Finally Something New

Hey guys, and gals, out there in blogger land! Finally got some cards in to show off and a couple boxes to review. Gonna apologize for the bad pictures right away as well. My scanner fried today so I had to go to my backup camera and it just isn't the same! I'll start with the saga that was my Philly redemption. After calling UD and waiting for only a couple minutes I talked with a customer service rep who verified that my redemption was out of stock and asked what my favorite team is. I replied the Vikings and was told a like valued would be sent. In less than three weeks I already have my replacement. A 2009 SP Authentic on card autograph of the former Vikings lineman Ron Yary. I honestly can't complain, Yary was the first player selected by the Vikings in 1968 and played for 15 seasons becoming a starter in his second. He was voted into the Hall of Fame in 2001.

I also picked up a card form the now retired Sadlittles set Essence of Fairyland. Artist Mel Uran did several fairies in a steampunk style. Now I'm not a huge steampunk fan but these cards looked great and when one came up in Nathan's clear out sale I had to try an get it. My luck held and here she is in all her beauty......

Now on to a couple loose packs I grabbed. I wanted to see what all the hype was about with the Topps Update and I love the 2010 Topps football so I got a jumbo of each. No hits out of the Update but did manage to get one of the SP variations of Reggie Jackson. Out of the football I got a player worn jersey card of the Browns rookie Colt McCoy. Nice thing is I can sell both and get most of the money back on the packs.


So now onto the boxes. The first is actually a mini box from the new Press Pass Legends racing. Not much to tell here but oyu do get one auto and one memorabilia card per mini box. Plus a numbered card in the other packs. I did pull everything I was supposed to. My memorabilia is a super thick race-used firesuit of Dave Marcis and the autograph is a on-card of Dave Pearson. My favorite two cards were actually regular pulls, with one being numbered. I got a Motorsports Masters of Darrell Waltrip, has a UD Masterpieces texture to it, and a Make & Model #11 Mountain Dew numbered 92/99 which is Darrell's old car. Darrell is my favorite driver and I love listening to him call races. My overall thoughts on the Legends is it's a great product for a decent price. An actual full box is three of the mini boxes and will net you three autographs, three memorabilia cards and a bunch of numbered cards. I've seen some really nice stuff pulled on other forms and if you like racing it's a good product to get behind.

The last box is something from last year. I wanted to try a maximize my hits for my money and also try something new. I finally settled on 2009 Topps Chicle. Now there have been remarks about how the players look due to the fact that it's an entirely painted set. But it offers some good autographs at two per box and has a subset that I've been trying to complete through E-bay and the like. The base cards were done by 11 different artists including Brian Kong, Mike Kupka and Dave Hobrecht. I have a sample of what I think are both the good a bad here. One of my favorites has the be the Roy Williams and the Jerry Rice. The Jacobs show amazing emotion and Montana looks ready to play. Several of the artists did old throwback uniforms on the players and they just look strange, like the Sanchez. Trent looks way to happy to be passing the ball and I'm not real sure what Moss is thinking!! But for all the fact that I make a little fun of the cards I wish I had a tenth of the talent these guys do.

Each pack also has a mini card in it. The regular version is gold bordered while the SP backs have white borders with three different backs: Chicle, Bazooka and Topps Umbrella. I pulled four Chicle backs, two Bazooka backs, Matt Ryan and Percy Harvin, and one of the Topps backs numbered to 25 of Pierre Thomas.


I actually did excellent on the hits, I was supposed to get two autographs and one relic. Instead I got three autographs and a one in six box relic hit! Even though I got three autographs none of them were huge, I pulled a Pat White first, then a Ramses Barden and lastly and probably the best auto of the group Hakeem Nicks. Like I said nothing to get too excited over.


The final hit is a great card for my PC. A year or so ago I found on the bid board at my local card shop an Amelia Earhart Authentic Stamp Relic card and got it for something like $5.00. I looked up the set and decided that I wanted to put it together. According to the outside of the box there are seven different cards to get. I've picked up four of them cheaply and today out of the VERY FIRST PACK I pulled the Franklin Delano Roosevelt version B!! Couldn't believe my luck in pulling a stamp card let alone one that I needed!! This leaves the FDR version A, which I can't seem to find a picture of anywhere, and again according to the box one of Fort Knox which I haven't seen a picture of either. The Topps website doesn't even acknowledge that this set exists so I don't know if the last two cards were ever made. If anybody sees wither one please e-mail me, I'll throw together a package of your favorite team or something as a reward!


I don't think I would buy another box of Chicle but it was fun to open and I'll see how much of the set I actually have when I sort it in a day or two. The packs mentioned SP's so I'll have to try and find those as well.

I should be getting a package from Steve at 5FINITY for a March of Dimes promotion that he had going sometime in the next week or so and I'll show that off when it gets here. In the meantime take it easy and start saving room for Thanksgiving dinner!

Recent Additions

So I've been gone awhile but that hasn't stopped me from picking up a few things in the mean time. Starting on E-bay I was able to get a costume lot from my favorite TV show Battlestar Galactica. These are from the premier set that came out back in 2005 and I haven't seen any boxes for a long time. I was mainly after just two of the cards, the Number Six red dress card and the Boomer card. I've seen the Boomer card go for $30-$40 just by itself so I was glad to get a good deal on the whole lot. I'll end up keeping three or four for my collection and probably resell the rest. The Starbuck card is a piece of her flight suit and has a leathery feel to it.


I've also bought a few boxes of the Topps 2010 UFC release and am working on a complete base set now. My two latest boxes were quite good and produced extra hits for me. All told I ended up with five autographs of Wanderlei Silva, Keith Jardine, Nate Diaz, Dan Hardy and an Ultimate Fighter of Josh Bryant. My relics were just ok until I got the last one which is a three color fight mat from an Anderson Silva match. The last hit was probably my favorite. Topps pulled thier usual "hidden treasures" and replaced 25 fighter names with their nicknames at a ratio of 250 for each, basically a case hit. I was lucky enough to pull one.... Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell. This is staying with me for awhile. These are easy to miss if you're just opening trying to find your hits so if you've opened boxes of 2010 UFC you might want to go back and see if you missed any.


I also have a few new sketches that I've added to the collection and have a few others that haven't reached me yet. First off I bought another box of Star Wars Galaxy 5 while I'm waiting for the new Clone Wars cards to come out. I was fortunate enough to get a nice sketch from Jason Keith Phillips of Darth Bane.


Then this last weekend Nathan at Sadlittles offered up a special. For $20 he was selling triple sketch packed sets of the Essence of Fairyland, two color sketches and one test sketch from the preview sets. I hit him up for two and got them yesterday. My favorites are the Axebone test sketch, the Michael "Locoduck" Duron and the Kathryn Layno Lewis. I also received sketchs from j(ay), Nestor Celario and Scott Zirkel.



As I mentioned I have more sketches coming and I'll post them when they arrive. I was also in a group case break of UD Philadelphia football and will show those as well when they come in. If I don't talk to you before everybody enjoy your weekend! And don't forget the Randy Moss makes his BIG comeback with the Vikings in prime time on Monday night. How will two of the best players ever get along??? I personally hope REALLY well!

Getting the Fun Stuff

So, two posts in one day. Boy are you guys lucky!! Actually I'm going to post today's mail that I got about an hour or so ago. This isn't going to be a regular feature or anything but when I went down to my box and opened it I found five packages waiting for me including a couple that I've really been looking forward to. So lets start. First off i got my monthly group break cards from I Am Joe Collector. Nothing too special here, no hits this month but did get a nice 2008 Bowman Chrome rookie refractor of Luke Hochevar. Luke is 5-4 with a 4.96 ERA. Not great but nobody on the Royals staff this year has great numbers.


Next in the stack is an Essence of Fairyland sketch off E-bay by Andrew MacLean entitled Captured #1. As you can see some lucky collector has caught and labeled the Fire Fairy in a dome, not that the fairy seems too happy about it. I imagine he's using some sort of word we will not repeat on this blog to express his displeasure.


Next I have a double purchase also off E-bay by the fantastic duo of Jason Potratz and Jack Hai. These are two amazingly talented artists that combine their skills into wonderful sketch cards. I was lucky enough to win two of their latest works from the Harry Potter series. One card of Ginny and one of Hermione. I love all the detail they put into the cards every time.



Next I opened an envelope that I've been waiting on for six months or more. Artist Leah Mangue offered last school year to draw a PSC if you donated money to her son for a school fund raiser. This seemed a perfect way to get a card done and I sent the funds on the way. Leah soon realized that she may have bitten off more then she could chew as she was apparently overwhelmed with requests. I wasn't overly concerned either way if I got my sketch or not as I know the money went to a good cause but today it finally came. I now have another PSC Boomer from Battlestar Galactica to add to the collection.


Lastly is a card I've been wanting since the set came out. The set is Press Pass Showcase 2010. Cards from these boxes have been nothing short of amazing and not only does it include current NASCAR drivers but has legends as well. My favorite driver of all time is the current Fox announcer Darrell Waltrip. Darrell has several cards in this set but I was kinda picky on what I wanted one in my collection to look like. I wanted an autograph, of course, and a multi-color relic piece. I didn't care if it was a firesuit or sheet metal but leaned towards sheet metal if I could. Well the card came today and it looks even better in person! A beautiful on-card autograph with a 3 inch by 1 inch hunk of three colored sheet metal. The card weighs a ton and the colors are great. This is now one of my favorite cards in my collection. Right up there with the Jordan auto and the Peterson NT.


Thanks for letting me share my mail day and here's to hoping the rest of the day is just as good!!