Maybe Even More Obscure than a Middle Reliever Card

Nothing excites me more in terms of collecting than seeing an obscure player get a card.  What can possibly add to the excitement?  How about an offensive lineman card!!!!

2017 Panini Unparalleled Quinton Spain /5

Quinton Spain is a former WVU lineman that went undrafted in 2015.  After signing with the Titans he ended up making the team.  In 2016 he earned a starting roll and besides some occasional injury concerns hasn't looked back.

Obviously being undrafted and an offensive lineman doesn't lend yourself to much hobby love.  So this really cool looking diecut  from 2017 Panini Unparalleled is considered a rookie and his first major release.

I'm actually surprised I even found this card.  About once a year I'll throw some names in eBay of some obscure WVU guys just to check and see if they had a card. After Spain didn't receive a card his first two seasons I actually wrote him off.  Somehow I came across this new set and the rest is history.

Some of you may have seen Spain before if you watched the Stanley Cup playoffs last year.  Many of the Titans were in attendance and Spain often stole the show with his shirtless shenanigans.

Thanks for reading!

Stadium Club Break Yields a First

Brian, Kevin and I seem to be getting back into a nice trading/box breaking rhythm.  I slowed us up a bit when I has having trouble accumulating trade bait.  Thankfully the drought ended and we are once again a well oiled machine.  For this installment Brian chose the consistently wonderful Stadium Club.

I had the NL Central and NL East which proved to be a good choice.

Brian pulled me 5 of the Buccos which is nice.

 Throwback uniforms!

 This is one of my favorite Pirate releases of 2017.  When this set initially dropped I really wanted to try and accumulate some of the parallels, but the pricing was prohibitive.  I think several Pirate collectors had the same idea.

 I was a little disappointed with the choices for the Pirate outfielders, especially Cutch. While the card is nice it is just not great. For whatever reason Cutch hasn't had great TSC cards. 

Here is a sampling of some of my favorite non Buccos.

 You don't see many cards of a pitcher letting his infielders know the location of a pop up. 

Catcher cards are always great and get taken to the next level with Stadium Club.  Love the unique Bench shot.

 If I was the guy in the Batman shirt you better believe I would own 20,000 copies of that Rizzo card.

 A little odd that Stadium Club chose to make a card of Derrek Lee for the 2017 set.  Either way it is still an awesome looking card. 

Now for the rare card we hit.

First Day Issues are not serial numbered, but are listed as  /10.  Obviously this is one of the bigger names you can hit so I'm extremely grateful that Brian pulled this and it ended up in my hands. We haven't hit much in the way of higher end cards this year so hopefully this will be the start of a hot streak.

Thanks so much Brian for the break.  I'll show off the trade portion of the package in the next day or two.

Thanks for reading.

Blame it on the Rain

Another WVU football game......another noon kickoff.  I thought for sure since both WVU and our opponent Oklahoma State are ranked that we would get a later kick.  Not the case, but at least it is a national ABC broadcast. 

The weather is supposed to be awful with cool temperatures and the threat of heavy rain. Hopefully that will slow down Oklahoma State's potent passing game. Be sure to turn the game on and be thankful you are watching it at home. 

In the spirit of the big game here are a couple of recent eBay purchases.  I found a seller who was liquidating a huge collection of these Exquisite book autos.  If this was a personal collection he had to lose some big time money.  I got both of these for about the price of a blaster. At release these would have likely been in the $75-125 range a piece.  Ouch.

Obviously I'm partial to the all WVU version on top. Can't beat the college uniforms to go along with the nice on card signatures. I guess the silver lining is that all the guys are still in the league.  I have my fingers crossed that Geno will get some playing time since Eli Manning is really struggling. The disappointing part is that this Giants team has been decimated by injuries.  I think they had to call up half their practice squad to play wide receiver.

Thanks for reading.
Let's Go Mountaineers.

Collecting Moods

Having a variety of collecting interests helps keep things fresh.  While I love collecting certified autos of my favorite Pirates, occasional lulls in interest are bound to happen.  Topps seems to think that Pirate collectors want a Starling Marte and Gregory Polanco auto in every set. While I love collecting both players, I think I can speak for most of us by saying we don't. 

When the established players become boring I usually turn to rookies.  While I love collecting rookie cards the price tag can be prohibitive .  For the most part that means I'll add a few right off the bat and then hold off until they get a little closer to seeing an MLB roster.  Sure you might miss out on accumulating cards of the next Mike Trout, but odds are you will have plenty of time to go back and get some of the cards you missed for a reasonable amount.  

While it may not be evident on my blog I do like chasing base cards and obscure base parallels. 

Lately I've been on a kick trying to find obscure base cards from the mid 2000's.  I was an active collector during this time, but the shear amount of sets available made it impossible to keep up.  

A few weeks back Brian from Collecting Cutch sent me a great card that fits my current collecting mood. 

Oliver Perez Upper Deck Gold Parallel /299

I miss Upper Deck.  Sure they had their flaws, but cards like this remind me how good some of their base sets were. 

Oliver Perez was quite the character for the Pirates. This card sums up his personality during his Pirate tenure perfectly.  He faded out as starter for the Pirates about as quick as he stormed on the scene.  Thankfully he revitalized his career as a Loogy and pitched for the Nats this season. 

Does your collecting mood change a ton during the year like mine? 

Thanks for reading. 

I Was There!

Back towards the end of September I hit my last Pirate game of the season. In turned out to be a good game as Andrew McCutchen had a night to remember.

Believe it or not McCutchen had gone his entire career without a Grand Slam.  It had gone so long that it was mentioned on a regular basis during broadcasts.  Thankfully he was able to cross that off the career milestone list. The night was far from over as Cutch would also hit a three run homer and have 8 RBI's for the night. He received a lot of love from the fans and took multiple curtain calls.

I'm thankful that Topps added a unique card back featuring one of the curtain calls. That has been a nice addition to the NOW cards this season and I hope it continues with next years installment.

Hope everyone is enjoying the World Series.  How about that crazy quick game last night? I don't think Rich Hill has that kind of efficiency in him so it will be up to Justin Verlander to keep things moving at a reasonable pace. 

Thanks for reading.

Turner Ward

My preseason prediction of the Dodgers/Astros World Series came true! Trying to decide who to root for is hard since I really have nothing against either team.  The Dodgers have former Pirate Tony Watson, but the Astros have Charlie Morton.  So the tiebreaker goes to the Dodgers because of this man.

Extra bonus is that I'm pretty sure Steve Blass says panties instead of paneling.....

Right Idea, but the Execution......

2017 Donruss Optic Jameson Taillon Studio Auto

This is not a great looking card by any means, but we are showing signs of promise with getting around licensing issues.  NO HAT!!!!  One of the worst aspects in Panini cards is trying to hide team emblems on the uniforms.  Many of us have discussed over the years ways to skirt the license issue. Certain poses by both pitchers and hitters when timed right do a good job of hiding most of the emblems, but you always have the hat. Of course Panini removed the hat but proceeded to cut off poor Jameson's forehead. 

Few more ideas. 

- How about some plain clothes shots of players at award shows or the All Star game.

- More shots of catchers.  

- More prewar players. 

Either way this was a step in the right direction.  

Thanks for reading.