Mail Day (aka Packs from a Junkie)

While I am currently attempting to catch up in thanking previous senders of valuable and cherished bubble mailers of cards, I also wish to attempt to begin to keep up to date with recently sent items as well.

One such package was sent to me courtesy of dayf over at 'Cardboard Junkie'. Knowing from other blog postings that nothing but goodness comes from Georgia area I tore into this mailer like a rabid hound. Onto the desk spilled three packs of unknown cardboard contents.

This was going to be a fun adventure.

Football or Baseball.......Baseball or Football.......Topps or Upper Deck.......Upper Deck or Topps.......what to do, what to do.......MechaGodzilla gets the pick.

PACK #1

2009 Upper Deck Philadelphia Football - This stuff is wicked. Mini National Chicle inserts, Autographs, Jersey Swatches.......the whole nine yards, so to speak.

Now, before we go any further, I want to touch on a subject that has been hashed time and time again on countless other blogs. Quality Control. I understand that in a high volume automated process things can sometimes get past QC. However, sometimes things are so bad it makes you wonder if there even is a human being watching this stuff go by.

You tell me.......

CARD #1 - Phil Hughes T206 Framed Mini Autograph

Is that a Topps card in my Upper Deck package?!? The madness folks, is just beginning!!!

CARD #2 and CARD #3, ALSO T206 Framed Mini Autos
Elvis Andrus and Jonathan Van Every

I do not think this has ever happened in the history of card collecting. Not ONLY have I just hit on a "hot pack" but said pack is loaded with another companies' product!!

THIS IS MADNESS!!!!!!

However, fear not. All is not lost. There is some semblance of normalcy in this hottest of packs. I did hit an Upper Deck relic card that ACTUALLY belonged in this pack. WHEW!!!! Thank goodness!!!

CARD #4 - Andre Caldwell 'Game Day Gear' Jersey Relic

All I can say is, I knew Upper Deck had a few "issues" here and there but THIS is ridiculous, unprecedented, unfathomably believable and downright insulting.

MY GOD!!!!

I need normalcy. I need reassurance. I need to know that the world is all it should be, right now. C'mon Topps, if ever your trusted brand was needed to re instill hobby security it is now!!!

PACK #2

Good ole' 2010 'Allen & Ginter'. 8 Picture cards of World Champion goodness.....ahhhhhhhh!!!

WHAAAAAATT!!!!!

OHZ NOZ!!! THEYZ GOTZ TO YOUZ TOO??!!!??

8 Cards - Check!

That is where the similarities end. If I did not know any better I would say that these are a mixture of 2009 and 2010 Heritage. There is no hope left in the collecting world. No serious thought is being placed into the security and management of the product we so devoutly love and cherish.

Upper Deck does not care!!

Topps does not care!!

Heck, I no longer care!!! Thankfully we have only one miserable, pathetic, useless pack left to wade through. If there is any shred of decency left in this universe this will all come to an end mercifully soon. My apologies fellow bloggers, you deserve much better than this. You do, indeed!!

PACK #3

2009 Upper Deck Philadelphia Football - Or should I guess here.....maybe some Obak, or Press Pass, or even some rogue Classic from the 90's......*sigh*.........here we go.....

ZOMG!!!

2009 T206 base, SPs and bronze parallels!! OH THE HORROR OF IT ALL!!!!!!!

Base - Trevor Cahill (OAK)


Bronze Parallel - Ricky Romero (TOR) & Aramis Ramirez (CHC)


SPs - Gordon Beckham (CWS), Koji Uehara (BAL) & Evan Longoria (TB)

What to say?.......Where to begin?.......I AM SPEECHLESS!!!

All the good intentions, all the selfless giving of a fellow blogger is completely ruined by the incompetence and complete abandonment of integrity by both Topps and Upper Deck. Those companies should be ashamed of they actions. To you dayf I apologize and offer the only thing I can, in return. I pledge to see to it that these abominations that we shall loosely call "packs of cards" here will receive a proper and loving home. I will try and see they fit in amongst their brethren regardless of their bastardized origins.

In order to make room for them and see to it that they "fit in" I will be removing several members of the current collection of cardboard misfits. And, will be sending them your way, so as to ease the pain of an attempt at generosity gone awry due to mismanagement at the production level.

Thanks dayf,

Cheers,

Check out MY cards!!!

About a month ago I decided to sign up for an account at Checkoutmycards.com and see what all the fuss was about. I had read several testimonials from satisfied customers and it seemed like something that might aid in my completion of some insert sets, aside from the usual trading method that has proven successful time and time again.

I decided to take $20 and see just how much I could get for my money. In the end I think I did okay.

The first cards I went searching for were from a subset of cards I initially talked about here. Aside from collecting the usual favorite teams and players I also collect certain cards based on their subject matter. One of the coolest ones I saw from a release in 2009 were the National Chicle mini parallels from Upper Deck's 'Philadelphia' football product. There are 10 cards that feature military aircraft. Through COMC I managed to find 5 more to add to the one I pulled from the discounted blaster boxes.

The Martin B-26 Marauder was nicknamed 'The Widowmaker' due to its high instance of crashed during the testing phase of production.

The FG-1D Corsair was the first U.S. warplane to reach 400-MPH. Its victory ratio against the Japanese fighterplanes was 11-to-1.

The P51 Mustang was mainly used to escort U.S. heavy bombers. Its popularity led to the Ford Motor Company designing a car in the 60's bearing its name.

The McDonnell FD-FH Phantom, while never seeing combat, was the first carrier-based fighter jet in the U.S. Navy.

Lastly, the Lockheed P-58 Chain Lightning was a high altitude, long-range fighter used to combat enemy bomber formations.

Sparked by an initial post by sooz over at 'A Cardboard Prblem' on the apparent unnatural and essentially falsehood of the Allen & Ginter 1/1 wood mini cards being actually made of wood, I was reminded of a set of cards from the 90's which was ACTUALLY made of wood. In 1997 Topps had released an insert set called 'Team Timber' that were seeded one card per box. For the longest time I had card #TT-10 featuring Juan Gonzalez gathering dust in a shoebox.

'Team Timber' was a 16-card set featuring the biggest hitters of the day. I thought I might as well see how many of these I could get from COMC and still come in under budget. All totaled I found 13 more of the 'Team Timber' set and added them to my order. I grabbed two of the cheapest priced card because I wanted to experiment with it when it got here.

TT2, TT3, TT4 and TT5 featured Ken Caminiti (SD), Bernie Williams (NYY), Jeff Bagwell (HOU) and Frank Thomas (CWS)


TT7, TT8, TT9 and TT11 featured Barry Bonds (SFG), Rafael Palmeiro (BAL), Brady Anderson (BAL) and Mo Vaughn (BOS)

The card that I ordered doubles of to experiment on was the Mo Vaughn. TT11.1 gladly gave up its existence for the sake of curiosity. These cards were made of a thin veneer of wood on the front of which was a clear sticker featuring the images you see scanned. The card backs were different in that the images, statistics and printing appear to have been screen printed on rather than just a sticker. There is an actual wood grain to the cards as well. Both versions of the Mo Vaughn card were an entirely different grain pattern. When rolled up the cards split into long slivers right along the grain pattern.

The only drawback to this is that these cards really cannot be stored in pages as they tended to begin to curl when kept outside of a toploader for any period of time. A bit of a pain but not something totally inconvenient.

TT13, TT14, TT15 and TT16 featured Gary Sheffield (FLA), Albert Belle (CLE), Chipper Jones (ATL) and Mike Piazza (LAD)

Including the Gonzalez I already owned I am now only three cards away from finishing this set. Not bad for an insert that back when it was released was seeded one per box. For those of you who may have one or two of these kicking around, have a look for me. I need TT1 - Ken Griffey Jr., TT6 - Andres Galarraga and TT12 - Mark McGwire.

With a few dollars left to spend I decided to see what was available for my Jackie Robinson collection. The first card I found was one I had seen several times and eventually wanted to pick up. However, I only wanted to get it for a decent price, not some of the unfavorable sums I had seen. Seeing as I am posting it here my guess is you know I satisfied that criteria.

2008 Topps 'Allen & Ginter' Promo card from The National

The next three cards I got of Jackie Robinson's in reality turned out to be only two. I ended up with a double of one not realising there was zero difference between what was listed as the "Windsor Green" version and the "Green Linen" version of the card. If anyone is collecting the 2007 Upper Deck Masterpiece set and needs the green version of card #54, let me know, I will gladly swap it for any of the other parallels I still need from that set.

This is a nice set and I plan on buying a whole mess of this product in the near future.

2007 Upper Deck 'Masterpieces' Green frame parallel cards #24 and #54

The last card in this delivery I purchased strictly for the purpose of having it autographed. I was hoping to have the card in time to take with me to the FanExpo I recently attended in Toronto. Unfortunately the package did not arrive in time. (Lesson learned). It however led to a much more significant item being signed. The gist of which I covered in this post here.

All together I am very happy with my first purchase from COMC. My only critique would be with the rather steep S&H charges that grow with every card added to the request for shipping order. When compared to other outlets like eBay it is right in line so I get the arguments of how it really is not that bad. It really is that only concern I had with the process though. Everything else was perfect and I am already building another order to be shipped real soon.

If you have never done so, I recommend going to 'Checkoutmycards' and seeing what they can offer you. For my money it is a great way to finish off sets as well as finding some of the more obscure items you are looking for at a negotiable price.


Cheers,

Mail Day (aka Plain Ketchup (Act II))

For the last month I have been inexcusably lax in honoring those who have seen fit to send me cards worth putting into my collection and in return taking on those cards which I have no desire to keep. Things creep up on you incredibly fast when it comes to bubble mailers and the next thing you know, you have to do a post like this just to cover what has been sent.

Let's get to it.

Firstly, I have begun to seriously focus on the players I collect. Putting sets together can really chew up the time and make it easy to neglect the supposedly simpler things in Cardworld. Four cards have been added to my Ricky Romero collection. One of them came from Chris over at 'Stale Gum' who gladly parted with some 2010 Heritage Chromero-Jo. I am still looking for the Refractor and Black-bordered version of these. Like I said, I have neglected my PCs.


The next two Romero cards were purchased as a lot on eBay for a VERY acceptable total. The 'SP Prospects' National Honors card is the first relic card I have added to the PC and the 'Bowman Heritage' is the first RC.


One of the things I like about Ricky Romero, aside from him being a Southpaw, a Blue Jay and quite possibly the future Ace of their staff, is his signature. It is clean and more importantly, legible. I received my first Romero auto last year, coincidentally, from Chris at 'Stale Gum' This auto I had seen sell several times and was happy to finally snag at a great price on eBay. A 2006 Bowman 'Signs of the Future'.


Yeah, I know its a sticker. On card would have been much better on this set but that is true for any set. No sense in complaining and it still has a home in my collection. This winter I am going to make a solid effort to build my Ricky Romero collection by at least a hundred cards or so. This thing needs to be shown some lovin'.

An even longer time ago, Chris over at 'Nachos Grande' posted some trade bait. I had a few things he was looking for so two of his cards came my way for a series of cards that were better served in Pennsylvania. Besides certain players I like to collect certain subjects that have been featured on cards. One of those subjects are authors. When those authors are featured on shiny cardboard it is even better.


The other card that caught my eye happens to be my first relic from the 2008 Allen & Ginter set. Some pin-stripey-Cubbie-goodness featuring Carlos Marmol.


The last card I want to feature in this post was an eBay purchase and one I decided to grab on a whim one night. If I ever get around to redeeming it I hope the card looks as good "in hand" as it does as a scan. More Cubbie-goodness, this time redemption-style. 2010 Topps Finest Rookie Redemption #7 for Andrew Cashner.

THIS......

...will eventually become, THIS.

Any opportunity to get an on-card auto of a Cub is one I cannot pass up.

Looking at my desk here I have managed to shrink my pile of envelopes by a total of five. I have a few group break envelopes to open and sort and share with you. It feels good to get through some of the clutter and it feels even better to properly thank those that took the time to trade me some of their discards.

As always, if you see anything you want on my "For Trade" lists or if you have anything from my "Want Lists" I would gladly work a deal to benefit us both.

Send me an e-mail.

Cheers,