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Wednesday, July 25, 2012

I Am Not Immune (my one and only annual A&G post)


Yes, you heard me.  I, the fanatical Pittsburgh sports and general hockey fan, am not immune to the siren song that is Allen & Ginter's.  I am a sucker for retro looking cards, to which I have more than once acknowledged.  This years A&G is nothing new to the card collecting community, nothing different than what has already been done before, and is actually kind of stale in my opinion, but...I still love it.

I went a little overboard I think with a couple blasters, a retail box, and a handful of rack packs but hey, how else do you expect to complete a base set with all the SPs?  When the dust settled and the mountain of pack wrappers finally toppled over, I was left still needing 137 cards in the base set.  That's still almost 40%!!  I think I also decided to go after many of the insert sets, including most of the mini's.  No way I will be able to complete a base mini set...not with all the parallels that are inserted into packs. 

Here were some of my favorites...

 Nolan Ryan base card, looking all "I'm going to K you and there is nothing you can do about it".

 Roberto Clemente Highlight Sketch card.  Just awesome.

Hank Aaron base card.  If only I had a time machine...

What?  It's a card.  I didn't make it up.

 The Emancipation Proclamation from the Historical Turning Points set.  Look at Abe, just waiting to plunge that wooden stake into Dracula's cold heart.
 
 It's an old guy with a fish.  What is not to like about this card?

 There are a bunch of mini's to choose from but the old school Padres Tony Gwynn has to be my favorite.

And finally, Yu. Not You, Yu.  Looking like a high school kid, all nerdy and stuff.

Here is a list of what I need, along with a whole host of mini's that are on my Set Needs Page.

1 2 6 8 9 10 11 14 15 22 23 27 28 29 32 33 34 35 37 38 42 44 46 50 53 54 61 62 64 65 71 75 77 78 86 87 88 89 91 92 93 98 102 111 112 114 121 122 125 128 130 137 139 142 147 148 156 158 162 169 171 173 174 175 176 177 182 183 187 188 191 195 197 198 199 207 209 211 214 220 222 223 226 238 240 242 243 245 246 248 250 252 253 254 255 262 263 264 270 273 277 278 283 285 287 291 292 298 299 300 302 303 304 305 306 308 309 310 313 315 319 321 322 323 325 326 330 333 334 337 339 341 344 347 348 349 350

I have a whole slue of base doubles that I can trade...about a 100 or so, as well as these others:

SPs - - 301, 307, 316, 318, 320, 327, 332, 342, 346 (x2), 
Mini's - - 166, 249, 269
Mini SPs - - 335
Mini A&G Back - - 213
What's In A Name - - 35, 76, 83 (x2)
Historical Turning Points - - 8
World's Tallest Buildings - - 1, 2, 3, 7

If anyone wants to make a deal on any A&G, let me know.

Stay tuned for more updates on next weeks big community group break.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Future Group Break Update





Just to tease a little more on the potential future community box break...


I have obtained the rights to 6, yes, 6 hobby boxes.  I know in the last post I said 5 but I reserve the right to change my mind whenever I want.  Am I done with 6?  Who knows?  Maybe I am, maybe I'm not but as of right now, the number has been changed from 5 to 6.  Make a note of it.

As for other details, I'm still thinking I can manage this at $10 for 2 teams (one picked, one assigned).  That seems like a fair way to do things and should basically cover costs (probably not but who cares).  I have not officially rolled out the break and already I have 8 teams potentially wiped off the board because some people are too impatient. 

I will try to post more details as the days roll on.  I hope to have this break officially opened for business by the middle of next week.  I was shooting for this weekend but I will be busy as my band is playing a gig at the Pierogi Festival in Whiting, Indiana.  It used to be a quirky little festival that celebrates Polish heritage and those over-sized ravioli's stuffed with whatever you can imagine (no, I'm not Polish...not that there is anything wrong with that).  Ever since the Food Network covered the event a few years ago, the place is jam packed with people from all over.  Now they see crowds of about 200,000 come through there over the three day event.  My band got chosen to play one of the entertainment stages on Saturday at 2.  If you find yourself in Northwest Indiana about that time, stop on by.  We're in the beer garden.

Stay tuned for more details about the break.

Monday, July 23, 2012

Working on something for everyone...

(I know, stealing images from old album covers is wrong.  But it fits.)

That's right, kids!!  You heard me correctly.  Despite the countless additions to my PC and the seemingly endless box breaks, coupled with the trips to shows, my LCS, and numerous collection acquisitions...I'm going to now do something I have never done.  What is it, you ask?  Quite simply...

THE REAL DFG's FIRST EVER MID-SUMMER PRE-SEASON AFFORDABLE COMMUNITY GROUP HOCKEY BOX BREAK EXTRAVAGANZA!!!

or

The RDFGFEMSPSACGHBBE for short.  On second thought, let's just go with Group Break.

I thought long and hard over this one and decided to give the fans what they wanted (actually no one wanted it but I thought it would break up the monotony).  Believe it or not, I am growing tired of opening stuff just to throw it all into a box or binder and forget that I have it.  I love to share (brag) about what I open but I lack the originality to pull it off in an entertaining way.  It's also taking way too long to catalog everything I have, too long to separate out what is for keeps and what is sell-able, too long to create lists of what I need to complete more sets of newly busted wax, and I just don't have the time that I used to.  So the beneficiaries of my little, oh, we'll call it a funk...will be the readers of the blog.

I don't have all the details ironed out yet but it will be open to all the readers and even non-readers if they crawl out of the woodwork (and pay me).  As the title suggests, it is going to be HOCKEY related so the teams will all be NHL based.  I know, I know.  Hockey breaks generally don't do too well historically.  Well, I'm being optimistic here.  I haven't seen anyone try one of these in a while (at least not with non-high end stuff) and there are way too many hockey collectors out there in blog-o-land currently to not be able to pull off something like this.

I'm looking to mix this up a bit with some early 2000s Pacific branded stuff since I have received numerous comments from other readers and bloggers about how they enjoy those because not many collectors have a ton of this stuff.  Depending on what happens between now and probably the middle of next week when I decide to open these flood gates, I may have a few more things up my sleeve to add to the mix.  I'm thinking at a minimum, at least 5 Hobby Boxes.  That should get us a nice assortment of base cards as well as inserts and 10-12 "hits".  If I can come up with more than that, I will, but the key is AFFORDABLE...(so no high-end stuff here [unless of course people start demanding it])  I'm also going to work on a way to try and get some type of "hit" to each participant and possibly balance out any team stacks that fail to live up to what I think may be worth their weight of the break fee.

Speaking of break fee?  I'm sure you are all wondering the cost.  I'm pretty sure I will be able to get this to about $10 shipped and probably have two teams per entry.  That way, we can have 15 slots with everyone getting 2 teams (one you pick, one I pick).  Of course the Penguins will be off the table (and any Pittsburgh "hits" will be replaced) but all others will be fair game.  As long as I can get about 1/2 to 3/4 of the board filled, I think this can work out.

Stay tuned for more details.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

New PC Additions (Not Tangradi related)

That Sports Spectacular show from a few weeks ago that I talked about a week or so ago also yielded me a hefty pile of cards for my other player collections.  Without further adieu, I will just let the scans do the talking.  WARNING...THIS IS A PICTURE HEAVY POST.

First up, Bill Guerin.  Guerin cards are a rough find because unless they are autos or feature some dual memorabilia with a star player, no one really pulls these out to sell individually.  Hence, the quarter boxes tend to be where these come from.  I was able to pick up two cards that I'm pretty sure I didn't have at the time, but not I'm not so sure.  Either way, they are cool.


Next up is Jaromir Jagr.  I almost don't like myself for still wanting to collect his cards but here I am.  Here's what I got.  Most of these are new to the collection because they are all fairly recent.  I don't have a large selection of stuff from 2000 forward.  The older cards are mostly inserts.  Again, you gotta love Quarter Boxes.


  
 
 
 
 
 
 

 


Finally we have Mario Lemieux.  I haven't been through my Super Mario cards in a while so some of these may now be doubles.  But to you and the blog, they are new.  Check these out.

The Contenders card came out of a box I bought at the show.

 

 
 

 
These both came from Sal in a "trade".


 Now that the server has probably crashed due to the amount of graphics on this page, I bid you farewell.