Some Giant Adds!

As long as you didn't read my blog post title too fast, you would see that I have some Giant adds recently and not anything related to the Kardashians title you may have seen.

All of today's cards came via trade.

Hall Of Famer Michael Strahan jersey card came via a trade with Shane from Cheap Wax Wednesday fame.

Same with this Ottis Anderson autograph. I should see how many of these I have now.

 

I stared at this Phil Simms autograph for weeks that someone had for trade on Twitter. I wanted to bite, but didn't think I could pull it off...but obviously I did. This is only my second autograph of Simms in my collection.

 

Along with the Simms tagged this Darius Slayton Optic Stars parallel. Really cool looking card.

I was pretty happy about adding these thicc cards. Yes, that may have been a joke bounced off from my opening line for today's post.

Thoughts on my cards welcomed in comments!

WE ARE IN!

WE ARE IN!!! (and I celebrated by snagging this siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiicck Andre Williams)

For the first time in 6 seasons, the New York Football Giants are in the playoffs again after crushing the Indianaoplis Colts this past Sunday 38-10.

The Gmen have a surprising 9-6-1 record and claimed the NFC's 6th seed with a Wild Card playoff matchup most likely against the SF 49ers or Minnesota Vikings.

How did this team of what some call misfits make it this far?

Well, it wasn't because of their 72-million-dollar cheerleader that's for sure. On a positive note, when someone doesn't play well their /12 autograph cards can be found for $3.

The main reason for the Giants success has been coaching. Brian Daboll has been amazing along with the rest of his staff in player development and basic coaching skills.

Not to mention a solid draft.

WanDale Robinson has a promising future, but like a good portion of the roster this season, has dealt with injuries and is out for the season.

But, despite the injuries, this coaching staff takes the phrase "next man up" and uses it to perfection.

A former Bill and 6th round pick of 2020 NFL Draft has become one of the premier receiving threats in the offense.

And Darius Slayton who was rumored to be traded this past offseason, took a pay cut to stay with them and is their leading wide out.

Do I think this team of misfits has a Championship drive in them? I can't answer that, nor would I want to curse it. All I can say is the future is bright and I am proud once again to call this team my team.

We Are In.

Trading Again With @Bocephus

For the second time this year, newest trader to me @Bocephus and I pulled off another great PWE trade.

This time it wasn't for a fun relic but instead a lot of fun cards.

Kicks off with these shiny Mosaics. I can't ever get enough of these things. They are quite appealing.

Zack Moss Optic parallel for my rookie card collection.

Michael Strahan Prizm base. It was impossible to find Prizm this year so I have plenty of gaps in my Giants collection for it.

This card when he sent a pic I thought was just a plain boring Panini card, but it's far from that. It's embossed, has rainbow foil and plain purty. This is of the Giants new weapons.

As I said above, I didn't get much Prizm so I had to find other ways to add rookies to my collection and this was one way. Of course these are my best two. I doubt I will ever land top guys.

Thanks again to @Bocephus for the trade and I am looking forward to our next.

Mini Trades and RAK's

 

With my card room looking like an episode of Hoarders where they take you into the kitchen, I have mail days that were tucked away that really needed to have some light shone on them by posting them here.

We kick it off with a RAK mail day from @kevinspollen on the @NGTCollectibles Sunday RAK thread. This is a Topps Gold rookie card of Michael Strahan if you couldn't recognize him without that wonderful smile. Thanks Kevin for the card!

Up next, I made a small pwe trade with @JCannon and added my first non Rodney Hampton Mosaic cards to my Giants collection,

Eli base card

Saquon Got Game? Insert.

 

Thanks Josh for the two new additions. I can see why Mosaic has so much appeal to collectors. I may have to find some more for my Giants collection. I really like the look of the parallels from a distance.

The next card on here is yet another small PWE trade that I made from a sales thread I host on Twitter.

Daniel Jones has been one of the brighter spots for the team this season despite his numbers not fully showing it. I think a lot of people forget how athletic he is until they saw that long run against the Eagles. We will ignore the fact that he tripped and fell before he could reach the endzone but let's remember the rest of it.

This a new jersey card for the collection of Jones I have. I like relics that actually feature a full color photography. Also I dig the team colored border.

Thanks for the trade @chasinthegraph!

The final card caught my eye on the @employee84 PWE Friday thread I have spoken about many times. I miss out on many of the good cards on that thread, but occasionally will find something that at least catches my eye.

This Fred Taylor that @employee84 posted was one of those cards.

It was really hard to capture it's full beauty but I think you get the drift from what I did capture.

The back showing the card is numbered to 2500.

This is a perfect fit for my side PC of Taylor but also for my 90's Insert PC.

Thanks to @employee84 for the mail day.

Glad to have finally given the appropriate shout outs and to have caught up on these mail days before they fall even further into the abyss I call my Card Headquarters.

I Miss You Upper Deck

 

Upper Deck always played a role in my collecting.

I started collecting some form of their products from the beginning of my collecting era, however I haven't been buying too much in the last few years now that they don't have the rights to make MLB, NBA and NFL cards which are the three sports I collect the most.

With their only license being hockey and it looking that way for some time, it appears I won't be adding too much more Upper Deck in the near future either. Though I do REALLY like their Goodwin Champions product but I can never find it locally.

So for now I will enjoy what we once had at our fingertips and just like Saturday Morning cartoons, you never know how much you miss something once it's gone.

 

@JGfan24ever recently sent me a package full of NY Giants which was packed full of 2008 Upper Deck. The product that celebrated the Giants Super Bowl 42 win over the undefeated New England Patriots.

I do have all of these, but this Super Bowl was so special to me that I break out of my norm of not keeping duplicates in my collection to keeping them. 

I will never get sick of celebrating this win.

Plaxico's game winning Touchdown

 

The Giants defense taking it all out on Tom Brady

The Key to the city!

 

Shockey watching the game from the suite after getting injured in the season. But, that wasn't a bad thing as the Giants turned to Kevin Boss who made a huge play in the game.

Toomer finally reaching the ultimate destination

Jacobs plowing Patriots over. No better sound than that.

Also in the 2008 Upper Deck product came the Giants rookie class from that year,

One of these players, yes I am looking at you Mario Manningham, would make a huge play four years later when these two teams met up again and the Giants took home yet another trophy.

Looking at cards like these and my 90's Spx project makes me happy that I lived through a time where Upper Deck owned the hobby. Their photography, holograms and the way they engaged fans with their products was like no other out there.

I hope some day we will get the opportunity to enjoy all of that again just as I am holding out hope that those Saturday mornings with a bowl of Cap'N Crunch and a three hour block of cartoons will make their return as well.

Same Game, Same Play?

Have deep do you look at your cards? Have you noticed anything more than just an image of your favorite player featured on the front?

I know that I haven't. 

I do enjoy action photography and can sometimes pick the game from which the picture was taken, but other than that, I don't take much note.

Today's cards however, I will take a deeper look at.

I don't remember who sent me the two cards from today's post, but they pointed out with a note that they have one thing in common, they are from the same game.

Interesting. Never would have thought of matching up two cards to see if the photographs were taken from the same game.

So I dug deeper and looked at the two cards from 2004 Topps and 2004 Topps Total.

The game played was between the St.Louis Rams and the NY Giants. It was played on Week One of the 2003 NFL season in a game which was won by the NY Giants 23-13, despite Kurt Warner's big day.

I looked at the two cards and can see it was the same game, but was there something else about the comparison that I could look at.

 

Here we see Kurt Warner dropping back to pass but the question becomes....

 

is this the same play? Is Mike chasing him down?

Michael Strahan did record a sack in that game but did he get it right there? Does Kurt see Michael coming after him? Is this two different plays?

 

So I had to take a second look by putting the cards side by side again.

 

It appears Kurt's angle doesn't match up with the other card. But, does that rule this out as the same play, no. However, looking at body language tells me a lot. It's pretty obvious on the Kurt Warner card he is throwing. The Strahan card appears he has either already thrown (which doesn't rule it out) or has just handed the ball off looking at the way he is standing and the fact I do not see a ball in his right hand. That would rule it out. 

Once again, I am not dead set on that as an answer.

The only answer I can come up with is the fact it's the same game but not the same play. Am I right? Who knows? Either way it was fun trying to dissect this card and figure it out.

So what do you guys think? Same Game, Same Play? Or nah? Let me know in comments!

Another Claim

Once again I made another claim on the PWE Friday thread hosted by @employee84. This time @GatorJay87 had a Michael Strahan jersey card I needed and claimed.

I wished the Gmen still had him on their Dline. They could use a lot of help right now.

 

Thanks to Jay for the PC mail day!

 

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Good People, Good Cards

I have met some incredible people in the hobby. Some across the blogosphere and others on Twitter. One of those guys is @PQuintua who occasionally sends me cards he finds he knows I will enjoy. Especially Kerry Collins.

Just because!

He recently found some cool stuff from his LCS and passed them along. (yes I know I should save the Collins for that weekly post but still behind on posting some so wanted this posted now)

1995 Sportflix Kerry Collins rookie

Collins gold and Classic Award Winner

A duo of Collectors Edge rookie 22K parallel!

Select rookie and Ultra base.

 

Flair Showcase base I have wanted (I mean look at it?! I now need the rest!) and a blue Pacific parallel

Classic NFL Draft card of Collins I hadn't seen before so this is a solid add. I am always happy to knock down the ones I don't see every day.

Brandon Jacobs Chain Reaction /200 (remember when most inserts were numbered?)

Brandon Jacobs Status parallel /24. Pretty slick!

Topps Draft Picks and Prospects chrome refractor of Osi. I missed when the Giants defense had a bunch of pass rushers and could actually stop a team. Even with all of their cap this year, they still haven't filled in that need.

Strahan and Droughns who played a season for the Giants black refractors.

Some great stuff here @PQuintua and I truly appreciate it! Thank you so much.

If any of you have any help for his 2019 Prizm rainbow of Barry Sanders, please contact him. I am not sure how many left he is looking for, but if you have any, just contact him please via Twitter.

$25 A Week Challenge Week 12:Giants And Prospecting

Yes it's back, back again, $25 a week, chaaaa-llla-enge. Yes, it's back, yes, it's back.

This weeks grabs were really random, just like my thoughts a lot of times, as these listings  just popped up and caught my attention like a pretty girl.

Let's see what my mind was thinking,

I posted the Kerry Collins pickup from this set already, but there are other Giants in this set and being a fan of Super Bowl sets, more about the ones when they win, I grabbed this one and

 

this one for a buck combined. Can't go wrong with that for the Giants PC.

Daniel Jones is the future and I believe in him. Though at times I second guess myself because he is still so young and fresh and Eli was so reliable. But, looking at last season Jones had many bright spots and you could tell Eli's time was closing in the few times he played. I will just miss Eli as well.

Saquon Barkley 2019 silver Optic. I was looking up Saquon cards ending soon and this one had .99 and no bids on it. Well, guess who won it with one bid and .99 cent. That's right, this guy. Saquon again proved to be unbelievable when he came back from injury and still pulled off a 1,000 yard season. I expect so much more next season when he is fully healthy.

I have noticed the last couple of years that Panini Prizm is the "It" factor for football rookie cards much like Topps Chrome was in the 90's. So you know what, I did some "prospecting" and grabbed a few players cheap before I couldn't grab them anymore.

Mercole Hardman played really well in his first year with the Chiefs. He 538 receiving yards, and made the Pro Bowl as a returner with 871 yards. He also had 7 total touchdowns and got to  hoist the Lombardi.

N'Keal Harry is going to eventually be Tom Brady's go-to guy and yes I say Tom returns to the Patriots next season. 6 foot 4 Harry didn't show much on the field last season, mostly because he was injured til November, but showed some signs when he was on the field. Better to grab him up now!

And my final pickup, I watched this Mark Brunell autograph on eBay because it was cheap to begin with. But, when I landed it for $1.75 with an offer I made and $3.99 shipping, it was an absolute yes. It fits both my 90's PC and my Mark Brunell one.

All of these were picked up for less than $15, so you can tell I was bargain hunting and bargain winning.

That left me with $10 leftover this week.  Sometimes you just don't spend it all and isn't always bad thing.