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:

1958 Don Ferrarese

1959 Gus Triandos

1963 Bill Dailey

1967 Fred Whitfield

1969 Gutierrez/Robertson

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

Happy No One Is Going to Read This Blog Wednesday

So in summarizing recent goings-on yesterday, it totally slipped my mind that I did a trade with Jeremy at No One's Going to Read This Blog recently.  He even posted about his end of the deal the other day, so go check that out and prove his title wrong.

As for what I got:

1.  Wantlist cards from a staggering SEVEN different sets, baseball and football
2.  Various Wolverines
3.  Various Tigers, which gives me a great segue into...

ARRRRGH TOO MANY GRANDERSONS

It's been fun piling up some Tigers since I started this blog, and though he's now a former Tiger, people enjoy sending his stuff to me thanks to the blog's name, and I can't say I'm disappointed, I still think the guy's awesome.  On a related note, nice cards of him, plus nothing I already had, so that's a big bonus.

Also of note in terms of baseball stuff he sent:

Wait, who gives a crap about this guy?  ME, since I can finally close the book on this stupid set.  I was getting close to overpaying on shipping for this card on eBay, so NOIGTRTB has impeccable timing.

MOAR

And now the Wolverine goodness, broken into two parts:

Misc. Wolverines, most of which I didn't have

I actually needed these two for sets--2010 SAGE Hit and 2010 Score

To sum up:  wantlist cards from seven sets, Tigers cards I liked and Wolverines cards I liked.  A very enjoyable, well-rounded trade package.  You might even go so far as to call it...the royal sampler....

Thanks, Jeremy!  I'll close with a subtle reminder to read this guy's blog and trade with him if you haven't already.

2010 Topps Platinum football retail blasters (2)

To celebrate Michigan's 4-0 start this year, I hopped down to the Meijer by me to grab two blasters of 2010 Topps Platinum football to see what all the fuss was about.  I've seen a ton of breaks over at the BlowoutCards forums and seen some cool stuff get pulled.  Have a look at how I did:




 


Purchased from/price:  Meijer, $20 each
Packs/cards:  16 packs / 4 cards (two total blasters)
Set size:  165 base cards
Key features:  You like rookies?  We got rookies.  Plus some sweet patch/autograph/RCs
Key cards:  This year's rookie class, basically
Wolverines:  Tom Brady, Braylon Edwards


Set completion:  60/165 (36%)
Extras:  0

Sample front (and the only Wolverine, so, two birds with one scan)

Sample back

Pack-by-pack:

Box 1:
Pack 1:  Wes Welker, Ed Reed, Drew Brees, Mardy Gilyard RC
Pack 2:  Darrelle Revis, Vince Young, Demaryius Thomas RC, Willis McGahee
Pack 3:  Steve Smith (Giants), Philip Rivers, Mike Kafka Refractor #256/499, LaDainian Tomlinson
Pack 4:  Ray Lewis, Fred Jackson, Mark Sanchez, Ndamukong Suh RC
Pack 5:  Jason Campbell, Kenny Britt, Greg Jennings, Gerald McCoy RC
Pack 6:  T.J. Houshmandzadeh, Matt Ryan, Golden Tate RC, Joe Flacco
Pack 7:  Eddie Royal, Ben Tate RC, James Starks Thick Variation RC, Brandon Jacbos
Pack 8:  Lee Evans, Jon Beason, Jordan Shipley Autographed Patch Refractor #125/500, Arrelious Benn RC

Box 2:
Pack 1:  Brandon Marshall, Troy Polamalu, Steven Jackson, Armanti Edwards RC
Pack 2:  Mike Wallace, Ryan Grant, Montario Hardesty RC, Matt Forte
Pack 3:  Ronnie Brown, Calvin Johnson, Thomas Jones, Jimmy Graham RC
Pack 4:  Mohammed Massaquoi, Matt Schaub, Andre Roberts RC, Kellen Winslow
Pack 5:  Cadillac Williams, Braylon Edwards, Marques Colston, CJ Spiller RC
Pack 6:  Dallas Clark, D.J. Williams, Taylor Price RC, Hakeem Nicks
Pack 7:  Adrian Peterson, Kevin Kolb, Jonathan Dwyer RC, Michael Turner
Pack 8:  Tony Romo, Anquan Boldin, Anthony Dixon Thick Variation RC, Dexter McCluster RC 

Mike Kafka Refractor

James Starks Thick Variation

Anthony Dixon Thick Variation

Jordan Shipley odds-buster

Inserts:

• Thick Rookie Variations:  Anthony Dixon, James Starks (1:6, 2 expected)
• Refractors:  Mike Kafka (1:27, 0 expected)

Autographs:  Jordan Shipley Refractor/Patch/Autograph #128/500 (1:860, group B)
Relics:  None (none expected)
Best pack:  Let's go with the one with the ridiculous Shipley card, shall we?
Worst pack:  I'll be fair here, nothing was really terrible

Quality control:  9/10 Some of these cards were a bit dinged.  Nothing terrible, just noticeable
Collation:  10/10  No doubles, all inserts guaranteed and THEN SOME
Value:  5/10  A big ding here:  without that Shipley, I would have had some great base cards and a couple inserts, but not a whole lot for my $40.  NOTE:  Out of the two boxes I had three "thick" packs.  Two were the ones that had the variations, which are essentially 1:box, and the other had the Shipley.  So if you buy one of these and pull two "thick" packs, you could theoretically open those and sell the remainder (not that you'd do a thing like that...).  Anyway, a rookie per pack was nice value-wise
Set design and player selection:  8/10  A few things here:  first, I generally like the set design.  These are clearly premium cards and the chrome-like design works, even if it's prone to fingerprints.  I don't love the backs because they only show a year of stats plus career totals.  The design I like best (and wish was used for the base) is the Refractor insert (which only appears to refract around the player's outline, but still looks cool).  All that said, the Rookie patch/autographs are sweet.  Mine had an actual one-color jersey piece, not an actual "patch", but I value the autograph more anyway.  I also don't mind sticker autos as long as they don't look ridiculously out-of-place.  Finally, my one biggest gripe:  this set is a 165 card combination of veterans and this year's rookies, and yet you didn't have room for Brandon Graham, a FIRST ROUND PICK?!
Inserts and extras:  8/10  A big fat MEH to the "thick" rookie variations, but I guess it's better than getting a blank decoy card.  The Refractors look great.  The hits look awesome.  Not much else here to find, though

Overall score:  40/50
Not bad at all, though again, without that hit these boxes don't look as nice.  I'm holding onto the base cards for now in case I want to finish it.  The inserts are for trade, and so is the Shipley (as I mentioned on BlowoutCards, so there may be interest there as well), which I'll trade for a comparable Michigan card

Wolverines?
No extra Wolverines section, I pulled one of the freaking TWO in the box and already scanned it above 

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!   

Great Topps MCG trade and group break reminder

Reminder:  BUY BUY BUY

Georgia Mindset's group break team slots are going fast, so act now!  2010 Topps Chrome and Triple Threads, you know you want them. 


This MCG trade offer...DOESN'T suck?!

Peep this, loyal readers:

If it's a little hard to tell, I'm trading my '63 Topps Dom Demeter for a '59 Gus Triandos.  This might very well be the first card I've been offered for the Demeter that isn't A) 1989 Topps B) 1987 Topps C) 1989 Topps or any other unequal junk.  What's not to like with this deal?  I'm gaining four years and something like $3 in value, I've actually heard of Triandos and I could use more 1950s stuff in my collection (ie I might actually get this one, among others, shipped to me, if you can imagine) since the only other one I know of is on the MCG as well, a '58 Topps Don Ferrarese (vintage Topps Don's FTW!).  A close-up:

Bonus Triandos fact:  according to baseball-reference.com, the players he was most similar to when he was 28-31 were two of my favorite former Tigers:  Matt Nokes and Mickey "Greatest Batting Stance In the History of the World" Tettleton.

HT:  the Daily Shiv (apparently defunct)

Anyway I'm sure it's not even in the condition pictured, but still, pretty sweet, definitely the trade I've been waiting for.  Holy crap, enough writing, I'd better accept it before the guy changes his mind!

2007 Topps Football Box

This is the other box I picked up at Sunday's card show, mostly because the thought of getting only one box, with only six packs in it at that, bugged me.  I somehow never went after this box when it originally came out, so I'm making up for lost time.  It's got a nice collection of rookies, including AP and Megatron, and a veritable bonanza of Wolverines so this should be a fun one to break.

Purchased from/price:  card show, $39
Packs/cards:  36 packs / 9 cards
Set size:  440 base cards
Key features: Nothing comes to mind besides the RCs
Key cards:  RCs of Adrian Peterson, Calvin Johnson, Kevin Kolb, Sidney Rice, Brady Quinn, Darrelle Revis, Patrick Willis, and more
Wolverines:  Brian Griese, Tom Brady, Chris Perry, Anthony Thomas, Braylon Edwards, Amani Toomer, Charles Woodson, Cato June, Steve Hutchinson, Alan Branch RC, LaMarr Woodley RC, David Harris RC, Prescott Burgess RC, Leon Hall RC

Sample front

Sample back

Set completion:  287/440 (65%)
Extras:  1 (Carson Palmer)

One of each insert

Inserts:

• Brett Favre Favre to Favre20:  115 120 129 158 175 186 (1:6, 6 expected)
• Hobby Masters:   Tom Brady, Michael Vick, Carson Palmer, Larry Johnson (1:9, 4 expected)
• Running Back Royalty:  LT/Barry Sanders, LT/Emmitt Smith, LT/Jim Brown (1:12, 3 expected) 
• Hall of Fame:  Roger Wehrli, Michael Irvin, Gene Hickerson (1:12, 3 expected)
• Generation Now:  12 different, including Colston, Big Ben, Vince Young (1:3, 12 expected)
• Own the Game:  Marvin Harrison, Torry Holt, Terrell Owens, Shawne Merriman (1:9, 4 expected)
• Copper Parallel:  Larry Johnson AP, Chris Simms, Reggie Bush, Lofa Tatupu, Michael Robinson (1:7, 5 expected)
• Ring of Honor:  Peyton Manning (1:36, 1 expected)
• Rookie Fantasy Challenge:  Craig Davis, Lorenzo Booker, Anthony Gonzalez, Sidney Rice, Brandon Jackson, Marshawn Lynch (no odds, I'm guessing they're an extra 1:6 throw-in) 

Autographs:  None (none expected)
Relics:  None (none expected)
Best pack:  #9 included Charles Woodson and Steve Hutchinson right off the bat
Worst pack:  #18 included Peyton Manning's stupid face (Ring of Honor insert) after winning the only Super Bowl he'll ever enjoy against an overrated Bears team

Quality control:  6/10  This set is prone to all kinds of flaws like chips and dents and these cards were no exception.  Got all my hits, though
Collation:  6/10  Considering I only got 288 base cards in this box, how the hell did I get a dupe?!  Unacceptable, hence the big ding on the score 
Value:  6/10  Mark of the Beast for the first three scores--the packs were cheap but really I got nothing all that great other than a few good RCs (keeping in mind that this box just isn't a great way to get most of a large set)
Set design and player selection:  8/10  I don't love that the cards damage easily, but the front design looks good, and I like the green of the backs.  Otherwise good typical Topps photography and stats on the back
Inserts and extras:  5/10  No "extras" to speak of, and the inserts were pretty meh.  I did like the Hobby Masters, but the Generation Nows are boring and the rest are pretty uninteresting

Overall score:  31/50
"Meh" is pretty much the word for this box.  Having bought it at a card show I didn't get to do my research on it first or I might have realized it wasn't a particularly good box to bust.  I do like the set but (despite my past luck with them) I probably should have gone with a jumbo box to actually give myself a shot at it.  I'll probably just take my time working on this set now as I'll need 150+ cards.  Oh well, at least I pulled a bunch of Wolverines.

Lots in this box, yo

2005 Topps Chrome Series II packs (120)

As promised, here's the result of my huge 120-pack purchase of 2005 Topps Chrome Series II.  I purchased a similar (but smaller, I believe) lot of these groups of 24 shrink-wrapped retail packs from the same guy on eBay and was interested enough to complete the set to do the same with these recently.  It doesn't hurt that I got a pretty good price on each of the five auctions to the point where I paid less than $1/pack for packs that used to go for $3 just a few years ago.  How did I do?  Read on to find out.



Purchased from/price:  eBay, $79.60 (including shipping)
Packs/cards:   120 packs / 4 cards
Set size:  220 base cards (including 5 SP rookies)
Key features:  They're chrome!  Also, autographed RCs, Refractors, Black Refractors and A-Rod Throwbacks
Key cards:  Autographed RCs of Billy Butler, Justin Verlander, Nate McLouth, Glen Perkins and Chip Cannon

Base card front

Base card back

Set completion:  186/220 (85%)
Extras:

• Doubles:  127
• Triples:  59
• Quads:  30
• Quints:  9
• Sextuples:  4

Inserts:   

Refractors:  32, all different (1:5, 24 expected)

     















Black Refractors (#'d to 225):  5, Vicente Padilla, Ryan Drese, Nick Green, Tony Armas Jr., Corey Koskie (1:36, 3-4 expected)

A-Rod Throwbacks:  29 (1:5, 24 expected), including five "sets" of the four-card insert

Autographs:
Base card autograph:  Glen Perkins, Landon Powell (1:55, 2 expected)
Black Refractor autograph:  Tyler Pelland (1:508) 

Relics:  None (none expected)

Best pack:  Manny Ramirez, Landon Powell AU RC (also Eric Hinske and Brett Tomko)
Worst pack:  2 doubles, 1 triple, 1 quintuple (my first at the time, Brett Tomko)

Quality control:  8/10  Minus a point for a card with "roller marks" on it, and another docked for some off-centered cards.  Everything else was fine--all packs had the right number of cards, nothing else was damaged 
Collation:  8/10  I'm making sure to take into consideration that this was basically 120 random retail packs, not a standard hobby or retail box of 24 packs.  Getting only 85% of the set was pretty disappointing, at least in light of all the triples, quads and so on that I pulled.  More importantly, in terms of the five base RCs, which are pretty difficult to pull, I got nine and only four were different.  That wouldn't bother me as much, but I pulled FOUR Bobby Livingstones.  I would have traded all of those for one freakin' Yorman Bazardo.  Still, I absolutely killed the insert odds; I would have considered two autographs a success, but getting the black Refractor was icing on the cake.  And I got way more inserts than I was due.  That makes up for the deficiencies of the base card pulls a bit
Value:  10/10  Remember, I judge this relative to the price I paid, not what it originally would have cost.  I paid less than $1/pack and got THREE Auto/RCs (all of which were some of the better ones in the set), including one $40 hit.  Throw in 32 Refractors, five Black Refractors, five sets of the A-Rod insert (and a few more to boot), and most of the set, and I'm very happy
Set design and player selection:  8/10  There's a large number of players that seem out of place in a higher quality set like this, even for 2005, but when you get into a set of this size I guess that's bound to happen.  I'm not the kind of collector that obsesses about Chrome, but these cards look nice, the Refractor inserts look great as always, and the autographs are excellent (on-card autos!) 
Inserts and extras:  10/10  I got sick of the A-Rod insert pretty quickly since there were only four and I was pulling them at better than a 1:5 pack clip.  But the Refractors and Black Refractors are great, and the RC autographs are outstanding 

Overall score:  44/50

Let's trade some Topps Million Card Giveaways

So here's what's up:  I've got 15 cards just sitting there on Topps' Million Card Giveaway (the baseball one, not the football one).  I'm not really dying to keep any of them, so I want to see what other people are willing to offer me for them.  Since I read the blogs of just about everyone that visits this one, I know those people to be on average fairly intelligent, at least enough to meet my one requirement in this case:  if you're trying to get one of my 1950s or 60s cards, please don't offer me your worst junk wax card for it.  I'm not going to try to get your 1968 Topps Rookie Stars card for that lame Ron Guidry below, so don't waste my time.

But seriously, I've made one trade through Topps' site (I ended up with the 69 Topps Rookie Stars below--I traded some crap for it I can't even remember) after accepting someone's offer, but I've been underwhelmed with the offers I've received otherwise (see:  rant above).  Since I'm betting a bunch of you ended up with a lot of these cards too, I want to see if we can get some reasonable trades going here.  We'd still have to do the swap on Topps' site, but it would at least be easier to arrange this way, considering how much the Topps Million site sucks.

So tell me what you want and give me an idea of what you've got and maybe we can make some swaps.  I'm not exactly expecting to grab some 1960s Al Kaline cards, but I'd be interested in some vintage cards of players I've heard of, more of those multi-player Rookie Stars cards, All-Star Rookies, Detroit Tigers, and maybe whatever else you've got, so try me.  Here's a look at everything I have right now:

2006 Topps Ian Kinsler

1987 Topps Ron Guidry

1982 Topps Willie Randolph

2007 Topps Beltran/Reyes

1958 Topps Don Ferrarese

1969 Topps Gutierrez/Robertson

1963 Topps Dom Demeter

1963 Topps Bill Dailey

1976 Topps Dick Lange

1970 Topps John Kennedy

1977 Topps Santo Alcala

1976 Topps Manny Trillo

1972 Topps Jim Roland is having a stroke or something

1974 Topps Jim Crawford

1973 Topps Pat Corrales

Let's make some trades happen!