Flying Aspirations

For a three year stretch in the mid 2000's Jack Wilson was second to only Jason Bay in unique cards I added to my collection. Fast forward to today and it seems like I have to  hunt for Wilson cards that I don't have. Months will pass without even adding one. The rarer ones that do hit eBay sale surprisingly well.  A nice patch card just hit a few weeks back and sold for over $20. 

Thankfully COMC recently provided some fun cards. 

2006 Upper Deck Special F/X Purple Jack Wilson /150

UD Special F/X was sort of the Chrome version of regular UD. I've seen this card a few times on eBay but the shipping costs were always more than what the card costs.  COMC to the rescue. 

Jack Wilson 2004/2005 Donruss Elite Aspirations /98

Back when these sets first came out and I use to hoard as many of the diecut parallels as I could get my hands on.  I love them. Guess I'm a sucker for diecut. The 2004 version is my favorite, but the numbering is much easier to read on the 2005.  

It has been kind of funny as I had been bad mouthing COMC lately and sure enough I've found a handful of cards that were must buys.  I just need to be more thankful that places besides eBay exist to buy cards online. 

Thanks for reading. 

Rounding Things Out

It is always kind of weird to see a long tenured player move on. Such was the case with Neil Walker. I'm a team collector so when a guy moves on that puts a stop to that collection. Now I can focus on finding some cards that I missed over the years.

Like this one.....

2004 Donruss Elite Neil Walker Status /10

My auto/relic collection of Neil is fairly complete so most of my needs are parallels. I was happy to see this card pop up as I have a few variations of this card, but this now becomes the rarest. The extra bonus was that it only cost a shade below $10. Walker cards have a tendency to have some weird price fluctuations. This card could sell for $5 one day and easily go for $25 the next.  My only guess is that he has a few active supercollectors. 

It will be weird seeing Walker in a Mets uniform next year, but the writing was on the wall. He was entering his last year of arbitration and the Pirates didn't seem too interested in a long term pact. He would be 31 by the time a new deal would start so I'm guessing the Pirates probably think they have already got the best years. 

Thanks for reading!