Trade with Gavin (Baseball Card Breakdown)

I'm finally back from an exhausting vacation and have lots of cards to show off. I'll start of with a trade I did with fellow blogger Gavin of Baseball Card Breakdown (http://baseballcardbreakdown.blogspot.com/). Go check out his blog, it's a really good read. Now for the goodies.

Here we have some set needs from my 2017 Archives and 2017 Bunt blue parallel set builds.



Here are a bunch of 1992 Classic Best cards of Braves minor league affiliates. These are sharp looking cards as I like the clean and simple design. Mike Kelly and Jason Schmidt are the only guys that I know of that ended up playing for the Braves for a decent amount of time.



Here are a bunch of random Braves cards. I actually don't think I had any of these which surprised me since they are all base cards except that Davidson insert which Gavin probably had left over from all of his Prizm Draft Picks boxes. He also had an extra Gavin he sent me from his guys named Gavin PC.



Here are some cards of guys that I collect. I'm guessing the Schimpfs are dupes from Gavin's Padres cards.



Here's a 4-card 2007 Upper Deck Future Stars lot. The Frenchy red is numbered /199.



Now we have a bunch of shiny cards including a cool looking see-through/acetate Heyward. The Bowman Freeman refractor is /499. You can't really tell that it's a refractor from the picture, but it is.



Love these oddballs. I'm pretty sure from my research that the Murphy is a 1987 Baseball Cards Magazine card, but I'm not quire sure on that.  If anyone knows please let me know in the comments.



Now for my favorite part of the package, the customs. I really love these, especially the ones that are all beat up. It really gives them that old feel. From reading his blog, it looked like Gavin made great customs, but they look even better in person.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for the trade Gavin. Sorry for the long delay in posts. It was a long vacation, but I am glad to be back. Also, I'm trading to get my blog roll going, but I'm very short on blogs that I know. If you are a blogger, please leave your blog name and a URL to your blog in the comments, so I can get it on there. Also, Julie Owens please leave your email in the comments since you won the giveaway on my first post. Thanks again Gavin, and have a great one!

Recent Pick-Ups #1: Parallels, Parallels, and More Parallels

Here's just some recent pick-ups for the player collections. All of these are from trades on SCF (sports card forums).

Here's some 2017 foil parallels. I'm never a big fan of the foil parallels, but they're better than the color parallels this year. You'll see why below. There's some braves guys I collect, a Jacoby Jones for the LSU collection, and a Ryan Madson for that PC.

Topps really needs to bring back borders. The shard look they have this year just looks awful. The golds are number out of 2017. These are all Braves guys except for Schimpf who is an LSU boy.

Here's some more scare parallels. The Wisler in the upper left is the black numbered out of 66. That's the negative parallel of Wisler in the upper left. The bottom left is the vintage stock parallel of Rich Hill which is limited to 99 copies. I don't know if the Nola is considered a parallel, but I'm going to consider it one because it is chrome and the other 87's aren't.

Alright, that's it for this post. Thanks for stopping by, and have a nice day (or night).

TTM Recap #1 - Current Pitcher and 2 HOF'ers

I don't normally do a lot of TTM, but I like to do some every once in a while. In fact, I think I may start to do a bit more of it. These all came back in the last 2 days, coming back in around 10 days.

First, we have some autographs from pat Neshek. I heard that he was a good signer (maybe even the best), so I sent to him, and it came back quickly. 

These cards surprised me when they came back this fast. These are the first HOF'ers I have gotten back TTM, so I'm very happy to have these. The blue signature really pops on that 2016 archives Brooks Robinson and on the 2001 Topps American Pie Phil Niekro (acquired via Dimebox Nick).

Thanks for stopping by, and have a nice day!

A Sucker for the Player Collection

I stopped by my local Target once again to check if they had any 2017 Archives. They didn't, so that probably means that they won't be getting any this year. Bummer. I did end up getting some stuff because how can I be around all these cards and not get some? This one is about the National League Team set that I got. Now, the only reason I got it is for the Freddie Freeman, and even that card isn't really exciting because the pictures used are the same ones used in flagship Topps. But, what can I say? You just have to have it for the player collection, especially since Freeman is the main player collection that I focus on.

Well, there it is. Nothing special. The only difference between this and the series 1 is that the series 1 is horizontal, and this is vertical, but it is the same picture. The card number is NL-2.

The rest of the checklist includes:

Kris Bryant

Anthony Rizzo

Yadier Molina

Madison Bumgarner

Nolan Arenado

Jake Arrieta

Jon Lester

Max Scherzer

Bryce Harper

Daniel Murphy

Yoenis Cespedes

Noah Syndergaard

Clayton Kershaw

Giancarlo Stanton

Corey Seager

Paul Goldschmidt

All of the above are available for trade except for Rizzo, Bumgarner, Arenado, Arrieta, and Stanton.

Have a nice day.

Trade with Dimebox Nick

Let me start by saying that if you haven't checked out Nick's blog, please go check it out; it is a really good read. You can find it at baseballdimebox.blogspot.com. He included lots great cards, and I needed most of them.

 

Some nice set needs here. Back when Topps had borders the parallels looked good; no we just have pointy colored shards stabbing players. Some nice 2017 bunt needs and some 2017 archives needs as well. I love how the horizontals look on the '92 Topps design, and I love the player selection Topps does for Archives.

 




Here are the Braves Nick sent my way. The '63 Topps Hendley is a really nice card, and I like the Spahn Old Judge a lot as well. I also really like the '59 Bazookas from this year's Archives too. I also forgot how much I like Allen & Ginter minis, and the Smoltz and Glavine Upper Deck Fun Pack (I think that's what they are) cards are fun.

Oddballs! The '75 Topps Minis are nice, and I really love the TCMA cards. Nick also sent some nice minor league cards as well. I knew who Otis Nixon was, and I had heard of Kevin Jepsen before, but I wasn't sure if he was any good and/or still in the Majors. Otis Nixon spent 17 years in the bigs and spent some time on my Braves including being on the '91 worst to first Braves. Jepsen spent 9 years in the bigs, and Maier spent 6 years in the majors. Jose Laboy never made it over A ball, but nonetheless, a nice cards.

Food oddballs including a nice Bob Knepper Kellog's, some nice Nolans, a Pepsi Canseco, and a Coke Luzinski on '81 Topps which I really like.

Some more nice oddballs. That Deion Sanders is a foldout, and the Juan Gonzalez is a Toys R' Us. I think the gem of all of the oddballs is the team card on the left. It's a 1995 Phil Rizzuto's National Pastime card. It's a chrome and it is of the 1892 New York Giants. It's just an all-around great card.

A bunch of fleer oddballs. I think I am going start collecting knuckleballers just because of how I love how random the pitch's break is. It can go left or right, it can drop, you just don't know.

 

 

A bunch of old players on new cards. I wish Panini would bring back the Cooperstown sets. My favorite cards of these are the Fleer Sports Illustraded Greats of the Game. Stadium Club is always great photography, and all of the other cards are great too. 

Overall, that was a great trade. Once again, go check out Nick's blog, and thanks again Nick!

2016 Archives Blaster Break

I stopped by my local target to try and pick up a blaster of 2017 archives, but they didn't have any. I didn't plan on buying anything after I saw they didn't have 2017 archives, but I took a look in the discount bin which never has baseball. It always either hockey or racing which I don't collect at all. Low and behold, when I saw the 2016 archives blaster discounted for $12.99, I just had to buy it. So, here is the recap.

First off, let me start by saying that the card stock from last year's archives is much cheaper and thinner than this year's, so good job by Topps for fixing that.

Base Cards

Overall, the base cards are good. I think my favorite of the three designs is the '91's. I just like the crispness and simplicity of the design, and I like team color borders. Above are the better base cards, I guess is what you would say. I also got: Aroldis Chapman, Justin Upton, Craig Kimbrel, Jorge Soler, Byron Buxton, Evan Gattis, Danny Salazar, Cole Hamels, Hisashi Iwakuma, Billy Butler, Brian Dozier, Hector Rondon, Yu Darvish, Russell Martin, Salvador Perez, Jonathan Lucroy, David Peralta, Adam Wainwright, Jay Bruce, Kendrys Morales, Chris Davis, Rougned Odor, Hunter Pence, Yasiel Puig, and Gio Gonzalez. These are all available for trade.

Inserts

I think the insert sets are OK. I really like the Topps supers (Machado and Lindor). I'm definitely going to be keeping those two because I like oddballs and I also like the type of recent inserts that are either modeled after previous oddball sets or the inserts sets that just have that retro feel. The Father-Son and 1st Pick inserts are OK, but they didn't really have players I like, so both of those are for trade if anyone wants them. The Bull Durham insert is also for trade.

Mini Collection Cards

This is the real draw to archives for me. I love how it isn't just HOFers either. For example, people such as John Franco, Bucky Dent, Bret Boone, Doc Gooden, and Jim Abbot. I also like how Topps decided to put Babe Ruth on the Red Sox.

I did get one numbered card in the box. This Satchel Paige blue is numbered /199. I'm glad its a past player instead of a present one. Though, I still think the highlight of the box is the mini collection past players on present cards.

My First Post

My First Post

This post is about what I collect and what this blog will be about.

Main Guys I Collect

Above are cards of the main guys that I collect. These aren't the only guys that I collect; I collect pretty much any braves guys. These are just base cards because I don't want to give away any surprises too soon!

Mini Collections

I also like to collect oddballs (I don't know the true definition of oddball if there even is one, but I just like to collect what looks weird or quirky to me). Here are some examples of what I call an oddball above. Feel free to ask what set they are from in the comments section.

My two newer mini collections are set building and players from the past on present cards. Above are a few past players on present cards. As far as set building goes, I am trying to set build 2017 bunt, 2017 bunt blue parallels, 2017 bunt insert sets (the more common ones), 2017 archives, and 2015 topps gold. I don't have much for any of those.

Giveaway

I'm new at this, so please have patience with me as I do not know how a lot of this blogging stuff works. I'm just doing this for fun, and to show people who it may interest, my collecting journey. The person that first comments on my first post ever will receive a card of their favorite team via PWE. If you are the first commenter, please leave your email address so I can email you and you can send me your address and favorite team, if you prefer to put your address and favorite team in the comments that is fine, or if there is a different way to do it please let me know.