what can a buck fifty-nine get you?

I've been dabbling in football cards as of late. With nothing left to grab in the baseball season, football has caught my attention slightly. All these new products on the local shops shelf, with stories of big pulls of guys I've heard of only in passing. I am a casual football fan, to say the least. I used to follow it a lot more in my youth. I collected baseball cards, then "graduated" to football card collecting in the mid-90's. That was around the time the sport itself grew in popularity. The baseball strike lured people to a more (seemingly) stable sport in football and it's popularity exploded. So did its trading card market. I think there may have been as many football sets released as there were baseball. Which is absolutely bananas because when looking back at the mid to late 90's card sets there were a literal ton of sets released yearly. Thats not even including basketball, hockey and non-sports releases.

Anyway. So football has my attention and I picked up some packs at the local shop. Not much, just a sampler of whats out there. Lots of Panini (more on that in a second). I worked the shop on Monday, all day, as the owner is on vacation and he has three of us watching over the store for him. I have Monday and Saturday. Monday I knew would be dead (it was) because he isn't normally open Mondays but it was the day after Christmas so there was a possibility of people. Well, like the many many baseball card boxes I went through weeks ago, I did the football this time. I missed a lot. It was almost like when I started baseball again in early 2010, I saw so much I hadn't seen before.

I ran into a set that seemed familiar but in a different way.

We know the 2008 Upper Deck Baseball Heroes right? Well, they did it for football too:

Same concept. A good set too, I'm a fan of the baseball version so this seemed appropriate. While rummaging through those boxes I came across a few of these, this card in particular caught my attention:

One of the greatest (if not THE greatest) heavy metal guitarists ever, Tony Iommi. Founding and only constant member of Black Sabbath, one of my favorite classic rock/hard rock/metal bands.

I was in Target today and I strolled over to the card aisle and found a lone pack these in their $1.59 a pack bin so I grabbed it. The scanned pack above is the pack and Tony came out of it. I was pretty psyched because it was a card I really wanted but then after Tony, was this:

Another Tony! I thought the pack felt thick but I knew that the base cards were a little thicker than basic Topps so I chalked it up to that. Nope. A relic and no slouch either. I'm no Dallas fan but I know Romo and how good he is.

A great find for a buck fifty-nine. A sweet relic and a card for the PC. Awesome.

threads break, final

Yes, just like last round's Gonzalez, there are two Castros. No idea how I managed to obtain two of them but there they are.


1- the dimwit- 3x auto/relic
2- kevin- castro (star)
3- cheap card collecting- castro (avg)
4- wickedortega- gonzalez
5- daddyohoho- drabek
6- stealing home- wallace
7- arpsmith- scherzer

I have everyones info and their extra cards ready. I should have these out hopefully soon. Thanks to everyone who participated and I hope it was fun!

threads break part 7

1- stealing home- bench
2- wickedortega- team leaders
3- arpsmith- speed power
4- daddyohoho- a's
5- kevin- gonzalez (gold)
6- the dimwit- gonzalez (green)
7- cheap card collecting- reyes

threads break part 6

1- wickedortega- morrison
2- arpsmith- cueto
3- daddyohoho- byrd
4- kevin- sizemore
5- the dimwit- cashner
6- cheap card collecting- mccutchen
7- stealing home- pagan

threads break part 5

Alright, here we go. The meat of the break. Here we have the beginning of the Triple Threads portion of the break. Single unity relics for this round. Oh and one more thing. We have eight rounds and seven participants. What I planned on doing was randomizing the final round due to everyone getting a chance to pick both first and last. As you've noticed what is happening with the order is that you are being moved down one slot in each round. Therefore, if you picked first the first round, you'll be picking seventh in the seventh round. Seems the most fair to me to randomize the last round, therefore it would be an equal chance for everyone to grab that top slot again, as opposed to a pre-determined order. Thanks for listening, now pick your card!




1- arpsmith- Posey
2- daddyohoho- rodriguez
3- kevin- ramirez
4- the dimwit- bell
5- cheap card collecting- roberts
6- stealing home- hunter
7- wickedortega- tabata

threads break part 1

Let's begin. For those of you who have not seen or participated in one of my breaks, or you just forget, allow me to explain how it works. I'll post a picture with the cards available for picking and an order of participants to pick them. You do choose in order but are allowed to have a top X list of cards you'd like. For example, say you're picking third, you choose a list of the top three cards you'd want and once it comes around to your turn, you get the top card on your list that hasn't been picked yet. I hope I worded that alright. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Have fun!




1- cheap card collecting- smoltz
2- stealing home- schilling
3- wickedortega- ramirez
4- arpsmith- verlander
5- daddyohoho- upton
6- kevin- sizemore
7- the dimwit- johnson (there you go!)

final threads, part two

On to part two!

Its a little different this time around:

Johnny Cueto auto/relic, numbered 29/50. The auto/relic first? Well I feel in this box this was the lesser of the four hits. Still not bad but not the best.




Justin Verlander relic, numbered 7/9. See what I mean? The 2011 AL Cy Young winner, numbered under 10. What's not to like? Sure its a single gray jersey but I'm certainly happy with it.




Johnny Bench triple relic, numbered 34/36. Here we go. Now I do feel that this is a Bench bat. Bench played in the 70's, so I would imagine that relics of his would be more plentiful. The thing is, I would think that relics from this era to now are authentic. I mean, they would have to be right? I'd hope.




Adam Lind auto/triple relic. numbered 3/3. CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY. I could not believe that this fell out of the pack. Its certainly the best Jays card I've ever pulled and the new cornerstone of my Blue Jays collection. Sure I have a few plates and some low numbered jerseys and stuff but nothing this nice. Plates may be 1/1's but ehh...they just don't have the luster of a nice patch low numbered like this. I got a bunch of stuff from eBay and the shop from other people's boxes that they traded to the owner for other stuff and in return I'd trade him. Maybe I'll show it off soon.

final threads, part one

Here is box number one of the final Triple Threads of the year. Unless by some huge miracle involving time travel happens and the shop gets more Threads at a good price, this is it for this release.

The base cards in both boxes weren't anything low numbered like the sapphire Cabrera in the previous box except for an Alex Rodriguez numbered to 25. I didn't bother scanning it because it seems like everyone hates him. Let's begin shall we?

Again like last box, from "worst" to best. Worst is kind of the wrong word here but since I can't think of a better word, we'll stick with that.

Rogers Hornsby "bat" relic, numbered 5/9. Lets say this is a real bat from Hornsby for arguments sake. If this is my worst hit, you know great things are coming afterward.




Jason Heyward auto relic, numbered 23/50. An awesome hit here. Heyward had kind of an off season this year but I'm very sure he will make a fantastic comeback in 2012.




Ichiro triple relic, numbered 01/18. Damn. What a card and the only thing that would have made it better is if that had patches in those windows as opposed to a nice blue jersey. I'm not complaining though due to it being my first Ichiro relic.




Bob Gibson/Felix Hernandez/Josh Johnson triple auto/triple relic, numbered 01/27. What a card. Sure its the smallest jersey piece with the smallest picture of the depicted players but when else can you get auto/relics of a Hall of Famer, a sure-fire superstar and an up and coming player? The only thing that would have made it perfect is the Johnson auto being on the clear stickers like the other two. Oh well. At least this combination of players makes a little sense, in that they are all great pitchers. Some triple combos I've seen make little to no connection unless its something random.

Stay tuned for part two!

2011 a&g relic set

Ok, some things accompany this post:

One, I know A&G has been out seemingly forever but I had an idea to finish up a "set".

Two, it's not a full set, as it is only one team,

and
Three, I know it's almost 'the thing to do' around here but hate on the Yankees is something I don't do. I'm a Jays fan first and a Yankee fan second.

Now, with all that out of the way, I'll get on to what I'm talking about. I admittedly picked up too much Ginter this year. I said I wouldn't but I did. I did finish off the set last week, all 350 cards. No extended minis for me. No insert cards either. Out of all the Ginter I did pick up, I managed to get four Yankee relics. Yes, horrific pulls for some (not you AJ or BA Benny) but not for me. I then decided to see how many Yankees there were in the set, saw that there were 12 and figured I could pretty easily get the rest. I pulled arguably the most pricey one (Jeter) along with three others I'll point out below. Oh and how much I paid for them too.

Burnett- pulled / Cano- $3 / Cervelli- pulled
Chamberlain- pulled / Gardner- $2 / Hughes- $1

Jeter- pulled / Martin- $1 / Posada- $2.30
Rodriguez- $3.25 / Swisher- $2.25 / Teixeira- $2.77

So as you can see, the most expensive one was Alex Rodriguez at a whopping three bucks and change. If you can finish off the Yankee portion of this set so cheap, every other team should be pure cake. I was also very thankful there wasn't a Mantle relic. I really didn't want to have to shell out for that. Some of these come in two variations, those being either a bat or jersey. I would prefer jerseys but I took bats where I did to get them on the cheap.

round 5

Ok, lets get back to business, shall we? Time to break up this vintage party with some relics.

Again, still choosing two here.


ryan- pence/pena
shadytwine- lee/reynolds
jeff- sandoval/feliz
cardanathema- lowrie/ramirez

round seven

Truckin' right along. Seeing as how it was All-Star week, this round will focus on 2011 All-Stars. Yes, there are two Tulo's but I had no other AS relics. He is a great player though, and I know at least one of you wants 'em.


1- commishbob- castro
2- hiflew- mccutchen
3- ryan- weaver
4- diamond king- tulo stripe
5- ba benny- tulo bat

round four

Rolling right along here. How about a round right before I hit the hay. Let's go with the Hall of Fame relics:


1- ba benny- ripken
2- ryan- spahn
3- diamond king- red
4- hiflew- aparicio
5- commishbob- gwynn

round two

See? Went by quick like, we'll be done in no time. Obviously due to a smaller amount of people. I really like seeing who picks what card, it really makes it interesting to watch. Anyway, what is up next:

A relic round. The one that I mentioned that guys could or should be in the Hall of Fame. Well, maybe not Burdette but it is a sweet relic.

1- ryan- santo
2- ba benny- murphy
3- commishbob- burdette
4- diamond king- chipper
5- hiflew- thome

round eight

The final round is here. It's been a ton of fun and I hope you feel the same. I had a few posts that I wanted to do but didn't want to interrupt the flow of the break. Now I kinda forgot what I was going to post. Guess I should have used the draft feature on here huh? Oh well, I'm sure I'll think of it. Anyway, a couple of things about this round.

1- The silk cards count as one pick. Three silk cards for one pick made sense to me seeing as how they aren't really relics or autos or even all that special but they aren't the easiest things to get, being numbered to fifty. Plus they aren't the most recognized players out there. So one participant will get all three (just say 'silks').
2- The octo-relic is shown in the second picture on the bottom. The back with the other four players is below that picture. So remember, thats EIGHT players with EIGHT swatches on ONE card. I know, friggin' crazy. It even comes with a separate card for it's certificate of authenticity. Normally relics have it on the backs but this card can't even fit it!
3- The Bill Hall and Chad Billingsley are both autographed but are a little faded. This is due to the materials that Upper Deck used and I do hear they will replace them.
4- Being the final round, I will do one post concerning the break after all these have been claimed. On with the picks!



1. ryan- strawberry
2. ba benny- tejada plate
3. thingsarefunnerhere- octo
4. wickedortega- cabrera
5. hiflew- kinsler
6. potch- castlellanos
7. greg- stamps
8. axemanohio- silks
9. nathan- wang
10. brooklynmet- billingsley
11. chris- overbay
12. commishbob- hall
13. kevin- pena

almost there

Ok, we're down to the nitty gritty here. The consensus definitely favored picking for the final round and understandably so. Once you see what I have in there, you'll be glad you picked the ability to pick. There was a catch though. While you favored a pick for the seventh round, you also wanted another, to be fair to those that did get to pick last in that seventh round. The one catch on my end though; I have been practically run dry of relics and autos. The three randomized relics and two autos aren't anything to really gush over to make for another round of picks. I had an idea though. How about vintage? Would you guys like a round of vintage picks for the next round, round seven? Then the final round being the bigger cards? In terms of vintage I was thinking 13 cards from the early Topps era, the bigger cards, ranging from 1952 to 1956. Let me know what you think as soon as you can, so I can pull the cards, scan 'em and let you guys have at them.

ALSO- I apologize if I have been slow to respond or just plain forgot about trades, comments and other dealings with some of you. I certainly don't mean it but I'm trying to make this group break go as smoothly as possible. I haven't forgotten about you guys and I do have emails and correspondence in my 'deals' folder' in my email account, I've just been pre-occupied with this break. I will, however, be sending out everything probably at the same time. That means break packages and trades, same day.

round six (final?)

Here we are. The home stretch. Maybe. I am going to take a consensus about another possible round. Remember I was going to pick a random card to add to each lot that dealt with auto/relics, that octo relic, the silk, etc. Instead of it being random, would you guys like to pick it? It seems like the picking is going really well and you all seem to enjoy what's going on here. Let me know in your comment after you pick your card from this round. Just say either 'random' or 'pick' and since there are 13 of you there will definitely not be a tie. Oh and for this round just keep it simple. Say you want the triple Brewer relic, just say 'Brewer triple', no need to spell out all the names on the card. On with the picks:


1 potch- yount
2 hiflew- beltre
3 commishbob- ballpark quad
4 thingsarefunnerhere- halladay/burnett
5 kevin- oswalt
6 greg- opc triple
7 axemanohio- brewers triple (winning trios)
8 ryan- nettles/ramirez
9 babenny- i rodriguez
10 brooklynmet- glavine/billingsley
11 chris- clark/morneau
12 nathan- loney
13 wickedortega- angels dual

round five (and a 'huh?')

Round five. One round remaining after this one. Here we have the numbered relics:


Remember, if you guys make some deals amongst yourselves, let me know so I can swap the cards to your names on previous posts (and so I can keep track).

1 wickedortega- braun
2 nathan- sutter
3 chris- ramirez (trade to benny for hernandez rd4)
4 brooklynmet- rasmus
5 ba benny- vlad
6 ryan- mccann
7 axemanohio- sizemore
8 greg- hardy
9 kevin- mauer
10 thingsarefunnerhere- jones
11 commishbob- uggla
12 potch- willingham
13 hiflew- kazmir

Here is the 'huh?' portion.

I'm not sure if anyone noticed this but while sorting out series 2 by teams I came across this:


For some reason he has two cards in series 2. The backs are identical, with the exception of the card number and picture. Weird. How does this happen? This is totally another spot that a different Rockie pitcher could have taken. The only other time I've noticed this before was in 2007, when Topps issued two identical (completely identical) cards for Bengie Molina, one in each series (cards 4 and 342). At least Hammel has a different picture on each card.

round four

Yes, yes, the last round was a little....uneventful. Autos, unfortunately, were never my great pulls and usually I end up with a scrub when I do pull them. This lot is much better, back to more relics. This round marks the final regular relic round. Lets see what we have to choose from this time:



1. kevin- robinson
2. ryan- lincecum
3. ba benny- hernandez (to chris for ramirez rd5)
4. potch- mccann
5. hiflew- tulowitzki
6. commishbob- holliday
7. Nathan- butler
8. wickedortega- santana
9. brooklynmet- uggla
10. chris- myers
11. axemanohio- dye
12. thingsarefunnerhere- colvin
13. greg- glaus

round two (update)

Only four picks left!! This round went by really quick, let's keep it going!

10 commishbob- Gonzalez
11 kevin- Fukudome
12 hiflew- Lo Duca
13 thingsarefunner- Blalock

The next bunch of picks I am going to use the random.org again and get a list from that. For round four (there are six) I'll flip it, and the same will go for rounds five and six as well.



Time for round two! You guys know how it works, leave your pick in a comment below. Like I said, if you think you may not be able to make a choice due to, you know, real life, don't sweat it! Pick a top X number of cards (how ever many people you have ahead of you) and which ever is highest on your list that is available, I'll put your name on it. Some good picks this time around, so choices may be tough. Also like I mentioned, the list will be reversed. Check out round twos picks:


1 nathan- Ott
2 ba benny- Cano
3 wickedortega- Pujols
4 ryan- Verlander
5 greg- Beltran
6 brooklynmet- Mauer (trade w/axe for piazza rnd1)
7 potch- Berkman
8 axemanohio- Castillo
9 chris- Howard
10 commishbob- Gonzalez
11 kevin- Fukudome
12 hiflew- Lo Duca
13 thingsarefunner- Blalock


As with the previous round, I'll update as soon as I get the comments.

round one (update)

Only three cards left! The final three picks of round one are as follows:

wickedortega- Maybin
BA Benny- Zambrano
Nathan- Jones

Pick your card below and once all the cards are claimed, I'll start round two. For round two I plan on reversing the list, so those who picked last will pick first and those who picked first will pick last. Keep checking! Oh and if you do a list of your say top 6 picks and you are picking sixth and just tell me to claim you the highest ranked card, that works great. A couple of you have done that already and I think it worked well. It allowed me to move the picks faster because I know its not a race and we all have lives outside of blogland so we may not be able to check as frequently as we like. See the rest of the post right under this for the remaining cards and who claimed what.


Round one, featuring regular relics:


Here was the order random.org spit out:

1. thingsarefunner- Oswalt
2. hiflew- Holliday
3. kevin- Smoltz
4. commishbob- Hammels
5. chris- Fielder
6. axemanohio- Piazza (trade w/brookmet for mauer rnd2)
7. potch- Hoffman
8. brooklynmet- Kinsler
9. greg- Zimmerman
10. ryan- Phillips
11. wickedortega- Maybin
12. babenny- Zambrano
13. nathan- Jones

To pick your card, see the above two pictures (you can click on them for a bigger view), choose which card you like and leave a comment stating the card. Also, check the comments above you to see what has been picked so far, so we don't get people picking the same card. There are 13 cards so one for everyone. Start your pickin'!