Guy with a Hat !

I didn't own a card with a baseball hat before so when I noticed this one I picked it up. The card includes a nice signature as well, my first one Chase Wright ! A really thick card with a rubber-like hat in it, interesting concept to say the least !

This was the first time I saw a card like this....Anyone of you guys own such a card ?

Trade with Robert at $30 a week habit !

I have a policy that every trade deserves a post on my blog. Today's great trade clearly deserves one as well !! Recently, Robert at $30 a week habit gave up on his quest to complete the full 2012 Gypsy Queen SP set and offered the ones he already had up for trade. Lucky for me I still needed a few so a cool trade was quickly born. I send Robert some cards for his Insanity Collection (and I agree with Robert, it's an insane but fun project!) in return for 4 missing GQ SPs. They arrived safe and sounds on my doormat last week. Here they are !

First up the newest Yankee: Youkilis ! An old man replacing another injured old man some might say. A rookie was included as well, Matt Moore !

Two more cool cards, Griffey and Votto !

These 4 brings me 12 SPs from completing the 2012 set. Hopefully this can be arranged before Gypsy Queen 2013 comes out ! So if you have any for trade please let me know !!

I am still looking for the following SPs: 67 Josh Hamilton, 71 Ian Kennedy, 84 Freddie Freeman, 110 Jose Bautista, 120 Mickey Mantle, 142, Carlos Gonzalez, 149 Ryan Zimmerman, 226 Johnny Bench, 240 Tim Lincecum, 248 Wade Boggs, 258 Mike Schmidt, 288 Yu Darvish

Thanks Robert for a great trade ! Thanks everyone for visiting my blog today !

Trade with Community Gum: Minis !!!

Recently Jon at Community Gum showcased 2 boxes of 2012 Topps Minis with most of them for trade. With my quest to complete the full set not done yet, I contacted him right away to see if we could set up a nice trade. And so it happened that Jon send me a nice bunch of Topps 2012 Minis, bringing me close to completing the full set, only 7 cards to go !!

Here's what Jon send me, a nice Mickey Mantle to start with ! Also another Yankee, Brett Gardner in a nice catch !

In total Jon send me 21 Minis, here are a few more,  a great catch by Cabrera and a cool no-hitter this season by Philip Humber !

 A leader card was also included, Batting Average Leaders Reyes, Braun and Kemp !

Jon, thanks very much for the trade and helping me get close to completing the full set. In case anyone has the following minis for trade do let me know !!

I still need: 253, 310, 380, 400, 550, 639, 650

Thanks for visiting my blog today !

SP Signature Edition: Glavine !

A while back Upper Deck came out with its SP Signature Edition with a checklist that included Tom Glavine. Clearly, as a Glavine junkie....euhhh...I mean "supercollector", I was on the look-out for this card and a while back one finally hit eBay. The great thing about Glavine is that there are not that many Glavine collectors around which keeps prices fairly decent. Therefore, I had the chance to pick this one up for a nice price and it arrived at my doorsteps a few days back !

As Upper Deck does not have a license or anything, the card has no Braves logo and not even a picture of Glavine. Still, I acutally like this card very much, it has a nice "old" feel to it but please judge for yourself...here it is !

Thanks for the visit today !

My Latest Kershaw !

Quick post today to show of my latest Kershaw addition, a 2012 Panini Signature series. I like this card and the lack of official Dodger logo doesn't really bother me. I also noticed that I have been picking-up more Panini cards lately (stamps anyone ?) and it feels that they are moving into the right direction. Hopefully they can keep this up to provide a nice alternative to Topps !

Well, let's stop talking and show the card ! Here it is !

What do you guys think, have you also been buying more Panini lately ?

A Sterling Rivera

The key focus of my collection when I started collecting were Mariano Rivera and CC Sabathia. However, as time went by that gradually moved towards Glavine, Blyleven and Kershaw with Rivera moving a little to the background. I recently started to put a little more focus on my Rivera PC and when I saw the following 2010 Topps Sterling relic card on eBay I decided to give it a go. I won it easily as it seems that much more people have apparantly focussed less on their Rivera collections habit as well...maybe it's his injury but hey, it gave me the change to get this beauty on the cheap !! Here it is !

Numbered to only 25, it's one of my nicest Rivera cards I now own !!

Thanks for checking my blog today !

Stamps ? Are we collecting stamps now ??

When I was a kid, growing up in Europe, stamp collecting was kind of often seen, usually collected by grandpa's and grandma's. In the last 10-15 years that hobby gradually died down I think with the emergence of sticker stamps and changes in postage systems. Therefore, I wasn't expecting to be starting to collect stamps in my lifetime.

Well, that all changed last week !! I noticed a new 2012 Panini signature card of Blyleven and this one included a stamp. It seems Panini has a complete insert series called Signature Stamps in its 2012 Panini Signature Series....so there I went, picking up my first "Stamp" baseball card. It arrived a few days back. I think it's interesting and kind of strange at the same time....judge for yourself !

Any of you own a "stamp" baseball card ?

Another Panini !

I noticed that recently in a lot of new sets there is a place for Blyleven, a lot of new relic cards and also a lot of new Autograph cards as he is seemingly signing a lot of cards lately. This is all clearly helping reduce the scarsity value which is not great for my current collection but on the other hands makes it much cheaper to expand my collection. So that's what I did and last week received another cool relic card, numbered to only #/49.

As I said before, I do believe Panini is improving with this card being another clear example. Hope they can keep this up in the future !!

On the same day I also received a card with a very familiar feel to it....after some digging it became clear that after last week's Blyleven's double card I again bought a card on eBay I already had a copy of. I really have to start paying more attention !! Luckily it was a cheap one but still !! So in case you are interested in a trade let me know !

Thanks for visiting my blog today !

My Latest Rivera Relic !

A quick post today. I haven't added a Mariano Rivera card in ages so I was happy when one arrived a few days back, one that I was able to find for only a few dollars on eBay !! It's from 2002 Fleer Platinum, Clubhouse Collections ! Here it is...

I really hope he is able to come back strong this season to have a great end to a magnificent career !!

Package from Cardboard Catastrophes !!

Late last week I received a package from a place called Norman, sender being Jeffrey. Normally I keep proper track of my trades and the only person from Norman I knew was Jeremy from No One is Going To Read This Blog and I was sure that we had already completed our trade a while back. After a bit of digging I vaguely remembered an e-mail from Carlsonjok at Cardboard Catastrophes asking for my address as he had some cards for me, cards that seem to match the content of the package I received. Doing some more digging on the internet I could confirm that Carlsonjon (or Jeffrey according to the envelop) is also based in Norman ! I hear you thinking, oke oke Sherlock, let's show us the cards ! Well here we go !

The package was great, a cool mix of cards from my Want List, ranging from Minis to A&G inserts, Lineage and Gypsy Queen ! Jeffrey really spend the time going through my Want List which is much, much appreciated !! Let's start with the minis !!

The Minis were a great selection of 2012 A&G and 2011 Kimball which I am both trying to complete !

Gypsy Queen was also included, a very cool Sabathia. A gold/brown framed retail version which is great as retail is not easy to get in Europe ! Also a nice 2012 A&G insert of Ripken I was still missing.

2008 A&G was also present. I am gradually getting towards completing the base set !!

I am also still trying to complete some of the 2011 Lineage inserts so these were very welcome ! Let's hope Pineda can give us some joy in 2013.

and more A&G, 2012 What's in a Name and the 2011 comparable Hometown Heroes (extra special to me given its Sabathia !!).

Last card for today is a cool Lincecum from the Heritage set !!

Jeffrey, thanks so much for a very cool, and unexpected, package. I am going to send you something in return of course once I figure out what you would like (your small Want List is not helping me a lot :-))

Thanks everyone for visiting my blog today ! Enjoy the rest of the weekend !

Crossing the 100 relic card mark !!

Quick post today with 2 new Jersey card additions to my Glavine PC ! Both numbered and recently popping-up on eBay ! First-up a nice Fleer Maximum from 2002 and numbered to 100. I like this one and think it's a pretty cool card.

Next one is a bit more boring in my view, a 2003 Leaf Certified Materials, Fabric of the Game, also numbered to 100. It would have been so cool if the card really indicated in which game Glavine wore this jersey but that's a discussion for another time....

That's it, those were relic card 106 and 107 of my Glavine PC if I am not mistaken, didn't even realize I had crossed the #100 mark already !!! Next stop, 125 !!

Thanks for visiting my blog today !

Group Break Loot - Dimwit Style !

The first group break loot of the year came in late last week !! A great package from Sam at the Daily Dimwit ! Sam had a selection of cool boxes: 2012 GQ, 2008 Masterpieces and some 2008 Goudey ! As the Yankees were already taken I took the Dodgers (and got allocated the Reds) for some trade bait and Kershaw cards, while GQ minis are always welcome anyways as I am trying to complete the full set ! I had some great loot with an autograph (for trade!), several Kershaw cards and minis !!

Let's start with the trade bait cards, a numbered Johnny Bench blue-framed card and a GQ auto card of Stubbs ! In case you are interested in setting up a trade around one of these let me know!

One of the best sets of the last 10 years, in my opinion of course, has been the 2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces set. I only need 1 card to complete the set, nr 94 !! nr 94 did not show up so if you happen to have that one or still need a bunch of 2008 Masterpieces, I have plenty to trade including these...

Did I say Kershaw ? Yes, lucky for me the loot included some Kershaw cards,  including this 2012 GQ SP card I was still missing !! Only a few more SPs to go to complete my 2012 GQ set !

Minis, did I hear Minis ?!?!?! Yes, a bunch of minis were included, helping me try to complete all the 2012 GQ mini subsets (big challenge but a fun one !).

Brown-bordered GQs have been difficult to get here in Europe as they are only included in retail as far as I understand (and those are difficult to come by here). The break included a couple of nice ones including Kershaw and Koufax !!

All in all I probalby have around 60 cards from this break for trade from these 3 sets so if you want to set up a trade let me know !!

Thanks Sam for a great group break, looking forward to the next one !!

Kershaw 2009 Triple Threads

Just a quick one today, a new Kershaw card came in: 2009 Triple Threads, Rising Stars !! Numbered to only 99, signed as well as having a cool jersey in it. Clearly, good vision by Topps as Kershaw moved from Rising Star to a clear ace for the Dodgers in recent seasons !!

That's it for today, thanks for the visit !

2 Errors, 1 by Panini, 1 by me !

I recently noticed the Panini's 2012 Playoff Prime Cuts which had a great Blyleven relic card on its checklist. Luckily I am still only one of the few Blyleven collectors around and they popped-up pretty quickly on eBay. So here comes mistake number 1...I became nervous and bid on 2 at the same time....yes, you guessed it correctly...I won both.....so now I have 2 cool, numbered, Blyleven Jersey cards of the card below. Luckily, I only won these on the low price so not much harm done (shipping was the more expensive part of the deal at $4). So error 1 is all one me !

So what about error 2 I hear you think ? When the first card arrived I looked at it in more detail. I do think these are great looking cards, real classy so the front of the card gets my compliments (well done Panini). However, when reading the back I noticed they call Blyleven "Blylevin" in the first sentence. Oke oke, just a small error but does nobody check these cards before they go to print ? Maybe it's just me but I think its sloppy especially when you want to win market share from Topps, even without having the officials rights.

 

Then again, maybe its my lack of english language and was Blylevin actually used more often so let me know if I am totally off here !


Anyways, thanks again for the visit !

A Late Happy New Year !!!

Happy New Year Everyone !!! Apologies but I have been very busy (and a bit ill as well) and had to neglect my blog a little in the last few weeks. I hope you all had a good break during Christmas and New Year's eve.

2012 was good year in which I enjoyed collecting baseball cards a lot. Couple of observations:

- Great Community ! I have been positively surprised by the baseball card blogging community with all its great people. I really had the feeling this "european" guy was very welcome and I have been able to do some great trades with a lot of you (completing 39 trades in my first year !). I also participated in a lot of group breaks and I really enjoyed those and already signed up for a few in recent days again !

- Collecting too much ? Where's the focus ?: As a newbie I have been collecting too much and trying to complete almost every set. That has to change in 2013. I will likely focus on completing Allen & Ginter, Gypsy Queen and Topps' flagship product as I enjoy those the most. Furthermore, I will chase Minis! again in 2013 and potentially add one set more to focus on. Other than that it will be a focus on my pitchers collections (Glavine, Blyleven, Kershaw, Rivera, Sabathia, Verlander, Lincecum) and gradually trying to complete older A&G sets from recent years as well as some Topps vintage (starting with the 1976 set !).

- Tom Glavine Supercollector ? During 2012 I found myself becoming a Tom Glavine "supercollector", chasing any card of him. I really enjoy the chase so I will definitely continue this in 2013 !! I do still need to put everything in excel to really keep tracking it porperly but do have the feeling that my Glavine PC is well on its way as the page goes on and on and on...... !

- It's hard work !! Collecting baseball cards is hard work, in particular if you trade a lot, use eBay and COMC and bust a bit a wax now and then. As a result, I still have plenty of sets I need to put onto my Want List so hopefully I can find the time for this the coming months !! Still, although hard work, I enjoy it so that's all that matters !!

- Improve the blog ! Lastly, I want to use the blog for a bit more fun. In my first year I noticed the majority of posts have been of the type "group break loot", "eBay scores" and/or "Trade Posts". Hopefully with now 1 year of blogging under my belt I can make it a little bit more interesting in 2013 !

All in all, plenty of plans to make it another fun year !

Let's end this post with my latest Kershaw addition, another Five-Star card !!

Thanks for visiting my blog today and I wish everyone a great 2013 for you and your families !!