Target Bargain Bin Score

So today was one of those rare days in which my own incredibly inconsistent schedule of sub-teaching actually aligned with my overly-ambitious/absurdly busy girlfriend's schedule. I planned on a boring day of watching the Weather Channel, but she wasn't into it.

"Let's go to New Hartford."

New Hartford = Target. Target = baseball cards.

So I agreed.

And watched her shop, for close to two hours, and not buy anything. I waited until the end to exit out the Target entrance of the mall, and in less than two minutes in the card section, grabbed a $1.59 pack of 2007 Fleer Ultra and two "Casers" (18 packs) of 2010 Upper Deck. I'm guessing 18 cards is retail this year.

Out on the way to the car, I ripped the Ultra. There it was, a nice, thick card sitting happily in the middle of the pack, after being damned to silvery foil insides for what now amounts to 3 to 4 years of captivity. Knowing that Ultra never throws decoys in the packs, I slipped the thick one to the back went through the base cards. Rich Hill, Jason Bay, Bob Abreu, Scott Olsen. All doubles. Then, this guy:
Ha. and you thought it would have been the hit. Also, this was not a double. Nope, this was a new, cherry-flavored rookie for the binder.

Now for the hit:

Quick! What does this card have in common with anabolic steroids? They were both used by Miguel Tejada! I kid, I kid. I'm down with Miggy, and look forward to his Baltimore renaissance.
I've been waiting to pull a Hitting Machines relic, because, well, they're badass. The colors aren't as awesome as the Freddy Sanchez I saw on eBay, but still. I like this card. The black swatch helps, too.

On to the Upper Deck, if anyone cares.
Francisco is my boy. Can't wait until he's out of those damn pinstripes, though.

I wanna hang out and throw down some saki with Kurt Suzuki. Lots of great players coming out of Hawaii these days.
Umm. Awesome. This is the best Ballparks card I've seen come out of the 2010 UD set, aside from SafeCo, but still. Very excellent. I'm surprised they didn't exploit the Cien Tower across the street and try and get them both in the shot.

On to Upper Deck 2010 and what I think of them. They're alright. I'm looking at 20% of the base cards so far, and it's only February, so I say, bring on the set. They're kind of bland, but I honestly have not liked Topps flagship since 2008 and 2007, two of the most hated Topps sets in years. Plus, I'm the rebel of the cardblogospheroid. And no, you probably cannot convince me to like 2010 Topps. I'll wait a few months until the Halladay, Thomas and Molitor Cap Logos come down in price, and those, unless other cards are acquired by trade, will be the extent of my 2010 Topps collection.

Also: I am going to try to collect the Biography insert from this years 2010 UD. I like the design, and some of the cards I actually remember the day that whatever happened (such as SB-27 making my fantasy week, look it up), and to me, that's pretty rad. So, if you want, send me your unwanted Biographies.

Mail! [+ Trade Post #1!]

So Daniel from It's Like Having My Own Cardshop mentions about a week ago his love of X-Fractors, and we all know his love of Diamondbacks, so we started talking, and due to the mutual love of all things refracting, a trade was thrown down.

Best of all, it was my first throughout the blargospheroid, and I have to say I'm pretty pleased by what Daniel sent over. Here's my shiny/rainbowy half of the deal:

Mmm. Refracted Blue Jaysssss.....

In case you're wondering, I am trying to collect the ENTIRE 2008 Topps Chrome Refractors set. It's a tough task, but I've already got over 40, so I feel goof about it. Daniel thankfully knocked three off of the list, and added something that makes me very, very happy:

2007 Fleer Ultra Ultra Rookies #215 Mike Rabelo.

What a great looking card. The Orange font on the white/blue contrasting bacground is amazing. These was such a great rookie subset, just wish this is what the Lucky 13's looked like instead.

2007 Fleer Ultra Ultra Rookies #221 Jay Marshall. Who?!

The one thing I don't love about this set was the rookies selection. Jay Marshall? Kory Casto? Gustavo Molina? Seriously? There were no better players in one of the top tier farm systems in the majors? What about:

• Andrew Bailey?
• Carlos Gonzalez?
• Joey Devine?
  

Anyways, sorry about the quick rant. Thanks a million Dan - the X-Fractory Diamondback goodness should be in sunny Arizona before long! It may have taken me a while to send 'em out but I kept checking your want/need lists for Diamondbacks you did not yet have. Take the X-Fractors outside where they can get better light than they would here in overcast, rainy, snowy Central New York.

_______________

Also, got a few cards from eBay, all for my personal collection. They include these young bucks:

2003 Bowman Chrome #BDP110

2007 Bowman Gold #BDPP61

And this established gentleman:

2002 Fleer Premium International Pride
Carlos Delgado #NNO

And they all cost less than $5, shipped. Maddy and Dusty Mc were about $2.50 for the pair and Delgado matched them.

Fat Pack Loveliness + This Week in eBay Scores

You know, eBay sucks. Often. Not eBay itself- they've revolutionized independent commerce (is that the right term?). The sellers are the villians, but most of the time bad sellers can be avoided, and it's your own fault if you win an auction for a Rocco Baldelli jersey card (JUST $0.35!!!) and forget to read the $6.99 s&h fee. But I digress.

I love eBay. if you use it right, you can score sweet loot like I did this week. Here we go.

I snagged a 2007 Fleer Ultra Fat Pack (32 cards) for a swell $5. These are on sale at certain SprawlMarts right now for $2.49..but this one was special. The seller advertised it, with scan as "Dice-K Gold Medallion Showing." Nice! So I grabbed it. Here's what I got out of it:



Daisuke Matsuzaka Lucky 13 Gold Medallion Rookie Card.

Since Daisuke was an international free agent, Bowman couldn't get their trigger-happy rookie card logo on Daisuke before other, ENJOYABLE brands could. Take that, Bowman. So this is more or less a "true" rookie card, and a base set parallel to boot. It's numbered to /999, which is irritating, because Lucky 13's are short-printed, but base card GMs are also numbered to /999.

Fleer Ultra 2007 Set Progress:



For those who have read this before, you may remember my affinity for this set and my run at completing it. I bought THREE Fat Packs last week and got nine cards (out of 96!) for completion. Bummer. This ONE Fat Pack yielded fourteen. I am starting to suspect there is some seeding of cards based on geography (as this pack came from Texas, and contained two Rangers I needed.)

Other Sweet Scores:

I mentioned the Kei Igawa Lucky 13 last week, which I got in the mail yesterday. Not worth a scan.

2000 Skybox Skylines #6 of 10



I love these things. Got any? I only have two so far, Piazza and Chipper, so I would love to take 'em off your hands.

Saving the best for last...

2000 Metal base Shredders #NNO Matt Williams



These are the greatest inserts EVER. Back when relics were hard to come by, these were a tough pull, seeded 1:288. My buddy in high school, when we were collecting 2000 Metal, bought a Eurubiel Durazo for $10 on Induction Weekend (Kirby Puckett, Dave Winfield, Bill Mazeroski). It will be mine.
Again, if you have any of these, I want 'em. The checklist is awful, full of players like Eric Munson and the aforementioned Durazo, but they're sooooo sick.

See you later kids, should have another post tonight.

2010 Collection Goals

Tired of seeing this posts yet? I don't care. These are my goals for collecting this year. Most are petty, selfish goals, but whatever. Cards make me happy, and so does accomplishment. So I intend to accomplish the following:

• $ave money on collecting (see what I did there?) Kinda sick of paying $4.50 on ebay shipping charges, so through other sources such as CheckOutMyCards, SportsLots, and hopefully a few one-on-one trades, I'll be able to do so. Also, read blaster boxes more carefully before I end up purchasing another box of 2008 UD First Edition.
• Finish the 2007 Ultra Baseball Set
• Finish 2006-2007 Ultra hockey set.
• Finish 2000 Skybox Skylines insert set (2/10 so far...not a good start)
• Accomplish trades with fellow bloggers and/or followers of A Paper Chase. I'm anxious to get a good trade under my belt sooner or later.
• Join some modestly priced box breaks throughout the "blogosphere". Someone mentioned a new phrase to replace that term, and I am for it. Also, possibly hold some box breaks or pack breaks of my own.
• Start busting boxes and packs via video blog. Hopefully I will get the nards to do this eventually, still afraid of the wrong people getting a hold of videos of myself. Of course, Oh, Snap! (my brief foray into directing...) has been out there for 3 years now. [I removed the YouTube link. Very bad video involving poorly faked drug usage, awful acting, and me falling out of a clothes dryer and one off a pool table. Fun!]
  
• 30 Followers. Whoo hoo! 10%!
• Post my rosters of fantasy teams...in baseball card form. Get used to Jayson Werth!
• Double my Ken Griffey, Jr.; Carlos Delgado, Joakim Soria and Roy Halladay collections (what, like it's hard?)
• Pull an autograph. Seriously, getting sick of lame ass John Lackey and Fred Lewis relics.
• Start legit Blue Jays and Rockies team collections.
• Attain These:

The Plight of the Incomplete Set

So I wandered down to WalMart today to see if they still had any fat packs left of 2007 Fleer Ultra. They did. Marked down to $2.48 and only three remaining, I grabbed all three and a 50% off box of 2007 UD Future Stars. The Future Stars blaster was abominable, one red parallel (though a gorgeous card) and 35 base cards. No doubles, though.

The fat packs, each containing 32 cards for a total of 96, 6 of which are gold medallions. The gold medallions are awful with the digital numbering on the back, but whatever. I'm not here to collect them.

So out of 96 cards, I got 6 gold medallions (BJ Upton, Miguel Cabrera, Dontrelle Willis, Tom Glavine, AJ Pierzynski, Jim Edmonds, all #ed to 999), 90 base cards. In a set notorious for their inserts and nice rookie short prints, one thing was obvious to me: they had been searched of Lucky 13's and Ultra Rookies. Royal pain in the ass.

So out of my 90 available cards to work on my set of 200 with, I got 9 new cards. Nine. Looks like I'll be building a second set of doubles along side this one or shipping a bunch out in trades for basically nothing.

Sigh.

2007 Fleer Ultra Baseball - Want/Need List

2007 Fleer Ultra Baseball Want/Need List

1-10: Complete
11-20: 14
21-30: Compete
31-40: Complete
41-50: Complete
51-60: 60
61-70: Complete
71-80: 74
81-90: Complete
91-100: 94
101-110: Complete
111-120: 116
121-130: Complete
131-140: 137
141-150: Complete
151-160: Complete
161-170: Complete
171-180: Complete
181-190: Complete
191-200: 192

Rookies & Lucky 13

201-210: 207, 209, 210
211-220: 213, 216
221-230: 224, 225, 228
231-240: 233, 234, 236, 237, 240
241-250: 245, 246

Thanks to Dan W. from It's Like Having My Own Card Shop, Ed from Roll Out the Barrel Duane from Democratic Roadkill, Brian from Play at the Plate and Paul from Carl Crawford Cards for contributing cards to this set

12/30 eBay Scores?

Tonight, I purchased two cards on eBay. Not often will I post eBay purchases, but these were both compulsive and dirt cheap. I think it all stems to my desire just to get mail, really. Since I never really got mail until college, and at that point all the mail pretty much said was "PAY US FOR PAYING YOUR TUITION" so...positive things in the mail are just a necessity for me.

Card #1 - Want List Checkmark:

2007 Fleer Ultra Lucky 13 Kei Igawa.








What an awful player. Yankees have the tendency to spend money where they don't need to and Igawa is no exception. According to Cot's, his contract is as follows:

"Kei Igawa lhp
5 years/$20M (2007-11)

• 5 years/$20M (2007-11)
  
• posted by Hanshin Tigers of Japanese League 11/06
• Yankees bid $26,000,194 for negotiating rights with Igawa 11/06
  
• signed by Yankees 12/06
• 07:$4M, 08:$4M, 09:$4M, 10:$4M, 11:$4M
• performance bonuses: $0.125M each for 180, 190, 200 & 210 IP
• sent outright to AAA by Yankees 7/26/08
  
• agent: Arn Tellum
  
• ML service: 0.104"

Cashman paid $20,000,000 for .104 years of Major League Service. I paid $.21. That's it. Free shipping. as you can tell from the photo, the seller just wanted this thing gone. Didn't even bother capitalizing Igawa's name.

Card #2 - New Want List Checkmark:

2000 Skybox Skylines #6 of 10 Mike Piazza.


These cards are just awesome. Backdrops of the cities the (ten) players played in in 2000 in a very eye-catching but not tacky foil (in team colours). Hats off to Skybox, next to Fleer Ultra, I miss them most of all after the Topps/Upper Deck uprising and buying.

As you can see, this one went for $1.25 for free shipping. Unfortunately, there are 10 cards in this set (of which I only have two), so fitting them into one 9-slot card sheet won't happen. Thinking of aligning them all in a horizontal row 1-10, or finding an American map and slapping them on their respective cities...unfortunately two cards, Mike Piazza and Derek Jeter, would be nearly on top of each other. I would hate to disgrace Piazza by putting him on Long Island...

Plain Beautiful Cards: Volume 1 - 2007 Fleer Ultra #115

Within this space I am going to debut a new string post, honoring cards in which everything works: design, player pose, photograph (player and background) and overall composition. Our debut card is one of my favorites of all time, from one of my favorite sets: 2007 Fleer Ultra Jose Reyes. I don't know what it is about Reyes, but expect to see him back here often. Maybe it's the excitement he brings to the game that always makes the photographers ready. In this case, however, Reyes is stoic and proud, though it seems by his gaze that the ball may very well be behind him.

What makes this card is A) Horizontality (always a plus) and B) Background. What a great background shot. The card appears to be shot at an angle upward from the camera, and the dark background provides nice (a white home jersey would be perfect) contrast.