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| Here's one for Jeff, who I know loves the Walking Dead and someecards |
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| I have no interest in the Indians, this just always makes me think of opening day |
Showing posts with label Play at the Plate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Play at the Plate. Show all posts
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Happy Easter! Jesus and the MLB season come back from the dead today
Sunday, February 24, 2013
2013 trade package #8: Play at the Plate nails the tag again
So I got home from work on Friday and noticed a nice sized card box sticking out of my mailbox. I didn't think I was expecting anything like that and only sort of figured things out when I recognized the name of Brian of Play at the Plate. While I was awaiting a certain item from him (which he promises will arrive soon, and I can't wait to show off!) I certainly wasn't thinking he'd be sending me a stuffed 300-count box full of cards! I was extremely happy with all the loot I got to go through, and here are just a few highlights:
A couple unopened packs of 1992 Stadium Club football! It's always fun busting packs, no matter what era they're from, and Stadium Club usually features outstanding photography.
Out of the 30 cards, these are the three players whose names I recognized, which makes sense since they were all big-time stars in their day. No surprise that I didn't know the rest since I wasn't really following football at that age (I would have been nine at the time). As expected, though, these look great.
One thing I liked about the design that year (I believe baseball did the same thing) was to feature that player's Topps RC on the back. I decided to show this one off since that very card was Riesenberg's RC.
So anyway, that was lots of fun. The bulk of the package, of course, featured lots and lots of DEE-troit Tigers, and some very good ones at that:
A healthy dose of Cabreras, just about all of which should be new for me. My favorite is the Heritage Chrome, which I highlighted by putting it right down the middle.
A bunch of stuff of this blog's former and current namesakes. The die-cut in the upper-right is fantastic, and I'm also a big fan of the Topps Gold below. But of course, any Grandersons and Verlanders are good Grandersons and Verlanders!
Here's some more outstanding inserts, including more Heritage Chrome. The Scherzer Refractor is stupidly awesome and easily one of my favorites of Max, but the rest of the players are all excellent as well; no scrubs here!
Here's a few other miscellaneous Tigers past and present: Phillips was in some ways a poor man's Rickey Henderson, and I enjoyed watching him on the Tigers. Sparky, of course, was Sparky. And the rest are nice pickups of some hopeful future Tigers, especially Castellanos. Thanks to trades like this one I'm putting together a decent PC of the future 3B/OF/whatever gets him into the lineup.
The last of the Tigers highlights includes these former stars of the 80s and 90s: Cecil, Morris, Tettleton, Tram and Whitaker. Brian actually sent a nice pile of '90 Leafs and I'll have to see if it amounts to a team set, which would be pretty cool since I don't think I've ever picked ANY of those up.
Besides a token Wolverine football card (a nice Tai Streets), Brian tossed in this beauty for one of my Michigan Baseball player collections:
It's J.J. Putz's 2013 Topps Emerald parallel. I especially appreciated this one since it was so out of the blue! It's my 3rd version of J.J.'s 2013 Topps cards, putting me halfway towards the set already.
Brian, thanks once again for a fantastic trade--it's been a while, but you certainly made it worth it by sending an impressive stack of goodies. Rest assured that when the other thing shows up, I'll be showing that off as well and signing your praises once again. You readers should gather up your Rangers and play at the plate cards and send them to Dallas care of Brian, plus the few of you who aren't should go check out his blog right now!
In honor of a great Tigers package from a catcher-loving blogger, here's something we can both appreciate:
So anyway, that was lots of fun. The bulk of the package, of course, featured lots and lots of DEE-troit Tigers, and some very good ones at that:
Besides a token Wolverine football card (a nice Tai Streets), Brian tossed in this beauty for one of my Michigan Baseball player collections:
Brian, thanks once again for a fantastic trade--it's been a while, but you certainly made it worth it by sending an impressive stack of goodies. Rest assured that when the other thing shows up, I'll be showing that off as well and signing your praises once again. You readers should gather up your Rangers and play at the plate cards and send them to Dallas care of Brian, plus the few of you who aren't should go check out his blog right now!
In honor of a great Tigers package from a catcher-loving blogger, here's something we can both appreciate:
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
COMC haul #3: ALL THE BILLS
(Note: all COMC haul posts can be accessed here)
On the eve of the first Tigers World Series game since 2006, I thought I'd commemorate the occasion with a special completed project involving a past Detroit World Series champion:
On the eve of the first Tigers World Series game since 2006, I thought I'd commemorate the occasion with a special completed project involving a past Detroit World Series champion:
Bill Freehan 1965 Topps
Bill Freehan 1970 Topps
Bill Freehan 1973 Topps
Bill Freehan 1976 Topps
Bill Freehan 1977 Topps
What do all of these have in common, besides being vintage cards of Mr. Bill Freehan? They just happen to be the last five I needed to own each and every Topps card produced during his playing career, 1963-1977. Sure, he has plenty of other stuff that was produced since then, but in terms of a player collection of someone like Freehan, I like to think this is the ultimate goal. These are some outstanding examples of some cool Topps base sets made before the Hobby became the Business. There's just a lot to like about each of these, such as:
- 1965: DAMN that's a big glove!
- 1970: What are you looking at over there?
- 1973: Easily, EASILY my favorite non-hit Freehan, and I'd bet my house that Brian would be first, second and third to agree with me. Man, what an awesome play at the plate card!
- 1976: What are you looking at up and over there?
- 1977: Ok, now you're closer to looking at the camera...
I'm truly thrilled to own all of Bill's Topps cards from his playing days, including a couple more oddball-type sets such as his Topps Game and Deckle Edge issues. For now at least, I've decided to leave out other stuff that I thought was just TOO oddball, such as the coin cards, Embossed (which are ugly as sin!), Supers, and others. You can view scans of my Freehan PC, currently 36 (in-hand and scanned) cards strong, here, and my growing checklist here.
I'd like to extend a big thanks to those of you who were generous enough to include Freehan cards when you traded with me as it made this project that much easier. (and fun!)
So with thoughts of Freehan and the '68 Tigers in my head as I prepare for another World Series, I've got one thing left to say: GO TIGERS!
Monday, July 9, 2012
Beckett, as in wreck-it
I had hoped to regale you all with some trade post goodness today, but instead I feel obligated to tackle a different topic: Beckett. I have two primary motivations for doing so, one being that I had already intended to add my two cents to what a couple other bloggers already discussed in their excellent posts, and the other being how one of the biggest detriments to the hobby has treated one of our own.
In case you didn't see all of this, Play at the Plate featured a great response to a $30 a Week Habit post that was written in response to another PATP article.
To sum up, PATP looked at what collecting was like when MLB wasn't killing the hobby with the Toppsopoly and we were on the opposite extreme--too many choices--and wonders if we're better off. $30aWH then puts his own spin on things with an alternate universe in which "the magazine" doesn't exist. PATP plays off this and decides that Beckett is obsolete, not to mention inaccurate. (While I'm discussing what these two excellent bloggers did, I'd like to point out just how much I appreciate what they and all you other guys do: provide a great community that can foster discussion like this in a coherent manner that literally doesn't exist anywhere else, ESPECIALLY on beckett.com.)
Though I haven't exactly timely with my posts, I thought I'd briefly discuss my experiences as a collector who grew up during Beckett's heyday.
When I was very young my parents apparently bought some cards for me and my brother, which I know because we played with them until we got a bit older and understood the concept of collecting. I'm pretty sure they were factory sets of '89 Donruss and Topps because I had a bunch of those, though not necessarily the better cards in either set. We then picked up the occasional packs, and eventually--though I can't remember how--came into knowledge of the yearly Beckett price guide books, which were available at our library. That segued into our discovery of Beckett, which introduced to us the idea of "value" as it pertained to sports cards. I definitely enjoyed collecting the magazine and still have all my issues from when I subscribed, plus a bunch of older ones I picked up through various means. And for quite a while, I did what many others did and swore by the "book" prices when it came to buying, selling and trading online and at shows.
That made for good and bad moments. There were plenty of times we'd pull something rare from a wax box or dig something out of a closet, look it up and discover it was "worth" way more than we thought. Then again, reality would come crashing down on us when we found out a $20 card didn't ever sell for $20. But more importantly it could impact trading (again, most of which we did online, especially initially through Beckett's Buy/Sell area) when you or your partner didn't feel you were getting "equal value" according to the price guide. It didn't matter if you were giving up better overall cards or if you were just a few bucks apart--usually at that point the deal died.
In the last couple years I definitely got away from trading (and selling, really) while continuing to acquire stuff, mainly through boxes, many of which proved disappointing, as they can at times. The few times I did, though, along with the occasions where I'd open a box or acquire something, I would still swear by the card Bible. What saved me from that limited collecting life was following collecting blogs. As I started to notice people throwing around trade packages without a care for value, I gained a new-found energy for collecting myself because I thought "THIS is exactly what trading should be." Really, it's about as pure as it gets aside from most of it taking place online these days, but then again, it opens up so many more trade possibilities, especially when you can easily work with a Dodgers fan all the way across the country.
What I'm getting at is that during my collecting years when I held fast to the magazine, I enjoyed a relatively OK collecting experience, but since then, I've finally grown up and realized just how obsolete it really is, both in terms of the price guide and its various features. These days you'll hear sellers on forums swear by eBay prices (which is at least slightly more accurate, if not completely) which are a million times more "real-time" than Beckett's false claims. That, and, as Brian pointed out, you're no longer stuck with Beckett as the only game in town for box breaks; instead of reading about their suspiciously good fortune with one outstanding box, you can get a ridiculous sample size including scans and video. And don't get me started about pimping the next big thing. It's a shame that magazines like Beckett can't sometimes discuss the more negative aspects of the hobby--constructively, with a dialogue about how things can improve--and instead choose to be blissfully unaware of monopolies, fakes, and other real problems.
All of that led me to ditch Beckett as a price guide once and for all a couple years ago. I continue to use the site as a checklist resource but otherwise studiously ignore it, since that's the best thing to do in this case. That's worked out just fine for me, especially since I'd quickly grown sick of the shenanigans of major players like Chris Olds, et al. However, recently, something happened to one of my favorite bloggers that I couldn't let stand.
Here are some facts about Greg Z. of Plaschke Thy Sweater is Argyle:
Because of all of that, Beckett is officially dead to me. If anyone ever comes to me in a deal and quotes the "Beckett" price I'll just give them this look,
Good luck all the same to a great blogger everyone knows and loves. VOTE FOR GREG Z!
Update: this one's for Eric L!:
In case you didn't see all of this, Play at the Plate featured a great response to a $30 a Week Habit post that was written in response to another PATP article.
 |
| Still with me? |
 |
| Pissed Off Card Collector FTW |
When I was very young my parents apparently bought some cards for me and my brother, which I know because we played with them until we got a bit older and understood the concept of collecting. I'm pretty sure they were factory sets of '89 Donruss and Topps because I had a bunch of those, though not necessarily the better cards in either set. We then picked up the occasional packs, and eventually--though I can't remember how--came into knowledge of the yearly Beckett price guide books, which were available at our library. That segued into our discovery of Beckett, which introduced to us the idea of "value" as it pertained to sports cards. I definitely enjoyed collecting the magazine and still have all my issues from when I subscribed, plus a bunch of older ones I picked up through various means. And for quite a while, I did what many others did and swore by the "book" prices when it came to buying, selling and trading online and at shows.
That made for good and bad moments. There were plenty of times we'd pull something rare from a wax box or dig something out of a closet, look it up and discover it was "worth" way more than we thought. Then again, reality would come crashing down on us when we found out a $20 card didn't ever sell for $20. But more importantly it could impact trading (again, most of which we did online, especially initially through Beckett's Buy/Sell area) when you or your partner didn't feel you were getting "equal value" according to the price guide. It didn't matter if you were giving up better overall cards or if you were just a few bucks apart--usually at that point the deal died.
In the last couple years I definitely got away from trading (and selling, really) while continuing to acquire stuff, mainly through boxes, many of which proved disappointing, as they can at times. The few times I did, though, along with the occasions where I'd open a box or acquire something, I would still swear by the card Bible. What saved me from that limited collecting life was following collecting blogs. As I started to notice people throwing around trade packages without a care for value, I gained a new-found energy for collecting myself because I thought "THIS is exactly what trading should be." Really, it's about as pure as it gets aside from most of it taking place online these days, but then again, it opens up so many more trade possibilities, especially when you can easily work with a Dodgers fan all the way across the country.
What I'm getting at is that during my collecting years when I held fast to the magazine, I enjoyed a relatively OK collecting experience, but since then, I've finally grown up and realized just how obsolete it really is, both in terms of the price guide and its various features. These days you'll hear sellers on forums swear by eBay prices (which is at least slightly more accurate, if not completely) which are a million times more "real-time" than Beckett's false claims. That, and, as Brian pointed out, you're no longer stuck with Beckett as the only game in town for box breaks; instead of reading about their suspiciously good fortune with one outstanding box, you can get a ridiculous sample size including scans and video. And don't get me started about pimping the next big thing. It's a shame that magazines like Beckett can't sometimes discuss the more negative aspects of the hobby--constructively, with a dialogue about how things can improve--and instead choose to be blissfully unaware of monopolies, fakes, and other real problems.
All of that led me to ditch Beckett as a price guide once and for all a couple years ago. I continue to use the site as a checklist resource but otherwise studiously ignore it, since that's the best thing to do in this case. That's worked out just fine for me, especially since I'd quickly grown sick of the shenanigans of major players like Chris Olds, et al. However, recently, something happened to one of my favorite bloggers that I couldn't let stand.
- Greg is an excellent, very well-respected blogger
- Greg loves his Dodgers and collects the hell out of them (key word here: "collects")
- Greg made it into a Beckett-run contest as one of three finalists, one of which would win a Sandy Koufax autograph
- Many people, especially his fellow bloggers and collectors would like to see him win this contest because he'd, you know, KEEP the thing and enjoy it as a Dodgers collector
But THEN,
one of the three finalists, a total asshat who sang a Justin Beiber song and should have been automatically disqualified except he was such an asshat even Chris Olds was like, "Whoa, this guy is REALLY an asshat. I'm not mad, that's amazing!" decided to literally buy votes. In a respectful manner, Greg pointed this out. Olds' response, which took a while because he had to manually remove him from Topps' nuts and sit him in front of the only keyboard in the world that's large enough for his fat fingers, was this:
That's right: when Greg came forward with evidence that one of his competitors was cheating and--once again--literally BUYING VOTES, then others piled on by reasonably pointing out how ridiculously unfair that was, Chris referred to these people as "complainers" making "mud-slinging allegations" and made them all sound ungrateful. Luckily for everyone, next time he'll save us "the hassles" (didn't know it was possible to have more than one) and pick someone himself, which is simply what he should have done in the first place, except Mr. Olds is apparently unaware that they have the Internet on computers now, and said computers can be used to break any poll or contest. When I tried to point that out, my comment was, to my utter shock, not approved by their moderator.
Because of all of that, Beckett is officially dead to me. If anyone ever comes to me in a deal and quotes the "Beckett" price I'll just give them this look,
and go on my merry way. As for the people behind "the magazine" that embody everything that's wrong with the hobby,
 |
| You stay classy, Beckett, and go fuck yourselves. |
Good luck all the same to a great blogger everyone knows and loves. VOTE FOR GREG Z!
Update: this one's for Eric L!:
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Sunday fun: patch me if you can
Ahhhhh, another Sunday, another trip to Meijer for stuff I needed, another jaunt down the card aisle looking for deals. Blasters of 2009 Topps baseball I and II were $15, which seemed reasonable, so today you're getting a blog post twofer. I won't bore you with most of the contents, but each included one guaranteed manupatch, and both were worth it:
Steve Carlton 1969 All-Star Game
Nolan Ryan 1989 All-Star Game
On a related note, I still need a ton of cards from both series for the base set because I never bought more than these blasters and some rack packs. So many, in fact, that I don't have a wantlist yet. On a related related note, my Series I blaster contained only the retail-exclusive black cards, which wouldn't go well with my regular base cards (all racist jokes aside, so please refrain) in terms of consistency. Does anyone have a bunch of 2009 dupes for trade, and if you do, would you be interested in around 60 of the black Series I base cards in return? I'll put together a list one of these days but may attack the problem with rack packs or something first.
Anyway, no formal review, but for $15 each these blasters came out great because I got a few inserts, a few Series II cards I needed, and best of all, I got two great manupatches, one for trade and one to keep.
Steve Carlton 1969 All-Star Game
Nolan Ryan 1989 All-Star Game
Before any of you says a thing, the Carlton (my second manupatch of him, this time with the Cards instead of the Phils) is available for trade while the Ryan isn't, because it's awesome. Apologies in advance to those of you who I know are Ryan/Rangers fans, not the least of which is Mr. Play at the Plate himself, who seems to win every contest he enters anyway, so I don't feel so bad!
On a related note, I still need a ton of cards from both series for the base set because I never bought more than these blasters and some rack packs. So many, in fact, that I don't have a wantlist yet. On a related related note, my Series I blaster contained only the retail-exclusive black cards, which wouldn't go well with my regular base cards (all racist jokes aside, so please refrain) in terms of consistency. Does anyone have a bunch of 2009 dupes for trade, and if you do, would you be interested in around 60 of the black Series I base cards in return? I'll put together a list one of these days but may attack the problem with rack packs or something first.
Anyway, no formal review, but for $15 each these blasters came out great because I got a few inserts, a few Series II cards I needed, and best of all, I got two great manupatches, one for trade and one to keep.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Time for some more contest pimping!
I'm sure you've all seen this by now, so here's my entry for Derek's (Tomahawk Chopping) awesome contest. The deets, courtesy of the man himself:
"If you win this contest I will snoop around on your blog, check out your want list, see what your favorite team is and do some shopping for you, without your help. So by the time opening day arrives you will receive a package full of recently purchased cards (plus what ever I have of your team). The amount of the card shopping spree depends on how many entries, and right now I'm not classifying that with a number. It will be at least $10 worth of cards (shipping fees not included). I know the contest would completely rock if I did something like $50 bucks, but come on I'm working full time and going to school for my masters full time, I don't have that kinda dough lying around."
So follow his blog (if you're dumb and weren't doing it before) throw something like this on your own blog and leave him a comment saying you did the first two. Before you know it, BAM! Three entries for free cards. Big thanks to Derek for a great giveaway, and good luck to all who enter (except Play at the Plate, because he always wins stuff. KIDDING!).
"If you win this contest I will snoop around on your blog, check out your want list, see what your favorite team is and do some shopping for you, without your help. So by the time opening day arrives you will receive a package full of recently purchased cards (plus what ever I have of your team). The amount of the card shopping spree depends on how many entries, and right now I'm not classifying that with a number. It will be at least $10 worth of cards (shipping fees not included). I know the contest would completely rock if I did something like $50 bucks, but come on I'm working full time and going to school for my masters full time, I don't have that kinda dough lying around."
So follow his blog (if you're dumb and weren't doing it before) throw something like this on your own blog and leave him a comment saying you did the first two. Before you know it, BAM! Three entries for free cards. Big thanks to Derek for a great giveaway, and good luck to all who enter (except Play at the Plate, because he always wins stuff. KIDDING!).
Thursday, December 2, 2010
More MCG shenanigans
But first a quick reminder:
One day til those sweet boxes arrive. Five slots left.
MCG stuff!
Well, I finally got involved in Play at the Plate's MCG-a-thon and I think we both came away happy. Here's a quick look:
Basically this was a five-for-one trade, which means we both got something we wanted: Brian's amassing as much as he can to try to turn it into something better, and I got rid of some dead weight in preparation for getting my cards shipped. I asked for a Tiger, and a Tiger I got.
This paring down led me to try proposing another trade (which I rarely ever do), and unbelievably, I was actually able to make one I liked very quickly:
Yep, I turned three cards I didn't want into one of Detroit-born Michigan alum and Tigers catcher Bill Freehan! I'm now very close to cashing out, so I thought I'd give everyone that reads this here blog a shot at what's left. A quick look:
What I'm hoping for in return is Tigers cards from roughly these same years. If you see something you like, please let me know. If I don't get any interest I'll just get these shipped, but hopefully you can help them find a good home
One day til those sweet boxes arrive. Five slots left.
MCG stuff!
Well, I finally got involved in Play at the Plate's MCG-a-thon and I think we both came away happy. Here's a quick look:
Basically this was a five-for-one trade, which means we both got something we wanted: Brian's amassing as much as he can to try to turn it into something better, and I got rid of some dead weight in preparation for getting my cards shipped. I asked for a Tiger, and a Tiger I got.
This paring down led me to try proposing another trade (which I rarely ever do), and unbelievably, I was actually able to make one I liked very quickly:
Yep, I turned three cards I didn't want into one of Detroit-born Michigan alum and Tigers catcher Bill Freehan! I'm now very close to cashing out, so I thought I'd give everyone that reads this here blog a shot at what's left. A quick look:
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| 1958 Don Ferrarese |
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| 1959 Gus Triandos |
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| 1963 Bill Dailey |
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| 1967 Fred Whitfield |
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| 1969 Gutierrez/Robertson |
Friday, October 22, 2010
Good news (again), everyone!
Mr. Play At the Plate may have some interest in the following...
So, yeah, about that good news:
To summarize this news in one picture:
Aw hell, why not one more?
YANKEES SUCK! YANKEES SUCK! YANKEES SUCK!
Congrats, Texas, on your first World Series berth!
So, yeah, about that good news:
To summarize this news in one picture:
Aw hell, why not one more?
YANKEES SUCK! YANKEES SUCK! YANKEES SUCK!
Congrats, Texas, on your first World Series berth!
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Another great MCG trade plus more mail stuff
But first...
Get in on Georgia Mindset's 2010 Topps Chrome/Triple Threads group break. You wanna see some hits? Here's some, including a nice hit, all from the Blowout Cards forums:
Another day, another great MCG trade
Brian of Play at the Plate had his eyes on my '73 Topps Pat Corrales (I couldn't imagine why) so we worked out a nice mutually beneficial trade. I won't steal his thunder as he plans about blogging his end of the deal this weekend. Here's an overview of what went down and my end, though:
As you can (possibly) see, the main attraction for me was the '73 Topps Horton, a nice older Tiger for my collection, and a 1968 champ to boot. The other two were throw-ins with funny names, but Brian was nice enough to toss those in to make dealing an unusually popular (I'm guessing due to the nice shot) card a great deal for me. Here's a better look at the Horton for those interested:
Once again, great deal (and easier to make via email than Topps' system, which I may now dub "Anonymous spiteful pissing match guess time". Thanks again, Mr. PATP!
Mail call
1. Contest winner Steve gets his package of 2007 Topps Series 1 gravity packs (and a set of the 2005 Topps Chrome A-Rod throwbacks, because why not?). Enjoy those, Steve, and if you feel like it, let me know how you do. You might be able to pull another Jeter SP.
2. Tim/SpastikMooss of the Great Sports Name HOF finally gets the package I owe him sent his way. I found a few great sports names, including one of his favorites (God Shamgod) in a '97-'98 Fleer set, and I threw in a couple relics because those are always useful (note to Tim: I don't think Cliff Floyd has a particularly great sports name, unless you count the fact that he shares a first name with Bill Cosby's best character, and you know, with the hippin' and hoppin' and bippin' and boppin', the kids don't know what the jazz...is all about!
Anyway, I just threw that in in case you can use it for trade bait). Enjoy those and thanks again!
Get in on Georgia Mindset's 2010 Topps Chrome/Triple Threads group break. You wanna see some hits? Here's some, including a nice hit, all from the Blowout Cards forums:
Another day, another great MCG trade
Brian of Play at the Plate had his eyes on my '73 Topps Pat Corrales (I couldn't imagine why) so we worked out a nice mutually beneficial trade. I won't steal his thunder as he plans about blogging his end of the deal this weekend. Here's an overview of what went down and my end, though:
Mail call
1. Contest winner Steve gets his package of 2007 Topps Series 1 gravity packs (and a set of the 2005 Topps Chrome A-Rod throwbacks, because why not?). Enjoy those, Steve, and if you feel like it, let me know how you do. You might be able to pull another Jeter SP.
2. Tim/SpastikMooss of the Great Sports Name HOF finally gets the package I owe him sent his way. I found a few great sports names, including one of his favorites (God Shamgod) in a '97-'98 Fleer set, and I threw in a couple relics because those are always useful (note to Tim: I don't think Cliff Floyd has a particularly great sports name, unless you count the fact that he shares a first name with Bill Cosby's best character, and you know, with the hippin' and hoppin' and bippin' and boppin', the kids don't know what the jazz...is all about!
Anyway, I just threw that in in case you can use it for trade bait). Enjoy those and thanks again!
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