Finally! A bubble mailer day

As you may have noticed the eBay purchases around here have been scarce. There really hasn't been much out recently that I have had any interest in, and nothing I know I won't be able to find later or trade for.

It's sad that my collection has been at a stand still for a while, but at the same time there hasn't been anything to make me interested in looking for new cards. Anyone else feeling kind of blah about buying new baseball cards this winter?

Sometime last weekend I went on eBay, did my usual "Robinson Cano auto" search and saw a few things ending within minutes. Since I hadn't bought anything in a while I decided to pick up a new auto.

So... I bought this:

2010 Bowman Platinum Robinson Cano auto


Now here is where I need you guys to humor me. Double click the picture of the card and look at the upper right corner/right side of the game used area. Tell me you see that I am not crazy, and that the jersey SHOULD COVER THE WHOLE AREA designated for the swatch of material. Now I am not mad at the seller at all. This isn't something that you can really see on the eBay scans and a casual collector or someone who doesn't collect Cano probably wouldn't have examined the card this closely.

Maybe I am just being cranky. Either way, I still like my new card even if it's a little shoddy.

Target fully stocked

Last night I went to the mall and while in Target I noticed that there were blasters and packs galore of everything you could imagine, including sealed retail boxes of 2010-2011 Panini Threads Basketball, 2010 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects baseball, and 2010 Bowman Platinum. They also had rack packs and blasters of everything.

I won't lie, I opened each box and planned on grabbing a few packs from each and going on my way. I grabbed the bottom packs out of each box... Then I put them all back. $2.99 per pack for both Bowman products and you get 4 cards. 4 cards that I probably won't want since I don't collect many players. Then the Panini Threads... $2.99 per pack, 10 cards per pack. Sold.

I have had good luck with basketball so I stuck with those packs. While I didn't pull anything great, they were fun to open and I like the photography and design on the set.



As luck would have it I have a knack for pulling Boston Celtics cards. Go figure. Perhaps I can make a pile of Celtics to trade someone.

So I took note of some of the other products out and what you get in the blasters. Bowman Platinum blaster is 8 packs, 4 cards per pack- 32 cards for $20. Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects
you get 8 packs with 7 cards per pack - 56 cards for $20. The DPP is actually a break considering the loose packs only get you 4 cards and chances are the packs were searched unless you stumble upon a box that was sealed like I did. Still wasn't tempting for the price despite the odds being intact. Rack packs of Platinum go for $8.99 for 3 packs with a bonus 3 refractors, and I believe the DPP rack packs were $4.99 with 3 chrome cards (I forget how many cards total). Panini Threads blaster, 8 packs, 10 packs per box- $20.

Maybe I picked up a blaster....

I wish Topps could pack a few more cards per pack or an extra pack per blaster to make you feel like you are getting value like you can get from a Panini product.

Anyone happen to pull something good out of the new retail release wave that hit recently?

2010 Bowman Platinum USA and prospect cards trickling in

With 2010 Bowman Platinum popping up early in retail stores, naturally, singles are showing up on eBay.

What is interesting is that not as many base cards are popping up on eBay yet, but the USA, prospect and rookie cards. Seems as though the current dealer displaying the cards doesn't want to waste time with the regular stars.

Here are some of the USA cards:
Noe Ramirez
Sean Gilmartin
Steve Rodriguez
Alex Dickerson
Brad Miller
Mikie Mahtook
George Springer

Prospects
Kyle Drabek
Shelby Miller
Jose Iglesias
Jeremy Hellickson
Kyle Gibson

Rookie Cards
Andrew Cashner
Jose Tabata
JP Arencibia
Neil Walker
Austin Jackson
Mike Stanton
Carlos Santana

Got the winter baseball blues? Head to Target!

The baseball card world has been stale lately, even with some of the new releases.

Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects is set to be released later this month and the next MLB-licensed release isn't supposed to come out until January with 2010 Bowman Platinum, a new baseball product that gets its foundation from football.

But what's this?

Seems as though some folks over at Freedom Cardboard have found sealed blasters at local big box stores and there is even an auction on eBay with a guy ready to shop five blasters right now for a low, low price.

Here's another auction with 10 blasters that a guy is selling individually for a pretty ridiculous price. The seller is looking to cash in on the impatience of people thinking you'll spend that much money just to get a product more than a month early.

Here's a picture from the previous auction at the some of the base cards in the product.

With the set being 'leaked' early, it makes me wonder as to how and why this happened? Was there a mix up at the Topps factory where retail product of this was released a full month before the release date? How are hobby shop going to feel when they get their cases of this product and collectors don't come out because they might have had their fill from retail?

Was it released early so Topps could see sales figures and see if it needs to do another wrapper redemption program?

But, more importantly, I want to know what this set adds to the current marketplace?

Update: 2010 Bowman Platinum

Earlier today I recieved an e-mail from Topps with some important information if you are waiting on cases of 2010 Bowman Platinum baseball or considering pre-ordering boxes or cases.

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2010 BOWMAN PLATINUM BASEBALL GETS BONUS HIT

Topps is pleased to announce that the upcoming 2010 Bowman Platinum Baseball will include an additional autograph per hobby box than originally solicited. Each hobby box will now include 4 Autographs (1 Autographed Relic & 3 Autographs). To ensure this bonus autograph, Platinum will have a revised hobby release date of January 7th.

The additional hit, which will be in the form of a redemption card, will be inserted as a box loader and will feature 11 new subjects including Atlanta Braves top prospect, Freddie Freeman.

The following subjects, which will be revealed once collectors have entered the redemption card’s code online, can be found as Refractor Autographs, Green Refractor Autographs, Blue Refractor Autographs, Red Refractor Autographs, Superfractor Autographs and Printing Plate Autographs.


Freddie Freeman

Gorkys Hernandez

Graham Hicks

Lonnie Chisenhall

J.D. Martinez

Jarrod Parker

Josh Lindblom

Chris Archer

Javier Rodriguez

Mauricio Robles

Kyle Wieland