Hear ye, Hear ye!

Hear ye, Hear ye, fellow denizens of the blogosphere!  It is my pleasure to announce that Tom of the blog Angels, In Order is one of the

FINEST

1994 Topps Finest - Brian McRae - #62

 gentlemen out there.  He has clearly reached the

 ZENITH



1996 Pinnacle Zenith - Johnny Damon


of generosity by sending me all these Royals (and a bunch more) out of the goodness of his heart.  I suggest that you

RUN

over to Angels, In Order and read everything he has there to look at (including his Tim Salmon posts)!
Thanks, Tom!

Brayan and Bryan

2012 Topps Brayan Pena - # 296

Brayan Pena has the ball.  Brayan Pena made the play!  Brayan Pena is glad that the throw from the outfield did not go all the way to the backstop...

This sweet play came in a trade stack from Marcus at Backstop Cards. He and I worked out a trade last month.  Two big baggies full of Fleer, Leaf, Upper Deck, Heritage, Topps, and Collector's Choice came my way.  Here were some of my favorites:

GUBES! (times 2).  I need those shades, Mark Gubicza.

Young, Minor-League Johnny Damon and an old Frank White.

Celebratory Opening Day Billy Butler and some guy I've never heard of.  Luckily, that guy is on a purple card.  Purple is the most under-rated of all the card colors, in my opinion.

The new purple guy is Bryan Brickhouse.

You're welcome.  :-)

Yo! Colbey Raps!

Well....I don't know if Colbey raps (though he seems like the type!), but the cards he sent me sure do.  He recently sent me a lovely yellow envelope full of good stuff in response to some Charlotte Hornets/Bobcats that I sent his way. 

Regarding 1999 Skybox Thunder -- it is one of my card-collecting guilty pleasures. :-) I will take any of this that people want to get rid of!!  In case you didn't know, some white boyz were writing the backs of the cards for this set, and did a (wonderfully?) horrible job making raps

 Throw your hands in the air,

And wave 'em from here to there

You're bringin' life back to the K.C. scene

With talent that's mean and lean

Eh.  I guess that's no SO bad for Beltran.

1999 Skybox Thunder - #268 - Carlos Beltran

You're the King of the Royals,

And you've got all power.

K.C. is your kingdom,

And you're rulin' like no other.

Yes, really.  That's what they came up with for Jeff King.  Luckily, this one was a "RAVE" parallel, and it was #'d /150.  I missed that the first 3 times I looked at this card.  Only when I was entering it into Zistle did I notice the difference.   

1999 Skybox Thunder Rave - #43 - Jeff King

Man, you tore it up in the minors last year.

Now, you got your eyes on the bigs for '99.

And you've got that Rookie of the Year award on your mind.

1999 Skybox Thunder - #6U - Jeremy Giambi

What the heck was that rap!!!???  I love the "Wheaties" vibe on this one...at the bottom instead of the package size it says "Net WT 185 LBS (83.9 kg) NET HT 6'0."

He gave me these goodies, too. 

Thanks a bunch, Colbey!

Engagement Pictures and Aquatic Exploration



1997 Fleer Metal Universe - #91 - Johnny Damon

Why is Johnny Damon being attacked?  By a MOLLUSK?!?!  The scan does not do this bad-boy justice.  This is a picture of JD with a diving helmet super-imposed over his head while the squid tries to take out his legs and drag him back to the sea.  Oh, Fleer Metal -- you were awesome. This (along with everything else in this post) came from Jaybarkerfan's last card draft. 

The main reason I had bought-into this draft was for this guy:

2002 Topps Gold Label - Frank White Relic - #ACR-FW

I was the #1 overall pick...and it was MINE!  Frank White in the baby blues.  It's a shame how the KC front-office has treated him lately.  He was always one of my favorites, and loved his commentary during the TV broadcasts. I used my next set of picks to get this one:

2004 SPx Autograph Relic - Justin Huisman - #183 - #/799

I could tell Huisman was a Royal, but I did not remember him AT ALL.  So I went to do a little research on him, and the first thing that came up were his engagement pictures:

She seems nice. 

Justin's MLB career consisted of 25 IP over 14 games back in 2004.  He's now the coach of the "Northwest Indiana Oilmen"...a collegiate team.

Ginter Minis - Rasputin, Robert E. Lee, Alex Gordon

I got 3 Ginter minis, including one of Rasputin -- Russia's greatest love machine.  I cannot make an adequate statement about the relative love machine greatness of Lee or Gordon.


1972 Topps Leo Durocher, 2002 Fleer Platinum Wheelhouse Ichiro

I picked the Durocher since he looked a little crabby.  I picked the Ichiro because it had gears on it.  Turns out that one is embossed, too.
Wes threw in some more goodies for me in addition to the formal picks.


2011 Topps Lineage - Billy Butler Mini and Base

Billy Butler was the ONLY Royal on the Lineage checklist last year, and now I've got his mini and his base card.  Sidebar Rant:  When people were doing Lineage group breaks last year, I asked a few of them how much it would be to get the Royals.  They said it was the same price as any other team.  I pointed out to them that it was only these cards, but they didn't budge.  Needless to say, they didn't sell the Royals because you would have to be an idiot to pay the same price for the Royals that you would for the Yankees or Dodgers.  Many people who run group breaks do a good job of varying the prices based on the team and the checklists of the boxes they are opening, but if you are running group breaks where you sell all single-team-slots for a flat price, you are severely under-charging some people and over-charging others.
  

1997 E-X 2000 - Jermaine Dye and Johnny Damon

Last but not least, these two are from the 1997 E-X2000 set.  The sky/clouds piece is a translucent plastic so that you see that part better when there is a light behind it.  These are super-fun.  I got the Barry Bonds from this set, too.  

I like the looks of these.  I only wonder how much more Fleer Metal could have improved these...maybe have a giant hawk in the sky shooting lasers at Jermaine?  Maybe have Johnny trying to hit a jet fighter with his bat?  Some sort of DRAGON?

I think more cards should have a dragon...or at least a leviathan.

My Late Obsession

I'm only 3 months late on this one....so sue me!

Back in February, I made a trade with Jeff over at My Sports Obsession.  You can see lots of the stuff I traded him here.  It was mostly a good-sized stack of 1973 Topps and 1981 Topps.  He sent me a smaller envelope back, but it was a GREAT envelope.  He clearly looked through my want-lists and picked out some good stuff.  Here's a few of the highlights...

He started it off with 4 different Kurt Warners.

Football Heroes - Kurt Warner

 Then a Diamond King with a diecut Topps Laser card.

Brian McRae DK, and Johnny Damon Topps Laser

 As I neared the end of the stack, the cards started feeling THICKER.  Here was the first one.

2008 Upper Deck Jersey card - Gil Meche

 Considering how I didn't send him any hits.  That was awesome.

Then I flipped to the last card and found this one. 

2005 Absolute Memorabilia - Ken Harvey

WHAT!  That is a relic auto of Ken Harvey.  It's #/25.  It's sweet.  There is an embossing in the lower left over the auto.  This is my first relic auto, and it is cool.

Thanks so much, Jeff.

Shiny Parallels and their Non-Shiny Brethren

I never expected to use the word "Brethren" in this blog, but look in the title -- there it is!

I have to show off some brethren cards that I got in Colbey's most recent group break (check out Cardboard Collections for good cheap group breaks on a regular basis).  KC was the big winner on parallels in this break (several Pinnacle products).  The checklists for each team were not super-deep, so I was able to get the base cards for them, too.

These are all 1995 Pinnacle Summit.  The base cards are on top, while the "N-th Degree" parallels are below.  They are pretty shiny, as the scan indicates. 

1995 Pinnacle Summit #120 Joe Vitiello, #121 Jon Nunnally, and #139 Joe Randa

These guys were from the 1996 Pinnacle Aficionado box that Colbey opened, too.  These cards are really neat in that the faces on the right are a dot-picture (like you would see in the Wall-Street Journal), but the texture of them is such that the dots are raised above the level of the card stock so you can feel it as you run your fingers across it.

1996 Pinnacle Aficionado #65 Kevin Appier and #128 Johnny Damon

The final product that I wanted to show off featured a young (that is, short-haired) Johnny Damon and a young (that is, still thin) Sal Fasano.

1996 Summit #124 Johnny Damon and #169 Sal Fasano

I love discovering these less-prominent sets that I completely missed during my hiatus from card collecting.  Thanks for bringing them out into the open, Colbey.