Black Friday My Way!!

 I had to take my son to the doctor on Friday.  It wasn't anything serious, but after we got out I decided to head on down to Don's Sportcards and say hi since I haven't been in a while and I wanted to see if there was anything good on the drop board.  I ended up splurging on a box of Prestige Football since it was a good deal and I got 4 packs of Panini's Black Friday.  I won't do a pack by pack just the base cards and the hits.

Each pack came with an advertisement for Panini's new digital football card app.  If it's anything like their basketball app I'll pass.  You also get one "base" card and one other card.  At least that's how my 4 packs worked out.  Let's take a look
First up Pujols and Trout.

 My other two base cards are part of the Panini Collection set, according to Cardboard Connection.
I really like the look of these cards.

Alright lets get to the meat!
This Kevin White and the Joc Pederson are what's called Thick Stock parallels and are numbered to 50. And they are very thick

 I didn't get any autos, but did manage a few relics.  This one of Jahlil is from the Happy Holidays set.

Cha-ching a keeper!!  Everything else is already up on Ebay.  Anyone get anything cool?

The Keepers

As a collector I have rules, general rules, but rules none the less, that govern my collection and collecting habits. But every so often a card or other collectible falls into my hands that doesn't really fit into my collection, but I keep it for various reasons.  This is one of those cards.......

I pulled this beautiful card out of pack way back in 2005.  I know I did because while I like Andre Dawson I don't collect Andre Dawson and I wouldn't have gone after this card.  That being said a lot of the cards in my Keeper collection come from 2005.  A time where I had a lot of disposable income and card companies were putting out great products like this.  Sorry for the blurry scan Mr.  Dawson is well encased in a screwdown holder.

 I usually think of Andre as a Cub. Mainly because when I started caring about baseball and baseball card that's who he played for.  But even if he's featured with his original team this is still a pretty kick ass card.  Sure it's a sticker auto and the relic is a plain white swatch, but I'm sure I squealed a little bit when I pulled this out of the pack.

Why I keep it.  Well I do like Andre Dawson and it's hard to let go of personally pulled autograph and relic of a great HOFer.  Plus Andre has a great signature and I think everyone should have an auto of the Hawk in their collection and it's also why he's on my Top 100 cards.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner. The 5th Annual Almost the Easiest World Series Contest on the Web comes to a close

Well that seemed quick.  I was kind of hoping the Series might go 6 or 7 and KC could win it at home.  I didn't get to watch too much of the game as the Packers were playing in Sunday Night Football, but once it was pretty clear that they would not be winning I switched over to watch the end of game 5 and I picked the perfect time right before KC tied the game in the 9th.  Anyhoo

So in the end we had 6 people correctly guess who would win the World Series.  So we go to the tie breakers. 

If anyone had guessed everything correctly the pick would have been

Royals over Mets, in 5 games, 8 Home Runs

Out of the 6 contestants the picked the Royals no one picked their opponent to be the Mets so we move on to games in the series and arpsmith correctly predicted the series to last 5 games.  Congrats Adam.  And an honorable mention to John Hazen for correctly guessing the right two teams. If the Mets had won the contest would have been his.

Here are the final 9 entries:

Jeff S - Royals over the Dodgers in 7 games with 9HRs (PIMP)

Josh D. -  Royals over Cardinals - 7 games, six HRs.

JediJeff - Royals over Dodgers in 6 games. 11 HR

John Hazen - Mets over Royals, 6 Games, 11 Home runs.

arpsmith -  Royals over Cardinals, 5 games, 7 Taters

Need More Cardboard - Royals over Cardinals, 7 games, 8 homers

Jupiterhill - Royals over Cardinals 6 games, 11 Home Runs

Keith G - Mets over Jays 6 games 10 homeruns

defgav - Mets over Astros, 6 Games, 12 Home runs.

Adam came pretty close to predicting total home runs too.  So what does Adam win??!!??  Well I was terrible this contest, in that I didn't have a prize already picked out. I was hoping to be able to snag something cool at the last card show I went to last week, but while the show featured some really cool stuff, cool = expensive, I didn't find anything really unique, but I'll probably write a post up about that experience later.  So I decided I'd wait and try and tailor the grand prize to the winner.  Adam who has his own blog ARPSmith's Sportcard Obsession  is a huge Giants fan and he collects a couple other players.  So digging through my eTopps collection I came out with a couple cards to add to his collection.  First up is a 2011 Topps 206 Rickey Henderson card and I also found one lone Giants card in my collection a 2007 Fred Lewis rookie card.  Both cards are numbered to just 749 copies.  I'll also be sending Adam a nice stack of cards from his team and if I can find anything from his needs lists.

But wait there's still more.  We have to pick our door prize winner.  I entered everyone's name into a list randomizer over at Random.org, those that pimped the contest got two entries.  I randomized the list 3 times and......

Nick from Dime Boxes - The Low End Collector's Journey wins it.  And what did Nick win, well this should be right up his Dime Box alley.  4 unopened packs from the height of the Junk Wax era.  Plus there's a piece of 26 year old gum, a Stan Musial puzzle piece, lenticular trivia card, and team sticker to be had. Plus there might be one of those cool Pro-Visions cards in the Fleer pack.  I'll also be sending Nick a stack of cards  from his needs and wants lists.

Thanks to everyone who entered. Thanks to you guys who still read the blog even though I don't post as regularly as I use too.  That being said we are only about 2 months away from my 6th, yes 6th Annual Super Bowl contest.  Hopefully I'll have a few posts between then and now.

An unexpected addition from the LCS and an addition to the Top 100

I stopped in at Don's Sportcards here in Anchorage last week.  My wife was picking up my son so I was kid free and decided to just pop in to Don's to see if there was anything interesting and to pick up a couple boxes for a couple sets I was putting together.  Don has a great feature in his shop called the drop board.  It's a huge section of wall with peg board and hooks and he hangs a bunch of cards and packs up.  Each card is listed with a price.  Usually a good 20 to 25% off from the Beckett price and ever week that card doesn't sell it gets marked down a little till it reaches a dollar and that's the lowest it'll go.  But I've picked all sorts of good relics, autographs, and vintage from that drop board for crazy low prices, a lot of them for the bottom dollar price.  Well to my surprise Don had a ton of this year's Panini Cooperstown hanging on the wall.  All sorts of inserts and autographs from the set.  And then I saw the Ignitor just sitting there marked down to I think it was six whole dollars.  I couldn't pass it up.  I'm not a huge collector of Paul Molitor, but he was a Brewers for most of his career, is still beloved in Milwaukee, and I do have a nice stack of his cards in my collection, but I didn't have an autographed card till now.  I have a sweet relic I picked up years ago, rookie cards and everything in between, and now I have my first, but hopefully not last auto of the #2 all time top Brewer.  On top of that I haven't added a card to my Top 100 in while.  I had to look and see what number I stopped on.  So this is card #72 in my Top 100 cards in my collection (the number is not the card's rank in the Top 100, the Top 100 has no rankings).

Welcome to the collection.

Don't make him angry....you wouldn't like him when he's angry

Love him or hate him Ryan Braun is the face of the Brewers. As a Brewers fan that fact disturbs me a little.  Mainly because we have and have had other players that could easily have replaced him.  I have forgiven him for his steroid use and the whole circus that followed. Well forgiven him to a degree, he did get a man fired for doing his job just to save his ass for a year.  But that's a whole other story.  

Regardless of Ryan's past transgressions I've wanted to add his autograph to my collection for a long time.  And up to a few years ago that would have cost me big bucks.  Oh what a few years and a steroid scandal can do.  After selling a few things on ebay I had a little money to play with and decided to see I could find.  I wasn't sure which way I wanted to go, just an auto, a relic auto, dual auto.   After looking for a few weeks I found this beautiful 2015 Topps Five Star on card auto.  Overall I really like the look of the card.  I had thought about trying to track down one of those great looking black cards with silver signature, but this card fell into my lap and I ended up picking it up for less than $10 delivered.  

5th Annual Almost the Easiest World Series Contest on the Web World Series update!

I apologize for not posting more during the playoffs. It was a culmination of a lot of different things, but it all boils down to life.  But that being said it was interesting the way things played out.  I'm still not sure what the grand prize will be.  But there is a card show here in town, the first one in a couple years and it's at the museum tied into an exihibit on baseball in Alaska.  So it should be a big fun show and I'm hoping I can find something to give away.  If not I'll find something don't you worry.

So lets recap and see who made the cut.

night owl - Dodgers over the Royals , in  7 games, 10 homers.

Greg Zakwin -Dodgers over Blue Jays, 6 Games, 7 HRs.

Corky - Toronto Blue Jays over Dodgers, 6 games and 12 HRs

Mike Matson - Jays over Mets.. 6 games.. 10 HRs

Jeff S - Royals over the Dodgers in 7 games with 9HRs (PIMP)

Al Kawamoto - Jays over Cardinals, 6 games , 12 HR

Nachos Grande - Dodgers over Blue Jays, 6 games, 10 HRs

The Junior Junkie - Blue Jays over Cardinals, 7 games, 10 HR

Josh D. -  Royals over Cardinals - 7 games, six HRs.

JediJeff - Royals over Dodgers in 6 games. 11 HR

Wilson - Blue Jays over Cardinals, 5 games, 8 HR

CaptKirk42 - Cubs over Royals 6 games 8 HR

Frankie.M - Cubs Over Royals, 6 Home Runs

John Hazen - Mets over Royals, 6 Games, 11 Home runs.

Dennis - Jays over Cards, 7 games, 15 homers.

hiflew - Rangers over Cardinals, 6 games, 11 homers

RAZ - Astros over Dodgers, 7 games, 12 home runs.

Matthew Scott - Pirates over Blue Jays, 6 games, 8 homers

irondequoit36 - Astros over Mets, 6 games, 7 dingers

arpsmith -  Royals over Cardinals, 5 games, 7 Taters

Richard Nebe Jr. - Dodgers over the Blue Jays in 7 with 7 homers

Need More Cardboard - Royals over Cardinals, 7 games, 8 homers

Jupiterhill - Royals over Cardinals 6 games, 11 Home Runs

Keith G - Mets over Jays 6 games 10 homeruns

Fuji - Cubs over the Astros, 7 games, 12 home runs

Ernest Reyes - Dodgers over Astros, 6 Games, 8 home runs

defgav - Mets over Astros, 6 Games, 12 Home runs.

Brian Conrad - Blue Jays over Cubs 6 games 7 home runs

GCA - Cubs over Blue Jays in 7 games, 11 home runs

shanepatrickwrites - dodgers over astros. 6 games. nine homers

Nick - Cubs over Royals, 7 games, 9 homers.

There were quite a few of you that picked the Royals to win it all, but none of you picked them to beat the Mets.   Only one picked the Mets to beat the Royals.  So if that's the way it plays out John Hazen will take it all with an impressive prediction.

Here are the final 9.


Jeff S - Royals over the Dodgers in 7 games with 9HRs (PIMP)

Josh D. -  Royals over Cardinals - 7 games, six HRs.

JediJeff - Royals over Dodgers in 6 games. 11 HR

John Hazen - Mets over Royals, 6 Games, 11 Home runs.

arpsmith -  Royals over Cardinals, 5 games, 7 Taters

Need More Cardboard - Royals over Cardinals, 7 games, 8 homers

Jupiterhill - Royals over Cardinals 6 games, 11 Home Runs

Keith G - Mets over Jays 6 games 10 homeruns

defgav - Mets over Astros, 6 Games, 12 Home runs.

Good luck.

Almost the Easiest World Series Contest on the Web Official Entires

It's go time people. Below are the official entries.  If my math is right we had 31 people enter.  Not too shabby.  I'll be posting an update after the divisional series are over and I'll announce the prizes then.  If you see an error let me know.  Good luck.

night owl - Dodgers over the Royals , in  7 games, 10 homers.

Greg Zakwin -Dodgers over Blue Jays, 6 Games, 7 HRs.

Corky - Toronto Blue Jays over Dodgers, 6 games and 12 HRs

Mike Matson - Jays over Mets.. 6 games.. 10 HRs

Jeff S - Royals over the Dodgers in 7 games with 9HRs (PIMP)

Al Kawamoto - Jays over Cardinals, 6 games , 12 HR

Nachos Grande - Dodgers over Blue Jays, 6 games, 10 HRs

The Junior Junkie - Blue Jays over Cardinals, 7 games, 10 HR

Josh D. -  Royals over Cardinals - 7 games, six HRs.

JediJeff - Royals over Dodgers in 6 games. 11 HR

Wilson - Blue Jays over Cardinals, 5 games, 8 HR

CaptKirk42 - Cubs over Royals 6 games 8 HR

Frankie.M - Cubs Over Royals, 6 Home Runs

John Hazen - Mets over Royals, 6 Games, 11 Home runs.

Dennis - Jays over Cards, 7 games, 15 homers.

hiflew - Rangers over Cardinals, 6 games, 11 homers

RAZ - Astros over Dodgers, 7 games, 12 home runs.

Matthew Scott - Pirates over Blue Jays, 6 games, 8 homers

irondequoit36 - Astros over Mets, 6 games, 7 dingers

arpsmith -  Royals over Cardinals, 5 games, 7 Taters

Richard Nebe Jr. - Dodgers over the Blue Jays in 7 with 7 homers

Need More Cardboard - Royals over Cardinals, 7 games, 8 homers

Jupiterhill - Royals over Cardinals 6 games, 11 Home Runs

Keith G - Mets over Jays 6 games 10 homeruns

Fuji - Cubs over the Astros, 7 games, 12 home runs

Ernest Reyes - Dodgers over Astros, 6 Games, 8 home runs

defgav - Mets over Astros, 6 Games, 12 Home runs.

Brian Conrad - Blue Jays over Cubs 6 games 7 home runs

GCA - Cubs over Blue Jays in 7 games, 11 home runs

shanepatrickwrites - dodgers over astros. 6 games. nine homers

Nick - Cubs over Royals, 7 games, 9 homers.