Set complete: 1995 Donruss

13 years in the making, seriously! I first started this set way back when I was 14 going on 15. Mom used to take me to Sportscards & More in Winston-Salem (you may know it now as All About Sports) once a week and drop a lot of cash on me to buy cards. She would spoil me because one of my 2 oldest brothers would always come from his grandparents house once a week with all kinds of cool cards and rub them in my face (he had a different mother, hence the animosity). Mom did not approve of this behavior, so she took me there and spent something like $300.00 a WEEK on baseball cards for me (had I known thn what i know now, I would have definitely steered away from the mid-90's cards and would have racked up on 1970's and 60's etc... ANYWAY, we bought a couple of boxes worth of 1995 Donruss ad I realized that I may have enough to complete the set. I began the set in 1995 only to get out of the hobby in 1996 (when i got a car and a job and had to spend my own money on it, haha) and the incomplete set sat in my closet all these years.
When I got back into the hobby in 2005, I dug out what I could find of my old collection and found the box with the semi-complete 1995 set. I had looked around for a while and could not find any commons of this set, and got wrapped up it Topps sets, so this one took a back seat once again. A few weeks ago, Corbin (our little 16-year old office boy) and I went to the Matthews card shop (AAA Collectibles) and I decided that I was tired of seeing the 1995 set occupying the first page of my tattered red notebook. I was able to get all but 11 of the cards I needed. I went home and was able to find 2 more, the Frank Thomas and Cal Ripken (of course I had this one). This left me with 9 cards to go.
Thinking it was my last day at All About Sports, P.A. was kind enough to bring me a 'going away present' which consisted of the 9 cards I needed to put this set to bed. I got home and filed the last remaining cards away and ran through the set to make sure it WAS complete.

IT WASN'T...

Because I am quite lazy, I'm sure I had the 2 cards that were STILL missing (500 and 538) but who knows where they could be, and the fact that I have packed 2/3 of my card room up already, I said heck with this and ordered the final 2 off of sportlots. They came today. So, the set is complete.

Thanks P.A.!!

Oh, did I mention that the guy who used to work at Sportscards & More in Winston-Salem looked exactly like Rafael Palmeiro? That was one of the reasons I liked Raffy so much growing up and why it is a travesty that he was caught using steroids... 'I knew it was you Fredo; you broke my heart. You broke my heart.'

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME???

P.A., Pete and Kim all know the big ole bomb that will be dropped on here once it comes, but to throw a little teaser out at ya... This is what was left in my mailbox this afternoon...

I work in Charlotte (until Friday) about 45 minutes from my house. I have to be in the office by 8AM every morning. What this means is: I HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL SATURDAY UNTIL I CAN PICK IT UP!!!!!!!!!!! That really SUCKS! I was going to take the card by the Matthews card shop (AAA Collectables) tomorrow to make sure it wasn't trimmed.

Hall of Fame Day (Mail Day IV)

Woo Hoo! The hits keep on coming, I got 2 more 1955's in the mail today. Yogi Berra and Eddie Mathews. Not too bad, a little paper loss on the Yogi, but not too bad considering. Please leave me some comments. If you guys haven't noticed, when a comment is left for me, I usually try to respond in the same comment, so if you sent me one, odds are you have a response afterward. Thought I'd make sure that was out there!! Royal Rumble sunday, come and watch it!!!!

My wife may not be the devil afterall...

No, I didn't accidentally spill holy water on her and she didn't fizz up... she told me to bid on (and I won) an AWESOME Brooks Robinson/ Brian Roberts/ Nick Markakis Topps Triple Threads. She said 'You should bid $100.00 on it... All I had to do was bid $40.00. Got it for $36.00. Of course, when it comes in the mail, she'll grill me about how much I spent on it and conveniently forget she gave me permission to buy it... Its a vicious circle in my life. Seriously, though, I'm pretty lucky I have her, although, she did cost me that sweet Roberto Clemente RC I could have gotten for $225.00 on Ebay... that's the lowest I have seen for that one... Oh well, you can't win em all.

one of the big 3 rookies out of the way...

That's right, I knocked one of the big 3 rookie cards from my 1955 set ut of the way. I got the Harmon Killebrew RC off of ebay a few days ago and it came in the mail today... Its a pretty sweet looking card. I doubt I'll be filing any entries in the near future about getting my hands on the other 2 big RC's (Clemente and Koufax).

Favor for a friend

One of my trading buddies from the shop asked that I post a link to his ebay store, so here it is. Now if only we could get him to join the blogging community....

http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/shannansguy_W0QQ_nkwZQQ_armrsZ1QQ_fromZQQ_mdoZ

Finally my Upper Deck Redemption Replacement came...

When i got home tonight from the card shop, I had a nice little package awaiting me... it was my replacement card for the Daniel Alfredsson Hockey redemption I sent off for however long ago I sent it off.. I didnt even care too much about it, but when i opened the package, I was pleasantly surprised... I got a sweet Red Wing card for my wife. Check it out... and she was annoyed when I turned the bedroom light on and showed her 'the cool card Upper Deck sent me.' She was very happy when she realized the card was for her...

My Card Room

As you all may or may not know, I am in the process of moving to Greenville, NC. I have been immersed in cardboard boxes and packing tape... not fun. I transfer to the Greenville office beginning February 2. Good times. I wanted to post a few pictures of my card room before i began packing it all away into boxes, etc. I am almost done packing everything up from that room.

The drawn picture on the wall is of Pudge Rodriguez, I drew it in high school art class. The two painted race cars were done 20+ years ago by my mom (they were paint by number, but they still look awesome). I got the Triple H Summerslam ad in 1999 from the GNC that used to be in the back of the Mallard Creek Harris-Teeter I worked at in Charlotte. The yellow helmet in the china cabinet was the one my dad wore when he won the 1992 and 1993 Quick 8 championships. I counted 18 autographed baseballs (including 2 Cal Ripken, Brian Roberts, Brooks Robinson and Jim Palmer...). What do you guys think?

A post for P.A.

P.A. I promised you, and I finally have delivered: my 2008 SP Authentic Johnny Cueto Auto....


I love this one because he signed it 'Johnny.' Kinda makes you feel a little special that he thinks you are on a first name basis with him.

If I had a vote...

Since the Hall of Fame vote comes out today, I thought I would toss out a question... If you had a vote, who would you vote for? I think the writers can vote for 5 players on the ballot. Here is what my ballot would look like:

Rickey Henderson (Can't wait to hear his speech... 'Rickey is the greatest of all time and now Rickey is in the hall of fame...')
Jim Rice (Come on, he should have been in a long time ago)
Bert Blyleven (How is he not in yet)
Andre Dawson (Former MVP on a last place team, great hitter, played on bad knees almost his whole career)
Harold Baines (Has almost 3,000 hits. If he had not been traded from the White Sox twice, into platoon situations, he would have had 3,000. Plus, he was a great player for a long time.)
Honorable Mention:

Tim 'Rock' Raines
Jack Morris
Don Mattingly
Mark Grace
Tommy John
Dave Parker
Lee Smith

Mark McGwire may not ever get in. I think that he was a one-dimensional player, but was the biggest star in the game and that should make a difference. Me, personally, I think he should get in eventually.

Pleasing the Mrs.

Although my loving wife STILL feels like my card collecting is 'just a phase' that I will apparently grow out of, I have been trying to get her interested in collecting. I have foolishly tried to pick up cards for her from time to time (mostly Detroit Red Wings hockey cards). They all end up in my card room with me having to file and sort them away... I'm not too big a hockey fan, so with them being left in my care, they pretty much get buried in a 5,000 count box alongside former Orioles I stick in there like Sam Horn, Mike Devereaux, Adam Loewen, etc. never to be seen again. For Christmas, I decided to go 'all out' in my attempt to get her interested and filled her stocking up with nothing but Ichiro cards (her supposed favorite player). They currently reside in front of my china cabinet in the card room awaiting her to add them to the old lock box that my Ripken collection has out grown. She was surprisingly very happy with the assortment of Ichiro cards that I, P.A. and Pete put together for her, and I think she finally has some interest in folowing a player and looking for his cards. It all paid off for me when I ordered 2 boxes of 2001 Topps from bbcexchange.com (and told her about them WHEN I ORDERED THEM...). When they arrived several days later, she grills me 'When did you order these, how much did they cost, do I look fat in this outfit, etc.' I told her: 'Dear, you DO realize that the series 2 box right here COULD have an Ichiro rookie card in it?' She stopped nagging and said 'If you find it, its MINE.' SO, when i pulled the card, I shout into the kitchen: "Mal, would you like to see what an Ichiro Rookie Card looks like?" She stops in the middle of making the 50 pounds of ham she was making for dinner and RUNS into the living room to see... Naturally, I already had one, as I purchased it from some kid selling a collection at the shop, so I held it over her as if I didn't have one at all. "Dear, I need the card to complete my set..." and her response: "like hell you do, you probably already have one and are just being an ass..." We know each other too well.....

2 1991 Topps Box breaks...

Over the past 2 weeks, we (Pete, P.A., Kimaloo and I) busted 2 boxes of 1991 Topps at $20.00 total ($5.00 for each of us) for each box. Obviously, there wasn't the promise of a 'big hit' or anything like that (with the exception of looking for the Chipper Jones RC. I traded to P.A. a card of some old man who beat the snot out of Robin Ventura (Nolan Ryan) for some guy who played a lot of games in a row (Cal Ripken) when we broke the first box. I felt it was a pretty nice straight-up trade. Ater the second box yesterday, I have to say, I had more fun opening this stuff than I have had with some of the more recent releases. I liked how we would mock the awesomely bad mulletts, the stars that never were, etc. It had us reminiscing about Bo Jackson, Howard Johnson, Nolan giving an uppercut to Ventura, Cal and Billy as brothers and double play partners, etc. I highly recommending getting a couple of friends together, each dropping 5 bucks and opening a box of some 90's 'crap'. You just might remember why you fell in love with cards when you were a kid, instead of feeling all 'doom and gloom' about the collapse of the late 90's or the overabundance of autos and GU cards today. Here are some of the highlights from the 1991 box bust at All About Sports (shameless plug) last saturday and yesterday......I think the Roger Clemens is a really great photo, sometimes action shots aren't necessary and you can 'tell a good story' with a still photo... I had to put the Cal and Brady cards on here, one, because of the trade with P.A. (Nolan for Cal) and the fact that I was literally excited when I pulled the Brady (Ooooh Cool is what I said I think...). Finally, I think the best photo I saw out of the cards I opened was this:

Packing

Due to having to pack all my stuff and getting the house put on the market, posts will not be as common for the next few days/ weeks. I will try to keep up, though. If anyone is thinking about moving to the Charlotte area, come buy my house!!

Completing the Mail Day trifecta...

I got this in the mail today. I can't afford the mint version, so this one will do for my 1955 set. What do you guys think??

Some nice autos...

I consolidated some stuff today and scanned these two cards. I love the Markakis/ Roberts dual Auto. What would be even nicer, would be if the Orioles would get off of their butts and sign both these guys to extensions... I can only hope. The Pujols is just awesome. It is one of my favorite autos (I still love my Johnny Cueto where he signed it 'Johnny.' I'll scan that one for you guys later on. Check these out first...

Knocked a big chunk out of my 1955 set...

I went to AAA Collectables today in Matthews near the office... I got a bunch of 1955 Topps (30 of them), some 1970's (14 of them), a bunch of 1995 Donruss (for $2.00; 46 of them) and finally, this awesome card: