My Top Acquisitions of 2014

With the end of a year, there are always two things, a chance to look back at the year that was, and lists. Here is a combination of these two things with my top acquisitions of 2014. These are in a sort of order ending with my most favorite, but I decided not to number them as my order would change if I tried to to this again.

2013 Topps Museum Collection Framed Museum Collection Autographs Gold Wilin Rosario - My feels toward Rosario as a baseball player have soured, and he will most likely not be with Colorado when 2015 opens, but there Topps does that is as nice as the Museum Collection metal framed autographs. Scans in now way do these cards justice, they are just amazing.

Zistle Trade #35

A smaller zistle trade of that cards that came from Los Angeles to the frozen Canadian winter. As someone who appreciates a nice set of sideburns, this Eddie Murray card goes into the sideburn Hall of Fame, first ballot. The same photo was re-used for his stadium club card this year, one I still have to track down. Rob Brantly for the catcher collection, and another chef card.

My Black Friday COMC Rundown

While I definitely did not go overboard this year, I picked up a few cool things worthy of showing off. Starting with a card bought a few days before, a 2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces Chris Cooley, while not a fan of relics, I was sold on this card mostly because of the "21" Sean Taylor patch on the photo and Cooley being one of the last Redskins I actually liked from when the team was just not very good, and not the hot stinking dumpster fire it is now.

Trading for some Canadian "Junk"

After opening a pretty fun box in 2014 Upper Deck CFL, I dug into the old football box and pulled out probably the junkiest of all junk wax, 1991 All World CFL. 1991 was the year the CFL gained some press with Bruce McNall, John Candy and Wayne Gretzky buying the Toronto Argonauts and signing Rocket Ismail away from the NFL. All-World jumped on this releasing a 110 cards CFL set, including 9 Ismail base cards, 1 promo and a Autographed card.

After entering my cards into zistle I checked with what I didn't have and found a trade partner in fellow Canadian olerud363. He managed to knock 7 cards off my want list, including the lone Ismail I was missing, leaving me 19 cards short.

Rosell Herrera Bowman Black Collection Autograph

The ninth Bowman Black Collection autograph to find it's way into my PC, Rosell Herrera who was listed as the Rockies 8th best prospect by Purple Row, and 6th by MLB.com. Coming off a breakout season in 2013 in which he was named the South Atlantic League MVP with a .343 average, 16 home runs and 76 RBI, Herrera struggled in 2014 with a .244 average and is now being converted from a shortstop to an outfielder for the 2015 season.

Obvious Trade is Obvious

The only thing better than pulling a hit from your team, is pulling a hit of the team from your most frequent trade partner. Buckstore Cards pulled a Roughrider relic, I pulled a Ti-Cat relic. A little help from Canada Post and everyone is happy. An now with the Darian Durant-less Riders packing up their gear and going home, I am jumping on the Hamilton band-wagon behind former Riders Andy Fantuz, Craig Butler, Kent Austin and former Redskin Brandon Banks.

Quality Over Quantity Trade

I usually try and send out more cards in trades than I get back, and this trade was a big example of this. Three cards coming back exchange for a pile of 2014 Topps Inserts. Starting off with a Topps Chrome Autograph of Eric Young Jr, a second generation Colorado Rockie who stole 70 bases in 313 games with Colorado, and led the National League with 46 steals in 2013 splitting the season with the Mets. Young could always steal bases with 87 and 73 steals in 2006 and 2007 in the minors, his main problem was finding a spot with the glove playing second base and in the outfield.

Platinum Zistle Trade

Another Zistle trade, this time sending some early 90's Upper Deck hockey away for baseball. 15 of the 16 cards I received we from 2014 Bowman Platinum, the only exception being the above Carlos Gonzalez from this years Finest set. Not a card that was high on my wantlist, but I wanted to see if these cards were are ugly in person as the look in scans. My opinion on this set has mellow from "Oh my God, that is the worst looking card design I have ever seen", to "Yup, it's ugly alright". Ever year Topps Finest pushes the boundaries of terrible looking baseball cards, and this year is no exception.
 To clease the eyes I did scan a few of the better looking cards from a set that I really like to design of.

First card show in about a decade with 2 pickups

There are a lot of things I have done since getting back into collecting, but one thing that was missing was going to a card show. This past weekend it just happened that I was in the city for a wedding the same day an actual sports card show was going on. It was pretty much what I expected, around 20 tables with about 95% hockey. Very little wax, almost nothing for dime and dollar boxes, pretty much everything was overpriced modern relics and auto's with a bit of vintage mixed in. With almost no baseball or CFL, my main goal was to find a 1971-72 O-Pee-Chee Bobby Orr in decent shape. I already had about 10 Bruins from that year, and the Orr was going to be the most expensive card to finish the team set. After about ten tables I found one that looked good for only $25.00. After asking to look at it, it had serious paper loss on the back, all four corners, like it had been taped into a book, even at a discount from the original $25, I was not interested. A few more tables in, another 1971 Orr in good shape, again for $25.00, again leading to disappointment as flipping it over revealed it to be Topps instead the OPC I desired. Stopping a the last table there was a Bobby Orr, right on the price tag "1971-72 OPC" with "$100.00" underneath it. Then to the right of that "Sale, $25.00"

It's a little off center, has some imperfections on the surface and the corners are a little soft, in no way a $100.00 card, but for $25.00 cash I am pretty happy with it. As with most vintage, the scan really brings out the flaws, but it looks good in hand, and after looking on secondary markets, I think I did pretty good for $25. Walking up to the dealer a stack of Young Guns caught my eye and after coming up empty looking for a Torey Krug, I did grab a Carl Soderberg, marked at $10, on sale for $2.25, and it ending up being a throw in with the Orr for a total of $25.00.

Zistle Trade #31

In honor of the Redskins beating Dallas this past weekend we will start with a couple Redskins from a recent Zistle trade. Brad Edwards was a favorite defensive player from my early years, so I will always add any cards of his I can. A couple receivers from the current team, I really love when team colors are prominently displayed and 2014 Prestige does this well.

Just One Pack of 2014 Stadium Club

Along with the box of 2014 Upper Deck CFL, I picked up one pack of 2014 Stadium Club, just to see what it was like. Glossy stock, photos are very sharp and pop off the card. First card was Alex Gordon, hoping for a little Royals mojo to keep the Giants from having yet another parade.

2014 Upper Deck CFL Box Break and Review

It was not big news in the hobby world by any means, but a few us north of the border noticed when Upper Deck secured the rights to make Canadian Football League cards away from long-time CFL partner JOGO. All-World, Extreme and Pacific have all tried their hands at CFL cards, but JOGO has been the only one to stick around, although limiting their products to factory sets recently.

I have always though of Upper Deck as a quality brand and was pretty excited to break some, and with a trip to the big city, I stopped in at the LCS and picked up a box.

The "base set" is broken down into three groups, 1-100 being all offensive players, 101-150 being defensive players shortprinted to one per pack, and 151-180 being Star Rookies falling at 1 every 4 packs. Also included are autographs (1:192 packs), Relics and a few other inserts.

2013 Gypsy Queen Complete

Not much of a post, just taking a minute to celebrate the completion of 2013 Gypsy Queen including short prints. The cards are all in hand and in binder on the shelf with 2011 and 2012 complete sets.. The last card I needed was Nolan Ryan and that just leaves 2014 to pick away at, including two of the pricier cards in the set, Masahiro Tanaka and Jose Abreu.

Ramiel Tapia Bowman Black Collection Auto

Another Bowman Black Collection autograph to add to the collection. This was the one player I was hoping would get one of these cards this season. Tapia is a prospect that a lot of guys are really high on and some are not, seems like a really high ceiling low floor player, but with the way the Rockies seem to develop hitters this kid has a chance to be good, although as a 20 year old who just finished his second season in the States, he is still a ways away from Coors Field.

Zistle Trade #30

After being fairly quiet for a while, the trade winds are blowing again, starting with this package from kesslerm through zistle.com. Starting off with a couple nice horizontal shots, a great double dip from Jason Bates and one of my favorite inserts from the last few years with a CarGo chase it down.

Just when you thought I couldn't post any more of these

A pretty exciting addition to the collection, joining the 2013 Ramon Hernandez rainbow, the black printing plate used to make the cards. I know the magenta has been pulled and sold on ebay before I started this project and is probably stashed in someones collection, and I had all but given up finding one of the other three, so I was trilled just to get 1 of the 4, and who knows maybe the rest will pop up eventually.

More Weird Catcher Relic Pick-ups

While not usually a fan of relics, Tools of the Trade did some things that are just to awesome it ingore. The above John Buck with pieces of shin guard, glove, chest protector and steel bars from a mask is one of those cards that there was no way I was going to pass up.

The Ivan Rodriguez switches out the shin guard for a piece of jersey but is the first mask card I have seen with hollow bars, and is the first from a traditional catcher's mask and not the goalie style that Buck wears.

These join the Johnny Estrada I picked up last year and as far as I can tell I am only missing a Paul Lo Duca mask card to have one of each from the Tools of the Trade sets.

2015 Gypsy Queen First Look

My collecting tendencies come and go, sometimes it's hockey, sometimes it's football, sometimes it's base cards, sometimes it's higher end, sometimes it's Ramon Hernandez. The one constant since getting back into collecting has been Gypsy Queen. I have finished 2011-2013 and 2014 is getting closer. Every year since 2012 I have bought 2 boxes, I love Gypsy Queen.

Jonathan Gray - Bowman Black Collection 2.0

A while back, my top collecting goal was to get all the Rockies from the multi-year, multi-brand Bowman Black Collection Autograph series. This past winter I managed to track them all down, but a new year means new cards, although always new players. In March of this year, my redemption for the Jonathan Gray Bowman Black Collection from 2013 Bowman Draft came arrived, then in June I noticed Jon Gray was again listed in Bowman Inception as a part of the BBC checklist. My first reaction was annoyance at re-using a player from last year instead of another prospect, but after receiving the card, the photo selection on this one is way better, and the prospect I really wanted Topps to use, Raimel Tapia, got a Black Collection card in Bowman flagship this year.

Recent Pickup (or why I don't break high end)

There are few things about Topps high end products such as 2014 Triple Threads that confuse me. One being why there are even base cards in the first place, do we really need another 100 card base set of the same players that are in every base set. Limit high-end to just autos and relics like Inception and be done with it. The second is why players like Mr. Franklin Morales here are included. While having and interesting career, coming up as a rookie starting pitcher for Colorado's World Series run in 2007. Later spending time as the Rockies closer and eventual World Series champ with the 2013 Red Sox, Morales is back with the Rockies as a 6th starter/longman, which in this season from hell puts him second on the team in starts and innings pitched. While this is a nice card, numbered to only 9 copies, even as a die-hard Rockies fan a collector, I only bought this card because of the spring training hat in the photo. I can't imagine the disappointment of a non-Rockies fan, pulling a Franklin Morales card out of a high-end product and selling it, to me, on ebay, for $3.26. Right now you can pick up a box of 2014 Triple Threads at Blowout for 164.95. Keep in mind that only gets you 14 cards. I hope that whoever pulled this Morales, the rest of their pack went a little bit better.

Maybe Topps Bunt Isn't All Bad

Things are very slow in the card front around here, so after scrambling through the scanned folder I found something that I had totally forgot about. Back in June I downloaded the Topps Bunt app, the virtual trading card game and starting messing around with, buying packs, making a few trades, and it turned out to be a fun little time waster. Then I heard people were actually selling these digital cards on the secondary market. So after pulling an Xander Bogaerts insert I put it up on ebay to test the waters. The auction ended at $7.56, almost 8 bucks for a card that does not actually exist! So with a basically free $7.56 in my paypal I added the card below to my collection.

Are you ready for some football?

Week 1, at time of hope and optimism, were every team coming into the game is in first place with an undefeated 0-0 record, and a time for me to post some cards that have been sitting in the scanned folder for far to long. Starting with a black bordered parallel ,numbered to 35, of Sean Taylor from 2004 Skybox LE. I have grown tired of die-cuts, but I actually like this set. I usually don't like training camp shots either, but the trees in the background make for a nice photo.

2014 Bowman Platinum Group Break Results

In deciding not to spend over $100 on a box on 2014 Bowman Platinum, I decided to try and jump in on a few box breaks to pick up some Rockies. I have done two previous box breaks, 2012 Archives and 2012 Heritage, both went poorly for me, but that was largely because I joined before I realized how poor the Rockies checklists for these sets were.

I was hoping this one would be different, but it was not. 6 boxes of Bowman Platinum yielded me very little. I did watch the break, and the breaker ran a good honest break. It was just the packs that were against me. I did get the base team set, but that is only the two cards to the right.

Zistle Hockey Trade

There is starting to be a little more hockey finding it's way into my collection. The most recent Zistle trade was all hockey both ways. Most of my hockey cards are still at my parents house, probably including a couple copies of the card above. The Sharks were always my second team, after coming home from playing games over the winter, I could usually catch the end of the late west coast games, and I got a soft spot for the teal jerseys and the weird Latvian goalie with the equipment that looked like second hand store rejects.

Zistle Trade #29

Catching up on some Zistle.com trading. richardsonpilot put a dent in my 2013 Update 1971 mini wantlist. I really need to get some pages for these instead of keeping them in penny sleeves in the keeper box.

Last of the Denver Loot.

Along with catching a few Rockies games while in Denver, I managed to find my way down to Bill's Sports Collectibles, and picked up a few things. The big score for me was a couple Rockies magazines, these are full of photos of old obscure Rockies that make for some good custom card material. With some time to kill I dug through a few boxes of 10 cards for $20 and while probably overpaying at $2.00, it was fun to spend some time in a big store dedicated to something other than hockey.

Zistle Trade #28

Another smaller Zistle trade, In exhcange for some pirates BucCollector sent back a few randoms from the want-list. The Carlos Gonzalez above was the lone Rockies card, a Diamond Star from 2011 Topps.

Flew to Denver and Back (Something, Something, Tired Arms)

Just got back from taking in four Rockies games in Denver against the Reds. The highlight being the Todd Helton jersey retirement ceremony on Sunday. Live baseball is always a treat, but when something special like this happens, it's even better. The Rockies ended up winning 3 of the 4 games I was at, including a walk-off win and a double header sweep after a water line break forced the Saturday night game to be moved to Sunday evening. Good seats, good beer and good baseball, hard to beat that.

Just a Taste: 2014 Platinum (w/ Small Review)

Along with the 5 packs of Gypsy Queen, I picked up 5 packs of 2014 Bowman Platinum. This is a product that I haven't bought much over the years, but have always like the looks of. After seeing the sell-sheet for this years release and really digging the base design, I flirted with buying a box or two, but the low interest and lower resale value scared me off a little. I don't expect to make money off cards, but I have seen way to many bad box breaks of this stuff to drop $120 on a full box. My 5 Packs didn't bring anything special, but the odds were against me with that small of a sample.

Just 5 More Packs: 2014 Gypsy Queen

In a weekend trip to the LCS for supplies, the call of wax was too strong, and seeing packs of 2014 Gypsy Queen in a hockey based store proved to be to tempting to pass up. Even though I have completed the base set I still picked up 5 packs. The first pack I opened had one of the 4 hits in the box, and autograph Jake Odorizzi, not a big card by any means, but it was still nice to pull a hit from a loose pack.

Acetate Appreciation: 2000 Stadium Club Chrome - Clear Shots

 From the same set that had the acetate "Eyes of the Game" inserts is the "Clear Shots" inserts from 2000 Topps Stadium Club Chrome. A 10 card set with both hitters and pitchers all in posed shots. Not a very imaginative way to used the acetate stock, but not the worst I have seen. This post is almost as boring as the photos on the cards as there is not really much to say about these other than they exist.

Biggest Zistle Trade Yet

Completed a while ago, but just getting around to posting, a pretty large stack of cards from mkruger743 on zistle.com. Staring off with a nice bat relic of Vinny Castilla from 2005 bazooka. This is from Vinny's second stint with Colorado when he lead the National League with 131 RBI.

1971 Topps Variations?: Billy Grabarkewitz #85

This falls under the "is it really a variation" file, but I have seen it mentioned as such around the internet, so I felt the need to include it here. I have been waiting to post about this card until I personally got one, and after forgetting for over a year, I found one for cheap and pulled the trigger. On to the variation, you see that little dot to the glove side of Billy's head. One is red and is yellow. Yup, that's it. Not sure if it would be a print error or what the deal is. The "Red Dot" version is by far the most common, and all of the OPC versions I have seen are of the "Red Dot" variety.

COMRockies

Time to show off some Rockies from the recent COMC package, which included some bigger cards from the mailbox system. First off, a nice on-card auto of Todd Helton from 1998, or the pre-goatee era. Only my second Helton autograph, a part of my collection that is severely lacking.

COMGQSP

Another COMC order arrived, meaning chipping away at my Gypsy Queen sets, starting off with 2011, a set I already finished but found the Rockies short prints for cheap so I added them for the team PC, I don't remember buying the Hanson, but I only paid 45 cents, pretty cheap for a short print.

Heavy Metal Mainiac

A Recent addition from the bay, a Wilin Rosario framed metal card from 2013 Museum Collection. I usually don't bother with the budget-breaking high end stuff, but I will make an exception the odd time, and if I can get my hands on one of these for a reasonable price, I will jump at it. These are super thick metal framed and really need to be seen in person to be fully appreciated. For all the things that Topps does wrong, this is an example of something that they do right.

Why I am Still Watching My Team Being Terrible

It been a tough year to be a Rockies fan. After losing 7 straight, and going 6-25 over their last 31 games Colorado is a league worst 40-100 (tied with Texas). Injuries have played a part including using 13 different starting pitchers, and losing Carlos Gonzalez, Nolan Arenado, Micheal Cuddyer and now Troy Tulowitzki to stints on the DL. The bullpen is on pace to be historically bad, and things don't look like they will be getting better. Time to look for silver lining, and I came up with six reasons to turn the game on a sit through the mess that is the Rockies 2014 season.

Chance Ruffin has issues

I think the picture speaks for itself.

Acetate Appreciation: 2000 Fleer Tradition Hall's Well

The first thing I thought when I got this card is "Yuck." First off the bad pun of "Halls Well", then the horizontal design or more specifically not taking advantage of it with something other than a generic photo, and lastly the card back making no use of the acetate stock at all. Whatever is on the card back is as hard to read in real life as it is on the scan.

There are 15 cards in this set, inserted into packs of 2000 Fleer Tradition at 1:30 packs, or a little better than one per box, and they are all as boring as the Jeter shown here. As far as acetate insert sets go, this is one of my lest favorite.

TMV Spring Cleaning Loot

 I am a couple weeks behind on things so I am just finally getting around to posting some stuff that has been paying around for a while. This time is some free cards from the Too Many Verlanders spring cleaning giveaway. I managed to scoop up the Rockies and Redskins and was very happy with the results. Starting off with the Rockies card that was visible on the pile, a Carlos Gonzalez 1972 style mini that I needed.

I Got Wood!

I know, super cheesy post title that has been used plenty of times, but I felt the need to use it at least once. The occasion being getting my first mini wood card, a 2014 Gypsy Queen Jorge de la Rosa. I have wanted one of these for a while and finally found one that didn't break the budget. Upon receiving the card I was pretty happy with it, it does have a nice wood texture on the card front making a pretty unique card.

Zistle Trade #25

Another smallish Zistle trade to post, this time highlighted by a minor league card of Brad Ausmus. Ausmus was selected by the Rockies in the expansion draft from the Yankees, but was traded to the Padres before making his MLB debut. The small Rockies logo on his shin guard are enough to add this to the Rockies catchers collection.

Acetate Appreciation 1999 SkyBox Thunder - Turbo-Charged

First released in 1996 by Fleer as Circa, this line later became Circa Thunder and in 1999 was released as Skybox Thunder. Another weird set from the pre-Topps monopoly era, when every company had multiple brands and they had to try new things to get noticed in a flooded market. These Turbo-Charged were inserted at at rate of 1:72 packs, or one every two boxes. A ten card insert set featuring power hitters of the day, the design is fairly nice, but nothing ground breaking, not really doing anything unique with the clear medium. These cards are also very thin, making the card flimsy, something that I really don't like in acetate cards.

Custom Card: 1972 Topps Jair Jurrjens

Meet the 13th Rockies starting pitcher of 2014, Jair Jurrjens was aquired from the Reds Triple-A team and thrown to the wolves, giving up 8 runs over 4 2/3 innings against the Dodgers in his Colorado debut. He gets start number two against the Padres today, so lets hope that goes a little better for him.

Mitchell Boggs - One of Every Rockies Misfit

A card I didn't realize existed until a bored search through ebay for Rockies. Mitchell Boggs shown as a member of my favorite team, the "Colorado Baseball Club". This was pretty easy to miss when it came out as I don't really pay attention to the unlicensed Panini stuff and Boggs only played in 9 games with the "Colorado Baseball Club", probably a case of Panini using up some stickers. After adding this to may massive saved search list, one came up located in Canada with free shipping. I was beyond happy to pay $1.29 delivered for this card.

Canadian Cardboard

After picking up a few team Canada cards the last few months, I was waiting until Canada Day to post them. Then I got busy and forgot to post them, so here it is, one day late,my patriotic Baseball Canada post.

Jeff Francis - Participated in the 2006 WBC, starting one game and giving up 6 runs over 1 1/3 innings in a loss to Mexico.

Zistle Trade #24

The zistle community seems to be growing rapidly lately which should make trades a little more frequent. Although this one was with hpennington22 who currently holds the record with 86 completed trades. The headliner card being a Emerald parallel of 2013 Topps Update Nolan Arenado.

Pow, Right in the Starting Rotation

 Jorge De La Rosa (16 starts, currently active) currently sits third in Rockies history with 55 wins, a 4.23 ERA, and the franchise leader in winning percentage (61-39) .610. After starting 2014 by feuding with catcher Wilin Rosario, De la Rosa has put a solid season together, and is the only Rockies pitcher so far to stay in the rotation all season.

Sportlots PWE

There are some things about my collection I can't explain. One of them is orange cards. They really don't work with the Rockies purple, but for some reason I am drawn to them. After some price checking, I found this 2013 Topps Chrome Orange Nolan Arenado on sportlots for the cheapest price. I haven't dedicated myself to collecting one player since Chris Iannetta was traded, but Nolan Arenado is coming close to being that guy.

Trade from Japan

A recent trade scoring me some Japanese Sega Card-Gen Rockies from This Card is Cool. (his side here). Starting off with some 2013's. A new one for the Pomeranz collection, a guy that looks to be resurrecting his career in Oakland. One of the things I like about Card-Gen is the large set size giving you cards of relievers like Belisle and Betancourt.