Happy New Year and a 4th Annual Almost the Easiest Super Bowl Contest on the Web - Reminder

Happy New Year Everybody!!!

And what better way to celebrate the New Year than nursing a hangover and entering an easy contest.

Heck there are free autos to win. Autos that even if you don't like them you can probably sell for an easy three or four bucks on ebay!

Head here to enter or click the link on the sidebar. Great prizes and bragging rights for the whole year!!

And don't forget to promote my contest on your blog for an extra entry in the door prize drawing.

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.

I got primed!

I was at Bosco's for their monthly trade night and drawing. Every month the shop puts a pack of everything new that's come out in sports cards that month. If the person who has the drawn ticket isn't there the packs roll over to the next month.  Unfortunately I didn't win and someone else did. But since I won a couple years ago with 4 tickets I bought the night of I always try to buy a few packs before the big drawing. I ended  up picking up a few supplies I needed and two packs of 2013 Topps Prime.  I really like Prime it's always had a great looking design, very reminiscent of Upper Deck. I would love to put the set together, but packs are pricey at about 11 to 12 dollars a pack. And hobby cards are always on thick stock while the retail version of Prime is printed on a thinner stock.  

Anyway, my first pack only had a low numbered rookie in it. But I noticed that the second pack was a little thinker than the first and after opening it only had one card in it.

A pretty sweet Landry Jones book card.  This is the second book card I've pulled from Prime, HERE was my first one Prime's first year in 2010.

Landry had a pretty good college career at Oklahoma.  Time will tell if he ever gets to come out of the shadow of Big Ben, but it's still a pretty sweet card. 

That's not a box, that's a MEGA BOX!

Oh Topps, you've done it again.  And by again I mean put another nail in the coffin of the local card shop.  Topps has been putting out a lot of online only and retail only exclusives lately.  The Topps Update Mega Box is just another in the line.  This is the only way you can get your hands on Topps Update Chrome cards. It's a shame because I think a Chrome version of update would have worked this year, especially with that Puig guy being in it. Although I can understand the reason behind it. One you don't want to put a product like Chrome out right on top of your base product. And you really can't wait to put it out much longer because the baseball season is done and lets be honest most collectors have moved on to their winter sports, if they collect those.  But how cool would it have been to have a pack or two of this been inserted into hobby boxes as a box topper.  I remember not too long ago Update had rookie refractor box toppers.

I just think cutting out the hobby shop on stuff like this is a bad idea.  And I assume that hobby shop sales still contribute a significant portion to Topps profits.

Will say this, the Chrome cards are nice and flat. That's the first thing I noticed was the absence of that characteristic arch we've come to know and hate about the chrome cards. The checklist is small. The set only has 55 base cards. Sets have been going for about 80 bucks on ebay. All have the MB prefix, which I assume is for the Mega Box.  There are also  Chrome Postseason Heroes inserts, Chrome relic cards and relic autos.  And of course there are the refractors.  I think Topps missed an opportunity not including chromed out mini inserts, but this isn't a full blown release.

Over all I was pretty happy with my two packs.

In the first pack all my cards were rookies and a Postseason Heroes insert. My second pack had a nice surprise as well.

I also ended up pulling a Puig rookie from my 5 regular packs

2013 Topps Update Jumbo Box Break and Review

Another one of my day late and dollar short box breaks and reviews.  I finally picked up a jumbo box of 2013 Topps Update Baseball.  I won't bore you by rehashing the continuity inserts and base cards.

We have 330 cards in the set and in that set the super hot rookie Yasiel Puig has two cards, US250 and US330. The US330 is his rookie debut card but both cards have the rookie card logo on them. He also has 3 variations available for his US250 card. But I'll let the Dodgers bloggers tackle those cards. You can see photos here.

Topps continues with the Chasing History and Making Their Mark inserts. Those inserts also have auto and relic variations.

The first new insert for update is the Franchise Forerunners. These have auto and auto relic variations.

 The next inserts is the Postseason Heroes set. This is one I'm thinking about putting together.  I like the look of the cards and they feature some greats of the game. These also have auto and auto relic versions.

There are also the Rings, Coins and mini Silk cards which I got none of.

For some reason Topps did not continue it's mini insert from Series 1 and 2 into Update. Instead they opted to insert a new mini. The 1971 Topps Mini

I got 10 of these and true to form I'll be putting this insert set together as well.

As usual There were plenty of color parallel cards to chase of you favorite players.  I ended up getting 10 gold cards of nobody worth scanning and 10 emerald I did get a couple players of note.

No sapphire or black parallels, but I did wrangle one camo parallel.

I also managed to snag one photo variation. 

On to the hits!  I'm starting to feel like Topps is using false advertising on the boxes now, stating that you get one auto and two relics in every Jumbo box, when one of those "relics" is a manurelic. But I'm not the card police.  

First up we have a card I'd been following on ebay, but had not pulled the trigger on.

I love when I pull a card that I want for my team set or player collection.  And Jean is the lone Brewer in the set with a relic this year. These All-Star stitches have double and triple variations as well and auto relics and jumbo relic cards.

My auto was of Red's pitcher Tony Cingrani.  I have a feeling a certain Red's blogger out there might want to trade for this one, maybe?

And while I dislike that Topps advertises these cards as relics they are still really nice. I ended up with a Commemorative Pin card of Mike Trout.  These cards are thick and heavy and really look good in hand.

I also ended up with a complete set of base cards out of the box which is always a bonus.  Most of my hits are up on ebay right now helping me to recoup some cost and justifying the buying of the box to the wife. But I do have a few extra base if anyone has some set needs and I have a bunch of the other inserts still too.

3rd Annual Almost the Easiest World Series Contest on the Web -Official sign up post

So as I write this I'm about to leave town for a week long work trip.  Most of the playoff teams have been decided but there is still one up for grabs and I wanted to get this posted before I left.  So here we go.  This will be the official contest page, I'll be posting scheduled reminders all week.  Since the playoffs are a little screwed up with the one game wild card playoff I'm going to let you wait till those are done and I'll have the sign up open till  Saturday October 5th at Noon.

The contest is easy as always I just want you to tell me who's going to win the World Series. But since inevitably more than one person will pick the winning team we need a few tie breakers.  So I'd like you to also add who the opponent will be, how many games in the series and how many total home runs for the series, both teams combined.
Your entry should look something like this.
Dodgers over the Red Sox in 6, 14 home runs.

Your choices
American League
Boston Red Sox
Oakland Athletics
Detroit Tigers
Cleveland Indians
Tampa Bay Rays

National League
Atlanta Braves
St. Louis Cardinals
LA Dodgers
Cincinnati Reds
Pittsburgh Pirates

And what do you win????
I already teased with this prize

A sealed 1994 Pinnacle The Naturals boxed set.  You will also get this...

A full set of 1990 Topps Coins and this cool plastic collector's book.

I'll also be throwing in some other stuff as well and there will also be a door prize just for signing up.  I haven't decided what that will be yet, but I'll find something good.  And if you pimp this contest you will receive an extra entry for the door prize.  Just leave you prediction and a link to your pimp for your extra entry.

I would say to wait till at least after tomorrows game that'll decide who if Tampa Bay or Texas makes it, but you can wait till after the wild card games are over  and even a few of the regular playoff games.

Alrighty good luck everybody and I'll see you in a week.

cb out.

2013 Topps Platinum Retail Three pack

I really have no idea why I like this year's Topps Platinum so much. I really wish I had the extra money to really put an effort into the set, but I don't.  That doesn't mean I won't and didn't pick up a few packs.  I wetted my appetite last time I was at Don' Sportcards and picked up a few hobby packs.  I got a few of the blue refractor parallels and a nice Aaron Rodgers for my Packers team set and this card.

A camo die-cut ribbon card with Arian Foster on it.  The odd thing about this card is the rookie card label on the front.  Are there two Arian Fosters that play for the Texans?  It's a great looking card all shiny and chromed out.   

It's interesting to me the way a few of Topp's football card sets tend to emulate the other card manufacturers out there.  Topps sets tend to have borders and while slightly different from year to year tend to have a certain style that is just Topps.  But Platinum is more of a card that you'd expect from Panini.  The base veteren cards are foil board, with the player cut out from the background and placed in front of some design.  Topps Prime Football reminds me of Upper Deck.  The cards are usually full bleed, meaning they have no borders on the edges and the lettering and logos tend not to interfer with the action on the photo.  That being said, I still can't figure out why this set has piqued my interest so much. I'm really not a fan of Panini cards.

Anyway, like I said the base veteren cards are on foil board and all the rookies are chromed out.

I couldn't reisist picking up a retail triple pack when I was out shopping this afternoon and for lack of better content to post about I figured I share it here on the Crack.

I was really interested to see what those Flame Refractor cards looked like.

Pack 1.  You get one rookie per pack. Meh.

Here's what the backs look like.

Pack 2.  Ohh a Mike Glennon rookie card.  I ended up pulling his auto from my Jumbo Topps box break. Maybe I'll have to become a Mike Glennon supercollector. Ah maybe not. How about that Anquan Boldin? He totally smoked my Packers in week 1.

Pack 3. Wow three very meh packs.  Alright lets see what these Flame Refractors look like.

Ah, well, rrrr, emmm, at least they're all rookies and all offensive position players. These are all chromed out as well, and honestly I was a little let down.  Of course the packaging doesn't say that the Flame refractors are all rookies, so I guess it's a bonus to get all rookies, or maybe not.

Overall I wouldn't mind putting this set together. At 150 base cards that probably wouldn't be too hard, but I promised myself to limit my set building this year and the final set I'm going to build is coming out middle of next month.  

And with the end of the regular baseball season coming to a close it's almost time for Almost the Easiest World Series Contest on the Web III!!

Stay tuned for that.

cb out.

2013 Topps Football Jumbo Box break and review.

Hey I'm back! And what better way to celebrate than with a box break.  It's been a long summer and I'm really glad it's over.  I can count the weekends I've got to spend at home on one hand this summer.  I've still got lots of stuff to do around the house and of course just because I'm done with field work doesn't mean I'm done. I've at a mountain of paper work that needs to be put into our database, ect, ect.  Enough excuses. Lets just say I'm back.  I've got lots to say and post about, most of it way past timely or relevant, but you don't come here for breaking news.

So Topps flagship football hit late last month.  I ended up picking up a jumbo box at trade night last night, I didn't win the drawing, but it was nice to finally make a trade night.  First off there's not really anything super spectacular in this years set.  This year doesn't feature the insane rookie class of last year, but Topps does put out a nice set.  Lets have a look at the set in general and what I pulled shall we?

I really like this years base design.  And I'm really glad Topps has decided to keep using unique designs for it's baseball and football flagship products instead of using the same design like they have in years past.

I like the overall design.  The foil adds a nice accent to the card this year.  Here we have Defensive Rookie of the Year Luke Kuechly. 

I like the backs as well with the card number top center it makes for easy box collating.  There's lots of room for information and stats.  If I have to nitpick I would have liked to see the card number and player name a little larger on the back, but over all a nice design.

I also really like the landscape cards.  Topps could put a full set out like this and I wouldn't complain.

Alright lets look at this years inserts. This year Topps' theme is Legendary.  So most of the inserts are centered around the word Legend.

First we have the Gridiron Legends.

Out of all the Legendary inserts this is the one I like best and might even try to put together.  

Unfortunately most of these inserts had some kind of edge damage right out of the pack.

Next up we have Legends in the Making.  Sorry for all the Packer scans, but they are my team after all.

And lastly we have Future Legends.

I'm also guessing that Topps subliminal theme is shields.  Lots of shields.

And Topps keeping true to formula has a mini insert in this years set as well.  This year we get 59 mini's.

Not my favorite mini offering, but I'm a sucker for mini cards so yes I'll be attempting this set too.

A while back I can remember Topps asking collectors to email them ideas of what they would like to see in Topps products. It might have been specifically to Football  I can't remember and I can't remember if it was a post on Facebook or their defunct blog, but I remember sending in a list of things I would like to see return and one of those was the 1000 yard club cards of old.  Well look what we got this year.  Not only 1000 yard club cards, but 4000 yard club cards as well.  Which oddly enough was another one of my suggestions. Actually I suggested different levels to the Yardage club.

Yep another scan of Rodgers.  While I'm glad to see these card back in the set I'm a little disappointed in the actual results. I think these cards would have been great if they had been chromed out or lenticular or something other than plain glossy cards, and they would have looked so much better die-cut.  The border is really, well for lack of a better word, bad.  And the corners just kind of throw the whole card off.  I applaud Topps for the attempt, just wish it had been better executed.

The 1000 yard club cards off a little better and if these get carried over to Chrome Football, I'll bet they look really awesome.

Alright lets get onto the hits.

I haven't combed through my rookies to see if I have any variations, but there are quite a few in the set.  As a matter of fact Topps has a whole contest centered around them.  I'll pass.

First we have the parallels and lets start with the Golds.  You'll notice a theme in the hits that it was a very 49er and Cardinals centered. I got 3 gold Niner cards.

I also pulled my first ever Pink parallel.

At least it's a rookie.

I also snagged one black parallel as well.

Another defensive rookie.  The foil on the black cards is holofoil and looks really good with the black border.

I like the jumbo boxes because you are guaranteed two autos and a rookie patch card.

Or at least a auto redemption.

Ah a Cardinals hit.  Yep I already redeemed it.  I wanted to see what it looked like in person.  I just hope it takes slightly less time than my last auto redemption, which was my 2011 John McEnroe Allen and Ginter card that look well over a year to get to me.

Here's my Rookie Patch card.  It's a sweet looking card of a 6th round pick from the Cardinals.  Sigh.  I'll probably end up holding on to it for awhile to see if Andre does anything this year.

And wait here is my last hit.  

Mike Glennon, rookie quarterback for the Bucs.  Maybe if Freeman gets hurt Mike will get a chance, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

I think we can all agree my box kind of sucked hit wise.  But they were all there and there are some nice hits possible in the set.  Overall I like the design of the base set.  I think Topps might want to think about moving away from a theme for the issue, but the inserts are ok and I do like the mini's.  I also like the fact that the Yard Club cards are back even if they weren't executed all that well.  Out of my Jumbo box and a random rack pack I got about 95% of the set.  I'm missing all but 20.  

I'm only going after the 59 mini's so I'm open to trading any of the inserts I got and the hits.  

I'd also like to apologize to the couple of people that expressed interest in a trade from my Series 2 Baseball box break I posted month and months ago.  I can't find your emails anywhere so if you see this and are still interested let me know.

And with that I'm done.  Good to be back.  

cb out