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!

What's in my mailbox? part 4

Hello everyone,

I'm about to show some more nice (IMO at least) card that are currently waiting for shipment at my COMC.com mailbox.

Except for a couple (coming from Instagram) all of them are eBay pickups, but this time will be a little more expensive than my average 1$ cards....

First some 2008 UD Premier, I really like this product, because cards feature amazing patches on a regular basis, while too often Topps puts regular white jersey pieces in cards supposed to have "patches" on them. These costed on average 5 dollars each, but I think it's a cheap  price considering how beautiful they look... only negative aspect on these, is the regular chippings on the edges, that seems to affect every card...

Ben Sheets numbered to 50                                        Brian Roberts numbered to 50

 

Erik Bedard numbered to 75                                      Freddy Sanchez numbered to 50

Johan Santana numbered to 57                                  Todd Helton numbered to 50

After such a nice start will be tough to keep up, but I will try with the following beauty from 2007 UD Premier Patches series 2... it's a Francisco Liriano numbered to 75

 

 

 



Still a patch, despite less cool than the previous, is the upcoming 2005 Fleer Patchworks numbered to 49 and with a two color patch of Justin Upton

 

 

To finish this post with a boom, I'm about to show you two of the best pickups I ever made on Instagram, paid 20$ for the couple shipped... here's a Desmond Jennings 2013 Unity Jumbo Relic Gold from Topps Triple Threads numbered to 9 and a 2012 Playoff Prime Cuts Colossal Prime of Justin Upton, numbered to just 5!

 

 



Both cards are pretty nice uh?

So what do you think about these "expensive" pickups?

 

Soon (in about ten minutes) another post with some lower end (not considering the Maris relic, the sick patches and cool jerseys) stuff.

 

CIAO! 

 

 

 

 

Some news and improvements! (but no new pickups)

As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I'm "strongly" back into this blog, I already posted a couple of posts showing some (of the hundreds) of cards I bought on eBay during the summer, but I also decided to give a more in-depth view of some of the sets I'm trying to put together, as well as a possible upcoming upload of someting resembling a wantlist....


To be honest, I've been very influenced by the layout of Jeroen's blog, at The Dutch Card Guy  and combining the great looking blog he runs to my limited skills when it comes to blogger's setting knowledge, I've only been able so far to add a couple pages where are listed and depicted the cards I have from the main sets I'm chasing.


Some advices to the readers,

1) Please forgive the mid to low quality of the pictures, but I'm still without a scanner, so I can only use pictures provided by COMC.com when they scan my pickups, or recycle old pictures used in other posts (generally not very good quality pics). I promise to update the pictures as soon as I will be equipped.

2) The stats about the completion status of the sets may not be matched by the pictures, due to the above issue... but are updated and reliable.

3) I'm still deciding wether to create other pages for sets that I've recently started to put together, (despite I have very few cards from them), or wait until I have some more and also in this way prevent the blog to become a cluster of checklists...

4) Once again, thank you very much Jeroen, for both the latest trade (which I will show in the coming days) as well as for the inspiration to start this blog. I hope you won't be pissed off by the copied layout, I will find a different way to organize this mess asap.


I've been buying pretty heavily from June until now, but I plan to stop picking up "whatever catches my eye and is cheap" and dedicate the coming months to organize the collection, finish the "wantlist project" and maybe set up more trades with European and US based collectors.
I could start buying again probably close to Christmas, with my usual "DAcardworld Christmas presents to myself".

Thanks for taking the time to read this and keep collecting!

CIAO!