Have a Hart

This off season I've been slowly picking up cheap autos of past and current Brewers players to add to the collection.  I ended up picking up this 2009 Upper Deck Signature Stars Impressions auto of Corey Hart for a buck fifty plus shipping.  That really doesn't surprise me considering Corey missed all of 2013 and really hasn't been on anyones mind except mine.  I just read Corey's been cleared to play next year.  He's a free agent, but said he would like to stay in Milwaukee.  We'll have to see if Milaukee wants to keep him around and hope he stays injury free for a couple years or turn him loose.  

Reguardless he's been a regular fixture on the diamond in Milwaukee since 2006 and I'm glad I was able to pick up a great and cheap auto card. 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Silly statistics

It's funny what I find myself getting obsessed about. I don't think I'd been this obsessed about a card since the Strasmania of 2010.

 I posted about this card last week. You may remember it. If not you can look at my recent posts or just click here if you want to read what I wrote.  Anyway, the absurdity of this card just wouldn't let me let go of it. So I followed it on ebay. I really wanted to see what a gimmick card with 16 Lebron James autos on it went for and now I can tell you.

The final sell price for this card was $7,500.  There were 24 active bidders for a total of 71 bids.  And after looking at the bidding activity and seeing that the winning bid belonged to a guy with over 6100 feedback I'd say the sale is probably legit.

 The auction started at 99 cents.  After looking at what box prices of 2012-2013 UD Exquisite Basketball are going for the seller did alright.  Boxes are currently going for about $638. That gets you six cards. 5 autos and one base or rookie card.  Crazy.

Back in Black!!

It's almost that time of year again. Time to stuff yourself silly and spend time with family and friends and of course get ready for COMC's annual Black Friday deals.

Although probably not as exciting in years past since COMC has simplified its shipping by offering $3 flat rate shipping, but still Black Friday was always the day to hit COMC and pick up the cards you've been watching.  This year's no different. They are offering free shipping again, but you have to buy 20 items to ship.

They are having other promotions as well like store credit for spending so much and they're giving away online shopping sprees. They are also encouraging their sellers to run their own promotions.

I've got a list of stuff I want to try and find next Friday most of it pretty mundane, like getting the 3 1987 Donruss rookies I need to finish the set I bought at the warehouse sale last month, but I'll be on the lookout for other goodies as well.

You can read all about their promotions HERE.

Just seems really silly and such a waste

I don't know if you've seen this yet, but I remember Upper Deck putting out pictures  of this card on Twitter or Facebook or both, I can't remember, but it's been pulled and it's up one ebay. You can follow the auction here.

After looking at the card all I can do is shake my head.  Is sixteen Lebron autos better than one on a card?

This card would have been so much better with a nice auto and some huge relic pieces.  Plus Upper Deck doesn't have an NBA license so this is Lebron in Notre Dame gear.

I'm really interested to see how much this card goes for. As I write this the auction is at $3700.  

And I know that the card is more of a publicity stunt for Upper Deck, but just seems like such a waste of one of the premeire players autographs even if they are all sticker autos.

Thoughts?

Can I borrow a couple quarters?

I'm a big fan of the oddball and unique.  I saw a post on the Sports Collectors Daily's facebook page about this one.  It's a unique piece of original artwork from the original Wacky Packages from  1967.   Topps has it up on ebay via their Topps Vault account.  Might be a little wishful thinking on the asking price. On the upside it comes already framed and triple matted, but you still have to pay for shipping.

You can check the auction out HERE.

Ode to the Man Cave

There's big news here at Collector's Crack world headquarters.  That news is that the wife and I are expecting our first child.  Sometime around mid-March.  A boy and I'm pretty excited about it.  What does that mean here at World Headquarters?  Well about 3 years ago we bought our first house.  A small 2 bedroom in a nice quite part of Anchorage.  I was excited about that since I was able to steal, err, use the second bedroom as my art studio man cave.  Well now that we have a little one on the way that room will soon be his room.  So I thought I'd take a moment and honor my awesome man cave.

I posted this photo way back in December of 2010 right after we started moving in.  I had all intentions of posting more photos of the room after I got stuff sorted out, but that never happened.  You can read that post from long ago here.

I had stuffed a lot of things in that room.  And with a little elbow grease and some thrift store furniture it's been a really cozy place to blog, scan stuff, sell stuff, sort stuff, break boxes, put sets together, and occasionally draw.  If you want to see some of my art work head on over to the 13 Tenets of Cynicalbuddism.

The book case holds sets in progress, player collections, Brewers and Packers team sets and other misc. stuff. The desk is a cheap thrift store buy, but it holds my large format scanner, printer and a ton of other stuff.

I built the bookshelf myself, even earthquake proofed it. Down on the bottom it's mostly extras from various years. The middle holds my Brewers team sets and small monster boxes with a few player collections and other various stuff. I also have a section of sets I'm actively putting together.

Up top we have my main player collections of Robin Yount and Brett Favre. There are also other team set binders and way up top we have some more set building boxes. I'm slowly working on finishing all the Topps sets from 1981 to 1993, I have most of my needs list up on the side bar under Help me Complete a set.

 The closet has completed sets up top, other miscellaneous boxes of cards, and below are some of my comic collection

I'm slowly boxing stuff up and moving it out to the shed.

 Here's a look at the drawing table. I bought this from a classified ad over 15 years ago.  Best hundred bucks I ever spent. All the fittings on table are cast iron and it's very solid.  It's also great for sorting cards.  You might be able to see a small work in progress for a friend who commissioned a design for a tattoo.  I have lots of people do that, then never get the tattoo.  But I love having a reason to draw.  Not that I need one, but having a purpose is a great motivator for me.

Here we have my wall of awesome. That's my complete 1975 Hostess box with my favorite player Mr. Robin Yount's rookie card on it. There is also a complete 1977 Burger Chef box, and of course my since I'm a proud shareholder of the Green Bay Packers my stock certificate.

I took this picture the other night, just to show how crowded the table can get.

Here are the shelves above my drawing table. Art supplies below. There is also a stack of old Beckett 4 sport magazines. I decided one year to try a subscription. I got a good deal on it and I'll be honest I do enjoy the articles, but the price guide is really less than useless for me.  I think their art issue is still one of my favorites every year.  Middle shelf is more supplies, bubble mailers, and envelopes for TTM's. Up top we have my minifigure collection and a box big box of doodles.

 Here's the view out the back window.  You can see my chicken coop out there. We have 5 laying hens and we get about 2 dozen eggs a week in the summer.  That's a lot of eggs. I have a lot of happy friends. You can check out the exploits of the chickens and our garden on my garden blog, Nunaka Valley Farm.

What will become of the Crack? Who knows, but I'll be around.

cb out