Sunday, November 20, 2016

TTM Success Adam Lind

I was surprised in my mailbox last Tuesday to see one of my TTM return envelopes. I was surprised because I haven't sent any requests out since Spring Training.  But luckily for me Mr. Lind signed his 2016 Topps card for me.  I sent the two cards above to him.  Adam only signed the one, which is fine.  I would have loved to had both signed as I can add the Topps card to my Brewers TTM project, but I love the way the Allen and Ginter cards looked autographed.

My TTM notes are packed away in storage so I'm not sure when or where I sent these cards.  I'm pretty sure it was in March and I'm also pretty sure I sent these to the Mariner's Spring Training address since Adam had been traded to the Mariner's in December 2015.

The cards were wrapped in a piece of stationary from the French Lick Springs Hotel, which oddly enough I've been too.  And it's not too surprising since Adam is from Indiana. I can't find the envelope anymore, but I do believe it was postmarked from Indianaopolis.

Thanks Mr. Lind.  Good luck next season.

Monday, November 14, 2016

How I accidentally became a Boomer Esiason super collector on purpose.

I love strolling through the aisles of my local Value Village.  I have one fairly close to my house.  I've been avoiding the place like the plague that past couple months as Halloween is a terrible time to try and enjoy yourself treasure hunting.  I have a path I usually follow.  I stroll down by the books to see if there is anything worth adding to my library.  You'd be surprised how many 1st editions and sometimes autographed books show up.  I work my way around the nik-nak aisles and glassware.  Eventually I stroll past the glass cabinet that the store locks up anything of remote value and eventually I find myself in the toy section looking for legos to stockpile for my son.

More often than not all I end up leaving with is a little exercise, but every now and then I find something.  You may remember years ago I blogged about picking up a bag of baseball cards that all turned out to be of Darrell Evans.

I'll be honest Value Village has sacks of cards all the time.  Most being stacks of junk wax like 89 Fleer and Donruss baseball.  If it wasn't for the fact that every card in these bags were stored in top loaders, snaptites, or screwdowns, I would have kept on walking, but not only was every card well protected, the $1.49 price tag is cheap even for loose junk wax.  I figured for that price I'd stock up on top loaders and see what was worthy of being stored in a screw down card case.

Most of the packs contained Boomer Esiason, but there were also a few with Dennis Rodman and Bret Boone.  I did pick up a couple Rodman packs, but I left the Boones alone.

So shall we see what I got?  Prepared to be underwhelmed!  Overall the assortment was pretty good and there were some very cool cards mostly from the mid-90's.  Which while overproduced  was the era of card innovation.  No rookie cards to be had in the packs I picked up, but that doesn't mean there weren't any.  I targeted all of the bags that had the screwdowns and snaptites.  The oldest cards in the batch were a couple 89 Topps.
I have to assume that these cards have been encased for decades, but the previous owner was smart enough to put most of the snaptites and screwdowns in team bags to prevent them from getting scratched up.




I'd love to be able to find a Beckett from the late 90's to see what these cards were going for especially to see if they warranted being encased.  A great variety overall with plenty of doubles in the mix.  You can tell the previous owner was a pretty serious collector who know what they were doing and really liked Boomer.

I also picked up a couple Rodman bags because 90's basketball inserts can be pretty valuable and also are pretty cool.

Nothing earth shattering in the stacks, but a neat collection none the less.  In all I picked up 103 toploaders, 13 Snaptites, and 8, two screw, screwdown cases. All of the storage products are in great shape which is great since they were the driving force behind the purchase.

Friday, November 4, 2016

Winning

Undoubtedly the best part of the Cubs win was getting to see this gem.



Thursday, November 3, 2016

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!! 6th Annual Almost the Easiest World Series Contest on the Web concludes!


Wow!  All I can say is Wow.  That was an incredible series! And that game seven, I mean that's what this game is about.  I really had no horse in the race, but seeing as my wife and her family are all Cubs fans I was pulling for the Cubs.  You may remember my pick, as the template, I also correctly picked the Cubs to win and their opponent.

My contests are simple all I want you to do was tell me who was going to win and 14 of you did that. And that's exactly why we have the tie breakers, because 3 of you correctly guess that the Cubs would beat the Indians.  And that is why I have more than one tie breaker!

So with that going into last night's game we actually had the contest down to two picks:


TSHenson - Indians over Cubs, 7 games, 11 home runs

and

defgav - Cubs over Indians, 7 games, 18 HRs

Both of whom correctly predicted the match up and the total games!  

The total correct pick would have been 

Cubs over Indians, 7 games, 15 HRs.  

Gavin came incredibly close to perfection.  This isn't the first time I've had clairvoyant picks.  Greg Z did it with my Super Bowl contest last year and Wilson 3 years before that, but this is the closest anyone's ever gotten to perfection with my World Series contest.  Bravo!

And I want to thank everyone who participated in the contest.  I know I haven't been blogging much, but it's nice to know that you are all still out there.  And it's also why I always have a door prize just for playing.

So what did Gavin win?? Well first off let me apologize for not having my prizes ready and posted when this contest started, but that's me.

Anyways the Grand Prize this year is the sweet 2016 Topps Archives Signature Carlos Baerga on card auto numbered to 56!


I picked this up from Don's Sportcards here in Anchorage a while back for a good deal and had thought about keeping it, but with the Indians in the World Series thought this would make a great prize.  Of course it would have made a better prize if they had won.  Gavin also will get a nice stack of cardboard depending on what I can find from his want list or maybe just some random autos and relics.  Congrats Gavin great job on the pick!

For the door prize I have an equally cool card.  I doubt it'll be one the person who wins this collects, but another cool pick up I couldn't pass up for the price.

It's a 2016 Topps Tribute Chris Archer Stamp of Approval Jumbo relic numbered to 199.  It's even got the MLB authentication sticker on it!  Everyone who entered the contest is entered to win this and a stack of your favorite team.  The list of entries was entered in a list randomizer at Random.org. You got an extra entry if you pimped the contest and only Jeff S let me know that he did.  The list was randomized 3 times and........

Jupiterhill!!



Oddly enough both winners are avid custom card makers as well.  At least I know I'll have some Royals to send Phils way.

So if defgav and Jupiterhill could both email me their current mailing addresses , my email address is in my profile, I'll try to get prizes out this week or early next.  I might have to take a trip to the card shop to fill out some of those packages, not that I need a reason to go to the card shop!


Thanks again for all those who entered.  I have to say this was one of the more memorable World Series and playoffs in recent memory.  And who knows maybe I might blog a little more before the year's out.