Checklist Chipaway: 2010 Bowman Chrome Prospects

Last week I was perhaps a bit rash in my grade from one of the purchases I made from Cleve's weekly auction:

"Bowman Chrome Lot $4: C-  Sure, it will likely fill some holes in my 2010 chrome set, but I had already dropped that set from my Super Duper Checklist."

I guess I should have looked through the Bowman Chrome lot a little closer, because it contained about 85 cards of the 110 card checklist, and took my completion of this set from a paltry 60% to about 90% in one quick shot.  Between this lot and what I already had, I only needed 9 more cards.  I re-activated the set on the Super Duper Checklist and grabbed almost all of what I lacked off sportlots.com.  They came in the mail today:

I now only need card #84-Yowill Espinal to put this puppy to bed.   I'm sure I'll pick it up on my next sportlots.com visit.  I have a lot left over if anyone else is building this set and needs fillers.

I hereby give myself a solid A- for some shrewd auctioning and displaying tremendous subconscious brain power that led me to snatch up these cards at auction.

2 Brett Eibner Autos

One for each of my eyeballs to gaze upon...

This card was hidden away in the Bowman Platinum set without me realizing it until I stumbled across it on eBay recently.  I haven't seen anyone post about hitting this from any Platinum box breaks or wax openings.  I hope that is because no one has hit one yet, and not because they deem it unworthy of a post. 

I have openly pined after the stud former Razorback without shame and I geeked out after winning this lot of 2 autos on eBay recently for under $5 shipped.  And if any of you folks have this card available for trade, I'll take more.

Conlon Collection Page 2: Good Googly Moogly Indeed…

In the first comment on the first post on this series, Jeff from Cardboard Catastrophes just about nailed it as concisely as possible: “Good Googly Moogly. Those look like they were written by a barely literate, and completely drunk, 1950s ad man.”

That nails it.

Here are cards 10-18  for your viewing and reading pleasure.  

A few thoughts:

•  Despite my having some fun with the backs of the cards, I do want to say the photos on this set are superb.
• My favorite line is the opener for Leo Durocher: “Leo Durocher was probably the smartest manager in game control who put spikes in his walking shoes to ease the pain.”     Were there a whole bunch of managers who put spikes in their walking shoes to ease the pain back then?  
• The story about Dizzy Dean drinking the soda on the train was actually pretty funny.
• I  never knew Lou Gerhig was called "biscuit pants".  I love that at the end of the write up for Gerhig, the writer felt it necessary to answer what clearly was a rhetorical question. “Can you believe he (Gerhig) stole home 15 times as a Yankee?  Well, he did.”  Awesome.

These have been so much fun to read, and the photos are extraordinary!  Can you believe I scanned the whole set?  Well, I did.

Etopps Football Tracker 11/4

Prices sort of held steady this week, with Calvin Johnson lifting me up a little, but Ryan Mallet continuing to plummet. 

My cards are still outperforming the overall set average. up about 7.6% compared to the overall set which is down 5.7%.

Conlon Collection:

Remember the days when there were baseball card stores everywhere?  Even in my hometown in West Texas with a population of 15,000 people, there was a card store for a brief period of time in the late 80s.  It was terrible and didn’t last long, but the point is, card shops were everywhere.  There was one store in Lubbock Texas that was my favorite place in the whole world: Faust Stamp and Coin.  I think they are still in business today, although it’s been at least 15 years since I’ve been there after moving to Arkansas.

I remember how excited I was to go to this store as a slack jawed teenager in the mid 80s.  And I even remember a couple of cards I picked up as I was starting my collection. 

I particularly remember the guy working there selling me on a "Baseball Immortals" 60 card set with showcasing the photography of Charles Conlon.   

The guy (who was not the owner, but was always there) must have had a real good sales pitch because he talked my mother into buying this set for me.  I wasn’t that interested, but she wanted to get me something to help start my collection, and this was what he recommended.  I remember him congratulating us on the purchase as he rang us up.    Even then I thought that was a overdoing it a bit.  But I’ve held on to them all this time and I came across these again the other day as I was organizing my collection.  I doubt there is much demand for this set out there, but I really enjoyed looking over it and reading the backs.  The photography is compelling, and the write ups on the backs are loaded with cheese.  I am going to share each page, front and back, with you over the next week or so.  If you want an excellent overview of Conlon and his work, check out this post from Ryan at This Card is Cool.    Here is the first page from the 1986 Baseball Immortals set.

Sorry for any confusion of laying out one scan horizontally and the other vertically, but I wanted to make the backs easier to read.  And these are riveting reads.  I want to know who wrote this stuff.  Just read the first card about Lou Gerhig.  I don't even know where to begin on that one.  It could be because it's late and my brain is not functioning at it's normal mediocre level, but that last sentence doesn't make sense to me.  "His consecutive-game playing streak -2,130 games- may well have killed him (!!), but it was Gerhig's style- first class."  What???  There's so much material to cover on these cards.  Another gem:  "Mickey (Cochrane) sweated like a pig.... and looked like a stripper...  And he was one smart cookie, too."   Who writes like that?  I love it!

Help Wanted- Gypsy Queen

Now that my Master Checklist has been revamped to actually show the cards I need (duh), I would like to start a periodic feature where I focus with laser- like intensity on a particular set I want to wrap up.  I thought wanted to wait a year and let Gypsy Queen settle before I knocked out the cards I still need, but I changed my mind, as I am apt to do.

So, under the Master Checklist Progress tab at the top is a link to my updated checklist, which has a page that shows the base and insert cards of Gypsy Queen I am seeking.  I am not going to bother going after the stamps, relics, minis or autos.  I already have the key cards I want from those groups.

If you have any of these to spare, let me know and hopefully we can work out a trade.

Cleve's Auction Night Part 2: Choke, Choke, Choke...

Yesterday, I covered the first four of eight purchases I made at Cleve's weekly auction.  I had a sense of failure about my overall auction performance after I left the auction, but once I started listing out the cards, I felt a little better.  Let's see if analyzing the last four cards makes me feel even better, or validates my initial feeling of dejection.

It's hard to be dejected about a sweet card like this though:

This was my second Triple Threads 2011 card of the night, and I was thrilled to get it for $4.  Longoria is a stud, and this will either fit nicely in my collection, or perhaps bring something cool in trade.  Speaking of which:

A few weeks ago, I got another Kershaw auto from Cleve's and wound up trading it away to Greg at Plaschke, Thy Sweater is Argyle.  There must be a strong Kershaw connection at Cleve's because this week another auto of him was available.   So, I decided to go for it again.   And so did... dun dun dunnnnnn, my arch nemesis.  I made my initial bid of $3 and he went $4.  Last week, he got the better of me 3 times, but I wasn't letting it happen again.  I rolled up my sleeves and gave him a front row ticket to the gun show as I bid $5.  It didn't faze him and he said $6.  I bid $7, but instead of saying $7, I  stood up in my chair, pulled out my switchblade and made a big "7" in the air with it.  Then I slowly turned and mimed the universal gesture of slitting one's throat.  He stopped bidding, and the card was mine. Victory, baby.
There was lots of vintage at the auction, but not much I felt I had to have.  There was a neat Johnny Mize 1952 Topps that I could have had for $15.  I wish I'd gone for it now.  But I did get this little gem:

Eddie Stanky is one of those old ballplayers I love to read about.  Leo Durocher said of Stanky, "He can't hit, can't run, can't field. He's no nice guy... all the little SOB can do is win."   I was very pleased to get this.

I should have ended my night on this high note.  But I was impulsive and bought this as well:

This was a lot of 5 Red Man tobacco cards.  I like this set, but didn't look over the lot before bidding, and didn't see that one card was in it 3 times.  And the Mel Parnell card is in bad shape.  But still, for $4 it's not too bad of a purchase.

Here are the grades for the second four purchases:
 
Evan Longoria Triple Threads $4: A-  Great card of a budding star.
Clayton Kershaw A&G Auto $7:  A  A little pricey, but Kershaw is a bad dude, and I'm glad to get back an auto of him.
Eddie Stanky Bowman $4:  A+  I don't know what the book value of this is and I don't care.  I love talking about cards and players like this.
Red Man Lot $4:  C+  Yeah, I like these cards, but this was unnecessary for my collection, even for $4.

I guess overall, I'm relatively satisfied.  I feel good about 5 of 8 purchases.  If I would have lopped off the three that didn't jazz me, I would have spent closer to $20 and felt like it was one of my better auctions ever.  I'll need to show some better discipline next time.

Cleve's Auction Night: Choke, Choke, Choke...

That's what I could envision the crowd chanting at me Tuesday night at Cleve's auction if the auction were held in front of a live audience.  I guess I'll see how things look after I lay out the cards individually on this post, but I have a nagging feeling that I failed miserably.  Maybe the Rangers Game 6 performance rubbed off on me, I don't know.  Maybe a tense couple of weeks at work had me off my game tonight.  Whatever the reason, I don't think I did very well overall.  I was very excited at the start of the auction, since it was the smallest crowd I'd ever seen there, meaning less competition for the stuff I wanted.  Yes, my arch nemesis was there, but as it turns out we had only one minor skirmish that I will get to tomorrow.  My main enemy tonight was myself.   Enough talk, let's look at cards:

Actually, I'll just tell you about the first buy, since I don't want to spend the time taking a picture of it.  I bought a box of about 100 Bowman Chrome rookies from 2008-2010, with the bulk of them at 2010.  I guess I was hoping the 2010s will fill in many of the holes I have on this set that I kind of sort of still would like to complete.  This purchase started the night off on the wrong foot for me, since I really had no use for these cards. 

Things went from ho hum to stupid with the next purchase: 

The son of a crazy man, Cutter Dykstra is not a hot prospect.  And this auto, while at least on card, is from Razor, which does nothing for me.  Why the hell did I buy this?

Next, I picked up this Howard Johnson bat card:

At least this is of someone of whom I was a fan.  This is actually a pretty cool looking card, so $2 is ok.
Next, is a Hall of Famer I got for $3:

This is my first Triple Threads 2011 card, and if you haven't seen these unity cards yet, they are really pretty.  A low numbered jersey card of a Hall of Famer for $3 is nothing to be embarrassed about. 

So yes, I stumbled out of the gate, but with the Alomar Triple Threads, I at least feel like I got a nice, premium card.  Maybe I didn't do so bad after all.  The first two purchases were duds though, let's face it.

Here are the grades for the first 4 of 8 purchases I made:

Bowman Chrome Lot $4: C-  Sure, it will likely fill some holes in my 2010 chrome set, but I had already dropped that set from my Super Duper Checklist.
Cutter Dykstra Auto $2: F  Yuck.
Howard Johnson Bat Card $2: B-  It's pretty cool looking, but I didn't need it.
Roberto Alomar Triple Threads Jersey $3: A-  I don't get the feeling Alomar is a hot target for collector's, but he is a Hall of Famer, and this card is really lovely.


I'll cover the last four purchases in part two tomorrow, and discuss my face off with my arch nemesis.  He really needs a nickname.  His bidder number is 339.  Maybe I'll call him Evil 339.  I'm open to suggestions.

A Group Break Juusst a Bit Outside The Norm

I thought this group break looked pretty interesting over at the newly renamed Juuust a bit outside.    He's opening a box or pack of cards from years ending in 1, and if I am understanding the rules correctly, he's opening a pack of 1951 Topps Redbacks.  That would be interesting to see.   Even if you don't want to gamble and participate, you should definitely check out his blog and see how this one turns out....

2011 Topps Finest

I certainly can't afford to open boxes of Topps Finest, but I still like the product.  Recently singles from the set became available on sportlots.com, and I picked up a few to see if I wanted to build a base set.  There are a a good amount of the base cards for $.18 each on sportlots.com if you are interested.  Here was my first sampling of Finest 2011:

 Stantons and Strasburgs at $.18 each are hard to pass up.. of course I needed 3 of each.

No, my two year old daughter didn't set these up on the scanner for me.  These things were hard to line up.  Not only are they slick, these cards curl, and pretty aggressively too.  Right up there with 2010 Topps Chrome as a frame of reference, which is a little disappointing for a premium set.  I don't think I like them as much as 2010 Finest, but they are pretty nice looking.  I'll likely pass on building the set, but if I see a good, cheap starter lot on eBay I may change my mind.

A Spooky Story For Halloween...

Unlike many of my posts, this is entirely true....

It was a cool October evening, much like tonight.  The lovely wife and I were newlyweds and were excitedly getting into bed.... to watch game 4 of the 2004 World Series, you pervs.  As I'm sure you all know, the Red Sox were about to sweep the Cardinals and win their first World Series in 86 years, erasing the Curse of the Bambino. 
Let me take a step back and say that I was also a huge Mets fan in the 80's and 90's before giving all my loyalty to the Rangers in the 2000's.  The 1986 World Series against the Red Sox was my first experience with the agony and ecstasy that I think only baseball can deliver, and after what happened to the Rangers last week, I now have a greater appreciation for how tough 1986 had to be for Red Sox fans.  I bring this up because early in our relationship, the Lovely Wife bought me this really cool, framed picture of Ray Knight crossing the plate after the ball went through Buckner's legs in game 6.  I had this picture, and about a dozen other baseball pictures, hanging on the wall in our guest room/office. 

 This picture now kind of gives me the creeps...

Anyway, we were lying in bed watching the Red Sox finish off the Cardinals.  The game ended and the celebration began on the field. We watched a bit of it before deciding to call it a night.  As I was turning off the TV, the announcer said something along the lines of the "curse being broken" or "ghosts being exorcised" for the Red Sox or something like that.  I turned off the TV.  Literally a second later, we heard a crash in the guest room.  I ran down the hall to see what happened and turned on the light.  There, in a pile of broken glass was the Ray Knight picture.  There was no wind that night at all, or thunder or lightning or anything that should have knocked that picture off the wall.  What I still to this day don't understand is how none of the pictures hanging below it on the wall were disturbed.  I would think if it just fell straight down, it would have knocked other pictures off too.  It was almost like it leaped off the wall.   I'm not a jittery person by nature, and other than some sports superstitions, I'm not at all a believer in ghosts or crap like that.  But thinking about that night still gives me the willies.

eTopps Football Tracker 10/30- My Rough Week Continues

I still am despondent about the Rangers, with many of the "should have" plays from game 6 haunting my mind in a continual loop that won't stop playing.  It has kind of zapped my blogging motivation over the past few days to be honest.  The talk of this series being one of the all time greats gives me no comfort.  I haven't posted about the World Series because I don't have anything to add that hasn't been said, and I just don't have the energy to talk about it.  There is only one thing that makes me happy about the baseball season being over:  I won't have to listen to that awful "Written in the Stars" song advertising the post season for TBS and Fox.  I might have liked it the first 30 times I heard it, but once it got into the 1,000s it got kind of old. 

Then the Razorbacks just about pushed me over the edge Saturday with that horrible performance against Vanderbilt, but I'll stay off that tangent.  At least they got a W. 

What else sucked this week?  Etopps football, that's what:

Yuck.  I'm barely in the black on my purchases, and the season on the whole is below IPO prices.  The sets usually will fall below IPO eventually, but not halfway through the season.   Or maybe they do, and it was just my perception they didn't.   Part of the problem I think is that eTopps has had major problems recently with the Football game that you can play with these cards, and people are getting turned off.  I could change the value indicator to show what people are selling these cards for on Cardtarget.com, and my numbers would be better, but I want to show what I could get for my cards if I wanted to sell immediately.

Doing My Part

Game 6 took 5 years off my life.  I wish I could say I was able to just enjoy the game, but that was just flat out heart breaking.  I just can't at all imagine the Rangers winning tonight after that collapse.  But I'm going to try to help on the Karma end.  If the Rangers somehow manage to win tonight, I will run my biggest and best ever Big Fun Game.  I will have 10 spots and every prize will be legit.  You don't have to be a follower and you don't have to plug the contest.  I will gladly give up some good stuff if it in any way gets us a win tonight.  If the Rangers win, comment on this post.  That's all you have to do.  I will put all the names in the randomizer Sunday afternoon.  You can comment on this post before the game ends, BUT ONLY COMMENTS MADE AFTER A RANGERS WIN WILL COUNT AS AN ENTRY.  Good Lord I hope the Rangers cost me some cards tonight!

Napkin Doon: Hall of Famer

Never in my wildest dreams did I think my work on this blog would lead me to the Hall of Fame, but I am proud to say that the Hall of Fame contacted me personally about one of my pieces and wanted to add it to their collection.  What an unbelievable honor!  In fact, I still remember when the Hall of Fame first contacted me, I told my wife with tears in my eyes that this made all the hard work of purchasing baseball cards, opening baseball cards, looking at baseball cards, and sorting baseball cards all worth it.  I assume that there will be a ceremony for my contribution in the near future and I will need to give some sort of speech.  So,  I basically can now say I am a  Hall of Famer, just like Ruth, Mays, Williams, all those guys.  Hall of Famer.  I doubt any of you chumps can say that.  I can.  I guess I've known all along I was better than most of you but I didn't want to say it without proof.   I think this does it. 

Yes indeed, the Baseball Card Hall of Fame now has one of my cards.  I assume this is the official baseball card branch of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.  I've been to the Hall in Cooperstown, and highly recommend it.  I do remember the Baseball Card display, and I assume that is where my card is going, perhaps next to the T206 Honus Wagner.  I'm surprised they would need to request cards from bloggers, since I figured Topps would give them whatever they need, but I guess the Reggie Jackson card I had looked Hall of Fame worthy, and they were likely already rabid fans of my blog.   In fact, the Hall of Fame liked my contribution so much, they sent me a huge assortment of artifacts for my collection.   Here is what the Hall sent me in return, almost like a trade between baseball card bloggers:

This Michael Young beauty was the main focus of the trade.  Now THAT is a Hall of Fame Card.

Who knew the Hall had former Razorbacks on hand?  Cool!

They also sent a whole mess of current Rangers (and Cliff Lee)

And and even bigger mess of 80's Rangers....

Plus a bunch of stars I collect...

And.... um.....a bunch of giveaway cards with players I collect on them... 

There was even more in the package, but I wouldn't expect you non Hall of Famers to have the attention span to look at much more.  So a big thank you to Kyle at the Baseball Card Hall of Fame for a great trade and my imminent induction to your wonderful museum!   

Now How Much Would You Pay?

Hey, everyone, my pal AJ over at the Lost Collector isgiving away a TTM autograph of All Star Heath Bell that he received in the mail the other…..  wait.

No, No, No, No, No, No, No, No Lost Collector. 

I’m sorry I can’t let you mess up this opportunity.

The master of TTM autos should not so cavalierly dispose of the fruits of the art he has mastered.  There is no one in the baseball card blogosphere as good as you at TTMs.  Nobody.  You have a gift, and have  mastered your craft.

I want you to learn a little something from this guy*:

I used to stay up late at night and watch Don Lapre infomercials about making money all the time.  I don’t recall all of the get rich schemes he was up to, and I was never really tempted to call and order his money making kits.   But man, he could talk a dog off a meat wagon.   I do remember he was always talking about placing “tiny ads” in newspapers across the country and making a killing doing it.  He seemed to have mastered this art.    The thing was, he told you what to do, but not how to do it.  To learn that, you had to fork over some money. 

That is what you must do Lost Collector.   If you’re good at something, don’t do it for free.   You need to begin producing your TTM infomercial immediately.  I for one would gladly fork over $19.95 for your secrets.  If you really want to, you can offer the Bell card as a bonus to whoever purchases your TTM Kit first, but don’t give it away dude.  Don’t give it away.

*okay, so this post was written before I found out Lapre was a fraud and wound up committing suicide in prison this month.  That's actually incredibly sad, and not funny at all.   I tried to change the post to feature  Ron Popeil, but he didn't really convey the slickness the Lapre did.  I just had to leave Lapre in. I'm sorry.  

Etopps 1956 Topps Tribute

 Besides the standard current season offerings, eTopps will pepper some special sub sets through out the year, usually between sport seasons.  One of the small sets they offered that I really liked was this 11 card tribute set to 1956 Topps Football.  I didn't buy these when they were first offered while back, which was a good move since they pretty much have all fallen below the IPO price.  In fact, I put the whole set together through trades of other cards and points. 

This is a really underrated set, and looks great in hand.  As with all eTopps cards, they are slabbed, numbered and sealed.  The cards are sharp looking, and the checklist is strong, with Pierre Garcon being the only mediocre card.

Etopps Football Tracker 10/21

The trend for eTopps football was down a bit this week from last week:

Looks like I really whiffed by passing on the Andy Dalton card, which is up 28% over IPO this week.  Tom Brady and Cam Newton are carrying my portfolio, although Brady keeps ticking down each week.  I would bet this card settles in around $10 by the end of the season, so I might think about trading it now and getting it back later.  My purchases are still above the overall set index, even with Ryan Mallett and Julio Jones pulling me down.  I'm really surprised by the weak performance of the Jones card out of the gate.  Maybe it will pick up steam as he gets healthy. 

Checklist Chipaway: 2011 Topps Chrome

It’s fun to grind out the completion of the set, slowly but surely, a few cards at a time.   But sometimes you just have to go for the kill when a good deal comes along.  I posted some progress toward my 2011 ChromeBase set the other day and had a comment from Mike from Sports Syzygy saying he had busted a case of chrome and could help fill my set.    He also said he had a complete set that he would send for $25 shipped.   (He also posted on his blog that he had another one for sale at the same price the other day.  Not sure if it’s still available, but that beats anything you will find on eBay).   The more I thought about that deal, the better it sounded.  I was still only about 50% done, and even thought I only needed about 100 cards, that would still be at least $18 plus postage if I got them all off sportlots.com at $.18 per card.    Plus, this would give me an additional Eric Hosmer.    So I decided to skip Cleve’s auction this week, as well as the Etopps IPOs, which weren’t that great this week anyway, and spend that money on a set from Mike.  They arrived quickly and in pristine condition Tuesday.

I’ve already placed the cards in pages and a nice binder, and spent some time admiring them last night.  Sometimes I forget how enjoyable it is to read stats on the back of a card.  If the comments are interesting, even better, but the stats tell a better story anyway.

I was tempted to scan all the pages, but I’ll keep it to the front and back of the first 27 cards.  

 

And check out Mike’s blog.  He’s a neat guy.  One of his hobbies is collecting pressed pennies, which I find incredibly interesting.  Check out this post about it and you'll agree!  Thanks for the deal Mike!