A Legend In His Own Mind

Thanks to Jeff of New Card Smell for further inflating my already monstrous ego by sending me a 1 of 1 sketch card..... of myself.

The resemblance is striking, don't you think.

This card was sent along with the last few 2008 Masterpieces short prints needed to complete my base set. This has to be the fastest I have ever put a set together, at just over a month. The few blasters I picked up in '08, 2 hobby boxes, a retail box, and about 5 or 6 trades was all it took. Hmmm... does that mean I technically started building it in '08? Does that count? All of the boxes were purchased in December, and that's when the decision was made to start collecting the set, even though I did bust a few blasters when I first got back in the game. Now there is a conundrum for you. Anyway, Jeff was kind enough to send roughly 10 cards for the price of shipping & materials only, which came to roughly $2.30.

Thanks dude. From both of us, my Bondsian cranium and me.

UPDATE: I AM A MORON. You read it here first folks. At least the time that I said it you did. I still need card #120, the last card in the set, to achieve completion. Insert premature completion joke here.

Redemption Day

Yesterday, along with a few trades, I received 2 redemptions in the mail. I must say, both companies were quite speedy about getting these cards delivered once they were redeemed, and I commend them for their promptness.

The first envelope was from Upper Deck. They sent me this card:

2008 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Eider Torres Sweet Beginnings autograph
Pretty nice looking card, and the auto is hard-signed. Too bad it's of a scrub, but at least it's an Orioles scrub.

Upper Deck snuck something else inside the envelope as well. It's pretty cool, so thank you Upper Deck.

Despite looking at a few unimpressive box breaks today, I was still pretty excited to see this ad. I appreciate the old-timey stylings that Goodwin has to offer, and am psyched to bust a box tomorrow. According to the UPS package tracker thingy, my box is spending the night in Laurel, MD before making to my doorstep sometime tomorrow.

This next redemption is truly special. It comes from slangon of the most excellent Condition: Poor. A few weeks ago we completed a trade, which can be seen here. I was lucky enough to receive a redemption for a 1 of 1 Slangko Heroes of the Diamond card, and yesterday it arrived.

2009 Slangko Heroes of the Diamond John McGraw 1/1

This is a hand painted mini card, and it looks incredible! The scan is a little bigger, so you can get an idea of the artistry involved here by seeing some of the detail. I'm reading a book about McGraw currently (I've been reading it for a while now), and from what I've read about him, he was a true legend and one of the first "sparkplug" type of players, who played all out at all times. I've been wanting a card of his forever, and now I've got one that no one else ever will.

The back is nice too, and you can plainly see the numbering. I feel honored to have even received this card. It's right up there amongst the coolest of things anyone has ever sent me.

Redemption day indeed, and a good one it was.

Cards I Shouldn't Of Bought On eBay Last Week Pt. 7

This is the last one, I promise.

2007 Upper Deck SPx Nick Markakis yellow printing plate

My first Markakis 1 of 1, and it was less than $10.

Holy Crap!

Adam Jones sure does look good this year, and tonight in his first 2 at bats, he went yard off of Ray's starter Andy Sonnastine. Jones already has 8 homers this year, and is on pace for a serious breakout season. He only hit 9 home runs all of last year, so he'll surely surpass that total in the next week or 2. He's added at least 10lbs of muscle since last season (hopefully the natural way), and has been a fantasy baseball beast for me so far this year. So far in the 2 weeks this blog has existed, you have seen and heard a lot about Nick Markakis (who is also a beast), so I figured it's about time to show off some of my Adam Jones cards. I don't have all that many, maybe 20, so everyone reading this should hurry up and email me so we can work out a trade for any Jones' you've got laying around.

First up is the only "1 of 1" in my entire collection. This was one of those off-season eBay bargains that I managed to score for a measly $17, which was well worth it. Obviously, it's a printing plate, and it's from 2008 Topps series 2. The corners are actually rounded, but that doesn't show up so well on this scan.


The second card featured is one of my best pulls from last year's releases. Allen & Ginter is one of the products responsible for my return to the hobby, and is still my favorite year after year. I've already started stashing some cash away for a few boxes when '09 is released. This is also the card that got me started on collecting Adam Jones specifically. Behold the Bazooka backed mini!


In closing, I would like to make it explicitly clear that I am interested in trading for any and all Adam Jones cards, especially those that feature him in orange and black.

I would also like to state that as of today, this blog has officially made it to the 2 week mark. To the one hater who voted "no" in the poll, I say IN YOUR FACE, and to all those who believed, I want to say thank you. Today I consider myself the luckiest blogger on the face of the earth.