What eBay Hath Wrought 38: Danica Patrick Cardboard, Metal, Rubber, Cloth, and Plastic

Danica Patrick stuff goes for ridiculous prices on eBay for the most part. A guy with a smaller budget can't usually be choosy when trying to pick up her cards. The same goes for Dale Earnhardt Jr. A strategy that seems to work okay is to throw out low bids on a number of auctions and hope that some of the ones with weird end times or bad pictures fall to you. That's what happened with these two cards. I have been trying to get a relic card from 2013 Press Pass Total Memorabilia for a while, as I like to build mini-sets of my favorite drivers so I have similar-looking cards for a couple of different drivers. I already had a Dale Earnhardt Jr. relic that I pulled from a box, so I wanted to match it up to a Patrick relic. I also will need to add a Tony Stewart at some point in the future.

Then I went and got one with 3 relic swatches. It is hard to read the number here, but I think it is numbered # 08 / 99. I kind of wish these cards had a little more going on as far as pictures of the cars and/or drivers. They look like the inner lining of a purse.

I don't know how this next card fell to me. I put in a lowball offer on it, and somehow when the dust settled I was still the winning bidder. It is a nice acetate card with most of the card being transparent. It is also a very low-numbered card, being # 03 / 13. I guess the lack of a relic or autograph makes this a less desirable card. Still, though, Danica's parallels usually sell for quite a premium. Even her base cards seem to go for as much as or more than inserts from other drivers. So this card was a big steal for me, and the plastic transparency gimmick is one that I like quite a bit. I wish there were more acetate cards on the market. The other thing that I like about this card is that they managed to fit both the car and the driver into the design without making it too crowded. The cars are sometimes just as popular as the drivers who pilot them.

This 2011 Eclipse Spellbound insert is one of those cards that I've been chasing for a while. When I broke open my box of 2011 Eclipse, I pulled Spellbound cards for both Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Tony Stewart, so I had 2/3 of the trifecta already. I just needed this one to finish it out. There's even a little two-color action going on in the tire swatch.

And here's the latest from Danica Patrick and GoDaddy. Her (hopefully) digitally-altered cameo starts at about 8 seconds in:

Pack of the Day 55: 2013 Bowman Retail Box Break Pack 21

I don't have much to say about this batch of cards. The Burnett is a decent card, although it is lacking a bit in the bright colors department. The Morneau card is a pretty decent action shot as well.

We only get one posed card in this group of prospects, with Witherspoon probably not imagining that he has just flied out to end a comeback rally. I honestly haven't heard of any of these guys, at least not in any way that stuck with me.

A couple of Cardinals parallels round out the list. Lohse has had a couple of good years recently. I think I had him on my fantasy teams for at least parts of 2012 and 2013. The Gold parallel for this pack is Yadier Molina.

Rainbow in the Dark 8: Josh Reddick Rainbow Hits

I picked up a couple of parallels for the Josh Reddick rainbows I am building. I got two different cards numbered out of # / 25 for the Bowman / Bowman Chrome rainbow. The Orange Refractor is from Bowman Chrome and is numbered # 23 / 25. The Red Ice parallel is from Bowman and is numbered # 09 / 25. They're both pretty nifty-looking cards.

I also got this Pink Topps Chrome Refractor for the Topps / Opening Day / Topps Mini / Topps Chrome Super Rainbow I've been working on. It is numbered # 2 / 5, making it one of the more rare cards in the rainbow. The pink color clashes wonderfully with all of the green and yellow on the card.

Pack of the Day 54: 2013 Bowman Retail Box Break Pack 20

This pack is pretty pitcher-heavy, with 7 of the 10 cards featuring ball-chuckers. Miller and Wainwright are pretty good pulls. Beachy is a bit meh, and Pujols is pretty good even though I don't actually have much of an opinion on him. I don't think I've ever had him on a Fantasy Baseball team, which is probably why I am so neutral on him.

Among the prospects we have an intensity vs. fun battle, with Freeman and Montgomery taking their work very seriously and Salazar and Villanueva just having a good time. We tend to describe similar appearances differently depending on how the team is doing in the standings. If the team is doing well, serious dudes would be considered cerebral or in the zone, while those same guys would be called out for trying too hard or pressing if the team happened to lose a couple of games in a row.

The same dichotomy exists when players appear to be having fun. If the team is losing we accuse them of not playing hard enough or caring as much as they should, but if the team is doing well we say that the game is coming easy to them or that good chemistry is allowing them to play loose and easy. I would imagine that the way we talk about our sports teams probably has a lot more to do with us than it does with them. There is probably quite a bit of that in the Richard Sherman interview debate, too, but I don't know if I want to get into that right at the moment.

This pack came with a couple of parallels. One is a State and Hometown (I forget what this insert is called, so I call it whatever I want from post to post) parallel of Barry Zito and the Gold parallel features Roy Halladay.

What eBay Hath Wrought 37: Gheorghe Muresan Chronology Auto

I got this '07-'08 Upper Deck Chronology autograph of Gheorghe Muresan, which means I have all but one of his non-serial-numbered autograph issues. The one I don't have is the '06-'07 Chronology autograph. I'll have to scan them all someday. I am thinking about going through my player collections and other cards from my younger collecting days so I can show them off and get some blog material. That will take some time, though. One thing I like about this card is the Juwan Howard cameo in the lower left of the photo. A lot of cards isolate the player against a background design, taking away the chance to see them in the context of the game. I think there is room for both kinds of card design, but I do like to see the whole picture more often than not. Background appearances by other players are one of the Easter eggs that make trading cards fun to look at.

The autograph that still eludes me is Muresan's fellow 7'7" NBA player, Manute Bol. He had a few autograph cards issued, but a great many of them are serially-numbered to less than 50, and a large percentage of those are numbered to 10 or less. So there are just a couple cards out there to chase. I guess I could go the easy route and buy the one that's listed on COMC for $40 plus shipping, but that's a pretty high price point for me. I will probably just keep his name in my eBay search list and wait for the right one to show up there.

Pack of the Day 53: 2013 Bowman Retail Box Break Pack 19

I am entering the last quarter of the box now, so just under a week and I should have this series wrapped up, and only a few months overdue. Dan Haren probably has the best posed shot in this group, looking appropriately intimidating. He also manages to double up the logos on the front of the card, displaying his shoulder patch almost straight on to the camera.

Salvador Perez gets a nice shot here wearing his gear. Hamilton tries to display his patch a la Haren, but his is all tipped over and it ruins the effect. 

Prospects.

That Encinas dude looks like Keanu Reeves to me. David Wright is the Gold parallel, and I only just noticed that he is wearing a 'Los Mets' jersey.

We get a little bit of color in this pack, with a Blue Prospect Chrome Refractor of Michael Snyder, numbered # 160 / 250. I like getting shiny colorful parallels, but mostly they wind up collecting dust in a box somewhere with all the base cards and random inserts.

At the Trade Deadline 15: Sportscards From The Dollar Store

I completed a trade with Sportscards From The Dollar Store. Actually, as of my typing this out on the 19th of January, he has completed the trade. I have been unable to get to the post office during business hours so that I can send his package to the Great White North. The big hits here were some cards from Topps Archives, both 2012 and 2013, especially the Ken Griffey Jr. 1972 Basketball design from 2013 Archives. He also included a Nolan Ryan Colgan's Chips insert from 2013 Panini Cooperstown. In researching it, I found that Ryan has two different Chips in the set, one smiling and one scowling. I wonder if they line up well enough that you could make a .gif of them switching back and forth between Happy Nolan and Mad Nolan?

Next up are a couple of cards of a quarterback with as many playoff victories as Tony Romo. That's right, Tim Tebow. I enjoy reminding the Cowboys fan at my office about that little nugget there. I hope that Romo never wins another playoff game so I can always have that little bit of trivia at my disposal. I can't say that I like the Jets or the Patriots at all, but Tebow did spend some time at each of those places. He may not be a great quarterback and his constant preaching might get a little bothersome, but that stretch of games he started for Denver was a pretty exciting time. I hope he does well in his new job as a college football analyst.

The package included a number of Mariners old and new. Is it just me, or is Alvin Davis wielding a comically large bat?

The football cards included a number of Denver Broncos, who you may have heard are going to be in this year's Super Bowl against the Seattle Seahawks. I like both teams, but I was a Denver fan about a dozen years before I started liking the Seahawks, so I hope Denver can find a way to win it this year. I hope Marshawn Lynch and Russell Wilson have a good game, and I hope that Richard Sherman gets burned on whatever happens to be the key play of the game. His post-game antics after the victory over the 49ers were ridiculous.

Ryan Clady played his college ball for the local Broncos of Boise State University. I am not a BSU fan, although I do have a couple semesters worth of credits at that institution. My loyalties lie with the miserable Vandals of the University of Idaho, so I just pretend the college football season doesn't exist. Knowshon Moreno has had quite a year this year, and Champ Bailey is one of the great long-term Broncos. Jay Cutler probably gets a worse rap than he deserves, but the guy's face just always looks surly and petulant. You can't help but feel like he's a whiner. 

A batch of Houston Rockets added to my collection of cards from my original favorite sports franchise. Tracy McGrady had a lot of promise, but it seemed like the Rockets could never really put everything together in the years that he and Yao Ming anchored the team, and then injuries put an end to that pairing altogether. That Olajuwon in the top row is new to me. I heard a lot of trade rumors surrounding Omer Asik a while back, but it seems like he might stick around. Otis Thorpe was a key member of the Rockets' first Championship team, and Sam Cassell was one of the more visible members of the team during both Championship runs. He also won a title with Boston in 2008, thirteen years after playing on the 1995 Rockets. That's a long spread between titles. I wonder if anyone else has ever won a second title with such a long span in between?

This Team Leaders card gains the honorary vintage title as it is probably the oldest basketball card I own.

The common theme shared by these hockey cards is facial hair. There are a lot of mustaches on display, and one particularly thick beard. I have to admit that I don't know much at all about hockey. I just never got hooked into it like I did the other sports. The cards are visually interesting, though.

I really appreciate the trade. I have a return package all ready to go, and I plan to hit the post office soon to send it.