IP Prospects.

Earlier in the year just after the release of Bowman a member on SCF decided to get all of the Topps 100 cards signed in person. By the end of the Milb season he had got at least 30 of the cards signed. A couple of weeks ago he posted that he had moved to Maui and would no longer be able to complete his quest. He began to offer the signed cards for sale, and as luck would have it the first two he offered were Hellickson and Jennings, at $7 for the pair it was too good an offer to turn down. Along with the cards he sent the game ticket at which he got the autos. I feel lucky to have these cards, because the idea he had was an excellent one and he was doing so well in collecting the 100 autos. In his thread about his progress he would tell the readers which players were easy to get to sign and which were not. Anyone looking for Mike Leake to sign may be unlucky as he seems to think he is already a big shot.

Goodbye Carl.

We all knew it was coming, we all knew he was going to end up richer than God,Allah and Odin combined. We all knew he was never going to be a Ray again. We all respected what Carl had done for a struggling franchise,his talent had helped turn the Rays from joke to contender. We were all ready to wish him well. Then he signed for the Red Sox!!!! The fkin Red Sox, a bloody division rival. Any team outside the division I would wish Carl all the best. Right now he can kiss my ass.

Black Coolness.

Above and below are two of the coolest looking cards I have picked up this year. They are walmart black border exclusives from Topps 2010. I had never seen these cards before I came aross them while looking cheap PC cards on COMC. At 25c each I was not going to turn them down. They just look so neat,the black background make the player jump out at you. What I like about these two cards is that they are action shots, hey man the ball is heading right at you. Nothing mindblowing,but nice pick ups when your nearest Walmart is 7000 miles away.

Brith of a New PC.

Hello everyone, it's been a few days since my last post. This is due to me being pretty sick and to be honest just plain bloody lazy. The good lady and myself seem to picked up a rather nasty cough/fever virus, my stepson has also got it, it's like living in a TB clinic right now.


I thought I would show off the start of my new Wade Davis PC. Why Wade Davis I hear you mutter. Simple he fits the Lemons criteria, he is a Ray and he is cheap. To start the PC I thought I would go Topps Chrome 2010, pictured above is the base chrome auto and pictured below is the refractor auto #/499.

And finally the crown jewel thus far, the Blue Refractor Auto #/199. As stated earlier this is a new PC which may be pursued as strongly as my James Shields one or just a passing fancy like my Matt Garza. Stay tuned for further developments.

Before I sign off, I would like to give a big thank you to Ryan and Colin at Sports Card Radio. These guys not only produce a top quality podcast on the world of card collecting, they also host great contests for free box breaks. These guys do this in their own time with their own resources, if you never listen to the podcast give it a try also pop oever to the website for all the information a cardboard head would need.

Oh Dear.

The card above isn't mine, it's one I found while browsing Topps Sterling 2010 on Ebay. The card is a Frenchy Bodagaray cut auto 1/1. I realise that ole Frenchy has a long name,but come on Topps this is a flagship product and this is what you get. Would you be happy with a 'bert Pujols auto or a 'andy Koufax? No I hear you cry. Then why should anyone be happy with a cut off cut auto. This card is for sale for $175 if anyone is interested. I would love a Frenchy card as he is an old Brooklyn Dodger, but not this card thank you.

Ahoy Sailor!!!!!

Ralph Vivian Stroud also known as Sailor, you won't find Stroud in the Hall of Fame, he only spent three seasons in the majors,pitching for the Tigers and Giants. His career statistics are not too shabby though, 20-20 with an ERA of 2.94. His best season was 1915 with the Giants where he went 12-9 with an ERA of 2.79. He continued pitching in the Minors until 1928 when he was 43 years old.
So he is not in the Hall of Fame but he is immortalized forever in cardboard form. The card is an Imperial Tobacco Company of Canada C46. Printed in 1912 the set consists of 90 cards. All the cards are of minor league players fromBuffalo,JerseyCity,Rochester,Toronto,Montreal,Baltimore Newalk and Providence. The set contains two hall of famers Joe Kelley and Joe McGinnty,also the popular deaf player Luther "Dummy" Taylor.

Ralph Sailor Stroud

Born. 3/15/1885 Ironia New Jersey

Died. 4/11/1970 Stockton California.

Please Please Pretty Please.

I hate begging,but on this occasion I am going to. Do any of you wonderful people out there in blogworld have any of the following cards. I am getting quite desperate here.

Topps Chrome 2010.
James Shields.Purple Refractor, Red Refractor.
Wade Davis. Xfractor,Purple Refractor,Red Refractor,Print Plate. Gold Refractor Auto,Red Refractor Auto.

Bowman Chrome 2009.

James Shields:- Blue Refractor,Gold Refractor,Red Refractor
Matt Garza :- Gold Refractor and Red Refractor.

2009 Upper Deck Icons

James Shields Letterman Patch Letter I Numbered to 35.

Thanks for reading.

Drum Roll Please!!! 100 Shields Cards!!!

Well folks I have finally achieved a collecting landmark.I have just got my 100th James Shields card.Actually its 102 but that doesn't look so cool as a title.I was just collecting game used and autographed cards until I discovered the forums and COMC.com. Now I am collecting everything I can lay my grubby little paws on. Thanks to forums and comc I can now get base and inserts at a very reasonable price or trade away my crap for cards I need.

The card above is the very first James Shields card I got. Aptly it's a 2006 Sweet Beginnings Jersey card.If my memory is correct I believe I paid the grand sum of $1 for it.

Above is card number 100.A 2006 Exquisite dual Rookie Auto of James Shields and Jason Hamels.Hamels of course is now a starter with the Rockies.

The goal now is to carry on collecting and try to reach 200 cards by the end of 2011.This shouldn't be too much of a problem due to the amount of parallels printed in each set.Also I want to try and pick up a few more 1/1 cards and maybe even a Superfractor,but that may be out of my price range.Rumours abound that Shields may be traded away from the Rays,if he is I will still continue to pick up his cards,unlike my Kazmir pc which is strictly Rays cards only.

I would like to thank Tony McD for putting me on to COMC and his help in finding Shields cards for me. Also it was Tony's awesome Adam Lind collection that finally spured me on to get the more common Shields cards. Cheers Tony.

Fallen Angel

I hadn't bought/traded for any Scott Kazmir cards since he was traded away to the Angels. Last week on SCF someone was selling off his collection and he had two Kazmir auto's that I didn't have,after a bit of wheeling and begging I got the price I wanted and got these two sweet Kazmir cards.
Above is a 2007 Upper Deck Black auto/jersey card 12/50. I love the Black cards,they are nice to look at and very thick.Of course when this set was released back in 2007 I could not afford to buy any of the cards. Remember they were $120 for a box which only included two cards. Now of course alot of the players in that set are on the downturn career wise and they are much easier to pick up.

The second Kazmir card is the 2005 Origins Baseball Old Judge card. I'm no expert but I am guessing this is a set based on an old cigarette card. I like the old style picture but it could be a little bigger for my liking. I'm not sure if I will revive the Kazmir pc totally,but if some nice cards come along at the right price you never know.

Very Vintage.

The above card is a 1931 Pattreiouex Cigarette card. For it's age it is fantastic condition.It's nice to have a little bit of British baseball history. I going to have to spend ages on google to find out more about the history of the British Baseball Cup.

Two Birds With One Stone.

The two cards I have wanted for ages have finally arrived. Ignore the base cards in the picture and check out those sweet auto cards. Top right is the Upper Deck Ultimate Rookie Signature card,I have been chasing this one for a while now,the only one on EBay is way overpriced at $40+,this one was $15 but the coolest thing about it is that it is numbered 33/180. 33 is of course James Shields uniform number,this is the first uniform numbered card I have managed to get my hands on.

The second card is the Sweet Spot 2006 Leather Auto 5/20. This was my Shields holy grail,these were only available through redemption from upper deck. I had never seen one until I put a post on FCB asking about Shields cards,the guy I got this from had two of them. It cost a little more than I usually pay for cards,but I thinking if Ipass this up I may never see another. I am really happy to have this in my collection and thats where it will remain for many years.

Another Shields Mail Day.

Another week and another haul of James Shields cards. These cards bring the Shields pc total into the 80's. Hoping to have the century by Christmas if possible,I have three more sitting at COMC I am waiting to add some more before getting those sent out,also waiting for 3 auto cards which I obtained on the forums.One of those is a card I have been searching for since I started collectin Shields,I am very excited about it arriving,I won't tell you what card it is though because I want to show it off on here. Anyone want to guess what it might be?
Anyway on to this weeks haul,first in line is a 2006 Topps 52 IP auto. I don't normally go after IP cards because you never know if the auto is kosher. I got this one for two reasons, first it was very cheap at $1 and secondly I didn't have a Topps 52 in my pc,so I killed two birds with one stone on this one.

Second card this week is a shiny Topps Chrome 2010 Gold Refractor. The mission is to try to collect the rainbow. I just missed out on a Red Refractor on the bay earlier this week.Not many
colored refactors of Shields on ebay yet, I have not seen a blue,orange or xfractor yet.

Third card is more shiny goodness,the regular refractor from 2010 chrome.

Fourth card is the Upper Deck Icons GU card. Recently picked up the base card from this set and now need the #ed versions to make a full set. I am only missing a letter I from the letterman set. Getting desperate for that one now,really want the full name set.

Card five is a 2007 Spx winning materials dual GU #/50, this is the fourth GU I have from this set,but the first dual GU. I am looking for a patch from this set,a guy on COMC has one but won't budge from his set price. Still hoping to grind him down.

Last and certainly not least is a 2009 Goodwin Champions GU,I love the look of this set,I think its the differing backgrounds that make it a nice looking set of cards. So far I have the auto,base,regular mini and now the GU from this set,looking for the black border mini,foil mini if Shields has one and a plate to complete the set. If any of you lovely people have any of the cards I am looking for and are willing to part with them please let me know.

Until next time folks,happy collecting and breaking.

Holy Crap I Won.

It's not very often I win anything,mainly because I rarely enter contests. The wonderful folks over at Sports Card Radio ran a contest last week with the prize being one pack of Panini Absolute Football. I will mention here that the good folks at Panini donated the box to SCR. All we had to do was post in the contest thread of the forum to get an entry.The names were then randomed off to see who would claim one of the packs. My name was 4th on the list giving me a pack of cards.

The big hit from the pack was a Jimmy Clausen Auto/Relic card 210/299. This is the best card I have pulled (or pulled for me). I actually know who Clausen is and he was rated highly by the scout pre draft.

The other 3 cards in the pack were an Adrian Peterson,a Dallas Clark and a Jermaine Cunningham Rookie card. I had to Google Cunningham as I knew nothing about him. He was 53rd pick in the 2010 draft,an alumni of Florida University and was picked by New England.So far this season he has 11 tackles,1 sack and forced fumble.

I would like to take the chance to say a big thank you to the guys at SCR for running the contest and also to Panini for donating the box. Hey all you other card companies support SCR and show them some love.

Interesting Pick Ups.

As I was browsing through Ebay UK the other day I came across this nice little card.It's a Sport Kings Tony Gwynn mini card. As it was only 65p or a Dollar in US money I decided to buy it. When it arrived the other day I found it had a couple of companians in the package.


The first of the free cards I was sent is a Eusebio Sport Kings mini. For those of you who don't know Eusebio was a soccer player. He played 64 times for Portugal and scored 46 goals. He is one of the greatest ever european soccer stars.

The third card in the package was a War Admiral Sport Kings mini.War Admiral was born in 1934, he won the Triple Crown in 1937.The three races which make up the Triple Crown are The Kentucky Derby,The Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes.Most non race fans will know of War Admiral because of his famous match race with Seabiscuit. Seabiscuit defeated War Admiral by for lengths in the Pimlico Special of 1938,thus cementing his claim as the best racehorse of the era. War Admiral gained $273,240 in prize money during his career,winning 21 of the 26 races he competed in.After retirement he went on to become one of the top stud horses of the 20th century. War Admiral passed away in 1959.

It's a Bit Blowy Here.

As my Dad would say "we are having a bit of weather at the moment".

Good to Have Friends.

Tony over at collector from across the pond(Wales No1 Baseball Card Blog)was kind enough to send me a couple of James Shields cards this week. First up we have two cards from 2009 t206,the card with the white border is the standard base card and then we have the bronze border parallel. I like the look of the 2009 set so much more than the terrible looking 2010 set.These are very nice additions to the Shields PC.




The other card Tony sent is an Upper Deck Ballpark Auto/GU. Always pleaseing to add an auto or GU,doubly pleasing to get both in one card.This set is one of the reasons I miss Upper Deck,yes it was overpriced and some of the multi player GU cards had an odd mixture of players,but it is a nice looking set, one I am happy to own.

I have some more new Shields cards to show off,but as Tony is a good friend I think these cards deserve a post of their own. Also a quick thank you to Martyn at Steal Second (Blackburns No1 card Blog)for sending me teo Scott Kazmir GU cards.I will post these when I get the scans sorted out.

BTW nice to see the Yankees get mullered today,even though a typhoon knocked out my electric midway through the 5th inning.

Shields Shopping Spree.

What do you do when your team is bombed out of the play-offs?Sulk?Whine?No,you go shopping.Here is my latest batch of James Shields pick up from COMC.
First up a 2006 Topps Update.

Topps 2007

2008 Goudey,shame it has Jeter on the front.

2009 Topps t206.Prefer last years look to this years.

Bowman 2010 Base card.

Allen and Ginter 2010 mini,looking for the black border one next.

Bowman 2010 blue border 36/250

Bowman 2010 Gold border.

2009 Upper Deck Icons base card,really like the look of this one.

Topps 2008 Gold border 1012/2008

2006 Topps Rookie Debut.

Fleer Ultra Retail 884/999

2006 Upper Deck Rookie Card.

2007 Upper Deck Base

2010 Upper Deck Base.

2008 Upper Deck Diamond Collection.

There is Always Next Year.

Hats off to Texas and Cliff Lee. I hope they kick the Yankees butt.

Who Will Win The Battle Of The Lefties.

ALDS Game 5. Which superstar leftie will prevail? I really hope Price can deliver the goods tonight,but I honestly think Lee is going to be too good for an up and down Rays line up.