Long Fly Ball to my Mailbox

There is only one person who knows how long it has taken me to post this mail day, and that guy is my friend David over at Long Fly Ball to Because. I would be embarrassed to admit how long it has taken me, so I won't. But I will post some of the cool cards I got in the mail.

There were a bunch of cards for both Sooz and myself in the giant bubble mailer. I swear we loved them all. Part of the fun of the bubble mailer was the sweet giant index card with the Yankees logo and a note from David. I don't have cool stuff like that, I sometimes don't even think to put a note in a trade. If I do, it's either on a midget sized post-it note, or a piece of paper laying around on my desk.

Anywho.... Here are the sweet cards that will get added to my collection and the pile of cards awaiting entry into my spreadsheets. You can stay tuned to find out what is going on with my backlog of work here.

Drumroll..................

2009 T-206 Robinson Cano Old Mill GU


2006 Bowman Heritage Robinson GU

2009 Topps Updates & Highlights Albert Pujols All Star Game jersey

2009 T-206 Robinson Cano Polar Bear mini
2009 T-206 Albert Pujols Polar Bear mini

These cards will definitely fill in some of the holes in cards from recent years that I need. The mini cards have been pretty hard for me to grab, but the serial numbered Cycle card of Cano I have. Sometimes it's just so odd when you can find a steal of a deal on eBay on a serial numbered card but then the SP gives you such a hard time.

If you guys haven't read Long Fly Ball to Because, I suggest you do so. NOW! =) Oh and follow him on Twitter, he's a good guy and a big baseball fan.

I opened my Christmas loose packs

I got 4 retail T206 packs and 2 SP Authentic Hobby packs in my stocking. I opened them pretty quickly, but just didn't get to scanning and posting until now.

There were hits in both sets of packs which was pretty cool, however neither of the hits really interest me.

First the T206:

Honus Wagner NNO SP (should slab it and list it for $5,000,000 on eBay)

Jason Varitek (clown back, I mean Polar Bear)

Chipper Jones Old Mill relic card

The 2009 SP Authentic:

Derek Jeter base card

Alfonso Soriano Future Watch Flashbacks #033/495

Phil Coke By The Letter Auto letter "T" (Spells "SP Authentic" which is pretty f-ing dumb)



So there you have it. Some fun stuff to see when you open the packs, but just trade bait at the end of the day.

Prices for the case break will be up tomorrow hopefully. Just waiting on one more quote, but so far Blowout looks to have the best price (as usual).

I smashed the retail odds to bits.

It should be assumed from this day forward that if I have left my house, I have probably returned with some baseball cards of some sort- trade, Target, eBay, etc. Well this time (and most other times) it was a Target kind of day. Over the past two days I have opened an embarrassing number of retail packs simply because I have been having fun with them and getting some decent hits.

I am not going to shout myself out here by saying how many but it was more than 10 packs, less than 25 and more fun than the stupid box of Unique which I will grumble, snarl, and complain about later once I am over it.

In the meantime you can continue to view my ridiculous obsession with Topps T206. I bought a heap of packs, and I was going to ration them so spread the fun out so I started with 6 packs. In the first 6 packs I got 2 crazy cards, defying all odds of retail and my own personal luck.

Here were the hits:

Jonathan Van Every Auto

And holy schnikeys!! Albert Pujols Old Mill game used jersey. Which I had to do a triple take to make sure I was really seeing what I was seeing. I was smiling and practically dancing after opening this.

There were also these cards in the first few packs:


Cycle /99 Bates, and Old Mill Fielder

NNO SP A-Rod

At this point I was ready to return the unopened packs because really, I didn't think anything else could possible come out of the rest after hitting 2 "box hits" and a bunch of SP's. However, as I was opening these packs I was talking to Flash on G-mail and the following conversation took place:

" Marie: its ok

9:16 PM i opened 2 more packs.
AIR
me: see
Marie: i should return the rest
me: you really want to open air on your bday?
what if there's a nno pujols?
Marie: sigh
fine. i shall keep them.
9:17 PM me: sucker
didn't take much to convince you
9:18 PM you write your blog?
Marie: no ive been studying the spinal cord"

Did I really think anything was in those last packs? Absolutely not, but I am a sucker for taking a chance on luck. Here is what was in the rest of the packs, I am only showing the hits and the mini's from all packs opened.

Really?!!!! What in the name of Pete happened here?! Unreal. I seriously should just stop buying these now because it is not going to get any better than this. Talk about a crazy prediction by Flash.

Mini Polar Bear Cervelli. Go Italy.

Boatload of mini cards.

For anyone debating on buying hobby packs, don't bother it really didn't make any difference in either my or Sooz's pack breaks. I may have very close to a complete set of these cards, and I thought about going for it but since I am still 29 cards short of my OPC venture and like 6,000 short on YSL I can't take on anything else. I love T206 and retract any former complaints.

I love my Albert Pujols Old Mill game used jersey that was pulled from a RETAIL pack at Target. Take that "stated odds".

I lied.

Remember someone saying they weren't really a fan of T206 and weren't going to buy any more of them? Me neither.

So I ended up in Target over the weekend because I was given a gift card even though I was so bored I probably would have gone there anyway. I accidentally bought 11 packs of T206 instead of 10, and rather than put one back I figured I had better keep it in case there was something good in it. I am very impressed with the content of the retail packs as well as the inability of pack searchers being able to distinguish autos and relics, either that or they just haven't been searching packs in my Target.

Check out what was in the retail packs:

For those of you that follow the Mets (sorry to hear it), F-Mart is one of their better prospects despite his rocky look last season. I'm actually rather pleased with pulling an on card auto, and of someone who is supposed to be pretty good, too. That being said, I am willing to trade it.

I can pretty much guarantee this won't be the last of the T206 you see around here. Anyone with a Pujols Bronze, Cycle card, Old Mill, or NNO variant please e-mail me to work something out.

Also, don't forget to participate in this weeks Sunday Question. We want to gather as many of your answers as possible to post this week.

Bubble Mailer Day

Happy early birthday to me, from me. I picked up some random cards on eBay last week to fill in my player collections and found a nice group of cards from the same seller which was nice to combine shipping, and then won 2 cheap auctions from 2 separate sellers.

The first envelope had the following cards from 2009 T206:

Regular base cards
Mini Piedmont cards

The second envelope had my bargain card. By bargain, it was less than $3.00 and with the way the Cycle version of Pujols has been selling... I may never see one of those.




The final envelope contained a card that wasn't even a thought in my brain until Flash told me he had won one. Then I was like hmm... I would like one of those cards myself, and ended up on eBay rummaging. I won it for less than $10, and according to Topps it will be shipped to me no later than 03-19-2010. So we shall see when I get it considering Topps tweeted this week that Hughes has finished signing all T206 redemptions.


Not a bad birthday mail day. I love baseball cards.

The Revenge of 2009 Topps T206 Packs

If you really thought I wasn't going to go back for more, you need to read this blog more often. I was thinking about it last night that I got 6 out of 20 packs, with virtually nothing in them leaving the hits for someone else. Why would I do that? After spin yesterday morning I went back and had a go at the stack in the case. I asked the guy for the pile, picked 4 from the middle and gave it back.

Here is how this went down:

crap, boring, boring.
one for each of us, and a Honus Wagner that I can have graded then put up on eBay for a kajillion dollars to start for no reason.
Cubs party, with a fish.

Holla Teix NNO SP

The Mick checklist #2/7
Whiggity what?! Ichiro Piedmont game used.
Clearly going back to get hosed was a good idea. Not that it was a Pujols or Cano kinda day, but I like stuff that I can trade into stuff I want. I'm still not that big of a fan of these cards, but you do get 9 cards per hobby pack so it's not terrible. I hate buying packs that have 3 or 4 cards for $5 a pack, and then you pull 2 unknowns are a card that's worth a buck. At least you get some substance here.

I don't think I have any doubles from all the packs I've opened which is cool, and I would be willing to trade some base cards if anyone is looking for stuff. Ichiro is available as are the majority of the cards I posted from all the T206 packs.

2009 Topps T206 Packs

I don't really know why I needed these, then again who knows why I buy half the things I do but I picked up some packs. Target doesn't have any blasters yet, so I ended up at the local hobby type shop that I normally hate. However, I think perhaps me and the manager/owner have turned a new leaf over the course of the last 2 or 3 trips.

I went to pick up some of these cards and the packs were inside the case, and there were only 6 left. I looked at him and said, "how many hits per box, and how many packs per box?" Once it was determined that the hits were 1/7 roughly, I decided my luck wouldn't help me here and to buy 2 packs. Then.... he offered to open a new box so I can take whichever packs I wanted. Happy day! Day turned to night, night turned to day, and 2 packs turned into 6 packs.

The excitement was better when the cards were still in the packs. While the cards are cool simply because they are retro, and I like retro, I think I am going to stick with buying the cards I need for a buck on eBay or trading for them. I opened 6 packs from a fresh sealed box and essentially got air. There was only 1 card that made me happy, and it was a Francisco Cervelli RC.

The design of the cards is what you would expect of a vintage design, bland and boring with the player picture. The oddest looking card I got was Ian Kinsler, and why they chose this pose for a card I will never know but you will see it when you scroll down.

The Medlen card was a Polar Bear back, the rest Piedmont.



There are 7 checklists, I got #1, and #5

Well, now I can't blame the store for my crappy pack picking luck. I picked the bottom 3 packs from each side of the box and got owned. Next time I will try my luck in the middle, although I am not buying anymore of these... or so I said....

Anyone break any boxes of T206?