Hey you guyssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.

You should enter my Almost the Easiest Super Bowl Contest on the Web IV.  And don't forget to pimp it for an extra door prize entry!!

Contest Pimp - Play at the Plate Year Ender

Yo Yo Yo, Contest Pimp back. Tis the season, with the Super Bowl coming up and the end of the year literally days away. If you don't know about the contest on this blog, shame on you and go enter.  But if you want an even easier contest go to Play at the Plate. You can enter 1895 times if you want and it's easy. Here is a link to the page with rulz.

Stay tuned I'm sure I'll be back with some more contests to Pimp!!

Almost the Easiest Super Bowl Contest on the Web IV - Official Sign up Post

It's that time of year again.  Can't believe that the regular season's already over.  That just flew by.  But with the end of the regular season comes Collector's Crack Almost the Easiest Super Bowl Contest on the Web IV!!!  Man how great was it the the last game of the regular season meant something for a few divisions. And talk about some crazy games. I still can't believe my Packers made it in.

Like years past I just want you to tell me who's going to win the Super Bowl.  There are definitely a few teams that seem to be the front runners this year, but that means nothing now that it's win or go home time.
And since I'm sure a few of you guys will probably pick the same team to win we'll need a few tie breakers.  So in your entry also tell me who the opponent will be, total number of points, and total number of turnovers in the game (both teams fumbles and interceptions).

So your entry would look something  like this:

Seattle over Denver, 56 points, 4 turnovers

Here are your choices
NFC
Seattle Seahawks
Carolina Panthers
Philadelphia Eagles
Green Bay Packers
New Orleans Saints - Wildcard
San Fransisco 49ers - Wildcard

AFC
New England Patriots
Cincinnati Bengals
Indianapolis Colts
Denver Broncos
Kansas City Chiefs - Wildcard
San Diego Chargers - Wildcard

I know you're saying, "CB that's great, but what can we win?"

This year it's nothing but autos!!!

The Champion will get these two great cards!

 I picked up this great 1996 Laserview Inscriptions card of Jim Everett a while back and I had thought about holding on to it, but it really is too cool. The card is one of those acetate cards and it's even hand numbered to 3100!

 Next up is a great card of a not so great player, but the card is pretty sweet.  And if you happen to be a Vikings fan or if you're a Seahawks fan I guess your hoping you don't need him. Poor Tavaris really didn't get much of a chance as a starter and is probably one of those guys that will spend most of his career on the bench, but this is still a sweet card and it can be yours if you win.

Plus I'll throw in some cards from your favorite team. No promises on the greatness of those cards as most of my collection has been mothballed, but I can always raid Don's dime and dollar boxes.

But wait there's more.  Just for taking part in my little contest you can win this great card I just pulled from a hobby pack of Topps Strata.

You're probably saying to yourself who the heck is Mike Gillislee? like I was saying that a few moments ago. Well he was a Gator and after looking up his stats didn't do too shabby there. Unfortunetly this year he only saw playing time on the last game of the season with 6 carries for whopping 21 yards. And those are his rookie stats.  But the Dolphins are on the verge of....well the verge, so this could be a great prospect card. I'm just not going to be the one who's holding on to it.  Plus I'll throw in some extra goodies like always.
And don't forget if you pimp this contest on your blog I'll give you another entry into the door prize drawing!

Just leave a comment with a link to the pimp, you can do it with your entry or separate, I don't care.

Alright boys and girls it's on!!!
The contest will officially close at Noon Alaska Time, 4pm Eastern,  on Saturday Janurary 4th. The Colts - Chiefs game starts about a half hour after that. I'll be putting up reminders all week and I'll have an post with everybodies picks sometime on Saturday.  Good Luck and if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask.  CB out

Merry Holidays

2013 Year End Review

The past few years I have, like many bloggers, put up a list of goals. Some call it their New Years Resolution. Me I call it my State of the Blog address.  So in preparation for the 2014 address it's time to take a look back at the goals I set for myself and see how I did.

1.    I'm going to try and pair down my overwhelming inventory of cards I don't want.  By selling, trading and even giving them away and in the process picking up stuff I do want and making room in my man cave.

Well I did manage to trade some stuff away and I sold some on ebay, but to be honest this really didn't happen. This is pretty evident since I've been boxing up stuff to store and make way for our baby coming early next year.
Strike one

2.    Continue working on organizing and inventorying my Brewers team sets and cards and start working on organizing my Packers cards.  I made a lot of progress this year and I've almost completed all the Topps team set issues from 1971 to present and most of the traded and update sets as well.  Once that is done I want to focus on getting all the Fleer, Donruss, and Upper Deck flagship sets done and then I can start seriously working on all the rest.  For the Packers who have a lot more years of cards to acquire and some really expensive ones on the older end I'm not so worried about those.  I'm going to concentrate on working my way backwards through the years focusing on Topps first.

Well I can say while I've kept up with my Packers want list actually organizing my Packers team sets didn't go anywhere.  I'm happy to say that I have just about every Topps Flagship Brewers team set done, except for a few of the rarer early 2000's traded set cards I need.  And I still need to start focusing on my other issues.  I also still have a big box of random Brewers cards I need to go through.  So I'll have to call this one a draw.  Ball one.

3.   I would like to put together the oldest Milwaukee Brewers team set.  The 1909-11 T206 Milwaukee Brewers Minor League 4 card set.  I don't care what back the cards have, but I would like to have a decent condition copy.  Why spend the money on it if it's just going to have been an old spoke bait card?   And I would love if I could get all 4 cards for under $100 bucks total.  Impossible? Maybe, but I love a challenge and I'm patient.  

Well this one is a total fail. I didn't pick up any of the four cards in the set. I did make a few attempts at bidding on some on ebay, but never did win any.  Strike two.

4.  More trading!!  This year I was able to get about 30 trades done.  That's chicken feed for some of you guys, but for me it was almost a three fold increase from the last year and this includes the 4 months I pretty much was unavailable for trading so I'm very pleased. And I worked out some great trades, had a few people solicit me, and over all I'm really happy with what I got.

Well I did manage over 20 trades this year, which certainly isn't more trading than last year, but I did trade some more. So I'm calling this one even. Most of my trades came earlier in the year, since my late spring, summer and early fall was spent working away from home.  I did manage a flurry of trades at year's end to bump my number up a bit, but I probably could have done better.  I'll say that this is Ball two!  Count's even.

5. More contests?  Maybe. I still plan on doing the Super Bowl and World Series contests.  The additional playoff game this year really screwed up the window for getting a World Series contest together and factor in  a couple of the pennant races weren't decided to the last game of the season, well it makes for exciting baseball, but gave me a lousy lead up time to the contest.   Still I'll see what I can do.

This one's a wash too.  I still have my both my annual Super Bowl and World Series contests and I have my next Super Bowl Contest coming up.  More contests? Nope, but I didn't have any less.  Ball Three, counts full.

6.  I've been bitten by the minifigure bug and you best not get to close, I hear it's contagious.  Anywho at the end of 2012 I started yet another blog, The Minifigure Collector, mainly because the page on this blog that I had dedicated to Legos and minifigures wasn't cutting it.  So if your at all interested in that kinda stuff check it out.  My goal there is to keep tweaking it into a great little fan site. 

Well hell finally something I actually did.  I find myself falling in love with Legos all over again.  I bought quite a few sets this year and after seeing some of the previews of next year's sets I'll be picking up a few more. I really love the Marvel and DC Super Heroes line and the old universe Star Wars. I've found that it's really just as cheap to buy a set then try and pick up the minifigures separately, and to be honest while Legos aren't cheap for the price of a blaster of cards you can get a nice set and you don't feel like you got ripped off when you don't pull anything.

I'm still tweeking the blog, but overall I've had fun writing and building with my renewed hobby.  Plus I can justify the hobby by saying that I'm just stockpiling Lego's for my kids and holding on to them till they're old enough to play with them.  Easy single to left field, runner on First!

7.  Keep my set collecting in check.  Another hold over from last year, but a good one that will probably be in my State of the Blogs for the foreseeable future.  The sets I'll be going after are Topps Baseball Flagship and update, Topps Football, Topps Allen and Ginter and maybe Gypsy Queen, but I see that they are bringing back the SP high number cards.  I think I'll forgo Heritage this year, as 1964, while not a bad looking set is not one of my favorites and putting together the SP part is a bitch.  I'll try and stop buying so many random packs and put that money to just picking up team sets and individual cards I want. 

This is another goal that I can probably say I did all right on. I put together my Topps Baseball and Football flagships, started my Allen and Ginter, but only got one box so that's way behind.  Didn't do Heritage or Gypsy Queen, but did pick up a box of Heritage against my better judgement and I paid for it, by not getting anything worth a darn in it.  I also, against my better judgement started a Score football set. I was able to pick a hobby box up for almost as cheap as it use to be.  I had better cards come out of the Score rack packs than the hobby box.  Anywho I'm calling this one a successful bunt, runners on first and second.

8. Writing more and better. Good luck with that.

Ahhhh, emmmmm, well I'll let you be the judge of that. I still find I write quick and still make middle school grammar mistakes and hit the Publish button up there way too fast before rereading my post.  

I'll call this a outfield pop up, one away.

9. Continuing to work on my vintage 1963 Topps baseball set.  Slow and steady.  Maybe saving up for the big one to add to the set.  You know who!

I know I probably picked a few 63's up this year, but I really didn't add too much to the set.  Foul tip.

10.  I  finally made myself pick up the brush and pens and start drawing and painting again.  While I had tried to make myself do something everyday last year, that didn't work out, so now I'd just like to be productive and maybe get to the point of showing some of my stuff in a professional show.  I've retooled the 13 Tenets into more of a showcase from my studio than a rant blog and I like where it's going.

I'm happy to say that while I didn't do a ton of drawing I did pick up my pencils and pens and get a few things done. Check out my art blog 13 Tenets of Cynicalbuddism to see what I did. It helped that I had a few commissions from friends and some wedding presents and other gifts to do.  While I like being able to draw what I like, it's also nice to have a goal and a theme presented to you.  Single to left, all runners advance, bases loaded.

11.  More TTM (Through the Mail) autos!  I was really bitten by the TTM bug this year and had some great success.  I'm planning on hitting spring training hard this year and I'd like to try and do 100 TTM's with better record keeping.  And I really want to hit my Brewers TTM project hard. Some of my big names last year included, Will Clark, Dale Murphy, Randall Cobb, and Jordy Nelson. 

D'oh.  Well as you can see from my sidebar where I was keeping track of my TTM's I never got close to putting out 100. And out of the 28 or so I sent I only got 5 back. That's Spring Training and regular season. Yikes that's pretty terrible.  I am pretty happy that Topps put out some rookie and first flagship issue cards for some players I really want to try and get next year. So I doubt my goals will be so lofty, but I'll be sending some TTM's out next year for sure.

Ground ball, into double play, the side is retired.

Overall, I didn't really get much done on my collecting goals. But after actually sitting down to write this review, I realize it wasn't as bad as I had thought.  And I have to remember these are just a nice guide to what I want to accomplish.  I'll have my 2014 State of the Blog address sometimes after New Years.  Will it look like last years? Maybe, but I can guarantee that with a baby on the way some things are really going to change.

A big year end thank you

It's just like the Beatles said, "You complete your junk wax sets with a little help from your blogging friends." I'm paraphrasing of course, but over the last month I've had some immense help with some late 80's, early 90's Topps junk wax sets.  I'm now the proud owner of 1987, 1988,. 1989, and 1990 complete sets.

And the best part is most of the trades were with guys I'd never traded with. I love adding new traders to my notebook.

If you've ever traded with me you're in here. I know old school. But it's nice I have names, addresses, blogs, what you collect, sometimes I even remember to write down the date of the trade and what we traded, all in one place. I also tend to keep all my trade emails in a folder in my email account.

So while I don't have any pictures of those trades and what we trade for, because really it was just 80's Topps cards mostly, I do want to say thanks.  So thank you Bert, Edgar, Jeff, Chris, and Ken for some great year end trades and to everyone else who traded with me this year.. I'm hoping to have everyone's packages in the mail by the end of this week I promise.

I'm glad I was able to get a few in before my man cave was totally disassembled.  I've been slowly moving boxes and boxes out to the shed.  Not the ideal place to store my collection, but I've got no choice. My wife was nice enough to allow me a large shelf to put some stuff on inside. So that'll be occupied by my PC's and a few boxes of sets I'm working on and a box of my  other non PC or team set cards that are too valuable to put out in the cold.

But if I don't post before Christmas, Happy Holidays to everyone. And remember after next Sunday the 4th Annual Almost the Easiest Super Bowl Contest on the Web will start.

Cheers
cb out

2014 Donruss Baseball Preview

Update 2-7-14 - Added a few new teaser photos from Panini's blog.

I was actually excited to see that Panini was bringing back the Donruss name with it's new lower end baseballs set in 2014. Like a lot of other collectors I was a little disappointed that they decided to have a very reduced base set of only 200 cards.  It's one thing Panini has yet to try to do with it's MLPA license and that's try to put out a real flagship set.  I'd pondered why Panini didn't try to do what it did with basketball and just put out a Panini Baseball.  And I suppose Panini has the option of putting out an even lower end set with Score Baseball, but bringing back the Donruss name also allows to bring with it the Donruss heritage. That means, Diamond Kings, Rated Rookies, Elite inserts, Dominators, ect, ect.   Maybe this is just Panini getting it's toes wet. Panini has put out some nice higher to mid range sets featuring Hall of Famers, and Panini has put out it's own version of Chrome too.  I guess we'll have to see how big of a hit these cards are, but Panini has done a pretty admirable job with it's baseball products considering they can't use MLB logos or team names.  Lets have a look at some of the teasers Panini has put out via their blog.

 I like the base design.  I think the picture could be a little wider to add a little more of the background in. The base design looks like a homage to the 1987 Donruss Set with a little 1978 Topps thrown in.

You get 24 packs per box and 8 cards per pack that come out to 192 cards per box.  The base set is 200 cards and according to the Panini's blog the first 30 cards are Diamond Kings and the next 15 are Rated Rookies. The other 155 cards are vets, that's only about 5 cards per team.  So out of the 192 cards, you get at least 19 inserts based on the above box break, I didn't include the Diamond Kings and Rate Rookies since they're numbered into the set or the Box Topper.

The Diamond Kings look almost identical to the 1984 DK issue. In years past the DK's were reserved for those guys that made the All-Star team.  This time Panini has issued a card to a player from every team.  And it also looks like they've gone away from the art card, opting for photos.  Maybe Perez has retired?

Panini has also brought back Studio as an insert. I was never a big fan of Studio at least the early issues. But the mock up of the Puig card looks pretty nice.

Panini has also added this Hall Worthy insert. It kind of harkens back to the Heroes of the Hall inserts, but looks nothing like them.

There are also a ton of other inserts Panini hasn't provided images for yet  like the No-No's, Breakout Hitters and Pitchers, Press Proofs, Stat Line, Career Stat Line, Rate Rookie base, and The Rookies, but we've got a few months and Panini is always good about putting out teasers and drool galleries on their blog.

You get 3 hits per box with two autos and one relic.

The relic cards are pretty ho-hum, but I wonder if there will be other levels to them.

There are at least three autograph issues in the set.

The Power Plus Signatures, which I think there is also a base insert version of these.  This set is obviously taken from those 1985 Action All-Star  over-size cards.

There are also these Donruss Signatures.  I have no idea if this is based on an old issue, but I don't remember ever seeing anything like this before.  But not my favorite of the bunch either.

And last image we got teased with were the Elite Signature cards

 

Back in the 90's the Elite inserts were some of the most sought after cards in the hobby. Featuring some of the first serial numbered cards and the hottest stars of the day, pulling an Elite was like striking gold.  

Panini mashes two inserts together here with the Elite and the Signature Series.  As the Signature Series cards were like diamonds.  And were some of the first ever inserted autograph cards and they were a tough pull.  

Overall I like the designs. This seems like to me a mix between a flagship product and a vintage heritage like product.  Something old mixed with some new things.  And while I don't think I'll be buying boxes and boxes of this stuff, I'll most likely pick up a few packs to try it out.  Anyone else excited for a little Topps competition?

4th Annual Almost the Easiest Super Bowl Contest on the Web - 2 minute warning

Wow I can't believe the season is almost over. I can't believe my Packers still have a shot at not only making the playoffs, but if things go right they might even win their division. Man when did the NFC North and NFC West switch places.  It's been a crazy season, a season that seems to have had an unusually high number of injuries.

And I know we still have 2 weeks till playoffs start, but I thought I'd put a reminder out there that I'll be hosting my 4th, yes that's right my 4th Annual Almost the Easiest Super Bowl Contest on the Web.  And why fix what ain't broke. The contest will be the same as always. I just want you to tell me who's going to win the Super Bowl.  Of course there will be tie breakers too, which makes it slightly less easier.

I don't know what the prizes will be just yet, but like usual there will be a great Grand Prize and a Door Prize for all who made the effort and an extra entry for those that advertise the contest.

Stay tuned!!!

Deck the Halls

I'm scared to post any more of the great Brewers cards I've been able to pick up on the cheap this off season for fear that the team will lose those players.  It's already happened to Corey Hart and there are the rumors about Rickie Weeks.  

So I'll post a nice auto card of a guy whose already a former Brewer.  Hall spent 8 years in Milwaukee. Getting called up late in September 2002 and becoming a regular fixture on the team in 2005.  Hall is one of those guys I never got to see play, but who's likeness graced tons of cards in my team sets in the 8 years he played with the team.  Hall was a utility player for the team playing shortstop, outfield, and on the bases. His best season was 2006 and after signing a big contract with Milwaukee began his downward slide.

In August 2009, Bill was traded to Seattle and then Seattle traded him to Boston in early 2010. In Boston, Hall became a super utility player even playing pitcher for a game and stuck out all three batters he faced.

In 2011 he played for the Astros and the Giants, his time there was less than memorable.

In 2012, Hall signed a minor league contract with the Yankees and after not making the team after Spring Training opted out of the contract and signed with the Orioles and got called up in May, but ended up back in the minor later that year.

This year Hall signed a minor league contract with the Angels, but was released in May due to the fact he couldn't hit.  After that Bill signed up with the Long Island Ducks a team in the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball, which has no affiliation with the MLB.

Whew.  Anyways I was able to pick up this great Hall auto for a buck plus shipping.  If Bill's back in Long Island next year I might have to TTM him.

Couple packs of Small Pros Series 1

 Put out by McFarlane Toys, you know the comic artist who created Spawn and puts out super realistic action and sports figures?

 Anyways I was at the store and saw that these had been marked down to a price I figure I'd like to try a couple.

The checklist consists of
Peyton Manning and a variation
Calvin Johnson
Aaron Rodgers and a variation
Andrew Luck and a variation
Trent Richardson
Jason Witten
Robert Griffen III and a varaiation
Troy Polamalu
and a Mystery figure which is SPOILER.....Adrian Peterson.

You can see a full figure gallery here

I opened my two packs and was a little disappointed that both were RG3 until I realized that I had gotten both the regular and variation. Lets have a look..

 The packaging says the age for these is 5+ but man putting these together was tough. I don't mean figuring out what goes where, just getting the body, head, and arms all in the sockets was hard.

Not too shabby. I would have been really happy had I opend both Aaron Rodgers figures, but what can you do. I also would have been happier if RG3 had had a better year.  Both are for trade if anyone wants them.

And while doing a little research online I found that there is a Series 2 due out December 18th. Just in time for stocking stuffers
Here is the Series 2 Checklist
COLIN KAEPERNICK with variation
ELI MANNING
DREW BREES
LARRY FITZGERALD
CLAY MATTHEWS
ROB GRONKOWSKI with variation
CAM NEWTON with variation
RUSSELL WILSON with variation
and one mystery figure - Stevie Johnson (Thanks to Corky for letting me know)

A great idea for Panini or the greatest idea?

I was looking at Panini's drool gallery on their blog The Knight's Lance. Mainly their high end baseball product America's Pasttime and next years Donruss and it got me thinking.  We kid about how Panini cards are kind of like the old food issues back in the 70's and 80's.  And while I think Panini has done a decent job with not being able to use logos and team names maybe it's time for Panini to embrace the food issue past and put out a set that not only honors it, but down right glorifies it.  

Just an idea.

Well maybe just an insert set. But there's an opportunity here for Panini to either just make up some food issue looking cards with blatant air brushing or maybe they could even partner with actual companies to come up with some great ideas.  New heritage Hostess and Post anyone? MSA discs? Kelloggs 3-D?

  But Panini if you steal my idea for Pete's sake please don't make this a high end product.

I am available for consulting.

cb out.

Happy Friday the 13th

Just wanted to let you know I was thinking of you.

My COMC Black Friday Hauliday!!

Just a quick blurb and some math about my Black Friday haul from COMC.

I ended up taking off Black Friday to finish a few things around the house. We recently participated in the statewide energy audit program in Alaska and I had a few things I still needed to do after our final inspection. I ended up sealing my house too well, so I had to put in some combustion air for my furnace and I also needed to put a humidistat in.  So I spent a few hours on Friday adding a Dew Stop switch to my bathroom fan.

And after I finished my first major electrical upgrade to my house I spent a few hours patting myself on the back and surfing COMC for some good deals.

For those who have never bought off of COMC.com I'll explain the concept.  While some sites like ebay or sportslots.com let you sell stuff through their website you keep possession of your stuff till it sells then you ship it.  The COMC model is different in that you send COMC your cards they catalog and scan them to their site, store them,  you get to set your price and if and when your cards sells COMC packages and ships them. Of course as a seller you pay fees for the service.

Last year COMC revamped its shipping and handling process. Now they offer a flat $3 shipping fee.  Which is great.  COMC use to also charge a 25 cent per card handling fee that you would see at checkout.  Now COMC has incorporated that charge into the price of every card.  So if you pay a dollar for a card on the site, a quarter of that is COMC's handling fee.  Psychologically this actually works great because nothing was more off putting than picking out 20 or so well priced cards and getting to the checkout and realizing that shipping and handling was going to be 8 to 10 bucks!

And every year COMC has their big Black Friday event.  Like in years past they offer free shipping with a minimum purchase and other goodies.  This year you had to ship 20 items to get free shipping and you got $5 in store credit for every 50 cards you had shipped.  They were also giving away 100 shopping sprees to the site.  COMC also encouraged all their sellers to run specials and discounts on their cards to entice buyers. Over all I have to say the deals were pretty good this year.

I went to the site with one goal in mind. I was only going to go after cards for my Robin Yount and Rollie Fingers player collections.  I ended up getting a little carried around and spent about $42. Which might not seem like a lot to some of you, but it was a little more than I planned on spending. Over all I think I did alright. I ended up added about 35 new Younts and 17 new Rollie Fingers to my Player Collections. That's  52 total cards, so I also got $5 in store credit.  When it was all said and done I got all the cards for about 80 cents a piece.  I'll be featuring those cards on my player blogs.

But I did the quick math and realized that while I spent $42 on 52 card, most numbered parallels and inserts and that I got all those great cards for about 80 cents with free shipping COMC still made $13 off of me.  52 times .25 is $13.  Yikes.  This is why I'm glad that COMC adds the quarter to the price of the card. This is also probably why I only end up buying like this at COMC on Black Friday.  I still think I got some great deals and I did. Most sellers had great discounts and I'm glad I didn't have to pay an extra $3 shipping.

I still love to window shop on COMC and if you're only going to buy a few higher end cards on the site the $3.00 shipping and quarter per card handling fee isn't so bad.  And while COMC probably will never be the site to fill large holes in your sets like justcommons.com or sportlots.com they do have a great selection of just about everything now.  Plus I also like that they scan an image of every card for sale, front and back.  And the card in the image you pick is the card you get.

Sorry I'm starting to ramble.  My point is that I like COMC. I like that they add something different to the sport card buying landscape. I also like their customer service. The one time I've had an issue with an order all I had to do was email my problem to them and it was taken care of.

Anybody score anything really good on Black Friday?

And I'm sorry this post didn't feature any pictures of baseball cards so here you go.

Edit:

Here is a picture of my haul!

cb out.

A Swing and a Big Ass Trade

I love finding new blogs and I love finding new trading partners even more.  I recently entered a contest over at Swing and a Pop-Up. The contest was actually pretty hard and I didn't win, but Bert the proprietor of the blog emailed me with a trade proposition. He told me he could put a huge hurt on some of my set needs especially the 80's and 90's Topps.  Boy he wasn't kidding.  

Some trades are glamorous, exchanging cool autos or relics and other trades are more blue collar.  And I've been in both and I'll take a good old blue collar, knock a few hundred cards from my needs list trades any day. 

Bert ended up sending me a mostly full 800 count box full of late 80's goodness.

 I don't know if you can tell from the edges but there was a nice stack of 1986, 1987, 1988, and 1990 Topps in there and a huge stack of 1989 and 1992 Topps.

 He also included a couple 1981 cards and a nice stack of Brewers cards for my Brewers team sets.

I'm still working through it all, but I did manage to update my need list. All those sets are now much more manageable. I figure I'll should be able to knock off almost all my late 80's and 90's sets with my next Justcommons.com purchase.

This has been one of my more epic trades and I'm glad I got at least one more off before most of my collection gets mothballed later this month to start working on the nursery.  Thanks again Bert.

Hey Rickie!!

Ah Rickie Weeks. Like a flag in the breeze, sometimes Rickie is red hot and other times not so much.  And the fact that Rickie took the rest of this year off doesn't lend much to his collectability, but when you can pick up an early auto card of one of your team's franchise players for cheap, well that's not a bad thing. 

Rickie became a fixture on the Milwaukee diamond in 2005 and while some years are better than others, especially this year, he's still one of my favorites.  Rickie signed a 38 million dollar extension in 2011, so it looks like he'll be with the team at least one more year, maybe, there are are always rumors. Rickie also has the unfortunate distinction of leading the league with the most errors of all second baseman for a couple years in a row and even was ranked as the worst starting second baseman in the majors in 2009, ouch. 

Poor Rickie, I'm hoping he comes roaring back from injury next year, it would be nice. But in the mean time I really wanted to add a nice auto to my collection, since I didn't own any and I never got Rickie to sign anything for me at Spring Training or TTM. 

2004 Fleer Platinum Rickie Weeks Inscribed autograph card I-RW #d 036/200

I really like the look of the autographs from this set. So much better than those clear auto stickers they use now. There's also at least one other Brewer auto in this set and it's fairly cheap as well and that's Scott Podsednik.