My Wallet Card

After reading the post in Baseball Card Breakdown about the idea of the wallet card, I instantly knew that I was going to participate.  My kids have played Flat Stanley at school and carried him all over the world and taken pictures and had a blast so I figured I would as well.  I don't know if I will be going to any exotic locations but even some of the normal excursions will become a little more fun capturing my Wallet Card in action.

After deciding to participate, the next action was to decide on a card.  This didn't take me long. I dug through my Giants extra box (could it be any card other than a Giant???) and pulled out this beauty:

The is a card showing the celebration of the 2010 Giants winning their first of what has now become a streak of 3 World Series in 5 years.  This card and other pictures instantly put a smile on my face when I see them so carrying a copy seemed like a natural.  If I am ever having a bad day, I can pull out Wallet Card and it will instantly be better.

This scan was actually taken last night, I forgot to shoot a scan or picture as I was excited to get started and get it into the wallet. If you look at the bottom of the card, some wear is starting to show on the silver foil, there is also a slight bend across the team name that really doesn't show up.

 The original post was on 1/2 and that night I made my Wallet Card selection.  The next day my son and I attended a high end movie theater and Wallet Card came along:

 This move theater has reserved leather recliner seating and with us hitting the earliest movie of the day we had to share the theater with only 6-7 other people.  I sneaked in Wallet Card so got his own seat without having to pay.

 Here is a blurry close up photo of Wallet Card enjoying the leather seating.  I didn't touch Wallet Card throughout because my son and I enjoyed a nice bucket of buttery movie theater popcorn but in hindsight, a butter finger smear might have added a little character to Wallet Card.

So which movie did we see:

Wallet Card is being held up during the opening credits to Unbroken.  Overall we liked the movie quite a bit.  I have heard people indicate they were crying and choked up throughout which didn't really happen with me.  The story was quite emotional but I haven't cried at a movie since I was a kid watching Old Yeller and I had already read the book so the stories weren't new.  As I typically discover, the book was much better than the book.  A couple of co-workers who had also read the book said they regretted seeing the movie as it was inferior, I wouldn't say that.  It was a solid movie but I would recommend anyone seeing the movie and finding the story to be impactful, pick up Laura Hillenbrand's book - you will not be disappointed.  It is a top 10 of all time book in my personal rankings.

I realized yesterday that Wallet Card hadn't been out of the wallet in a few days. Work has been all encompassing over the past couple weeks.  After baseball tryouts for my younger son we decided to hit the Del Taco drive thru so I decided to capture a picture of Wallet Card while we waited:

I am not sure how often I will post but I plan on trying to get a photo or two each week and eventually share Wallet Card's travels and excursions on this blog.  Thanks to Baseball Card Breakdown for the idea and getting the blogging community engaged on such a fun adventure.

My Chris Webber Player Collection

I grew up in Sacramento and while I was in middle school the Kansas City Kings relocated to Sacramento and we got our first professional major league franchise.  It was pretty exciting times and I was lucky enough to have a dad who decided to buy season tickets.  Our tickets were in the front row of the second deck kind of in the corner and they were great seats.  I believe they were $12 or $16 per seat that first year. Arco Arena was constructed and the first iteration seated 10,333 fans.  It was wild and crazy from the start and I loved going to games, even when the team wasn't strong.

The first year they made the playoffs as a #7 or #8 seed despite having a record below 0.500 and were led by Reggie Theus, Mike Woodson and Otis Thorpe.  After that first year they went on a decade long playoff drought but we still loved our Kings.  Times started changing with a trade of Billy Owens for recent Hall of Fame inductee Mitch Richmond.  We had a legitimate star and a team that played fairly well.  However there was never a real challenge for a championship until the guy that gave us some credibility was traded for Chris Webber.

Webber and some other key additions brought a championship caliber team to the Capitol City and the team was called the Greatest Show on Court.  They were so fun to watch with either Jason Williams or Mike Bibby at point, Doug Christie and his lock down defense that the 2 guard, Peja Stojakovic and his sweet jumper raining down 3s from the small forward spot and Vlade Divac and his amazing passing skills jumping center.  The star of the show was Chris Webber.  He could do it all, shoot the ball, thunder dunks, swat away shots, handle the ball and was a great passer.

Although the Kings never capitalized on a championship (and yet I am a firm believe that the game and series against the Lakers in 2002 was fixed but I want to keep this post positive), they hold a dear place in my heart and a few years back I decided to collect Chris Webber cards to keep the memory fresh.

The Bazooka Relic card at the top was a recent pick up at the LCS bid board.  I was so excited to find the card, it was one that wasn't in my collection and one I hadn't seen before.  Shortly after I decided to make 2015 the year of the base card, I found a seller that had quite a few cards at very reasonable prices that fit my base card needs and I ended up picking up 159 different cards, all but just a couple were base, and 64 of them were of my favorite King, Chris Webber.

I decided not to share all 64 but show the 18 from him time with the Kings.  If you aren't familiar with his career, Webber also played on the Warriors, Bullets/Wizards, 76ers and Pistons.  I also have quite a few cards featuring Webber in his University of Michigan uniform.

 One of the reasons I like collecting players other than baseball players is the chance to see other card designs.  Also the action in basketball seems so easy to catch in photos and translates well to cards.  There is a good variety of Webber's skills being demonstrated in this group, his dunking, jump shooting, ball handling, post work and a couple where it looks like he is about to pass.  A great collection of nice looking cards.

A little less action in this batch but still some nice looking cards.  The Pro Sigs card on the middle right shows him doing perhaps his greatest weakness in free throw shooting.  Something exciting to me is the appearance of new Webber cards in recent releases.  Good to see him remembered as the great I recall dominating games in Sacramento.

I am still working on my Webber base card want list.  I do know that with this purchase I now have 628 different cards in my Chris Webber collection.  According to Beckett his has 2812 cards so it looks like I have about 22% of his cards.  I know I have tons of his base cards so I am interested to see how lengthy the base card want list is.

Eventually I will crack out some of my nicer cards and some without the Kings focus to share.

Merry Christmas to Me!

In early December I joined Crackin' Wax's Holiday Gift Exchange.  You put your name into the Elfster website and indicated a few want list items.  Each person was assigned a secret Santa and got to go shopping with a limit of $50.  I pulled the name of a Brewer fan and picked up a sweet Triple Threads auto/relic of Cecil Cooper and added a few autos/relics/parallels from my card stash.  I got a note and I think he liked the cards.

You never know what you are going to get and I was surprised when I opened up my package last week and pulled out this amazing card:

This card is great.  Many times Triple Threads has odd or stupid saying spelled out in the relic portion of these auto/relics but I can think of nothing more perfect than a Reggie Jackson card spelling out Mister October.  The auto looks nice and this card is limited to 18 copies.  I only have a couple Reggie autos in my collection and this card now is one of my centerpieces to the Reggie collection along with his rookie card and a 2003 Donruss Signature Series Auto /20.

I was lucky enough to score Sooz of A Cardboard Problem as my secret Santa and she dropped me a nice note as well.

Sooz, you did help my Christmas be quite Merry, thanks for the awesome card!

Trade Post 2 by 3 Heroes

This trade post is probably a combination of 4-5 different PWEs or bubble mailers that Jeff from 2 by 3 Heroes fame. I am lucky enough to be part of his Club PWE and I can't keep up with his generosity with trade posts or return packages but I am going to make an effort here today to share all the cardboard goodness he has sent my way.

These first 3 scans come from a larger package set back around the middle of last year (dang I am behind on trade posts, sorry!).

These were 3 of my favorites, loving the pop up Will Clark, one of these days I need to pick up some dups of these and set up a full defense and play some sort of game with these.  The photo on the Rickey cards is a good one of him going from second to third.  The Buster Bowman was a need at the time, loving the in action start to the swing photo and the Friday Orange jersey.

 These 3 are some great parallels.  The Mays is one of the retail holofoil parallels and I think the design of these insert cards work quite well.  Some of the events that get celebrated are questionable but you can't deny Willie's 600 HRs were historical.  The Zito is a Gold Medallion parallel, this year of Ultra didn't make the parallels stand out too much.  Finally a great Gypsy Queen mini parallel of the Freak.  Looks like the Giants will be counting on him to fill a rotation spot this year, I hope he can bounce back and at least be solid.

Finally this package gifted me 2 Gypsy Queen hits.  I am optimistic Matt Cain will bounce back after a couple of surgeries and have a great year.  I am hoping the rest and rehab will make his stronger that the last couple years.  Kickham was waived by the Giants in December and claimed by the Cubs.  The Cubs then recently designated him for assignment.  Should be interesting to see where he lands, if I recall he had a decent fastball and he is lefthanded.

Now onto some PWE goodies.

This PWE was impressive not only with the nice looking cards but also the quantity.  The Fan Favorites were a great comeback from Topps, I wish they would have done more than just a retail insert.  Mitchell and Panda was a good match.  The McCovey Greats of the Game was already in the Willie Mac binder but I now have one for the Giants binder.  This design is one of the best ever in my opinion. The autos are just amazing.

Believe it or not, Jeff was able to get these cards and the little sticker in the PWE with the 9 cards above.  This was a great group as well, the McCovey is a dup but again fills a spot in the Giants binder.  The minis were all needs as well and I love me some stickers.

 These cards came in a separate PWE a little while later adn what the cards were great, my favorite was the Post-It Note that came with it:

If the pattern holds true, this year will not be a year of winning but watch out in 2016!

The final PWE for this post included these 7 cards. I have very few of those 2009 Topps black border cards like the Lincecum leaders card.  I believe they were Walmart parallels, kind of cool looking cards.  The Bonds Bowman Chrome was one I thought I had but when I checked the want list I realized I had the refractor but not the base card - excellent in the year of the base card!

Jeff thank you for your generosity and all the great cards you have sent my way.  Good luck on your Sox collection!

Combined Shipping Strikes Again

The biggest downside to me when it comes to buying cards online is the cost of the shipping. Most single cards cost $2-$3 to ship (for reasonable sellers) and as someone who ships trade packages and sells the occasional card I understand the need for the shipping. However, I am always on the lookout for a good combined shipping deal where the seller either ships additional cards for free or at a heavily discounted rate.

I hadn't found a new Vida Blue card in a few weeks and went search eBay a couple weeks back and found this card I needed in my collection for a fairly reasonable price.

There are two different Vida cards in 2013 Tier One, the one as an Oakland A and one I already have as a Giant.  This is considered the base version with a few colored and lower numbered parallels.  I love the photo on this card and the on-card autograph is great.  I was ready to buy the card but the shipping was a little more that I really wanted to play.

A quick search of the sellers other items for sale and I found these items to add to my shopping card.

 A really nice numbered base card of Roger Craig, former 49ers star running back.  This card looks great with his eyes being clearly visible as he rushes through the enemy defense.  This is a nice thick base card and a great addition to a player collection I haven't put much focus on in the last 4-5 years.

 These cards are all smaller than normal with 3 Bowman Chrome minis and a nice group of Colgan's Chip inserts from the 2013 Panini Cooperstown release.  I now have all the Bowman Chrome minis and only need a Jesse Burkett Chip to complete the Giants team set.

Finally I picked up 4 hits with two relics and two autos.  I have considered a JT Snow player collection in the past but at this point I have just decided to focus on his Giants cards for the Giants binders.  This jersey car was a nice pickup and it is numbered 215/250.  I like the mini relics that Topps does with Allen & Ginter and here is a pre-Ginter example out of Topps 206 of short time Giant Tsuyoshi Shinjo.  Shinjo didn't do much as a Giant but this is a good looking card.  The Ramon Martinez is a minor league release but he did play with the major league Giants for a while and this is a nice card for the minor league binder.  Finally a duplicate of one of my favorite former Giants Glenallen Hill.  He was one of the strongest players and hit the ball as hard as anyone I have seen when he connected.  I had this card already but for a buck or so it was a good pickup.

I am pretty happy with the other cards I was able to add and thank that Vida Blue auto for leading me to these other great cards.

McCovey Monday #67 - 2014 Topps Tribute to the Throne Sepia Parallel Relic 23/35

My favorite player of all time is Hall of Famer Willie McCovey.  I have amassed a collection of over 1200 different  McCovey cards since I started collecting him in the late 1980s.  I will show off one of my favorite cards every Monday.  Stretch was one of the most feared hitters of all time and I am excited to show off my collection.

Last week I popped into the LCS to pick up my bid board winnings and check out the new bid board.  The new bid board wasn't too exciting, I maybe threw a minimum bid down on 2 or 3 items.  My winnings from the week before were also underwhelming, 4 2014 Topps Update 1989 minis (all of which I had picked up on Sportlots so they are now dups) and a basketball insert of a former USC Trojan who I very casually collect.

The prizes for the $10 mystery packs were picked over and only the basketball packs were active.  Overall it was a disappointing visit.. until I looked in the cabinet and saw this card for sale:

The relic is out of 2014 Topps Tribute and is the Sepia parallel serial numbered 23/35.  It is the 3rd version of the now in my collection as I had previously purchased the base card numbered 31/99 and the Blue parallel numbered 25/50.  There are still versions left /25, /15, /10 and /1 but I suspect this will be my last one unless one of the others drops into my lap.

Needless to say this turned around a so-so visit to the LCS and made it into a very solid trip.  There was a Buster Posey relic in the cabinet too that I may go after next time if it still happens to be available.  I have been lucky to pick up some nice Giants cards in LA LA land lately.

Trade Post - Angels In Order

I have a lot of catching up to do with trade posts and I am going to try and make some inroads over the next couple weeks.  I have gotten some great cards from some great bloggers that I need to share and show my appreciation.  Today I thought I would share a package that was sent from Tom of The Angels, In Order. He sent me a monster stack of Giants and quite a few Barry Bonds Pirates cards after I sent him a big stack of 2009 UD cards to help on his set quest.

I will share some of my favorites.

First up were some great Giants minor league cards, a couple familiar names of Giants prospects of the past an a couple I hadn't heard of before.  I have a nice stack of minor league cards with a project in mind to make a binder of just minor league issued cards.  These will go nicely in that binder.

Next are a few oddball cards.  This trade package had quite a few Classic cards and playing cards and I was able to fill a few needs.  I have seen that French's card a bunch of times and was fairly certain I had it but in reality I needed it for the Giants collection.  With his personality, I think it is fitting that Will Clark was the wild card in a playing card set.

These are some inserts, base cards and parallels I needed.  In the top row, the Lincecum ruby is my first Bowman Platinum Ruby parallel and it is a great looking card.  I didn't have any cards for the Upper Deck set across the middle.  It looks as if they uses Conlon photo, I am a huge fan and need to see about getting some more cards from that set.  The package was Barry Bonds heavy and these are some of my favorites.

Here is the last batch of cards to share.  I am a sucker for the Collector's Choice silver signature cards, I really need to track down the rest of the team set and this will help.  The Fleer mini cards are great and remind me of a little frustration.  I bought tons of 2007 Fleer cards in building the set and have a big stack of these minis.  When I started my Giants collection, I went through the big stack and found only 1 Giant.  I am always happy to knock a couple off the want list.

Tom sent me a nice little note and the Giants dump is greatly appreciated.  Thanks for a great trade!