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.