Recent Additions

So I haven't had anything to post here recently and I don't know if anybody still stops by but I finally have a few updates to share. After not being able to purchase much in the last couple months I finally got a few extra funds and spent some of it on cards. I stopped at "The Rookie" and grabbed several packs of SP Authentic basketball, Press Pass Premium and his last box of Star Wars Galaxy 6. I did well, the worst of the lot was actually the one I had hoped would be the best, the Galaxy 6. As I mentioned before a lot of the boxes were yielding two or more sketches, mine did not. I had only one sketch, a nice ink sketch of a Dianoga by Brent Engstrom.


The Press Pass included one of the 3-D cards and one autograph of Juan Pablo Montoya numbered 48/161. (THis is a really bad scan as the card is mainly foil)


The SP Authentic came out of a fresh box and I got two hits off six packs. Firstly was a By the Letter of Devin Ebanks and second was one of the North Carolina Michael Jordan floor pieces. It's the common version but looks really cool next to my Jordan autograph. All told not a bad day at the shop!


I have won several card off E-bay as well. The first is an Artist Exclusive from the 5finity Sheena set by one of my favorite artists Amber Stone.
I also picked up a couple Royals autographs. One is a 2007 UD Exquisite rookie of Alex Gordon and the other is a UD Premier of Alex Gordon and Luke Hochevar. Both were under $20 and I feel were great pick ups. Alex has been playing better since being switched to the outfield and Luke has been a bright spot on the pitching staff this year after being the opening day starter.


The last card was a pick up from Jeff at I Am Joe Collector and his Masterpieces case binge. Alex was a short print autograph and at one time was selling at over $60. I didn't pay nearly that much and thank Jeff for passing one my way.

I also got into touch with my favorite Star Wars artist Shea Standefer and was able to purchase two of her return cards. One each from Galaxy 5 and 6. The Galaxy 5 card she's had finished since the set came out and I'd been bugging her from time to time about getting it. It's a beautiful full color of Star Wars Legacy character Deliah Blue.


The Galaxy 6 card was a blank and Shea let me pick my own character and scene. One of my favorite Extended Universe series is the Republic Commando series by Karen Travis. These books focus mainly on the clone troops but have a few Jedi that they work with one of them being Jedi Etain Tur-Mukan. Shea has a couple sketches of her floating around somewhere but I wanted one for myself and had her do a full color of her holding her son Kad and protecting him with her lit lightsaber. It came out better than I could have hoped for.....

I'll have another post going up in the next day or so with a bunch of cards for trade. I'll mainly be looking for Royals in return so if you have any be on the lookout for that post. Hope somebody is still checking in here every once and a while, if you are thanks and until the next post ciao!

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!

More scenes from the Galaxy

I opened almost a case of the Star Wars Galaxy 5 and was able to pull some great cards. I also bought several off E-bay and traded for a few more. Here are some of my favorites.

Brent Engstrom

Rhiannon Owens

Michael "Locoduck" Duron

Tim Proctor

Die-cut by Appro Nation

I was also lucky enough to get the opportunity to purchase two artist returns, cards that the company allows the artists to keep and sell on their own.

Stephanie Yue

Rhiannon Owens

Extended Sketches

Back in February of 2010 the Topps company came out with the much anticipated Star Wars Galaxy 5 card set. The base set consisted of 120 cards numbered both for the individual set and the total Galaxy set. Within the base set there were several subsets including commissioned art, some of the best of Star Wars art and manga. There are several inserts also including silver, bronze and gold foil cards, drawn by Randy Martinez, Lost Galaxy, autograph, printing plates and everybody's favorite sketch cards. This year within the sketch cards there were several subsets as well. You had the regular sketches, manga sketches and shaped sketches. The regular sketches came one per box with the other two types being an added bonus in boxes.

The base cards are beautifully done with several cards being done by well known artists. Some of the funnest cards had to be the propaganda posters that Topps asked some artists to do. Several favorites being shown here.


The sketch cards again are stunning for the most part and I'm going to focus one of my favorite new Star Wars artists Shea Standefer. Shea focused her sketches on the Extended Universe mainly from the books and comics. One of the first cards I was able to get was a sketch of Asyr Sei'lar the Bothan pilot from Rogue Squadron.

Other cards I've been able to find of hers include Luke and Mara Skywalker's son Ben and Boba Fett's granddaughter Mirta Gev.


She also focused at least one card on the Extended Universe books showing a pivotal moment from that book. The one I've been able to find is from the New Jedi Order book Invincible showing the death of Anakin Solo and the reaction of his girlfriend Tahiri Veila with his twin siblings Jaina and Jason in the background.

One of the nicest cards I've been able to get is one of the few full color cards that Shea did. this is Tahiri Veila after the failed attempt of the Yuuzhan Vong to "shape" her and left her forehead scarred. This is an amazing card and I'm very glad it's in my collection.

I do have one more card coming in the next week or so that is part of a puzzle showing four of the Rogue Squadron pilots: Wedge, Tycho, Wes and Hobbie. I'm receiving the Tycho card and will be looking for the rest!

Shea was asked back for the new Empire Strikes Back Widevision 3D set and has some great cards for that set as well. Hopefully she's able to get back to the Extended Universe in future sets as not many artists will take on the challenge.