So I may have gone a little crazy w/ 2015 Donruss

In my last post I shared the contents of a retail value pack of 2015 Donruss I picked up from my local Target store. I was enamored by the cards and inserts so much that I sought out what eBay had to offer in the area of Braves singles. Well as you'll see below I may have gone a little crazy with some purchases, but I scored them all for a song if you ask me.

Opening Day always gets me excited, however this year I'd be at the beach camping. I missed the first two Braves games against the fish in Miami, however I stayed glue to my phone trying to get updates on each game...that is when I had a connection!

Of course the wind was taken out of my sail Sunday night when I saw the news that Craig Kimbrel was traded to the San Diego Padres. My expectations for this season were already a little uneasy at best with the shake up new GM, John Hart has made. However I've tried to stay as optimistic as possible and none the less was please to see them Braves take down the Marlins in games 1 and 2.

I got home last night in time to watch the 3rd and final game in the series and wow, what fun it is to be watching baseball again. This just makes new card acquisitions that much more fun. I'll leave you with some images of my new 2015 Donruss pick ups, in the mean time I'm off to learn more about some of these new faces on the Braves that have impressed me early in the season.

Freddie is now the veteran on the team and has a lot of pressure on him as such. For many reasons I've gravitated to collecting more and more of his cards and these two sub-theme cards are great additions.

I always liked the old Production Line serially numbered inserts. Card looks way better in hand than the scan appears. Card has that rainbow "refractor" like look and is serially numbered to his .461 Slugging Percentage, 434/461.

Alex Wood is the other Brave that I've picked up the pace in collecting. I hate I missed his start in game 2 on Tuesday evening, but I'm looking forward to watching this young pitcher continue to grow and mature. I've already picked up the blue version of this beautiful auto so now to keep my eyes open for the red version numbered to /49.

Speaking of the red Signature Series autos, check out this Ron Gant! I'm glad older players were inserted into the checklist of this great looking insert set. Numbered 42/49, this card only set me back $3 believe it or not.

While labeled a member of the Astros, I could pass up this $2 auto of the young ace we picked in the Evan Gattis deal. This is one time where not having the logos on the cards doesn't hurt!

Lastly we have the former Brave, El Oso Blanco aka Evan Gattis. I hated to see this guy exit the club, but I can understand the move. I'm not sure his value would have gotten any higher and Christian Bethancourt was just waiting in the wings to show his stuff. Nice card design and for a change it's nice to get a small swatch of bat over jersey. B.J. Melvin Upton is in the same set, but unless someone sends it to me in a trade I'm not bothering with it.

Maybe I didn't go too crazy, but the initial offerings on eBay were pretty good and not many bidders either. I may have paid $15 total for these? And thanks to eBay Bucks none of that money spent actually came out of my PayPal account!

Pack Break: 2015 Donruss Value Pack

Panini has yet again revived the Donruss brand for the 2015 baseball season. If you remember I hosted one of my Affordable Group Breaks featuring 2014 Donruss. I enjoyed the break and the product, despite my disappearance from this very blog shortly there after!

While grabbing my first few packs of 2015 Topps Opening Day from Target earlier in the week, a value pack of 2015 Donruss caught my eye. New wax always makes me curious to the point where I'll buy one pack of just about anything to see what it's like.

The value packs boast 30 cards for only $4.99 (retail). In typical Panini fashion, there are tons of inserts and different levels of said inserts. Some inserts have been carried over from last year, such as Season/Career Stat Line. New to this years set includes many designs from past Donruss products. Painted Diamond Kings return along with other new stuff. Overall, non-base cards fall 1:5 packs.

I think I prefer this year's design over last year's just a little. Cards have a nice UV coating on the backs too. Don't remember if 2014 sported glossy backs or not. Granted the lack of a full MLBP license does suck, most of the images look decent enough. Freedie, Tony and Ryne are all in mid swing so you can't see where the team name on the jersey would be anyways. Same for Julio, however the lack of the team logo on his hat is painfully obvious.

Take the Braves for example. The base cards for the team start with #49 Alex Wood. Then #50 Freddie Freeman. Card #51 is Jason Heyward...now with the St. Louis Cardinals. #52 Justin Upton...now with the San Diego Padres. #53 gets things back in order with Julio Teheran. Small gripe, but still a gripe none the less.

Diamond Kings make their return with painted images. We also get an All-Time Diamond Kings set featuring retired greats. I think these look fantastic and I'm glad to have pulled the Iron Man himself. Some previous designs are paid tribute such as Studio, Elite, The Rookies and even Preferred. 

The Studio card of Jorge Soler looks decent enough, but I get more of a Pinnacle vibe than I do Studio. Perhaps if the card had a mauve boarder and the image was more posed.

I never cared for Elite so not much for me to say here. Still has the foil front.

The Rookies look pretty good. I even lucked out and got one of the serially numbered parallels of the same dude in the same pack! 031/106. Any Philly fans reading this that want it?

Now let me tell you about Donruss Preferred. I absolutely loved the inaugural release. From the metal tins the cards came in to the overall design and creativity (at the time) of the inserts. 

Even the autographed cards have a very familiar look. Check out this awesome blue serially numbered card of Alex Wood that just came in the mail. 

Does that design ring any bells? Leaf Signature Series? Yup. Who didn't like that set back in the 90's. I've already got a red serially numbered Ron Gant from this set in the mail and I'm trying to track down the non-numbered versions of both Gant and Wood. Love 'em...even if they are still sticker autos.

Overall it appears that 2015 Donruss is a solid double for Panini. I love the different Donruss brands represented in the set as it gives it some much need diversity. I've already crafted my want list with the few cards I'm looking for. The rest of the commons from this pack that weren't shown, plus the inserts have already been added to the Trade List so please make sure to check out those links in the right side bar if you're interested. Remember, if you see something you want and don't have anything I want please still let me know. My trades don't always have to be 1:1!

Opening Day 2015 is almost here...let's celebrate with 2 packs of 2015 Opening Day

Opening Day of the 2015 Major League Baseball season is just around the corner. You know what that means, Topps has their Opening Day set revved and ready to go.

I find it odd that I'm buying Opening Day cards when I haven't even collated and made a want list for the hobby box of 2015 Topps I bought! Man I'm a slacker!

At $.99 a pack I can't resist picking up at least a few packs each season. I don't really collect these cards, but it's a cheap fix. Plus there seems to be at least one cool insert set I like.

Scanning over the listed odds on the back of the pack I grabbed at Target the other day shows parallels 1:5 packs, 1/1 parallel 1:10,080, serially numbered Printing Plates 1:2,391, base card variations 1:307, Superstar Celebration inserts return at 1:5 packs, along with Mascots 1:5. Opening Day Stars fall 1:24 packs and I'm assuming (and hoping) those feature the lenticular design. Hit the Dirt, Stadium Scenes, Franchise Flashbacks all come in at 1:5, Team Spirit 1:36, Autographs 1:383, Mascot Autographs 1:776 and Opening Day Relics 1:383 packs.

Well, no Braves for me in the first pack. One ex-Brave however. Guess I'll toss the Hamilton and McCutchen in their respective PCs.

Now here is a small insert set I could get behind. I appreciate the subject theme and can't wait to see more cards from this set. The photo of George isn't too bad, but I can't help but think it would have looked better if the picture was snapped just a second or two later. I wanna see some dirt flyin' in the photo!

Pack 2 yielded a Georgia boy and finally a Brave! The other cards will be going into my trade stack. I'll get those added to the Trade List Google Doc soon.

I would think by now these Mascot inserts could be retired...but I guess there are plenty of people who still like 'em.

So for my buck 98 I got a pretty cool Hit the Dirt insert and my first Opening Day Braves player...who get this, is actually on the 2015 roster! Pretty par for the course I'd say.

What's that I spot in the corner of my eye? 2015 Donruss? Hmm...

Trade completed with reader Paul Browning

Shortly after I announced I had returned to the land of the living and I was ready to start trading cards again, long time reader, Paul Browning, contacted me with a proposed trade. I quickly accepted his offer and sent off his requested cards. Here is what I got in return.

I'm not chasing many inserts set anymore, but I was always partial to some of Topps' reprint sets, such as the Trading Card History from 2008 Topps, where the Clemens card hails from. Topps would again do a big reprint set in 2010 with their popular Cards Your Mother Threw Out. Paul helped me get a little closer to finishing the set with 5 more cards. Another reprint set, 60 Years of Topps was included in the 2011 set. This Dave Winfield nearly completes that set.

I also got 3 more commons for my 2013 Gypsy Queen set and 2 inserts from 2012 Gypsy Queen. I'm still a long ways off from finishing both of those GQ sets, but I appreciate any help I can get.

Cards from the Underdog

A few days ago I found a bubble mailer in my mailbox that I wasn't expecting. While I've completed a few trades recently, I haven't received many new cards in the mail. Well thanks to the Underdog Card Collector, I have some new cards!

We've exchanged e-mails in the past, but nothing recently, all the more reason I was surprised he sent me a little package. He knew I was easing myself back into cards, though he knew from my toy blog that I hadn't given up on blogging. Inside the mailer was a nice stack of cards, both Atlanta Braves and Carolina Panthers. I've decided to take my favorite cards from the stack to share, but I appreciate everything that was sent.

From the 2015 Topps comes this beautiful Inspired Play insert of current fireballer, Craig Kimbrel and Hall of Famer, John Smoltz. I really like the faded copper colored background.

I'm always surprised when somebody sends me a relic or autograph card just out of the blue. Even those the Braves opted not to bring Kris Medlen back for the 2015 season, I'll always take whatever cards of his I can get as he was so much fun to watch on the mound.

The Greats was an insert from 2013 Topps that look nice enough to have come from one of the many sets released that year. Printed on a thicker cardboard, these have that premium feel. Smoltz is one of the guys I like to collect and this is one that had eluded me thus far so I'm very happy to add this one to the collection.

Reggie White
2000 Collector's Edge Masters Holofoil #0793/1000

I don't have many Reggie White cards as a Carolina Panther. Even though this card didn't scan very well, I can promise you it looks much better in person.

This off season the Panthers decided to part ways with long time running back, DeAngelo Williams. I believe this decision was made in part to the production of this guy, Jonathan Stewart. While Stewart has had some health issues in the past, when he is healthy watch out! This is the Xfractor version of his 2008 Topps RC.

Pack Break: 2015 Topps Heritage

I found myself at the local Walmart the other day picking up some shipping boxes...business has been good lately in my eBay store...and before I checked out I had to see if they had Heritage on the shelves yet. There were a few blaster boxes and a few value packs. I opted for the value pack as I don't plan on doing much with this set outside of cherry picking a few Braves cards.

Like any savvy card collector would do, I peered through the back of each pack to get an idea of at least one card in the pack. The next to the last pack on hanging there on the peg contained a card of my hometown native and Atlanta Braves rising star, Alex Wood.

Overall the cards looks nice, but Heritage just isn't my cup of tea. All of these cards are available minus the Alex Wood of course.

Open for Business!

One of the things I've enjoyed most since I started this blog 5 or 6 years ago has been trading with others. However during my hiatus all of that fell to the wayside. I would still randomly receive e-mails asking if I wanted to work a trade, but both my trade box and my want lists were woefully inaccurate.

I've spent a few weeks basically taking inventory of every single card I have for trade and make sure my lists are now accurate. Baseball, football and what little of basketball I have are done. I haven't touched the wrestling and non-sports stuff yet, but rarely does anyone ask about those.

My want lists are still being updated, but for the most part those have been updated as well. There are still a few older insert sets I'm working on, but a lot of the ones I was working on have been dropped. From a set building perspective, I'm only working on past Gypsy Queen and Allen & Ginter sets. I will probably end up putting at least series 1 of 2015 Topps together, but I'm actually in the middle of opening a hobby box so I'm not quite ready to build a want list yet.

All that said, if you've contacted me in the past and I had to say no...well now I'm ready to jump back in!