Better Late Than Never for Me to Join in on this Year's Ginter Action

I realize I totally missed the boat when it comes to posting 2010 Ginter stuff, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to post some sweet Ginter Minis

I decided that I am going to collect the mini insert sets for Ginter this time around, and a couple ebay wins has gotten me pretty far into the collection.

First: Some A&G Back minis, and a Lone Black Border

#4 Prince Fielder (A&G)

#61 Michael Cuddyer (A&G)

#66 Orlando Hudson (A&G)

#182 Chris Carpenter (A&G)

#191 Justin Morneau (A&G)

#219 Adam Wainwright (A&G)

#223 Jason Kubel (A&G)

#3 Ryan Braun (Blck Border)

I realize there was a shortage of regular back minis this year. I'm not sure why topps thought it a good idea to make regular minis one of the more difficult of the minis to pull from a pack. I had bought close to 20 packs and only managed to get 4 regular minis. Of course this made collecting the inserts easier but drove up prices on ebay for the regulars. Oh well, I may eventually buy up some of the standard minis at least of players I collect.

World's Wordsmiths and National Animals

WGWS:

#3 Washington Irving (x2)

#8 John Milton

#10 Edgar Allen Poe

#14 Plato

NA:

#12 Markhor

#23 Elk

The national animals set is one that I find to be really boring. Anyone else feel the same?

Monsters of The Mesozoic

MM:

#4 Velociraptor (x3)

#7 Spinosaurus (x2)

#9 Apatosaurus (x2)

#10 Brachiosaurus

#11 Diplodocus

#13 Pachycephalosaurus

More Monsters...

#14 Pentaceratops (x3)

#15 Protoceratops

#17 Dilophosaurus

#18 Supersaurus

#20 Oviraptor

#22 Protarchaeopteryx

#24 Carnotaurus

I love this set. Not much negative about dinosaurs. They've got some nice color on these and it's a plus that they are drawings. (If you thought about asking how I know that they are drawings, you might want to think again about what the subject of these cards is)

Lords of Olympus

#2 Poseidon

#3 Hades

#6 Apollo (x2)

#7 Aphrodite (x2)

#12 Cronos (x2)

#13 Prometheus

#14 Pheobe

#15 Demeter

#18 Eros

#19 Helios

#22 Nemesis

#24 The Muses (x2)

Finally: Sailors of The Seven Seas

SSS:

#1 Christopher Columbus (x2)

#3 Sir Walter Raleigh

#5 Francisco Vasquez de Coronado

#8 Henry Hudson

#9 Francisco Pizarro

#10 Juan Ponce de Leon

This set is definitely my favorite of the insert sets! They are just all around awesome designs, and use some nice portrait drawings as well as one that reminds me of ancient maps (back when sea monsters sank ships and the world was flat).

If anyone can help me out, be it filling some of my needs for these sets or simply taking some doubles off my hands, let me know. I'm more than willing to make trades.

BTW, A&G minis and the Black Border in the first picture are open for trade, I haven't much need for them. I'd like to hopefully get some parallel minis of players I collect in exchange.

Some Regular Chrome to Go w/ the Refractors

Aight, everyone knows that the base chrome cards are nothing in comparison to the rainbow shine of the refractors so I think I'm just gonna list what I got rather than post a bunch of pics.

2010 Topps Chrome:

5, 8, 11, 15, 18, 26, 44, 45, 46, 53, 58, 68, 70, 76, 78, 88, 89, 89, 94, 96, 101, 103, 117, 125, 126, 127, 129, 130, 131, 134, 135, 137, 145, 145, 147, 150, 150, 151, 154, 157, 160, 163, 164, 166, 166, 167, 170, 176, 178, 182, 208

here's a link to the 2010 topps chrome checklist so that you can figure out who the heck the numbers refer to

All of these are up for trade so just let me know if you need any of these for set or player collections. I'm looking to get rid of these so it won't take much to entice a trade. The refractors from the last post are also up for trade.

I'm back with some new posts

I've been gone since leaving for school back in August but I'm back with some new posts. I don't even know if anyone will think to check my blog any more but I'm hoping some people have some interest.

I also know that I have to finish a contest that I started back in August but I won't be able to get to that until I go home for winter break.

As for now, I have some posts of stuff I bought on ebay. I have stopped buying packs of cards entirely, and switched to ebay. It is way more cost efficient, and the thrill of the chase kinda replaces the fun of busting packs.

I guess I'll start with some 2010 Topps Chrome REFRACTORS. I love me some shiny chrome!

3: Clayton Kershaw

4: Bobby Abreu

8: Tommy Hanson

34: Eric Aybar

39: Vladimir Guerrero

48: Justin Upton

49: Yunel Escobar

57: Josh Hamilton

68: Magglio Ordonez

74: Andre Ethier

82: Lyle Overbay

86: Chase Utley

98: Francisco Liriano

99: Chris Carpenter

99: Chris Carpenter

102: Jake Peavy

103: Jose Lopez

106: Jacoby Ellsbury

107: Edinson Volquez

110: Chipper Jones

111: Brad Hawpe

113: Hiroki Kuroda

128: David Ortiz

131: Michael Bourn

134: Justin Verlander

135: Carlos Beltran

137: Ryan Braun

150: BJ Upton

160: Gavin Floyd

161: Yadier Molina

178: Jon Jay

186: Cole Gillespie

191: Josh Donaldson

215: Kila Ka'aih...

218: Andy Oliver

220:Wade Davis

Orange Refractors:

Johnny Cueto

Vladimir Guerrero

Jair Jurrjens

Mark Buehrle

XFractors:

XF James Shields

XF Freddy Sanchez

Best For Last:

Purple Refractors:

Josh Donaldson

David Ortiz

Blue Refractors:

Grady Sizemore

Dan Uggla

Howie Kendrick

I really dig refractors from just about any set. Topps really needs to get their act together though when it comes to the chrome product in general. Every card that I have gotten from the 2010 set has been severely curved! I don't understand why they can't manage to produce the chrome cards with the same quality in 2010 as they had been doing in previous years where the curving of the cards seemed to be minimal. I can only guess that they are using cheaper quality materials when producing this year's set.

It's good to be back

The Price is Right part3

Here are a bunch more pictures for round 3.

Picture #10:

Price of cards (No Shipping)

Mike Rodriguez, 2006 Turkey Red Auto

Dan Johnson, 2006 Turkey Red Auto

Zack Jackson, 2005 Turkey Red Auto #d/200

Jeremy Hermida, 2006 Turkey Red Bat

Picture #11:

Price of cards + Shipping

Andre Ethier 2008 SPx Auto

Miguel Cabrera 2008 SPx Dual Jsy #d/25

Picture #12:

Price of Cards + Shipping

Kirk Gibson, 2006 SP Legendary Cuts Jsy #d/225

Barry Larkin, 2007 SP Legendary Cuts Jsy

Picture #13:

Price of Cards (No Shipping)

Bobby Bonds, 2002 SP Legendary Cuts Bat

Gaylord Perry, 2004 Bazooka Jsy

Picture #14:

Price of Cards + Shipping

Adam Dunn, 2005 Donruss Studio Bat #d/250

Chipper Jones, 2003 Fleer Flair Jsy

Grady Sizemore, 2008 Sweet Spot Jsy

Vladimir Guerrero, Diamond Kings Bat

Rafael Palmero, 2002 Fleer Showcase Jsy

Victor Martinez, 2005 UD Trilogy Bat #d/75

Dontrell Willis, 2007 Bowman Sterling Jsy RF #d/199

Scott Rolen, 2003 Leaf Cerified Bat #d/250

Mike Sweeney, 2003 Leaf Certified Jsy #d/250

Jermaine Dye, 2001 Leaf Certified Jsy #d/286

Tonight I will post the results for parts 1 & 2. This will be on the originals posts for each part, but the added results material will be written in red. I will also update the point totals on the sidebar (including adding Beardy to the list).

In the meantime, comment with your estimates for part 3

The Price is Right part2

Part 2 fellas. Have at it.

If you missed part 1 go make you estimates so I can wrap that one up

Picture #5:

Item price + Shipping

2008 Topps Finest: David Wright green refractor #d/199

Picture #6:

Cost of Items (NO shipping)

2009 Goodwin & Champs: Scott Kazmir Jsy GUM

2005 Donruss DK: Bill Hall 2 piece Bat GUM, #d/100

Picture #7:

Item Price + Shipping

1994 Bowman Derek Jeter

(Glare, and sideways, and blurry, Oh myyy!)

Picture #8:

Cost of items (NO shipping)

2008 Sweet Spot: Travis Hafner Jsy GUM

2008 Sweet Spot: Felix Hernandez Jsy GUM

Picture #9

Cost of items (NO Shipping)

2008 Sweet Spot: Nick Markakis Jsy GUM

2009 Sweet Spot: Nick Markakis Jsy GUM

Get those estimates in!

The Price is Right part1

So here it is. Part 1 of the contest.

Picture #1

2007 Allen & Ginter

Miguel Cabrera Jsy

Carlos Beltran Bat

Picture #2

2008 Allen & Ginter

Johnny Damon Bat

Picture #3

2009 Allen and Ginter

BJ Upton Jsy

Cameron Maybin Bat

Picture #4

Yankees GUM

Jorge Posada YSL relic

Jorge Posada & Mariano Rivera Dual GUM #d/99

For Pics #1, 2, 3 you need to guess the item price only, NO shipping added

For Pic #4 you need to guess the total cost with shipping

Post your 4 guesses contestants. Let's see who is EBay price savvy.

Sorry this post didn't go up last night as promised. I forgot to set the automated post thing. So instead it just sat there as a draft while I was out for the night.

Contest Starts Tonight

A bunch more people joined the contest, so I'm going to start it tonight. Be ready guys. The first post should be up by 9. Afterward I'll probably do one post per day.


One change to the rules: Originally, you had to guess the price without shipping. But now I will specify on each picture whether you need to factor in shipping when guessing the price. Some pictures will have a partial ebay purchase so I won't be able to do shipping on those, but the rest will include shipping because I realized how much of a difference shipping makes in the cost of the items.

If I'm missing your name in the list in the sidebar, let me know and I'll get you in there.

Good luck everyone!

National Chicle Needs

Before I get to the list, I'm gonna throw it out there one more time that I am hold my first CONTEST as soon as I get a half decent amount of people participating. The theme will be The Price is Right. Go check it out

Base Cards: (needs)

1, 3-7, 9-14, 19, 20, 21, 24, 26, 29-33, 35, 36, 38, 40, 42, 44, 48, 49, 51, 53-56, 58, 60, 61, 64, 65, 66, 69, 71, 73-78, 81, 84, 85, 88, 90, 94, 95, 99, 100, 101, 104, 106, 111, 113-116, 118, 119, 121, 123, 124, 125, 128, 129, 132, 133, 135, 136, 139, 141-146, 149, 152-155, 159, 160, 161, 163, 164, 165, 168, 169, 171, 172, 174-186, 194, 198, 199, 201-204, 207-210, 212, 213, 215, 216, 218, 220, 221, 224, 227, 228, 230, 231, 233-236, 238, 239, 242-247, 249, 251, 253-257, 259, 261, 263, 264, 268, 269, 271, 272, 274

Short Prints:

These are the cards that I have: 276, 293, 296, 303, 308, 323, 329

The Price is Right.... CONTEST!

I will be holding my very first contest over the next couple weeks. I figured since I don't get many comments, I had to come up with some way to boost readership. So here it is, The Price is Right. I've never actually seen The Price is Right so I may get the concept totally wrong. Oh well, sue me!

Basic Rundown:

The idea of the contest will be to guess the cost of recent ebay items that I won, from a series of pictures (Minus the cost of shipping). The person to guess the closest for each picture will be awarded points. At the end of the contest, who ever had the most points wins.

You can think of me as Bob Barker, and yourselves as price-savvy contestants.

What can I say, the ladies love me

Rules:

- Advertising the contest on your blog will get you 4 points.

- Being a follower of my blog will get you 2 points.

- For each picture that your guess is closest you will be awarded 3 points.

- If there are 2 or more people tied for the closest guess, each person will get 2 points.

- You must list your guesses in a comment on each particular post, and you will need to come up with an estimate for each picture (List these estimates in the order that the pictures appear in the post)

Ex) Pic 1:$2.35 Pic2:$5.67 Pic3:$3.89 ..........

Additional Info:

I am not yet sure how many posts the contest will include, but I will give you warning of when the contest will end a couple posts in advance.

I may decide to add a bonus pic or two randomly in posts that are non-contest oriented, so I encourage you to read all posts on my blog.

Prize:

The prize will be one or more of the items that appear in the contest pictures. If a lot of people decide to join in, it will be a couple of the items, but if only a few join in then I will most likely keep it at one item.

.............................................

Please comment on this post if you want to be in the contest so that I can add you to the point list that will be in my sidebar. In this comment you should also tell me if you are a follower of my blog and if you will be advertising the contest on your blog.

Let the Pricing begin.

Card Shop Lot

Recently I went to the card shop near my house and walked away with these. They were $1 each, which seems sort of pricy in terms of what I've read other people can get cards for at their local shops but oh well.

These two are for my Jeter Collection.

The serial numbered insert is kinda lame now that I think about it, but the Playoff Bound foil card is cool.

I get the impression that the All Time Fan Favorites cards are well liked and somewhat expensive so I grabbed up this Mattingly. And I couldn't resist the Topps Finest Andy Pettitte card.

I don't have the cards with me at the moment but I believe these two are Topps Chrome inserts commemorating the 1952 World Series. If anyone knows why this series was significant feel free to fill me in. These'll end up in my Yankee collection. I wonder if they have a refractor version, because that would have been waay more cool looking.

The Heritage Chromes and Refractors seemed much harder to come by this year so I figured $1 each wasn't half bad. The speckled backgrounds are a nice touch. These two are the plain Chromes.

...and these two are the refractor versions

The picture hardly does this one justice. The refractor aspect really makes this card nice. It's serial #d/ but I can't tell what the print rate is from the picture and the card is packed away at home so it'll remain a mystery. Maybe 27/99. I bought this one with the intention of offering it for trade, because I like the card but it doesn't really fit any of my collection goals.

Ok maybe I really should have just waited until I got home to type this post, because I have no clue what set these cards are from (It's a Donruss set of some sort, probably from 2004). I really like them though. The low print rate makes me think that there are probably 12 other variation of each of these cards. Especially since each of their print rates are different. Maybe there variations on the labels in the corners (these two being the HIT variations). Then again they could also do variations on the words running down the sides. If someone is trying to complete the set or w.e. they are up for trade but I also wouldn't mind holding on to them.

So that should have come to $13 for these cards but I'm pretty sure he only charged me $10. I'm pretty happy with that pile of cards for $10

Cards from Heaven (Cardboard Heaven, that is)

Here are some highlights from a trade I made with Cameron from Cardboard Heaven. He sent me some cards for my player collections and an auto that is very much appreciated.

Here are my favorites of the Halladays that he sent.

Then there were some Mauer cards. Here are a few.

Then there was this Joe Mauer game used card. It's my first for Mauer so I was pretty stoked. It also just barely has a hint of a stripe along the right edge. Based on the Twin's uniforms I'm gonna guess that this is a piece of his pants

The last piece of the trade was this baby. The second auto that I can check off the list of 35 autos that I need to complete the set.

Clearly these guys don't care all that much when they sign these things. He signed right on top of the printing. Oh well, he probably won't ever be any good anyway.

Thanks Cameron.

A Pair of Packs

So here are two more packs of Chicle.

Pack 1

#222 Lou Brock

#47 Brandon Inge

#70 Cliff Lee

#6 Joba Chamberlain (Chicle Back)

#68 Vladimir Guerrero

#28 Andrew McCutchen

Pack 2

#157 Jimmy Rollins

#192 JD Drew

#225 Mike Schmidt

Michael Brantley AUTO

I Liiike!

#138 Scott Kazmir

#108 Josh Hamilton

I was totally not expecting an auto. No sooner had I decided to put together the set of autos from Natl. Chicle then I pull one of them in my next pair of packs.

So now I have 2/35 autos from this set. The other of the 2 autos came in a trade package and you'll see it in my next post.

Trade with Cards on Cards

Recently Cards on Cards and I worked out a trade, and here are some highlights of what was sent to me.

8 Jeters

The Derek Jeter Retrospectrum card is my favorite. It is the first card that I have of this 100 card set, which will prove to be a toughy to collect.

There are soo many serial numbered cards of jeter from the 08 heroes set, so it's nice to knock this black version off the list of ones that I need to locate.

Some Ichiros and other players that I collect

I definitely like the Opening Day fold out card of Ichiro

2010 Topps Inserts

I'm pretty sure that the list of inserts from this set for the players that I collect is at least 4 times as long as the list of base cards for those players. Oh well, I like the variety.

20 Yankees Stadium Legacy cards

Sweet. Now my collection of these is up to 37; only SEVERAL THOUSAND more till I have the full set!!! If anyone else has these and is aching to offload them definitely talk to me.

Lou Gehrig Chrome Refractor

I'm trying for this set as well. It really put a damper on my hopes the other day when I realized that there was a separate checklist for the gold ones. Originally I thought that series 1 had a 10 card checklist of the platinumrefractors and series 2 had a ten card checklist of gold refractors, but apparently not because I have a mickey mantle platinum one that is #PC16. Does anyone know how this set is compiled? Are there 10 platinum and 10 gold for both series 1 and 2?

Thanks for the trade Madding. The cards are great additions to my collections.

Some more Chicle

I picked up a bunch more loose packs of Chicle on a couple different days. My luck with these seemed to be a little better. I beat the odds on SPs and variations. Still I didn't pull a hit or anything.

Pack 1

#97 Matt Kemp

#87 Ted Lilly

#105 Mark Reynolds

#296 Ernie Banks (SP)

#134 Felix Pie

#59 Wandy Rodriguez

Good start. An SP and several other base cards I needed.

Pack 2

#67 Mark Buehrle

#267 Tobi Stoner

#17 Ken Griffey Jr.

#190 Orlando Hundson

#103 Pablo Sandoval

#63 Aramis Ramirez

Pack 3

#52 Nick Swisher

#82 Josh Beckett

#127 Kyle Blanks

#250 Joe Morgan

#43 Ian Kinsler

#18 Josh Johnson

These were ALL cards I needed for my set. Perfect!

Pack 4

#62 Chad Billingsley

#102 Adam Wainwright

#140 Javier Vazquez

#293 Mickey Mantle (SP)

#23 Shane Victorino

#188 Rich Harden

Not Bad. 3 more base cards and an SP that I needed

Pack 5

#167 Ryan Ludwick

#197 Dan Haren

#25 Aaron Hill

#8 Jason Bartlett (Chicle back)

#193 Marc Rzepczynksi

#148 Chris Young

Huh!! There are 275 base cards with chicle variations, all with equal chances of being inserted into packs and somehow I managed to get 2 of the same card in the first 5 chicle variations that I pulled. Pretty strange, and frustrating for someone who is trying to collect the set of Chicle backs.

Here are 2 packs that I bought on a different day.

Pack 1

#57 Kosuke Fukudome

#27 Jacoby Ellsbury

#110 Curtis Granderson

#329 Juan Francisco (SP)

#8 Jason Bartlett

#93 Roy Oswalt

These were all cards I needed. I love it when that hapens, but pulling these Jason Bartlett cards is kinda getting old. At least now I have the base card to go with my 2 chicle backs.

Pack 2

#117 Jason Marquis

#162 Jonathan Papelbon

#150 Zach Duke

#144 Jhoulys Chacin (Bazooka back)

#223 Carl Yastrzemski

#158 Stephen Drew

Yeah budday!! this was a good way to end it. A bazooka back and 5 more cards for my base set.

If anyone has any cards that could help me out with this set please let me know. I'm being very ambitious with this set and I'm trying to knock out as much as possible while I have the momentum. I'm trying for the base set with SPs, and a set of variations which will end up a combo of Bazooka and Chicle backs.