Don't you hate it when....

So, I had a VERY successful week of selling some things from my spring cleaning closet clean out. Due to this, I have had a nice chunk of change in my Paypal account. I sent a bunch to my checking account and left some for some eBay grabs.

This first bunch of cards I purchased for 49 cents each and I am excited about each one.

1995 Upper Deck Electric Gold Reggie Roby

1995/96 Upper Deck Electric Court Gold Scott Brooks

1997/98 Stadium Club First Day Issue Rodney Rogers

1997/98 Stadium Club First Day Issue Calbert Cheaney

I was a big fan of Cheaney as a kid, so I was excited to grab this parallel of him. The Electric Golds were inserted 1:36 packs, so picking up those was just icing. As for the Rodney Rogers card, why not grab another First Day Issue? These don't scan as nice as I would like, but I feel they are sweet additions to my 90s collection.

Moving on, I had also been watching a few auctions of a collector who was selling off a bunch of 2005/06 SP Authentic Future Watch Auto RC's. I have a bunch of these currently, but there were 4 that I was planning on bidding on. After being outbid on 2 of the cards, I made sure that I won the other 2. I was floored to pick these 2 up for less than $14.

2005/06 SP Authentic Future Watch Dion Phaneuf Auto RC /999
2005/06 SP Authentic Future Watch Cam Ward Auto RC /999

2 awful looking autos, but I am excited to have them nonetheless. Seriously though, how does that auto above say Cam Ward? I'm baffled!

Now to address the title of this blog post. A seller on eBay had a bunch of auctions listed. All of the items were listed less than a dollar and combined shipping was ridiculously cheap. There was 1 card in particular that I had been looking for, for ages. It had been on my eBay alerts and when the alert went off on my phone, I was so excited I had to tell my wife (who really did not care at all). So, I bid on a bunch of this sellers items (especially the card I had been looking for) and won them all for under a dollar each. Below is the huge haul

1997/98 Donruss Studio Hard Hats Teemu Selanne /3000
2007/08 UD Artifacts Frank Mahovolich Silver /100
1998/99 Black Diamond Double Diamond Red Mark Messier /2000
2006/07 SP Authentic Limited Martin St. Louis /100
2007/08 SP Authentic Limited Shane Doan /100
2005/06 SP Game Used Gold Scott Niedermayer /100
2002/03 UD MVP Classics Golden Pascal Rheaume /50
2005/06 UD MVP Platinum Jan Hrdina /25
2000/01 Black Diamond Precious Gems Diamond Gold David Gosselin RC /100
2015/16 Upper Deck Young Guns Emile Poirier RC SP
2013/14 Fleer Retro Shawn Bradley Star Rubies /150
1999 Upper Deck UD Exclusives Jason Dickson /100
1999 Upper Deck UD Exclusives Rafael Roque /100
1999 Upper Deck UD Exclusives Matt Clement /100
2000 Upper Deck UD Exclusives Bruce Chen /100
1999 SPx Radiance Corey Koskie /100
2003 Topps Finest Gold Boss Bailey Gold Refractor RC /50
2003 Donruss Elite Status DeWayne Robertson Die Cut RC /63
2014 Bowman Orange Allen Hurns RC /299
2003 Fleer Focus Anniversary Silver Joey Harrington /25

When the package arrived, I sifted through the pile as fast as I could looking for that 1 card that I've been looking for and....it wasn't there. Don't you hate it when this happens? I guess the seller either a) forgot to pack it with my order - or - *GULP* b) sent my card to someone else. I'm really hoping it's not choice b. I messaged the seller and he responded right away to let me know he was away, but would check when he got back home. Now the wait begins. I'm really hoping he just forgot to send it.

Have a Happy Easter everyone!

Turn Back The Clock Break!

I love sports cards from the 90's. It takes me back to a great time in my life of hanging with friends and just being a kid. When I saw a Jumbo box of 1995 Action Packed Football listed for less than 10 bucks a few months ago, I jumped at the chance to own it. When the auction ended and I had won, I asked my wife if she would want to partake in the opening process. She kindly obliged. That is one thing she loves about my hobby...BREAKING PACKS. A week and a half after the auction had ended went by and the box arrived safely on my doorstep on a Saturday afternoon. The problem of that was that we had company staying with us that weekend from out of town, so it would be impossible to sneak off and break this bad boy open. I decided to take it up to my den and put it away for a weekend where she and I had nothing to do. Well, last night after we ran errands and I sold some things on a trade site, it was the perfect time to start the "rippage" of packs. I grabbed the box out of the closet and we commenced the breaking. Now for those who are not familiar with this product, below are the specs:

• 24 Packs Per Box
• 10 Cards Per Pack
• Quick Silver Parallels Inserted 1:6
• Rocket Man Inserts 1:12
• 24kt Gold Parallels 1:72

 

The base card design features the usual from Action Packed, the photo of the player popping right off the card! The helmet of the current team in the top right and the players last name flowing down the right side and into the Action Packed logo with the year. Back in 1995, I bought a ton of this product, but never tried my luck at a box. Here goes with the break:

Base Card Design below

Front

Back

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rookie design was much similar in the front, but only reversed. The players last name is on the left side, with the team logo above it with the name flowing right into the Action Packed logo and year.

Front

Back

 

 

The back of the Rookie Cards feature sort of a spotlight design on the players photo, the players college statistics are up above with a little bit of information about the player. On this card, Action Packed wants you to know that J.J. Stokes "doesn't win races ---just games"....well someone tell that to the 49ers!

As specified, we did receive the correct amount of Quick Silver Parallels. The best one being Tony Boselli. The rest of the Quick Silvers were pretty much commons.

 Also, we pulled 2 Rocket Man inserts. When this product was released in 1995, I can only remember pulling one of these and it was of Natrone Means. I think we did better in this box by pulling Michael Irvin and Errict Rhett

Well, the break was fun, but I was a little upset that we didn't pull a 24kt Gold Parallel. So, we decided to just put together the set. I am missing only 1 card, #25. I'm not sure who the player is. When we got to the cards in the 70's I noticed I had 2 #76's, but the Steve Young looked off. See below:

They both look like #76 to me. I flipped them over to discover....

We had actually pulled a 24kt Gold Parallel and a good one at that! All in all a great break and my wife and I had a blast! If anyone has a duplicate of card #25 in this set, please let me know, I would really like to complete this set and I'm sure we could work out some sort of deal. Thanks for reading folks!

Who?

It happens all the time when your hobby is collecting sports cards..."what's that you say?" How about pulling a rare card of someone you've never heard of. It has happened way too many times to myself and I have to say, it drives me crazy. I have been saying that lately I've been selling quite a few items and downsizing my collection. On the weekends, I've been going through boxes and getting rid of anything I think I can move (whether it be on eBay or trading sites). I've been rather successful lately at getting rid of large chunks of stuff that I just either forgot that I owned or stuff that just meant nothing to me. Today, when looking at this box labeled "Baseball Parallels", I stumbled upon a card I forgot I had. Let me take you back to a few years ago, we'll say 2009 or 2010. I was at my local card shop and I was purchasing a few packs. Normally my routine is, buy some mid-to-high-end product, then scour the loose pack bins that they have in the middle of the shop and pick a few odds-and-ends. I think I picked up a bunch of hockey packs and then grabbed a pack of old Upper Deck baseball and an old pack of Fleer Ultra football. I remember the hockey packs being a total bust, but what was yielded in the Upper Deck baseball and Fleer Ultra football were great (if you are into oddball players). If I hadn't looked in that "Baseball Parallels" box, I would have totally forgotten that I had this card. I remember when I opened the pack and I was sifting through the cards and I saw Star Rookie, I got excited....then I was like "Who???" Also, for my own pleasure, I decided to show off my other pull from the Fleer Ultra pack. I know who that player is, but some people might not.

....from the Fleer Ultra pack

1997 Fleer Ultra Jim Druckenmiller Platinum Medallion RC 

 ...and the "WHO???"

1999 Upper Deck Damon Minor Star Rookie Upper Deck Exclusives Level 2 /10

 

March Madness!

Hello everyone. I hope everyone out there is getting ready for March Madness and has their brackets filled out. I just finished mine about 3 hours ago. Anyways, on to sports card talk. Lately, I haven't really been buying a lot of stuff as I had stated in a previous post. I've actually been selling more, and not just sports cards. I have sold some toys I had while I was a kid and made a nice profit from it. I sold a Daffy Duck Pez dispenser, a gun that shoots mini yellow pellets, 2 Spit Balls - which are these rubber balls of a squirrel head and a red haired kid with a baseball hat on that spit water, a Coke keychain from the 80's and 1 sports card which was a Michael Hutchinson RC and that netted me this gem that I had been watching for over a month on my eBay watchlist:

2002/03 SPx Yao Ming 2 Color Jersey Auto RC 166/999

After the purchase of the Yao, I still had some funds in Paypal left over and decided to take a chance on the next card. If you are an avid hockey fan, you surely know the story of Jonathan Drouin. Due to his current situation his card prices have plummeted. I figured I would take a chance on his SP Authentic Auto RC, which I picked up at an AMAZING price. I figure for a Top 5 Draft Pick, it wouldn't be that big of a gamble. For now this one is headed in my PC box (with the rest of the cards in this post). Although I absolutely despise the design on these cards, it's still a decent card of a young star in the making.

2014/15 SP Authentic Future Watch Jonathan Drouin RC Auto /999

Finally, I just wanted to show a card that I have had for a while now. The rarity of these cards is remarkable and they rarely are ever available for purchase. A lot of times when they are, they will sell really quickly. Around this time last year, I had a day off of work. I did some chores around the house, and was winding down to relax. I decided to look at some of my old Pittsburgh Penguins game programs from when I would go to games to see Crosby in his rookie season. I was glancing at some of the rosters and the names were just a blast from the past. Lasse Pirjeta, Cory Cross, Ryan VandenBussche, Rico Fata, Niklas Nordgren and a guy that I enjoyed the most watching...Andy Hilbert. I wondered what the heck he was doing lately. I started doing some internet research and read some things about him. After about a hour or so, I decided to see if I had any cards left of him. When I got through the last box of hockey cards I had, I realized I did not own one. I pulled up eBay to see what cards of his were available. I found a few from sets I had collected back in the late 90's - early 00's. I decided to try the Highest Price search option to see what his best cards out there were being offered for. The 3rd one down on the list caught my eye instantly. I gave it a few minutes of thought and decided to just pull the trigger for $30. It's been in my PC ever since. If you ever see one of these cards at a reasonable price, just buy it. These cards are rarely ever seen or available for sale and if it's a player you like or enjoyed watching, it's worth it to just scoop it up.

1998/99 SPx Andy Hilbert Spectrum RC 1/1

That's all I have for now. Good luck in your brackets everyone!