Time to Clean Out my eTopps Portfolio

Surely I'm not the only one that kept getting those emails from Topps advertising shipping discounts for cards left in your eTopps portfolio. The fact that the Topps has still be maintaining the eTopps website still amazes me. The program ran for 12 years, but I only bought cards for a few years after discovering what the program was.

I thought the idea behind eTopps was great and sometimes I wish the program was still going today. Topps Now essentially replaced eTopps years later, but when you compare the actual eTopps cards in hand vs. Topps Now...well there is no competition. The eTopps cards are beautiful, but the high shipping rates I'm guessing is what helped kill the program.

Recently I decided to cash in on the 30% off shipping discount and clear out my portfolio. I requested delivery for the majority of my cards some time ago, however for some reason I left some cards behind. Now that I have them in hand, let's take a look at the last cards from my portfolio.

2001 Tim Hudson #38

2005 Tim Hudson #6 (179/499)

2011 Freddie Freeman RC #2 (1478/1499)

All 3 of these cards look beautiful in hand, especially the Freeman rookie. I'm surprised I never had that card shipped before.

2004 Stephen Davis #38 (/1,250)

2011 Cam Newton RC #11 (1677/1999)

2011 Tim Tebow RC #32 (073/599)

I had all but forgotten that I even had some football cards left in the portfolio, but I'm glad to see the Cam Newton and even the Tim Tebow.

2005-2006 Emeka Okafor #3 (/672)

2005-2006 Sean May #59 (/1000)

I rarely buy basketball cards period, so I too had forgotten I had these two cards sitting in my portfolio. At the time I decided to take possession of these two cards, their online "value" was like $.10 each! They'll look nice in my Charlotte basketball collection none the less.

Like I said earlier, it's been awhile since I've had cards delivered from my eTopps portfolio, but I don't remember the cards coming shipped in one touch holders. It seems as if my past order the cards were almost slabbed. I recall the card holders used were in were very tough to open. All I've got to do to remove these cards from their holders is remove the little hologram sticker and the holder should open up rather easy. I do plan on freeing these cards from their slabbed prison so I may add each of them to their respective boxes.

Do you have any cards left in your eTopps portfoilio? Do you have plans on taking delivery if you do? What were your thoughts overall of the eTopps program? I'd love to hear from you so leave your answers in the comments below.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge - Day 30

30 DAY BASEBALL CARD CHALLENGE

DAY 30

Your favorite card in your collection

We've finally made it to the end of this month long 30 day baseball card challenge and the last question was simply, "Your favorite card in your collection." This time I couldn't cheat, I had to go to my own collection to find a card that answered this question. For me this was pretty easy. While I have a lot of great cards, this 2011 Topps Marquee auto of Tim Hudson is my favorite card. I love the shiny gold metal grame, the holofoil look and the silver auto of Huddy. Being serially numbered 04/10 sure doesn't hurt the card either. It's a beautiful card, especially in hand, and the best auto I have in my collection, period. End of story, challenge complete!

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.

The Last Baseball Post

The baseball season is over...well at least for my Braves. Even though I'll be tuning in this evening for the one game playoff between the Cubs and Pirates, and possibly watching the Cardinals some...I'm done with baseball for 2015.

What a sad season it was for Braves fans too. I guess I should have known it was going to be a tough year with a lot of players being shipped off during the off season and even the day before the season started (the bullpen misses you Kimbrel!).

From a baseball card perspective by buying dropped off tremendously. Not sure if it's a combination of being burnt out a little, busy work schedule or a combination of both. I only bought 2 hobby boxes all year long. While I did buy a handful of packs here and there of various Topps products, I was only actively going after building two sets, Gypsy Queen and Allen & Ginter. Even that mission has kinda fallen to the wayside.

All is not lost though. I still have a few random packs to share and Football season is upon us my as of this post my Carolina Panthers are 4-0! Going forward I anticipate most of my posts to be football oriented. While I know that means I'll alienate some readers, it's what I'm passionate about right now...well that and toys of course (see my other blog, Random Toy Reviews).

Before I make that transition to the pigskin, here are a few cards that I picked up that I don't think I ever got around to sharing.

I miss hosting group breaks, yet I know I have way too little time now to try to do that again. Also because of my lack of time to blog like I used to, I find myself reading other blogs and getting in on group breaks like in the past. However a month or so ago I jumped on one of those group breaks by bidding on the Braves on eBay. I grabbed my team in a 2015 Topps Chrome half case break. Didn't wind up with anything too exciting, but I'm glad to add these cards of Folty to the collection.

The Donruss Elite cards really do nothing for me, but I ran across this RC of Folty for $.50 shipped so I figured, why not?

This Chrome Refractor came from the aforementioned group break. The GQ Mini Relic was a early cheap score off eBay. Usually I buy a lot of Freddie's cards, but with my dwindling buying and his stint on the DL this season I guess I just lost some of my Freddie mojo.

Ah, Evan Gattis. I usually don't buy a lot of cards of former Braves players, but how could I not pick up this card? I really miss "El Olso Blanco", though AJ Pierzynski made the loss of Evan a little easier to swallow. One of the best things about this card was it's cost, just under $5 shipped!

Long time readers know that Tim Hudson is my guy and I've got a pretty decent collection of his cards. This makes finding non-super premium cards of his hard to find, yet someone I had missed picking up this 2004 Leather & Lumber game used spikes card. 

I think this card of Minor is an Xfractor, but Topps quite putting the parallel name on the back of Chrome cards so I really have no idea. I think I got the auto in a trade with a reader here, but then again I'm so unorganized right now I can't recall if it was a trade or an outright purchase. I do know that the Braves could have used Minor's arm in the lineup this season.

The lone new Simba card is another Refractor from the group break I participated in. Maybe I should have rotated this image horizontal?

Freedie Freeman spent a good bit of time on the DL this season, unusual for him, however that created opportunities for others to step up. Long time AAA Gwinnett player, Joey Terdoslavich, got a chance to show the fans in Atlanta what he is capable of doing. I picked up this nice wooden RC of his from Panini's surprisingly nice set, America's Pastime. 

And finally we're to Alex Wood. My hometown guy who was traded away to the Dodgers earlier this season in a trade that would bring Hector Olivera to Atlanta. I gotta admit, this one hurt. I can see wy the team made the trade, but it doesn't soften the blow any. This is about the time I think I hung it all up. I haven't looked for any new Alex Wood cards. I've only seen him in a Dodgers uniform once. He's a guy I'll probably continue to collect, but man does it suck that he sports the LA blue now.

Well that's about it. I think I have a pack or two of baseball cards I may spotlight on a Pack Break post, or I may see if A Pack To Be Named Later is in need. It wasn't a horrible baseball season for me, but it wasn't the most ideal for me either. However I'm a true Braves fan and I'm not giving up...on the team, on collecting or on the blog. It's just time for me to move the spotlight over to the Carolina Panthers and root them on to their 2nd Super Bowl appearance!