Football Mailday

My football cards to post pile has gotten big enough to go through so it's time to show some off before the Super Bowl weekend.

A card I have always wanted, a 2nd year card of Hall of Famer and NFL record holder for most career interceptions, Paul Krause. I am not a huge graded card guy, so the PSA 6 doesn't bother me, I have just always though this was a good looking card and finding an encapsulated one for a decent price is a nice addition to the Redskins collection.

First Ever Rainbow (or Way Too Many Ramon Hernandez Posts)

A pretty big moment in my collecting career, I finally finished the 2013 Topps Ramon Hernandez rainbow. The final tally checks in at 14 cards, not counting printing plates. Above you see the Orange factory set parallel numbered to 230 beside the Gold numbered to 2013.

Contest Pimping

Andrews Baseball Cards is giving away this Tulo relic, which I still need, so ignore this post and do not enter his contest.

Acetate Appreciation: 2013 Pinnacle - Clear Vision

Not an acetate card in the truest sense, but a set I have been looking forward to posting about, it just took this long for me to finally get one. The newest incarnation of Pinnacle fell kind of flat for me, I still can't get past Panini having to remove logos, but the insert were interesting.

Here we have the "Clear Vision" inserts, coming in ten parallels (five for hitters and five for pitchers). The cards are made in two layers, the top or front of the card being a shiny foily layer with a cutout, and the bottom or back of the cards being acetate should which parallel, this one being a double, with a cloudy background. I couldn't capture it on a scan, but if you hold the cards sideways and look at the edge you can see this pretty clearly. Pretty underwhelming as far as the acetate part, but the multiple layers make for a pretty interesting card.

First Trade of 2014

The first trade of 2014, through the usual zistle.com. The main part being around a dozen 1971 style cards from 2012 Topps Archives. I completely ignored this set when it came out, but have slowly been chipping away at the '71's.

Acetate Appreciation: 2005 Topps Hot Button

A weird little set that you don't see much of, 2005 Topps Hot Button. These cards were part of a game made by Topps in which players would insert cards into an electronic game unit and the game would come up with a result based on the cards used. The cards themselves were sold as a starter kit with 20 cards and a game unit and as booster packs with 7 cards.

Tom Murphy Bowman Black Collection

A recent pick-up to go along with the Will Swanner Bowman Black Collection auto from a few months back. The Rockies top catching prospect and listed around 5th overall a Colorado prospect, Murphy is coming off a 22 home run season split between Asheville and Tulsa (AA). These are absolutely beautiful cards and this will be prominently displaying in my collection.

Contest Pimp

Awesome contest going on over the The Dutch Card Guy, check it out

My Top Acquisitions of 2013

A quick post just showing of some of my favorite pick-ups of 2013, I don't bust a ton of wax so only one was a pulled by me.

9. John Buck 2005 Absolute Memorabilia - Possibly the ultimate catching relic card.

2013 Collecting Goals Summary

 Last January I posted some collecting goals for myself and for the state of the blog. As 2014 starts I thought it would be interesting to go over these and see how the year went.

2013 Goals

1. Keep the blog active, the minimum I have set for myself is 2 posts a week but I hope to stay more active than that. I think I did OK on this, 121 posts for the year puts me over 2 week with a few longer planned breaks.

2. Complete more trades, in little over a year I did 15 trades, so about one a month, not bad but a few more would be nice. 17 trades in 2013, 2 more than 2012.


3. Finish the "One of every Rockie" collection. This was a success, with Aaron Ledesma being the last pre-2013 card needed.

4. Complete a 2013 set, I will be buying 2 boxes of 2013 Gypsy Queen which should get me close to the base set leaving me to work on any short prints. Success, 2013 Gypsy Queen base set was completed as well as most of 2013 Topps Series 2.


5. Complete 2 older sets, right now I am looking at 1992 Pinnacle and 2012 Gypsy Queen short prints, or at least all of them other than the Darvish. Success, both of these were completed in 2013.

6. Get my 2011 GQ set above 50%, right now I have 147 out of 350 (42%) including 33 of 50 short prints (66%). Success, after a big ebay lot, I now need one card (#308, Kila Ka'aihue) for the set with SP's.


7. Acquire at least one more 1977 Topps Mexican NFL Redskin, I am down to 7 for the team set with mostly expensive short prints left. Success, with a PSA 7 Frank Grant.

8. Get a TTM autograph, I was going to try this last past year, but the NHL lockout put this on hold, I will try a few over the year and see what happens. Success, Tomas Kaberle on a 1987 Topps custom.

9. Get an in person auto, more on this next week hopefully. Success, 4 Blue Jays as part of the 2013 Winter Tour.


10. See a pro baseball game. Success, a trip to Vancouver seeing a Canadians game.


11. Buy a box of cards other than Gypsy Queen. I would hardly call my two crappy boxes of Topps Chrome a success, but it does fulfill the requirement.

12. Add to my Rockies autograph cards, Matt Holliday, Larry Walker and Andres Galarraga top this list. I did well on this with a nice Matt Holliday and a few prospects, but the Walker and Galarraga are still on the want list.