Pack Break: 2013 BBM Legendary Foreigners 2 Deep Impact

A very rare pack break as I haven't been super interested in any new product (and I totally blew my card budget, more on that in a week or so). Something popped up that I consider an insta-buy, and as a bonus it was from a seller I have ordered from in past who usually has others things in his store, like oddball Japanese baseball packs. I will never turn down reasonably priced BBM packs, especially from this set which I have a few cards on my wantlist.

Rockies Topps Now Player's Weekend Review

Sometimes I really don'y know myself. I say I don't like Topps Now and I really wasn't too sure about Players Weekend, but here I am buying Topps Now cards of Players Weekend cards.

I bought this set last year when I didn't really like the Rockies road grey jerseys, but this year I really liked the home black and purple, so I didn't hesitate to pick up the set. 

Although this year was not a straight forward as this year. Last year was a 5 card set. Simple. This year was a five card set, but if you bought 5 sets you got a bonus card and if you bought 10 sets you got two bonus cards. Fearing the cost on the secondary market, and the scarceness of some Topps Now Cards (I am still looking for the Neshek from last years post-season set), I was suckered into the ten sets and two bonus cards. So if anyone wants to buy a set from me, I have 9 for sale.

Also, like last year, the Rockies had a 6 game winning streak, so another bonus card will be on it's way, which is a plus.

Check out my Cards from COMC

COMC package day is always one of favorite days, I usually only make an order every 4 months or so, and not only do I get the COMC cards I picked up, I also get my "Shipping to Canada is Crazy" Mailbox cards, including, yes, another 2013 Ramon Hernandez, the last non-printing plate needed, the mini black numbered to #5.

2016 Stadium Club - Rockies Custom Card Re-Do

Since rebooting in 2014, Stadium Club has been about the photos, full bleed, gloss stock with high quality photos. But for Rockies fans, it has been kind of boring. Sure we got a nice Todd Helton in 2014 and another winner in 2015 Drew Stubbs, but other than that, pretty much straight forward baseball card photos. So this year I decided to make the set my way, with my pictures, for the most part, while keeping the blatantly ripped off 1997 Fleer design.

The above Trevor Story photo is from opening day and while not a great action photo, it works with what he did on that day. A case where the tale the picture tells is more important than the actually picture.

Archives Sampler

Same days I don't look forward going to the LCS. I know I need supplies and want to support the local guy, but I feel kind of like a douche buying supplies for cards that I obviously didn't buy from him. Not that I don't want to buy from him, but being in Canada it is a hockey focused store and the baseball he does have seems really overpriced too me. So this trip, after passing on the $8.00 packs of Gypsy Queen, I decided to try out some Archives, probably my second favorite yearly set that Topps does. My 3 packs gave me nothing but base and no Rockies (so I borrowed some scans from Zistle), but I did get to rip some wax.

Binder 9

I have seen a lot people around doing this, so I took some time to go through my collection and see what I could come up with for my top 9 cards, I started limited to baseball, but there was a few that I really didn't want to leave off, so it became multi-sport.

Check Out My Tek (Acetate Appreciation)

I was pretty excited when my order from COMC.com arrived, it had been a long time since I got my stash shipping and it included all my mailbox service cards, including all my Topps Tek. I was excited to post them until I saw how crappy my scanner makes them look, but I felt the need to show them off anyway. The one that did show up was the "Disco-fractor" auto of Carlos Gonzalez, numbered to 50 and on card.

Ebay Package from Japan

I never shy away from ordering from Japan, for some reason packages come faster and cheaper from across the ocean than from the States. The latest one started with the last 3 Rockies I needed to complete the 2013 Sega Card-Gen team set. The now former Rockie Micheal Cuddyer, along with a 7 star Carlos Gonzalez and one star Chris Nelson, who has bounced around the majors since leaving Colorado. With combined shipping being offered it was time to check for any other interesting goodies, and a couple were found.

Platinum Zistle Trade

Another Zistle trade, this time sending some early 90's Upper Deck hockey away for baseball. 15 of the 16 cards I received we from 2014 Bowman Platinum, the only exception being the above Carlos Gonzalez from this years Finest set. Not a card that was high on my wantlist, but I wanted to see if these cards were are ugly in person as the look in scans. My opinion on this set has mellow from "Oh my God, that is the worst looking card design I have ever seen", to "Yup, it's ugly alright". Ever year Topps Finest pushes the boundaries of terrible looking baseball cards, and this year is no exception.
 To clease the eyes I did scan a few of the better looking cards from a set that I really like to design of.

Maybe Topps Bunt Isn't All Bad

Things are very slow in the card front around here, so after scrambling through the scanned folder I found something that I had totally forgot about. Back in June I downloaded the Topps Bunt app, the virtual trading card game and starting messing around with, buying packs, making a few trades, and it turned out to be a fun little time waster. Then I heard people were actually selling these digital cards on the secondary market. So after pulling an Xander Bogaerts insert I put it up on ebay to test the waters. The auction ended at $7.56, almost 8 bucks for a card that does not actually exist! So with a basically free $7.56 in my paypal I added the card below to my collection.

Zistle Trade #28

Another smaller Zistle trade, In exhcange for some pirates BucCollector sent back a few randoms from the want-list. The Carlos Gonzalez above was the lone Rockies card, a Diamond Star from 2011 Topps.

Just a Taste: 2014 Platinum (w/ Small Review)

Along with the 5 packs of Gypsy Queen, I picked up 5 packs of 2014 Bowman Platinum. This is a product that I haven't bought much over the years, but have always like the looks of. After seeing the sell-sheet for this years release and really digging the base design, I flirted with buying a box or two, but the low interest and lower resale value scared me off a little. I don't expect to make money off cards, but I have seen way to many bad box breaks of this stuff to drop $120 on a full box. My 5 Packs didn't bring anything special, but the odds were against me with that small of a sample.

TMV Spring Cleaning Loot

 I am a couple weeks behind on things so I am just finally getting around to posting some stuff that has been paying around for a while. This time is some free cards from the Too Many Verlanders spring cleaning giveaway. I managed to scoop up the Rockies and Redskins and was very happy with the results. Starting off with the Rockies card that was visible on the pile, a Carlos Gonzalez 1972 style mini that I needed.

Acetate Appreciation: 2013 Pinnacle - Clear Vision

Not an acetate card in the truest sense, but a set I have been looking forward to posting about, it just took this long for me to finally get one. The newest incarnation of Pinnacle fell kind of flat for me, I still can't get past Panini having to remove logos, but the insert were interesting.

Here we have the "Clear Vision" inserts, coming in ten parallels (five for hitters and five for pitchers). The cards are made in two layers, the top or front of the card being a shiny foily layer with a cutout, and the bottom or back of the cards being acetate should which parallel, this one being a double, with a cloudy background. I couldn't capture it on a scan, but if you hold the cards sideways and look at the edge you can see this pretty clearly. Pretty underwhelming as far as the acetate part, but the multiple layers make for a pretty interesting card.

Another Zistle Trade

One of my goals for 2013 was to trade more and so far it's off to a good start. Another trade with LV's TTM autographs and Baseball Cards through Zistle featuring some of my favorite sets. Starting off with the first tall-boy baseball card to enter my collection, a Howard Johnson 1994 Extra Bases card, I know I bought a bunch of hockey cards this size as a kid so I must have some 6 pocket pages somewhere. Also some Rockies minis and a Yorvit Torrealba who is back with Colorado on a minor league deal. The rest included some 1992 Pinnacle series 2 and 1995 Upper Deck, two sets I love, but have so few of I haven't really thought about finishing them. A 1971 style Ryan Zimmerman and some Gypsy Queen minis, I love the black borders and the Carlos Ruiz is one of my favorite cards of 2012. The whole thing finished off with a lone Redskin, Sultan McCullough who played one game with Washington and I think finished his career in the CFL.

2012 Gypsy Queen Box Break 2 Results

Box 2 has been cracked and I will not break it down as much because I mixed the minis up. The hits improved on the box big time, Carlos Gonzalez was on the top of my "guys I need auto's of" list that that pull was nice, I don't collect Lincecum but probably would if he wasn't a Giant, I despise Upton, and the Heisey is a lame pull, but a fun box overall. The real highlight of this box was no one double, in the whole box, there was not two of the same card, awesome.

Over two boxes I am only missing 18 cards from the base set with 77 doubles. I really like this set, scans don't do the cards justice.