Trip to the Card Shop

Hey guys, Drew back here. About a week ago, I took a journey with my dad over to the card shop in need of 2011 Topps. Unfortunately, the snow delayed the delivery of their boxes, but since we don't go there often, we still decided to pick up some packs. Did we hit big? Take a look:

We picked up 2 packs of 2010 Bowman Platinum baseball, 2 packs of 2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces baseball, 2 packs of Panini Epix Football, and 1 2010 Bowman Sterling Dual Relic Box Topper pack. While we thought the relic pack was baseball, it was actually football, which was a little disappointed considering I wanted a baseball one.

2010 Bowman Platinum Baseball: (combined)

- Ryan Kalish RC
- Josh Bell RC
- Chris Coghlan (not pictured)
- Torii Hunter
- Matt Holliday
- Wade Davis RC
- Jerry Sands Prospects
- Jackie Bradley Jr. USA
- Nolan Fontana USA (not pictured)
- Ryan Wright USA (not pictured)
- Checklist

The most exciting part of those 2 packs was finishing them and moving on. Please remind me not to buy packs of that junk anymore. But before I diss it any further, I do like the design, which is mostly foil, but was done pretty well by Bowman. All are for trade.

2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces Baseball: (combined)

- Grady Sizemore
- Nolan Ryan SP (need for set)
- Robin Yount
- Justin Verlander
- Dave Winfield SP (need for set)
- Jason Varitek
- Jimmy Rollins
- Max Scherzer RC
- Alfonso Soriano (not pictured)
- Andruw Jones (not pictured)
- Jonathan Papelbon (not pictured)

- Babe Ruth Yankee Stadium Legacy (keeper)
- Nolan Ryan SP Framed Brown Border 13/100 (keeper)

Wow, possibly the best hitter and best pitcher of all time together in one picture. These 2 cards made the Masterpieces packs a success, as well as 2 needed SP's of Winfield and Ryan. I'm probably going to hang on to the Ryan for a little while but it can be traded.

2010 Panini Epix Football: (seperate)

Pack One

- Brandon Jacobs
- Chad Ochocinco
- Rashard Mendenhall
- Aaron Rodgers
- Myron Rolle RC
- DeAngelo Williams
- Darren McFadden
- Miles Austin

Pack Two

- Tom Brady
- Devin Hester
- DeSean Jackson
- Sergio Kindle RC
- Knowshon Moreno

- Shonn Greene (keeper)
- Cadillac Williams
- Matt Cassel

That was so pathetic that it was nearly depressing! Just another boring "X" design with boring pictures and nothing exciting whatsoever.

2010 Bowman Sterling Football Dual Relic:

- Demaryius Thomas/Eric Decker Dual Jersey /69

Not too bad for football, Thomas is a great young receiver, and it's numbered very low. I like the relic on the Decker one, and the card is nice because it provides colorful relics rather than the typical plain white or gray. I wish the other Broncos star rookie was on this but I'm sort of please with this. It is for trade if anyone wants it, send me an email.

Well that was de-motivating. Tip to all of you that have money: buy boxes, not packs. When you spend around $50 on packs and come up this dry, maybe about $15-20 of overall value, it doesn't typically make you feel good. Anyways, let me know if you're interested in anything marked for trade, and See Ya!

THE HIGHLIGHT OF MY COLLECTION

Hey everyone, Drew back here. I got home from my trip to find 4 packages waiting from me. One from Grand Cards, one from Bad Wax, and 2 from eBay. While everything was sweet, those 2 blog packages will be saved for another day. For my Confirmation and Birthday celebration, I picked up a few really nice cards. Today I found the crown jewel, and another nice one.

The first of these 2 was a 2010 Allen & Ginter Robinson Cano bat card. Many of you have pulled this card, but I was able to get it cheap so I jumped at it. Cano has been having an awesome year, and I'm really happy to have invested in many of his cards earlier. But this is not the highlight of this post at all.

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Is! My first, and hopefully not last, Derek Jeter auto! I bought this off eBay last week for a high price, especially for a baseball card. I've never spent more than $30 until now, and I don't know how to describe the feeling. Although it's a beautiful card and I love it like crazy, I don't know how someone could possibly pay over $100 for a piece of cardboard. But, this is something I've wanted for a long time, an autograph of my favorite player. And since I had the money to afford it, I figured I would get a nice one. I didn't want to go over $200, which I didn't, and I needed to know the card was a legit auto. I searched for a while, and then saw this beauty and stopped. I needed this card! So, after a long time of studying the card, I bought it, and it's mine! ALL MINE! The card is a masterpiece, the on card auto, the jersey, on canvas, ooooooooooo yeah!

Let me know what you think of my new favorite card, and your opinion on spending a lot on a card! See Ya!

Catching Up, Mail, & Other Forms of Card Related Material

Hey guys, Drew back here, and after a long and exhausting week of doctors appointments, after school activities (track), and tests galore I finally am done. Tomorrow is the big day, certainly can't wait to go meet Mr. Mattingly and spend over 100 bucks on packs and singles. Life is Good! Anyway, time to finish my catching up. I won a contest over at Baseball Card Stuff recently, unfortunately since he is a new blogger, I was the only person to enter. I wanted him to redo it and have me give him a shoutout but he said no, and he sent me the cards. Also, I still didn't post some of the singles dad got me for Christmas, there were some awesome ones. Lastly, since dad went down for a week in North Carolina for a family matter, one of his relatives gave me some old cards! All those groups I listed are in the video below, so watch it. NOW!!!

PLEASE CHECK OUT BASEBALL CARD STUFF!!!!!

Thanks again to all of you in that video. Next we have a couple cards I bought off Check Out My Cards, my second purchase off the site so far, and a third one is in the process. Yes, go to that website, but, please ask permission to buy Cano or Swisher cards for yourselves, :). Here's what I got (btw, I also purchased some cards for a few others, if you've seen some cards of mine on other blogs lately):

2009 Allen & Ginter Black Border Cano
This is a really nice card, and I'm making progress towards that 2009 Allen & Ginter rainbow, still need the mini, A&G Back, and no numbered card /99. Maybe that will change by the end of tomorrow.


2007 UD Masterpieces Yogi Berra/Jackie Robinson
Yes! This is the LAST card I need for the 2007 Masterpieces set! And what an awesome set this is! In my opinion the best designed card set of the 2000's, Allen & Ginter in second. And this is a cool card, even though Jackie really was out! Maybe some time I'll show off this set, like I did with the 08 Heroes set a while back! Remember that?


2008 Leaf Limited Joe Klecko Team Trademarks /999 Insert 2009 Donruss Gridiron Gear NFL Teams Joe Klecko Autograph /119
The 1st card is from a high end football set and isn't anything great, but it does have a good picture. Klecko was a former Pro Bowl defensive lineman, and was my dad's favorite player! When he came home from NC, he was surprised to see this! I love the autographed card because not only is it one of my fave sets over the years, but the Jets helmet is rubbery, so it's unique. Unfortunately it's a sticker auto, but I'll have to live with it.

Lastly on the agenda, some cards I got from Jeremy from "no one's going to read this blog", a very negative based title if you ask me, considering he has a good following. We recently completed a trade and shortly after I got my cards, another little package was waiting for me, and here are the goodies:

Group 1: Mixed Yanks/Jets
Some cool mixed cards from over the years, the Phil Hughes RC being my favorite, my 1st of that card. I also like those 2 Jets from Leaf Rookies and Stars 2008, very cool!


Group 2: Almost the entire 2009 Topps Updates & Highlights Yanks Team Set
I sure love the 2009 Topps base set, and I needed a good chunk of these! Sweet! I really like the Posada Season Highlights and the Mariano Rivera 500th Save card.

Group 3: Mark Teixeira Fun!
Other than the creepy "Game?Used Memorabilia" card of him and a Allen & Ginter game used from Ryan's Memorabilia, I don't have much of Teixeira. Well, until Jeremy sent me a Topps Updates & Highlights base card, the propaganda card, AND a gold card /2009! Cool.

2009 UD Rookie Premiere Shonn Greene RC
Simply. Awesome. Period. I love the photo on the card and it is I think my 4th or 5th Greene rookie. I'd like to add an auto to that list tomorrow.

Thanks Jeremy and everyone else in this long and dreary catching up post! See Ya! Wish me luck tomorrow!

Big Mailday!

Hey guys, Drew back here. I haven't posted much lately because I have been focused mainly on school, and really haven't had much time for cards. I'm looking to catch up on stuff for everyone that I owe, plus get some cards for my friend for his birthday, plus work on my own PC. I actually have become interested in other Yankees lately, especially due to some rumors that Swisher could get traded. I also want to get the Granderson rookie card since he was just added to the team. Honestly, I don't want the Yanks getting Halladay because I don't want guys like Swisher, Cabrera, Gardner, Cervelli, or Jesus Montero's jobs in jeopardy, and don't forget Hughes & Joba. So, anyway, here is some of the mail I've gotten recently. Some sweet stuff in there, be sure to check it out!

Smaller Wantlist:

Need these!!!!

2009 Allen & Ginter Sketch Card 2 (Griffey Jr.)
2007 UD Masterpieces Cards #16, 54, 67
Curtis Granderson RC
Any Cano/Swisher Topps 206/Topps Unique/Goodwin/Sp Authentic/Ticket to Stardoms

Let me know by email, yanks1996wsc@gmail.com

See Ya!

2007 Upper Deck Masterpieces Hobby Box Break

Hey guys, Drew back here, and me and my dad just broke a fresh box of 2007 Upper Deck Masterpieces Baseball. I bought the box from my local hobby shop for $55, rather high priced for this type of box, but supported the shop, always good to do. Here is the review:

PRODUCT CONTENT:
18 Packs Per Box
4 Cards Per Pack
72 Cards Per Box
1 5x7 Cabinet Card Box Topper
3 Memorabilia Cards Per Box on average
1 Autograph per box on average

Base Set: 90 Total Cards consisting of rookies, legends, and veterans
Green Parallels: The most common insert, cards with a green border instead of the white
Other Parallels are commonly serial numbered to 99 or less

MY BOX BREAK RESULTS
64 Base Cards (71% of base set)
Jered Weaver 5x7 Box Topper
Carlos Lee Captured On Canvas Relic
Will Clark Captured On Canvas Relic
Brian Roberts Captured On Canvas Relic
Jason Bay Strokes of Genius Signatures
2 Black Bordered Parallels #ed to 99 of the 2004 Red Sox and Tom Glavine
5 Green Parallels of Chipper Jones, Tom Glavine, Andrew Miller RC, Babe Ruth, and Alex Gordon RC

You can see it all here...

Product Review:

Design:
I think Masterpieces is the BEST card design Upper Deck has, but does have to compete with Allen & Ginter for all the marbles. I love the canvas feel to them, and the paintings are incredible! One thing also that Upper Deck does well here is the players included. Sure Jered Weaver, Stephen Drew, and Howie Kendrick weren't cool to find but I had no other problems. The legend photos are incredible and this set definitely shouldn't have disappeared from baseball. Grade: A+

Price:
The price for this product is a very good one. On Blowout, you can find these for $43.99, a steal for the results. I got my box for $55 at my hobby shop, which wasn't bad but I should've ordered online. Getting 4 hits for $45 is without a doubt a steal. Grade: A+

Hits:
These hits are decent. If you are a high end collector, these aren't your types of hits. You only get 2 numbered cards (I think) per box, and the hits are either single jerseys or a single autograph. You can get lucky and find a patch or patch auto or something but I didn't. My hits were pretty good. The Carlos Lee jersey was pretty upsetting, and the Roberts isn't great but isn't bad either. Both of those cards are for trade. The Will Clark game used was a nice surprise, but still not really nice enough. But to save the box, we pulled a Jason Bay auto, which probably sells pretty well now considering he is a star in Boston. Well, he always was a great player but he played in Pittsburgh so he didn't get the attention. The hits were pretty good. Grade: B-

Overall:
Overall, I enjoyed opening the product. I found a lot of very nice cards, and cards I would want to pass down when I'm older. The pictures are incredible, and so are the players. We got decent hits including the Bay auto, which seems to be hit of the box, and is currently not for trade. The other 3 could be traded if you want them, but aren't that bad for me to keep. So, this box was a ton of fun and if you want to spend $50 on 15 minutes of fun, be my guest. Fantastic product. Thanks UD for making it! One suggestion though: I know you did it in basketball UD, but throw in some of these as inserts in your flagship brand. They really are beautiful cards and I don't want to see them leave. Overall Grade: A+

So, I will be leaving for New Hampshire on Friday for about a week, so I'll be missing you guys. After that, I want to buy a 09 Allen & Ginter box, and after that is my birthday and I hope to get some boxes then (and an iPod touch!). Thanks for looking guys, and see ya!

WANT LIST
I want to complete this set badly. I need 24 cards, and if you have these please contact me by e-mail, dmihans@optonline.net. Thanks!

12- Ryan Howard, 15- Hideki Matsui, 16- Roger Clemens, 17- Sandy Koufax, 18- Reggie Jackson, 20- Ty Cobb, 25- Carl Yastremski, 27- Dice-K RC, 29- Ken Griffey Jr, 31- David Ortiz, 41- Josh Hamilton, 43- Ichiro, 54- Yogi Berra/Jackie Robinson, 56- Hanley Ramirez, 57- Victor Martinez, 58- Cole Hamels, 67- Ryan Zimmerman, 69- Chien-Ming Wang, 70- David Wright, 71- Ryan Howard, 80- Craig Biggio, 83- Billy Butler RC, 84- Andy Laroche RC, 90- Curt Schilling

To make it easier:

12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 25, 27, 29, 31, 41, 43, 54, 56, 57, 58, 67, 69, 70, 71, 80, 83, 84, 90

See Ya!

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