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.

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...