Autos From Blaine

Finally, I have reached the end of the package I got from my friend, Blaine.  Like I said in the previous posts, he sent me a ton of stuff; pretty much his entire Orioles collection.  He sent me a bunch of autos that I needed for my collection, starting with the above 2008 Razor auto of Matt Wieters.  Wieters signed an exclusive deal with Razor back then, and shortly thereafter, Razor disappeared.  I haven't seen Wieters on any Topps products, so I think his exclusive deal still stands, but he has been on some UD products since then.  I'm not sure what the deal is, but it kind of sucks that he has no Topps products at all.

Here is another Jonathan Schoop auto for my collection.  Schoop is a really good player, and his autos are still very affordable.  I grabbed a bunch for real cheap at The National, so my Schoop PC looks pretty good so far.

This 2015 Topps Career High auto of Adam Jones is another card that I didn't have in the collection.  Jones's stuff is a bit higher than Schoop, so I tend to shy away from his autos.  So, when I was able to add these to my collection via this deal, I was really happy.

Finally, here is another Jones auto, this time from 2011 Topps 60.  You can see some subtle changes in the Jones signature between this card and the 2015 mentioned above.

Jones is one of the few Orioles that I haven't met, yet.  I hope to take care of that at this year's Fan Fest.  Maybe I will get him on an All Star ball, or something.  We'll see.

So, that about wraps up my huge deal with Blaine.  I feel bad to take his PC from him, but he made me a great offer that I couldn't refuse.  I hope he gets back into collecting, though.  He had a bunch of great vintage that I would hate to see him part with.

Relic Cards From Blaine

Continuing on with what I got from my friend, Blaine, here are some of the miscellaneous relic cards that were included in my package.  I don't know about you, but I really like the 2014 Triple Threads design.  The cards have what I would call a matte finish and it is really visually appealing with these cards, I think.

This 2014 Triple Threads Gausman relic is numbered 10/36.  The bright orange swatch really pops.  Gotta love the orange alternate jerseys.

This 2013 Allen & Ginter JJ Hardy is a nice card.  I don't have a whole lot of Hardy stuff, even though I really like the player.  I just haven't really done any kind of PC with him.  He has been the backbone of the Orioles these last few years, and I am glad that he is around.  He may be declining offensively, but he is still amazing with the glove.  He fills his job well as the "field general" in Baltimore.

I have a relic card like this one of Christian Walker from 2014 Topps Heritage Pro Debut, but it is a different color (white, I think, but I don't remember).  This blue one was nice to find in my package from Blaine.  Walker hasn't yet caught on with the O's, but with Chris Davis's impending departure, the first base job may be his (Walker's) to take.

Finally, I was pretty sure I had one of these, but I need to look through my boxes to verify.  This is a 2011 Goodwin Champions Manny Machado relic.  This is one of the first relic cards issued of Manny, so this is a pretty cool piece to have.

Blaine's deal still continues to deliver.  I will close it out tomorrow by showing off the autographs that were included.

Short Prints From Blaine

I still have a bunch of stuff from Blaine to show off, but I have been really busy lately.  Also, with the World Series starting, I will be watching that as well.  I'm still trying to post every day, but I haven't had much time to get the posts done.

I got four short prints from Blaine, two of which I have scanned and posted here.  I was looking for the above Manny SP for a while since it came out, but I never jumped on it.  I kind of forgot about it for a while, so I was really happy that it was in the package.

Here is the Futures Game jersey SP of Manny from 2014 Topps.  I also forgot about this card, so it was really cool to get it in the package as well.

I need to do a better job of looking up different short prints, but some of them are so hard to tell, then I give up on them.  Oh well.

By the way, the other two SPs were Dylan Bundys.  One of them was one I had, but the other was needed.

Thanks for hooking me up with these, Blaine!

From Blaine's Collection - Ripken Rookies

Here are some more cards that I got from my friend, Blaine, when I bought his Orioles collection.  There were the three base card rookies of Cal included, and I was glad to get them even though I already had them all.  Above is the 1982 Fleer Cal rookie, which is probably the worst of the four rookie cards that he has.  Fleer was doing their best when they got into the card industry, but those first two years (1981 and 1982) were really low-budget, and you can tell with the photography.  I'm sure Cal looks back on this card and thinks "Wow, look at all of that hair!"

Regardless, it is still a cool card.  I don't remember if this or the Donruss was the first Cal rookie that I ever got.  I know the Topps was a tough "get" back then, and the Topps Traded is still tough to find.

Yeah, this used to be a really tough card to get.  I remember finally getting one when I traded a bunch of wheat pennies to my brother.  Then I found one cheap at a card shop for my 1982 Topps set.  Then I got another when my mom gave me her Cal collection.  Then I got one in a $5 mystery pack at this past year's National and now I got this one out of Blaine's deal.  So, if my potato math is correct, I have five of these.  Awesome!

Finally, here is the Donruss version that I got from Blaine.  Now that I look it over, I believe the Donruss is the first Cal rookie that I was able to get when I was around 11 or 12 years old.  Now, I have two.  I don't usually care for graded cards, but this is pretty cool.  Also, being graded at an "8" is kind of fitting, seeing as it is Cal and all.  You know, 8 is his uniform number.  Yeah, you knew that.

So, yeah, Blaine really hooked me up on this deal.  I still have a good bit of stuff to show from the cards he sent.

Chris Davis Cards From Blaine

My friend, Blaine, decided to sell off his collection recently, and hit me up with a great deal that saw me land a good portion of his Orioles stuff.  The box finally arrived last week and I was amazed at everything that was inside.  There was so much stuff in there, I will have to break it up in order to do it any justice here on this blog.

Blaine sold me on the collection when he showed me what Chris Davis cards would be included.  The above patch from 2014 Panini National Treasures was the first card I saw, and it really is what helped me decide to do the deal.  This card is numbered 5/11 (kind of an odd numbering) and shows a three-color piece of jersey/patch.  Not bad at all.

Here is another three-color piece, this one is from 2014 Panini Immaculate Collection.  This is numbered 2/25.  I love the Panini Stuff from around this time.  I'm sure it wasn't tier intention for these nice pieces to be so affordable, but they are, and I have definitely taken advantage.

Here is another 2014 Panini Immaculate, this time it is just a swatch of jersey and is numbered 80/99.

This booklet from 2014 National Treasures is numbered 53/99.  I already had a couple of these, but was happy to add a few more.

Finally, this booklet is numbered 80/99.  The relics are kind of hard to see from the scan, but spell out CRUSH.  Looks really cool, I think.

I'll hopefully have some time to show more of what Blaine sent me in the next few days, especially since there is no playoff baseball on IV until Tuesday.

Card Shop Pickup - 2015 Topps Chrome Christian Walker Refractor Auto

Jacob at the card shop had a card for me when I went to the card shop this past weekend.  I was happy to see that it was this 2015 Topps Chrome Christian Walker refractor auto.  The refractors from Topps Chrome look really cool.  This one is numbered 100/499.  I think I am going to try to get more of these color parallels from 2015 Topps Chrome.  They just look cool.  I wish more Orioles were in the set (cough cough Chris Davis cough cough).

Jacob gave me a pretty good price on the card; it was a bit of an over pay, but it was more of helping a guy out than anything else, which I am fine with.

Ebay Pickup - 2015 Topps Purple Chris Davis

I knocked a 2015 Topps need off recently when I got this Chris Davis Toys R Us purple parallel off of Ebay.  These were a little more difficult to find than other parallels, but I had been watching one for a week or so.  I decided to go ahead and grab it for around $7.  Probably an overpay, but I have the card now.

I still need quite a few of the 2015 parallels, and I plan on adding those here and there over the next few months.  I don't anticipate much more Davis stuff in an Orioles uniform, so I'm going to enjoy these.  I just don't feel like the Orioles are going to re-sign him.  Stranger things have happened, though.