Summer Of Wes Card #26

Breakin' Wax:2021 Diamond Kings Baseball Four Hanger Boxes

 Playing the game of toggle on the blogs and taking my mini vacation has led me to being way behind on posts.

Whether those posts are trades, pickups or even box breaks, I am behind.

So let's catch up on a few of those starting today with four hanger boxes of 2021 Diamond Kings baseball.

We all know how hard it is to find retail now-a-days and how if any of us who actually buy retail to open it find any, we buy it. That was the case with the Diamond Kings for me. I am not actually an overly huge fan of the product, but it was sitting there and everyone says hangers are better than blasters so I grabbed em.

Each hanger box of 2021 Donruss Diamond Kings comes with 20 cards per hanger box. The boxes come with an exclusive red border parallel per hanger and each hanger if I remember correctly was $11 each.

The base set for Diamond Kings comes with 170 with a mix of 

Legends of the game

Veterans and Short Prints (Cal Ripken)

along with future stars.

And of course some actual Diamond Kings. These definitely are not the ones from the 90's.

There are not a lot of parallels in Diamond Kings, but a few. Each one of my Hangers came with an Artist Proof and Red Border.

Here are the overall parallels,

ARTIST PROOF PARALLELS: AP Blue, AP Gold /49, Litho Proof /25, AP Masterpiece 1/1.
FRAMED PARALLELS: Blue, Gray, Plum, Red, Wood FOTL /15, Black Masterpiece 1/1, Litho Proof and Black Masterpiece 1/1.

This is an Artist Proof which is just a stamped Artist Proof on the card.

Red Bordered.

There are a handful of inserts in Diamond Kings and I found a variety of them in each hanger.

Gallery Of Stars (solid names)

Legacy Lithographs (once again, not bad names)

Aficionado

Artists Palette (my favorite design of the inserts)

And I was hoping for a huge memorabilia hit or an autograph of a superstar in those four boxes,

 

But one of that happened. At least I pulled a hit and it does have a stripe in the relic. Card also looks nice that's always an extra bonus.

That does it for four hangers worth of Diamond Kings. There's not a lot of big finds there but it was fun being able to open some.

Let me hear your thoughts on the break and the product below in comments!

Summer Of Wes Card #80

Saturday's In The 90's: Cal's Mother Lode

 

Randomly inserted in hobby packs of Fleer Metal at a rate of one in 12, this 12-card set features multi-tool players like Cal Ripken Jr. The card features a full bleed action shot of a player and has a rainbow foil scroll design.

There is a total of 12 cards in the set.

Not sure if its a set I will chase or not but definitely one great looking card to at least have one of.

Profiles Sent By Padrographs

Man, do I ever miss being in the 80's and 90's with so much going on in the world right now. Those were good times for me and there wasn't a lot of stress and worries.

Unlike today, it's full of it. It makes you either want the world to end like in Revelations and have Jesus take me home or lock myself in a closet in the house forever. It's a better ending then stepping outside or even turning on the news most days.

I may not have a time machine, but at least through cardboard, I can travel back to the greatest times of my life.

Thanks to my latest mail day from Rod over at Padrographs as I claimed two cards in one of his latest giveaway posts that takes me back.

These Topps Profiles came out in 1996 Topps at 1:12 odds. It features Topps spokesmen Kirby Puckett  for the AL and Tony Gwynn  for the NL and has them give opinions on players within their league.

Here is a Cal done by Puckett

And a Thomas done by Puckett.

I didn't get any from the NL. But, man, I love these. Topps did these for every sport back then.

 

Padrographs even added in a new piece for my bloggers PC. Yes, I have a thing like that. I keep the notes, stickers, business cards, etc that any of you send me and store them in a box for the memories.

Speaking of memories, 2020 won't bring out many great ones for myself, but there is still a lot of the year left to make some.

Thanks again Rod for the mail day!

I Got To Pick Julie's Pocket Or Two

One of my favorite blogs to read is A Cracked Bat: Baseball Cards and a Hot Dog written by Julie. I love her creative approach to every post and putting all heart into it. You can feel the passion, not that you can't with every blog, but hers really stands out.

She has a section on her blog called Pick Pockets. Where you can Pick Pockets of cards she is giving back to regular blog readers. The ones who come back for many reads.

This last time her Pick Pockets were filled with many goods and it didn't take me very long to find some stuff for my PC.

90's cards are always my first sought after and this Kerry Wood Omega online fit the bill. Who ever thought in those days the internet would be what it is now.

 The way life is right now, this spaceship that Rusty is running from wouldn't surprise me. This is simply a great base card.

Fractal Matrix was some of the cooler parallels of the 90's. I also really liked the die cuts.

Baseball Stick-Ums were a must have in packs of Collectors Choice. We don't really have a fun product like that anymore, nor do we have Upper Deck anymore for baseball cards. Hmm...

 Still as slow as a turtle collecting this set. Someday it will be complete

Once again, 90's inserts over hits of today.

Totally Certified in the 90's looked so much better than Panini's attempt at it. I can see why it didn't last long. This product was so simple, but yet in demand at the time. This is my first hockey base from the product I believe.

 I didn't go all 90's with Julie. Something about this guys signature caught my attention

And Dan Morgan who went on to have a quiet solid career with the Panthers. Now he currently is with the Buffalo Bills as a Director Of Player Personnel.

Some great pickups for the PC in this mail day.

Thanks again Julie! I gotta hit you back with something down the road, will have to see what Tigers I have lying around :)

Tradin' With Pops Again

I know it's Star Wars day and everything, but I haven't added any Star Wars cards recently and didn't feel I should post the same ones over and over again, so let's just check out my mail day from my father a couple weeks ago instead.

Back in January, we finished up our first trade in over a year and I mailed mine out pretty quickly to him and he usually returned the same. Problem was, health issues started to occur.

He got the flu that lasted a long time, then came down with bronchitis, etc, etc, etc. With the world the way it is, he couldn't take himself into the Post Office hacking away so he had to wait it out. Finally, he felt good enough and got this out to me before anything else happened.

I had no idea what was being sent anymore as I forgot with it haven been so long, so it was as much of a surprise to me as it will be to you guys reading this on here.

An almost complete set of E.T. I loved the movie and my father doesn't like non sport cards so he knew where they would be going.

I believe a picture of me when this at-home order is over with. Oh, sorry, I mean a complete E.T. sticker set.

90's cards at their best, Nicknames card of Cal Ripken. Hadn't seen one of these before and when I saw he was trying to sell it, I told him to toss it in my trade pile. This is the one card I remember claiming.

My best 2020 rookie card to date. I can cross off Herbert from my needs list now.

Rutina Wesley relic. I have never seen anything she has been in, but I love my non sport relics so great add regardless

Davis Webb relic card

And another Lauletta autograph for my PC. This marks my 15th autograph of his and at least my second if not my third of this particular one.

I hope to work out another trade with my father at some point. It helps take the mind away from things going on in the real world and its always fun to of course.

Hope everyone has a Happy Star Wars day and let me know in comments which Star Wars movie was your favorite

$25 A Week Challenge Week 5: Playing In Dirt

Welcome back to another week of pickups by me!

Let's see where I put my hard earned moola this week.

Found this 1999 Black Diamond pack with free shipping and at $4 a pack, can't go wrong with that. I will reveal how I did in another post as I did bust this one.

Yes, Yes I did. I finally found an affordable Mandy Moore relic from PopCardz as I have mentioned before on here, my mad crush for her.

For $5 and free shipping, I couldn't go wrong.

 

Awhile ago, Fuji had posted that there was a unique relic in 1996 I hadn't heard about before but I felt I needed after seeing his post. It's a 1996 Fleer Ultra Diamond Dust relic featuring Cal Ripken Jr. The relic contains dirt from Camden and has a guarantee by the heads groundskeeper. It's dirt from his historic 1995 season.

Most were listed at BIN at $29 which overdoes my budget and wouldn't fit into this post.

But, when I saw one listed as an auction, I took a chance and won it at $9.55 with $4 shipping. I think it was $14 well spent.

This weeks grand total is $22.55. I stayed well under budget but that's only because of the wiggle room from the Ripken going for less than I expected.

So thoughts on this weeks pickups are welcomed and I am curious what you would have done this week with $25?

Cardboard Review:2019 Topps Tier One Baseball (HUGE HIT!!)

One of my favorite high end releases every year has come. I like this one but also give Museum Collection a slight edge over it when it comes to high end.

Topps Tier One hasn't ever treated me well in the past, but it's still fun to break and check out the great designed cards.

Let's see if 2019 can break my strikeout streak with the product.

Each box of 2019 Topps Tier One comes with three cards. Two autographs and one relic card for $120. So it's a risk banking that each card has to be worth at least $40.

 My first hit, well, it was my last in the box, Khris Davis single relic.

 Prime Performers autograph of Bobby Richardson. He has a great signature.

And finally, a 1/1 Gold Signature of Tier One Talent Cal Ripken Jr!!!!!!

Other hits not found in my box include,

• Tier One Autographs
• Break Out Autographs
• Mystery Break Out Autographs
• Clear One Autographs
• Clear One Dual Autographs
• Dual Autographs
• Triple Autographs
• Cut Signatures
• Autographed Tier One Relics
• Dual Autographed Tier One Relic Books
• Autographed Prodigious Patches
• Autographed Tier One All-Star Patches
• Autographed Tier One Bat Knobs
• Autographed Tier One Limited Lumber
• Autographed Tier One Uniform Button Relics
• Signature Tools Autographs Relic
• Cut Signature Relics
• Tier One Legends Relics
• Prodigious Patches
• Tier One All-Star Patches
• Tier One Bat Knobs
• Tier One Limited Lumber
• Tier One Uniform Button Relics

OVERALL: Great looking product as always and there is not question about that. The question is, how will your box break go. This was a great break for all three hits in my opinion and value was there. But, it's a gamble product and may not always provide the boom and may be a bust two out of three times. But that one time, oh boy I hope you are sitting down. There are a lot of big time hits in here still left to find!

I suggest box breaks for those who don't like to take a gamble and for those of you who do like to gamble, let the dice roll!

Not everyone can afford a hobby box of this, so I suggest a box break which I suggest Midwest Box Breaks when you do so. They pulled some heattttttt from this product already.

Please make sure to take a minute out to thank Topps for providing this box for me to review and to be able to add cards to the giveaway on Twitter I am hosting. Please follow me there to enter @SportCardCollec. Also follow Topps on all social media sites and visit their SITE, as well.

The Origins Of A Cardboard Addict: There's No Crying In Baseball!

It was 1997 and my father had just finished up another long day of work.

This day of work however wasn't going to end like the rest. He had to play softball that night for his works team for the final time before he got done his job there. He had been working for them since the early 90's and thought it was time to move onto something new since the stress of the job was overtaking him.

He took me to almost every one of his games. It would however require him to come home an hour away just to get me and go back an hour for the game but he didn't mind. He was a diehard sports fanatic and was hoping his one and only son would be as well.

Which in the end turned out that way.

One of the pieces of memorabilia I have from his playing years is this glove. This glove has has been beaten down over the years by many uses including all of his years of softball. After he got done that job and started a new one, this glove became a part of my past.

I used this glove all the time for playing duct-taped-up wiffle ball (it made the ball travel further but not sting as bad when you got hit by a pitch like a baseball) with my father, who at the time had a stunningly Randy Johnson resemblance with his long hair. I also used the glove versus my best friend Brian at his house for baseball and on my own when I would throw a softball against our garage, I had a sweet spot I would hit making the ball fly in the air so I would dive to make some incredible catches.

Most of the time the glove did well for me and made me happy when I used it, except once when I was about to close out my friend Brian for my third "championship" against him and he hit a line drive that broke the web on the glove. I gotta admit, I cried knowing how much that glove had meant to me.

I could picture myself as Evelyn Gardner from A League Of Their Own and having Tom Hanks coming over to me and saying, "It's a glove! Are you crying? Are you seriously crying? There's no crying in baseball!!!"

By the way, despite my love of sports, I am not a sports movie fan at all. Feels like the same story lines again and again with some player who rises against the odds. However, A League Of Their Own was an excellent movie and if you haven't seen it, I suggest go do so! The 1992 movie stars Geena Davis, Madonna, Lori Petty, and Rosie O'Donnell who play a professional baseball in a female only league while the young men are out war in World War 2. The girls are coached by a grumpy has-been in Tom Hanks and all of which try to find their fame along the way in the league. The Tom Hanks line I used above is one of the iconic movie lines you will hear in the history of movies. The premise of the movie doesn't sound as good as the movie actually is.

Luckily for me, Brian's mom helped superglue the web back together and I was fine.

1997 was the start of many great memories, especially with baseball. It was the year I started watching more Yankees games, the year I got this glove to call my own, it was the year I collected more baseball cards and was also the year I got into collecting Ken Griffey Jr, more on that another time. But, it was also the year that had one of the greatest baseball releases ever in 1997 Stadium Club baseball.

I was reminded of this recently when I had gotten that huge mail day thanks to Wes. I had forgotten how great that product actually was. Especially when it came to the inserts and parallels.

Let's take a look at why I feel this way,

First look at these Matrix parallels that fell 1:12 packs. The base card alone was stunning and as always the photography top notch, but you add this unique rainbow foil layover and your socks will be blown off. Wow!

Falling 1:24, were these Millennium inserts. It's not just a foil one either as it appears to have a wave look/feel to it. Really hard to describe it other than unique.

 

Also falling 1:24 were these Instavision highlights. You must find some good lighting to see the 3D picture that's silver here.

Also falling a tougher rate of 1:72, today's standards any insert falling those odds is junk, are these super cool Pure Gold inserts. The background is all gold foil with some embossing done on the player.

The product also had a few other inserts lines along with the popular Co-Signers autographs that I never once pack pulled but have bought a few of since. Those odds fell 1:95 packs and up depending on the level of player.

As I said, this product was amazing and I still remember spending time ripping open packs in the car of it  with my father when we bought some from the local drugstore. I think we may had even cleaned them out of it at one point.

Football may always be my favorite sport now, but there was a time when baseball meant everything to me mainly because of the memories I have with it. From watching it, collecting it and using the glove playing it, there were memories made. 

The flashbacks of the Yankees dominance of the late 90's, the cards like these Stadium Club and every nick, tear, and scruff mark on this glove, along with my father's 3 for 4 standing ovation night (at least I was clapping him off the field) in his final softball game will always be a memory that's a part of my past.

Okay, promised I wouldn't cry again when talking baseball but maybe a tear or two fell while I thought back to all of this. Gotta keep it strong and remember, "there is no crying in baseball....or blogging."