Trust Traitors

This post is sort of an addendum to yesterday.  When I received 17 PWE's on the same day I had originally assumed that they were all from Wes.  It turns out two were from Peter Steinberg (Baseball Every Night).  I jokingly dubbed him Benedict Steinberg, but Peter's envelopes had two great cards with one being a white whale.  

1994 Action Packed has some great shots of Clemente.  These came out at a time when many people stopped collecting post junk wax era.  Add in the MLB strike and you have a perfect storm.

WHITE WHALE!!!!

My white whale lists aren't necessarily big $ cards, but can be a huge pain in the butt to find.  Big thanks to Peter for helping me with this one.  You shall be rewarded my friend.

I love collecting Pirates from the mid to late 90's.  Some really obscure parallels exist during this time so I've made it a project of mine of focusing on a set or two at a time and seeing what damage I can do.  Several of these cards including the Martin above make the white whale list because they can be sneaky hard to secure.  As most of you know parallels /150 in the 90's are not the same as they are now.

Although you have joined the dark side Peter I do thank you for helping me out here.  You are the most generous Sylvia Plath expert I know.

Thanks for reading.

New White Whale List

Yesterday I completed a transaction to finish out my white whale list that I have on the right side of my homepage.  The last card I needed was a Starling Marte photo variation from 2015 Gypsy Queen.  This card popped up a lot at the time I made this list so I figured it would be an easy find. Of course the well dried up and I went months without seeing it. Thankfully it popped up on Sportlots and I was able to secure it.

So now for the fun part of creating a new list.  While not an exact science I base my list on cards that I've tried to acquire via some online source, but have failed.  The cards on the list are not super high dollar, but more illusive for whatever reason.

Here is the new top ten white whales.

1. 2016 Bowman Chrome Will Craig auto - In my experience no type of card is sniped more than Bowman Chrome rookie autos.  This card is not even that expensive.  If I put in a bid for $5 it will sell for $5.25.  I looked back at auctions I didn't win and I this card pops up 5 different times.

2. 2006 SP Authentic Jason Bay/Chris Duffy/Nate Mclouth Triple Auto /15 - This would have been an easy find for me had I paid attention to eBay around the holidays. I'm notoriously bad about checking BIN only items on eBay.  Once recently sold on eBay for less than $10.  Damn....

3. 1998 Stadium Club One of a Kind Al Martin #132 /150 - I like the photo of this one.  Hoping this will be the easiest one of the bunch as these tend to pop up a decent amount.

4. 1999 Ultra Platinum Medallion #91 Kevin Young /99

5 2000 Black Diamond Final Cut #69 Brian Giles /100

6. 2006 Upper Deck Silver Spectrum #761 Ian Snell /99

7. 2006 Upper Deck Epic Endorsements Auto Jason Bay /45 I don't have many Bay autos left....

8.  2004 Fleer Greats of the Bill Mazeroski #GBA-BM - This set is soooo nice.

9. 2011 Topps Heritage Tom Parsons Auto

10. 2011 Topps Lineage Tony Bartiome Auto.

I look forward to hunting these down.  If I get help from a friend you get immortalized on my "found white whales" page.  I will also send you some cool stuff!

Thanks for reading.

Supertraders and Whales

Today I purchased a box of 2015 Topps Supreme for the Supertraders group. It will yield only a couple of cards but we have a decent chance of getting something worthwhile. Let's just hope we avoid the unclaimed teams. I ordered it from Steel City so I should have it by Wednesday.

I've been working on getting all my trade posts caught up.  I'm still sitting on 6 or 7 envelopes.  Off the top of my head I know I have stuff from Tony Burbs, Wes, Brian, Card Papoy, Nick and Jedi Jeff. Expect lots of trade posts this week.  

Tonight I will be attending the Big Monday game featuring WVU and Iowa State.  Should be a fun atmosphere as the 9pm games usually create a raucous atmosphere. 

Now for something I'm really excited about.  When I created my white whales list most of the cards featured were somewhat attainable and not priced out of this world. The one card on my list that I knew was going to be expensive and hard to find was the 2001 Topps Base Hit auto of former Pirate manager Gene Lamont.  

I'm not exactly sure how many of these are around, but I've only seen 2 on eBay in probably 5 years. 

2001 Topps Base Hit Gene Lamont Auto

Last week a seller put this on eBay as a BIN or best offer.  His buy it now price was a very reasonable $45. If I recall the last one I remember seeing on eBay sold for over $60. I was able to get the card for $38. Is that expensive for an obscure Pirates manager.....it sure is.  I was so excited to see the card I would have probably paid double. 

Another way this auto helped was that it allowed me to further my Pirate manager autograph collection. 

The Murtaugh is the prize of my collection. I'm not sure of any other certified autos since he passed away in the mid 70's. Neil Huntington is current GM of the Pirates. 

Thanks for reading!

Another One Bites the Dust

2009 Upper Deck Ballpark Collection Nate Mclouth/Nyjer Morgan Dual Jersey Auto /10

A found white whale!!!!!

It really wasn't much of a hunt.  This card was sitting on COMC for well over a year.  It was just a matter of me wearing down the seller. A couple weeks back the seller finally came off his high asking price.  I still paid more than what I wanted (around $14) but the card just hasn't popped up in so long. My hope was the $8-10 range.

I'll probably update the whale list once I find one more card from the list.  

Thanks for reading. 

Boom Goes the Dynamite (3 Whale Trade)

Boy oh boy, where do I start with this one. Dennis from Too Many Verlanders channeled his inner Jaybarker with this trade. You know you are in for something special when the trade has to be delivered in a priority mail box.

This actually marks the 12 trade that Dennis and I have made since I started Bob Walk the Plank!

This beautiful 8x10 Auto of Jeff Hostetler was the very first item to come out of the box. Hostetler doesn't have much in the way of certified autos so this is a very welcomed addition. He still lives in Morgantown and run into him quite a bit. He is a big dude so he is an easy guy to notice. 

 I have a very large Starting Lineup collection that is still stored at my parents house. One of these days I need to get them to my house. I never had any of the Startling Lineup 2's as I had stopped collecting before these were released. Happy to add the Pops to my collection.

The Clemente piece is a classic. I have one that is still boxed up so I may free this one and put it in my office.

Now for a crazy amount of WVU hits.

 A sweet patch of Tavon.

This is one of the better looking signatures that I've seen on these type of cards. A lot of times these look extremely faded, but Da'Sean did a good job with pen pressure and utilizing the space. Sweet card of the WVU legend.

 Kay Jay Harris played one of the most memorable games I ever attended at Mountaineer Field. He torched East Carolina for 330 yards rushing. At the time it was a Big East record.

Quincy is from WV and was one of the strongest runners in school history. I remember being so excited when Press Pass and Sage were released around the NFL draft. I would try and hunt down WVU guys right when they were released.

 This is a sharp looking card! Nice patch to go with the auto.

WVU should be called slot receiver U. Seems like our offense is made for super fast, shifty receivers. Reynaud was a product of Rich Rodriguez's offense.

 Hard to keep track of all the SPx variants, but it is still a very nice card. Slaton was a stud for the Mountaineers.

 Pacman!

 Another Slaton!

 I keep hoping that WVU would retire Pat's number one of these days. Not the most gifted quarterback but man he made the most of his talents. 4 bowl wins including 2 BCS victories.

 My first Mario Alford card. I've been noticing some autos hit eBay lately, but I've been holding out.

 2 Die Cut Charles Sims.



Now for the Bucco hit parade....

 Latimore never panned out for the Pirates after being a 4th round pick out of high school. Looks like he is playing in the Baltimore system.

 A little reliever love by Leaf. By the way Leaf Signature is awesome!

 Polanco needs to start hitting as their has been lots of rumors the Pirates are going to at least try and find a platoon partner at the deadline. Framed relics are fancy!

 Spanky auto!!!!!

 I'm glad Cervelli has played well for the Pirates as I thought the loss of Russell Martin was going to cripple us.

Nice shot of Maz's very memorable homerun against the Yankees.

 Been a while since I received a Sportflics card.

Ugh...Jose Bautista. :(

Now for the heavy hitters

 Hard to scan the encased Topps Retired cards. I've said it a thousand times but the Candy Man is cardboard gold. If you could somehow make a triple auto with him, Teke and Dave Parker my head would explode.

White Whale time!

 Here is the first of the White Whales. This card wasn't necessarily rare, but it was elusive. For a while this card seemed to show up on auction pretty regularly, but I would fail to win it. Lately I've only seen it with high BIN prices. Thankfully Dennis tracked it down for me and I can finally put this one to bed.

This card featuring Chris Duffy and Andre Ethier doesn't show up much of all. The ones that did hit auction the last few years went much higher than I was willing to pay. Ethier has a pretty big following so his rarer cards still sell pretty well.

2004 Topps Originals Bill Madlock! This card seemed to vanish from eBay. I remember seeing three in about a months span, then nothing at all for 6 months. Dennis to the rescue!

Holy crap Dennis! You really raised the bar with this trade. Thanks so much for hooking me up with so many great cards. I've been on the hunt for something unique for you so hopefully I can strike gold soon.

Thanks for reading!

White Whale #2 Secured

A couple months back I started a small list of cards on the right side of the homepage that have avoided me over the year(s). These are not necessarily high priced cards, but either rarity or bad luck have kept them from my collection. The Card Papoy helped me out with one right away by supplying the Heritage Bill Virdon auto. Finally I was able to knock one off this past week.

Of all the cards I had on my list I figured the easiest to locate would be the Pirates sliver framed team card /20. The difficult part with this card is that the prices for the silver frames have been strong on the secondary market. The first few that hit were selling for over $30 which was way more than I was willing to go. I even found the printing plate of the team card for just over $20. Thanks to stumbling on a buy it now auction I was able to find the card for $16. Not a great deal, but I was happy to get a card that I wanted since Series 1 was released.

2015 Topps Series 1 Pirates Team Card Silver Frame /20

I've made it known that I'm not a huge parallel fan. The only ones in recent years to really catch my eye are the acetate and silver frame cards from Topps. Usually the only players I chase are Pirates that don't get much love relic or auto wise. This card kind of falls in the middle somewhere as it was just so unique I had to have it. Since I have the printing plate and the silver frame it would be kind of cool to locate the acetate, but not a necessity. Just glad to put this one to bed. 

I have a pretty extensive list of cards that could go on the White Whale list, but for now I think I will try to keep the list at a manageable 10 cards. To keep with the 2015 theme I think the new venture will be the Starling Marte base photo variation from Gypsy Queen. Not a super expensive card, but I've tried to win it about 10 different times and failed. Time to hunt for a deal!

Thanks for reading.

The Card Papoy Nets a White Whale

A few weeks back I created a list of cards I dubbed "white whales" which is found on the right side of the home page. The list wasn't necessarily a want list, but more of a challenge to find cards that have proved to be elusive over the years. Not all of these are rare, but after many attempts to acquire I've either moved on, or haven't found another auction to bid on.

Thanks to Kevin I can already mark one off my list!

2014 Topps Heritage Bill Virdon Auto

This card proved that in order to be elusive you don't have to be super rare. Kevin told me he found this  copy via the Buy it Now function on eBay. I need to make it more of a point to check the BIN function. When I search for cards on eBay I always sort by auction. This is a nice reminder that deals can be found in multiple ways on eBay.

When 2014 Heritage released I saw that this card was on the checklist and knew that I wanted it. While Virdon is a very active signer at shows he doesn't have much in the way of certified autos. I didn't think it would take this long to finally have the card in hand, but the search is over!

Big thanks to Kevin for doing the leg work on this one. You shall be rewarded for your efforts! Perhaps I will send you my finest DONRUSS!!! and PRIZM!!! cards since you are a PANINI!!! super collector.

I've created a "Found White Whales" page in order to commemorate the glorious occasion of finding these pesky cards. 

Thanks for reading!