Christmas Cards (and not, I don't mean 2019 Topps Holiday)

Maybe a week ago I was tagged in a Tweet by @forgotaboutblay that some Christmas cards were on their way. A few days later a little bubble mailer showed up and inside was a thick brick of cards consisting of my 3 teams - Braves, Panthers & Hornets.

When the stack includes Chipper Jones cards you know you're in for a treat. I think I have this 1994 Bowman's Best, but it's such a great card I don't mind having a duplicate. I don't believe I've seen these 2005 Leaf Gamers cards before. It's printed in reflective silver foil and looks much better in hand. The same cam be said about the 1999 Fleer Ultra Diamond Mine. It's a very shiny card and from an insert set I'm not that familiar with.

Let's not forget about this 1997 Donruss Silver Press Proof parallel of former Braves slugger Ryan Klesko! Probably one of the more bittersweet cards in the stack was this 2011 Topps Chrome Refractor of Brian McCann. He announced his retirement this season after the Braves were eliminated in the NLCS by the Cardinals. This is a great photo of Brian and the Chrome Refractors are just so beautiful.

These two 2012 Panini Prime Signatures cards are think. The design is very minimal, but it works. Both are serially numbered with Jon Beason being 135/499 and Steve Smith being 120/499.

Another thick card in the stack was this 2014 Score Kelvin Benjamin Team Helmets. The helmet is made of rubber (?) and it's also a RC. Kelvin started off his career in Carolina pretty hot, but soon injuries started to plague his on the field performance. There were also issues with his attitude and diet and it wasn't long before Benjamin was on his way out the door to Buffalo and all of the Charlotte media was mocking him for his lack of a diet. It was actually entertaining radio at the time.

I haven't bought any of Panini's Unparalleled product before, but I do like this Perfect Pairs insert from the 2017 set. It shines great in hand and features two of the best defensive players ever to suit up for Carolina - Thomas Davis and Luke Kuechly.

I grew up watching many Hornets games in person at the old Charlotte Coliseum back in the day. I don't have a lot of Hornets cards from the mid to late 90's so these cards from 96-97 Fleer Ultra are great. I especially love the Anthony Mason card. He was so much fun to watch bang around in the paint. Vlade Divac came over from the Lakers in the now infamous Kobe Bryant draft/trade. Kobe was never going to play for Charlotte so I hate it when that topic comes up whether in the national or local media. The Tony Delk card is from an insert set called Rookie Encore. I remember him being an instant fit for the team and helped provide more scoring fairly quickly.

There were also a few 99-00 Fleer Ultra cards as well. Here we have Ricky Davis, Eddie Jones and Elden Campbell. I honestly don't remember much about Ricky or Elden, but Eddie was the one of the few star players the Hornets seemed to have during this period...well maybe outside of Baron Davis.

There were also many other cards in the brick that Dennis sent that I didn't share. I really appreciate being thought of and I appreciate the cards as well. All of them will find a nice home in my various collections. Thanks again Dennis, Merry Christmas!

June 2018 Group Break Results

Whew!! I tell you, going back to work after being off for vacation is tough as it is, but coming back after being off for two weeks has been tough! I really meant to get this post up by Monday, but well I've had my hands full with work. Why is it everything bad at work has to happen the minute you leave for vacation?!

Oh well, this month's group break is in the books and it was one that I enjoyed hosting. Most of the participants ended up with a decent amount of cards, thanks in part to the 2003 Upper Deck 40-Man box. Its always good seeing players get cards that are often overlooked and 40-Man did a good job at creating some cardboard for some of these type guys.

The box of 2002 Upper Deck Diamond Connection didn't really specify what the odds were on the various game-used cards, but it turned out that each mini box contained one hit if you will.

The 40-Man box I had was retail (I think) and the only odds listed were for the Endorsement auto cards at 1:500 packs. Needless to say I wasn't expecting to pull an auto...

As the host I usually take the Braves and this time it paid off with a game-used bat card of Chipper Jones from the Diamond Connection box. The other hit was of Curt Schilling and went to the Diamondbacks.

Finally the last hit pulled was a hand numbered auto of Jayson Werth, 17/50 from the 40-Man box. wow, beautiful card. While doing the live video I didn't have my list of teams in front of me so I didn't know who this card would be going to. It was only later in the evening that I realized the Blue Jays were one of the teams I inherited after I had to "eat" a few slots that didn't sell. I'm still not sure what to do w/ the card. Save it for a contest? Trade it for Braves? Hmm, decisions, decisions.

Regardless it was a fun break and even though all the slots didn't sell, I hope the others that participated had fun as well. I threw in 21 bonus packs this round, ranging from 1986 Leaf to 1993 UD Denny's Grand Slam hologram packs. You never know what I'll add as a bonus so if you've ever been on the fence about joining one of my Affordable Breaks, you may want to jump on board next time.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge - Day 3

30 DAY BASEBALL CARD CHALLENGE

DAY 3

A card from the first set you tried to complete

Set building was a foreign concept for me for many, many years. It wasn't that I didn't know about set building, it was just that I never was able to buy (read afford) enough packs of cards in order to build a set. However, in 1991 I really my best with Topps. 

I saved up enough money to buy more packs of '91 Topps than I previously had bought of any other year. I don't own most of those cards any longer so I really can't recall how close I got to completing the set...if I ever got close at all. It was only the second year I had been collecting cards, but for some reason I got a "calling" to try and build the set. I still love the design and was thrilled to see Topps bring it back in limited fashion in last year's Archives set.

Trade from North of the Border - Supporting the Minnow

Trevor from Supporting the Minnow reached out to me earlier in the month after he saw that I had some old O-Pee-Chee cards in addition to a nice stack of 2009 Upper Deck OPC that he needed. We quickly worked out a trade and off our packages went...traversing a large chunk of North America.

I used to not mess with Braves prior to 1990, the year I really got interested in following the Braves and collecting cards, but over the years my eyes have been opened more and more to the glory of vintage cardboard. I was able to grab a few from '77, '79 and '85.

Somehow I didn't have this 1991 Classic Chipper Jones, a travestry, right?! Being that Trevor resides in Canada he had some cool Canadian cards such as the 1991 Post of David Justice and the 1992 OPC Brian Hunter. The Glavine card comes from a set I wasn't familiar with, Allan's Kaye's Sports Cards News & Price Guides. The card measures just a smidge larger than your traditional trading card. Love the odd ball stuff like that.

Grabbed a few cards of the Iron Man too. Another Canadian Post card and an Upper Deck Post card from 1995? I don't remember those two companies working together. To finish it off a nice Then & Now hologram from 1993 UD.

Just in time for this weekend's NCAA Men's Final Four, we have a 1991 Classic card of UNLV's Larry Johnson. LJ was a big time college player who would go on to help put the Charlotte Hornets of the NBA on the map. 

Thanks again for the trade Trevor!

Surprise Christmas Package...That I'm Just Now Getting to Posting About

Right around Christmas I came home from work and was greeted at the door by my lovely wife...although she didn't have that lovely look on her face. Nope, I walked in the door to her stink eye. She was standing there, holding a rather large USPS Priority box.

You see, I have a lot of hobbies and tend to spend too much money at times. Whenever a package shows up she wants the 411 on it and this was one time that I couldn't tell her what was inside...because even I didn't know! I thought the return address looked familiar, but I wasn't sure so I proceeded to open up the package.

To my surprise I found new, sealed Kenner Starting Lineups of Braves players David Justice and Kevin Millwood. There was an empty Pinnacle Inside can featuring Chipper Jones, a Topps Screen Plan tin again featuring Chipper (and the card inside too!), a large tin of Donruss Preferred featuring Carolina Panthers QB Kerry Collins (and some guy named Aikman) and a 100 count box of cards. Inside the box was a slew of Braves and Panthers players, including some nice older cards of Phil Neikro. Inside the Preferred tin were a few more cards. An autographed card of Bruce Chen (of who I share the same exact birthdate), a Stefan Lefors football/jersey card and a very cool Keary Colbert card featuring cut pieces of his helmet mask. Yeah, those players never really lived up to their expectations and did much in the pros, but the cards none the less are very cool.

So, who sent me all of this loot? It was none other than Dennis from Too Many Verlanders. I'm really embarrased that here it is the 10th of February and I'm just now typing up my thank you post. Dennis' gift absolutely came out of left field and I really, really appreciate it. I know I haven't been as active with my blog, reading and commenting on other blogs or trading as I would like. I'm sure there are plenty of other Braves fans that blog so I'm humbled to receive this loot. Looks like it's time for me to Pay It Forward. Thanks again Dennis!

Goodbye 2016

Looking over my post history for 2016 is a quick reminder of just how busy I was...or was it that blogging about cards lost some of it's appeal. Or was it a little of both?

I'm still not able to put a finger on it, but regardless a new year is upon on so why not take a few moments to look back at the past year...and share some images of cards I've picked up, but never posted about.

2000 Upper Deck

2005 Fleer Showcase #035/183

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like my player collections keep changing. I tend to pick players that don't always get a lot of cards or the players just drop out of the limelight all together, but one guy that I've stayed with is Tim Hudson. I have a good many of his cards already, but I'm amazed I keep finding cards of his that I don't own...especially cards of his pre-Braves days. Tim isn't going anywhere and I look forward to resuming my search for his cards in 2017.

2016 Topps Update Black parallel #60/65

The 2016 Braves may not have been the best team the club has assembled nor did they have the success I'm sure they were wanting, but one good thing did become of the season. Frenchy. When he signed the minor league deal during spring training I was beside myself. However I really didn't think he had a snowball chance in Hell to make the team. I was glad I was wrong. Early in the 2016 baseball card season I had to settle for cards of Francoeur in an ugly Phillies uniform, but towards the middle of the season Topps finally corrected this and issued a few proper cards of him in a Braves uniform. I was glad to have more cards of his to chase, especially trying to complete the rainbow of his 2016 Topps Update card seen above. I believe I'm still lacking the pink parallel to finish off the "set".

2015 Topps Heart of the Order

Freddie was back to his normal form in 2016. He was just as much fun to watch as ever, especially now that his eye sight issues that plagued him in 2015 seem to have been corrected. It was also fun following his journey becoming a dad for the first time during the season. After the Braves shipped Hector Olivera off to San Diego in exchange for Matt Kemp, Freddie was finally given a good power bat in the line up to compliment his game. The Braves may have not had the success they wanted, but they seem to be heading in the right direction and I'm glad that Freeman continues to be leading the way.

2016 Topps Gold Label

It seems as if you can always find new cards of your favorite players, even if they aren't playing the game any longer. I recently picked up this metal gold framed auto of Andruw Jones for about $5. These cards are much more beautiful in hand than they appear when scanned.

 2016 Topps Gypsy Queen Relic

I don't actively seek out Chipper cards, but I pulled this GQ relic from a blaster while working on completing my 2016 GQ set (which I still need to do).

 2016 Topps Gypsy Queen Relic

 2016 Topps Triple Threads Legends Relic #13/27

2016 Topps Gypsy Queen Framed Mini Relic

 I will seek out new cards of Smoltz however and I was glad to pick up these relics. I don't normally bother with Triple Threads, but this particular one caught my eye and the price was right.

Do you like the fact that Topps (and even Panini) are still mixing in retired players into current product checklists?

 2016 Topps Heritage

2016 Topps Gold Label

How can you talk about the 2016 baseball season and not bring up the Cubs. While I'm not a fan of the team, I was glad to see David Ross pick up a World Series ring. In the aftermath of the Cubs win I did manage to pick up a few Cubs cards of his before he rode off into the (retirement) sunset.

During the said Cubs World Series win aftermath, I found out that the Cubs reliever, Carl Edwards, Jr. was from my hometown of Charlotte, NC. I don't always actively collect cards of players from my hometown or from NC, but I found myself with yet another beautiful Gold Label auto. I'm not sure if he'll gain a spot in my PC, but it's still a nice card to own none the less.

 2016 Panini Instant

After the Braves season ended I was all ready to shift my focus to the NFL and my Carolina Panthers. The 2015 season fell just one win short of being magical, so I and many other fans thought we may be able to recreate that same magic in 2016. Wrong.

I guess one of the things that bothered me for much of the season was Cam Newton's play and the media. Cam had a bad year. The team had a bad year. Judging from the media though a player can't have a bad year. According to the media the MVP season Cam had a year a go was a fluke. According to the media Cam is the only QB in the NFL that is a sore loser. 

2016 Panini Prizm Intros

Why does everyone love to hate this guy? I've seen countless number of videos of Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees and others throwing tablets, cussing up a storm on the sidelines and throwing their own versions of temper tantrums...yet the media acts as if Cam is the only one that is so emotional playing this game. While I won't and don't defend Cam 100% of the time, I do get sick and tired of the double standard.

Does Cam need to work on his mechanics in the off season to improve? Definitely. Is he a bad QB? Heavens no! Some fans say the Panthers should cut him. I wonder how many other fanbases would love to have Cam as their QB. The 49ers? Rams? Vikings? Eagles? Jets? Whatever the problem was for the team and for Cam, I hope they are able to work on it in the off season. I hope that the team management is able to take some of that cap money they didn't use in 2016 and go and sign some good veteran free agents to help solidify the offense line. Go draft some much needed young guys to fill in the holes on this team. 

2016 Panini Playbook Yellow Printing Plate 1/1

Regardless of the teams performance, I still sought out new cards at different times throughout the season. When your team isn't playing hard it's a little harder to get excited to hunt for new cards, but this printing plate of Greg Olsen is one of the best cards I picked up all year. You couldn't tell from that guy's play that the team had a 6-10 record. BTW, congrats to Greg for becoming the first TE in the NFL to record 3 consecutive seasons with 1,000 or more receiving yards.

I let a lot of things slide in 2016 and I plan on fixing those things in 2017. I have a lot of sets that I've never finished collating, yet along made lists for. I slacked off of trading and I'd like to get back to helping fulfill other collector's lists. My organization has been horrible. I've got some many stacks of cards all over my office and in my man cave down stairs that I can't remember what's going on. Thankfully that should be addressed really soon as just today a huge order I placed with BCW arrived. Too bad I had to leave to go out of town today, otherwise I would have dropped what I was doing to start to get organized again. Look for a post on this process in the near future.

I'm excited for the new year and what it will bring. The release of 2017 Topps Series 1 is just around the corner, the changes made to '17 GQ have me excited and before I know it I'll be busting a box of my annual favorite, Allen & Ginter. Let's just hope I don't lose this renewed energy and I can't keep it going for another year. Thanks to everyone out there in blogger world for the continued support. Here's to a great new year.

Catching up on old trade posts

If someone sends me cards I feel obligated not only to make sure I say thank you to the other party, but also highlight some of the goodies here on my corner of the internet. This package comes courtesy of The Dutch Card Guy, all the way from the Netherlands. I've had this team bag full of Braves cards sitting off to the side for so long now I can't remember if we made a trade, or if he was just trying to get rid of some Braves (that filthy Yankees fan!). Either way I'm very grateful for the cards as I needed most of them.

There was a good selection of mid 90's stuff, but these 4 stood out the most to me. Let's start with the Crime Dog himself, Fred McGriff. I always loved the Fleer Metal stuff and this 1996 Metal Universe card is awesome. I love the orange ripple effect over top of Fred. It's as you can almost feel the swing of the bat and the crack of the bat against the ball as he launches it into the outfield. The other McGriff card comes from a Tombstone Pizza promotion. I love the unlicensed and odd ball stuff like this. I also like the Panini stuff, but that should come as no surprise if I like stuff like this Tombstone card.

The Chipper Jones Mining For Gold insert from 1996 Metal Universe is awesome. These cards look so much better in hand than they do scanned. When I checked my lists I was surprised that I didn't already have this card.

The last card of the 4 is none other than slugger Ryan Klesko. The card comes from the 1995 Topps Stadium Club Member's Only set. The details of the set itself are foggy in my brain, but in addition to the chrome aspect of the card you can see a cracked look in the background. It almost looks like scales from a reptile or something. Not sure what Topps was aiming for here, but they achieved a neat looking card none the less.

These cards traveled a long way to me, but I'm glad to be able to add them to my Braves collection. Thanks again!

"New" pick-ups

Please tell me someone that I'm not the only one that has fallen behind on scanning new card acquisitions! With the exception of the 2014 Donruss Evan Gattis auto, the rest of the cards have been sitting in a stack on my desk at home waiting to be scanned for who knows how long!  The getting caught up work continues!