Recent Stuff

So as I mentioned earlier this morning I was able to stop by my favorite card shop and pick up a couple boxes. The first was a box of the new Playoff Contenders. I had seen some nice autos come out and I really like the design of the base cards. My box yielded five autographs: three of the sticker version and two on-card. Sticker wise I pulled Antonio Brown, Devin McCourty and Derrick Morgan. For on-card I found a Marcus Easley and Eric Decker. Not sure if either one is a variation or not but still pleased with both pulls. I also pulled the Suh rookie I showed before, that was numbered 9/99 and an Otis Anderson Super Bowl Ticket numbered 3/100.




The other box I picked up is something I've been wanting to try for a long time but needed some extra cash to be able to afford. Well with my tax return coming in I was finally able to buy a box of Press Pass Showcase racing. I've always liked NASCAR and there are some amazing cards to be pulled from this. Three packs and three hits. Pack number one gave me an autograph and sheet metal card of a driver that is in the top ten of all-time winners, Former driver of the #2 Miller Genuine Draft Pontiac Rusty Wallace.

The scan doesn't show it very well but the sheet metal piece, even though it's all white, is really dirty and scuffed and the autograph is most defiantly on-card! Numbered 5/45 this was a great way to start a box. Next pack was super heavy and led me to think I had another sheet metal piece and I wasn't wrong. I pulled a jumbo piece of the #42 Target car driven by Juan Pablo Montoya that includes part of a sponsor sticker and is numbered 12/45.


The last pack wasn't as heavy and I wasn't sure what it was going to yield. As I peeled back the top couple cards I got to the one clear card in each pack and could see part of the hit behind it. That small piece was colored bright green and my heart started racing just a bit. See each six box half-case promises to have one autograph or race-used card of a certain NASCAR rookie and I was hoping beyond hope that I might get lucky. Well ladies and gentlemen here it is.....


That's right I pulled a triple race-used card of Miss Danica Patrick! Sheet metal, tire and fire-suit. With my scanner the green doesn't show up very well but it's much brighter than this is showing. The tire piece is cool as it appears to have the number 5 and a rubber "hair" on it and the dual colored sheet metal is a plus. I really like this product and may have to save up for a couple more boxes. I have three other Showcase cards coming in the mail that I won off E-bay and I'll show those when they get here.

I also picked up off E-bay part of a Battlestar Galactica collection that a seller was getting rid of. The best this I got were six of the Shelter Poster cards. These came six or so boxes and are the only numbered cards to be included in the sets. So for the cost of just over one box I actually got the complete sets for seasons 3 and 4.

I also got the complete insert set of the Razor mini-series for less then $10

The last couple cards I got were an autograph of Leah Cairns who played pilot Margaret "Racetrack" Edmonson and a costume card of Sharon "Boomer" Valerii. The costume card gives me all of the variations of the Boomer cards from all five sets. So all in all it's been a pretty good couple weeks card wise for me after not liking anything new and kinda getting down on the hobby it's nice to find some cards I actually like. I'll hopefully be back later in the week with the rest of my E-bay wins but until then....... ciao

Group Break Winnings and a Couple Mail Days

As many of you know Dennis over at Too Many Grandersons did a second case of 2008 Razor Letterman and I was able to join this time. I love the way he does this break as he opened everything and then we drafted the cards we wanted. We pulled some really nice cards including a 1/1. My draft spot was in the middle of the group and the first card I choose was Eric Hosmer "R" numbered 17/20. I also was able to pick up a Chris Carpenter, Ryan Flaherty, Pedro Alvarez and Roger Kieschnick and one other card that I can't remember I think it was a Tiger. We then went into a trading session where I was able to use some of the previous Letterman cards I had gotten to work out a trade for two Aaron Crow cards to add to my collection. Dennis also threw in an extra auto for me of Jared Mitchell from Bowman Sterling which was a great touch. Thanks again to him for having a great break!


I also helped out artist Brandon Kenney in a huge project he had going called Art for Smarts to help him raise money for his schooling. Brandon was raffling off spots for several prizes and each spot also included a sketch card of his random choosing. The raffle was done over a month ago and I ended up winning a 4x6 Legends & Lore artist proof with one of the four spots I bought. Brandon has been working hard to finish all the different sketch cards and mine finally came in the mail yesterday. I was lucky enough to get Legolas from The Lord of the Rings, Jayne Cobb from Firefly, Darth Maul from Star Wars and a full color Batman. Thanks again to Brandon for all his hard work!


The last thing I received in the mail this week was a PSC by Tim Proctor of my favorite girl Boomer/Athena from Battlestar Galactica. I commissioned this card a couple months ago and Tim finally had time to get it done and out to me. And let me say I don't mind the wait!! I know he was hard at work on several projects including Star Wars Galaxy 6 and the wait was well worth it. What a beautiful card I've added to my collection.....


Hope everyone has a GREAT Super Bowl weekend!

Big (Art) Love

I wanted to show off my newest piece of large, 8x11, art that I was able to commission. Over on Deviant Art one of my art friend last month did a special where for $20 he would do a full sized ink 8x11 for you, if you managed to get in on it on the day he offered, 24 hour window only. Well as luck would have it I missed out the first time but promised myself I would watch in case he did the offer again. So this last month Randy put the offer back up. I jumped in and requested two pieces. The first I can show you and is of my girl Boomer from BSG. The second is actually for the Scoundrel Secret Santa so I'm not going to show that one off right now. I mentioned the artists first name is Randy or Randy Kintz also known as rantz. Some of oyu may recognize the name from the last Sadlittles release of Rantz's Angels, same guy. He does great work both in color and in inks only. I've been getting more larger pieces for my collection. Some original art but mostly prints as they are usually cheaper. I hope ot get most of them matted and framed and up for display soon. In the meantime here is Boomer.

More cards coming later this week....

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!!

More sketchyness

So in the continuing story of how I started my non-sports and sketch card collection I soon was trying to find any Galaxy cards packs at every Target store in the area. I was only able to get luck one more time but she was well worth it!
I found this beautiful Padme by the artist Leah Mangue. The scan isn't great but the card appears to be in colored pencil and is stunning in person. As I was spending more time on the Scoundrel Art site I discovered that a lot of the artists offered commissions at varying prices. This meant that I could have any character that I wanted on a personal sketch card (PSC.) One of my favorite shows of all time is Battlestar Galactica and my favorite character off the show is played by Grace Park (not the golfer!) her name on the show is Sharon Valerii also known as Boomer or Athena depending on what season you're watching. I wanted to try and get several different artists to draw her for me and give their interpretation of her. The first artist I contacted was Terry Tibke and I got this back.....
I love the hentai style that he chose and the full body with the nice background was a plus as well. I didn't give any instruction to him for a style or pose and normally don't with any PSC I commission. I think it's more fun to see what the artist has in their own mind. For Boomer I do have to find references for the artist at times but that's not hard to do at all. I have now amassed a collection of over 20 different Boomer sketches. It may not sound like much but it can be an expensive venture depending on the artist! Here are a few of my favorites and the artists who did them

Michael "Axebone" Potter
Cassie James
Sanna U.
Rhiannon Owens
John Watkins-Chow