and the person wanted 500 or best offer. Way way out of my price range. I decided to just watch it for a while. It disappeared off ebay and then finally came back but with just a straight auction. I believe I picked it up in the 60 dollar range. I way way overbid to make sure no one could snipe me at the last second.

#8--

This my only Howard super auto. I traded a 2012 Topps Chrome Ichiro photo variation for it. Pulled the Ichiro in my case in 2012 and turned it into a Ryan Howard Super.. no complaints there!

#7--

Just love the look of these Triple Threads cards. The big patch windows and overall visual appeal of the card. Very well done and looks nice in the card room.

#6--

Ryan Howard's "Best" rookie auto. I believe at the peak of his hype after his MVP season this was well over a 1,000 dollar card. Thankfully I did not buy it back then. I got it a much more reasonable price. No Ryan Howard collection is complete without this rookie auto!

#5--

My first ever rainbow completion ended with this card. (I got the whole rainbow graded after the fact). This was my big foray into really collecting a player. It was real fun tracking all the cards down and getting them all.

#4--

I'm counting this as one card. It's my 2012 Triple Threads Ruby 'set'. All 3 1/1's for the saying's he had in this set. The patches are very colorful. '198 Homers in 4 Yrs' '.313 58 149 2nd Season' and of course his nickname 'The Big Piece'. Never thought I'd see all 3 let alone be in position to acquire all 3.

#3--

My one and only bat knob card in my collection from Topps Tier one. Very well done cards and always a conversation starter.

#2--

My one and only bat nameplate card. It's real cool his whole name is in the window and easily one of my favorite Museum Collection cards in general. This card is super thick.

Last but not least my personal #1--

Yes this is one of 4 superfractors I own of Howard, but this one was 2 straight years of searching until it surfaced. I had every other parallel fairly easily except this one. It popped up on ebay one day before I was set to leave on my honeymoon with my lovely wife. It was up for auction but I didn't have time for that so I messaged the guy on ebay and offered him a more then fair sum. We agreed on the amount but he wanted gift and to take the purchase off ebay. (all big red flags I know) I vetted his feed back (all looked solid) and just said screw it and went for it. I gifted him the money and just hoped he was an honest person. I asked him to hold the card while I was away. I emailed him after the honeymoon and then he mailed the card to me. No problems or hiccups!

I will say it was fun going through my Ryan Howard scans to pick out 10 cards. I had picked out about 20 then had to narrow it down.

Thanks for reading!

A Shiny reprint!

I was reading through some of my old posts the other night. I sure did use a lot of exclamation points! Also, I was rich and had a steady stream of cards coming in. The stream of cards has stopped to a point. I still happily buy/sell/trade like any collector but just not as frequently. I am purposely saving up to buy a case of Topps Chrome this year so I can continue my 'What's in a Case' series. I always had fun writing that up and going box by box and giving my little breakdown. I've even occasionally hit some really cool cards.

The shiny reprint title refers to this card...

Don't remember if it was me or my brother that pulled this in a pack. Regardless it is in my possession currently. These were tough inserts in the 90s. Currently someone has a set on ebay of all 36 reprints for 60 dollars starting bid (not my auction nor do I know the person). Also, I have no idea if that's a fair price or not. This was in the 90s when I never dreamed I would actually own any Mantle card let alone 19 of them.

So far I'm enjoying baseball season. Been watching a lot of MLB.tv and there's been a lot of good storylines. The super stars Harper and Trout are doing their thing and the unknowns like Eric Thames are being ridiculous. Always fun! Already have tickets to go to 2 games this year and planning on at least 2 more!

Thanks for reading!

New Computer!

New computer arrived! Seems to be working. I am able to type and use the space bar without lagging the whole system. I have to get my scanner up and running on this one probably have to download some drivers. Will do that sometime this week. In the mean time here's some cards I received not too long ago.

These came in a PWE from Oscar over at All Trade Bait All the Time! He is on my list to hit back with hopefully in the next month or so. I need to put packages together and I owe too many people at once. I have some decent stuff to send (I think?) but if the packages aren't good let me know and I'll make them better. He is one of the handful of Dodger collectors out there. Really unpopular team..

By the way, MLB.tv is great. I have a smart tv and it's just one click of a button and you're watching any game (thats not blacked out). Really great idea.

Thanks for reading!

Slow Computer

This computer I'm currently using has become almost unusable. It's gotten old and is basically falling apart on me. I did order a new computer so I'm just waiting for it to be shipped. I already backed up all my files on a jump drive. I hope to post more frequently when typing isn't a chore.

Hope everyone enjoyed the first week of the baseball season. Phillies are a solid 3-3. I can't complain taking 2 of 3 from the Nationals and one of them in a crazy 17 run outing. Also, that Angels come back was unbelievable. That's why Baseball is the best sport. There is no time limit, anything can happen.

Here's a few Ryan Howard's. I know he hasn't officially retired yet. There was a rumor that the Braves were interested but I kinda hope that doesn't happen. I can't cheer for the Braves. If he ends up an American League team later in the season it'd be much easier to still cheer for him and that team. No conflict of interest there with my Phillies fandom.

Can't wait for my new computer! Happy Baseball season! Thanks for reading!

A Purple Benny!

I did mention in a previous post that the wife and I made a Toys R Us run and cleaned them out of blisters. The biggest card we hit was easily this one:

And he smacked a 3-run homer today! The Opening Day purples are sharp this year. Probably planning on picking up a few more if I can.

Thanks for reading!

Happy Opening day!

Or opening 3 games and the rest of the games on Monday. Phillies start at 4 o clock in the afternoon. I'll be at work but hopefully catch a bunch of it on the radio on the way home. Also, Happy start of Fantasy baseball season. I was already against Melancon, Bumgarner and Tanaka in my head to head league. Works for me! (Obviously tons of games to go for week 1 but I'm content with them not winning or getting a save and giving up runs on day 1)

Also, Wife and I took a trip to Toys R Us today. We cleaned out the blister packs of Opening day and Series 1. The Purple parallels look really nice. I'll get em scanned soon. Did manage to hit the Andrew Benintendi and Yoan Moncada from Opening Day. The best from Series 1 was the Kris Bryant Purple. Always fun to chase those. 

It is weird that Ryan Howard is no longer on the Phillies. The true end of the Championship era. Not a single player left on the team.

About to watch this guy take on the Cardinals..

Pretty nice Archives rookie card of Javier Baez. It was given to me by a co-worker. He has an extremely niche collection (only Rookie gold cards of modern stars). He would love a Trout but I think they run in the 1000 range and he isn't willing to spend that.

Thanks for reading, Go Phillies!