Happy New Year's Everybody and let's get ready for some great playoff Football

Wow last games of the regular season are just a few days away and some still matter.  Crazy.  Of course in the NFC the big game is the last one of the season with the Giants and Cowboys facing off. One gets to go to the playoffs the other gets to watch.  The AFC is a little more complicated with the AFC west up for grabs and 4 teams sitting at 8-7 and the Bengals at 9-6.  Hell the AFC North could send 3/4 of it's division to the playoffs, crazy.  As for me my team, the Packers, they are facing off against the Lions.  It's a game that isn't really all that important to either teams seeing as the Packers locked up the division weeks ago and home field advantage last week with their win against the Bears.  I won a free rib dinner on that one and I gave my wife's aunt 12 points in the game.  I have a feeling that Matt Flynn should get at least 3 quarters of playing time Sunday and if the Lions where smart they'd limit how much playing time Suh gets to keep him out of trouble.  If the Pack had beaten the Chiefs 3 weeks ago this game would be a little more interesting.  I'd also be a little more enthusiastic about the game if the Lions needed the win to get in, but seeing as they already clinched their wildcard spot it won't be like last year when the Bears decided to play soft against the Packers and let them into the Playoff only to have that come and bite them in the ass.

The other thing I've been thinking about is Rookie of the Year.  Of course all the talk is about Cam Newton and Andy Dalton and AJ Green's name is in there too.  For me it all depends if you go purely on stats or other factors like winning games.  Cam has better QB stats, but not by much.  Cam has over 700 more passing yards than Dalton, but they're both tied in total TD's, 20, both have close pass completion percentages and Dalton has 3 fewer picks.  I would love to say Cam is the clear winner simply because he put up stellar numbers this year and while his team didn't help him too much to win, he was a boon for fantasy football.  But Dalton is most likely taking his team to the playoffs and while it takes more than just a great QB to make a good team the fact that the Dalton-Green combo this season has been so fantastic is hard to over look.  So I'm probably going to say that Dalton is my choice, but it ain't up to me.  I will say all three guys, Cam, Andy and AJ have had great rookie years and if they can carry that over to their sophomore years, next year should be just as good.


Well just my two cents.  And remember my 2nd Annual Super Bowl contest is coming up next week.

Happy New Year's everybody!!!!

North Korea on my mind

There's been a ton of news about North Korea as of late with Kim Jong-Il's passing.  And it got me thinking of this great graphic novel I read a few years back.

Guy Delisle's Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea

Just a hilarious and sometimes sad account of a cartoonist travels in a strange land.  You can pick it up on Amazon for under 10 bucks, but you might want to see if your library has it.  I ended up reading it in when I lived in Haines, Alaska.  The library there was trying to put together a nice collection of graphic novels not just for younger readers, but for everybody and had this book as one of it's featured graphic novels.  

In the same vain, but completely different, Persepolis  by Marjane Satrapi,  is also highly recommended.

Holy Crap that's a lot of eTopps!

What does over 200 eTopps cards look like?  Em Well, I didn't take a picture of them so you'll never know, but here's one I know was in there that I yanked from the eTopps site.  I have to say from placing my order to getting them at my front door was very quick.  Especially considering I put the order in right before the Christmas weekend.  But for what the shipping cost would have been if I hadn't used points it should have been.

Anywho.  I figure that the haul should produce multiple posts to enjoy.  I started sorting through them last night and it became a little overwhelming.  Now I have to find a place to store all these bad boys.  I will say these are some nice looking cards.  I'm half tempted to crack one open just so I can get a good look at it without the plastic holder.

And stay tuned for my Super Bowl contest.  I've got the announcement queued up, but seeing as two divisions are still undecided and that the last game of the regular season will determine who wins the NFC East, it should be a good weekend of football even if most of the teams already in the playoffs phone it in on Sunday, yeah I'm looking at you Mike McCarthy!  And how great would it be if the two starting ProBowl QB's don't show up because they're in the SuperBowl?  That's a rhetorical question, cuz the answer is awesome!!!  I have a feeling that a few eTopps cards will make it in to the prize pool for this contest too!!

One more week to go

Man I can't believe the NFL regular season is almost over. And there are two divisions still undecided!! And the last game of the season will decided the NFC East. But that means it's almost time for a contest.  Stay tuned I'll have the big post next  Monday morning.

Cynicalbuddha's Top 100 #64

Ah Ahman.  I miss Ahman Green.  He was fun to watch and a relatively good running back. He still holds the Packers record for most yards..
I like the fact that Ahman retired a Packer too, coming back in the 2009 Season to fill in for Wynn.

I picked this up a while back from Don's Sportscards.  It might have been all the way back in 2002.  I know I've had this card a long time.  It's just so awesome and a pain in the ass to store.  It's freaking huge.

Number 64 on the Top 100
2002 Fleer Flair Football Sweet Swatch Box Loader AGSS

Here's a size comparison for you.

Ahman still does a ot of stuff to help the community with his Ahman Green Foundation and he's getting his Masters from UWGB.

He's got his own website too.  http://www.ahman30.com

Happy Holiday's Everybody

I want to wish everyone out there a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Kwanzaa, Happy Bodhi, Merry Solstice, Good Festivius or whatever religious or secular winter holiday you observe.  We here at the Crack are prejudice to no one.  Enjoy the season however you please.  I probably won't make another post till after the long Christmas holiday so I just wanted to make one last post thanking everybody for a great year, some great trades, group breaks, over all, a great online blogging community of the hobby I love so much and baffles my wife.

So I raise up my chalice of eggnog to you! sniff sniff is that brandy I smell in there?  Maybe, maybe.

Cynicalbuddha's Top 100 #63

I know what your going to say.  "What two Robin Younts in a row??!! And didn't you already feature a 2005  Baseball Heroes card on here??"  

The answer is yes to both, but it's a different kick ass card.  Upper Decks Baseball Heroes had so many parallels and variations it's hard to keep track of them all.  I have a fairly detailed spreadsheet with my Yount collection on it and even with that it's hard to figure out all the different cards in this set.  Yount actually has 5 cards in the base set, so that means he has 5 cards in every parallel set as well, you get the idea, a lot of cards.  I'm still picking up and finding new ones all the time.  Some are numbered, some are signed, some have relics, some have relics and autos, some have relics, autos and are numbered. You get the idea.

What we have here is the Blue Signature parallel numbered to 20!  And it's only 3 off his number too, so that's an ebay 1/1 right?  Say what you want about parallels, I like them.  They give me something to chase. Because I don't think I would ever be satisfied if I could look down at my Yount player collection and say done!  

So number 63 on the Top 100

2005 Upper Deck Baseball Heroes Robin Yount Signature Blue #64 Sticker auto, #d 16/20

Whew!!! I got a mess of eTopps coming.

I'm not sure how many of you have ever bought IPO's or cards off of eTopps.  I've been picking stuff up since 2004 and to be honest it's hit or miss.  eTopps can be bought or sold from your online portfolio on the eBay trading floor and it seems except for a few rare instances that the prices rarely stay above the original IPO price. That being said I've had over 200 some odd cards in my portfolio forever.  I kept thinking about selling them on ebay on the trading floor or having them delivered, but just never did.  You also accrue performance points if players you buy meet certain goals in the sports year.  Over the last 7 years I've accumulated over 300, so when Colbey over at Cardboard Collections pointed out that Topps will be updating it's shipping policies next year and doing away with the ability to use your Performance/Rewards Points to pay for shipping I jumped and had everything in my portfolio available sent to me.  That's over 200 (222 to be exact) cards baby.  Now you can use your rewards points for stuff in their catalog, I never seem to be able to get in when they sell boxes of cards, but I did pick up some cheap eTopps cards from their leftovers.   Needless to say in the 7 years I've been buying and picking up eTopps cards I've never redeemed any Rewards points and after looking through the catalog one more time decided it was time to save myself a crap load on shipping ($237!!) and have my complete portfolio sent to me. And of course I missed a few the first time through so I had to place a second order, but I still have over 100 rewards points left!

What am I going to do with all those cards you ask?  Well I'll probably sell a few, but more than likely there will a ton of really cool trade bait for everyone.  So stay tuned.

So just to help Colbey spread the word if you have a bunch of eTopps cards in your portfolio and and bunch of unused Rewards Points and you want some cards get to it before it's too late!!!

Cynicalbuddha's Top 100 #62

I warned you a while ago these Top 100 posts would be getting more and more PC-centric.  So we have another Robin Yount card.  A beautiful low numbered patch card.  Every now and then I'll just spend an hour or two surfing the listings on ebay for new cards for my player collections.  Sometimes there's some incredible Yount's up there.  I've seen some great collections being sold off.  It's times like that I wish I was rich so I could try and snag all the great cards, but most of the time I'm lucky if I can snag even one of them.  I won this card off of ebay a few years back in one of those mass sell-offs.  The nice thing is with so many awesome cards to choose from some get over looked and I snagged this bad boy pretty cheap.

#62 on the Top 100 (in no particular order)

2004 Upper Deck Ultimate Collection Robin Yount Ultimate Game Patch GP-RY #d 25/75

Cynicalbuddha's Top 100 #61

There was a time when I was picking up Rollie Autos like candy and cheap. Here we have another nice one.  Rollie has one of the nicest sigs in the hobby in my opinion.

Number 61 on the Top 100

2005 Upper Deck Ultimate Signature Edition Rollie Fingers Signature Decades SD-RF 

Here's some dirty in your eye!

I've been checking out some of the box breaks of the new Topps American Pie.  It's been about 10 years since Topps put out an American Pie set and it use to be more of a Baseball related release.  But with the popularity of Panini's Americana and Leaf's Pop Century, looks like Topps is giving this pop culture non-sports release a try.   There's some neat stuff in the product.  I haven't bought any and doubt I will, but I've seen quite a few blog and forum posts on it.  The one insert that stands out are the dirt cards.  Maybe it's because of Colbey's love of the old Stadium club insert that he keeps posting about over at his blog Cardboard Collections.  The checklist I found only lists 4 cards, but Topps leaves the door open that there might be more TBA.  But I was able to snag pictures of all 4 dirt relic cards on the checklist.  So Colbey this one's for you.

So I guess only 2 are actually dirt.  The Gettysburg and Statue of Liberty look like a piece of wood and maybe a piece of old Lady Liberty herself?  Tough to tell and no one's posted the backs of these cards so that's no help.

You'll notice when I do a box break or my Top 100 I always try to post a picture of the back of at least one cards in a release.  I'm a sucker for completeness like that.  I'm at work right now and can't access ebay so I have no idea what these cards are running or what sellers are asking.  I'll try and do an update later tonight if I get a chance.

So there you go Colbey some new cards to chase for you oddball relics collection.

cb out

Cynicalbuddha's Top 100 #60

Wow we're  3/5ths of the way done here with the top 100 cards in my collection ( in no particular order).

Since I featured a nice Reggie Patch card from UD Premier yesterday why not a nice Triple relic from my favorite baseball player of all time.  I like the spacing of the relics in this card.  On the outside you have two awesome multicolored patches and on the inside a nice pinstripe relic.  And to top it off it's #d 20 out of 20 so that's an ebay 1/1 right?  

So Number 60 on the Top 100

2008 UD Premier Robin Yount Triple relic Premier Swatches PS-RY #d 20/20

Cynicalbuddha's Top 100 #59

Another day another Reggie.

I remember thinking I can't believe I picked this up so cheap.  Looking at the colors I'm assuming the patch came from an old Angels jersey.  Still a nice low numbered patch card.

#59 on the Top 100

2008 Upper Deck Premier Reggie Jackson Premier Patches PP2-JA #d 28/44

Contest Pimp Christmas Edition

Yo yo Yo,
Merry Christmas y'all.  One last contest pimp shout out till Christmas.  Get you ass over to Sports Card Blog to enter their contest for free stuff.  Just leave a comment.

Pimp out.

It's coming prepare yourselves.

Oh yeah. Last year was so much fun.  I have a feeling a few more people will be picking the Packers this year.

Only 3 more weeks till it starts.  Last year I gave away a set of Rookie of the Week redemption cards.  This year who knows.  I still haven't decided.  But the format will be the same. If you don't remember or didn't participate last year you can click here to check it out.

And you may remember I talked about having a trivia contest on the blog.  I've decided not to do it. Mainly because I don't have the time and mainly because with the internet today it's way too easy to find the answers. But I won't rule one out in the future.  So with 3 weeks of regular season left there's some damn good football yet to be played.  Some of the divisions are already wrapped up, but there are a few that aren't and the wild cards still need to be decided.

Barry Bonds sentenced to being good from here on out!!!

*

Just saw over the wire that Barry Bonds was sentenced to two years probation and a $4000 fine for obstruction of justice.  I suppose that's ok with me.  I mean yeah he lied, but do we really need Barry in prison?  Although maybe he should have to do some community service or something.  Cuz lying is bad, m'kay?  Yeah it's a slap on the wrist, but he didn't murder anybody, or did he?

Update:  I guess he also got 250 hours of community service and some home confinement.  Doesn't Barry's house have a bowling alley in it?

Of course there's the appeal process expected to take a year or more, so any actual punishment won't start till after that.

Cynicalbuddha's Top 100 #58

Wow it's been a over a week since my last Top 100 post, that trade night win took up some space, but lets get back to it.

Another Yount from the Yount collection.  Triple Threads has always been hit or miss for me.  Especially the relic cards.  Some of the designs are just so clunky and visually unappealing. I actually like the base cards more than the hits.  But this card has a nice symmetry with all the letters and numbers. Plus the relics are arranged nicely and one has the ever popular pinstripe.  I sure the seller listed this card as a 6 relic card but we all know that it's 3 relics with 6 letters, it's pretty obvious.  Still a nice card of my favorite baseball player of all time.

Number 58 on the Top 100 (in no particular order)

2008 Topps Triple Threads Robin Yount Triple Take Relic TTR-218 numbered 11/27.

Blog Bat Around

Ryan over at This Card is Cool posed the following Blog Bat Around question...

"The 2011 baseball card collecting season is finally over - other than Bowman Sterling (coming out December 21st). What set or release stands out as your favorite from the year? What set or release brings your lunch back up to your throat?"




Sticking to baseball, because I think Parkhurst Champions Hockey is my favorite card release of the year from just opening one pack I snagged in my Trade Night win.  Just awesome looking base cards.




But in baseball I think my favorite of the year was Allen and Ginter.  I just rocked A&G this year with every box I opened.  All three had goodness for me this year, plus while lots of people weren't overly impressed with the base design I kinda liked it and I really liked some of  the inserts and mini offerings this year.


My lease favorite set or sets was Bowman for the second year in a row.  I've talked with one of local LCS owners last year and he says he always takes a bath on Bowman, it never sells and the only reason last year Bowman went through the roof was because of Strasmania and this year it was Harper Mania.  And don't get me wrong I know there are plenty of people out there that like Bowman and collecting prospects, but Topps also crames Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects down our throats and it's almost the exact same product as the regular Bowman offering, just seems pointless.  And why do you include Bowman Chrome cards in your regular Bowman release and then offer up Bowman Chrome?  


But I digress, so in summary, favorite A&G. Least favorite Bowman, any of it.

Holy Crap!! Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse to be a Bears fan!!

I just saw this over the wire.

The Chicago Sun Times is reporting that Sam Hurd, WR for the Chicago Bears, has been busted trying to buy drugs and setting up a drug distribution ring in Chicago.

Wow, all I can say is wow.  Go HERE to read the whole article.

Apparently Sam already was distributing, but needed more to keep up with his demand.  It just kinda shocks me.  I mean this guy makes over a million dollars a year, what is he doing, setting up for his retirement?

Crazy, Crazy, Crazy.

Trade night booty finale.... 2011 Absolute Memorabilia Football.. The best for last

Well hard to believe that I'd save a Panini product for last, but I did get, in my opinion, the best card out of the trade night win out of this pack.

Here's the two base cards.  Shiny

#d to 100

A very nice Charles Woodson Packer insert.  Going in my Packer collection.

but ......

the ..... 

best......

card.....

out .....

of.....

all.....

the....

packs.....

was.....

this one.......

#d to 199


A hand signed Cam Newton triple relic card.  Yowza!!!!!!!!!!!!

Contest Pimp

Yo the Contest Pimp is back with a great contest over at the Diamond King.  Lot's of free cards up for grabs.

Go HERE to check it out.

Trade night booty Part 8 the Football Packs

Here we have the bulk of the Football that I won at Trade night.  We'll start off with the cheapest and work our way up.  

First up Topps Chrome.

Not too bad. 3 rookies and one of those rookies was an insert.  I think Ponder has some learning to do, but might very well end up being the QB the Vikings have long since needed.

Next Topps Gridiron Legends.

I only bought one pack of this when it came out and hit a Jerrel Jernigan auto.  I'm just under impressed with this offering.  The cards are kinda boring.  The Boldin is the Bronze or Sepia or what ever you want to call it parallel #d to 299.  Wes Welker is the extra thick decoy card.

Next up Certified Football.

And the hit...

A nice event worn patch of Taiwan Jones.  The running joke at Trade Night is that Taiwan is everywhere and I did hit quite a few of his cards in these packs.  

Now on to a pack I was really looking forward to opening.  At 26 bucks a pack this is a product I could see splurging on a pack or too, but I've been good.  

After opening this up all I have to say is which cards are the base cards?  Is it the Die cut crowns, I'm pretty sure it is, but honestly it's hard to tell with what you get in a pack.  Here's the run down.

Some great looking cards.  I really like the Knights of the Gridiron die-cut insert.  I would have loved to pull an auto out of this product but I'll suffer with my low numbered Matt Ryan Relic.

Next up the best pack of the bunch.....