Today's card is an older one from my local baseball team

Today's card (and I'll have to add an image later) is #154 Charlie Hayes out of 1995 Ultra. This card pictures this prolific vet during his best years which were with the Rockies. He was part of the opening day lineup for the Rocks in April of 1993. I was lucky enough to see the inaugural home opener when the Rockies played their first MLB game here in Colorado. Charlie Hayes has had tons of cards produced for him but it's always cool to expand your horizons. This card comes to me out of a gigantic lot I purchased on Ebay of which I realized I'd never have the time or inclination to sell other than the most valuable pieces. It's going to be easier for me to just add these over time to my own collection. Looking through commons like this is sometimes more fun than breaking boxes as you get to learn about the history of the game, cards like these while overproduced aren't getting any younger and before you know it will become part of the vintage category. It's almost 20 years old right now and while I remember opening tons of these packs in the 1990's they will eventually get more rare. I'm not holding out much hope for value (and being a collector before a dealer I don't care that much) but they do honestly get more cool as time goes on.

Today's card is a Future Hall of Famer~

Today's card comes to us from 2013 Topps Chrome. It's #180 in the set and with 220 cards total (and I have 9 of the remaining 40 logged into my Beckett Organize from a box break last year) we've got 31 more cards before the set is complete. "Gonzo" retired as one of the most prolific pass catchers for a tight end in NFL history and is assured a place in the hall of fame. This card captures his signature "dunk" move after scoring. Being a former basketball player, this celebration makes sense and surprisingly doesn't get flagged by the No Fun League. Tony retired at the end of the 2013-14 season and although teams have tried to lure him back it's certain that he'll be wearing the yellow jacket in 2019. I love the photography of this particular card and it looks a thousand times better than some of the garbage we see in Score and even Prizm, a brand that wishes it was Topps Chrome. I feel like if Panini did this card there would be no action shot, or if there was they would have photoshopped out the crowd in the background and written PANINI over and over again in large ugly font. The more I look at these chrome cards the more I think I'm going to miss this brand. Due to the fact that Panini will be the sole provider of football cards I think it will be wise to branch out my horizons to other sports as well. Be on the lookout for cards and sets from other sports in the near future.

Bit of a lull on the autograph front so here's three more 2013 Topps Chrome Base

Filling the holes in my 2013 set here's #134 (DJ Fluker) of a VERY GOOD San Diego Chargers team. They are ranked number one in the power rankings this week. While I'm not so sure about all of that, they do look pretty good and I'd say they are making the playoffs for sure. On the idiot front I saw this card with a BIN of 99.00 on Ebay. Seriously? 99 cents is about all you could get for it, and that's on a good day.

The next card is #135 Jawan Jamison of the Redskins. I haven't heard much out of this guy so chances are we're not really looking at a star in the making.

The last one we're looking at is the #140 Matthew Stafford. Any cards of Stafford are great to have, I definitely don;t have any of his autographs although I'd love to pull or buy one some day. In the mean time this will have to do! 

Finally another Autograph!

Finally adding this sweet card to my collection today along with a couple more base from 2013 Topps Chrome. Honestly can't say enough good things about the Topps Five Star brand. They keep getting more impressive as the years go on. I thought 2012 was awesome? This design is 10 times better than that and looks more elegant. As you can see side by side with the Chrome they just make other cards look trivial.

In the 2014 Topps Finest box pursuit I'm on to my second "box break" where I'm finding cards that would go into your average box of cards and buying them outright on Ebay. I actually have a third box in the works. I'll divulge the notes I took including the amount I paid for each card. The results are astonishing if you look at a full box price. While I did not get any base cards I will purchase the base set outright once I've gotten three boxes of "hits" purchased. Keep in mind that these prices are even a bit inflated because I did all these purchases the day the product came out. As I'm putting together the next  box I'm seeing that prices aren't nearly what they were on all but the more popular players and this is to be totally expected. The only ones that have increased from my view as a casual observer are the Bridgewaters and the Kelvin Benjamins but that's of course due to their on-field performances.

2014 Topps Finest Football Box Break

• 1 Rookie Refractor Autograph Patch Card

014 TOPPS FINEST KA'DEEM CAREY RC PATCH AUTO REFRACTOR ($10.00) 9/18/14

• 1 Autographed Refractor Jumbo Relic

2014 Topps Finest Football Tajh Boyd Rookie Jumbo Jersey Auto JETS HOT ($6.05)

• 2 Fantasy's Finest Inserts

Drew Brees 2014 TOPPS FINEST FANTASY'S FINEST PULSAR REFRACTOR /99 SAINTS ($3.99)

2014 Topps Finest Zac Stacy Fantasy's Finest Pulsar Refractor Auto #ed /10 ($23.50) (being redeemed)

• 2 Atomic Refractor Rookie Inserts

2014 Finest Atomic Refractor Rookies #RH Robert Herron RC Bucs ($3.78)

Eric Ebron RC 2014 Topps Finest Rookie Atomic Die Cut Refractor Insert ($3.24)

• 4 Refractor Parallels

2014 Topps Finest TONY ROMO Blue Refractor 17/99 DALLAS COWBOYS ($3.03)

2014 Topps Finest ACE SANDERS & KENDALL WRIGHT Blue Refractor /99 LOT ($1.01) 2 cards here

2014 TOPPS FINEST AUSTIN SEFERIAN-JENKINS REFRACTOR ROOKIE SP BUCCANEERS BUCS RC ($3.99)

Paid 58.59 including shipping