My First Soto

As many of you know, I am not much of a baseball card collector anymore. There are only specific things I really chase.

Group 1:

1. 90's Inserts/Parallels from any team/player as long as the cards are 1995-1999.
2. Derek Jeter

These Top Two I wouldn't trade away for anything. These are absolute locks for my collection as long as I live.

The next list I collect there is some flexibility on whether I would move them for something I want more.

Group 2:

1. Mickey Mantle (vintage I would keep)
2. Jasson Dominguez (as long as he remains a Yankee)
3. Aaron Judge
4. New players in a Yankees uniform
5. Key Rookies
6. Anything else that catches my eye

My recent trade with @ChrisParksIT brought in some of these cards.

Like my first Soto in a Yankees uniform. He looks so much better with the NY.

Jasson Dominguez rookie card.

Jasson Dominguez Good Vibrations rookie insert.

Aaron Judge To The Moon. I thought from a distance this die-cut insert looked great, it's even better in person especially since there is a shine I didn't notice before. I now need to add the Dominguez version.

I love the look of this one. Of course, I was already a fan of the Spring parallels and I believe this my first Yankee one.

 

The final card is a Rizzo foilboard parallel.

Thanks again to Chris for the trade and adding my first Yankees Soto among other great cards.

If any of you have a Dominguez To The Moon, let me know!

It's All Been Fire Recently

The last two months of this blog's stats are hard to ignore. I thought maybe the big 75,000+ view month in June was a fluke until July brought in another huge monthly total of 68,000 + views.

Being someone who loves numbers, these have drawn me back to this blog for some new posts in August. I will be curious if this month can hold up to the past two months and wonder how new posts would do here.

So, let's kick off a new month with a new post with some new cards.

These are all separate mail days I got and for different reasons.

I have been trying to add Prizm rookie cards to my collection and have a list of needs I have been narrowing down the last few months. It started out as roughly 10 needs and now I have narrowed it down to 2 needs. I need a 2020 Prizm Jalen Hurts rookie and a 2022 Prizm Sam Howell rookie. Of course, I would welcome two other guys in Burrow and Herbert but I don't imagine I can touch those guys so I never added them to my list.

I haven't added a new card to my Rueben Randle PC in a while and was able to acquire this quad relic pretty cheap. I think a lot of people forget how great of a back that Doug Martin was.

 

My Kerry Collins PC has been growing steadily this summer so when adding a low numbered parallel for cheap is in the cards, see what I did there, you add it.

This 2002 Fleer Premium Super Rubies is numbered to 100.

Next card, a low numbered GAME WORN relic from 2012 Certified of Amani Toomer. Every Toomer add helps me to try and move up on TCDB.

And my final add, I have a small PC of Jasson Dominguez and have always liked Panini Unleashed inserts, when they added Dominguez to the 2023 lineup, I had to have one.

A bunch of fire mail days in what has been a fire couple of months on this blog. A great way to kick off a new month of new posts.

In comments, let me know your thoughts on my latest additions and if you are excited to see new posts on here!

A Fun Trade Concept

In the world of "values" and worrying about every nickel and dime, it's nice to see someone break outside the box and trade in a unique way I haven't seen before.

Yes, I have seen plenty of mystery trades such as people posting cards to be claimed and you sending back a surprise from their PC list, but to have a trade that is just send back whatever you find equal, is interesting and fun.

I was tagged in this fun trade thread hosted by @tonyaces by a fellow Giants fan that spotted a card he thought I would enjoy. Of course, he was right.

Along with that card, I found a couple more I needed for my collection as well.

I traded off most of my Jasson Dominguez collection regrettably, so I am now trying to rebuild it. This was a great piece to start with. I must also apologize for posting a non-Giants card on here.

I don't know what these parallels are called in Rookies and Stars this year, but they are pretty stunning. This was the card that the fellow Giants fan tagged me for and was the one that started my claims. I was not going to say no to this one regardless of Saquon's future status with the Giants.

And my final claim was this die cut parallel of Daniel Jones. I didn't find much Select, one hanger box last year, so there are lots of Big Blue gaps in my collection.

Thanks goes out to @tonyaces for this fun trade thread and I have got to gather your return cards still. I may have to steal your idea and use it too. I liked it that much.

Thoughts on this form of trading and my newest pickups is welcome in comments!

Another Jasson!

 

After making my mistake of trading away my Dominguez PC, I have been slowly growing it back. I feel the same way about trading away my Judge one. Maybe I will work on him another time.

Thanks to @tonyaces I have added yet another Dominguez to my collection in our latest mystery trade. I will hit you back soon!

If you have any Jasson kicking around or Judge, I would be happy to trade for ones I don't have.

A Fun Trade Concept

In the world of "values" and worrying about every nickel and dime, it's nice to see someone break outside the box and trade in a unique way I haven't seen before.

Yes, I have seen plenty of mystery trades such as people posting cards to be claimed and you sending back a surprise from their PC list, but to have a trade that is just send back whatever you find equal, is interesting and fun.

I was tagged in this fun trade thread hosted by @tonyaces by a fellow Giants fan that spotted a card he thought I would enjoy. Of course, he was right.

Along with that card, I found a couple more I needed for my collection as well.

I traded off most of my Jasson Dominguez collection regrettably, so I am now trying to rebuild it. This was a great piece to start with. I must also apologize for posting a non-Giants card on here.

I don't know what these parallels are called in Rookies and Stars this year, but they are pretty stunning. This was the card that the fellow Giants fan tagged me for and was the one that started my claims. I was not going to say no to this one regardless of Saquon's future status with the Giants.

And my final claim was this die cut parallel of Daniel Jones. I didn't find much Select, one hanger box last year, so there are lots of Big Blue gaps in my collection.

Thanks goes out to @tonyaces for this fun trade thread and I have got to gather your return cards still. I may have to steal your idea and use it too. I liked it that much.

Thoughts on this form of trading and my newest pickups is welcome in comments!

Dinosaurs And Dino Roars

I was fortunate enough before Christmas to receive a couple of RAK's from a couple of Twitter hobby members. The first I will show off today followed by the next that I will show off tomorrow.

Today's RAK was from my long time Twitter friend @JGfan24ever.

 

Lenticular Dinosaur cards. Both a 90's feel and dinosaurs which I have always enjoyed.

Canvas feeling Dinosaur minis.

TTM or In-Person autos? I really like all three of them.

90's insert in Marino, need to see if it's a need for my set chase and a Gleyber Torres for my player collection.

An assortment of non sport cards.

Jasson Dominguez!!!! What a shiny, fun, new PC piece! I didn't have this one for my Dominguez PC.

 

And to finish it up, an Aaron Judge Ornament from the 2021 Topps Holiday. I really liked the look of these this year. Put last years to shame with the foil. This may be a set chase down the road.

Thanks again to Michael for the mail day. I really need to send you a return thank you at some point.

Thoughts on my mail day and the cards are welcomed below!

Cardboard Review:2020 Bowman Draft Sapphire Edition

There are some releases that I never see or ever have thought about opening, but one I have been curious by and haven't had the chance to open is any of the sapphire releases.

Recently, I had a chance to open a box. Let's check it out,

In every box of 2020 Bowman Draft Sapphire comes with 32 cards. The only guarantee in every box is 2 parallels and each box goes for.....$400. The 2019 edition was $35 per. The 2020 version started out at $70. But now the Covid edition is $400.

BASE:

There are 200 base cards in the set.

The one card I wanted from the set, I landed.

Here are the other bigger names I found,

Outside of these guys, my box was loaded with catchers and especially.....pitchers.

PARALLELS

The following parallels can be found,

Yellow /99, Green /50, Orange /25, Aqua /20, Gold /15, Purple /10, Red /5, Padparadscha 1/1.

Green /50

 

Yellow /99

OVERALL THOUGHTS:

Well....at a $35 price point, I would say I did decent. At a $400 price point, well, not so much.

As for the cards themselves, holy smokes this is a beautiful product!!! These cards are quite stunning in person and even the light box cannot completely catch their magic.

Your thoughts on this product are welcomed below!

MMMB:Dominguez

@DMoose8 was hosting some Stack Sales and as always when I spot something I like, I always inquire about a trade.

Yes I know it's a sales thread. Yes I know some ridicule me for doing it. And Yes, I don't give a hoot what others think because my hobby thrives on trading and it really doesn't hurt to ask. What's the worse that's going to happen? They say no?  Block you? You just move on to the next. 

Luckily for me @DMoose8 is a great guy and was more than happy to work out a trade.

I first grabbed a couple of Gleybers

Greg Jones autograph for my Giants collection

My search for more Jasson Dominguez cards gets a lift with this Bowman Chrome insert

And Goodwin Champions blue parallel.

Thanks to @Dmoose8 for being a good guy in the hobby and for trading me these cards. Hope we can do this again in the future.

The One

*it's time for a fresh cup of coffee and some cards. Sounds like a great start to the morning don't you think?*

Every Friday on Twitter, @collect_sport, I put up a I Want/Need Thread where you comment a specific card need and I will retweet it in hopes someone will Sell, Trade or even RAK (I have seen this) the card to you. Some people use the thread the way it was intended while others make a team/set demand. I just go with the flow regardless as long as it helps the collectors commenting.

On the thread every week, I also give an example of a specific cards I Want/Need. I have had some success in doing so, but one card I have tried a few times without any luck up I put up again and this time to my surprise had a response.

That's when I met @MattyBW who had what I wanted and so much more.

*takes a sip, gets excited about showing off these cards and takes another sip before doing so*

It wasn't too long after he had replied to my tweet about that specific card need that we had a nice conversation. The biggest point of the conversation was to make sure I got that card but we talked about much more that led to a trade as well.

I recently just started collecting more Jasson Dominguez for my Yankees PC. This was my second add to the collection.

This along with a few newer Cal Ripken Jr cards I forgot to take pictures of were the "newer" cards of the group. The main focus was on the 90's basketball. And if you know me, that hits the sweet spot and in comparison to coffee is the king of the cups.

John Starks adds. I always find it both saddening and odd to see John Starks in any uniform that's not a Knicks one. He was a fan favorite and a favorite of mine.

Finest Shaq. Don't ever let him post up, guy was unstoppable unless he had to shoot free throws.

Hakeem with the block!

And then Hakeem with the shot. Well, the Best Shot. These fell 1:12 packs and also had refractor parallels as well.

My first picture wasn't the greatest at showing how cool this card actually is. So I held it up to a window.

Now rolls in a beauty....

1996-1997 Bowmans Best Honor Roll Refractor! These bad boys fell 1:192 packs but it's not only the beauty of the card that grabs my attention, its the players. Patrick Ewing was one of the trio of Knicks I liked and Karl Malone I enjoyed his game and tried to mock it when I played with my friends back in the 90's. If I was to try that now, my body would ache for weeks.

*takes another sip before the coffee gets cold. I like Iced Coffee okay, but not my hot coffee getting iced. While I am it, I might as well toast a couple of english muffins*

I haven't even gotten to the main card of this post yet and I bet you are sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for me to show it off. Hold your mugs, we are almost there.

For now, I will tease this card as an intro....

Yup, a 1995-1996 Spx Gold Jason Kidd. Anyone who has followed me knows my deep passion for 90's Spx. I own set all three NFL Sets, one MLB Set, Both NASCAR sets, One and a half Hockey sets, and now......

Hold that thought.

*takes a sip of coffee*

I don't normally like jelly on my english muffins, I am a fan of bland so butter is my usual choice, but I will take a bit more excitement today when I show off the exciting card.

*takes a few bites, sip of joe and now onto the big reveal*

I think I have made you wait long enough to finally show the main card of this post. Not that the other cards above aren't sweet.

To finish up where I was with my Spx set chase, I also have one and a 49th basket....hold your horses...

What's this...

BOOM! You guessed it. The MJ has finally come home to finish up my second basketball set. He is smiling like I was when I finally got to hold this card.

 

And here he is resting peacefully among his Spx teammates.

With this set finally now complete, I am only missing the 1996-1997 Spx basketball set to complete the trio. That one also has my favorite design of the three but is also a dream set. I don't ever imagine myself being able to complete that one.

An obvious huge thanks goes out to @MattyBW for helping me finish up this set. It was a long time coming and it feels good to finally get there.

If you have Twitter, check out my Friday Thread and see what project you might be able to complete. You just never know what you may complete or who you may meet and become friends with. Isn't that the point of this hobby?

Coffee Card blogger out.