Xmas Loot

Even as I approach my mid 30's my Mom is still adamant that I give her some gift ideas.  This year I was a little later than normal as I was out of town a good bit in early December. That actually worked in my favor as she approached my older brother for some ideas.  My brother is pretty in tune with what I like.  He avoids cards but is always finding great pieces of memorabilia.  

First is my brothers gift. 

Jerry West auto basketball! I have a few nice West pieces in my collection, but this is by far the nicest.  My brother even got a nice case for it.  He can stay my brother for now.....

This was a huge surprise.  Normally my Mom hooks me up with one cool Pirate piece a year, but this year she threw me a curve ball and went the WVU route.  The auto is of former Mountaineer great and NFL Hall of Famer Sam Huff.  What a great surprise.

Back to getting caught up with all the great trade packages tomorrow.  Tonight I'm getting some sleep.

Walking Dead to Razor Ramon

Before blogging I only had a couple of people in my life that were really in tune with my collecting habits. One such friend is my pal Micah.  He and I share many of the same interests and during the holidays we usually hook each other up with some gifts that range from gag to perfect addition. 

 Micah and I both enjoy the Walking Dead.  He is trying to convince me to chase more show related memorabilia by giving me this Funko POP figure of Daryl.

 I'm sure my wife will love adding this to our bar decor.

A couple years back I came into a decent size collection of locker plates.  I gifted Micah a couple of my favorite obscure ones a few years back.  Now he is taken it upon himself to find even more obscure ones.  Take this Gorkys Hernandez!  Gorkys was one of the main pieces the Pirates got in return when they trade Nate Mclouth to the Braves.  The bat never came along and he only saw limited time on the big league roster.  Being the Pirate nerds that we are, Gorkys references were always commonplace. Now he will live forever in my collection.

 This is hard to see, but this card is numbered to 45,000!  Rare!

 Famous Amos Zereoue!

To me this was the main event of the whole package.  Growing up I was a huge fan of wrestling. One of my all time favorites was Razor Ramon.  When I got in college I stopped watching, but that didn't mean I still had a soft spot in my heart for my childhood idols. Micah who is a huge wrestling fan went the extra mile and got me one of the cooler autos that I've ever seen.  

Hope everyone has a nice holiday. I'm hitting the road this afternoon to visit some friends that are in town and then eating myself to death tomorrow and Saturday.  

Had to Show This Off

I didn't plan on posting tonight, but a card that Dennis from Too Many Verlanders sent me really got my attention.  Check this out.....

An uncut Score/Pinnacle Promo with the legend himself on the bottom right.  I will soon donate this to the Smithsonian so the masses can view this work of art.  I'll do some more research when I do a more formal post for Dennis's trade package, but I think these were National Convention giveaways.

Well done my friend.

Tim Gives me Rubies

My push to get all my trade packages on the blog continues with Tim from I Love the Smell of Cardboard in the Morning.  I always enjoy my trades with Tim as he is a nice place to send some Rays/Durham Bulls and Yankees cards. He always returns fire with some great Pirates and even a few WVU guys this time around. 

 I love the Cooperstown set.  This is such a great shot of Pirates great Honus Wagner.  It's hard to see but this parallel is /399.

 Little Poison! Extreme choking up by Waner.

 When I opened Tim's team bag of cards my eyes were instantly drawn to this Star Rubies parallel of Jose Guillen.  This is numbered to /50 and I wish I had them all.  It doesn't really come off great in the scan but the card has a great shiny look. Thanks for throwing this one my way. I'm such a sucker for parallels of this era.

 Holy crap, did  Melancon get paid. The Pirates have been experts at finding undervalued relief assets over the years. The likes of Joel Hanrahan, Jason Grilli and Mark Melancon have revitalized their careers with the black and gold.

Melancon is not a big strikeout guy, but he is always one of the harder pitchers to put the barrel on the ball.  I think he may have been number one in lowest exit velocity if you like the Statcast stats. If you are going to beat him you have to sequence a bunch of hits together.

Always nice to get high end relics in trades.

 Love the Pops.

 Nice to have trading partners that have card shops at their disposal. If I wanted the National Baseball Card Day Cutch I would have had to buy it online.

 Marte continue to improve each year.  This year he cut down on his k's and raised his obp.

 This All Star card always cracked me up because Clint Hurdle is holding Cole's jersey as Gerrit was on the mound that day.

 Cutch is still a Pirate for now......

 The Pirates are fringe contenders at best so in order for them to make a run at the wildcard they will need Cole to revert back to his ace form in 2015 and for Taillon to improve on his excellent rookie campaign. On a side note, poor Danny Hultzen has disappeared I think.

 Former Mountaineer Adrian Hawaiian Punch Murrell!

 Of course the Stadium Club Van Slyke is awesome. I was just talking about the other day how Jason Kendall probably has the most unique card portfolio of any Pirate in recent history. Case in point this batting cage shot.

Cardboard legend to finish things off.

Thanks for the great cards Tim. I'll hit you again soon!

Blogger Xmas Cards > Family Christmas Cards

I've had a nice run of packages coming in the last couple of days.  I love my family, but the blogging community knows how to send a Christmas card. Last week I received this from Adam of Cardboard Clubhouse.

 My daughter is addicted to Snoopy so I get to see plenty of him no matter the season.  No complaints though as it could be much worse than Peanuts.  In fact I actually like the Peanuts characters.  Watching shows like Caillou make me want to gouge out my eyes and shove pieces of splintered wood in my ears.  If you don't know what Caillou is consider yourself thankful.

 I love team cards!

 I often comment how tough vintage hockey players look.  Old offensive lineman could fit in that category too. I'm sure Kolb didn't leave many games with bumps and bruises.

 The Pens are looking strong again this year. I hope to head to my first game of the season in early January.

 Huge fan of Pro Debut cards.  Hanson will either have to make the Pirates or be subject to waivers as he is out of options. Strong candidate for a backup infielder role or the second base job if Josh Harrison is traded.

 Did you know Bob Walk won sexiest man of the year and Time Magazines man of the year in the 10 years in a row. It's true, go look it up.

.  I think Jim Smith was looking for his mom in the stands.

Thanks for the cards Adam.  Merry Christmas buddy!

Tools of the Trade

Spent a good bit of this evening organizing recent trade package arrivals. I think I reached out to most of you that sent something to let you know they arrived safe and sound.  Should have some trade posts up soon.  The blogosphere are a bunch of good eggs!

Here is a cool arrival via eBay.

2003 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia Quad Relic /10

Sorry for the blurry pick as I didn't want to fool around with taking this out of the screwdown. This Giles features fielding and batting gloves to go along with a piece of shoe and hat. I've had a few variations of these over the years, but I think this is the lowest numbered. It is one of the more interesting relics you will find. 

I'm actually a little surprised that this practice of using different types of relics hasn't caught on a little more lately.  It seems like you could get some cool cards using hats and gloves. You still see this a decent amount in hockey cards, but the other sports hasn't caught on.  Maybe these are too expensive to acquire. 

If I recall this card cost me less than $10 which is probably about right for a high end Giles relic.  I have a good collection of Giles cards so finding a card like this always makes me excited. 

Thanks for reading. 

Fractal Materials of the Joker

A lot of times selling prices are funny without context.  Right before I left for my trip to Savannah I purchased this card.

I sent a picture to one of my buddies and said I just paid $10 for a Joe Randa card.  His response was something like this, bwahahshahahhahaha.  It is the right response.  Randa had a long career, but really nothing justifies paying that much for a card.  "The Joker" as he was called should be dime box fodder.

As many of you know I have a weird obsession with finding obscure cards of forgotten Pirates. I love obtaining autos of the likes of Cutch and Cole, but the satisfaction of finding those hidden gems are what I find the most fun.

Joe Randa Fractal Foundations Fractal Materials Z2 Axis Diecut /20

Do you remember the Leaf Fractal Foundations set?.........Neither did I.  In short it was basically a parallel brand of the regular Leaf set. The Z2 Axis cards were the diecut parallel of the base set. Some more obscure parallels exist that were nylon and wood. 

Like many parallels during this time pricing can be all over the place.  The David Ortiz version of the /20 card sold for over $300 as did the Griffey wood card. Thankfully no one on the Pirates during this time would come close to those huge numbers. I've been watching a Jason Kendall that has been sitting on there for a few months with a BIN price of $24.  I'm hoping the seller decides to put it up for auction, although these cards are impossible to predict.  It may sell for $5 or $40, neither would be surprising. 

So yes, I spent $10 on a Joe Randa card.  You can leave comments making fun of me below.