Two Box Break with Surprises Inside

It was not a good day for my two favorite sports teams. The Devils were eliminated in five games by the Tampa Bay Lightning, and the Red Sox were no-hit by Oakland's Sean Manaea. The Devils series (like much of the Stanley Cup Playoffs) was highly predictable, but until yesterday the Sox were an astounding 17-2 and led the league in runs scored and batting. Manaea is having a great season so far, but I don't think anyone expected that kind of performance against Boston's big bats. 


I haven't mentioned the Red Sox' historic start on my blog, for a few reasons. For one, I didn't want to jinx them. Two, the playoffs always divert my attention from baseball until such time that my favorite teams/players are eliminated. And three, I've been so backlogged with blog post ideas that I'm unable to keep up with current events. 

 
Zippy Zappy of the blog Torren' Up Cards is well-known to most of you but I just recently added him to my blogroll. He's got a great Blog Bat Around idea going, which prompts bloggers to build a baseball team from the autographed items in your collection. I'm still on the fence about participating. I'd prefer to hold back my best autos for the Sports Card Tour. Plus I'd have a hard time filling positions, especially catcher and bullpen. Unless ZZ can spare a Torrens auto for me ;-)


I do want to get some more Sports Card Tour stops out of the way this week. The longer I go without writing, the harder it is for me to get back on track. And there are so many new cards in my collection that I can't wait to get through the tour and get them all sorted.



Last week I received two boxes of cards in the mail - and four thank you posts. One of each was from Dennis (Too Many Verlanders/Manninghams) Though I did send him a four-card PWE I was certainly not expecting him to hit me back with a Medium Flat Rate box full of...magazines!

Dennis must have been doing some spring cleaning; there were 13 magazines with Red Sox on the cover, including 11 Beckett back issues. But that's not all! 

I kept reaching my hand into the box and pulling out fun surprises, like these oversized Dan Marino cards:

And two Pinnacle Inside cans (Marino and Nomar Garciaparra) which were carefully filled with stacks of cards..including Marino cards of various sizes:

Dennis stuffed 75 cards into those cans, hitting player PCs like Martin Brodeur, Steve Nash, Shaq, and another NBA great who I will mention in my next post.

There were Nomar cards inside the Nomar can.. along with another super cool item.

I've never seen these Topps Screen Plays before, which is a bummer since I was a film buff and aspiring screen play writer when they were released in 1997. The flip side of the tin looks more like a movie film canister. I'm assuming these were one-card tins; the Sportflics-like card above it was the only one inside.

The whole swap with Dennis originated a while back, when he offered up a duplicate of this Max Scherzer patch card. I'm a big fan of Immaculate cards, even unlicensed ones, so I claimed it. Should have known by now that Dennis would send much more than this one card.

Dennis, thanks again for another great trade! I keep trying to equal your generosity, only to be as overmatched as the Devils and Red Sox were yesterday.

The Large Flat Rate box I ordered from eBay contained over 4,000 cards. Most of them were baseball and hockey, which kind of figures because I had been hoping to beef up my basketball and football card collections. I'll get to the hockey cards another day, but here's a sampling of some of the baseball in the box:

This might be my favorite card of them all.. and it arrived right after Jackie Robinson day.

I didn't need any of the eight Heritage base cards in the box, but I needed both these inserts.

A fair amount of recent Topps sets were represented. I came up empty on the two I'm collecting (2015 and 2016) but there were some nice singles from 2012:

The seller promised autos and relics in the listing. He/she met the minimum requirement:

Sands would not have cracked my autographed card outfield. Not by a long shot.

I didn't buy this box for the hits anyhow. I bought it for the large chunks of junk wax:

My brother-in-law gave me his sealed factory set of 1991 Score - which means all 421 cards I found in this box are dupes. However I haven't actually looked at them in years. Even without any star power (aside from the great Bob Walk) I found some cards that were interesting to me. 

I tried to keep an exact breakdown of each card by set and year - which I won't bore you with. Once that was done I removed the overproduction era stuff I couldn't use and put them back in the box (the fate of those cards will be determined later.)

Then I extracted all the Red Sox and star players/HOFers:

This weekend I've been sorting all of the remaining cards by team. I plan to send these out for trades, and I'd like to do another 50/50 swap this spring. But I want to change it up.

Ummph...that woman.

via GIPHY

Anywho. Last year I had a lot of success swapping team lots for random stuff. Nearly everyone who claimed a team lot sent cards that fit my collection - even though I was willing to accept any 50 cards. Though I did get ripped off by a couple of readers I learned a lot about which bloggers are reliable (and generous) trade partners.

This time, I'm probably going to implement a "must send first" policy for anyone I don't recognize. If you're reading this, that almost certainly won't affect you. But it will have the added benefit of spacing out trade packages, so that I'm not mailing out a dozen at once.

I also had another idea, based on watching/reading Box Break posts. What if each 50/50 package included 25 cards from your chosen team and 25 random cards - either from a single different team (box break style) or an assortment of teams (repack style)? In either case I'd ask participants to claim a team and a number - which would be assigned to your "surprise" package. 

Does this sound interesting to any of you? I'd appreciate any feedback you have on how we can make the 50/50 swap even better this time around.

Thanks for reading!

 
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Great Trader Giveaway Contest - Winner #1

Six weeks ago I proposed the idea of a 50/50 card swap, not knowing if anyone would take me up on the offer to send 50 cards of a team or set they collect in exchange for any 50 cards they don't want or need. I was a bit worried that the idea would be a flop, or that I'd get nothing but 1991 Fleer baseball in return. 

Instead I got hundreds of great cards, mostly of the three teams I collect. Nearly every trader sent well over 50 cards, and more inserts/parallels/relics than I was expecting (and more than I was sending!) Some of you even included a note that you thought 50/50 was "a great idea" and, to me, that meant just as much as the cards.

So for those of you who participated I thought the best way to say Thank You! would be to host this Great Trader Giveaway.

As I stated two weeks ago, anyone who has completed a 50/50 trade with me is eligible for the First Prize. The ten bloggers who sent return packages are:

Brian O (Highly Subjective & Completely Arbitrary)
Paul (Card Boarded)
Brian R (Captain Canuck)
Adam (Infield Fly Rule)
Jim (Cards As I See Them)
Douglas (Dollar Store Cards)
Julie (A Cracked Bat)
Eric (Old Red Sox Cards)
Brett Alan (no blog)
Tim (no blog)


These names were entered into the randomizer, and after four spins the winner is...

List Randomizer

There were 10 items in your list. Here they are in random order:

1. Paul
2. Julie
3. Adam
4. Douglas
5. Brian O
6. Brian R
7. Jim
8. Tim
9. Eric
10. Brett

IP: 96.225.123.71
Timestamp: 2017-09-29 18:41:17 UTC
Don't use this service for video giveaways! Use Multi-Round Giveaways instead
You have randomized this list 4 times.

Congratulations, Paul! You may choose any of the prizes below:

A $10-15 COMC shopping spree - you pick the cards and I'll purchase them*

*Please note - Your cards will be mailed to you in December

A sealed box of 2016 Topps Archives 65th Anniversary Edition

or the Mystery Box

which contains up to 200 cards from unclaimed 50/50 lots.

Once Paul has chosen his prize I will run the randomizer again for the Second Prize. This is open to anyone who sent me anything this summer, including:

Brian O (Highly Subjective & Completely Arbitrary)
Brian R (Captain Canuck)
Adam (Infield Fly Rule)
Jim (Cards As I See Them)
Douglas (Dollar Store Cards)
Julie (A Cracked Bat)
Eric (Old Red Sox Cards)
Brett Alan (no blog)
Tim Henson (no blog)
Wes (Willinghammer Rising)
Gavin (Baseball Card Breakdown)
Greg (The Collective Mind)
Dennis (Too Many Verlanders/Manninghams)
Corky (Pack War)


Thanks again to everyone who participated. See you back here for round two. Enjoy your weekend!


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Recent COMC purchases (and Great Trader Giveaway prize reveal)

Throughout the summer I considered - but never followed through on - writing a month-end blog post recapping my best find(s) on COMC. And now that I'm actually doing it I don't have any specific September steal on par with my July or August finds. That's partially because I've done a lot less shopping on COMC this month. 

I had a lot of 50/50 trade packages come in earlier this month, which sated my need for new cards, and even when I was browsing COMC the challenges were almost always closed until this week. With very little credit to earn and burn I was limited to making just a few small purchases, none more than $2.

I didn't even think they were worthy of a blog post - especially since I don't have any of them in hand yet - but Shane (Shoebox Legends) and Billy (Cardboard History) have discussed their recent COMC purchases and I haven't posted anything in a few days so I thought I'd share mine:

Al Jefferson 2015-16 Panini Immaculate Memorabilia #d/25 ($1.67)

Basketball relics seem to be cheaper than those of other sports, at least in my observation. I can understand a low-numbered single-color swatch of an undrafted D-leaguer being this cheap - but a low-numbered patch of an established NBA veteran? I'm gonna go ahead and call this my COMC Find of the Month.

That said, here are some other singles I bought for roughly the same amount:

Calgary Flames 2008-09 UD Trilogy Three Star Spotlight ($2.00)

I'm not a Flames fan and this card isn't serial numbered, but it seemed like a good value for a toonie. All three players were part of the Flames 1989 Stanley Cup championship team.

Bobby Ryan 2011-12 Panini Certified Fabric Of The Game #d/25 ($1.85)

Another two-color patch card numbered to 25. This one isn't as nice as the Jefferson and cost a tiny bit more, but Ryan is a Jersey guy and played like a superstar in the 2017 playoffs.

John Starks 2015-16 Panini Totally Certified Fabric of the Game #d/99 ($1.23)

I've never been a Knicks fan, but I know Starks was a fan favorite and I don't have many basketball relics. I might trade or flip this card if the opportunity arises.

Steven Stamkos 2015-16 UD Ultimate Collection Honored Materials #d/99 ($1.36)

Stammer plays hockey in Florida, and gets hurt a lot doing so. Those are the only reasons I can think of as to why he is so underrated in the hobby. This card in particular should be at least $4, but thanks to ePack you can get any one of a handful of stars for less than that.

Dave Duncan 2017 Topps Heritage Buyback 1968 ($1.05)

The only baseball card in this post - though I did buy about 20 cheaper baseball cards this month. This Duncan comes from one of the box topper packs that are randomly inserted in hobby boxes of 2017 Heritage (two of my five boxes contained an original buyback pack.) I picked this up because it's in good shape and as possible trade bait for any buyback hoarders who might need it (it's #261, btw.)

Jim Calhoun 1990 Star Pics ($1.00)

I've been watching Calhoun cards for a while and when the "Medallion Edition" parallel sold out I decided to pull the trigger on this one. This will be a nice addition to my Connecticut collection, which I haven't been adding to as much as I'd hoped. 

John Gibson 2016-17 OPC Platnium Retro Orange #d/49 ($1.83)

Another ePack product, which is why I was reluctant to spend even minimal coin on this card. But even though I dislike the Ducks I couldn't resist the orange border surrounding Gibson's orange jersey, which represents Orange county's NHL team.

These nine cards cost me a total of $11.99. It's amazing what you can find on COMC for that price. And so I thought it would be fun to offer a small shopping spree as a prize in my Great Trader Giveaway. The winner (which will be announced Friday) will have a choice of one of these prizes:

• A "mystery box" of up to 200 cards from unclaimed 50/50 lots
• A $10-15 COMC shopping spree - you pick the cards and I'll purchase them*
• A sealed box of 2016 Topps Archives 65th Anniversary Edition

*please note that I will not request shipment of my COMC order until Black Friday so you will receive your cards in December.

I'll have more specifics about the Great Trader Giveaway on Friday but as I mentioned previously, the First Prize is open to anyone who completed a 50/50 trade with me, and the Second Prize is open to anyone who sent me anything over the past two months. 


Thanks again to everyone who participated. See you back here on Friday! 


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The State of the Sawx

It has been a rough year to be a Red Sox fan.

First there was the beanball war with Baltimore.

Then there was the David Price-Dennis Eckersley feud.

Then some moron(s?) shouted racial slurs at the Orioles' Adam Jones.

Then there was the sign stealing scandal. 

And now this:

Is this pro or con? And why would anyone bother to display such an ambiguous sign? I don't even know. All I know is that there are great stories all over baseball: the Indians, the D-backs, the Twins, the Mighty Giancarlo Stanton, the Judge, the Dodgers (until about a month ago)... but aside from a hot start by Chris Sale and a red-hot debut by Rafael Devers, every story about the Sox this year has been negative news. And we're in first place!

Not all of this bad karma has to do with the players. The Red Sox roster is deep and talented enough to win the division and maybe even a playoff series. But the bad mojo will negate that. Even if our lefty aces Sale and Price don't turn into pumpkins at the first sign of fall, the talent on other teams is better - and the mojo is much better.

Let's say the season ended today. The Red Sox would have to go to Houston for an ALDS series. The Astros are already the better team on paper, but the flood-ravaged city will rally around the team, and vice versa. It happened in Boston after those Russian asshats bombed the Boston Marathon. 

And even if the Sox somehow beat the 'Stros, they'd have to win a best-of-7 against the Cleveland Indians, who might never lose a game again. 

This... is not our year. And that's okay. I don't expect my team to win championships every year; I'm not a Yankees fan. Honestly, as long as we hold them off for the AL East crown and they don't advance any further than we do (which seems like a safe bet considering the Yanks would play Cleveland in the DS) I'm good. Just as long as the news from now on concerns the players and their performance on the field. 

 
Since this is supposed to be a sports card blog I thought I'd show off a few cards from a new PC project - Cleveland skipper Terry Francona (I wish that guy was managing my team)

I haven't been actively collecting Francona cards, but he nearly won a third World Series ring last year and the Indians appear to be even better this year. Three titles as a manager is basically a ticket to Cooperstown, so I figure now's the time to build my collection. It's pretty basic so far:

I just tossed a few more Titos into my latest Just Commons order, which should be here in the next week or two. And I've got a box break post on deck from today's visit to my LCS (aka Target.) But before I get to that, here are some Red Sox cards from my most recent 50/50 trade, with Julie of the blog A Cracked Bat.
 

 and a Hot Dog

Julie claimed two lots - Tigers and Astros - and sent me about 110 cards in return. (I'm still debating whether that earns her an extra entry in the contest.)

Unfortunately I was a bit hasty in sorting/seeding them into my binders and I forgot to scan them all. But here are some highlights:

 My apologies if any of these did not come from Julie.

I should have scanned them right away. But it was 110 cards!

 That time when Brock Holt was our only All-Star:

 Obscure player alert!

And we'll end with a celebration:

I hope we'll see more of this down the stretch. 

Thanks for reading, everyone. Have a great weekend!

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50/50 Trading Post Update and Great Trader Giveaway Announcement!

It has been one month since my 50/50 Trading Post, and I have been so grateful to those of you who chose to send cards of teams and players I collect, and for sending more than 50 cards. Every time I've received a return package I've been pleasantly surprised - and I often feel like I didn't send you enough. 

As I mentioned in subsequent posts, I offered to do a Great Trader Giveaway as an incentive to anyone who went the extra mile with their return - which was just about everyone! So I think it's time to share some details of the giveaway. 

I initially thought of establishing a point-based system which would reward card count, unique cards, speed of return, etc... but that seemed too complicated and unfair. I also considered including bloggers that have sent me cards outside of the 50/50 offer... but that also seemed unfair. So here's the deal: the giveaway will be random. One entry per trader. I'll spin you through the randomizer four times and the name at the top of the fourth list will be the winner.

There will be no prize for the last name on the list. Instead, I will run the randomizer four more times - without the name of the first winner but with the names of traders who did not participate in 50/50 (looking at you, Greg and Gavin!) The name of the trader who tops that list will be the winner of the second prize. 

This part is important...
To be eligible for either contest I must receive your return package by September 29. That's two weeks from Friday, folks. If you have not yet received cards from me please let me know. All of my 50/50 trade packages were mailed out a while ago. As of today, September 13, I have received 50/50 returns from:

Brian (Highly Subjective & Completely Arbitrary)
Paul (Card Boarded)
Brian (Captain Canuck)
Adam (Infield Fly Rule)
Jim (Garvey Cey Russell Lopes Cards As I See Them)
Douglas (Dollar Store Cards...i think?)
Julie (A Cracked Bat)

If you're listed above, that means you're eligible for the First Prize. 

These aren't the only bloggers who have sent me cards over the past month. I've made smaller trades and/or received surprise gifts from:

Wes (Willinghammer Rising)
Gavin (Baseball Card Breakdown)
Greg (The Collective Mind)
Dennis (Too Many Verlanders/Manninghams)

I'm also throwing Corky (Pack War) into this pool because he's working on another custom card project for me. And Tony (Wrigley Roster Jenga), I'll be happy to slot you in here as well. Everyone listed above is eligible for the Second Prize (except the winner of the first prize.)


What are the prizes? 

I won't reveal that yet, but I'll tell you this: the First Prize is a box of cards with a guaranteed hit. The Second Prize... could be the exact same thing. Or it could be a hanger box of new product. Or it could be a PWE with a relic and/or auto. Not sure yet. But the First Prize is set in stone. 

So.. if I haven't received a return from you yet, please try to send your end of the 50/50 swap in time for the 29th.

Thanks again to everyone who participated!



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A 50/50 trade that Rocks my Sox

I received three trade packages this week: the first one arrived Tuesday, courtesy of Adam of the blog Infield Fly Rule. Adam claimed my Colorado Rockies lot and sent me 51 cards in return - most of which were Rockies, like current Red Sox starter Drew Pomeranz:

After flipping through these cards a second time I realized something... nearly all of these Rockies were Red Sox at some point in their careers. Here's a bunch of Ellis Burks:

Burks started and ended his career in bean town.

All of these guys were Red Sox - except Albert Belle:

Dante Bichette finished his career with two seasons in Boston. 

I had a decent Dante collection back in his Blake Street Bomber days. 

Adam did include some cards of players who didn't suit up for the Sawx:

The CarGo insert stands out here, I seem to end up with a lot of his cards.

Thanks again for the trade, Adam! Here's hoping both our teams can hold on to their playoff positions. Perhaps they'll meet up for a 10 year reunion in the World Series ;)


Have a great weekend everyone!


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50/50 swap meet meets the 50's

I've got a busy Labor Day lined up - brunch with the in-laws, job hunting and possibly installing an elliptical machine that has been lying around the house for over a year. My father-in-law couldnt put it together and now that he's gone I've got to give it a try.

On Saturday, as I was on my way out to the post office, I found a bubble mailer in my box from Jim of the Dodger-centric blog Garvey Cey Russell Lopes. Jim claimed my lot of.. surprise! ..L.A. Dodger cards.

In return, Jim sent about half hockey and half baseball - which is becoming a trend in the return fire I've received. Also a trend: hitting my wantlists. You guys are 4 for 4 so far!

The front and back of the stack featured 90's hockey stars my wife and I collect:

you know the rule - must show the back of 93-94 Leaf

Trevor Linden (the obscured Canadien is his brother Jamie)

In the middle of that ice oreo was a sweet Red Sox center:

The Workman and Han-Ram are numbered. I thought the Bowden would be, but it's not. And the Pink Pedey replaces one I bought on COMC - which was only $0.31 because it had a dinged corner.

Those are all awesome cards that fit my collection, but the three stars of this stack were incredible:

A '55 Bowman Russ Meyer for my Brooklyn collection, a Pedro relic, and a very nice '54 Topps Mel Parnell. I've had my eye on that card for quite a while. Check out the cartoon on the back:

Again, many thanks to Jim for this fantastic trade!


I've got a few more 50/50 trades to ship tomorrow and when all returns are received I will commence the Great Trader Giveaway - which should coincide with the end of the baseball season. 

Hope you're all having an relaxing Labor Day!


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