What eBay Hath Wrought 49: Manute Bol 2010-11 Panini Elite Black Box Signatures

Here is a card I have been chasing for quite a while. Earlier this year I got a Manute Bol relic card, but his signature has been somewhat elusive. This is a sticker autograph, but Panini layered the card in such a way that the sticker forms the middle layer and isn't just a big ugly spot slapped on the front of the card. I don't really mind sticker autos as long as they are integrated well into the design of the card. The ones I take issue with are the stickers just slapped willy-nilly on the card, with no regard for alignment or aesthetics. Bol died in 2010 and given that this is a 2010-11 product, he may have already been gone when this card came to market. That is another reason I don't mind the sticker. 

The back of this card features the serial number, which in this case is # 05 / 49. It came to me all the way from Australia by way of eBay. I guess if I want to build the Manute Bol trifecta, all I am missing is his 1986-87 Fleer Rookie Card. I am rather partial to that set anyway as it contains the Rookie Card of my favorite player of all time, Hakeem Olajuwon (and some guy named Michael Jordan). I may try to track down a copy of Bol's card.

Pack of the Day 66: 20 Cards from 10 Packs

My wife and I were at the store the other day and I thought I would check out the card aisle, since it was a store I hadn't ever been to before. There was a lot of stuff there, but I finally settled on a repack containing 10 packs of cards. I figured it might yield something more interesting than the 2014 Topps Series 1 doubles I would pull from another rack pack of that product, so I gave it a go. I'll be posting the 2 most interesting cards (to me) from each pack I opened.

The first pack I opened was 1989 Donruss. Dave Stewart was the default 2nd-most interesting card, but what I really liked was getting a pack-fresh minty Bo Jackson card. I just realized that I was wearing a pair of my Bo Jackson throwback Nikes on the day I bought this repack. It must have been destiny. And that's really the high point of the repack, so I could just stop here. But I won't.

I also got a pack of 1989 Fleer. I had to include the Astro in the pack in this post, especially with the cameo by the rainbow uniform. And I thought it was fun to pull a Jamie Moyer card, as there probably aren't a lot of 1989 cards featuring guys who were still pitching in the major leagues in 2012.

I think these next two cards came from a rack pack of 2006 Upper Deck, which was a combo pack from Series I and Series II. I liked the big Pirate head on the wall there behind Ian Snell and the shot of Hideki Matsui stretching out.

The next pack was 2011 Heritage. I haven't really been caught up in the Topps Heritage wave, but there are a lot of folks around here who set their calendar by it. Mark Reynolds is one of those guys who you used to pick up on a Fantasy Team because he would hit home runs in bunches, but he would also lead the league in strikeouts. It seems like I would always pick him up on the day after a home run binge, then drop him after he went 0 - for - 4 six games in a row and single-handedly dropped my batting average by a few points. As soon as he was off my roster he would go out and hit five home runs in six games. Sometimes I still think about picking him up and seeing if things will be different this time. B.J. Upton killed my whole Fantasy Baseball season last year. Somehow I got him in every league, and he just stunk.

The 2011 Topps Chrome pack only had four cards in it, so there wasn't a lot of choice. I went with the Joe/y's in the pack. The Votto is some kind of throwback-themed insert, while the Mauer is a base card.

The 2007 Upper Deck Future Stars pack also only had four cards in it. Felix Hernandez was an automatic inclusion, and Matt Cain beat out Johnny Damon and Jon Garland for reasons that I don't fully understand.

For 2007 Topps Series 2 I went with Mark Teixeira and a Jason Michaels/Travis Hafner combo card because chicks dig the long ball. Also, most of the other guys in the pack were guys I'd never heard of or role players who weren't known as power hitters.

The final Upper Deck product in the repack was a pack of 2008 Upper Deck First Edition. I chose the Miguel Montero because it's a bit of a play at the plate and the Prince Fielder because it was the best other horizontal card and would allow me to scan both cards without a bunch of shenanigans.

2012 Topps Opening Day didn't yield a whole lot, but I did get a Mascot card for the Toronto Blue Jays and a decent card of David Ortiz. Ortiz actually made a couple of appearances in the repack, but I tried to limit scans to one per player.

The 2011 Topps Update Series pack didn't have much going on either, but Paul Konerko had a decent card and I felt like he warranted inclusion in this post. Philip Humber got put in here because of his extreme case of 'pitcher face.'

Well, this repack wasn't the greatest ever, not by a long shot. I'd say that the Bo Jackson and Jamie Moyer cards were my favorites, and I guess that tells you everything you need to know about this bunch of cards.

What eBay Hath Wrought 48: 2014 Topps Josh Reddick SP Photo Variation

I am slowly attacking the large pile of mail I had waiting for me after a month away from home. In all the stack yielded 19 posts worth of scans, so I will be spacing them out over at least the next month or so. I don't want to run them all consecutively as that will cause my blog to be perpetually months behind real-time, so I will jump back and forth between February's piled-up mail and whatever new comes to me during the month of March.

There was a card show yesterday that I considered going to, but by the time I got up and got going I just didn't feel like making the trek over to Boise. I didn't really want to go in there without a plan of action, and I wanted to get caught up on scanning all of the stuff I had backed up on my table.

I hadn't planned on doing much with 2014 Topps Series 1, as the two player collections I've been focusing on the most, R.A. Dickey and Josh Reddick, weren't on the initial checklist and didn't have any inserts either. I still won't be doing much with the set aside from building the base set and probably collecting the '89 Minis, but Josh Reddick got one of the short-printed variations and I had to get that. The number on the card is # 416, which is not encompassed by the numbering of the regular Series 1 checklist. He will probably get a base card in Series 2, and it will probably be # 416 on that checklist.

This card has quite a bit going on in the picture. There is plenty of advertising in the background, in the form of stadium signage. Reddick is sporting a beard, swim goggles, a tattoo, a postseason t-shirt, and a football helmet in one hand. He also appears to have spilled that beverage tucked under his arm all over his shirt and hair. There is also a nice cameo by a photographer sitting in the grass taking pictures. My only complaint about this card is that the football helmet is mostly covered up buy the A's logo and the card border, and that Josh's presumably pointing finger is cropped out at the top of the frame.

What eBay Hath Wrought 47: Hulkamania Runs Wild on Me

In 2013 Upper Deck made an employee-exclusive set of purple Precious Metal Gems cards featuring some stars from non-mainstream sports. The checklist includes Michael Phelps, Mike Tyson, Oscar de la Hoya, Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods, and Hulk Hogan. The one card I really wanted was the Hulk Hogan card, but especially when they first released the price was sky-high. They're numbered out of # / 125.

Well, the number of single copies on eBay pretty much dried up, but there was this lot of four copies on there for quite a while. I finally decided to go ahead and get it, with the plan to sell off three copies individually to make some of the money back. I haven't yet got around to that part of it yet, but I'll probably do it soon. In-hand they are very shiny and beautiful. I love this card. This lot is made up of copies # 043 / 125. # 084 / 125, # 102 / 125, and # 103 / 125. I need to find more Metal Universe cards. Something about the finish on the Metal sets just has that 'it' factor for me.

Pack of the Day 65: Rack Packs and Repacks

I purchased a pretty nice repack box and a rack pack of 2014 Topps Series 1 at Wal-Mart. The repack box contained 10 regular-sized retail packs and 5 rack packs, for about the price of your average blaster.

One regular pack and one of the included rack packs were of 2013 Topps Archives. I am very close to being finished with that set, but there are still a few cards that I need. One of the cards on my Want List was this Ted Williams Gallery of Heroes card, which came out of the rack pack. There was some other stuff in there, but this was the main pull of the day for me.

The 2014 Topps pack contained this Miguel Cabrera photo variation as well as a few cards I needed for my set. Not a bad day when it comes to retail stuff. Around the time this post hits the internet I'll be on my way back to Idaho, where my wife says I've got a big pile of 'good mail' waiting for me.

Workin' at the Card Shop 4: Duane's SportsCards Part 2

I had a little bit of free time and went back to Duane's SportsCards for a relatively long dig through the boxes there. I hit one player collection pretty hard, but I also picked up some other stuff.

The first card I grabbed for my stack was the Shannon Sharpe Stadium Club Triumvirate card on the right of that picture. It is die-cut on several sides as well as having various patterns cut out of all the circuitry in the background. I just had to have it. I also picked up one Derek Holland card. I wanted to grab a bunch more stuff of his, but they didn't have any of his cards. Well, they had about 55 of the same Bowman card and a couple of faded autographs but they were overpriced and I gave up on chasing his stuff. There was a small stack of Peyton Manning stuff, but the only card that really stood out to me was that shiny Topps Finest Gems card in the center of the scan. It's shiny.

The player collection I really hit hard on this trip was Randy Johnson. I have been a little frustrated over picking the wrong team in the Nachos Grande group break for pulling Randy Johnson cards (although I shouldn't complain as I've come away with some decent Mariners cards), so I thought I'd go after some singles to ease the pain. In the first row are some 1989 cards, Rookie Cards if my memory serves me correctly. On the bottom row are cards that stood out to me for various reasons. That Pinnacle card features a giant camera, the Ovation card has texture all over, especially the laces on the baseball pattern which are raised, and that other card is I believe a Studio card featuring Randy holding some broken bats. I'd go look at the card and verify the set, but it's like three steps away in a box and I'd have to get up out of this warm bed.

It was like 18 degrees in Arlington, Texas today, which is ridiculous. It has no right to be that cold here when I came all the way from Idaho in February/March specifically to get away from winter.

Here are a few more cards I grabbed because they stood out from the rest in some way. That Ionix card is pretty shiny, if I recall correctly. I don't remember why I selected that Topps card in the middle of the top row. There was a reason, though. The Estrellas card on the top right I got because it's all in Spanish and also shiny. I got the SP cards because they are die-cut and I remember the various SP cards being awesome back when I was a lad collecting NBA cards. Also, the little headshot on that middle card features a nice hand-shelf. For the uninitiated, a hand-shelf is a common practice in senior pictures and glamour shots in which the chin is supported on the hand, lending a thoughtful or playful air to the photo. The Metal card I selected because 1) shiny and 2) FLAME ARM!

And here is a Studio card featuring the Locker Backdrop. Randy looks pretty happy here. I think it's a trap.

And for horizontal cards we've got a Select card featuring a nice high-five as well as Johnson taking a break. That middle card has got a fuzzy attempt at 3D or something going on on the front, but features Johnson taking pictures with a camera on the back again, and the UD3 card is a Pitcher at the plate card that is a popular theme on the blogs.

I also purchased a Hobby box of 2012-13 NBA Hoops, as the dude had the cards on sale and I've been itching to build a basketball set for some time now. I haven't collated all of the cards yet, but I think I got most of the set out of the box. There isn't much as far as inserts go, but I did pull this autograph of my favorite current Houston Rockets player, Chandler Parsons. It's a sticker auto, but it is nice enough I guess. The other autograph from the box was a dude who has 36 career NBA games and no real stats to speak of. Boo! I was hoping to pull one of the Hakeem Olajuwon buyback autographs, but that was really a pipe dream. I don't even know what the odds on those are. Anyway, it was interesting to open a box that was all really basic cards and not a million colorful parallels and whiz-bangs. I don't really know how I feel about it. On the one side, it is a little refreshing. On the other hand, it feels a little like something is missing, like why would I pay normal box prices for a product that doesn't have all that stuff? I am still trying to figure out how hard I will pursue the rest of the set. I haven't yet found a site like Just Commons that sells basketball commons at decent prices.

Breaking it Down 7: eBay Bowman Sterling Padres

One of the online case breakers whose breaks I watch on occasion busted open quite a bit of Bowman Sterling. I forget how many boxes it was, but there were something like 72 autographs promised based on the number of boxes being opened. I was hoping to get the Astros or something, but the only team that wound up in my price range was the Padres. Bowman Sterling is a prospect-heavy product, and the Astros farm system is too good right now to get that team on the cheap. There were still a couple of good Padres with autographs in the set, though, so I thought I might have a chance to get a Gyorko or something.

I did not get a Gyorko autograph. I did get some sort of parallel, which is numbered something like # 084 / 199. I also got a base card of Max Fried. That's it. Because I didn't get a hit, they included a pack of Bowman Chrome with my cards. Keven Youkilis there is a base Refractor, so I have that going for me. I guess this wasn't even really worth posting about, but I have a relatively limited number of posts queued up to last until I get back home from Texas, and I am rapidly running out of material.