I'm back!!!

Whew, that was a long work trip.  Let me tell you Juneau is a nice little city but 10 days of nothing but going in and out of culverts and looking for fish is exhausting.  I'm in the process of adding a few new sets to my need list.  I've been buying singles from Mr. Mem on JustCommons.com but they don't have everything I need, so if you have a stack of 2009 Upper Deck Baseball or some old 1982 Topps Baseball sitting around check out my new needs.  I've also got up my Series 2 Kimball Champions needs.  I have about half the set right now.  I'm slowly working my way through all my old set attempts and figuring out what I still need. And I'll be adding as I go along.  That being said I might have a few post up before the 4th of July but if life gets in the way just let me say Happy 4th to you all, and happy July 1st to my Canadian readers.

cb out.

Topps Series 2 Baseball Two Jumbo Box Break

Well I've been out in the field for a good long stretch and just got back and get to go out again tomorrow but in the few days I had in town I manage to hunt down a couple of Jumbo Boxes of Series 2.  I got the last one from Don's and the second from Bosco's here in Anchorage.

I'll do a box by box of the hits since the only real new inserts are "Before there was Topps" and "Diamond Stars"  I'm sure you've all seen these already.  And the two boxes had some differences

First the box from Don's

I like the Jumbo's because you get three hits, even if one of those hits is a manufactured relic.  Here we have a JD Drew relic.

My manuglove was this nice Brooks Robinson.

And I was very happy with my Auto a Felix Hernandez.  Great sig of the Mariners ace.  Of course I got all the other insert goodies and gold parallels and diamond parallels.  Plus this variation

Johnny Mize.  Nice.

Pretty good box I only noticed two cards that had any damage to them and just a couple commons.

But this is were it all goes wrong.

Box 2.  Where box 1 all the relics were in mint shape box 2 all the relics had some kind of damage.
And here's the part I get a little pissed off about.  The relics were the only damaged cards in the box.  All the inserts, parallels and base cards were fine.  Here we go...

The worst was the Mat Latos relic.  I've blown it up but you can see how bad the lower right hand corner is and the upper right and lower left had rounding as well.

I didn't notice it at first glace but the upper left corner is pretty badly dinged here in this Black Leather nameplate.  Bummer.

While the damage to this Josh Tomlin Auto isn't as bad, it's still noticeable on the right hand side about 3/4 of the way from the top, and the corners were a little rounded on this card too.  If this had been the only card with damaged I might have let it go, it's not too bad, but since I was sending the other two back to Topps I might as well throw this one in too. 

I did get this nice variation in the box though.

Nothing like getting a card of a player you collect. 

Oh and I also got two black parallels one from each box.

Like I said I'm sending in the three damaged hits to Topps and I'm leaving early in the morning for another trip into the field for work and won't be back home till the 26th.  I'll post a list of other goodies I got in the box and anything for trade then.  

Have a great week and Happy Father's Day to all you Dads out there!!

cb out.

Heading out!!

I have been terrible.  Well terrible at getting trades made and updating this blog.  I could blame the holiday weekend or the fact that I'm leaving for a 10 day work trip, but it comes down to me being a little lazy.  So to Darren and Scott, both of whom have expressed interest in a trade, I'm sorry.  I'll be back in town on June 10th and then I get 5 days off straight and I'll get these trades done, if you still want to do them. 

It's that time of year again for me.  The field season starts in just a few hours.  For those who don't know I work as a Fisheries Biologist here in Alaska and my job pretty much is to travel the state and make sure that fish can get though culverts along Alaska's few but very long road systems.  This year we have 3 crews heading out and I'm heading to Juneau to train some people and enjoy the rain.

So my posts might get sparse for a week or so, but when I get back into town Series 2 should have hit the shelves, we can hope, and I'll be able to crack some packs.  So I hope you all had an enjoyable Memorial Day and I'll post when I can.

cb out.

2011 Bowman (A Collector's Crack Day Late and a Dollar Short review)

I went down to Don's, one of my LCS's in the area last Wednesday, and no Bowman, Don said that he got an email from Topps and the cards would be in tomorrow.  It was too bad to because that Wednesday was trade night at Don's and I'm sure he would have sold out of it. But I went down there after work on Thursday and lo and behold boxes of freshly opened Bowman. Don prices stuff on his costs and since this was the first batch and it was bought at introductory levels, that means that packs and boxes prices weren't threw the roof, yet.  I decided to pick up a couple jumbo packs of Bowman and play the Harper lottery.  I also picked up a Kimball Champions Mantle card from this years Topps for my Kimballs set. This was a score because everywhere I look people want at least 6 bucks for this card and I got it for cheap.

But, I digress, so late as always here is my two cents on this years Bowman.  It's as crappy as the last few years.  I remember talking to Don about how much money he's lost on Bowman over the years.  The only reason he made money last year was because of Strasmania and he'll sell out of Bowman this year due to the Harper lottery. I remember trying to put a Bowman set together a few years back and thinking this is terrible.  I mean the multi-numbering system.  More on that later, lets look at the cards and inserts I pulled and what I think.

Here is the base veteran card.  I opened the first pack and got this and one other Brewer coming up and thought man I just need to stop.  I was also going to pick up a rack pack of Retail to compare but couldn't find any.

The base rookie out of the main 220 card set.  Both of which aren't terrible, but not particularly great.

The regular Bowman Prospect's card.  Kinda looks like last years design.

Bowman Prospect's Chrome.

Bowman gold parallels.  One per pack, jumbo and regular hobby.  If you looking for these best to buy smaller, cheaper packs.

I also got one orange parallel.  These are numbered to 250 I do believe.

Oh is that candy??!!

This was actually the first card I saw when I opened my first pack.  Score!  Since I officially decided to be a Braun supercollector, any pack pulls are always welcome.  I think I like this insert set the best, I just wish this card would have been chrome etched like the originals.  These are on foil board and look like something Panini would put out.

My 2 Topps 100 cards.

And Topps of the Class. 

There are a few more inserts in this set that I didn't get any of and I'm looking for a Braun Finest Future's insert if anyone has one to trade. 

Now I realize that this review is only based on two jumbo packs, and to be honest I would have liked to bust a box to get a full feel, but I'm not dropping 150 bucks on a jumbo box on a set I don't want to collect.  A few observations first,  I wish Topps would just return to numbering all the cards into the set.  I don't mind the Bowman Chrome parallels or all the other color parallels.  It does seem like in Bowman, Topps takes the parallels to the extreme with the sheer numbers of different color parallels and refractors, but I actually like having cards to chase of certain players, and I understand that a lot of people like to pick up the prospect cards of future MLB players, so Bowman has it's place to that extent.  But as a set collector this set is a no go.  I mean I guess if I cared I could try to just put the base 220 card set together or go after the prospect set or the chrome prospect set but all of them together gets a bit overwhelming.  I think it would just be a better product if all the prospects were numbered in to a 500 card set, or what ever size set. Hell you could do what Upper Deck did with Champ's and number in every card issued into the set and really piss set collectors off. That and the price point for this product is way to high.  Topps has got super lucky with Strasmania and the Harper Lottery the last two years to make this product a success, but lets be honest the only reason anyone bought this product last year and this year were to try and snag some Strasburgs and Harpers. 

That doesn't mean I won't be trying to put a Brewer's set together. I will.  One of my goals was to complete a team set from all the offerings this year, not the super premium sets, but that would be nice too.

That being said Bowman is what it is and if you enjoy what it has to offer that's great.  To me I think my two packs of Jumbo will be all that I purchase and I'll be tracking down the remaining Brewers cards I need for my set through trades, ebay and other outlets.

I'm giving this product two Meh's.

Again I suppose if I'd had opened a full box, or pulled a sweet auto out of this product I might be a little more hot on this, but from what I've seen on the forums and blogs, no one is super excited about Bowman itself just the Harper and a few other prospects.

Another sad day in the world of "Sports".

I just heard this on the radio and it is TMZ that is reporting this but appears that the Macho Man Randy Savage has died in a car accident caused by a massive heart attack. 

You may remember Randy from his years in the WWF and WCW and his wife and manager Miss Elizabeth.  Sadly Miss Elizabeth died from a alcohol and drug overdose in 2003. 

I really got into Pro Wrestling in the late 80's just as the WWF was hitting it's peak.   I think any fan of current or classic Pro Wrestling is a little saddened today. Savage was 58.

Just seems like a lot of high profile sports deaths this month so far, with Harmon Killebrew passing away earlier this week, to the college football deaths, and the death of Samuel Wanjiru, the Kenyan Marathon gold medalist.

We'll miss you Macho Man.

On a completely different topic Harold Camping has predicted that the end of days is tomorrow.  What time tomorrow?  Does the Rapture start on eastern standard time or central?  So I've decided to cash in my IRA and buy as many cases of Bowman as possible.  Just kidding.  I did pick up two jumbo packs yesterday, before they're gone and prices skyrocket.  Was I impressed? Not really,  but if I'm still here on Monday I'll have a post about it.

Have a good weekend everybody.

cb out

Oldest card ever revisted!!

Wow I really haven't had anything to blog about in the last few days.  I'm planning on heading down to the old LCS and picking up a few packs of Jumbo Bowman before prices skyrocket there.  That's all I'm going to buy, two jumbos, no boxes, no blasters, maybe a retail rack pack, but that's it.  And if by chance I hit a Harper auto, I'll put it up on ebay and put my future children through college, but I'm not going to get my hopes up.

Anyway, I blogged last month about a couple cool auctions over at Robert Edward Auctions and kinda forgot about them when they ended on the 8th.

So here is a recap of the final ending prices, if anyone is interested, of the three cards I featured.

First is the oldest baseball card in the world.

I was surprised this card didn't go for more, but it ended at $30,000.00.  Still respectable but slightly less then I thought it would take.

Next is the Honus Wagner restored T206 card.

Honus brought in $160,000.00. 

But the big winner for the auction was the T210 Old Mill Shoeless Joe Jackson card.

Joe brought in $170,000.00.  Wow hard to think that this card is worth almost as much as my house. 
I'll be back later with my day late analysis of this years Bowman.  I've already seen quite a few posts on it and they ain't good.

cb out.

Collector's Crack keeping you up to date on all the Royal Wedding Trading Cards (when blogger will let me)

Didn't get enough wedding coverage?  Have you replayed the wedding so many times your DVR copy is fuzzy?  Not to worry Topps has you covered with a new 50 card set.

I was looking on Topps website to see if they had a Gypsy Queen checklist (ok stop laughing).  They don't, of course they don't.  As a matter of fact they never updated any of the information on the release.  According to the Topps website the set still has 450 cards in it.  Oh Topps you're not even trying anymore. 

Anyway, I notice a little sidebar...

Only available on the QVC website by the way.  Here are the promo shots.

Kate, I have to say you'll make a hot queen.

Speaking of the queen

Just saw the King's Speech last week, pretty good.

Billy!! Saw on the news he rescued a judge lost in the wilds of England instead of going on his honeymoon.

I don't think there are any actual wedding photos in this set you'll have to wait for Series 2 for those!

The set goes for $19.99 plus $4.22 in shipping, but you save 3 bucks with the QVC special price.  If you're really into it you can go here to see more.

Stay tuned for more indepth looks at cards you probably don't want to own.

cb out