I haven’t posted one of these in forever. For now, I’m sticking to mostly to cards that I’ve picked up through eBay. I’ve also done a couple of trades and want to get those posted as well, but the upcoming move might throw a monkey wrench into those plans. At the very least, I’ll make sure to get a post out there about who I traded with along with a summary of the trades.
This first card here isn’t an eBay purchase at all. This is the card that Upper Deck sent me along with the damaged Timelines cards that they replaced. They didn’t have a replacement for the Chris Smith card that I sent and the letter that came back with my cards stated that they sent a replacement of equal value in its place. How this Albert Pujols card is of the same value as that card I don’t know, but I’m not complaining. It’s a shame that Upper Deck Customer Service never came through on the 40 cards that I was shorted from my 2009 Baseball Series 1 box because they’re done well when they actually decide to follow through. The company also has a bit of an attitude problem and has no qualms about deleting comments from both their blog and Facebook pages that don’t leave the poster with a brown nose.
Next up is another Pujols card. This was thrown in as an extra card by an eBay seller. I’m pretty sure that I posted the card that this came with already, but I never got around to posting this bonus card.
You can’t complain about a bonus Pujols card. What he’s done at the plate so far in his career is ridiculous. If he stays healthy, he should rewrite all kinds of records. I don’t go out of my way to acquire new Pujols cards, but when I pull his cards they go right into my collection.
This card here was a redemption that I pulled out of the box of Bowman Sterling which I got when I sent in my damaged Dwayne Wade mini that I pulled out of a rip card from a 2008-09 Topps Basketball jumbo box. This card is numbered to 218. One of the cooler cards that I pulled out of the box just so happened to be another Dwayne Wade card. It’s a mini in the style of 80-81 Topps that comes in a folder that seals magnetically. Both the folder and the card are numbered to 999. I’ll have to post pictures of that card on here because I’ve searched and searched ever since pulling the card and haven’t been able to find another one online.
Speaking of redemption cards, this card was a replacement for a Murad redemption that got the shaft once Topps knew that they weren’t going to have an NBA license in 2009-10. I responded to the e-mail that they sent asking if I could get a Celtic in return and not another Spud Webb since it looks like those were held out of the packs specifically to send out in place of Murad redemptions. This card is certainly of a Celtic, but they got the names reversed (and spelled slightly wrong). This card will go into my collection unlike the card that I would have gotten if the redemption had been processed so I guess that’s a plus. Another case of Topps Customer Service coming though. At the very least they listen and try to make an effort unlike Upper Deck who sometimes don’t even reply to e-mails sent to customer service.
Gimme an H!
It’s funny how I couldn’t stand pulling these darn things in 2009 Topps and couldn’t wait to sell them off, but jumped at them on eBay once it was a player that I liked. I’m not going after the entire player name and so far have only seen one “H” on eBay that went for some ridiculous amount of money.
You might wonder how a kid in the 80s who spent his entire life in Massachusetts ended up a fan of Kent Hrbek. One day, I decided that I wanted to collect a player who wasn’t on the Red Sox. I went through the cards that I had and I had a few of Hrbek and decided to start collecting him. It was a good choice because he was good enough to be included in a lot of the oddball sets that I loved in the 80s. Now that card companies are including Hrbek in sets again, I’ve resumed collecting him.
Back then I collected Dwight Evans and Kent Hrbek. There are a lot of similarities between the two players. They were never amongst the biggest stars in the game, but they were faces of their franchises for long times. Both players have very devout fan followings and played the game the way it was meant to be played.
Gimme a ?!
Hopefully this will someday spell out “Hug it out,” but I’ve kind of stalled out at the moment. When Icons came out, I picked up a couple of these right away for a price that I was comfortable paying. Since then, the price has steadily increased as more people have started chasing them. That’s good news if I wanted to sell these, but bad news for ever collecting the whole phrase. If you ever want a good laugh, check out one of these that Piven has autographed. He printed his name vertically down the letter and it looks like something his niece "Pearl the Landlord" would have written. Huge fan of Piven, but I wouldn’t even be excited if I pulled one of those out of a pack.
Speaking of lame autographs, here’s exhibit B. RR? Are the 10 letters in Rajon Rondo really too much to write out? I stumbled into this card as an additional bid from the same seller. I missed out on the first card, but I got this one cheaply and now have Rondo’s initials in my collection.
I’ve yet to buy a pack of 2009-10 Topps because I’m waiting until I can afford a jumbo box. I’ve had great luck with them in the past two years and want to see what I can pull this year. I have picked up some singles though; most of them for less than what you’d pay for a pack. Here’s a gold version of Big Baby tossing Brad Miller to the floor. Most likely this is Miller flopping like he did all through last year’s playoffs.
I love that I can still pick up unnumbered Big Baby autographs for about a buck a piece. I’m excited that he’ll be back with the Celtics this season. He was supposedly going to get an offer from another team that the Celtics couldn’t match, but the outrageous offer sheet to Gortat which the Magic matched ended those plans. Davis will now be a part of the best bench in the NBA and since they just might be backing up the best starting 5 in the league, the Celtics are a good bet to bring another NBA Championship to the rafters of The TD Bank (fake) Garden. Davis showed that he can play at a high level when Kevin Garnett was injured last season. He and Rasheed Wallace will let Doc Rivers give plenty of rest to Kevin Garnett and Kendrick Perkins to save them for the playoffs.
What can I say, I’ve got a problem. It’s tough to pass up any Davis autos when they are this cheap. I think he signed this one with his foot. This one has Kevin McHale’s number on it so if Davis wins the Sixth Man Award I can sell it on eBay as a 1/1 Super Mojo Hit.
Whenever I scan a card with a piece of Celtics jersey in it, I wonder if a brown jersey swatch will show up green. Hmmmmmmm.
Here’s another card from 2009-10 Topps. While the basketball die cut gives the card an interesting look, I wish that they had just cut out the whole circle for the swatch to show through. These things are small enough to begin with and now you barely see any of it.
It looks even worse when there’s a patch involved. I just want to tear off that piece of cardboard going over the middle of the patch.
This card is numbered to 50 and super thick. I’m surprised there isn’t a sticker auto on it. If they had put autos along the bottom and put the name elsewhere, they could have had a nice looking set. On card would have been beautiful.
I really like that Topps put Chrome cards into the base Topps set since they weren’t going to have time to do a stand alone set. This here is a shiny refractor of Paul Pierce.
The refractors from this set are numbered to 500 which could make for a challenging set to put together.
Here’s a different type of relic card from 2009-10 Topps. Although the set is called Championship Materials, it doesn’t say anything about this swatch being from a jersey worn in the NBA Championships. In fact, it’s probably from a jersey worn years ago.
Topps kept the die cut basketball thing in this set as well. According to some clueless eBay sellers, the die cuts would make this a dual swatch card. Heck, I’ve seen some cards labeled as quad cards from the manufacturer that have four windows showing the same swatch.
Got this Pierce Bowman Sterling jersey card for a buck plus shipping. I like the designs used in some of the Bowman Sterling sets, but it’s a shame that the value that you get out of the packs usually doesn’t come anywhere near what you paid. It’s worse in basketball due to all of the top names being exclusive to Upper Deck.
The one exception to the value that I’ve seen is 2007 Bowman Best baseball. The value has even gotten better as more and more names from that set have emerged.
It’s no secret that I absolutely loved the Murad basketball set. It took a while, but I finally tracked down a Pierce auto from this set at a reasonable price. It’s not one of the numbered versions, but that’s fine by me.
The sticker detracts from the look of the card a little, but it is still a beautiful card. This is right up there with UD Glass as my favorite Pierce autographed cards.
More Murad Madness. I also had to track down the Pierce silk card from the set. When I first saw this auction, I expected some ridiculous selling price because it was #1, but that wasn’t the case at all. It’s a good thing too because if that had been the case then this card wouldn’t be in my collection.
I’m going to end with some of the blue parallel Celtics that I pulled out of Bowman ‘48 basketball. The rest of the cards will be another post.
1 comment:
love the rondo..and the piven. so funny. "4 beers!"
Also...did you get my email? I emailed about your bait and never got another email back...I assume you're not interested? Just thought I'd check.
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