Look at my can(s)!

Over the weekend my mom dropped off a bunch of things that belonged to my little brother.  Amongst the boxes were old Power Ranger toys from 1995, some old Toy Biz X-Men figures (and the Blackbird jet!) and some cans.  Why am I mentioning this on this blog?  This is why...

1997 Pinnacle Inside

1998 Pinnacle Inside

In the 90's my little brother was also a collector of baseball cards and one year on vacation we found the '97 & '98 Pinnacle Inside cans on clearance at a office supply store of all places.  We were able to buy 4 complete sets - 2 of each year.  I can't remember what I did w/ mine outside of a sealed can of John Smoltz that I still have.  He opened his cans carefully with a can opener that didn't leave sharp edges.  Most of the cans were opened on the bottom making them a nice display piece.

I've been asked to help sell his items and most of them will be going to eBay eventually...but I thought I'd see if anyone here would be interested in these empty cans.  Yes, empty - no cards are included.  I thought about piecing them out, but frankly it'll be a lot of work to ship all of these cans.  So I wanted to see if there was anyone that would like to take them all off my hands.  I don't have a set asking price in mind so if you are interested please comment below or send me a message with your offer.  Best offer wins!

Marvel Rittenhouse Promos

What just seemed to be a few days ago, when I got home Saturday from work I found a thin SASE waiting for me in the mailbox.  I had sent off for the newest promo from Rittenhouse from their upcoming Marvel Bronze Age set.  When the company Inkworks was in business I would send away for just about every free promo I could get.  I was surprised to see that Rittenhouse did the same for a majority of their card sets.

While I wasn't reading comics in the 70's (or 80's), I can appreciate the rich history of many of Marvel's characters.  Rittenhouse also does an amazing job w/ their cards and this is such an iconic fight between Wolverine and the Hulk so I had to have this card.

The set covers Marvel Comics from 1970 to 1985 and features one sketch card per hobby box.  Everything that I've seen is really nice so I may have to track down a hand collated set before it's all done.

I forgot I had the last promo of their's too.  This one is from the Greatest Heroes set.  I have an extra one if anyone wants to trade me for it.

Sunday Verse

Ephesians 5:19-20

speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I wanted to bold and underline the 'always giving thanks to God the Father for everything'.  I'll also add that we should always give thanks even when things aren't going our way.  It's easy to praise Him with the skies are sunny and we are "fat and happy", but the times we really need to lift His name up is on those dark and gloomy days or when you're just having an overall bad day.  It's amazing how petty we can be and how we act sometimes.  It's on those bad days I'm reminded to continue to praise God no matter what.  The ska bad The O.C. Supertones summed up all of this perfectly in their song "Jury Duty"...

5 am on tuesday
Why am I up so early
Drive out to santa ana ’cause I’ve got jury duty
No breakfast short tempered
And I cut my head shaving

Ten miles out I hit traffic
Some days just aren’t worth saving

You know I haven’t had the best of days
But I want to stop and thank you anyway

At the courthouse I waited
And waited then I waited
At lunchtime my car stalled out
I couldn’t get it started
Had a book by C.S. Lewis
I finished the last page and
Slept on my desk for three hours
Just like my high school days

Cuz every single moment whether sleeping or awake
Is your creation
And what you’ve made is good
I don’t always thank you for the rough days and
The hard times in my life
Even though I should

Got home and decided I’d be in a bad mood
My shy and quiet wife said she didn’t like my attitude
Got a call from my mother
Forgot my sister’s birthday
I’m a lousy older brother safe to say I’ve had a bad day

 

PC Addition: Rey Ordonez

A few weeks ago I shared a few new Rey Ordonez cards...something that just doesn't happen very often.  I don't know the exact percentage of his cards I own, but it's gotta be over 90% if I'd guess.  Just like before when I ran across a card of his I knew nothing about (1997 UD Folz Vending), a few days later my auto search e-mailed me a listing for a lot of 4 1997 New York Mets Panini stickers - 2 of Rey, 1 of Todd Hundley and 1 of Bernard Gilkey.  The latter two are up for trades if any Mets collector is interested.  What I'm focusing on are these two!

#s 59 & 99 respectively

PC Addition: Brandon Beachy

I'm starting to calm down from my team's exit in the playoffs this season and I'm beginning to wonder how much the Braves really missed Beachy.  For a couple of different reasons I added him to my list of Player Collections earlier this year, but thus far I've only got a handful of his cards.  I'm still trying to get his RCs scanned, but here are a few gems I managed to pick up in the last month or so.  If there was one good thing that came from his season ending injury was that his cards were uber cheap online!

2012 Topps Mini Relic

2012 Topps Triple Threads #20/27

2012 Topps Triple Threads Emerald #17/18

2012 Topps Triple Threads Emerald #16/18

2012 Topps Triple Threads #12/36

2012 Topps Chrome Black Refractor #085/100

2012 Topps Chrome Sepia Refractor #31/75

PC Addition: Matt Diaz

Matt Diaz doesn't seem to get a lot of time on the field w/ the Braves even when he's not hurt, so I was a little surprised (and elated) to see that Topps included him in the new 2012 Topps Update set...and gave him a Silk card too!  And that Printing Plate is kinda cool too!

  

Heart of the Order

Just a short post tonight since it's already later than I thought...

I really, really miss the simple days when baseball cards were about the base cards and simple inserts like this awesome 1997 Score Heart of the Order.

Sunday Verse

Psalm 51:12

Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

Ever since I started my Sunday Verse theme a few years ago I haven't missed posting until the last 2 weeks.  Personally I've been going through a lot between work, home and finances...you know, adult crap.  I guess you could say I've been in one of those proverbial valleys.  Last weekend however we got a chance to escape it all for the weekend as my family took it's first ever camping trip.  It was great to get away and spend some quality time w/ my wife and daughters outside of our home.  I definitely need more of that.

So I'm trying to get back on track here w/ my Bible verses and for me Psalm 51:12 is perfect.  Funny how you run across the perfect verse at the perfect time.  Coincidence?  I think not.

Have a great Sunday everyone! 

SEGA!

When the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Braves my collecting season kinda ended.  I've only bought 2 packs of Update.  I was turned off when I saw that retail packs of Bowman Chrome were $3 and some change and only had 3 cards per pack.  I'm questioning if I even want to set build future releases.  Money is tight.  I have mountains of cards to catalog and scan.  I'm I on the edge of burn out?

All is not lost though.  I still get a thrill out of adding new cards to my player and team collections, especially odd ball cards.  Take these for instance.

  

I ran across a seller in Japan that had a lot of these 2012 Topps Sega Card-Gen cards during a search for Tim Hudson.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to get the Hudson card I really wanted (or Chipper), but I did pick up this Francoeur and a few Braves.  I have no idea what these cards were for, but with the Sega cross branding I'm guessing these were video game related some how.

I love how Jose Constanza got a card in this set.  As I mentioned earlier the seller had just about every card for every team.  Apparently it's a big set.  Wish I knew more about these.  The only thing I could find was this Japanese website.  I guess for now I'll just enjoy my latest 4 pick ups.

My new kicks

Game-used cards are so plentiful now that for a lot of collectors they just don't have that wow factor that they did 10+ years ago.  That said every now and then I run across a set of game-used cards that impress me and the 1999 Skybox EX Century Authen-Kicks is one of those.

I love cards that feature game-used base and hats, but until now I've never had a shoe card...at least not with a large piece of shoe like this.  I particularly like the red leather piece of J.D. Drew.  I don't know what the odds were of pulling these cards in 1999, but I scored both for a song over at COMC some time ago.  Oh yeah, not only are limited but they are hand numbered too!

So what is your favorite kind of game-used / game-worn / relic type of cards?

PC Addition: Rey Ordonez

It's been awhile since I've been able to post about new cards for my original player collection - Rey Ordonez.  Sure there are some low numbered parallels and high priced autos I still don't have, but at least I know of these - I have them cataloged on my master list of every card of his.  Several weeks ago though I ran across 3 listings the same day of cards I didn't own!  What were the odds of this happening?!

These 2000 MLB Showdown game cards came in 2 versions - 1st Edition and Unlimited.  It seems like trading card games were all the rage years ago so I wasn't surprised to find a game based on major league baseball.  I was able to find the 1st Edition card long ago, but for whatever reason the Unlimited card kept eluding me...until now.

I love discovering new cards of Rey and this is one of those.  At first glance this may look like an ordinary 1996 Upper Deck Collector's Choice card, but look again.  Notice the Collector's Choice logo is missing?  You also can't tell from this scan, but the card measures smaller than a traditional baseball card.  There were 50 cards in the set with some of the cards featuring foil and possibly being short printed.  These were only available in Folz vending machines.  I'm assuming this was regional as I never heard of Folz vending.  

There has been a guy on eBay for awhile now selling what he calls a proof from the Fleer Vault.  Supposedly he was able to obtain these proofs directly from Fleer during their bankruptcy years ago.  These proofs are nothing more than a high quality scan of the card printing on glossy paper.  I have no idea if these are legit, but my curiosity got the best of me and I had to see what these looked like in hand.  This particular "card" is from the 1998 Fleer Flair Showcase set and is the sought after Legacy parallel set.  I'd love for this to be the real deal as I don't have this Legacy Row 0 card...but for now I'll just have to stick with this.

A thank you package from my team's rival

While I was expecting a package from Plaschke, Thy Sweater Is Argyle a week or so ago, I wasn't expecting a package from Cards on Cards.  I thought in my hiatus from blogging here "crap, did I forget to send my part of a trade?!".  Much to my relief there was a note inside from Kerry thanking me for hosting all of my Affordable Group Breaks and a stack of cards.

I find the timing of a Cardinals fan sending a Braves fan some cards a little ironic...seeing how the red birds (who no offense shouldn't have been in the playoffs) beat my Braves.  It was hard to swallow, but I still take cards from just about any opposing team's fans!

Mixed in with the Braves cards were also some Lance Berkmans.  I don't believe I have any of these!

With the new NBA season just around the corner it seems fitting that Kerry also tossed in some basketball cards.  While I may not follow the NBA as much as I did in the 90's (for several reasons), I love getting old basketball cards.  Mark Price was a rare breed of an athlete in the NBA.  While his skills were remarkable on the court, I liked the guy just as much for who he was off the court.  Surprisingly I don't have a lot of his cards even though many of them were during the junk wax era so I loved seeing these in the stack.

While a lot of my friends were big Jordan fans, I found myself gravitating to Dominique Wilkins and his highlight reels.  Like with Mark Price I don't have a lot of his cards so I'll gladly take whatever I can get of his.

And it wouldn't be a proper post when mentioning basketball cards if I didn't share some old Charlotte Hornets.  Part of my lack of interest in the current NBA is the lack of the Hornets.  I watch and root for the Charlotte Bobcats...but it's just not the same.  

A huge thanks to Kerry from Cards on Cards for his generosity.  It's small little gestures like this that pull me back in every time I step away for a breather.

Just another trade post...

While I haven't been actively blogging here doesn't mean I've been inactive.  Greg from Plaschke, Thy Sweater Is Argyle and I finalized a trade a little while ago with me sending a few things from his want lists.  In return I got two nice cards to add to my Jeff Francoeur and Carolina Panthers collection...

Thanks Greg for a great trade!

Farewell Ben...I hardly knew you

With today's earlier Braves / Pirates game, pitcher Ben Sheets had his last start as a Major League Baseball pitcher.  After the Braves' chances of winning the division were squashed by a loss to the Pirates Monday night, manager Freddi Gonzales decided to give the scheduled starter, Tim Hudson some much needed rest.  Today's start was Ben's 250th of his career.  Sheets struck out two of the three batters he faced in the one inning he was on the mound.

Ben only had 8 starts for Atlanta this season after coming back from retirement.  I knew of him being a baseball card collector and all, but I never really got a chance to see him pitch before he joined the Bravos.  I wish his shoulder could've lasted a bit longer and he could have stuck around a little longer.  He provided a breath of fresh air for the team the last half of the season.  I wish Ben all the best in his retirement.