Summer Of Wes Card #79

Filling In Days

This week is the last full week of posts I have planned for this blog right now. Next week I have my usual segments of Autograph Of The Week, Kerry's Cardboard and Rodney's Cardboard but other than that, my blog has open slots without any thoughts yet on how to fill them.

With Covid-19 playing a role in all of this, I may have to get very creative and possibly lazy about filling in days. However I promise no Caption This and Random Card fill ins.

Luckily, a few days ago to fill in today's spot, I got a mail day from Rod over at Padrographs.who is giving cards away left and right. It's been a lot of fun despite my bad timing on checking it out late every time-Still kicking myself for showing up late for the Abby NCIS relic and Sean Harmon auto I really wanted-but I have been fortunate to claim a few cards.

This time I was able to target a couple of 90's cards he had posted. I had no rhyme or reason to claim other than the fact they are from my favorite time of collecting.

This is a 1996 Bowman Best Cut Insert of Andruw Jones. Who doesn't love a good die cut?

And this is a 1996 Finest Silver

 of Mike Piazza. These were uncommons inside of the base set. Meaning they were a tad harder to find than the others. I have always liked 90s Finest especially unpeeled ones.

Next up is this 90's Disney promo pack. I have no plans to open it as I find it cooler sealed. I have no idea overall these cards look like or are other than the top card, but I like it any way for my non sport PC.

Big thanks to Rod for running these daily giveaways. I look forward to that everyday right now and it's very inspiring to see (and takes mind off of the world). I may start to join in on the fun of doing these down the road like many other bloggers have (Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary and The Collector) because of what Jon over at A Penny Sleeve for your Thoughts started.

But, it will be a little while until I can get stuff together and some more stamps to do so.

Unsolved Mysteries Episode 2

This blog post series is about unraveling unsolved mysteries from a card lot my mother-in-law bought me from an estate sale. What you are about to see isn't a breaking news broadcast or some new releases. There is a lot to go through here so whenever possible, I will try to condense down some of the graphics and whenever possible, real cards from the actual lot (well all of them are from the actual lot but let's have some fun with it) will be used for pictures.

Someone, somewhere can help me uncover the mysteries within this lot. Let's take a look and maybe one of you, will help me solve some mysteries.

*insert creepy music and theme song*

The location is still completely unknown where my Mother In Law went to grab this lot of sports cards other than it was a Estate Sale. Belief is, it was somewhere isolated as nobody grabbed them before she did. It may be the only explanation on why someone wouldn't have grabbed this lot before she showed up three hours after it started. Or maybe it was because the cards were more than they were expecting? Or was it a government conspiracy? I guess we will have to tune in to today's round and maybe you can help solve this mystery.

These Fleer All-Stars inserts are from 1993. They have a fairly decent design that would have fit better as a base card design than a 90's insert. Darren must know that or knows something possibly relating to this lot. Nobody makes a bluffing face better than he does.

Three Diamond Kings but only one Gallery of Stars. Mystery written all over it....

Two mid-tier players when it comes to the hobby and a more powerful one in Greg Maddux. Why would Greg had been left behind with two mediocre hobby power players?

Never knew that Jose Rijo was a League Leader....

Did the owner of these cards collect Nomar or the Red Sox? Or did the candy entice him because it came with an Upper Deck card? Or maybe he just liked the red licorice and the card was a bonus. It's a Twizzler of questions that need to be answered.

Some early 2000's Upper Deck hockey Young Guns. I don't know any of these players but Young Guns are Young Guns. They have to have some value or do they...

This was the one and only Donruss Classics card in the lot and is numbered of the great Stan Musial. But, why was he alone that day? And why Stan?

Shiny cards never get left behind...then why were they?

At one point Mark was a Hobby Master than he fell into some trouble later on his career. It's still a mystery on why he did what he did...

This Mike Piazza insert contains 4 out of 6 known steroid users in what was supposed to be called a Superstar Summit. It seems to me it needs to be renamed because real Superstars don't cheat, but what would you call it?

 

Back To Back Mike Piazza inserts to finish today's look at the lot. Did this collector have luck pulling Mike or did they collect him?

This does it for Episode Two of Unsolved Mysteries. There is a lot of unexplained findings here with even more mysteries to unravel. Tune in next time and Perhaps YOU, can help solve a mystery.

$1 Yard Sale Boxes Breakdown Part 2

I showed off a garbage bag containing some cards a couple weeks ago and said I would break down what was in there, well, here we go.

3 more days to go in this 5 part series for you will see what I found.

Today, we continue on with a box of 1993 Leaf baseball

Inside the box, there were 4 big stacks of 1993 Leaf and as I expected, some of the good players were pulled leaving behind a few stragglers that I will use for my PC.

The best of the vets come here. Sosa and Bagwell. Sadly again, no Griffey Jr. Not that I needed this one.

I used to just toss this kinda card to one side, but now I pause a second as it makes me think of a blogger...(which if you need this one, let me know)

And finally, Mr. Hall Of Fame Mike Piazza.

 

Overall, a better box than the first just because of the bigger names found. But, still not as good as I was hoping.

Thoughts on Part 2 are welcomed below!

1997 Upper Deck UD3 Baseball Pack # 4

This makes pack # 4 out of 24 and we are back on track with hitting the good players. Today's pack consisted of some pretty solid ones as you will see as you read on.

This also marks 12 cards out of 60 for the set so doing well there so far too.

Pack #5 will roll out tomorrow!

 

Thoughts on today's pack are welcomed!

REVIEW:2016 Topps Finest Baseball Mini Box+Auto Giveaway!

It has been a few years since I have personally busted a box of Finest. For the most part the product has remained the same with some new fun inclusions added in yearly.

Last year Finest introduced Finest Careers that celebrated Derek Jeter. This year it returns again and this time celebrates my main man, KGJr.

So to me looking at this box isn't a bad start to the product:

Just to point this out again, today's break isn't a full hobby box. This is a mini box. 2 mini boxes make up a hobby box. So this is basically half a hobby box.

In every mini box of 2016 Finest baseball, there are 6 packs with 5 cards per pack. There is one autograph per mini box and hobby boxes run about $120. I would assume a mini box will run you about $60-$70.

The base cards have a basic design with a colored line on the left or right with a team logo watermarked at the bottom of the line. There is also a full colored player in the forefront. The featured player's picture also seems to be "zoomed away" before coming to focus in the center of the card. Kind of a cool look.

The cards are printed on a chrome stock. I do miss the days of the peel-away stickers to help with scratching however.

The base set consists of 100 cards that are made up of rookies and MLB vets.

The rookie cards have the same design as the base except they have the rookie logo. I pulled a Maeda in my box.

The base cards also have Sp's. Those make up cards 101-110 (of players not in the first 100 and one of those is Kris Bryant) if you are trying to put together the master base set. Sp's fall 1:5 packs.

Now onto the parallels and inserts.

As with Finest or anything chromed, they come with refractor parallels. These two are the basic ones I pulled in my mini box.

 

There are also green refractors that fall 1:4 packs and are numbered /99. I found this guy....

You can also find these refractors,

• Prism Refractor
• Purple Refractor Parallel: sequentially numbered.
• Blue Refractor Parallel: sequentially numbered.
• Gold Refractor Parallel: sequentially numbered.
• Orange Refractor Parallel: sequentially numbered to 25.
• Red Refractor Parallel: sequentially numbered to 5.
• SuperFractor Parallel: numbered. 1/1.
• Printing Plates: numbered 1/1.

Finest First inserts fall 1:2 packs. This insert commemorates each MLB Rookie's first appearance in Topps Finest.

 

There are also much tougher autograph and autograph refractor parallels to be found of Finest First as well.

Refractors to find include:

• Green Refractor: sequentially numbered.
• Gold Refractor: sequentially numbered.
• Orange Refractor: sequentially numbered to 25.
• Red Refractor: sequentially numbered to 5.
• SuperFractor: numbered 1/1.
• Printing Plates: numbered 1/1.

Franchise Finest is a new insert included this year. It Features each team's franchise player on a chrome refractor card.

1996 Finest Intimidators is by far my FAVORITE insert in Finest: Topps dug back in time and recreated the cool looking insert set of 1996 with today's most "intimidating" veterans and retired players.

These look even cooler in person. Would be an interesting set to put together and one I am not intimidated to try.

In case you wondered what a version of this looked like from 1996, here is a Piazza pic (not mine)

Like I stated earlier, Finest is celebrating Ken Griffey Jr.’s great accomplishments in the product and have included an die-cut insert called Finest Careers to do so. There are 10 unique cards to collect with just one of these cards found in every case. They are astronomical odds, but a fun chase for us Griffey collectors.

There are three parallels offered for this insert: 

• Orange Refractor (numbered to 25)
• Red Refractor (numbered to 5)
• Superfractor (1-of-1). 

Autograph versions of Finest Careers Ken Griffey Jr can be found and are numbered to just five copies each. 

Now onto the autographs and other offerings from Finest.

This was my pull from the mini box, not that great but it is on-card. Norris is still a young gun so he could do something big later on in his MLB career, right now he is currently playing for Toledo.

 

 Just like most of the product, the autographs have refractor parallels too. Here are those offerings:

• Blue Refractor Parallel: sequentially numbered.
• Green Refractor Parallel: sequentially numbered.
• Gold Refractor Parallel: sequentially numbered.
• Orange Refractor Parallel: sequentially numbered to 25.
• Red Refractor Parallel: sequentially numbered to 5.
• SuperFractor Parallel: numbered 1/1.
• Printing Plates: numbered 1/1.

 Some of the other things not found in my box are

• Finest Originals that feature on-card autographs on buybacks from the past 20-plus years.These have gotta be cool!
• Finest Greats Autograph set that showcases elite MLB retired players such as Cal Ripken Jr., Don Mattingly, Hank Aaron and Sandy Koufax.

Overall, it was a bit of a tough break I feel. I do like the designs and offerings but cost vs return comes into play here and it's a toughie to look at. Of course it may be because it was just a mini box. It's really hard to judge without seeing the full picture. Who knows, the other mini box could have had a Sandy Koufax autograph which would had made the overall break and my view of it much different. So what I recommend is when buying this, stick strictly to full hobby boxes and see how that goes. I have seen some good stuff already pulled from hobby boxes of the product so I know it is solid.

Now for the moment you have been waiting for,
CONTEST TIME!

Win this!

It's as easy as can be to enter to win the Daniel Norris autograph above. Just read and follow these rules:

1. Please make sure to take a minute out to thank Topps for providing this box for me to review and to host this/these nice giveaways with. Follow them on all social media sites and visit their site, HERE, as well.
2. ***VERY IMPORTANT***MUST BE A U.S. RESIDENT to enter or have a shipping address in the U.S. Shipping costs have gone haywire and I can't afford to ship everywhere.This is always hard to do as I appreciate all readers but I hope you all understand non-U.S. readers.
3. Random winner will be chosen after 7 randoms
4. Card may be shipped PWE. I like to forewarn on this.
5. LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW telling me your thoughts on this product
6. EARN AN EXTRA ENTRY FOR SHARING THIS CONTEST ON YOUR BLOG AND/OR ON TWITTER. Make sure to leave your link in comments too so I can count it. If not, I won't be able to give you the credit. Commenting with it is very important or you WILL LOSE OUT an extra entry!
7. Sport Card Collectors or it's owner (person who runs the blog), WILL NOT be held responsible for lost, stolen or damaged mail. Sorry had to add this in since someone tried to scam me once about this.
8. Contest starts today, ends on Saturday, May 28th 2016. Winner will be announced in a separate post on Sunday May 29th 2016. 
9. Don't forget to thank the above sponsor of this contest and I won't mind a thank you as well :)

Good luck to all that enter and thanks for reading!

UPDATE!!

IF WE CAN REACH 30 ENTRIES I WILL GIVEAWAY AWAY THE ICHIRO AS WELL!

The Card Bin: What Did I Find This Time?

I really enjoyed doing this post over at The Card Bin blog and I wasn't just going to leave you all hanging with it. So without further ado, another post from The Card Bin, which is what I call this this tote right here:

 

I think most of us collectors have that one place we store all of our extra cards that are not PC related. This is where I stick mine. I also use this as a once-in-awhile dig through to bring back memories or for a just for fun experience. I will start posting cards from this bin to show you what's hiding in there. I honestly have no idea what is in there, I only know its autographs and memorabilia cards from the past 14 years. So this should be fun for both you and I!

Onto today's find:

2003 Fleer Platinum Platinum Portraits Jersey Card Mike Piazza

Thoughts on today's find are welcomed!

That 90's Card: 1994 Donruss Elite Series Mike Piazza