Dropkick Aftermath

The Dropkick Murphys show was fun, work today not so much. If you get the chance go check them out. Even if you don't know their songs the atmosphere alone is worth the price of admission.

Here are a few pics my wife took....

 They even had a really cool acoustic portion of the show.

As is the tradition they invite some ladies up on the stage for "Kiss me I'm Shitfaced" Such a romantic song....

Back to cards tomorrow. Sleep tonight......

Dropkicked Cole

My wife surprised me with tickets to the Dropkick Murphys show tonight in Pittsburgh.  Should be a fun time! Work tomorrow might be difficult.....

Card time!

2013 Bowman Chrome Gerrit Cole /50

In a perfect world I would love to add more Chrome autos and rookies to my collection, but the art of prospecting is something I'll never quite understand. The prices sometimes get so out of hand that I abandon all hope and try to find the Panini Elite or Leaf Trinity equivalent. I have no brand loyalty.

With that being said I do sometimes luck into cards. Gerrit Cole had a little lull in his prices at a few points in his minor league career so I was able to snag up most of his base autos and a couple refractors. That method seems to suit me best for high end rookie autos.  Sure you will get burnt by the likes of guys like Mike Trout and Bryce Harper for not acting early, but more times than not you will find a point when prices calm to a more comfortable amount. 

Recently Cole's base gold parallel popped up. I was a little late to this party as I probably could have got this card more in the $10-13 range towards the end of last season.  This one cost me around $18. Not a great deal by any means, but I suspect if Cole continues to have success that the amount spent will look okay by the end of this season. At least it is not $300 for the /10 base parallel or something of that sorts. 

As a fun exercise check out completed auctions for bowman chrome baseball.  Yikes! I saw a Trout sale for more than 15k. 

Thanks for reading!

Trade: Dime Box Nick

Dime Box Nick is still out and about even if he is taking a hiatus from posting. A few weeks back Nick sent me an email saying he had accumulated a bunch of Buccos and needed to ship them out. Yes please!

On as a side note I completely understand you taking a break Nick. While I still collected cards in college the thought of blogging about them was very low on the priority list.

Now back to the cards. As per the case with all Nick's trades, the cards were very eclectic.

This completes the Pirates Perspective set for me and they all came via trade. The power of blogging! This was by far my favorite insert set this year and happy to see 3 Buccos featured (Kang, Polanco and Cutch).

 I think that is actually Wrigley in the background. Still plenty good seats available! Nice job catching the back swing to get around the licensing. Awesome oddball.

Gibson's Pirate career only lasted about two months.  The Pirates traded for him in Spring Training and was released by May. Kind of cool to have a Pirates card showcasing him in the Buccos uniform.

 Here is a Topps Kids card promoting acid or trying to hypnotize them to buy more packs.

 Spanky! Another great character in Pirates history. He is always cardboard gold.

 Hard to see on the bottom, but this is a very young Bronson Arroyo. A lot of people forget that he was a Pirate prospect. He would eventually get picked up off waivers by the Red Sox and carved out a nice career.

 Pitchers hitting!

Some more 2016 Topps. I'm hoping Jung-Ho Kang goes back to his awesome bat flip he had in Korea. I'm guessing the Pirates probably told him to be careful in the MLB because having fun gets you pegged in the back.

Nice pitching struggle face from Charlie Morton.

 Old Pirates on newer cardboard. Clemente for the win out of this bunch because....Clemente.

Ames cards are a great reminder of my childhood.  I grew up near one of their stores and would beg my parents to pick me cards anytime they would go there.

 It may be possible that Dave Parker was high on cocaine for the Fleer photo....

 Obviously Stadium Club is loved by all, but I think if UD Masterpieces made a return it would cause some serious buzz as well.

The 95 Fleer card is just a small preview of the craziness that would soon follow for cards in the 90's.

Going to be weird not having Neil Walker playing 2nd for the Buccos this year. Minis is something that has grown on me more since I started blogging. Before they were just an afterthought, but now I do seek out certain ones. 

 Another giant in Pirate cardboard history.

 That doesn't look like it says Ed Ott, but I'm to assume this is an IP auto. Ott was Manny Sanguillen's primary backup pretty much his entire career.

 This card is awesome.  The mustache game was high with Garner.

What better way to end an awesome assortment of cards.

Thanks so much Nick. I hope you are enjoying your hiatus.  I'll be hitting you back real soon.

Thanks for reading!

Trade: The Writers Journey

I don't hide the fact that trading is by far my favorite aspect of blogging. My area is void of card shops and shows so trading is the only way I get to interact with fellow card collectors. As of late of late I've been on a nice run of adding new trade partners.

JT who runs the blog The Writers Journey has been around since Dec 2007. That is some blogging dedication! His interests are similar to many of the baseball card bloggers, but he just happens to discuss them all on his blog. I highly recommend following his blog if you are not already. From music to toys he discusses them all.

Early last week a pwe arrived with some Pirate goodness....

 Gahhhhhhh! Rabbit will steal you soul.  Don't look at the eyes.

 The owner of the greatest game ever pitched.  Love adding cards of Harvey Haddix. Panini seems to do the best job with the Hall of Fame/Old timers sets.

 I love the team cards. Last year I went a little crazy trying to add some variations of the the 2015 issue. This years card is awesome as well, but I haven't found many of the parallels on eBay. Sometimes the team cards can be a little difficult to search on eBay since you are not searching an individual player.

 Collectors Choice holds a special place in my heart. The sets price point made it a frequent choice when spending my allowance money. High quality lower end options are pretty much void in the market today other than Opening Day. Man I loved Collectors Choice.

My favorite card of the bunch is the Kevin Young shielding his eyes for a fly ball.  Plus the back of the cards looks like this....

Taking infield like a boss!

 JT really hooked me up with a lot of Collectors Choice.

 Good bunt shot of Carlos Garcia.

Rounding out the onslaught of Collectors Choice is a great Andy Van Slyke card. Looks like an awkward slide.

A nice mix of some new products. I really hope John Holdzkom can regain his 2014 form where he took MLB by storm during the Pirates playoff push.

Thanks for the great cards JT.  I really enjoyed going through the Collector Choice cards. Lots of memories collecting that set. I'll be hooking you up with some Reds in the near future.

Thanks for reading!

Old MacDonald

I was prepared to make this post live around 6:30, but instead I got caught in a marathon session of Old MacDonald with my daughter.  It was quite the rendition complete with realistic animal sounds and multiple encore performances. We stopped as soon as my wife started recording.

2014 Topps Josh Harrison Auto/Jersey /25

Frequently I talk about finding the perfect time to start pouncing on autographs on eBay. Sometimes it is better to strike early while other times patience is key. Buying Cutch early was a smart move, Brian Bixler not so much. The prospect game is a tough one to play.

Where things get easy are on late bloomers. Josh Harrison was a feel good story back in 2014 and was arguably the Pirates most valuable player not named McCutchen. Since Harrison wasn't much of a prospect, card choices were thin up until the breakout. So when the first autos hit the market prices were through the roof. Harrison autos were selling higher than the likes of Gerrit Cole and Starling Marte.  Yikes! 

So the obvious move was to wait.  Every so often this can bite you in the ass, but for players with Harrison's skillset and pedigree they rarely take that next step into cardboard stardom. Sure enough with him being featured in more sets the prices came down drastically. The above card which would have easily fetch $40-60 at release time was secured for about $13.  Even that price is on the high end for a Harrison auto, but the All Star relic/autos carry a premium. Over the last few months I've been adding autos in the $5-8 range. 

Patience is key sometimes.  

Now back to it.. EIEIO

Walked, Walk'd or a Walking

I'm not sure what the appropriate title is for receiving a trade package of only Bob Walk's other than awesome. William from Foul Bunt told me he had been saving all these for a while. What would you pick as your favorite.....???

All Bob Walk cards are perfect.  That is a fact that can't be debated. So whatever is said would be nitpicking. I guess I would knock the 89 Topps down .1 percentage points because the mustache is not quite filled in.  Total score 99.9/100

 Perfection.  Hair, stache and in the act of throwing heat.  100/100

 Gotta have the mustache.....   99.9/100

 Way too clean cut 99.8/100

 Almost there.... 99.99999/100

 The hair is perfect, but lack of stache. 99.99/100

Perfection again 100/100

So there you have it, 87 Topps and 91 Donruss are perfect. Gun to my head I would take 87 Topps because the hat is awesome. Do you have an opinion. The fun thing is no wrong answer exists!

Thanks for reading this lunch time edition of Bob Walk the Plank.  Tonight is senior night for WVU basketball so my evening will be spent cheering on #10 WVU vs Texas Tech.

Hitting the Brakes

You know how when someone is pitching a no hitter the rest of the team avoids the player like the plague and announcers try not to mention it.  The equivalent in my house is when my daughter decides to actually fall asleep early. I have a bunch of cards to scan, but I decided to make minimal noise and go with a one card post. Shhhhhhhhh.......

2000 Pacific Crown Collection Premiere Date Parallel Brian Giles /27

I get way too excited when I find cards like this. The Pirates only had a few notable players during this time period so for the most part I'm mainly looking for Giles and Jason Kendall. When this card popped up I was just hoping the price didn't get out of hand. Thankfully the card went off for $3.99, but the seller had $3.50 shipping so that stung a little. 

The scary thing about this item was that the seller had hundreds of Pacific parallels. For a minute I thought about going crazy, but cooler heads prevailed.  Even if I had bid, I wouldn't have won many as the big names went off for high dollar amounts.  In the end I got the card I wanted and my bank account appreciated me not bulk buying cards that have nothing to do with my collection. 

Thanks for reading!