...aaaaaaand it's gone

So, also for 2015 Christmas is behind us...with all the dinners and lunches full of relatives and more food than we could eat..or at least this is how the last three days have been for me!

But Christmas also brought me a lot of cards, given to me from my girlfriend, who carefully cherrypicked them off COMC. In fact there are only 2015 Tier One Relics in the lot, and to be precise there are 35 different cards, that allow me to be only 18 cards away from completing the whole set!
It's an amazing present, and I admit that it would have taken me several months to put it together with my usual policy and using ebay... the lot in fact includes big names such as Tom Glavine, Randy Johnson, Bo Jackson, Chipper Jones and many more. (you can see the current coverage of the set here ).

Taking advantage of the time lag that separates me from the fellow US collectors, I tried to snag some more nice stuff off ebay. In fact, while they were still sitting around the table or opening their presents, I was already searching the bay to look for nice cards no one else could possibly bid on...
And I was able to pick up some very cool pieces of cardboard, some of them autographed, other carrying pieces of jersey or patches, and even a couple cards that are simply parallels or short prints.

Before the start of the Holidays I received a couple cards that I won as a lot, and since they went through the whole COMC processing routine, I can show them hereunder...

They both come from 2015 Topps High Tek, and are the only cards I have so far from the set, but are so nice that I might consider chasing some more of them in the coming weeks..
The cards are both autographs, and to my surprise, none is numbered. Here come Sonny Gray and Edgar Martinez!

Happy Holidays and keep colleting!!!

The 2015 in review

Since the end of the year is approaching, it's time for me to align all the figures and prepare the 2015 collecting balance.

This year has been pretty rich in terms of ebay purchases (the majority of them have been posted), but most importantly it's been a year rich of trades.
While in 2014 my only trading partner was Jeroen aka the dutch card guy , I reached out to some new fellow collectors, and not only the europe-based ones!
In fact, I'm now a proud trading partner of Kevin,aka the card papoy , with whom I already exchange a couple of nice packages.

I've also crossed the ocean, reaching collectors such as Tony at offhiatusbaseball , John at johnnnystradingspot, and Charlie from lifetimetoppsproject who posted this nice post describing the trade.

There's also Matt from the Uk, whom I was able to contact thanks to previous trades performed by Jeroen, and that's probably going to start his own blog...

As i said in one of my older posts, I'm not a social person at all, but since I found so many new friends and cards suppliers alternative to ebay, I'm happy to say that starting this blog was a very cool idea! I really enjoy reading your blogs, and writing the mine as well.

I'm thinking about posting a special parade of the most cheap cards I was able to snag off ebay in 2015, in order to prove that I'm not bragging when I say that I picked up this auto or that patch for a buck or two..

Thanks to eveyone of you, trading partners and readers (past, present and future) of this humble blog!

Since I usually end every post with at least a pic from a recent pickup, here's the latest...

It's a 1999 Upper Deck Retro autograph of Steve Garvey, not numbered, and seems to have some creasings on it (or maybe it's just the picture)..but hey, a card like this for a dollar it's a no brainer for me!

Best regards, happy Holidays to all of you and keep collecting!
CIAO!

Updating my stats

I'm not talking about my ERA or my SLG percentage, but I'm referring to how my card looting went this year...
Since my summer holidays haven't been spent in NYC (as per the last 6 years), I wasn't able to pay my annual visit to the White Plains card show, meaning a big reastraint to the cards inflow for the 2015 season.

So what I did was pretty simple, as soon as I was 100% sure I wasn't going there, I spotted 5 nice cards lots on ebay, and considering my birthday was close to the summer holidays, I was more than "forced" to pick them up. Here below is the list of the lots, with some stats relating to them, and then I'll post my collection updated stats...

I'm not going to mention the names of the sellers, but the first lot came from the United Kingdom, while the others are from US based sellers. Almost every lot included also a couple relics or unknown players' autos (which is fine for me). When talking about doubles I mean "cards that I already have", and not duplicates contained in the same lot.

Lot 1: total cards mentioned in the description: 2000
          cards efffectively included in the lot: 2031
          cards that turned out to be doubles: 701
          cards that were successfully added to the collection: 1330
          needed cards on total cards ratio: 65.5%

Lot 2: total cards mentioned in the description: 2500
          cards efffectively included in the lot: 2651
          cards that turned out to be doubles: 1248
          cards that were successfully added to the collection: 1403
          needed cards on total cards ratio: 52.9%

Lot 3: total cards mentioned in the description: 3000
          cards efffectively included in the lot: 3188
          cards that turned out to be doubles: 2301
          cards that were successfully added to the collection: 887
          needed cards on total cards ratio: 27.8%

Lot 4: total cards mentioned in the description: 2500
          cards efffectively included in the lot: 3033
          cards that turned out to be doubles: 1588
          cards that were successfully added to the collection: 1445
          needed cards on total cards ratio: 47.6%

Lot 5: total cards mentioned in the description: 3000
          cards efffectively included in the lot: 2980
          cards that turned out to be doubles: 1623
          cards that were successfully added to the collection: 1357
          needed cards on total cards ratio: 45.5%

The first lot was the richest in terms of good cards/double cards ratio, while the third lot was the most disappointing, since it came with the highest number of cards in it, and turned out to carry the most doubles...

So, in total I was able to put together 6422 new cards, which by far exceeds the number of cards I usually picked up at the cardshow, so maybe staying close to home for the holidays wasn't that bad.
This huge amount of cards is the reason why it took me so long to complete my wantlists.

Also, such a gigantic mass of cards helped my collection to grow to a total of 70.486 single cards! It's huge in my opinion, and also very diversified in terms of brands,sets and years...but at the same time there's still a lot of work to do, since there's very few sets I was able to complete so far...

Last but not least, these lots gave me many more (7461 to be precise) new cards to include in future trades, a couple of which are already on their way, with Kevin aka The Card Papoy, and Matthew, who is still deciding wheter to start his own blog or not...

Thank you very much for taking the time to go through this long and statistically rich post...

As a reward, here's the latest card I picked up (together with another that will remain secret) from an Instagram user, it's from 2014 Panini Immaculate Collection immaculate ink gold, and numbered to 49, plus is from Paul Konerko! Here it is!

Keep collecting!

Well, they're almost here....

Since I published the last post from my office, I wasn't able to publish also the new page with all the links to the wantlists, apparently due to some problems with the browser I use...but don't worry I'll post it later today as soon as I get home...

Also, I grabbed my old printer/scanner at my parents' house, so I should be able from now on to scan all the stuff that hasn't passed through COMC processing...especially I will fill in some empty spaces in the 2013 Tribute WBC autos set, because I noticed that many cards are in my collection but not on the blog...

I received yesterday the last two cards I bought for the October pick-up session, both autographs, but one of them needs to be graded in order to assess its authenticity...
The seller guardanteed a refund in case the auto results fake, but I would lose the grading fees anyway, so I hope it will prove to be authentic...It could be one of the centerpieces of my collection and my new showcase display (which is ready to be filled with cardboard items!)

Keep collecting ladies and gentlemen!!

CIAO

Wantlists are finally here!

After a massive effort in the past months, I finally been able to put together a comrehensive set of wantlists...maybe the word wantlist is not appropriate in my case, since the completion of sets (very tough task, if not impossible), should at least require an organized scheme of the priority of the various sets / manufacturers / years... so let's just call them checklists, because wantlists makes me look too greedy...

This will be totally unorganized in terms of priority, so if anyone is interested in set up a trade, feel free to explore the documents you'll find clicking on the links you'll fine in the specific page called "Wantlists"... But also please consider that the cards that I could use as a trade counterpart are almost all base and inserts, so nothing crazy rare... let's say that I could be an alternative to Justcommons, but I'm afraid that shipping fees would be higher due to my oversea residence...

Just a brief instruction on how the files work:

- Those called "Checklist xxxxx base" only show the base sets, meaning the regular flagship set, without all the subsets and inserts. In certain cases (i.e. Topps) they also include the "Rookies and Traded" or "Updates and Highlights" sets. In such files I've marked the owned cards with an "x" beside the card number;
- Base sets checklists have all the years in the same sheet, plus a recap front sheet with a fancy graphic that represents the completion status of every year;
- The files called "Checklist xxx subsets", as the name suggests, include all the sets different from the "base" one; in this case I've marked the cards I own by highlighting them in green.
- Subset checklists are organized by year, every year gets a sheet;
- If a subset isn't listed, it usually means that I have no cards from it;
- I haven't prepared a detail of cards from 2015 simply because I don'y have any from this year, so if you have a bulk of double cards, you know none of them will be a double for me....

I haven't produced a checklist for Pacific, Playoff and Pinnacle (not that I have something against manufacturers whose names start with "P")...but if you plan to send cards from those sets feel free to contact me in advance and I'll check what I have...

Please feel free to copy / download them, and tailor them to your collecting needs; I know how much effort took me to put them together, so I would be happy to know that they're helping also other collectors...

Final october pickups

I swear I'm almost done with the organizational changes, which will lead to a much awaited wanlist section of my blog...

The new showcase is ready (it's been quite a pain to build it, but now I can say it was well worth it), and the last thing to do before the inauguration is finish with the cataloging activities of Upper Deck cards from 2002 - 2004 and 2000 sets and then I will be done with the most tough project since my collecting acitivity started.

I decided to post my very last pickups before I go on with the above activities also to verify what's still lying in my mailbox, and check what will be in the next shipment, that should depart approx. at the beginning of december, in order to guarantee at least a load of cards for Christmas.

As usual, these cards were picked up off ebay for very cheap.

First is a signed card from this year Stadium Club, is from a player of whom I had no autos or relics before, so welcome to Matt Williams! The card is not numbered but still very nice...maybe I opted for a sharper marker for the auto..

 

 

The next card is numbered to 75, and comes from 2010 Topps Finest, and it is also a refractor... it really surprises me reading that there are two cards like this for sale on COMC for 30 dollars, considering that I paid a pretty dollar for mine...which makes it even sweeter...it's the letter "S" patch signed by Drew Stubbs!

 

 

 

The next pair of cards costed me more than the average pickups, but considering we're talking about autographed cards of two Hall Of Famers, I can pay of couple more bucks for them...they come from 2015 Panini Cooperstown Hall of Fame Induction Signatures (a very nice set in my opinion), and feature Goose Gossage and Don Sutton autos, and they are (to my surprise) not numbered...

 

 

 

I almost forgot I have the following card stored...is one of those cards you pick up in order to amortize the shipping fees of ebay, and the processing fees of COMC as well... but it's still a nice card and I'm happy to have it...is from 2014 Topps Museum and features a big chunk of white fabric of Jarrod Parker, plus it's numbered to 50, which is a nice quality...here it is

 

I have a total of 74 cards currently in my mailbox, with two more on their way (two very cool cards purchased off an Instagram user), but that have been delayed due to weather issues...

Considering that all the cards in the mailbox belonging to 2013 Tribute WBC and 2015 Tier One are directly added to the specific checklist pages (feel free to have a look at them), I don't think there's more stuff I can show, that hasn't been already posted...

 

So stay tuned for pics of the showcase and for the wantlists (hopefully) in the coming days and keep collecting!

 

CIAO!

Big organizational changes

As the title suggests, in this post I'm not going to show new cards, but rather talk about a major change that (if work allows) is about to impact the way my collection is stored and displayed...

In the last 10 months, since I moved into the new apartment, my collection was displayed in its entirety and for the first time ever, in a shelf unit with several layers, and wide enough to store two 5000 cards monster boxes side to side.

Here's a pic that shows it in all its magnitude.

The only cards not stored in the above structure, are the autos and relics cards, currently gathered in a wooden box with drawers, that allows me to divide them by type (i.e. autos, relics, patches) (2013 Tribute WBC has two drawers on its own due to the number of variants of every card).
But after all my summer pickups such box is way too small to contain all the autos and relics I have now, so I recently made the following decision...

I will move the shelf unit in the garage, and place a brand new glass showcase, that will allow me to display all (or at least the best) the autographed / graded / relic / iconic rookie cards that currently have no chance to be seen. The showcase has been already purchased, but I won't be able to assemble it before I move the shelf unit in the garage.

I am pretty sad for what I am about to do, but since space is one of the biggest limits a collector has (the other obviously being the money, or the total absence of card shops in your country), I decided for once to opt for quality over quantity, and I'm pretty sure the result won't disappoint me.

In the recent months, I've also started a massive card cataloging effort, that so far allowed me to almost catalog the entire collection. Once this activity will be over I'll start the moving process that will lead to the new showcase...and at the same time will produce a comprehensive and updated set of wantlists that will be uploaded somewhere on the internet to finally allow all the colletors worldwide that desperately ask themselves "what cards does he need to complete his sets?" or "how can I help him out, by sending a giant package of cards?" to figure out how to contribute to my quest for completion.

Since you've been kind enough to read my post until this point, I'm awarding you with a little recent pickup...a 2014 Topps Tribute to the Pastime auto numbered to 99 of Ben Zobrist

 

The ebay auction for this card depicted and described a 2013 Tribute WBC (which I would preferred), but then this card showed up at the mailbox so... 

Thank you very much for taking the time to read my blog today, remember to keep collecting and CIAO!!

Celebrating the campions!

Last night the Kansas City Royals won the World Series, so congratulations to them and to their fans!

As a humble tribute to their success, I'm posting a couple cards of Royals current and past players... I'm afraid it will be a poor post, because I have very few cards of them, not already showed in previous posts...

First is a card of one of the main contributors to the Royals success this year, with 2 HR, 13 Hits and 6 RBIs in the post season...Alex Gordon!
The card depicts him from back in the day, when he was a third baseman for the Wichita Wranglers...
It's from 2006 Tristar Prospects Plus farm hands autographs, and even though the card is not numbered, I think it is very cool!

 

Another player that has been very important in the Royals postseason is Eric Hosmer, with 14 Hits, 17 RBIs and 1 Home Run...speaking of Eric Hosmer's HR, let's remember his first long ball with the next card...2015 Topps First Home Run Medallions

 

 

 

The next player has the most HR in the post season (4) among the players showed, and also 15 Hits and 8 RBIs, but unfortunately I only have a base card of him to show..is from 2013 Topps Tribute WBC and he is Salvador Perez

The next player played 2 post season games, with a 3.00 ERA, but in the card I'm posting is depicted with a Braves uniform...but he's a champion nevertheless...Kris Medlen!
The card come from 2014 Topps Triple Threads, and is a Unity Autograph Jumbo Relic Sepia numbered to 75

Now, in the section of former Royals players, I have a card with some wood in it...
From 2014 Topps Museum Collection Momentous Materials, and numbered to 50.....
It's a bat card of Billy Butler

 

 

That's all for this post, as well as for this year's World Series...

So once again, Congratulations to the Mighty KC!

 

Keep collecting and CIAO!

What kind of Christmas is it going to be?

I'm not going crazy, but I'm starting to prepare for the upcoming baseball cards extravanza known as Christmas!
It's been in the last couple years the excuse to order very big loads of boxed cards from DACARDWORLD, ensuring a 25th of December spent busting packs...

I know it's not intended in such way, but when you grow up you leave the magic behind and start focusing more on the material aspects, and after a certain age, it can be used as an excuse to buy very nice stuff to yourself... please let me know if I'm a bad person!

This year, it seems that the average price of boxes on the above mentioned website are slightly higher than last year...
I compared today prices to those I paid last year when I bought my Christmas presents, and please consider this as a rough estimate, since a couple products are no longer available, but I'm pretty sure that the exact same lot of boxes would cost about 50 to 100 dollars more...

So I'm still deciding what to do for this year...

But, just for the sake of completeness (this is what the blog is about), let's list what I got last year with a vote to the quality of cards I got..

- 1 box of Topps Tribute WBC, as usual a great product (and very expensive as well). I got a cool Cespedes auto and also a double card (Jason Grilli auto if the memory works still)...
- 12 Jumbo Packs of 2014 Topps, this had a double purpose. On one hand it is always fun to bust a huge amount of packs, and also it was very useful to find some subsets and parallel cards for my sets.. Amoung others, I found a camo Jeter card and an acetate Jorge De la Rosa numbered to 10.
-1 Box of 2014 Topps, same as above... (the purpose, not the hits!)
-1 Box of 2012 Heritage, I remember this costed less than 10 bucks, and considering it is a very cool product, I couldn't pass this up...
-1 Box of 2011 Donruss Elite Extra Edition, a product not particularly appealing, since the absence of licenses (and the limited checklist as well), but I pulled a cool Jurickson Profar auto so it's fine...
-1 Box of 2009 Upper Deck signature series, this was he second most expensive box of the order.. but was filled with cool cards. For example a triple auto with Dustin Pedroia, JD Drew and Jonathan Papelbon, a US set auto jersey of Sonny Gray, and 3/4 more autos and jerseys so definitely a great product!
-1 Box of 2007 Upper Deck series 2, this was more for checklist completion than other reasons...
-1 Box of 2012 Bowman, I don't remember pulling anything cool from this box, exept some cards useful for the completion of the set
-1 Box of 2005 Donruss studio, because I really like the brand, and I also found a couple Portraits cards (those numbered depending on the coloring of the border on the front of the card), so overall a cool box
-1 Box of 2006 Upper Deck future stars: the box guaranteed 5 autos on a acetate colored card, and I got 5 autos to be honest...but the players were more than unknown, so pretty disappointed with it...

Five more boxes bought only for completion purposes, since were from sets I had very few cards, are the following:
- 2009 Topps T206 (nothing very cool to report);
- 1994 Upper Deck series 2 (nothing very cool to report);
- 1996 Upper Deck series 2 (nothing very cool to report);
- 1995 Topps (sticky cards, which resulted in several cards scratched or chipped/tear when the packs were opened) (second worst box of the lot);
- Upper Deck the american epic, an 80 card set (if I remember correctly), with the greatest that ever plaied the game in the past. The set is connected to a very cool set of documentaries by Ken Burns.


Maybe this Christmas will be focused on Justcommons pickups, maybe I'll blindly buy some appealing lots on ebay....

Speaking of which, on July, due to my birthday (again, excuses),  I picked up 5 lots on ebay, purely basing the decision on the acution picture and the quantity price ratio of each lot... I almnost finished my checks and soon I will post a detailed statistic on the content of such lots...

Merry Christmas and Keep Collecting!!

CIAO

Some more random and unexpensive pickups!

Continuing from the previous post, where I showed some cards picked up during the first part of October, this time I'm going to show some more cards won on ebay in the second part of the month...

As you will notice, there's no common thread in the cards, also because the cards connected to the sets I'm trying to complete are posted directly in the specific pages... but nonetheless I think these are nice cards, from players I have no other autos or relics, and from very cool sets...

First, a nice red chuck of jersey from 2013 Topps Triple Threads, numbered to 27 and featuring Josh Hamilton from when he was an Angels player

 

 

Then a cool auto of a player that I really like, but of whom I had no relics or autos before, from 2013 Topps Supreme and numbered to 50, he's Johnny Cueto!

 

 

The next card is from a set of which I already have a couple of cards (Reggie Jackson and Alex Rodriguez). I'm talking about 2001 Upper Deck Legends, legendary lumber, and the next card is from a Legend that recenly passed away, the great Tony Gwynn.

 

 



The next is a sick patch (at least compared to other products), from 2004 Fleer Platinum Name Plates Team, but depicting a player that hasn't left many memories in the record books (as far as I know), I'm talking about Hee Seop Choi, depicted as a Cubs player.

 

The next player gets both Auto and Jersey cards, and I'm talking about Johnny Podres, and the cards are from 2004 SP Legendary Cuts Historic Swatches and from 2014 Topps Supreme Autographs. The first is not numbered while the second is numbered to 20.

 

 

I offered on the next card for two reasons, the first is that I had no relics from this player, and the second is that the fabric chunk insert in the card is pretty huge, and of a color not very common.

It's an Andy Pettitte jersey card from 2006 Sweet Spot Super Sweet Swatch, numbered to an astronomical 299.

 

 

The last card for this post is from 2005 Upper Deck Past Time Pennants. The cards are very well designed, especially the golden logo and I really like the fact that the signature is made inside a pennant (like the set name suggests). I already have Pedro Guerrero from this set, and I'm happy I have added another player to the roster, here comes Ray Knight!

Since at this point the post wasn't published yet, and in the meantime I have a couple more scans in the COMC mailbox, why not show some more nice cardboard?

First is a 3 color patch card from 2008 Upper Deck Premier, featuring Takashi Saito on it, and numbered to 65.

And the last card for this post is an autographed card from 2005 Donruss Diamond Kings, numbered to 100, and the featured player is Dave Parker!

 

Do you like the cards in this post and in the blog so far?

 

I'm very proud of my growing collection...and very satisfied of the completion level reached in the main sets I'm chasing...

 

Keep collecting and...

Ciao!

October brings cards!

After a three-month ebay craze that affected me, I forced myself not to buy at least during the month of September...needless to say that it's been very hard, especially if I think of all those auctions ended at a dollar that I could easily win during the whole month...

But September is now in the memories and October started pretty well for me, and I picked up from where I left in August, great cards for ridicoluosly low prices...

Here's a little taste of what I got, and already reached COMC facility (I also won some 2015 Tier One relics that I'm not showing since they're already available in the dedicated page (that is not available at the moment !)(but soon will))..

The very first card I got in this new auctioning adventure is a nice 2015 Panini Immaculate, that features both a jersey piece and a sticker auto, plus is numbered to 49, and it's been also a pretty steal, since it costed 0.99 $.

 



It's a Rymer Liriano card! The first I own of this player.

Another card I got from this year's Panini set is the next one, from a subset called "Immaculate pitchers", numbered to 99 comes my first Archie Bradley game used jersey!

I haven't decided yet if I like this year's product, but at least for now it is pretty affordable!

Back to 2014 Panini Immaculate. here's a nice (despite tiny) jersey chunk of Dustin Pedroia. The card is from the "Immaculate swatches" subset and it's numbered to 99.





 

The next card is a clean, beautiful on card autograph of Kevin Maas,from 2004 Upper Deck Yankees Classic Clipping set. It's the second card I own from that set, since in August 2014 I picked up a Mickey Rivers auto during my visit at the White Plains card show.

 

 

 

This next card comes from 2015 Topps Triple Threads, a very expensive product that usually provides extremely cool and valuable cards. But according to my policy, so far I've only been able to pick up the following "Unity Single Jumbo Relics Emerald" (sounds very complex but in the end is a big chunk of fabric)... here's Michael Taylor numbered to 18!

 

 

Since I usually try to adhere to the motto "save the best for last", I'm about to show the card that in my opinion is (by far) the best of the lot.

 

BOOM!

 

It's a beautiful 3 color patch card of Mark Teixeira from that glorious set which is 2007 Ultimate Collection Team Materials Patch! It's the third card with this numbering I own (the other two are Garrett Atkins and Delmon Young), and it tempts me to try to complete the whole set...

 

So I think I can say that October started the right way (can't really say the same about the Yankees), and I'll post new pictures as soon as the other pickups (obviously there are other pickups) reach the mailbox.

 

CIAO! 

 

 

 

Along came autos!

Not auto-mobiles, but auto-graphs!

After showing in the previous post some (maybe I should say several), patch cards currently in the COMC.com mailbox, this time I'll show some ink cards...

Let's set the bar high, even if it means making all the next cards less cool...

It's a graded Rookie auto card of Hanley Ramirez, directly from 2006 Upper Deck Future Stars.
It's funny because I bought this card on ebay for about 2 bucks, while last Christmas I got myself a box of the product, only to find five completely unknown player's autos...

This is from 2007 SPx Autofacts, and it's signed by Kei Igawa. It's cool (IMO) for many reasons, first of all because I got it for .99 $ on ebay (I'm sorry if I'm always mentioning the prices, but I'm pretty proud of my buying policies). Second reason why this card is cool is because it's signed by a former Yankees pitcher. Third, it's because autographs of Japanese players are very cool in my opinion.
And the last reason (I just made the link), it's that I used to play MLB the show on my PSP (some years ago) and the only time I got close to a perfect game this guy was on the mound. (btw thank you Kevin Youkilis, you ruined that perfect game in the 9th with one out)...


Another auto of a former Bronx Bomber is the following

I know he's wearing a Dodgers uniform, but that's what I was able to pick up this time...issued by Topps in 2008 as part of the Highlights set...Russell Martin!

And last, is a card from a manufacturer I didn't know exists, and showing a player I honestly never heard of...

Issued in 1995 in the Fritsch All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Samples, has the plus of being hand signed by the player herself!
I haven't researched details or history of the player's career, but I have a feeling that her character was part of a 90's movies..but I might be completely wrong...
I'll update this post with more details in the coming days...

Keep collecting!

CIAO

Jersey time

Since I already posted pictures about Autos and Patches, the last category of cards in COMC.com mailbox I could show (not considering base and variations) are Jersey cards...which usually are small white fabric squares, pretty boring and generally not appealing...

So in this post I'll try to show jersey cards that are at least colored, and possibly from notable players..

From this year Topps Carrer high, an orange (or maybe red) jersey card of David Wright

 

 

From 2013 Tier One comes a jersey piece that is red for sure, and numbered to 399. He's John Smoltz

 

 

 

From 2008 Donruss Threads come the next card, with blue fabric and numbered to 450. Here's Gary Carter...

 

Time for a black jersey, it's from 2012 Topps Triple Threads and numbered to just 18 (which is cool) and features Brian McCann (not as a Yankee, for obvious time reasons)

 

The next is a pretty unusual color (brown), and it's even more unusual since the depicted player (Steve Garvey) is wearing a Dodgers uniform...

 

There were many duplicate colors (especially the red, and white, which I carefully avoided), but I feel like I already set a record for color palette used in a single post, so for today I greet you all with a

CIAO!

Brace yourself, patches are coming

After this quote from Game of Thrones (that I recently started watching), let's get to the point...

In the last two posts (part 4 and 5 of the "What's in my mailbox" series) I showed some pics of the cards that COMC.com is currently storing for me, waiting for the final and biggest shipment request ever (for me at least)... some of those cards have already been showed, and many more are still unknown to you...so let's see some more of that!

This post is only focusing on the patches (in case the title didn't suggest it)

 

2008 Spx Winning Materials 3 color patch of Luis Gonzalez, numbered to 99.

 

 



2006 Sweet Spot sweet beginnings BIG patch of Chad Billingsley, surprisingly not numbered.

 



 

2004 Fleer Platinum Nameplates 3 color patch of Mark Teixeira numbered to 505 (really?!)

 

 

 

2007 Ultimate team materials 3 or 4 (not sure) color patch of Delmon Young, numbered to 25

 

 

 

2009 Topps Unique primetime patches of Lance Berkman, 3 colors, numbered to 99.

 

 

2003 Fleer patchworks nameplates with 3 colors of Rafael Palmeiro, numbered to 50. Not sure if I already posted this, but I'm certainly too lazy to check it out.

 

 

 

2014 Panini Immaculate 4 colors patch of Neftali Feliz, numbered to 49.

 

 

There are (many) more cards in the mailbox, maybe less cool than these patches (some have just a poor plain white jersey piece), but also several autographs I haven't posted yet...so stay tuned for more cards!

 

 

CIAO!



 

Important Upcoming Updates!

Well, after a title so teasing you are probably wondering what kind of revolution is preparing behind the scenes of this blog...
Maybe you'll be disappointed, but in the way I've been running this blog so far, will be a pretty huge innovation...

I'm about (a couple weeks away, based on the last estimates) to complete a comprehensive and detailed wantlist!!!

It's in the form of a set of spreadsheets (read excel files), two for every manufacturer (Topps, Upper Deck, Donruss, Fleer, just to name a few). In the first are listed the complete checklists of base and update/traded sets (in Topps' case), and in the second file are the checklists of all the subsets, divided by year.

It's been so far an incredible effort and a considerable time consumption ...especially when it comes to track down the checklists for particular subsets (I mainly use Baseballcardpedia, Openchecklist or Cardboard connection), while it's very fun the part where I go through the monster boxes and mark everything I have!

I think I will share such files on Dropbox, so that will be easily accessible, but not before I finish the complete listing, so prepare for that...

What's in my mailbox? part 5

Soon (too soon?!) after the last post, here's some more cards patiently waiting in the mailbox for when I'll decide to have them all shipped to my home adress to finally be added to the collection...
There are currently 130 cards in the mailbox, with about twenty more to be received, so I'm already scared of the price the shipment will reach...

Coming to a more interesting theme, here below some more nice pickups, mainly from eBay...

Let's start with a beautiful 2006 Ultimate Game Patches of A.J. Burnett featuring a sweet sweet patch from his Blue Jays jersey...and numbered to a nice 50

Not bad uh?


It's amazing how easy it is in some cases to win off auction cards from super high end products like the old Topps Sterling, for example the following cost me less than 2 $...

A 2010 Sterling Legendary Leather numbered to 75 with three jersey pieces of Mark Teixeira...

And the next card is even better, costed (if I'm not wrong) around 10 $

Hey! It's Timmy The Freak Lincecum, depicted on a 2009 Sterling Career Chronicles, with four jersey pieces, and numbered to 25...

Wow, these kind of pickups really made my day... but there's something more...
...such as this nice 2008 UD Premier of Mr October, Reggie Jackson himself!

numbered to 75 and with 3 jersey pieces...


Four more cards and then I might reach the limit for beauty in a single post!

Let's stay in the UD world, with a card from a set that I'm considering to put together (maybe)...
It's from 2007 Ultimate Team Materials, numbered to just 25, with an amazing patch and from Garrett Atkins

Let's finish the post with two kings (well, three if you count the cards), each one for different reasons.. the first is the King of Seattle and comes with two cards, while the second is considered one of the Kings of the Ballgame...

The first card is from 2015 Gipsy Queen, numbered to 50 and features a big chunk of Jersey...

And since the previous card had no patch on it, let me remediate by posting the following picture, is a 2007 Winning Materials Limited Gold patch card, numbered to 99 and with a 4-color patch in it!

It might be hard to believe, but it's the less expensive card of the whole post...


And finally, a card from a player that I like a lot, and from whom I had no cards before...so I had to do something! A beautiful (despite very small) Jersey Card of Roger Maris, from 2014 Panini National Treasures, numbered to 99

I think I like the cards in this post even more than those in part 4
But what do you think?

Thanks again for taking the time to read my poor-english written posts, and keep collecting!

CIAO!