Spanning the Borders of North America - It's Trading Time!

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted around here.  I’ve been struggling with a bit of writers block, and a huge amount of sheer laziness.  Now that I know I’m going back to work in a couple of days, the need to be productive with my time has flown out of the window.  I’m not going to lie, it feels a little like the last week of summer of vacation.  It’s time to start squeezing in as much laziness as possible (Monday’s schedule consists of sitting on the couch and mainlining Cheez-whiz straight from the bottle while watching the Star Wars trilogy).

One of the few productive things I HAVE been doing is rocking the card trading world.  From Canada to California the cards have been streaming in.  Actually, just those two places.  Still it’s not bad.  The best part is that the two traders have really helped knock out some needs from the ol’ Heritage want list. There is nothing I like more than getting cards for nothing…or what I consider nothing. 

First up some cards from the fine gentleman from the north – Captain Canuck.  He saw a couple of Heritage cards that I had on my trade list and promised to send some in return that I needed.  After receiving his envelope, I’m glad that I found some extra cards on his want list that he claims he needs.  What did he send me?

In addition to the Heritage and some 1990 Topps that I needed he threw in a couple of extra Lightning cards capped off with……



Nice card of the captain (image from zistle)

How’s that for a sweet swatch of sweatery goodness? The card comes from one of the few ITG higher-end sets that includes Lightning relics. It’s a silver level black piece of jersey from the “Captains” set that ITG released earlier this year. Now that’s how you do non-licensed cards. my friends!

Also received this week from Woody – a reader who I’m not sure has a blog – a straight up Heritage for Heritage trade.  For some of the dupes that I had he offered to let me pick six or seven cards that I needed. 

Chances are this pitch was 90 MPH and a strike - image from personal collection

My boy Koji had to be one of them! Even if he’s not in an O’s uniform it’s an awesome card, especially since it’s designed as a “night card”. 

Thanks for the cards, guys!

Trade Time: Or What I Got in the Mail Yesterday

I was banging around on the internets a few weeks ago and decided to upload some images to Zistle.  I’ve been using their site to track my progress on completing the 2011-12 Score Hockey set (progress is not going well…so many cards still needed) so I figured I’d help them out and with some images. As I was doing that I noticed a gentleman needing some 2009-10 UD Champs.

Justin from Off-Centered is working on completing some of the vintage-esque newer sets like Champs and Allen & Ginter.  I can’t blame him since over the last few years those sets have garnered a lot of positive feedback in the industry.  As I’ve mentioned in the past – Champs has been my go-to set for hand-signed autographs of older and newer players. 

Needing to clear out some space in my hockey box I flipped through my doubles and saw that I had about 16 base cards that he needed.  A message here, a response there, a trip to the post office and we had ourselves a trade.

On Friday I saw a delightful, yellow, padded envelope in my mail slot and it was my return haul for the cards.  With hockey trades I’m trying a new system, since I don’t have a lot of wants outside of the Lightning I’ve given folks the option of just sending me a pack of 2011-12 Score.

The reason for this is two-fold.

1.       It saves me from having to spend money on packs and it isn’t that expensive for others. I think retail is 99 cents for a pack. That way I can chase a set and it won’t cost me too much out of pocket.

2.       I get a chance of actually pulling a Vincent Lecavalier card from a pack.  My inability to pull cards of my favorite player from packs is getting to be annoying. So I figured if someone else bought the packs I could fool the card gods into getting a card I wanted.  Would it work?

First off – some of the extras that Justin threw in.  As one of the few Lightning collectors out here I think people just feel obliged to throw in their extra Lightning cards – I ain’t got a problem with that.

Hey Steve…how ya doin’ in Colorado?  Pretty good, eh?  Just wanted to say I miss you. 

Was that creepy? It felt a little creepy….

My Marty, that’s an awful big trophy you got there. I mean look at it, it looks like it’s almost half of his size.  One thing I like about Pinnacle is that they use non-traditional photos to break up the set a bit. There are only so many ways to take photos of guys skating down the ice so it’s nice to see something different every once in a while.

Now onto the packs.

 Each pack had a Hot Rookie in it so I feel like I beat the odds a bit on that.

Bobby Luongo looking like he’s not in a happy place. I wonder if he’ll be looking for a new address this summer.

And finally – could it be? Is it? My God, that’s VINNY LECAVALIER’S MUSIC!!!!!!

Yup, so my theory has been proven sound.  The only way I will ever pull a Vinny out of a pack is to have someone else buy it for me.

Thanks, for the cards Justin and good luck in finishing your set!

The First Cards of December!

If I had any type of blogging motivation at all I would probably start a 12 Cards of Christmas gimmick on this website that culminated with me revealing the 2010 Hopeless Chase Card of the Year. However, those that know me (hi Mom and Dad!), know that out of all of my wonderful traits motivation is not one of them. So instead you get just a quick post about a card I got in the mail.

Could this card signal the birth of a new player collection? With the departure of Carl Crawford imminent, perhaps I should focus my attention on a player who can't break some little kid's heart by jumping town.

On a side note, is it even remotely possible that some kid in the TBA wrote a letter to Santa Claus in which all he wants for Christmas is for CC to sign a 7 year deal with the Rays? Do kids even write to Santa anymore? Because I'm sure a 5 year old Justin G. would have done that, if he could write, that is. What age do kids start writing? I don't know these things, good thing I'm not a parent I guess.

Where was I? Oh yeah, a card in the mail. Here it is:




It's a 1978 Topps Eddie Murray Rookie Card.

I wouldn't call it my White Whale, more like a White Tuna, maybe. I've bid on Murray rookies about 10 times this year and lost out on every occasion as furious bidding in the final moments drove it out of my price range. Just for fun I put a bid on one last week and actually managed to grab it for a reasonable price.

As I grow older as a collector and a fan I tend to remember only the good parts of my childhood as a fan. 0-21? Don't remember the 21 losses, but I do remember the Chicago White Sox fans cheering for the O's win in the 22nd game. Eddie Murray traded for a bundle of spare parts? Nope, Memorial Stadium rocking with "ED-DIE, ED-DIE" chants.

So I picked up the card and have toyed with the idea of starting a Murray collection to replace CC. We'll see what happens with that as the days roll on. In the meantime, I'll look at classic O's cards and remember the childhood days.

Speaking of childhood, if there are any young readers out there reading. Let me fill you in on one of the great things about being an adult. As I typed this up, guess what I had for dinner. A bowl of Fruity Pebbles. Not a small bowl either, a heaping bowl of sugary goodness.

The best part (other than the sugar rush jitters) no one is here to look disapprovingly at me. It's glorious! So when an if you're wondering if it's awesome to be an adult - sometimes it is.

Look Who Went Shopping

So I haven't found a decent post office yet (i.e. one that's open when I'm not at work), but I did manage to find myself a card shop. Last month I stumbled across a post from SewingMachine Guy asking for some help finding a card shop in Chicago. Knowing I was moving to the city I bookmarked it.

Everyone's favorite Canadian Superhero Captin Canuck mentioned Tim's Baseball Cardshop . Since I trust all Canadians implicitly I decided to check it out. On a dreary Sunday morning I dragged my roommate Hamel onto the Northbound Western bus and after approximately 75 stops (do they really need to have a stop at EVERY corner?) I found myself in front of the small shop.

Tim was there and apologized about the messiness of the shop, it appeared as if a customer had just dropped off a bunch of merchandise and it was spread out in the small front showroom.

I looked around a bit, he had some decent pricing on boxes that until I have a couple of paychecks under my belt I'll have to wait to purchase. He also had several glass cases with singles divided by sport. Compared to what I used to see in my old shop his prices seemed pretty reasonable.

There were a couple of nice O's cards (Ripken auto, Brooks rookie, etc), but my eye kept getting drawn back to one card in particular.




A Sports Illustrated Autograph Collection of Earl Weaver.

Let's see:

1. An Oriole Legend
2. A Hall of Famer
3. On Card Autograph (and it's legible to boot!)
4. The subject of one of the best YouTube rants ever (caution foul language).

It was a no-brainer. It was a little out of my price range (i.e. cash I had on me) so I asked Tim if he could sell it for what I had in my pocket. He said yes and the card was mine!

I'll be heading back to the shop as soon as the cash flow opens up. He has tons of singles that I need to go through for player and set needs, and like I said - good prices on boxes. If you're in town give him a look!