TTM Success - Wyatt Strahan

Here is another card that I saw in my box for quite some time and finally decided to send it out.  This 2014 Panini Prizm of Wyatt Strahan red white and blue parallel is a pretty cool card.  It turned out great signed.

Strahan (b. 1993) was a 3rd round pick by the Reds in the 2014 June Amateur Draft out of USC.  He played in the minors from 2014 to 2019 in the Reds system.  He reached AA.  He had a record of 18-35 with 370 strike outs and a 4.47 ERA.

I mailed to Strahan on March 10 and got the card back on March 22 for a 12-day TAT. 

TTM Success - Grayson Greiner

Recently, I got a TTM success back from Grayson Greiner.  I jad sworn I had gotten him before, but I guess I hadn't.  I sent off this 2020 Topps Update, and the below 2014 Panini Prozm.

The Prizm turned out great.  I prepped it before sending, and the auto just looks clean on this card. Not bad for a random card I found at the bottom of one of my boxes.

Greiner (b. 1992) played in the majors from 2018 to 2022 for the Tigers and  Diamondbacks.   He had 87 hits, 9 home runs and a .201 batting average.

I mailed to Greiner on October 14 and got the cards back on October 23, for a 9-day TAT. 

TTM Success - Brandon Downes

I had these Brandon Downes cards in my box of shame, since I missed him back when he was with the Wilmington Blue Rocks.  I found an address and sent to him.  The cards came back pretty quickly, which was nice.

I like getting cards out of the box of shame, since they had already been found and sorted.  I hate putting those back in the bog boxes; the goal this whole time is to condense boxes down (and make room for more), and whenever I have to put cards back in, it gets annoying.

Downes (b. 1992) was a 7th round pick by the Royals in the 2014 June Amateur Draft out of the University of Virginia.  He played in the Royals and Braves systems from 2014 to 2018 and in the Independent Leagues in 2019.  He reached AAA, but never cracked the majors.  He had 372 hits, 48 home runs and a .243 batting average.

I mailed to Downes on October 27 and got the cards back on December 1, for a 35-day TAT.

TTM Success - Jorge Soler

During the pandemic, I sent off to some current players at their home addresses with the hope that some of my cards would come back signed.  I had seen some players were signing, and I didn't really have much to lose, except for some cards and stamps.

I sent off to Jorge Soler after seeing that he had been signing, and came away with some really nicely signed cards.  The above 2016 Topps Chrome Future Stars really turned out well. 

Soler also signed a 2014 Panini Prizm and 2015 Panini Diamond Kings.  Both look really nice, and I am glad I was able to find these in my boxes and send them out.

Soler (b. 1992) has played in the majors since 2014 for the Cubs and Royals.  He has 424 hits, 91 home runs and a .265 batting average.  Last season (2019) he hit 48 home runs, leading the AL.  He finished 21st in the AL MVP voting last season as well.  He won the World Series with the Cubs in 2016.

I mailed to Soler on May 18 and got the cards back on June 4, for a 17-day TAT.

Care Package From Dilan

I have been doing card shows for some time now, and I have had business cards to hand out for a couple years.  I haven't really gotten much of a response from the business cards until I got a DM on Instagram from a guy named Dilan.  He said that he had picked up one of my business cards and liked my set-up at a show back in June (maybe it was May).  We got to chatting, and I remembered who he was, so we hit it off pretty well.

At the last show I did in July, he was hanging out with my buddy, Ryu, at that show, and came by my tables to say hello.  Dilan is a really cool guy, and I enjoyed chatting with him.  When Jericho passed away last month, Dilan sent me a DM with his condolences, and also wanted to tell me that he was sending me a little something.  That was so nice of him to think of me.  In the package was this really cool blue parallel from 2014 Panini Prizm of Adam Jones.  The card is numbered 44/75 and scanned really nicely.  I mean, it really looks cool on here.  Wow!  I love these different Chrome and Prizm parallels.  I hope both Panini and Topps keep this up, because I think these all look so cool.

The other card in the package was this 2014 Bowman Chrome Top 100 card of Kevin Gausman.  I didn't have either card yet, and it was an awesome gesture on Dilan's part.  I look forward to the next card show (weekend of September 26) so I can chat with him again.

Thanks, Dilan!!

Today's Card Shop Hits

These are slow times over here, as far as cards are concerned.  I haven't bought anything for myself off of Ebay recently.  The only things I HAVE bought are cards for other people,  If I didn't want most of them to be surprises, I would probably start blogging those, but no, I want to stick to my stuff.

This kind of happens, though, you kind of get complacent and don't do a lot of deals all at once, or you do them, and it takes forever for folks to send.  This is my real problem at the moment.  People are slow to send.  I bought a few cards off of some people recently, and I'm still waiting with anticipation by my mailbox, yet nothing comes.  Might start asking for refunds soon.

Anyway, one thing that never fails me is my local card shop.  Although, today's trip to the shop had me buying loose cards for friends, and none for myself.  I also bought some packs for Chris.  I did, however, get myself a few packs, and they didn't disappoint.

I picked up two packs of 2014 Donruss Series 2 and pulled a nice relic card, the above Hanley Ramirez.  It isn't a patch like Chris's card, but it is still nice.

I also got a pack of 2014 Panini Prizm and pulled this nice Matt Wieters card.  What's with the powder stuff that they put in the packs of these?  Kind of odd.

Anyway, I probably will be hitting sportlots and Ebay soon, that should pull me out of this card slump pretty quickly.

In the meantime, if I bought something from you, SHIP IT!!!  (With tracking, please!)

A Surprise Package From Matt

I came home today to an unexpected bubble mailer in my mailbox from Matt.  I was blown away when I opened it up and saw these two autographed cards inside.  The above dual auto came out of 2007 Upper Deck Exquisite and looks so sharp.  I thought UD Exquisite and Ultimate were great high end products.  I don't have too many Markakis autos, so this goes nicely into the PC.  The Jon Knott auto actually looks really sweet, although Knott didn't last very long as an Oriole.

Knott played 7 games for the O's in 2007 where he had 3 hits, one home run and 4 RBIs.  He wasn't seen in the majors after that.  I remember when the O's picked him up.  I remember hoping that he would pan out as a solid player, but it just wasn't meant to be.

Matt also sent me this 2014 Panini Prizm Rick Dempsey auto.  I didn't have a single Dempsey auto, so this was a welcome addition to my Orioles PC.

Thanks so much for the cards, Matt!  Please go check out his blog, Bob Walk The Plank.

Instagram Trade With Ultimatecards_ - Lots of Machado Relics

I completed a trade over Instagram last week when I met a young man named Drew, who's screen name is ultimatecards_.  He is a big Yankees fan and wanted a few of the cards I had posted on my account, namely my 2009 manufactured letter patch of Mickey Mantle.  Drew initially contacted me by telling me that he was willing to deal all of the Manny Machado relics that he had hoarded and wanted to begin our talks by seeing if I had any rookie cards of some of today's stars. Then he saw the Mantle and things escalated from there.

I sent Drew the Mantle, my graded 10 Yasiel Puig RC, scores of recent rookie cards, two Derek Jeter "rookies", and topped it off with my Manny Machado signed baseball that I had just recently had returned from a 12-year old scammer.

In total, Drew sent me 10 Machado relics (one of which was an auto/relic, featured at the top of this post, and three of the 2014 Topps Trajectory relics).  He also included some numbered Machado parallels and a bunch of Orioles cards.  Not to mention, Drew included a few Giants cards for my son, Chris.

Some of the cards I already had, like the above All Star Stitches card, but I was happy to get it anyway.

Drew sent me four of these orange parallels from 2014 Bowman, numbered 23, 95, 125 and 160 of 250,

One of my favorite non-relic cards in the deal was this 2014 Bowman Red Ice parallel numbered 16/25.

Most of the relic cards were numbered, and it surprises me that Drew was so eager to send them my way.  He got a great haul in return, but too many people I've dealt with would have overpriced all of these cards.  I was happy that each of us got everything we wanted in the deal and there was no haggling back and forth.

This Bowman relic was a card I already had, but I really like how it looks, so I was glad to take in another one during this deal.

I also had gotten one of these 2011 Goodwin Champion relics from my buddy, Max.  Both of them have dirt on them, which I find to be really cool.  I'll probably store the two of these cards side by side.

I hadn't seen one of these Panini Black Friday cards before and was happy to get one in this deal.  It is hard to see, but this one is numbered 94/99.  I think this jersey must have been from a Futures Game jersey, much like the Bowman relic shown before it.

One of my favorite parallels that I have seen is this 2014 Panini Prizm camo parallel.  Panini does a good job with their Prizm product and the colored parallels really look sharp.  This one isn't numbered, but that doeasn't take anything away from this card.

I was really impressed with Drew, so much so, that we have already been working on another trade.  We have been chatting pretty much daily, so I'm glad that we used this trade to get to know each other and build a trust relationship.

Thanks for the trade, Drew, I really appreciate it!

Instagram Pickup - 2014 Panini Prizm Chris Davis Red Parallel

I told you guys I was a fan of the color parallels for chrome cards.  This has also applied to Panini Prizm cards, apparently.  I saw this 2014 Panini Prizm Chris Davis red parallel on a kid named Aaron's instagram and worked out a deal with him in a couple of minutes.  He wanted $12 for the card, but I worked him down to $9.  I think, since it is numbered 24/25, I did ok.  I wanted to spend a little less on it, but really, what's a few bucks?

The card looks awesome.  It scanned great and I think I'm going to look up some more of the parallels once things calm down around here. Thanks for the deal, Aaron!

Ebay Pickup - 2014 Panini Prizm Red White And Blue Chris Davis

I got a really cool card off of Ebay recently when I picked up this 2014 Panini Prizm Chris Davis red, white and blue parallel.  The card looks amazing in person; the scan just doesn't do it justice.

Again, here is a good card from Panini, regardless of their not having an official MLB license.  I love Topps, but I wouldn't be opposed to Panini getting in on the game.  Competition is good, right?  At least let me have some logos.

I think this card is awesome and I am a huge fan of the chrome color parallels, and this one, although it isn't officially a chrome, it still passes as one and I'm ok with that.

Another Instagram Trade With Eric

I completed another trade with Eric from Instagram recently when I sent him another stack of Twins cards in exchange for these 2014 Prizm Orioles and two 1969 Topps cards I needed for my collection.

The above purple Adam Jones parallel is pretty awesome, really.  It's numbered 93/99 and looks really sharp in person.  The scan really didn't capture how great this card looks.

The scan really didn't help this Adam Jones die cut card, either, but it is also pretty awesome.  I haven't been able to find any at my LCS.  I don't think he has ordered any yet, since he is moving. I'm hoping I see them at the shop soon, because I definitely will buy a few packs.

I don't know what Panini is calling their "refractors" since I'm sure Topps has that term trademarked or whatever, but this Chris Davis looks great, too.

Finally, here are two 1969 Topps cards that I needed for my set.  I really appreciate Eric hooking me up with them.  They turned out to be in awesome shape.

Thanks for the trade, Eric!  I have a whole bunch more Twins cards, so keep the great stuff coming.