Spring Training Autograph Returns

With the book on Spring Training long closed, and the window for receiving back cards effectively shut, it's time to look at how I fared for my first spring TTMing.  

I've never submitted cards during Spring Training.  After winning the Mariners for a 2018 Topps Series 1 case break, I wanted to put those doubles (and triples) to good use.  I sent a card to every Mariner featured in Series 1, outside of Robinson Cano and Nelson Cruz, for a total of 7 TTM requests.

When Tweeting about my plans I remarked that I would be happy with even just one return.  

thanks! I'll be happy with even 1

— The Cardboard Flame (@RTCF_Blog) February 14, 2018

So how did I do?

I received exactly one return.

Taylor Motter signed his card with Cano.  He was even kind enough to sign it on his side of the card.  Would I love to get Cano to sign his side? Absolutely.  Will that ever happen? Probably not.

I also took the time to send out some requests to Mr. Automatic Pat Neshek.  Neshek regularly tweets out his current address for TTM requests and I had been meaning to get some cards out to him.

My favorite set of the new millennium is 2008 Topps.  This card was a must send to Neshek.  

2015 Topps is another one of my recent favorites and this presented an opportunity for my first horizontal TTM return.  

Not the most plentiful Spring Training for me but some solid additions nonetheless.  If I do this next year I'll do some better advance planning and increase my TTM request range.  

Showing Signs of Life at the Card Show

You may or may not have noticed my absence from blogging over the past few weeks.  It has all been for a very good reason.  On October 10, my wife gave birth to a healthy baby boy named Theodore.  Since then my life has been occupied with 3AM feedings, daytime naps, poopy diapers, and the occasional videogame to de-stress (Super Mario Odyssey is awesome btw).  I haven't even had time to keep up with reading blogs.

Newborn Theo

Newborns are supposed to feed at least every 3 hours so I figured I would have time in between those feedings to do card related stuff.  Nope. In between taking care of myself, my recovering wife, and making sure household chores don't pile up, time goes by quickly.

Now at the almost 1 month mark, things are normalizing somewhat.  My wife was even gracious enough to let me attend my local bi-annual card show.

The largest purchase of the day (literally) was a complete set of 2008 Upper Deck First Edition.  The big draw here was the price: $5.  The design is decent enough but the real kicker was the inclusion of a relic card.

It's not a card show without picking up a few additions for my Felix Hernandez collection.  I love picking up Topps Museum cards on the cheap ($1) considering these are from a high-end set. 

The playing window on Felix is closing soon.  He deserves the respect of being an opening day starter but next year he might be pushed back to #2.  That will be a sad day.

These cards are from this year's Topps flagship set.  Gimmicky as they are, I enjoy seeing players in their holiday/special event jerseys.  When I get several more cards of these alternate jerseys I'll have to branch them out into their own PC.

 

With the birth of my son, I've added a few players to my collection roster.  I'm collecting players who share a birthday with my son.  I plan to expand upon this idea in a separate post to come later.  Andrew McCutchen is a great player and I'm excited to start collecting him.  I don't know if this 2005 Topps Update card counts as his first rookie card but either way, it's a nice looking card.

The card on the right is from Panini's 2016 Father's Day promo set.  It is the thick stock parallel numbered to 50.  For only $1 it was an easy pick up.

Troy Tulowitzki is another player who shares a birthday with my son.  Tulowitzki had a down year last year with the Blue Jays, which hopefully will help soften the price on some of his cards.  

Typically I stay away from collecting Griffey in a Reds uniform.  I'm not upset or anything that he left Seattle, it's just that with so many Griffey cards I need some focus.  I made an exception for these cards since they feature the 2001 All-Star Game logo when it was held in Seattle.  As a bonus, this is a two-card oddball set from Ritz/Oreo.

The 2016 Panini Diamond Kings Rookie Signatures Silver is the only relic (and auto) set I plan to complete.  I have over half the set and was surprised to see a set need show up at the show.  

Retail relics from 2008 Topps. I love 2008 Topps. 

At the last card show I found a WSU Cougars Smokey set.  As luck would have it, I found another set at this show.  Since the cards are unnumbered I wasn't sure if I found the complete set or not.  Unfortunately, after checking the Trading Card Database, I discovered I am one card short: Drew Bledsoe.

It will be difficult to find that card available as a single so I might have to purchase a complete set.  Bummer.

That wraps up my card show for this year.  It was a nice feeling to get back into cards! Thanks for reading!

Seeing Gold

536 Gold 2008 Topps + Update Cards

I've never been one to chase parallel sets. It's hard enough as it is chase the best set.  I can understand why people put together "Frankensets" as an easier way to make a parallel set.

2008 Topps has only four parallels (/2008, /67, /1, and non-serial numbered gold foil) so a Frankenset does not make much sense.  I had my eyes on a couple gold starter sets for 2008 Topps on eBay. After selling some Magic cards on eBay I decided to splurge seeing as how this is my favorite set.

Between Topps and Topps Update, I acquired 54% of the gold parallel set.  Not a bad haul! The seller said he has another 200+ gold cards that he could sell, which I'm seriously considering.  The toughest card to find will be the gold Kershaw from Update.

Many of the gold Update cards had slight printing issues, unfortunately. The cards have a gold base and then a gold sparkly printed on top.  This resulted in an overlap of the gold printing.  The flagship cards did not appear to have the same printing issue.

As you can tell, the gold circles do not match up. This is the worst of it.  The rest have minor issues, if any.

Lastly, some pointless trivia for each set:

Flagship highest serial number 2004 and lowest serial number 3.  Topps Update highest serial number 1975 and lowest serial number 301.

Being only 54% complete for the sets, it makes me wonder, have you ever completed a parallel set?

Bumping Into Cards

One of my wife's friends is visiting from out of town this week on a business trip so we all went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant.  Everything was going swimmingly.  We were all catching up and eating good food.

About three-quarters of the way through our dinner, the restaurant started filling up with smoke. There wasn't a fire but the kitchen had badly burned some food.  I could never figure out what caused the smoke but I suspect it was a pizza in their oven that burned.  No matter the food, the smoke would not dissipate.  My eyes were burning and my chest felt heavy.

Worst of all?  There was nary an apology over the smoke storm they created and it was obviously affecting other patrons as well.  If their restaurant could not even handle smoke from the kitchen, I question whether the place could safely manage a fire.  Needless to say, I won't eat there again.

I could not run out of that restaurant fast enough to get fresh air.  It felt so nice to be able to breathe again and find relief.

Speaking of running, today's post highlights a trade I made with Trevor at Bump and Run Football Card Blog.   He posted on my blog indicating he had a few 2008 Topps Football to trade.  I can't turn down an opportunity to collect more 2008 Topps so we settled on a nice trade.  As the name implies, Trevor posts mainly about football so our trade focused on football cards.  You can see what I sent him over on his blog.

Getting the 2008 Topps out of the way, I received a few football set needs.  Trevor also included some baseball as a bonus! I haven't checked whether I needed them or not but either way the gesture is appreciated!

2016 Classics is a set I've really enjoyed this year with the retro look.  Both of these rookies were signed by the Seahawks with only Alex Collins making it on the roster.  He's had limited playing time so far this year.

During my previous look at Prestige I remarked that outside of the Seahawks, I wouldn't be collecting any more Prestige.  Well here comes Prestige again, thankfully with only Seahawks.  The two rainbow foil cards are Extra Points parallels.  

This year Lynch's absence is glaringly obvious.  The Seahawks' run game just hasn't been the same. Thomas Rawls, the heir to Lynch's throne, has been injured for most of the year.  Hopefully, he will provide a spark to the anemic run game.   

The last set features a nice mix of new and old Seahawks cards.  I didn't become a Seahawks fan until I moved out west from New England so some names aren't familiar, like Vann McElroy and Kelvin. Other older players like Jon Kitna, Darrell Jackson and Bennie Blades are names I immediately recognize. The Blades and Jackson cards have writing throughout the background that shows up slightly on the scans.  It's a cool looking effect in person.  Out of the four modern Seahawks players, coincidentally all four were part of the Super Bowl winning team.  

This was a great trade with some set needs and PC needs completed.  I look forward to trading with Trevor again!

A Monster Trade Package

Bo over at Baseball Cards Come to Life! posted a comment on my blog asking if I wanted some 2008 Topps Baseball.  I love the design of 2008 Topps and I had only a few from this set so I was absolutely interested.  After some e-mailing back and forth we were able to settle on a trade. Fortunately he needed a lot of base cards from sets within the past couple years so I was able to offload a lot of duplicates.

A whole lot of cards

The trade package arrived on Monday.  As I write this on Tuesday night, I have a big interview on Wednesday I should be prepping for but I'm too excited about this trade.  I went from own 9 cards in the set to a whopping 374, for a net of 365 cards!

I have not written about this set for this blog, mainly owing to the fact that I had only 9 cards. However, I did write a review for TCDB before I started this blog.  (As a side note, I hope to get back to fuller set reviews as I did enjoy that).  I'm going to toss up the review up below: