Instagram Trade For A Nice Davis

I was approached on Instagram by a kid named Keegan who had this 2014 Museum Collection Chris Davis jumbo relic.  I had picked up a signed Andrew McCutchen 8 x 10 from my friend, Max, and Keegan is a huge McCutchen fan, so it was an easy match.  I already had one of these Davis relics, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to add another, so here it is.  It is numbered 14/25.

To made the trade more balanced, Keegan included this Clayton Kershaw relic from 2014 Topps Tribute.  I didn't have any Kershaw relics and I liked the green relic, so I had him add this card, which was among the list of cards he offered.  This is 61/99.

Finally, Keegan let me pick up one of his IP autos to complete the deal.  He got the better end of the deal, with me sending the McCutchen photo and a Job Pedersen die cut National Exclusive Allen & Ginter card.  Still, he is happy with the deal, and so am I!

I Won A Topps Giveaway, Again!

A couple months ago, I won a giveaway posted on Topps's Instagram page.  The giveaway was for a box of Topps Strata.  Little did I know, I would win again the last day of the National.  I was nominated this time by my little buddy, Nick C., who I have done some trades with and also met at the National.  He messaged me that Sunday night to let me know that I had won and had I seen that Topps tagged me.  I never got the notification... because they misspelled my name in the tag!  They were supposed to tag my Instagram account (wregenthal) but accidentally tagged (wregental).  So, I never got the notification.

The plot thickened, though, when Nick showed me that someone had created an Instagram account with the name, and had pulled a couple of my posts from the National and posted them on their page.  I was confused, so I messaged the person to let them know that I didn't appreciate them creating an account that was so close to my name.  My fear was that they were planning on scamming a few people based on the reputation that I had built these last few years.  I was up til 1AM messaging this kid back and forth.  I also was getting notifications from members of the card community who were tagging me in posts on Topps's page explaining that they had misspelled my name, and the person created a fake account so they could claim the prize.

Frustrated that the person wasn't budging on closing the account, I went to sleep.  I woke up the next morning to a huge apology message from the kid asking for my forgiveness for trying to deceive Topps.  It seems that they messaged him themselves and told him the he would not be winning the prize.  Worst of all, this is a 14-year old kid.  I accepted his apology and gave him a few words about how he should work to conduct himself better in the community.  We chatted for a while, and he seemed to be a decent enough person.  So, I gave him some collecting tips, checked out the card videos he posted on his card page and actually completed a trade.

It wasn't long after the trade that he disappeared from the community, but not before pretty much messaging me out of the blue and telling me he didn't want to talk or do any more trades.  I decided that I would move on, because I felt like I had done plenty to help the kid, and didn't need to extend a hand in helping him any further.  My hope is that one day, he will grow up and realize that he was really lucky that I showed him some compassion and forgiveness for his mistake.  I definitely didn't have to!

So, I did get the prize from the giveaway.  This realy cool 2016 Allen & Ginter Clayton Kershaw National Exclusive 1/1.  I have had a few people ask if it was available, but I think that I am going to hold onto it.  One, because Kershaw is a badass, and two, it will serve as a reminder that the community backed me up 100%.  I am really appreciative that so many people (and quite a few of them I had never even talked to) messaged Topps to try to fix the problem.

Trade With Scott F. - A Nice RC and Set Needs

I completed a trade with my friend, Scott F. recently that was a long time coming.  I had picked up a nice Dellin Betances card from Michael, that I wanted to flip to Scott.  We just couldn't agree on the appropriate stuff for him to send in return.

Luckily, Scott went to a card show a couple weeks ago and called me from there so we could finish the deal.  One of the keys to the trade was this 2007 Bowman Chrome Clayton Kershaw card that I wanted to put with my good RCs.  Kershaw is a beast, and I'm glad to pick this up.

Scott also sent me 9 cards I needed for my 1969 set.  I am still needing more than 200 cards to finish this set, but I have kind of let it sit while I have been chipping away at my 1948 Bowman and 1959 Topps sets.  Getting 9 cards from Scott definitely help me whittle the number down, so I'm happy he found me some good ones.

Thanks for the deal, Scott!

Thoughts on 2011 Topps Marquee

It is rare when I can afford one of the higher end packs of cards, so when I am able to, it is a good day for me.  The bad thing about spending so much on one pack of cards is that if I get some scrub, it is really hard for me to want to take that kind of plunge again.

So, that being said, I went to the local card shop today to load up on supplies for this weekend's card show (come out and see me, I will be the guy wearing a bright orange Orioles shirt) and decided to get some packs.  I got 2 packs of Lineage (will post those in a later post), a pack of 2011 Finest and a pack of 2011 Topps Marquee (for $50 a pack...).

I opened the box and got base cards of Adrian Gonzalez, Nelson Cruz and the Clayton Kershaw pictured at the bottom of this post.  I had looked up hits from marquee on Ebay before I busted the box; some of it was impressive and some of it was underwhelming.  When I saw what my pull was going to be, I was pleasantly surprised:

A Titanic Threads #6/99 Hank Aaron.  I'm not sure if I want to part with this card; I think I want to keep it in my personal collection.  That is unless someone were to blow me away in a trade or cash.  I'm so glad I pulled Hank, as opposed to pulling a Pedroia or something...

Here is the base Kershaw.  The base cards are really sharp.  They kind of remind me of the Stadium Club cards that Topps put out in 2008 or so.