Warner on the Way

Kurt Warner - 2011 Topps Super Bowl Legends Giveaway Die-Cut - #SB-29

I GOT HIM!

For those unfamiliar with Topps Football Cards, Topps has been running the "Super Bowl Legends Giveaway" this year, which was somewhat similar to the baseball Diamond Giveaway (aka, the Transmogrifier).  The die-cuts are all of Super Bowl Legends (obviously).  I had several code cards from the hobby box I opened at the beginning of the season which I finally got around to entering. 

Most of them were duds, but one of my last codes yielded this guy:

Ottis Anderson - 2011 Topps Super Bowl Legends Giveaway Due-Cut - #SB-25

Ottis was cool...but probably not cool enough for me to spend the $2.92 required to ship him.  So I tried trading him.  I wanted one card.   Kurt Warner.  So I figured it would take me a few trades to get to that.  Nobody was biting on Ottis.  I was resigned to my fate. 

But this week...what should appear in my inbox but a trade result.  Not only had I traded Ottis for SOMETHING...anything!...I traded him for MR. KURT WARNER HIMSELF.  1-to-1.  Straight up.  I was ecstatic.  So ecstatic that I requested shipping right away.  He will be mine!

So that is the end of my transmogrifying for this year.  Hopefully Ottis will find himself a loving home...

Dodgers Trade Bait

When Spankee ran his big Group Break awhile back, in addition to picking up the Royals, I decided to buy in for the Dodgers, too.  I figured one of three things would happen:
1) I would get something I really liked and wanted to keep.
2) I would get some cool trade bait.
3) I could give the whole stack to some local fans (there are LOTS of Dodger fans here in the LA burbs).

Well, I got a bunch of cool stuff, but nothing that jumps out and says KEEP this, so everything here is for trade.  There were a bunch of other base cards from the break that I would also happily trade, so if you are looking for anything from the packs that he busted, let me know.

Here was my Dodger hit.

2008 Baseball Heroes #94 Relic - Chad Billingsley - #013/125

 Some Gypsy Queen:

2011 Gypsy Queen Green Paper Paralle #59 Duke Snider, Great Ones #GO17 Pee Wee Reese

Campanella:

2009 Topps #PR-14 Roy Campanella, 2011 Topps T60 #T60-59 Roy Campanella

A few oldies:

2004 Donruss Studio #100 Duke Snider, 1988 Stadium Club #361 Adrian Beltre

Chrome and Refractor:

2011 Bowman Chrome #BCP80 Dee Gordon, 2010 Topps Chrome Refractor #20 Manny Ramirez

Clayton Kershaw:

Clayton Kershaw

Other Dodgers:

Dodgers

In addition, there were a few other non-team-specific cards that came my way.  The first one is a 2009 Goodwin Champions on-card auto of poker player Evelyn Ng (#A-EN).  The second one is the 2011 Gypsy Queen "Levitia" (#GQ10).  Finally is a Kenesaw Mountain Landis Obak mini (#13)

Evelyn Ng, Levitia, Kenesaw Mountain Landis

If you see anything there that tickles your fancy, please leave a comment on this post or send me an email. Thanks!

Spankee, Sweeney. Sweeney, Spankee.

I had left the box from Spankee's group break unopened for some time.  Not because I didn't want to open it, but I had other stuff going on.  Besides, it was a group break - you already know what's in there, right?

Wrong.

There was no Royals hit in the break, but unbeknownst to me Spankee tossed this gem into my pile.

2007 Upper Deck Game Materials #MS - Mike Sweeney Jersey Relic

Dude....I LOVE Sweeney!  Thank you so much - that was incredibly generous.

Sewing Machine Guy HOOKED ME UP - Baseball Style

Still not the "Real" Sewing Machine Guy

Like said in the last post, Sewing Machine Guy hooked me up plural.  (Btw, stay off that ankle and Get Well Soon, man!!)  I showed off the football cards already, but there was a STACK of Royals baseball that he included, too.  I have neither time nor space to display them all, so you will get my favorites here.

First off, some oldies but goodies -- One for my managers collection and one for the KC collection:

1969 Topps #547 Billy Martin

1972 Topps #205 Dick Drago

Three Generations of Ginter:

Allen and Ginter - 2007 #34 Mark Grudzielanek, 2008 #347 David DeJesus, 2009 #337 Billy Butler

SHINIES!  Shiny Royals!!

2011 Topps Diamond Anniversary #244 Mike Aviles, #658 Mitch Maier

More Shinies!  Well....Chromies.  The purple on the Espinal is sweet.  The George Brett might be my new favorite card -- the chrome on it looks AMAZING. 

2010 Bowman Chrome Purple #BCP84 Yowill Espinal, 2001 Topps Archives Reserve Chrome Reprint #9 George Brett

SMG hit a bunch of my favorite players, too.  I love cards of Mike Sweeney when he was still a catcher (played 1B and DH for much of his career).  Billy Butler is my favorite current Royal, while DeJesus is my favorite Royal period.  The DeJesus card is a perforated parallel - designed to look like a ticket on the top and bottom.

1999 Stadium Club #178 Mike Sweeney, 2011 ToppsTown #TT-37 Billy Butler, 2009 Topps Ticket to Stardom #10 David DeJesus

SMG, these were awesome.  He included one other Royal I wanted to show off. 

Oh well.  The color scheme is still good.  :-)  I guess that one must have fallen into the trade box by mistake.

Sewing Machine Guy HOOKED ME UP - Football Style

Not the "REAL" Sewing Machine Guy....

Late last year I responded to the Want-List of the Sewing Machine Guy and sent him a Jason Castro along with a miscellaneous stack of Tigers, Lions, and Pistons.  I sent about 2-3 team bags worth of stuff to him.

So then I got a package back from him.  It was a BOX with six team bags worth coming back to me.  He hooked me UP!

It's too much stuff for one post, so I'm just posting the football here.  SMG paid very close attention to my want-lists (on the right ------->).

He started off by showing me some Kurt Warner love:

2006 Score, 2006 Topps, 2006 Heritage Kurt Warner

 Then TEEEEEEEEEEEEEBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!!!!  That Topps Magic set is sweet.

2010 Upper Deck, 2010 Topps Magic, 2010 Topps 52 Insert Tim Tebow

A couple of Iowa State alums...

2008 Topps Sage Rosenfels #29 and 2007 Topps Seneca Wallace #40

Men of the Foot!

Chip Lohmiller, Neil Rackers, Matt Bahr, Sebastian Janikowski

And 3 (ex-) coaches...The Mike Smith card is way thick.

Tony Sparano, Mike Smith, John Madden

These were exceptional, SMG.  I am SOOO happy.  There's still a huge stack of baseball to post....but those will have to wait until tomorrow.

I Got Fuji-fied!

Last month San Jose Fuji was one of the winners of my Big Pile Contest.  He posted his haul on his site already.  (I just noticed that I WAS NOT following Fuji!  Huge mistake.  Rectified.......now.)

Well, he was awesome and sent me a very unexpected Thank You present.  First off...I got the Fuji trader card (above).  Way cool.

He also sent these beauties:

On-card autos of Tom Gordon, Mike Macfarlane, and Kevin Appier.  These cards are from the 1991 Kansas City Life Insurance cards set.  They are taller than a regular card, so these will not go in the standard pages...I'll have to find another way to show them off.  Fuji apologized that the Appier was a little bent up, but I think these guys are GREAT!!!  As three guys on the teams of my youth, these are way more treasured by me than anything I would buy in the store today.

Thank you so much, Fuji!!!

Who is a Winner???? THIS GUY.

This guy....meaning me.

Part of what I love about blogging is everyone who gives away cards.  Did you hear me?  PEOPLE JUST GIVE AWAY CARDS. I don't see any of the personal finance bloggers giving me cash or any of the political bloggers giving me extra votes.  To get more than one vote you have to live in Chicago.

I recently won contests on two blogs, JABO and $30 A Week Habit.

JABO sent me this guy:

2008 Allen and Ginter N43 Ryan Braun

 And Robert sent me these two (among others):

2011 Bowman Chrome Mike Montgomery & 2011 Topps 60 Danny Duffy Auto

Thanks so much, guys!  I'm looking forward to winning and running many more contests in the future.

My Cheesiest Trade Ever - Most Wanted List Success!

Chris over at Nachos Grande was running his regular Trade Stack feature, and I decided to go for it.  I was shooting for the Carlos Beltran there, and I got it.  But when I looked at NG's trade bait, I saw something else there...

 

That's the DeJesus card I wanted! It was on my Top 10 and everything!

So I fired an email off to Chris asking if I could get the DeJesus, too.  I had a Barry Larkin purple Classic card to offer.  He was cool with that, so I popped it in the envelope, too...And now I've got it!  That's the first one to cross off of my Most Wanted List.

Here is the Beltran that I really wanted from the Trade Stack, too.  He must have covered a LOT of ground to get to that ball.

2001 Stadium Club #146 - Carlos Beltran

There were a couple of Topps Town cards in there, too.

Thanks, Chris!

Christmas Card(board) - Name's The Same

Colbey over at Cardboard Collections sent me a Christmas card!

  

(What's that you say?  Christmas was 2 weeks ago?  Well...I'm a little behind.)

 

1996 Leaf Signature Series - #138 - Keith Lockhart

That was a very nice gesture -- He tossed this little beauty in there.  This is an on-card auto of Keith Lockhart from the 1996 Leaf Signature Series.  COMC says this was out of 3500(!).  Poor Keith -- his signing hand must have been so tired.  I guess that's not as bad as Marshall Faulk signing all those cards for the Madden game -- that took him months!  But I digress...

I had actually forgotten that Keith Lockhart had played for the Royals.  I remembered him as a Brave. He was mostly an IF platoon guy during his time in KC.

This brings up another thing -- famous people with the same name.  There's lots of them!  Both within sports and sports/non-sports combos.  Baseball Keith Lockhart is not even the #1 Keith Lockhart google result.  It's this guy:

Smug Keith Lockhart

This Keith Lockhart is the conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra.  If you grew up with only 5 TV channels like I did, you inevitably came across PBS showing the Boston Pops on the 4th of July and this guy was front-and-center.  It takes a certain amount of compulsiveness to be a professional orchestra conductor -- worrying about little details that most of your audience doesn't understand or won't notice.  That's gotta wear on a guy.  That and wearing cummerbunds every day... :-)

Do any of you guys remember EITHER of these Keith Lockharts?

Grab Bag Contents

I posted yesterday about my grab-bag....
http://royalsandrandoms.blogspot.com/2012/01/lcs-review-pals-sports-cards-andover-mn.html

 

It was only 50 cents!  How could I lose?!?!  Here's what we got.  It was 30 cards in total...I'm showing half of them.

Verlander Chrome, Berkman Goodwin Champions, Dmitri Young.  That's a nice start.

 I bought this in Minnesota, so they had to include some Twins!  That last guy, Frank Pastore, has one of the top-rated Christian radio programs in the country.  It's big in Los Angeles on KKLA.

 3 Kirbys!  He looks pretty tired in that first one, but luckily he perked up by 1991.

 A few more oldies.  Can anyone tell me what Todd Worrell is doing in that card?  I've had it since I was 7 years old, but don't know if he is pitching, following-through, fielding, or what!

There were a few newer ones in there, too.  I like the ToppsTown stuff, and especially like the looks on the SP Authentic cards.  The design on those is outstanding.


Finally...what was in the hard case?   A.....rabbit and a turtle??

2010 Topps Tribute GR-100, Tortoise vs. Hare

This is from the "Greatest Rivalries" subset of 2010 Topps Tribute.  I had never seen this card before, so I was STUNNED when I saw this. This is a baseball card?  How awesome is that!!  The scan doesn't show it, but it's SHINY, too.  This was my prize.  50 cents was a small price for one that cool.

LCS Review - Pal's Sports Cards - Andover, MN

I was in Minnesota on vacation visiting some family late in October, and decided to kill some time by hitting one of the Local Card Shops there.  The shop we hit was:

Pal's Sports Cards

14025 Round Lake Boulevard

Andover, MN 55304

http://pals-sportscards.com/

This is in the NW Twin Cities area...just outside of Coon Rapids.  I wasn't expecting much beyond lots of Twins and Vikings stuff (which they had), but when I got in there, I was pleasantly surprised.

First impressions...it was clean, neat, and organized.  It wasn't a pit like some LCS are.  They had the standard glass display cases of higher-end product and a wall of wax (above).  There were small cocktail-style tables where you could leave the stuff you were buying while you sifted through the other boxes.  Baseball, Football, and Basketball were all in abundance.  I'm guessing they had hockey, too, but I honestly didn't check.

What really got me excited was their "low-end" stuff.  They had a "dime box" for each team, as well as "quarter boxes" for recent hall-of-famers.  Additionally, they had lots of miscellaneous cards sorted by set for the set-collectors out there.  I stocked up on a bunch of Royals I still needed on the cheap, and grabbed some George Bretts out of the HOF box.  They also had vintage and recent "high-end" singles, but I passed on most of those. 

Above are some more of their displays.  The woman above owns the shop with her husband.  She was very nice so we chatted for a few minutes when she was ringing me up.  I asked her how business was going, and she said they had been open for about a year and the shop was covering overhead.  They don't sell on ebay, but they sell on Sportlots.com.

Collecting supplies were abundant and very reasonably priced.  I bought a small box to take all my purchases home on the plane.  Locals -- hit this place up for boxes, top-loaders, etc. 

Right before I left, my eyes caught a little basket with this in it:

It's just a brown lunch bag for 50 cents.  "Grab-Bag" style.  I picked it up and it felt sort of heavy.  There was something in a top-loader in there, so I guessed there was one good card and a load of old commons.  But for 50 cents I couldn't pass it up!!  That's cheaper than any retail pack.

You'll have to wait until tomorrow....I'll post what was in there.  It was fun!  :-)

Recommendation:  Anyone in Minneapolis / St. Paul should head up there and give this place a look.  It should be easy to find something you'd like.

Big Pile Shipping and 2011 Spending Total

The BIG PILE has shipped!  That's what the 12 winners envelopes look like, with a little customs form on top for our Canadian winner.  :-)  They went out on New Year's Eve from CA, so should arrive in your neck of the woods sometime later this week.

A lot of people have been talking about collecting goals recently and how they plan to change their behavior in the new year.  I was interested in how much I spent on cards in 2011, so I asked my wife.  My guess was around $175.  I had bought a 2011 Topps Football hobby box ($55), plus a few Ebay purchases, some Sportlots, and some group breaks.  She told me the actual answer...$327.  I had forgotten some supplies, some miscellaneous Target packs, a Craigslist purchase and shipping on trade packages. But that's still a big gap!  Luckily that is not enough to break the bank or cause a problem in our overall financial situation.  However, I do want to be more aware of what I am spending as the year goes on, so I am going to try to track it on the blog to keep it front-and-center in my mind.

I am also going to limit the "accumulating" aspect of my collecting in the first half of 2012 and focus more on organizing and posting things I already have.  I won't pass up a good trade offer or one of my regular group breaks, but will rather try to avoid those days of trolling ebay or Sportlots without a real "need" in mind (none of this is NEEDED, after all).