Does Winning Effect Your Collecting?

This has been a question I've often thought about. Does a particular player's performance on the field/court/ice or a team's performance effect your collecting?

Let's take two of my teams as an example. The Atlanta Braves were supposed to be continuing their rebuild in 2018, yet as of 06/05/18 they find themselves in first place atop the NL East. Granted their lead over the Washington Nationals is a small lead and there is a lot of baseball left to be played, it's been so much more fun watching my team play.

On the collecting front, the Braves success alone as generated more Topps Now cards than any other season since that program began. I find myself finding ways to purchase most of these cards, plus searching out other Braves cards from this year and years past. Last week I was in Atlanta to celebrate my wife's birthday and we saw Mike Foltynewicz pitch himself into the Braves record book. This lead me to checking out some of his RCs online in between innings! The same can be said of utility player, Charlie Culberson after he hit two walk off HRs in the same week. He only has a few cards in a Braves uniform at this time and his on the field performance has put those cards on my radar a little bit more. Needless to say, I've always found entertainment in collecting Braves cards, I just feel that 2018 has been one of the better years.

I'm not the biggest basketball fan out there. I do try and follow ACC college hoops and of course I get excited every March for the NCAA tournament, but I don't actively watch a lot of NBA games. I grew up a Hornets fan and back in the early 90's the team was still new in Charlotte where I lived that there was still excitement over the team. Despite their win/loss record, the team was fun to watch. I saw many games live at the old Charlotte Coliseum and watched them on TV. Then the owner took the team and left town. True the city would get another NBA franchise a few years later (Bobcats), but it just wasn't the same. Even when the Bobcats were re-branded the Hornets, the play on the court left a lot to be desired.

I probably watched more Hornets games this past season than I have in awhile, but man was it hard at times watching my team get clobbered or only to lose the game in the final minutes or seconds. Kemba Walker and Dwight Howard made it fun to watch, but even their performance could only hold my attention for so long. I guess because of the team's play I found myself rarely searching out new Hornets cards. I didn't buy many singles and I can't remember the last time I bought a pack of basketball cards that wasn't marked down. Part of me wants to have more current Hornets cards, it's just hard to get excited to look for them. Perhaps if there were more card shows in the area where I could dive through dime boxes or if the team could actually string together a winning record it would be different. Or would it?

Most of the readers also know that I'm a Carolina Panthers fan as well, but my collecting of the team really hasn't changed since they came into the league.

Overall it just seems to be a little more interesting to collect when your team is winning, or your player is doing well. Note I said interesting and not fun as I can always can find fun in card collecting and fun things with the cards in my own collection. One of the reasons I started this blog was to have another way to "interact" with the cards I have.

Does any of my rambling make any sense? Do you find yourself actively searching out cards of your team/player after a good game or season? I'd love to hear if there are others that think/collect in a similar fashion or if I'm on an island by myself.

June 2018 Affordable Group Break

Time for another Affordable Group Break. Even though I'm away on vacation, I thought I'd go ahead and post the boxes and the sign-ups now so that by the time I return we should be able to get underway as quickly as possible. Most importantly, this will be affordable at only $9 for a two team slot!

We'll start off with 2002 Upper Deck Diamond Connections (Hobby). Each box has 2 mini boxes, with 7 packs each (14 packs total). I don't believe I ever opened much of this when it was current and I felt it went well with the next product. For more info on this release, check out the Trading Card Database.

40 Man Baseball is Upper Deck's answer to Topps Total. It features a massive 900 card set so there should be plenty of cards available for each team. 10 cards per pack, 24 cards per box. No fancy inserts or "hits", but two different parallel sets that may contribute. Autos are seeded 1:500 so I doubt we'll get any ink, but you never know. For more about this set, please check out the Trading Card Database.

We'll have 14 total spots available (after I claim the Braves) and we'll use the following format:
Choose 1 team and the 2nd team will be randomly assigned once the break is full. Cost for each slot will only be $9 shipped. All cards pulled will be shipped. Packs will be opened Live in the Facebook group, including randomization of second team(s).

As with all of my breaks, there *will* be bonus packs/boxes and if any participants teams don't yield as many cards as the next guy, we'll make sure to toss in some freebies.

If you're interested, all you need to do to claim your slot:

* Join the Facebook group (not required, but highly recommended)
* Comment on this post (or on Facebook or Twitter) with the team you want (first come, first serve)
* Payments will be by PayPal, www.paypal.me/colbeyhopper (Goods & Services only)

I return from vacation on 06/13/18. I'll place the order at some point while I'm gone (assuming the sign ups have gone well) so that it's waiting for me when I return. Hopefully we can get to ripping Saturday evening, 06/16/18. If there are any questions please let me know. Please help spread the word to others that you know may be interested.

As with all breaks I host, I claim the Atlanta Braves. All other teams are up for grabs!

01 - Cardboard Collections - Braves (PAID)
02 - Cards on Cards - Cardinals (PAID)
03 - Community Gum - White Sox (PAID)
04 - Nachos Grande - Reds (PAID)
05 - Roy Galloway - Red Sox (PAID)
06 - gcrl - Dodgers (PAID)
07 - Royals & Randoms - Royals (PAID)
08 - the Lost Collector - Yankees (PAID)
09 - Marc Brubaker - Astros (PAID)
10 - Nick Dusenbury - Orioles (PAID)
11 - Highly Suggestive & Completely Arbitrary - Twins (PAID)
12 - Cardboard Collections - A's
13 - Cardboard Collections - Brewers
14 - Cardboard Collections - Angels
15 - Cardboard Collections - Blue Jays

The Next (Epix) Collecting Adventure

There was something about the 90's that I just love when it comes to baseball cards. I didn't come into collecting until 1990 and all I knew at that time was Donruss, Fleer and Topps. I would collect for many years before my interest starting to wane a little. However in the late 90's the card companies really started to step up their game with different "technologies" used, such as a chromium finish, refractors and dufex finishes.

Trying to keep up with all the sets was nearly impossible for me so I had to settle for what I could find locally or at shows. Insert sets were a dime a dozen during this time period, keep in mind the game used relic cards didn't hit until around 1997 thanks in part to Upper Deck. In today's crowded market of baseball cards a lot of these great 90's inserts sets have fallen to the wayside, but there are some really interesting themes and designs.

It's not like I need to collect anything else, however one set in particular that caught my was the multi-tiered Crusade set in Donruss products. I quickly moved on however once I saw what the cards were trading for on the secondary market! I then moved onto another insert set that was inserted across several different Pinnacle sets...1998 Epix.

Epix is a 72 card set that were randomly seeded in packs of 1998 Pinnacle (1:21), 1998 Score (1:61) and 1998 Zenith (1:11). Each card came in 3 different colors, orange, purple and emerald. Approximately 70% of the cards are orange, 20% are purple and only 10% are emerald. Each player had 4 versions, "Play", "Game", "Season" and "Moment". Play were the most common with Moment being the hardest to pull.

1998 Score Rookie/Traded and 1998 Pinnacle Plus had their own Epix All-Star set, but I'm not chasing those at this time.

I like a good challenge and I figured trying to put this 72 card set together ought to be challenging, but doable. Of course I'm going to be asking for the blogging community and Twitter-verse for help in trying to assemble this set. I'm not sure if I'll start and focus just on the orange cards, or if I should just pick up whatever I can find. So far I have 3 cards, the two Andruw Jones cards above and one Greg Maddux "Play" orange.

I'm willing to trade and buy any cards from this set that I can find. If you can help, please consider sending me a message or contacting me on Twitter (@flywheels).

Affordable Group Break 2nd Team Randomization

Well, I was hoping to fill this break up with more people, but alas the sign up window has come and gone with only one more spot claimed. That leaves 6 slots left that I'll claim. I chose a few teams that usually nobody wants so that some of the better unclaimed teams can go to the paid participants. Here is how the signs up ended:

01 - Cardboard Collections - Atlanta Braves
02 - Cards on Cards - St. Louis Cardinals
03 - Roy Galloway - Boston Red Sox
04 - Royals & Randoms - Kansas City Royals
05 - Nick Dusenberry - Baltimore Orioles
06 - Nick Vossbrink - San Francisco Giants
07 - The Angels in Order - Anaheim Angels
08 - daddyohoho - Philadelphia Phillies
09 - Royals & Randoms - Seattle Mariners
10 - Cardboard Collections - San Diego Padres
11 - Cardboard Collections - Colorado Rockies
12 - Cardboard Collections - Florida Marlins
13 - Cardboard Collections - Pittsburgh Pirates
14 - Cardboard Collections - Montreal Expos
15 - Cardboard Collections - Minnesota Twins

That left some good teams unclaimed that will be randomized for all. After we rolled the virtual dice to see how many times we'd randomize the list of unclaimed teams, here are the results!

01 - Cardboard Collections - Houston Astros
02 - Cards on Cards - Cleveland Indians Texas Rangers
03 - Roy Galloway - Chicago White Sox
04 - Royals & Randoms - Cincinnati Reds
05 - Nick Dusenberry - Detroit Tigers New York Yankees
06 - Nick Vossbrink - Oakland Athletics
07 - The Angels in Order - Los Angeles Dodgers
08 - daddyohoho - Milwaukee Brewers
09 - Royals & Randoms - Texas Rangers Cleveland Indians
10 - Cardboard Collections - New York Mets
11 - Cardboard Collections - New York Yankees Detroit Tigers
12 - Cardboard Collections - Toronto Blue Jays
13 - Cardboard Collections - Chicago Cubs

If you'd like to offer up a trade for your 2nd team, please do so on this post or at least message me and let me know of the deal so I can keep my list updated.

2017 Topps Now: Dansby Swanson #59 (916 print run)

I still remember April 17th, 2017 like it was yesterday. Dansby steps up to the plate in the bottom of the ninth, game tied 9-9 with the San Diego Padres. On a 1-2 count, he smacks a line drive out into left field just beyond the reach of the defender giving the Braves their win and first walk off of Dansby's young career as well as the first in SunTrust Park history.

2018 Topps Living Set Ronald Acuna #19

The mail man brought me a fat padded mailer today and I couldn't be happier with what was inside. When Topps launched their Living Set earlier this year, I wasn't sure what to make of it. $7.99 for a single card or $14.99 for the 3 cards released that week...not too bad. After all I've spent $9.99 on single Topps Now cards in the past. Nick Markakis was the first Braves player to be featured in the set...but I passed. I don't care that his card is trading for big dollars on eBay currently, but now that I have a card in hand I realize how beautiful they actually are.

The Braves' rookie phenom, Ronald Acuna, was called up from AAA Gwinett on 04/25/18 and has made an immediate impact. I don't have many RCs of his yet so I decided to jump on this Living Set card. While I wish they had used a different design, I love the card. At first glance it may appear to be just another Heritage type card, however the card stock used is a little thinner than Heritage. The other big difference is the photo isn't a photo, but a drawing of the player. These cards are really beautiful in hand. I'm starting to see why more and more people are jumping on this set and trying to build it now. That's not for me, but I will be cherry picking a few players moving forward.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on the idea behind this set. Yea or nay? Have you bought any Living Set cards? If so, do you like them? If you haven't bought any, why?

Group Break Update

Even though the sign ups have slowed down and we still have several slots still available to be claimed (and some good teams too!), I've ordered the boxes and should have them by mid-week. Once they arrive, we'll get the break going. Aiming for Thursday or Friday evening...depending on my travel schedule for work.

Any unclaimed slots will go to me as the host...however I'd rather not eat the money so be sure to tell your friends about the break. Only $8 gets you two teams, one of your choosing and one randomized.