Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Duck Dynasty Musings

Normally I don't get into reality TV but this show has me laughing every time. Just got into it after the headlines; wanted to see what the fuss was all about. This is my favorite clip so far....



2013 Finest Andrew Luck # 60

This card is of a player that's pretty hot right now. Luck has taken his team to the playoffs and that's pretty impressive for a second year QB. None of the rookie quarterbacks are doing nearly as well as Luck. Card companies smartly put his veteran autograph in many products like finest to help bolster the weak rookie class this year. Even this base card has been known to sell for a dollar or two on Ebay. I'd say this and Peyton Manning are the hottest base cards in the set. Luck's rookie numbers are pretty close to what Manning's were in 1998 and that's eerie considering their careers will be forever linked.

Last card of the year!


Monday, December 30, 2013

2013 Finest BenJarvus Green-Ellis

Today's addition is my first "Law Firm" card. Since the Bengals handily knocked off the Ravens yesterday I'd have to say we're going to see a brief spike in Dalton, Green-Ellis and Giovani Bernard cards unless they do the unspeakable and go really far in the playoffs. Due to past performances I'd say this is not likely but I'm hoping it will. I've got an Andy Dalton Elite RC Auto that I'm selling on Ebay and I could end up making money on that card. My strategy for selling cards is simple. I start out by asking the highest amount that the card has ever actually sold for in the last 60 days. Each time the auction ends unsold I will lower the price very slightly until it ends up selling. This may be a slow way to sell cards but I'm always happy when they do sell. This means I got the maximum possible value for the card and the card has time to sit on the market for a while. While this can backfire (injuries, suspensions and the like) 9 times out of 10 the card sells for more than if I had listed it for 99 cents and just let bidders decide what it goes for. Exceptions to the rule would be if the player is super hot (see Kaepernick in the playoffs last year and Foles in the middle of the season this year). At that point it's best to set it at 99 cents and let it go because you WILL see a good profit on the card. And you don't want to risk poor performance or injury in a week or two. A good example was when I sold my Case Keenum SP Authentic AU RC for 29 dollars when I purchased it last year for 6.00. The bottom dropped out a couple weeks later when he got benched. So it's a bit of luck and some planning needed on your part but Ebay can be fun and profitable for collectors and investors alike!


Sunday, December 29, 2013

2013 Finest Chris Johnson # 57

Here's the next card in my growing 2013 Topps Finest set! This card is # 57 in the set so I'm about a third of the way through my base cards.

On a side noteI usually am a Panini basher just like Adam Gellman of Sportscards Uncensored but I gotta say their new Hoops Basketball game on Facebook is really cool and revolutionary. You purchase "Packs" from the store and are able to fill up your album with their basketball set. What's really cool is you can examine these cards closely front and back. They correspond to the real Hoops set which is beyond awesome. You can even get jersey and autograph cards from the better packs. It's similar to the idea introduced on the Madden franchise. You then have a ""pack war" element which I've never been into in real life but I can see how it might be cool. Anyway, you gotta check it out if you get the chance!


Saturday, December 28, 2013

Today's card is one I pulled about a year ago, box hit appears to be nearly worthless.

The card I pulled last December and am finally adding to my stash illustrates the dangers of breaking a box on your own. This was the main box hit. If you look on Ebay right now you will see 15 of these for sale, some of them with a buy-it-now of 5.99. For a 100 dollar plus box that isn't very good at all. That being said, there were not too many patch autos that you can pull to save the box value. The only ones that come to mind is Lesean McCoy and Matthew Stafford. Even the Mike Wallace and the Knowshown Moreno would only fetch 20-30 dollars on the secondary market. Same thing with Mark Sanchez since he's not the starter in New York any more. Sanchez was one of those players I never understood the attraction of collectors seeing as he never really showed much to me the whole time he played. Guess it's just the blind collectors assigning value to starting quarterbacks in the NFL regardless of the chance of them being a long term solution to a bad team (see Matt McGloin).

This particular pic I grabbed off of Ebay but my specific serial number is 384/999 and at least is a multicolored name patch nearly identical to this one.


Friday, December 27, 2013

Football Challenge Card (2002 Pacific Heads Up Josh Reed # 133)

Today's card comes from Ebay. I offered less than the initial price because this is not going to be a high-demand card any more since it's in the "ten year old or more" dead zone of cards. This one is machine numbered to 1090 copies using the old "dot matrix" printer style of stamping. As you can see from the photo it has a foil finish and features the Bills wide receiver in his LSU threads. The back of the card erroneously compares this rookie to Jerry Rice, of course hindsight is always 20/20 but that's a bold statement. Apparently Reed was a pretty darn good college player though as he got the Biletnikoff Award in 2001 (awarded to the nation's top College WR) but it just didn't pan out in the NFL. I snagged this one for about 3.00 including shipping.

The next card on my challenge list (the card ending soonest on Ebay once this card was in hand) is a base card from 2011, more specifically 2011 Panini Threads # 8 Roddy White. This card might be better to try to track down at the local card shop because shipping will be more than the card is worth. I'll see if I can track it down this weekend. Until tomorrow, good luck on your personal football card quests!




Thursday, December 26, 2013

Next card is a 2013 Elite "Hard Hats" Alex Okafor card

These acetate rookie cards "step outside the box" and I really like the way these look in person. The autographed versions are even better. The Cardinals have been doing surprisingly well this season despite the fact that this is one of the 4 rookies they lost this year due to injuries. I scoffed at their choice of grabbing Carson Palmer but it looks like I was wrong. I don't know how well they will do in the playoffs but they have a chance to knock off another NFC team in the playoffs; I don't think anyone wants to play them right now during this hot streak they've been having.

This card is from 2013 Elite and I pulled it at the beginning of the football season, just now adding it to my collection! Looks like the next major football release will be Panini Contenders on 1/3. I can't wait to see how those turn out!


Wednesday, December 25, 2013

A Clinton Portis card for the PC from a box break!

Here's a Portis for my collection bringing me up to 117 unique cards. In 2009 Sp Authentic there are several multiplayer cards, I believe there is one more with Campbell, Portis and Santana Moss. There are also the gold versions numbered to 25 as well as an autographed "Sign of the Times" card from this set. it really is too bad UD lost their license because 2009 cards looked really awesome. I have to say the college cards look pretty decent. UD Ultimate looks great this year and so did Spx. I still do like pro uniforms much better as I'm an NFL fan, not a college football fan.

Merry Christmas everyone!


Tuesday, December 24, 2013

2013 Finest Philip Rivers # 55

Based on the fact that you get 2-3 card gaps in this 150 card set after opening 2 boxes it would appear you need to open three full boxes or so to get the complete set of the 100 vets and 50 rookies. I'm excited because being a set collector and loving the SPX brand (even though they have to use players in college uniforms now) I found a full 50 card set of 2013 Spx at my local dealer that I picked up while grabbing supplies. That will be fun to add to my collection as currently the only 2013 Spx card that I have is the Teo card that's featured at the beginning of my blog.

This is only my 4th Rivers card. Looking at my collection I see that I have not really focused on veterans, most of my cards are rookies and autographs. We know that sometimes these cards hit it big like my 2000 Spx Brian Urlacher but most of them don't. I'd love to see a new football set comprised of all Hall of Famers like a recent baseball release had the guts to do. As long as the company had the proper licensing I think it would be a smash hit.


Monday, December 23, 2013

2013 Finest Alfred Morris

Here's today's add of "The Butler". Too bad the Redskins have done so poorly this year, it has really caused the value of two of the hobby's darlings of last year, RGIII and this 6th round surprise. These chromium base cards are a testament to Topps's superior design skills. When I watch some of the box breaks that are coming out of products like "Prestige" (really one of the most poorly designed brands every year, wish this set would just die) and "Absolute" as in Absolute Horseshit cards it makes me that much more grateful for this brand. I was watching a segment on ESPN called "Mint Condition" where "Adam" from Dave and Adam's Card World was discussing the market today. Seems that Topps Finest was the brand of the year and that really seems correct. When you see the product and hold it in your hands it's really the best thing I've seen in a while. The colored refractors, the veteran content and even the base set is probably the best I've seen  this year.

Since I subscribe to Sport's Collector's Daily on Facebook I see many posts about older cards which gives me an appreciation for how cool it is to open packs, especially older packs. Nothing better than to pull old timey hall of famers on just regular cardboard, the way it used to be. Sure you're going to pay a bunch for some boxes like stuff from the 1970s, but the junk wax boxes of the 1990's can be just as fun. Have you ever opened a box of 1991 Pacific? I did last night and it's odd how they were packaged almost like Klondike Bars, no sealing was necessary back in those days because there were no inserts and no "Pack Feelers". Today they have to seal packs, put in dummy cards and it's honestly not even safe to buy boxes from anyone but trusted dealers because who knows if the case hit was already pulled and then you're stuck buying a box with no chance for that huge lifetime hit.

My "pull box" is extremely full but by the time it's empty I'll probably be able to buy a really cool box from 2012, I'm thinking Exquisite or Topps Five Star might be really awesome to do.


Saturday, December 21, 2013

Adding daily, here's today's card with a bit of a rant

Today's card is 2013 Topps Finest # 48 Andy Dalton. Dalton's one of those star quarterbacks who I could see being considered one of the game's elite in a couple of years. If you had to choose a few players that are going to take the mantle from the likes of Peyton Manning and Tom Brady you might look at this guy who's more of a traditional passer and not as likely to get injured like the running QB's tend to do (see Robert Griffin III) and also has a good receiving corps around him. So I'm enjoying today's add. It's kind of hard not to go out and bust some more wax right now but this method of adding daily from previous breaks is really the way to keep the addiction down to a minimum. I've also been in the habit of adding cards to the stash that I've tried to sell on eBay; my rule is if I can't sell it for .99 cents than I'd just as soon add it to the collection. Ebay tends to be somewhat of a garage sale with rock bottom prices happening daily on cards. While it's great as a buyer, it's not so great as a seller and if I'm not going to get at least a dollar plus shipping out of it, if it's not a double I'm going to just add it to my own collection.

On Beckett I've heard of people throwing away base cards and I'm stunned. Why would you pay good money for packs and not appreciate every card you got? That's just crazy to me. At least donate them to a children's hospital! No wonder people hate Americans.

Sunday, December 15, 2013

My 5th Marshawn Lynch card, this one out of 2013 finest

The base cards out of 2013 finest are going to take the bulk of my posts over the next few months. Just adding one per day probably cuts back on the very expensive habit of busting boxes. That being said, box busts are really the most fun you can have in the hobby, it brings the element of surprise and the chase back into the game. I wouldn't have gotten my 1/1 pull this year (although it was not a very expensive card, still cool to find) and wouldn't have gotten my pack pulled autographs of Montee Ball and Knowshon Moreno either. Always much more fun to get personal PC items right from packs. I was really happy about my Portis SP Authentic finally coming back home to roost for probably nothing as well as that sweet hall of famer jersey card from one of the original charter members of 1963 even if it was a little damaged.

Using the Beckett Search function I was able to see that I had 5 Lynch cards in my collection including a rookie, a few base cards and a triple autograph from 2008 Spx.



2013 Topps Finest #32 Marshawn Lynch


Saturday, December 14, 2013

Slinging Sammy Baugh and a very important Portis card

Here are this week's  notable pickups. First we got a Sammy Baugh "Majestic" Jersey card. Now, normally I wouldn't go all bonkers over a jersey card but this one has a jersey that could be at the youngest 61 years old because Baugh's last season was in 1952. That's pretty damn cool if you ask me. Initially I had bought this as resell card because I got it for very cheap a year or two ago. The card has some creasing on it and due to some recent bad experiences on Ebay where the buyer didn't read my description I've decided it's better not to sell damaged cards. Unfortunately people are idiots and even when you state in the description and take several closeups of the damage, it's still not enough.

So I'm keeping that one and it's still a great card. People get so caught up in condition but this isn't really something I'm a stickler on. I'd like to have the card look great but if there's a few flaws, so be it! If you look at really old cards, they have all kinds of round corners, bends and things like that.

The next card is a recapture of the SP Authentic card I had sold off a few years ago as I needed some extra cash and never repurchased. The original time I bought it (back in 2002) I remember paying 80 dollars for it. Now I got this one in a lot along with a Portis Contenders autograph AND a Finest Autograph for 30.00. Can't beat that anywhere. Now I have an extra contenders and a finest auto that I can sell off and probably end up getting this one for free. You gotta love wheeling and dealing on Ebay because great deals can be had that you'll never find at your local card shop. If I had to guess, these cards would have set me back over 100 dollars or more if I bought these from a dealer. Anyway, I'm stoked.

The final card I added was a Colin Kaepernick Topps Finest Refractor from this year. First card in my personal collection from the Kap although I had an autographed Inception card that I made a nice profit on last year when he went insane in the playoffs!


Sunday, December 8, 2013

Time to get back to the "challenge" of the Football Challenge

While I like opening packs the idea of the football challenge was much more fun. Looking at eBay and finding the first card for sale, then trying to get that card at the best price is more fun to me than breaking a box and finding cards that aren't even worth 25% of the box price. So the next card I'll be hunting for is this one! 2002 Pacific Heads Up Josh Reed. Josh Reed was a rookie WR for the Bills that didn't have much impact. I doubt even the best of his 1/1's would top 100 dollars. The highest one went for an undisclosed price (a best offer that started at 29.99) of a press-pass jersey card numbered 1/25 two color. Not many of his cards have even eclipsed 10.00. So I'll be on the hunt for this and let you guys know when I win it!

Believe it or not, my first Cam Newton card

I input this card into my collection today and honestly wondered how in the world someone who collects all kinds of football cards could not have this player in their collection. I've been collecting a long time and have focused much of my attention to the older Spx football cards, I've got a whole set of 1999, 2000 and 2008 Spx cards. Since I used to be mainly a set builder (and still am at heart) I guess see how this might happen. Still a bit surprised though. Anyway, here's 2013 Topps Finest # 25 Cam Newton:


Saturday, December 7, 2013

Today's card is a 2013 Finest Joseph Randle RC Autograph

Here's a nice patch card that I pulled from one of my boxes this year. It features a mostly blue patch from his jersey. Based on his output (just over 100 yards and 1 TD) you couldn't call him a star yet. DeMarco Murray's health issues make him a good insurance policy and he did have a monster career in college. Here's hoping he's the next Marion Barber and not the next Felix Jones. These patch cards are the nicest insert from the product, my favorites are the blue version numbered to 99 though as you get some really nice color contrasts with that color of parallel.

Friday, December 6, 2013

Troy.... I can't even spell this dude's last name

Here's today's "pickup". Actually I have a ton of cards that I'm just saving up from various box breaks I did this year, and I did a ton more this year than I ever have. I'm sort of going in order here on the 2013 finest. Out of two boxes I did not even pick up a base set which puts these boxes as somewhere between a "hits" based" and a "set" based product. The fact that the base set is 150 cards deep is somewhat surprising although 50 of these are base rookies (no auto, no jersey). Now, if the base card set was 490 cards deep that would be pretty crazy as this was the norm in the early nineties when I started collecting football cards in earnest.

Monday, December 2, 2013

Card of the Day! 2013 Finest Football Percy Harvin # 18

Here's my newest addition to the collection. The 2013 Finest set has similar problems that Topps Chrome of yesteryear had with "bowing". The card does not stay flat, probably has something to do with the manufacturing process. It's still a cool set and the two boxes I broke yielded most of the 150 card base set. Here's the card!

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Last two Portis cards are autographs

Got two more Portis cards, the Leaf Rookies and Stars which Beckett lists as 150 copies but doesn't seem to be numbered. I also added  a Sage Hit Rarified Gold Auto card which is numbered to 100 copies.
I got all of these in a cheap lot on Ebay and ended up selling one of the doubles that I had for a pretty good price. It really does pay to buy in lots if you can afford to wait while you sell off whatever you don't want. I did get a box of Bowman Sterling at the local card shop. I'll be selling off all of the cards that were not Broncos. I was thinking of doing a box break and selling spots but it seemed like too much could go wrong with this. One of the better cards out of the box (a Montee Ball RC auto) was a Bronco and I could see people calling "Shenannigans" on me and claiming I knew the contents of the box before it was broken. I may try a box break dividing up into Divisions so I don't have to worry about what happens to those who don't pull anything. In this box Broncos, Cardinals and Jags all came up pretty big getting most of the hits. The cards are really really sweet but the secondary market doesn't seem to be keeping up with the box prices at all. Here's one of the cards I pulled that's been put on EBay.

Saturday, November 16, 2013

The newest Portis card joins the fold

I'm still adding one card a day from last week's purchases. I added various serial numbered cards last week, had not posted in a while. Here's an example of today's card although my actual version is the "Sepia" version numbered to 499 copies, not this version which is numbered to a scant 25. That being said, a serial numbered card even to 25 is not considered that rare anymore which is pretty crazy, but the fact that there are so many versions out there it's understandable. I can see why player collectors go crazy for them because each addition gets more and more difficult the more cards you add to your collection. Right now I'm having an easy time adding cards to this Portis collection because I only have 109 cards which is not even one percent of what has been produced. On a side note I'm now part of the box breaking group on CardsInfinity, a well-known guy in the business who operates out of Wilmington, North Carolina. I'm looking forward to my first case break very soon. I'll post the results on my blog for all of you guys!
The card I got....

The card I wished I got.... still on the hunt!


Sunday, November 10, 2013

The next Portis card in my collection

I have a feeling that card 200 will come up pretty fast. An interesting way to collect might be to go through the Beckett list and just try to find and win the next card on the list? Might be a good way to save up money for the really hard ones. I looked at the next card and it will be the UD Superstars Cam Esslinger (Rockies Pitcher) and Clinton Portis Gold numbered to 250 copies. Shouldn't be too hard.... should it?

Today's entry is brought to you by Mike's Stadium Sports cards. Went to see them yesterday and got 10 different Portis cards I needed for my collection, cleared out everything they had. This one is numbered to 250 copies and is #123 in the set, it's the Red Parallel.

2009 Certified Red #123 196/250 Copies.

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Another Portis card, plus cleared out my local card shop outta Portis cards

This one's the next entry in my Portis collection. Very similar to the Upper Deck version but has a different card number and the Upper Deck logo is printed in color instead of silver foil. The back is exactly the same. Why would they do this? Seems kind of silly but got both versions in my collection bringing the count up to 102 cards. I have a feeling that I'm going to hit 200 unique cards very quickly. The cards I got from the local shop were mostly base but there were a few rare versions numbered to 250 or less, one card was numbered to 99. No autographs or jersey cards which is probably a good thing because those types of cards are much better to get on Ebay. Base cards are often better to get at a local shop because you're not paying for shipping. On a side note I saw a beautiful 1997 Upper Deck Jersey card (three colors no less) of John Elway. This insert set is still insanely popular and the cards are next to impossible to get. I didn't realize it but there were actually 10 jersey cards in that set, I mistakenly remembered there only being 3 of them. Terrell Davis is in this set, might have to pick that one up if possible!

First Edition looks nearly the same as the Upper Deck version.

Friday, November 8, 2013

101st Clinton Portis Card

So it's not my "White Whale", (a term collectors use to describe a card that eludes them, much like Moby Dick eluded Captain Ahab in said tale.) but it will do! Might make a trip on over to Mike's Stadium Sports cards tomorrow to see what cards he's got hiding over there. Mike has tons of cards in the display case but he's got tons of base cards and singles in boxes that would take hours to sort through. That and a big screen TV makes it a great place to hang out for any sports fan.

This card is from 2009 and is card # 164, from Upper Deck First Edition.


On another note, I know not many people in this world are die-hard metal fans, but for those of you who get it, I highly recommend Devildriver's 6th studio album "Winter Kills". This is a great soundtrack for getting drunk and popping someone in the mouth about a thousand times. Or making sweet love to the woman of your dreams. Either one.

Thursday, November 7, 2013

The Century Mark has been Hit! 100th Portis card in my collection!

Yep, it's just a base card. But the 100th unique card is pretty special in any player collection. This means you've really put some dedication into it, or you bought a shoe box full of their cards online. While that can happen originally I set out to get only autograph or jersey cards. With many of his autographs being less than 10 dollars apiece right now this player is much more affordable than when I first started out in 2002. His first card that I got was a 2002 Topps Rc card, the staple of any collection. I have not seen any Portis cards produced in 2013 and only 2 cards produced in 2012 so the tide has stemmed so to speak so it's time to get my hands on the other 3,095 cards that have been made so far. The 1/1s will be very difficult and of course I won't worry about the ones that are out of reach due to unrealistic seller expectations on Ebay. Seems like you see the same 1/1's listed at outrageous prices for months on end and you have to wonder what's going through the seller's mind by doing this.

Anyway card 100; 2010 Score Clinton Portis #295....


Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Another Day, another Portis. This is getting fun!

Here's the 99th unique Portis card in my collection. Tomorrow will be magical as I'll hit 100! I really forgot how much fun it is to work on a player collection. You see so many variations of the same card with different numbering, photos, a different color, a chrome finish or jersey swatch size. It's kind of cool to see how the card companies create 15-20 different variations of the same card. I'm sure this is done because player collections are much more common than the set collections. I enjoy putting together the base set for some brands. I did it for 1999 Spx (this set took me years to complete), the 2000 Spx set and the 2008 Spx set. All of those brands have tons of other types of cards in them such as the "spectrum" parallels, various jersey card sets and the like. Player collections allow you to get rare cards that would be extremely difficult to put together as a set. I don't know how you'd even put together a set of cards that was numbered to 25 unless you started hard and fast right when the product came out.

99th Portis card...

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

The newest Addition to my Portis Collection

This here is the 97th unique Portis card I have in my collection. Just added this one today, got myself a large lot of Portis cards too keep this rolling. Back in the day I had the SP Authentic Gold RC Jersey numbered to 25 copies. I purchased this back in his second year when his cards were through the roof. If I ever find this again I will definitely be making a run for it. This is just a base card but for a player collection it will do just fine...

Monday, November 4, 2013

Another Topps Finest football addition, but from a different decade

Here's the key card I would imagine to the whole 2002 Topps Finest Football set. I don't typically like college jerseys on a pro football card but the fact that these are hard-signed and there is so much white area in the card helping the signature to really stand out makes a huge difference. People complain about the weak draft class this year but take a look at 2002 and you'll see a huge dearth of talent in that draft class. This was the class that featured Joey Harrington, Patrick Ramsey, David Carr and a bunch of other who's who in the draft bust rotisserie. Portis might have been the biggest star I can think of in this class although Julius Peppers still comes to mind, a great defensive player that's still making an impact with the Chicago Bears.

I got a few other Portis autographed cards in this bulk lot and they will be featured soon. Enjoy!

Sunday, November 3, 2013

2013 Finest, my vote for brand of the year!

Here's my card for the day, a 2013 Topps Finest Joe Flacco #1. Unfortunately the Ravens have really fallen off this year but we all knew they couldn't lose Ed Reed, Ray Lewis, Anquan Boldin and Paul Kreuger and be any damn good. We knew it. Even with the bullshit coachspeak coming out of the front office saying they'd be fine, that they would be even better this year. I guess they can't ever just tell the truth. Anyways, not a big card day today obviously but I got some sweet Clinton Portis autographs on the way...


Saturday, November 2, 2013

Why not start off the month with a couple of Topps Finest cards!

Yesterday's card was a 2012 Finest Gold Refractor numbered to 50 of Cyrus Gray of the Kansas City Chiefs. Today's is even better. You can't get much hotter than Peyton Manning right now and I could probably even sell this at the local card store since we're in Denver and all of his cards are selling well right now. I never imagined when we signed him that he would be this successful. Manning's playing out of his mind right now and I bet we're going to go deep into the playoffs with the team we have. 

This card is one of the many many versions of refractors. There are two unnumbered versions of refractors, regular and this X-fractor version which has a distinct pattern to it. You also have the gold, blue, red and my favorite, the cammo refractors numbered to 10. I was lucky enough to pull a Vernon Davis, this will be shown and posted soon. The Broncos are on a bye week so I'll probably be watching some other games this week. Redskins and Vikings is probably the one I'm going to tune into for sure. I really enjoyed the Bengals and Dolphins, it was a much more exciting game than most people would have thought and ended in a surprising fashion.


Any Manning cards are great but rare parallels are even better!

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Another Day, another Jaguar!

This card is a 2013 Prominence base card. That being said, it's a very very thick base card like on the level of Exquisite Football. By the looks of the sell sheet this is due to the fact that you get 5 cards for about 119.00 (although Blowout cards is selling these for 78.00) so yes, I would expect a very nice base card if it comprised 20% of what I was breaking. Overall I'd say the design here is nice and clean, very good Photoshop work. The back of the card is nice as well using a very transparent version of the front image in black and white which I think always looks classy. You find out from the stats on the back of this card that MJD had a crap year in 2012 but every fantasy owner knows that. I don't think I'd ever break a box of these but it was nice getting this card for free!


Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Sweet card for today even though it's a lowly Jaguar.

This one's pretty cool. While this rookie probably won't play a down I was stoked to get this rare Emerald copy of tight end Ryan Otten. I always really like the certified emerald cards over the years. These rare cards only come from hot boxes which is kind of an interesting concept. Imagine breaking a box and finding out that all your cards are much rarer than average! That's what you get with this 2013 product. I got this card for about the same price as my Raiders team break from this product and this was a way better "pull" than what I got from the two boxes which yielded 0 Raiders cards if you can believe it. The seller was nice enough to send me a couple of base cards though. I like to choose the under-the radar teams for breaks because those unexpected teams are where you an often come up with 1/1's or valuable cards that people don't think of when they visualize what can be broken from the product.

Speaking of lowly I'm now 0-8 in my fantasy league which has never happened in all the ten plus years I've played. I was beaten by half a point this week. The kicker was that if the shitty Rams were able to score a touchdown in all the multitude of chances they were given in the last minute, I would have won. My opponent and I were neck and neck and I had Russel Wilson as my QB and he had Marshawn Lynch and the Seattle Seahawks defense. Marshawn surprisingly did nothing but the Hawks defense came up big when it had to. And I lost for the 8th frustrating week in a row.


Sunday, October 20, 2013

Sick Haul from the last couple weeks and a change of focus perhaps

It's been a little while since I posted my one card a day ramblings. Many of the ones I added to my collection have been base but here are some of the really cool cards I added. The Blaine Gabbert , the Lamicheal James camo refractor and Stephen Hill auto I picked up from the local card shop. The Dobson came from a big lot I purchased last month. All of them are pretty sweet! I've decided to pick back up on my Clinton Portis collection. I used to pay so much for his autographs but these have tapered off quite a bit now that's he's retired. Some of his cards are going for decent money, but his average autographs are selling in the 5-8 dollar range rather than the 25-35 dollar range I used to pay for them. The card I really want the most again is his 2002 SP authentic gold /25. I used to have this card back in the day but had to sell it off. This would be my white whale so to speak. We'll see what happens now if I shift my focus to acquiring his cards again.


Thursday, October 10, 2013

Adrian Peterson cards, always cool, right?

Here's today's card. This is a 2009 Gridiron Gear "Rival" insert card # 7 featuring Greg Jennings and Adrian Peterson. Adrian Peterson cards have always been popular, I don't have too many of them and love adding them to my collection. Probably only have about 10 AP cards even though my collection is pretty vast. Might be time to add an auto of his to my collection before too long. The design for these is kind of blah but I think Panini is getting the message and is starting to put out some really nice looking cards lately.


Monday, October 7, 2013

2008 Masterpieces Rookie card


Here's my card for today. These are honestly pretty underrated and I can't imagine the effort it took to get this set produced. Each card is a reproduction of original artwork and the artists name is on the back. Printed on a canvas stock really helps the looks of these cards as well. The artist featured here is Ken Joudrey and a quick google search revealed his website which you can look at here: http://kenjoudrey.com/

Take a look at the Jim Thorpe artwork if you get a chance, this is really awesome. It looks like he focuses much of his work on hockey players.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Trip to the card shop today and here's my haul.

       Well, this one I'm showing a picture of is technically the silver version which is numbered to 15 copies. I got the gold version which is numbered to 10 copies. Anyone have any idea why they make different VERY similar parallels with nearly identical numbering? I'm guessing it's to make money from all the player collectors who wouldn't be happy unless they had the silver, the gold and the platinum version. With all of these versions together you still have an astonishingly low number of cards in total at 26 cards (Platinum /1, Gold /10 and Silver /15).  I guess that's why they call it "Limited", right? One thing I noticed on this card is he's got pink gear on so this photo must have been taken in October, breast cancer awareness month.

        On that topic, watching some of the games today got me thinking. I don't mind seeing players with pink gear on. That's fine and there's no uniform that these articles don't enhance. For some reason pink with any of the NFL team colors looks pretty bad-ass. Which is weird because we're talking about pink after all which is nor really known for it's bad-assery. The step that goes too far is the pink flags. Most of the time when I was watching the game I didn't immediately notice the flag because it was such a stupid and non-official color. I thought it was a chick's T-shirt that got thrown on the field somehow. Get real NFL. Make the flags yellow so we can see em'.

       Flags in a game are a constant annoyance, slow the game up and change the outcome of the game sometimes on what's obviously a bad call. If you don't think refs make bad calls or non-calls that totally change the outcome of the game then you're not watching close enough. Denver had a non-call help them in a big way in today's Dallas game, had the opposing coaches thrown a challenge flag on the lost fumble they would have won it and the Cowboys might have won it instead. It really was a one possession game most of the day.

In any case I grabbed this one for a reasonable price at the local LCS and put in my collection along the Aaron Hernandez Monikers Gold Autograph that I pulled earlier this year.


Thursday, October 3, 2013

Atomic RC Refractors are SWEET

Love the look of these cards. Ronnie Hillman is getting much more action than us Bronco fans could ever have anticipated this year despite the drafting of Montee Ball this year and the inexplicable resurgence of "No-Show" Moreno. I pulled this one last year and actually ended up getting a duplicate of it in my box so the other one is on Ebay right now. These cards are even nicer in person, hard to describe the rainbowey sheen that Finest Refractors have unless you've held them in your hand.


Tuesday, October 1, 2013

2013 Elite Mark Ingram

Another day, another base card. I got a shoebox full of cards that need to be filed and organized and they just got mixed up so we'll have some more variety to look at tomorrow. Fitting that I should be adding a Saints running back to my collection today since it was a Saints RB that killed my fantasy football game yesterday. With a lackluster performance of my three WRs and a FANTASTIC performance by Darren Sproles on the Monday night game I lost my fourth game in a row. Unheard of but I've got some real problems on my roster. Every player I bench has a breakout game (see Greg Jennings 92 yards and 2 TDs but hadn't done shit the rest of the year). and every player I use performs poorly. In last place with Adrian Peterson on my roster. Just goes to show that having AP doesn't guarantee anything. Really need some other players to come through for me.




Monday, September 30, 2013

Today's Card

Today's card is a 2013 Elite Phillips Rivers #82. I've got Rivers on my fantasy team but never seem to start him when he does well, and vice versa with Russel Wilson who's having a bit of a sophomore slump this year. Such bad luck in fantasy this year that this week might be my first win and it's week 4. That's pretty bad for me. I lost the first week's matchup by half a point so bad luck there.

These are some great cards and I'll keep them coming. Broke a box of Elite earlier in the year and I'm starting to log them all in.


Sunday, September 22, 2013

Comparing Box Breaks to Buying Singles on Ebay

Just how much money can you save by buying singles on Ebay? I did a little experiment this month. I bought a couple of boxes of 2013 Finest Football. At 114 per box you are guaranteed 2 autographs and you will usually get about 10 non base cards whether these are refractors, atomic refractors or even printing plates. While I did get a printing plate of Randall Cobb my best box yielded one decent autograph and one so-so one. So I went on Ebay and went on a buying spree to see just how many good cards I could get for the price of a box. The results were pretty astounding. I got three Aaron Dobson Autographs, (one regular, one red and one blue refractor auto) one Giovani Berndard, one Denrard Robinson, a Jimmy Graham blue auto refractor, a Mike Gillislee, a Marcus Wheaton, a Brent Celek Blue auto refractor, a Keenan Allen Red Refractor, a Montee Ball auto and a Zach Ertz case hit on card auto (/50 copies) along with a DeAndre Hopkins Atomic refractor Rc, a Clay Matthews Red refractor (/50 copies) , an Andre Ellington RC prizm refractor (25 copies) and  a Hakeem Nicks Blue refractor (/99 copies) To sum it up I got 12 autographs and some good inserts for the price of a box. Not getting the top guys like EJ Manuel of Geno Smith is ok when you get this many cards. Part of this is that I bought many of the cards in a bulk lot. You save even more doing this. I'd have to say this is a compelling argument for sticking to eBay when purchasing your cards. When the top guys don't even pay for the cost of the box then it's not worth it to keep busting.

Got all these for 1/4 of a price of a box. Wow.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

2013 Elite Box break with Review

So yah, it's gonna take a while to post all these cards. In a box of 2013 Elite you get 100 cards. I have to say while the Green Rookie autographs look pretty nice I think the base set falls flat. I really don't like the all silver background, foil in general is a bad idea. Very very condition sensitive. With any foilboard card you're going to have this problem. Sure it makes the card shiny, but if you're going to do that, why not use chrome technology? These cards are a bit thin and generally leave much to be desired. Most of the inserts tend to fall flat too. I do like the "Hard Hats" and the acetate autographed rookie cards. I'm going to give this brand a B-.

Here's the first card out of the break! I pulled a stock photo from Ebay, but for any of my cards that are too rare for that I'll snap a photo of it for the site.

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Last card from 2012 Spx Posted today

Here's the last card from 2012 spx that I just added to my collection today. These shadow slot cards, while an interesting addition to the 2012 lineup I felt kind of ran flat. I don't like the idea of accumulating all of these "half cards" in the chase to try to get the outer shell that you can put these in. These cards are super prevalent falling at about 2-3 cards per box. The outer slot cards are very rare. This idea might be good for those that break cases of the product but not so good for the box breakers. I think the idea would have been better if you were guaranteed one slot card per box, then it would not be so bad having 2-3 of these inner cards because you might have a chance to get the outer card. Then again, any of these cards are pretty easy to get on eBay so if you want the outer card just go shopping on the internet! I suppose the idea here was to get a bit of interactivity with some of the cards, people like to customize things so UD figured why not incorporate that into a card set? Personally I'd rather just have a single card that doesn't pull out, doesn't require a bunch of handling and stays mint in the holder, but maybe that's just me.

As a side note I've decided to change my focus on breaking boxes. I think the thrill factor of seeing what you get in a box along with the chance of getting cool 1/1's is probably better than searching for the best copy of a no-name 70's player. I enjoy modern cards more than I do vintage so I think for me, this is the way to go.


Monday, September 9, 2013

2013 Finest Football Box review

I opened up a couple of boxes of this product. I had a BLAST opening this. I like the fact that you get two patch autos for every full box, you are also going to get some refractors, atomic refractors and even some special red, pink and blue, even camouflaged refractors. I normally only open a box at a time but these seem to be very popular as it's the beginning of the  football season and really the best looking product so far this year. I'd say Topps Platinum is pretty close but I like the look of these cards a little better. I even pulled my first 1/1 EVER! This was out of my second box. It was a Randall Cobb Black Printing plate. Not a superfractor which are much cooler but I was stoked anyways. The photo I'm posting is from Ebay but I pulled one of these Le'Veon Bell Blue RC patch autos.

The pluses: You will get many variations of color refractors with a good mix of rookie and veteran base cards. You will probably pull at least a Geno Smith base RC or EJ Manual so you'll probably get a top QB if you choose to break a box. The patch autos are very cool and look much better than last year. Topps did away with the ridiculously high numbering on the base refractors. Last year I pulled two refractor RC Autos both numbered over 1000. This time if your card is numbered it is 99 or less. There are a ton of variations so you can chase the blue, the reds, the pinks, the military camo, the prizms numbered to 15 or even the superfractor versions which look absolutely off the chain this year. There are some cool "extra" autos that sometimes get included, these are on card and will usually be put on a really rare card (25 or less in the print run). These boxes are very fun to break and they aren't too terribly hard on the pocketbook. The breaks usually won't earn you the money back you put into the box but sometimes you can get lucky, just like with any other product. You should only break if you're planning on keeping everything.

The cons: Some people may not like all the variations. If you don't like parallel after parallel then this probably is not the set for you. I'd say there has to be at least 50 different Geno Smith cards in this product alone. Maybe you just go after the base set or the refractor set but it can be a bit overwhelming. The rookie class is weak this year. Topps has tried to offest this somewhat by including veteran autographs like Andrew Luck and Alfred Morris. This is a welcome addition that adds value to what could otherwise be a weak offering.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

1995 Images Limited Card is here!

I got my 1995 Images Limited card today that I posted earlier; the Jim Kelly #9. You can really tell this is a Classic brand because the Dufex technology is not as pronounced (or as nice) as say the Pinnacle Museum proofs in baseball in the early 1990's. The effect on these cards is very slight unless you get them in the correct light. The back photography is very dulled and yellow. They pay much more attention to these things now that cards are such a big business. Back in the 1990's cards were picking up steam but Classics was just one of those companies and brands that did not make it into the new age of cards that we're in right now. Just saw a post on Beckett.com about a new brand of basketball cards that carries a price tag of over a grand for a 10 pack of cards.

Here's what Dufex should look like.

Saturday, August 31, 2013

Another Spx Autograph, another charger

Here's the next card that I've got stored away from my many box breaks over the last couple of years. I broke this last year a month or so after 2012 spx came out. The photography on these cards is stunning. The design I like pretty well. I think these cards would be better with serial numbering but I guess I'm just one of those guys that likes EVERY card to be serial numbered so I know how many there are. Some might say this is pointless but I think serial numbers are the best thing to come out in sports cards. With patch cards it allows collectors to "track" the card. For some of the hard core guys they will document highly faked patch autographs and if it comes up again later altered buyers can be warned, or at the very least, serious collectors can check to see if it's authentic. It's too bad that major card companies don't have this system in place, something like an online database and photograph of every jersey card produced. While this might be daunting what it could do for the industry is make jersey cards more expensive to make and more rare, thereby increasing their value in the hobby once again. Honestly, how many jersey cards of Leon Washington does this hobby need anyway?

Monday, August 26, 2013

Panini Black Rookie Autograph Patch next on the list

Now this design I really like. I's got a few more of these cards and what's cool about them is that they are a subset of Panini Black. This set is about 30 cards which was typical for SPx SP authentic and similar brands but once you have the 30 rookies, that's the set. No base cards, no base RCs or anything like that. Because it's not part of a base set these cards are not actually considered Rookie cards by collectors. They are 1st year cards of players at the Rookie premier and they have autographs and jersey pieces. I'm not going to splice through the semantics of what makes a rookie card. They look great to me! The card I got from Mike's Stadium Sports cards looks very similar to this one that's currently on Ebay.