2014 Gypsy Queen Framed Mini Relic Black Derek Holland # 04 / 10

I've got a quick post here, since I am a bit short on time. I saw this card pop up on my feed and couldn't help putting in a small bid to see if I would get lucky. For the price of a couple packs of cards I got this Derek Holland 2014 Topps Gypsy Queen Framed Mini Relic Black card, numbered # 04 / 10 and featuring a nice four-color patch. That's some good stuff right there.

I do have one issue with it, and that is that the seller didn't secure the end of the top loader, so when it arrived the card was hanging halfway out of the holder. There is a little ding on one of the corners, but it is hard to tell from the auction scans whether it was already present or caused by the card flying around in the envelope during shipping. I am still pretty happy with the card, so I left positive feedback with a remark about the packaging and relatively low star ratings for the condition of the item.

Click Here to View Cart 3: Dog Days of Summer with the Texas Rangers

I have an eBay search saved that pulls up everything for my favorite players. Usually there is just a mixture of base cards and inserts from recent sets, but occasionally something pops up that makes me take notice. Here is one of those things:

Under my Derek Holland search there was this picture of him with his dog, which appeared to be some sort of card issued in partnership with a dog food company. I did a couple of other searches, and this seller seemed to have the eBay market cornered on cards of Texas Rangers and their dogs. I very nearly ponied up the Buy It Now price that the guy was asking, but I eventually came across a page on the Texas Rangers website offering a full set of them for about the price the seller was asking for two singles. The set is called 'Dogs Safe at Home' and was put out in conjunction with the Humane Society of North Texas and Merrick Pet Care. Looking at it now, the site tells you they are 4 x 6-inch photos, but when I ordered I was under the impression that they were standard-size cards. The backs are blank.

There are 27 photos in the set, and I picked a few of my favorites to share here. First up are a couple of little dogs, both Chihuahuas that live with Shin-Soo Choo and Alex Rios. I've always been a big dog kind of guy, so these little dogs aren't really my type. I think it's pretty funny that Choo's dog is wearing a little dress. 

Here are a couple of dogs that were still awaiting adoption at the shelter when they were making the set. Part of the intent of the set was to increase adoptions at the Humane Society, so it makes sense to show off some of the dogs that are available. Most of the players are featured in street clothes (I always want to use the term civilian clothes for clothes that aren't a uniform; it took me a while to remember the regular world's term for them), but Beltre was able to sneak some Rangers gear in there. The team manager, Ron Washington, even gets in on the action with his own card.

Matt Harrison gets into this post because his card features a special designation, noting that his dog Bella is a Humane Society rescue. Both of his dogs together weigh about 1/3 of my Basset Hound and about 1/5 of my wife's Labrador. Geovany Soto gets the 'Ultimate Cuteness' award with a chubby little French Bulldog puppy. Look at it! It's super cute!

And finally, we get Yu Darvish and his dogs, a Poodle-Schnauzer mix and a Cane Corso, which is apparently an Italian variant of the Mastiff. Pretty cool stuff. The set also came with a coupon for dog treats and a listing of Humane Society of North Texas shelters, as well as some tips for caring for your dog.

For those who are curious about whether their favorite Ranger appears in the set, here is the checklist:

Leonys Martin

Alexi Ogando

Joakim Soria

Michael Choice

J.P. Arencibia

Colby Lewis

Jason Frasor

Donnie Murphy

Tanner Scheppers

Jurickson Profar

Shawn Tolleson

Robinson Chirinos

Elvis Andrus

Neal Cotts

Prince Fielder

Mitch Moreland

Robbie Ross Jr.

Martin Perez

Yu Darvish

Geovany Soto

Matt Harrison

Ron Washington

Adrian Beltre

Engel Beltre

Alex Rios

Derek Holland

Shin-Soo Choo

Rainbow in the Dark 21: A Couple of 2014 Bowman Derek Holland Parallels

I picked up a couple more parallels for my Derek Holland 2014 Bowman rainbow. This one is the green-bordered version and is numbered # 037 / 150. There is not much to say about it. At this point I am pretty close to having everything outside of the various # 1 / 1 cards and maybe some of the # / 10 cards as well. It will be interesting to see how many parallel versions Bowman Chrome adds to the rainbow.

I also got this Red Ice parallel, which is numbered # 09 / 25. There's not much to say about it, except that I think the different Ice parallels are pretty good-looking cards. I think I still need Holland's Purple Ice card, but I am not sure. I'll have to look at my checklist.

Topps Series 2 supposedly hits the shops today. I will probably grab a box of it and see what I get. My next big project will have to be gathering all of the Series 2 Power Players code cards so I can complete the set and theoretically be in the running for the big end-of-season prizes. Topps hasn't been supporting the weekly portion of the program at all, which seems fairly typical of them, being the bunch of goofballs that they are. I should just up and quit and forget about the Series 2 Power Players. But now that I went out and chased down all of Series 1 I am committed to Series 2. It's one of those unwritten rules, like the one about not throwing your bat at third base or being careful not to hurt someone's feelings by tagging them too hard.

Rainbow in the Dark 18: Derek Holland of the Texas Ovaries

I added a pile of cards to my 2014 Bowman Derek Holland rainbow. In a perfectly-ordered world I would have put them into this post in some rational order like least rare to most rare or where they fall in relation to each other on a color wheel or something, but instead I just put them in the order in which they were stacked on my desk. This first one is the Silver parallel, numbered # 39 / 75. I have to admit that the border colors on this year's Bowman parallels feel a little flat, but I don't recall the colors from last year's base set being that much more vibrant. I think I must have all of the Refractors from the Bowman Chrome release stuck in my head from last year as the root of that impression. Probably once this year's Bowman Chrome set comes out I will begin to see this year's rainbows as being just as colorful as last year's cards.

This is the Black parallel, which is limited to 25 copies. The one I got was # 07 / 25. One thing I like about this card over Holland's 2013 Topps card is that it features his sleazy mustache, which I believe he has since removed from his face.

I was able to secure the blank-back # 1 / 1 from the Topps Vault's eBay money machine. It's got the 1 / 1 sticker complete with hologram (counterfeit-proof!) and serial number, it's embossed with the Topps Vault logo, encased in plastic and sealed with a Topps Vault sticker...

...and it has a matching certificate of authenticity! So I do have a # 1 / 1 card for the Holland rainbow, but as it isn't something you can actually pull from packs I think it is excluded from true 2014 Bowman # 1 / 1 status and instead is in the category of 'related collectibles' or something. I don't know. I make up these rules on the fly.

Moving back toward the other end of the spectrum from # 1 / 1 discussion, we have the Orange parallel, which is numbered to # 241 / 250. Pretty fancy stuff. The one thing I still don't like about Bowman is the team logo placement / photo alignment. The team logos always seem to be planted somewhere in the crotch region. This can be especially embarrassing in certain scenarios. I believe last year David Ortiz had an interesting pair of dangling Red Sox. If you moved Derek Holland a couple inches to the left it would look like the Texas 'T' was a diagram of the female reproductive system printed on the front of his pants. 

And finally I've got the Gold parallel, which is # 17 / 50. There are still quite a few Holland parallels that I don't have, but this covers a good portion of the more common ones. I think I recently got his base card, too, which is an important but often overlooked part of the rainbow.

Rainbow in the Dark 14: A Small Stack of Derek Holland

I have begun to gather portions of a 2013 Topps Rainbow for Derek Holland. I've been really disorganized about it and so I don't really know what I have and what I don't have. Not a very good way to go about building a collection like this. Anyway, up above is his base card from the Topps Mini set. It looks just like the base card but it's smaller, so they look the same in scans.

I think these four are the Gold parallel from the flagship set, a Wal-Mart Exclusive Blue parallel, a regular base card, and a Blue Refractor from Topps Chrome. The Gold card is numbered out of # / 2014, and I believe the Blue Refractors are numbered out of # / 199.

This group includes Holland's Emerald parallel, a Chrome Refractor, some blue sparkle things (Silver Slate Wrapper Redemption?), a Chrome Sepia Refractor numbered out of # / 75, a Chrome base card, and a Target Exclusive Red parallel.

I guess there's not much more to say about these. Holland is coming back slowly from a knee injury. I guess he's been throwing some batting practice and whatnot, but isn't cleared for actual games yet. They say his arm is at 100% but his knee is still only at about 80%. No word yet on what percentage his mustache is at.

What eBay Hath Wrought 67: The Great Bo Jackson Box Loader Autograph Exchange Part 1 (of 3)

You may recall that I pulled the above card from a box of 2014 Topps Heritage. It is a pretty cool prize, and quite limited (either # /10 or # / 20, depending on where you look) and the signatures are on-card rather than stickers, but the design of the box loader autographs leaves me a bit cold. The embossed portraits just don't quite do it for me.

So I decided after a bit of internal debate to sell it and see what I could get in return for it (plus a blaster's worth of eBay Bucks I had in my account). This is the first part in a three-part series, and is the largest portion of the eBay trade I worked out.

I had looked at buying a full set of this year's Opening Day Blue parallels, but I was able to get this lot of 162 cards from the set for a relative steal. I ordered most of the rest of the set from JustCommons.com, and I think that brings me down to five cards needed for the set at a significantly lower price than full sets are going for. Normally I don't think I would be able to do such a thing, but this lot went really cheap and contained many of the bigger stars, like Puig, Jeter, Harper, Kershaw, and Rivera.

After accounting for the going rate for six or seven individual star cards, the other 155 cards basically came to me for free. At least according to 'collector math.' These cards are beautiful. I might just put them in a binder with last year's Opening Day blue parallels and stare at them all for hours. If R.A. Dickey's base card in Series 2 looks like his Opening Day card, I will probably try to collect the rainbow. Josh Reddick's card isn't amazing in this set like it was last year, so I probably won't be chasing the rainbow for it.

Anyway, here are a whole bunch of scans:

Rainbow in the Dark 11: 2013 Topps Derek Holland Factory Set Orange

I didn't quite get my fill of rainbows from last year's sets, so I have kind of started chasing a Derek Holland 2013 Topps rainbow. This is probably the card that started the quest off, as the Factory Set Orange parallels are hard to come by; a lot harder than their # / 230 print run would have you believe. Just as there aren't a lot of people busting Toys'R'Us packs to resell the Purple parallels, there aren't a lot of folks out there busting factory sets to get the Orange parallels. I like that powder blue uniform that Holland is wearing. The card popped up for sale, and I got it.

This one is numbered # 225 / 230. Some of the cards in this rainbow might not pop up too often, as 2014 products are releasing and people will probably focus on that more than busting old base product. Still, I've grabbed a couple of good cards from this rainbow already that I will be posting soon.

Holland is starting the 2014 season on the 60-day DL, but I hope that once he returns he'll be able to put up some solid numbers and stay in the league for a few more years. As I type this, the Dodgers and Diamondbacks are playing the first game of the season in Australia, with Scott van Slyke being the early hero with a 2-run homer off of Wade Miley. Andre Ethier also has an RBI, and the Dodgers are up 3-0 behind Clayton Kershaw in the top of the 5th. I will have to wait and see the result of the game tomorrow, as it is very late and I am going to sleep for a couple of hours before my kids wake me up.