This Post Is Immaculate

 

The best-looking product this year that I have seen was Panini Immaculate.  It came out in the summer and people immediately started pulling out some amazing cards from it (that Brett went for $460).  There were quite a few case breaks happening for it, but the prices for a slot were going for more than I wanted to pay, and I just kept getting outbid on them.  Instead, I decided to take the money that would have gone for a slot in the case break and just pick up a few singles on Ebay...creating my own cheaper break.  I watched several breaks that I had bid on (and lost), and there were no Royals cards in there that were better than these (and about half of them were shutouts for the Royals), so I don't feel like I missed out on them. 

The card at the top was a great value -- Raul Mondesi /99 - Immaculate Materials - 5 swatches.  The fabric is blurry in the scan since it is so thick.  The Royals have rushed Mondesi before...hopefully they are patient with him and he will develop into a solid player.

The second card I picked up was Alex Gordon /99 - Immaculate Duals.   It shows the Alex Gordon low follow-through...best exemplified here. 

 

While I was on the site, I looked for any other cool, cheap Royals cards I could snag.  The first card I picked up was this "Zebra" from 2016 Donruss.  I believe they called these "Holoflow" parallels.  They are numbered /199 and are very shiny/refractory (you can pick that up in the bottom of the scan).  LoCain is showing a little of his "lean-back" follow-through on this beauty.  

 

Another quick pick-up was this Danny Duffy 2017 Chrome in the 1987 Topps style.  It was free shipping and the seller likely had a negative profit on this one.   It's a beautiful glossy card and I'm glad to have it.

All in all, these cards cost me WAY less than a case-break slot would have, and I am pleased with what I got. 

If you are looking for what's still available from that set, you can check COMC or the 'Bay.

What is your favorite Panini Immaculate card that you have seen?

Bountiful Bonus Booty Bestowed by Benevolent Blogger

Who is the Benevolent Blogger?  Why, Bubba's Bangin' Batch of Baseball Bits, of course!

Matt ran a contest last summer to see who could identify a player that he had selected, based on a series of clues that were increasingly specific.  When all was said and done, I narrowed down the answer to just a few players, then finally down to one - Wilson Ramos!  That qualified me for a prize, and when the randomizer was done spinning, I came out of it with a whole lot of 2017 Ginter cards!  Knowing his affinity for Ginter cards, I figured it would be something good.  It was.  :-)

Here you can see the box that hit my mailbox.

 

To be specific, that box had a full base set of 2017 Ginter (Cards 1-300), and then half of the short-prints (301-350).  1987 Topps (favorite set!) were used as filler.  No respect for the classics!  :-)

Here's the full team set of 2017 Royals (non-SP). 

 

He also included one SP (LoCain), and a mini of Hosmer and black mini of LoCain.  

It didn't seem like the Ginter base set had as many interesting non-baseball cards in it as it has in past years, but there were still a few good ones.  All of the cards in the next two pictures are other cards from the base set that I wanted to keep. 4 Ex-Royals (Kendrys, Manaea, Zobrist, Cueto), guys from my earlier days (Canseco, Smith, Banks, Johnson, Dawson), Random current guys I like (Ichiro, Werth, Wilson Ramos(!), then the miscellaneous ones.  Vashti Cunningham and Laurie Hernandez were Olympians.  I watched a Crossfit documentary on Netflix and Ben Smith was the winner of that (Spoiler!).  There was no "Revolving Door" or "X-Ray" card in this set, so a Panda and a Waterfall will have to fill that gap. 

As I mentioned, there were also half of the Short-Prints from this set.  Those are shown below and are all available (except for Lorenzo) since they don't fit my PC.  If anyone still is working on this set and needs one of these, let me know and I can get that to you.  I have a lot of base to trade/give, too.

I really only need one more full-size base card from this set -
Base SP #313 - Matt Strahm. 

Do any of you have that one for me?

Thanks so much, Matt!  You might be wondering why it took me 3 months to post this.  Well....this package hit my mailbox the same week my wife gave birth to our daughter.  Between her and my two older boys, I've had limited card-blogging time since then.  But these were all much appreciated and will be given a good home!  

My Wife - The Prognosticator

Before the playoffs began, everyone in my family filled out a bracket with their postseason predictions (motto:  "Bracketology:  It's not just for March Madness anymore!").  That paper you see in the picture above is my wife's bracket.  She got every series right except for the Indians/Yankees series.  Next year I am going to take her to Vegas and we are going to get rich.