Barter: Care of Roll Out the Barrel

What a sweet weekend! I've learned not to get my hopes up when looking for new releases at Wal-Mart and Target. When I first heard about the full blasters of the '09 Topps dark parallels, I was super giddy. I never did find any on the shelves. Probably a good thing too since I see them as a gimmick now instead of a must have. I picked up a small lot from eBay though and that got the curiosity craving out of me. Same thing with Obak. Never saw any gravity feeds. Once I saw a blaster but those are HUGE rip-offs. I still own zero Obak. I'll buy a hobby box one day, maybe for my birthday. I just worry about them selling out. I have no idea how many of the limited hobby boxes remain. Anyways, back to my point, I walked into Target today hoping for my first '10 Topps, but not hoping too much. I could see the double wide gravity feed a mile away! I STILL didn't allow myself to celebrate since I've been duped by empty feeders before. Yes! It was almost empty but that was good enough for me!

I'm really excited for '10 Topps. The base design leaves a lot to be desired coming after last year's. But I do love most of the inserts, except for the "when they were young" set. I can't wait to get into the "million card giveaway". I'm hoping I can use it to trade for at least a handful of singles towards my '69 Topps set. We'll see.

I'm also really going to enjoy the NFL Playoff double-header with my Dad today. And the wife has her own agenda today so she doesn't have to sit through two whole torturous games. Hooray!

Ok, I'm sick of your jibba-jabba! This IS a trade post after all, didn't you know? No, I don't have any scans of '10 Topps. It's mostly '09 T.. where are you going?!!

Last month I posted my first trade bait post, which worked out pretty well and I'm happy with the results. I think that post now sets the bar for hits on this blog. I'm not sure but I think that post caught the eye of Ed from Roll Out the Barrel because of my considerably large set needs, and he needed to unload some extras. Without expecting anything in return, he sent over a much appreciated amount of help towards those sets. I don't like getting something for nothing though. I've never been able to forgive myself for winning a card on eBay for a penny with free shipping, even though the seller was asking for it, right?! Anyways, I was really grateful and sent over some Brewers in return. I scanned 1 card for each set or group that were sent over.


Ed sent several Ichiros, and I don't think I owned any of them yet until now. This is the '09 Turkey Red #TR96. Ichiro is by far my favorite player in the league today. And as of right now, he is the only active player of any sport that I have a player collection of. I plan on picking some more players this year though.


Jeff Weaver '09 Topps Updates & Highlights #UH115. I'm still getting Jeff and Jared constantly mixed up and can't tell one from the other. Cardinals, Angels, Dodgers.. which one is where who whatzit? Red Sox?


#176, this is one of my favorites from the '08 Upper Deck Heroes set. This one might now be much rarer than the rest of the set since I'm sure so many Yankees and Red Sox fans cut it in half the moment they saw it. I like the Sox, but as more of a fan of the game, this card featuring 2 of the greatest hitters of my lifetime is magic.


'09 Topps #40 Carl Crawford. Seeing this card up close helped me understand why this card ranked highly with so many other collectors. It is really a great shot.


Finally, we have an '09 Topps Allen & Ginter Jamie Moyer #68. I had no idea this guy is still on the Phillies roster. I thought he was retired! He should be fun to watch if he plays this year.

That wraps it up. Just the tip of the iceberg of the cards that Ed sent. Check out Ed's blog at Roll Out the Barrel. Thanks Ed!

Breaking News: Classic Topps Wrapper Wall Graphics

These look pretty interesting. Topps has partnered with LTL Prints to release some larger than life wall graphics featuring Topps wrapper designs from the last 60 years from Baseball, Basketball, Football AND Hockey! They range in size from small enough to slap on your laptop to up to 7 feet tall! They're being released sometime today, check them out!

50¢ Drexler

Man, I have been so out of it lately. I've meaning to post some Drexlers for the last week and a half, but have been avoiding it because even a five card post can take forever whilst mobile blogging. I've been dreading it! I don't want to dread blogging, so I'm going to try more little blog bursts, like this one! Here. Have a card..


2008-09 Upper Deck Lineage #14 Clyde Drexler

This Lineage set brings back so many good memories of ripping foil when I was 10 years old. The 1991-92 Upper Deck basketball debut cards really seemed extra special when compared to the hoops and skybox sets out at the time.

I picked this one up with some others from sportlots.com for 50¢.

2009 Baseball Card of the Year: The Winner!!

Happy New Year!

We'll, when I started this thing, I had bigger and better things imagined for my Baseball Card of the Year feature. But with 2 hiatuses since September and internet access cut from our budget (crazy huh?) and now blogging from my phone with it's tedious limitations, well.. my head hurts.

So I'm just going to wrap this up. Since I started in September, I only nominated 5 cards. Here they are:

1. Topps #559 Esteban German
2. Topps # 124 Reed Johnson
3. Topps # 7 Mickey Mantle
4. Topps Allen & Ginter # 18 Clyde Parris
5. Topps #614 David Murphy
   

I had never decided on how the winning card would be decided, whether by vote or contest, but I don't think I have enough readers yet to pull something like that. It would be just embarrassing if no one voted or entered. Almost like that contest I had during the summer where I only had two entrants (hi Mom!) and flipped a virtual coin to decide the winner.

So I've decided on taking away all the rest of the fun from you and just plain picking a winner myself. I'll count this as a victory. 1 point me, 0 points readers. He-he. Keep your eyes open for opportunities to even the score.



Anyways, I decided that Topps Allen & Ginter #18 Clyde Parris is my favorite baseball base card of the year that I personally own. While the other nominations were all selected on their photography, this one won because of originality. I hope to see a lot more historical baseball cards based on lesser known histories. More mainstream cards featuring the Negro Leagues and maybe some other countries' leagues. The Japanese leagues have a long and rich history which most of us know next to nothing about. I think Tristar did a great job covering minor league history with their Obak set, but they just lost their license so who knows if we'll see anything like that again.