Cardboard from South Korea

Ever since I launched my Rey Ordonez Super Collector blog earlier this year, I've been rejuvenated in my quest to acquire one of every card of his in existence. I had to completely revamp my have/want list as well as reorganize the binder I had the cards in. It's been a lot of work, but it's been fun.

  

The other part of the fun has been searching out the cards I don't have. While I have a good many of his cards, there are some serially numbered cards that just don't seem to turn up very often. A lot of these are Pacific inserts, but the Fleer Flair Legacy Collection cards have eluded me for a very long time. Recently I came across this Row 2 Legacy card on eBay with a Buy It Now offer. I made a somewhat low ball offer and the seller accepted! When I got the invoice I was at first appalled by the high shipping quote of $4.95, then I noticed the card was shipping from South Korea?

I know baseball is big in Cuba and Japan, but I didn't think much about the sport being played elsewhere in the world. Thankfully the card came safe and sound and the seller packaged it well. It's a beautiful card, much more so than the scan. I still lack the Row 1 and Row 3 Legacy cards before the 1998 Flair set will be complete. Be on the look out for this set to be shared on my Rey Ordonez blog in the near future.

Redemption, Freddie Freeman Style

On the heels of receiving my 2015 A&G Buster Posey redemption auto, I grabbed this redemption card of Freddie Freeman from 2015 Topps High TEK. I've only seen these High TEK cards online, never in person so I'm really looking forward to receiving this card. Since it's from 2015, I'm hoping it doesn't take 9 months for it to show up in my mailbox.

   

Well that was quick. Before I could even get this draft of a post ready to go, the mail man brings me the card in today's mail! Now let's get this card out of his top loader prison so I can show off it's beauty...or the best that my scanner will allow!

Like with many "shiny" cards, this scan does not do the card justice. It's much more beautiful in hand. I love these clear acetate style cards...just beautiful. I was surprised to see that the card was serially numbered too, #02/99 to boot! 

This easily is one of my favorite Freeman cards now, autograph or not.

MLB Post Season

There is a lot of smiling going on in major league baseball's 2016 post season, but perhaps no one is smiling more than Brian Snitker. The Braves made it official yesterday that Snit's interim manager title is no more, the team opting to make him the new manager of their ball club.

As a Braves fan this makes me happy, really happy. The team was a mess earlier this season when the Braves let go of then manager, Fredi Gonzalez. Snit has been with the organization for a long time, close to 40 years I believe. He stepped in and did some remarkable things with this young team in the 2nd half of the season. Had it not been for that awful start the team got, the end of the season (and the post season) landscape may had looked a little different.

In addition to Snit being made the permanent manager, they also hired Ron Washington as their new 3rd base coach, moving Bo Porter into the front office. Ironically enough, Ron was also interviewing for the manager position. The team let go of long time pitching coach Roger McDowell in favor of hiring Chuck Hernandez. I don't know much about this guy, but supposedly he'll be good w/ the young talent the Braves have or plan to bring up from the minors.

If you combine these off season moves with the success the team had on the infield in the 2nd half of the season, perhaps this rebuilding theme the Braves have going on won't take as long as we all thought. Barring major injury, the future seems to be pretty bright for this ball club and this is one fan that is already anxiously awaiting Opening Day in 2017.

I'll be honest, watching the playoffs isn't as much fun when you're team isn't in it, but I love baseball so it's hard not to watch the games regardless. While I'm not a Giants fan, I was super excited to see Madison Bumgarner pull off the Wild Card win against the Mets. I haven't been able to watch many of the games against the Cubs, but I watched Game 4 last night and inbetween my heavy eye lids closing a time or two I was able to see the game through to the end. It's gotta be heartbreaking for the pitcher (Matt Moore) to pitch such a great game, only for the bullpen to absolutely blow it like they did last night. It was tough to see the Giants give up 4 runs in the 9th as they did, but kudos to the Cubs. Maybe this time really is as good as some people believe. Maybe this is really their year?

I guess I'll have to turn my attention to the Cubs now as I really don't care who wins against the Dodgers and Nats (though if I had to pick I'd choose the Dodgers). The Cubs have several former Braves players so I guess I'll jump on the bandwagon and give them my support. Jason Heyward, David Ross and even Tommy LaStella (when he can get on the field) will be fun to watch none the less.

Since I'm a NL fan I really haven't paid much attention to the AL. I was surprised to see Clevelend sweep the Red Sox however. Not sure who matches up well w/ the teams left in the NL, but at least I have a few more weeks of baseball to look forward too this season.

Redemption from Topps...Finally!

Over on the sidebar I have a section where I keep track of redemption cards. While I'm not a huge fan of them, I know they serve their purpose and find time to time I'll pick up a redemption card for myself, like the recent Jacoby Brissett I redeemed. However pulling a redemption card myself doesn't happen very often.

Let's rewind the clock to 2015. I picked up a few boxes of Allen & Ginter as I was working on the set and not surprisingly a lot of the hits I pulled were just lack luster relic cards...until I pulled a card for a 10th Anniversary Buyback auto of Buster Posey! I set the card on the corner of my office desk and almost forgot about it until earlier this year. On January 6th, I finally went online to redeem the card and the wait officially began.

2 weeks ago, Wednesday 09/21/16 to be exact I got a bubble mailer from Topps and this beauty was inside.

While I knew the card was a auto Buyback, I didn't know it was going to a mini or that the card would only be numbered to 10! If you can't make out the number in the scan, it's 08/10. Now as cool as the card is, I'm not a Giants fan. I'd much rather try to swap this for a few Braves autos of Smoltz, Glavine, Tim Hudson, Chipper, Andruw Jones or just about any other notable Braves player. I don't know what the card is "worth", but if I were to sell it I'd throw it up on eBay with a Buy It Now price of at least $100 based on what I've seen some of Buster's auto sell for.

Trade or sale at this point, I'm not sure. I could use the money, but I figured I'd share the card here first and see if anyone was remotely interested. If not I'll toss it in that big stack of items I've been too lazy to list on eBay.

LCS Pick Ups

It's been a long time since I've walked into a card shop and forever since I've attended a card show, but last week I found myself with a little extra time on my hands after picking up my daughters from school. I've been thinking of ways to create some risers on my shelves to better display some Transformers and other figures as a part of my great toy purge/re-organization and I thought plain white card boxes would work. Problem is, the only card shop in my area that I'm aware of I wasn't sure if they were still in business.

Earlier in the year, I read on Facebook that the owner of Grand Slam in Rock Hill, SC had passed away in April. I had no idea if someone was going to take over the shop or if it would just close. Well I figured I'd take a drive by and see for myself and I was surprised not only to see the shop open, but it was kind of busy inside...in the middle of the afternoon on a Thursday none the less.

After talking to the guy behind the counter for awhile, I learned that the owner's wife has been running the store and actively trying to sell. The landlord has been working with them on the rent, letting them pay month to month, but I fear a multi-year lease is looming in 2017 and I doubt she'll sign a long lease. It's really a shame as it's a good shop, even though I never visited all that often. I hate seeing brick & mortar stores like this fall to the wayside so I'm really hoping she can find a buyer soon that will keep the store open.

After I picked out my boxes, I turned my attention to all of the monster boxes set up on tables in the middle of the store. These have been a fixture in this store for some time. I spotted a box of Pokemon TCG cards that were 10/$1 so I let my girls be occupied with those while searched through some of the other boxes. At 10 cent a card how could I not look?

The boxes usually are just a hodgepodge of cards, with no rhyme or reason to how they are placed in the box. Thankfully though I found groups of cards from the same set so I was able to find some cards of players that I collect, but don't actively search out. The one lone card was the Topps Cracker Jack Mike Matheny. Even though the Panini card aren't fully licensed, I like the look (and feel) of these Donruss Diamond Kings. I stumbled across the Jose Fernandez Bowman card by chance as I really wasn't looking for him, but in light of his tragic death I figured why not pick up a few of his cards here and there.

The 1981 Topps Gary Carter was a nice surprise. Actually there appeared to be a complete set of 1981 Topps in the box so if anyone has a want list for that set let me know and I'll see about going back and getting what I can.

Speaking of Fernandez, I picked up this 2015 Stadium Club card of his. The photo on this card epitomizes his love for the game. Just look at that smile. I was also able to find a small run of 2015 TSC and 2016 Gypsy Queen cards to knock off of my want lists. Total for all the cards I bought, $6. Throw in another $4 for the Pokemon cards my girls picked out and another $10 for the card boxes I bought. Small purchase, but it made me feel good that I was supporting good people that were struggling to keep the business open. As soon as I have some more disposable time I think I'll go back and browse through those monster boxes so more and take a peek in the glass cases to see what else they have.