Box Breaks

I’ve been getting into these box breaks. I would do a lot more of than but I just can’t afford to throw a lot of money at cards right now. I haven’t even bought packs recently. But back to the post, go over to The Group Break and sign up and check out the forums. They break from what I guess, about 8-10 boxes a week. Mainly baseball and football. If you want to watch some of the breaks, you can go here and watch the previous breaks. This is also the site where you can watch the breaks live, and it has a chat area if you want to chat with the other people involved in the break. Which is great for trading slots before the break so you can get your team. I’ve participated in 3 breaks and here’s my first hit. I’ve gotten other cards but this was my big hit.

Madison Bumgarner – 2010 Topps Finest rookie Autographed jersey Letter #’d to /106

My 1st Trade

Completed my first trade last week with Eric from Manupatches & Chrome Scratches. He was a great help to me with my first trade on giving me advice on what people expect and gave me the confidence that others would be willing to trade. Thanks Eric! Here’s some of the highlights of what he sent me.

The Mark Buehrle highlight from his no-no was great, I remembered watching that game on TV. The Frank Thomas would be my first of my collection since I’m restarting it. Eric sent a couple of him too. I really liked the Ramirez 206 mini as well.

Of course you can’t go wrong with a Sale and Morel rookie. Some may know Chris Sale from the end of last year and he’s gotten some press but Brent Morel won out the starting job at 3rd this year and am looking forward to some good things from him. He played well before the team slump that they’ve been in for awhile now.

I really like the documentary cards. I had a few of them before but Eric was gracious enough to send me a bunch of them. I would think that the MLB teams themselves would put out a set like this where they highlight every game of the season. I think that would be good for the fans and could maybe get some more kids into cards before our hobby completely dies off.

All in all, a great trade with Eric. Be sure to check out his blog – Manupatches & Chrome Scratches. I’m getting pumped about this trading online and am looking forward to many more to come.

Collecting update

Got all my trade cards sent out. Everyone I’ve been dealing with have been great, friendly and very helpful. I’ve gotten my first package in the mail but haven’t scanned any of the cards yet. I plan on scanning stuff tomorrow so I’ll do a post about it then.

I have decided to collect any and all White Sox cards, in particular, Paul Konerko, but I’ll take his cards with any team. The above card is the only memorabilia card I have of him so far.

But I’ve been looking at the pictures of the cards on other people blogs and it has brought back memories. So I think I’m going to add a couple of my favorite all-time players whom I used to collect growing up. Most of their cards won’t be expensive and most of his cards will bring back all the fun I used to have when I collected as a kid.

One player was rookie of the year 6 years before I was born but played well into the 80’s so I got to see him pitch in his later years. He won 3 Cy Young awards and was inducted into the Hall of Fame with the highest percentage of votes (98.5%). He even finished his last few years with my beloved ChiSox. Anybody guessed yet?

Tom Seaver

The other player I’m going to collect because I used to collect all his cards back in the day for the same reason. He was my dad’s favorite player and I always figured if I collected his favorite player, he’d forgive me for being a White Sox fan since he was a die hard Cubs fan. He passed away in 1981 when I was only 8 so this collection will help me feel closer to my father. My mom always says one day I’m going to wake up and he’s going to be standing at the edge of my bed, with his Cubs gear on, giving me a disappointed look. Who is the player? Well he was the rookie of the year back in 1961 for his beloved Cubs. Played all but his last 2 season with them until he finished his career with the A’s. He was also inducted into the Hall of Fame. Anybody figured him out yet?

Billy Williams

I’m still looking for my first cards of these players as I am just starting to collect them again. Although I have some gypsy queen base cards coming my way hopefully sometime next week. I know Seaver was featured, I don’t know about Williams. Guess we’ll see if I get to officially start my collection of them next week.

Update

I know, I've been slacking a bit in the last week or so.  My kids have been both having baseball/softball practices and Easter rolled through so I've had a little less time than normal.  My youngest daughter has a practice game Thursday and then their opening day is Saturday.  They've had a lot more practices scheduled but we've been getting a lot of rain the last few weeks.

If you follow my twitter, then you know I tryed my first online box break last week with zero results.  I guess I shouldn't have been surprised considering the box I bought the slot in only had 12 cards to begin with.  I want to say it was a 2010 Topps Triple Threads. What you don't know is that I participated in a 2nd box break last weekend.  Only this time, I made sure the box had more cards to give me a better chance.  And I got a hit.  I won't tell you what it was but it should be here in the next few days and I'll be sure to scan a photo for you.  This hit came from a 2010 Topps Finest.

I've also started up a few trades with other blogs.  I was afraid I didn't have much but some traders are content with just certain teams and such.  Since I'm new to the game, I've emailed a few people about trades and they all seem to be more than willing.  So far, I've only mailed out one because I had been talking to Eric for a bit, the others I just contacted last night so my big plans for this evening (other than take my daughter to Girl Scouts) is to get some more trade packages together plus I have a few more people to contact.

I know I haven't said much about the White Sox, that would be because I have tried to not watch them lately with them losing 10 of their last 11 going into this series with the Yankees.  I still fully support them, it's just to heartbreaking to watch what should be a good team, suck so bad.  I was a little worried going into the Yankees series because I have a long standing bet with a Yankee fan here so I figured I might end up owing even more money than the last sweep pays double with the Angels fan.  But we've pulled out 2 wins in a row with them.  And what's been nice is some great defense, timely hitting, and both the starters and bullpen have looked good.  Which is the total opposite of what we've seen from the beginning of the year.  There were a couple of great plays by Brent Lillibridge to seal our win last night.  I'm going to try to find some video and post it here later.  I should probably wait until I get off work before I go searching the internet for the videos.

USA cards

Had some cards finish on ebay, these are what sold. What didn’t sell will go into my trade pile. I’m going to try to get a page up with everything I have available for trade sometime. It may take awhile, but I’ll get to it eventually.

Some Nice USA stuff, had a few others that didn’t sell. I don’t know of anybody off hand that collects USA stuff, but here’s what didn’t sell. If your interested, let me know.