Mailbag!

I haven't posted in a while (and I'm not really sure if anyone reads this blog anyways), but I had a bunch of mail since my last post. Without further adieu, here it goes!

Lot of Auto's, Jersey's, RC's and RC Parallels off eBay 

I'm not sure why I bought this lot other than the price was less than a few bucks.

2013/14 SP Game Used Luke Schenn Authentic Fabrics Jersey
1999/00 BAP Millenium Valeri Bure Auto
1997/98 BAP Signatures Shea Weber Auto
2006/07 SPx Patrick O'Sullvian Dual Jersey Auto RC /799
2013/14 SPx Winning Materials Dual Jersey Roberto Luongo
2010/11 SP Game Used Kevin Shattenkirk Gold RC Parallel /50
2007/08 Fleer Ultra Ice Medallion Erik Johnson RC Parallel /100
2009/10 Upper Deck Cory Schneider Young Guns SP RC

The next card I picked up was for a reason. In 2003 I bought a single pack of 1996/97 Black Diamond off eBay. I figured it would only contain commons, but was floored when I pulled a Double Diamond RC of Patrick Marleau. I ended up trading this card a few years ago to a guy who is a member from the same trading website that I belong to. He ended up listing it with a Buy it Now of $12, so I did the right thing and bought it back. It's now in PC.


1996/97 Black Diamond Patrick Marleau Double Diamond SP RC

Moving on...Troy Edwards was a first round draft pick of my hometown Steelers, but was a HUGE bust. It always upset me that he just couldn't catch. I will admit I personally owned a replica Troy Edwards jersey at one point in time. It has since been passed on to Goodwill. My friends were over about a month and a half ago and we were talking about the Steelers and former Steelers and my one friend said "Remember when you had a Troy Edwards jersey??" We all had a laugh, but wouldn't you know right after they left that name was just still on my mind. I pulled up ebay, COMC and just did a general search. Normally when I do a search I will look for SPx first (it's always my go-to brand) and then move to SP Authentic. These sets have always just been 2 of my favorites. I could not find his SPx rookie, but there was a few SP Authentic's and his most rare of SP Authetics which is the Excitement Gold Parallel which is serial #'ed to 25. I decided to send an offer to the seller and within about an hour we had settled on a deal. After I had won that, I was intrigued and decided to look at other RC's and RC parallels from this set and found a Ricky Williams Excitement serial #'ed to 250 and grabbed that one too. In the future I might look at getting a few more of these. I like the Excitement's better than the Gold Excitements. The sparkling holofoil really makes these parallels nice!

1999 SP Authentic Excitement Gold Troy Edwards RC Parallel 6/25 & Ricky Williams Excitement RC Parallel 215/250

Since it's football season, it's hard to escape the Manning family. They're basically everywhere, whether it be commercials, magazines, playing on Fox or CBS. Basically, you get Manning's shoved down your throat. I was watching my personal favorite Manning (Eli) one Sunday while cooking for my mom and dad who my wife and I had invited to dinner. The camera had panned over to Archie (Eli & Peyton's father) in the luxury box and it got me thinking about Archie Manning. I asked my dad if he was any good when he played and my dad said he wasn't bad. We had a nice dinner and afterwards watched the rest of the Giants game and then said our goodbyes. After my wife and I cleaned up, I found someone looking to trade some of his vintage cards for newer cards for his son. He had a Gary Carter Rookie Card, which is what I was most interested in. We made a deal for the Carter which was relatively easy and I had just thrown it out there that I was also looking for an Archie Manning Rookie Card and if he had one. He said he would look. I got an email the next day saying he had one, but it was a little off center. The guy sent over a scan and it still looked good to me, so we ended up making a small deal on the Manning also. I am really happy with how this deal went down and I feel I really picked up 2 awesome cards for my PC.

1975 Topps Gary Carter RC & 1972 Topps Archie Manning RC

 Finally, while I am still on the topic of Manning's...a card I have chased after since that set had come out was Eli Manning's SPx Jersey Auto RC. This card has eluded me like none other. I bought boxes of this product when it came out, but never pulled one. I lost on numerous auctions since. I just feel the price is always too high on this card. I understand that he's won Super Bowl's and such, but this card just seems overpriced all over the place. I had been watching one on eBay that was $110 which was the best price, but still couldn't see myself buying it, so I decided to un-watch it on eBay. Then one got listed for $69! I couldn't hit BIN fast enough. So, after 11 years of being a cheapskate, I finally own this card that has eluded me for an eternity and boy does the auto look sweet on this thing! This goes straight to the PC.

2004 SPx Eli Manning Auto/Jersey RC 266/375

Tales of Collecting Folklore

Everyone has those days when something unexpected happens and you pass it on to a friend or family member because it's just too crazy or unreal not to share. In 1996, I had a tale of collecting folklore happen to me. A department store near me was closing it's doors. Although I was sad (because they had great packs of sports cards there), I understood why it was happening. A Wal Mart had opened roughly 5 minutes away from this store and they could no longer compete. My mom and Aunt had been talking about going there to look for decorations and craft type stuff, but I was more interested in going with them to see what they still had left in their sports card section. They decided to make the trip out to this department store, so I made the journey with them. When I arrived it had looked like everything had been picked through and there wasn't much good stuff left. I saw a few packs of Collector's Choice basketball and a lonely pack of Bowman's Best football that had been stuffed in a box of Topps Football and was completely out of place. I grabbed 3 packs of the Collector's Choice and the Bowman's Best football pack. All packs were 30% off, so for 4 packs I am pretty sure I paid less than $6. When we finally got in the car I opened the Bowman's Best pack first. It was the first time I ever opened a pack of this stuff so it was exciting to me to see the shiny exterior. I noticed I pulled a Keyshawn Johnson and it looked different than the other cards, but I couldn't really decipher what was up with it because I was in the back of my mom's Chevy Blazer and it was night time. Any time we drove past a street light I would try to get a glimpse of the card, but I just didn't know what kind of card it was. I put the cards back in the pack and decided to move onto the lame part of the trip which was the Collector's Choice packs. In the first 2 packs I pulled a few rookies of players like Khalid Reeves, B.J. Tyler and pulled a Silver Signature of Eddie Jones. The last pack had a gold signature on the bottom of Chris Smith. Not sure who that guy was, but I was excited to see I pulled one of the hardest parallels (at the time) then I flipped to the next card, also a gold signature! The entire pack was full of gold signature parallels (something I've never seen before)! What made me think of this day was when I actually saw my Aunt at the grocery store last week. I don't see her that often, but when I do it just reminds me of that day. I scoured my small box of basketball cards that I still own and found 2 of these Gold Signature cards that I still have (I sold off the rest when I listed them on eBay when I first signed up in 2001). So scans are below of the day that I pulled a bunch of great cards (from the 90's)...and that Keyshawn Johnson, turned out to be a great pull!

1996 Bowman's Best Keyshawn Johnson Atomic Refractor Parallel RC 

1994/95 UD Collector's Choice Gold Signature Eric Montross & Bill Curley RC Parallels