Projects Update

I know it has been a while since I have posted.  I haven’t stopped collecting but I haven’t had time in the last couple of months to blog.  It stinks.  I still have a lot of cards to scan which I might do after the Indians game which is on TV here tonight.   Here is a projects update since I last posted:

Hockey:

1.  2005-06 UD Series 1 Young Guns - I picked up a Henrik Lundqvist at the Toronto International show in May to complete this set except for the Crosby.  I picked up a Series 1 base set as well so everything is in a binder now with my complete Series 2 set.  That’s good because one of my revised card goals is met for the year.

2.  2006-07 Fleer Hot Prospects – I need 5 more rookies numbered to 1,999 to complete the rookie subset outside of the auto patches.  I haven’t been too active on the trading front for hockey but once I organize my cards for trade I will make this set a priority.

3.  2006-07 MVP – I haven’t made any progress on this set.  I’m going to look for a Malkin and Staal rookie in trades but I probably will buy a box for a cheap price to start filling this set.

4.  2007-08 Upper Deck – I have close to a complete Series 1 base set and I’m going to buy a box of Series 2 to come close to completing the Series 2 base set.  I have made a couple of trades to pick up a number of Series 1 Young Guns and a couple of Series 2 Young Guns.  I have 11 of 50 Series 1 Young Guns including Kane, Backstrom and Lucic and only 4 Series 2 Young Guns.  I will keep trying to make trades and I’m going to try and save up and pick up Price and Toews before the summer is over since prices are a little lower at this time of year.

5.  Collect Panthers Autos and Jerseys – This is a goal I have been meeting.  I have finally picked up a David Booth 2006-07 The Cup Auto Patch rookie numbered to 249.  I also have picked up a couple of different Vokoun, Horton and Cory Murphy autograph cards.  The next big Panthers card I want to get is a 2005-06 Rostislav Olesz Cup rookie auto patch.  That won’t be for a while but I will continue getting other Panthers for lower prices.  Last week I picked up a 2006-07 Nathan Horton Artifacts “Auto-facts” autograph and a Cory Murphy 2007-08 OPC Premier Quad Patch numbered to 299 for just over $8 combined.

Baseball:

1.  2006 Bowman Draft - I’m still around at the same set progress as my last update.  It’s hard to get people to give up chrome draft rookies.  I’m going to keep trying or just buy the set needs.  It looks like a trade I made last December has gone bad and I will not see my end of the trade which stinks because I was hoping for around 10 of my set needs for this set and 50 or so 2007 Bowman needs. 

2.  2007 Bowman – See #1.  I’m at about the same spot as last update and have received 5-6 cards for my set in trades. 

3.  2007 Bowman Chrome – I still need a ton of cards for this set.  I will still work on it and I should buy a box when my budget expands a bit so I can trade refractors etc. for my set needs. 

4.  2008 Topps Heritage – I have bought a few packs and two boxes of this product.  I have made a few trades as well and I have my set needs down to around 30 regular base cards, 20 “black back” semi-short print base cards and 53 short print cards.  I might not collect this set again because there are too many short prints to collect.  It’s a beautiful set though and looks great in a binder and is fun to open. 

5.  2008 Topps – I bought a box of Series 1 and a box of Series 2.  I am 2 cards short of a Series 1 set and around 30 short of a Series 2 set.  Nothing special has come from the box breaks but it’s a nice card design and I like the idea of opening a 36 pack box with no doubles for the base set.  There are a lot of inserts too including the cool “History of Trading Cards” subset that I really like.  I’m hoping to trade my extra inserts for the above set needs. 

6.  Collecting Indians – I do have a few more Indians autographs and jerseys since I traded away some of my Bowman autographs that I have traded when I gave up on collecting those autograph sets.  With the Indians having such a bad year I’m going to try and collect some of the prospects in the system like Nick Weglarz, Wes Hodges, Beau Mills and the newest Indian, Matt LaPorta. 

Baseketball:

I have hardly collected any basketball lately.  My Dad has picked me up a couple of “fat packs” of 2007-08 Fleer so I have a partial set on the go.  I am going to try and save for boxes of Fleer and Bowman so I can start trading autos and parallels for set needs. 

Other than a couple of boxes I purchased in May I have kept my purchases to a minimum lately.  I am going to try and get some more trades done but my cardlists on my computer need to be more well organized and I have to start getting more cards scanned.  I might try to sell some cards either on the Bench or on EBay later this week to raise some funds for larger purchases.  The key to meeting these goals is to stay within them.  In other words I shouldn’t blow my card budget on an auto or jersey card that doesn’t meet the above goals unless it’s a deal I can’t turn down and it’s for something that I could get good trade value for. 

So this is where I’m at so far.  I need to get back into product previews and scans of some of the Indians and Panthers cards I have picked up in the last couple of months.  If you have kept checking this blog to see if it has been updated thank you.  I appreciate it.  Thanks for reading.

I’m back and an actual box break!

That was a busy April.  I’m still really busy this month and will be to the end of June but I have to get back into this right?  I have a lot of pick ups to scan in and hopefully I will soon.  I was at the semi-annual Card Expo in Toronto a couple of weekends ago and have some nice Panthers pick ups to show off. 

I actually bought a couple of boxes over the weekend and Crystal and I opened them last night.  These were my first boxes since the fall and I am definitely going to start opening more low to mid end products. 

The first box was a box of 2008 Topps Series One baseball.  I have bought a few packs at the local card shop and I have decided to collect the set now that I’m not collecting autograph sets.  I didn’t get any jersey or autograph cards but I’m trying to collect the base set and that was the purpose of this box so I’m not too disappointed.  I now have a bunch of inserts that I can hopefully trade for my set needs.  I am keeping a couple of the inserts because I like some of the “History of Trading Cards” design.  I have to sort everything and see how close I am to the set.  The best cards in the box were:

“Gold Foil” (short prints inserted 1 in every 2 packs):  Roy Oswalt, Curtis Granderson and Mickey Mantle were the most prominent

Gold numbered to 2,008:  Edwin Encarnacion, Mark Reynolds, Preston Wilson and Cliff Lee(!!!!).  Cliff Lee deserves exclamation marks after his name with the way he’s pitching right now. 

Politicians:  I’m not a big fan of other topics in my baseball cards.  I did get Hilary Clinton, Rudy Guliani and John Edwards.  Hopefully I can trade these. 

The second box was a box of 2008 Topps Heritage baseball.  You are supposed to get one relic or autograph in each box plus 3 chrome cards either numbered to 1,959, 559 or 59.  I did better than that.  The “hits” of the box:

Real One autograph redemption:  Scott Posednik

Stadium Seat Relic:  Ernie Banks / Wrigley Field

Chrome #’d to 1,959:  Brandon Phillips (I wish the Indians gave him another chance before trading him), Joe Mauer and Nick Markakis

Chrome refractor #’d to 559:  Justin Upton

Black bordered refractor #’d to 59:  Derrek Lee

That was an awesome box.  I don’t know which short prints I’ve received just yet as I have to sort everything but I’m happy with the other cards.  I want to collect the chrome set but will trade the Upton refractor and Lee black refractor plus the Posednik and the Banks for short prints and other set needs.

Off to sorting!  Hopefully I will update more often here but life is busy.  Which is better than the alternative I think.

Thanks for reading.

New Card Goals!

So…

I am finally done my tax course until August.  So I can work until 8 pm, come home and blog a little more.  I had a little bit of a revelation when it came to my card collecting goals.  I had decided to try and collect a number of autographed and autographed patch sets.  I have realized that this would just cause an accumulation of projects and stall me from starting new sets.  For example, I was hoping to collect 10 2006-07 Fleer Hot Prospect auto patches this year.  That would mean I would have 15 or 16 of the 41 cards.  The 5 I have bought this year have all been common ones and haven’t cost me too much.  But I would have to shell out a lot of money for Malkin, Staal, Kessel, Kopitar etc.  I think rather then dropping $250 on a Malkin auto patch I would buy 4 $50 boxes and use the rest to build sets and collect cheaper autographs that I want for my collection, not to complete an autograph set.  This has given me a feeling of freedom.  I was trying to reconcile collecting these expensive sets and starting new sets.  Now my goals are a little more clear and I can build more mid-end sets and buy more boxes which is fun.  Plus this gives me a chance to start collecting autographs from my favourite teams and players.

Here are my revised project lists for 2008:

Overall (Unchanged):

1.  Organize all of my cards – there is a little bit of progress being made but this will be a summer project for me.

2.  Organize all of my set needs – this is connected to Goal #1.  These are for the sets I started in the 1990’s that I still want to collect.

3.  Make as many trades as I can and become a regular contributor to sites like the Bench – I’ve done okay with this.  I haven’t had many cards to trade.  Now that I have autographs to trade I should make more. 

4.  Regularly update this blog – It’s tax season!  I’m trying my best. 

Hockey:

1.  Pick up a Henrik Lundqvist 2005-06 Upper Deck Young Gun to complete my Young Guns set other than Crosby.  I also need to buy a Series 1 base set.  I’m hoping to trade a patch auto or something like that for the Lundqvist.

2.  Finish my 2006-07 Fleer Hot Prospects Rookies numbered to 1,999.  I’m at 44 of the 60 and I want to complete this set anyways.  It’s not the auto patches but it will be nice to complete.

3.  Finish 2006-07 MVP – I bought a 12 pack blaster and I want to finish this set.  Mainly because this will be my only set with the 2006-07 rookies and I don’t feel like collecting 2006-07 Upper Deck.

4.  Collect 2007-08 Upper Deck – When I pulled the Kane and Backstrom Young Guns I knew this was the set to collect.  It is an easy set to collect and is not too expensive and I will have all of the significant rookies from this year. 

5.  Collect Panthers autographs and jersey cards – I want to try and get an autograph from each Panther that has an autograph in the 2007-08 sets.  I also want to go back and get some of the higher end rookie autos like Olesz and Booth’s The Cup rookies.  I can then have a Panthers binder with all of my autographs and patches in one spot. 

Baseball:

1.  Finish my 2006 Bowman Draft Picks set

2.  Finish my 2007 Bowman set

I might buy the singles or I might try to trade some of my lower end autographs for these set needs.

3.  Collect the 2007 Bowman Chrome set.  I might buy a box of this to add 40 cards to my set or I might try to trade for some set needs. 

4.  Collect 2008 Topps Heritage – This is the one 2008 set I want to collect and it sounds like a lot of fun to collect.  I want to collect the full base set with the short prints and the variations and complete the chrome set. 

5.  Collect Indians autographs and jerseys – This is the same idea I have for the Panthers.

Basketball:

1.  Collect 2007-08 Bowman Draft Picks & Stars – I liked the 2006-07 set and I like the design of this year’s set so I’m going to buy a couple of boxes in the summer.

2.  Collect 2006-07 Fleer – I love the 1986-87 design cards and I’m going to collect this set.

3.  Collect 2007-08 Fleer – I like the base card design and I want to collect the retro variations of this set too.

4.  Pick up autographs from my favourite players – The “Number Marks” of Mark Price and Brad Daugherty from 2007-08 SP Authentic are at the top of the list but I want to find cheaper autographs of my favourite players too.

Football:

1.  Pick a set and collect it – I have no idea what to collect but I will find something.  Maybe Topps or Bowman Chrome.  We will see.

Any thoughts on this change?  Does anyone out there try to collect autograph sets? 

Thanks for reading.

I have found a hockey set to collect!

My Dad had picked up a couple of 2007-08 Upper Deck hockey blasters on sale this week.  He had opened one and didn’t really get anything special.  He hadn’t opened the second one.  I was there for dinner last night and I asked if I could buy it off of him.  He agreed.  Unfortunately for him I had three great pulls.  I will scan them in tomorrow but here were the hits:

The third best hit was a Patrice Bergeron three colour jersey card which should be nice trade bait.  The second hit was a Nicklas Backstrom Young Gun where I was thinking, “finally a good card to trade for my other set needs!”.  Then I opened the last pack and saw “Patrick Kane”.  I pulled a Patrick Kane Young Gun!  It has a book value of $100.  I never pull cards like this.  It made my week.

I have been agonizing over a 2007-08 hockey set to collect.  I was thinking about SP Authentic and the Future Watch autograph set.  I find autograph and patch sets can be hard to collect.  I didn’t like that Hot Prospects increased the number of short print patches and that they increased the number of patch cards in the set.  I’m not a huge fan of the SPx design of their autograph jerseys and it’s hard to find multi-coloured patches in that set.  So… Upper Deck.  A good set collector’s set.  There are a lot of rookies to collect but they do not have huge book values and the most expensive cards will cost $50-60, not hundreds of dollars like autograph and patch sets.  I still might try to pick up some Future Watch autographs but I will collect them because I want the player, not because it will complete my set. 

It’s been a busy month for me at work and it’s only going to get worse.  I will try to post once or twice a week but I can’t guarantee it.  I will be able to post more in May and we can find out if I have any value in my collection that I built in the early 1990’s.

2007-08 Fleer Rack Pack!

My Dad was in Ohio visiting my grandparents and he picked up a 50 card rack pack of 2007-08 Fleer basketball.  I am interested in this set for the 1980 variations of the base set and the rookies.  The pack had two 1961 Fleer format cards of Chris Paul and Tim Duncan which have a nice design.  I really like the base set design.  It’s very 80’s and old school.  I’m going to try and collect the set with the variations.  The best pull from the pack (from my wife’s half of course) was a 1986-87 rookie design Greg Oden.  I need to get a box or two. 

It’s time to enter the checklist of the guys I need for the base set.  Thanks for reading and hopefully I will get a couple of cards in the mail this week to show for the blog.  Otherwise we will think of something.

Recent Purchases!

I know.  I start the blog and only one post since the first day.  I’m an accountant and it’s tax season so I work late a lot and I don’t always have the energy to blog.  When May comes along I’m planning on having a full court press of blog posts. 

I have made a couple of card purchases this past week.  I bought 2 packs of 2008 Topps Baseball from the local card/comic shop a couple of nights ago.  The highlight of the packs was a Mickey Mantle History of Trading Cards insert.  I think I’ll be able to trade it for set needs or sell it on EBay pretty easily. 

I also picked up my latest Hot Prospects autographed patch with a Shane O’Brien mult-coloured patch for just over $10 delivered.  This will be my 11th patch of the 41 card set and it’s my 5th this  year.  I’m still planning on picking up the cheaper patches in the next few months so I will eventually have purchased or traded for 10 patches this year.

There’s been some news around the hobby but it hasn’t involved sports.  Topps has announced letter patches of the presidential candidates in Topps Series 2.  Since I’m planning on collecting Heritage and I’m Canadian it doesn’t really affect me.  I’m sure the cards will sell for good money on EBay as soon as they come out and then will cool off a bit. 

I’ll try to post on the weekend with something a little more interesting. 

Thanks for reading.

Cards New Releases – Week of March 10th, 2008

There are 4 products out this week:

Baseball:

2008 Topps Opening Day - This is a low end set that looks to be geared to kids.  For around $35 you receive a box of 24 packs of 6 cards per pack.  The base set is 220 cards and it includes Topps Series 2 preview cards.  There are also “flapper” cards which can be turned into some other cards somehow.  If you have kids this might be a good starter set for them.  Autographs fall 1 per case so they are rare. 

2008 Upper Deck Premier- For around $230 you receive 1 box containing 1 pack of 4 cards.  The packs are collated as follows:  Card 1 is a base card #’d to 99 or a parallel base card #’d to 15.  Card 2 is a rookie signatures card #’d to 299 or 99.  Card 3 is a “woven” patch.  I looked on Ebay but couldn’t find an example of these types of cards.  Card 4 is an autograph that is #’d to 45 or less.  Card 5 is a memorabilia card #’d to 75 or less.  Card 6 is a patch card #’d to 75 or less.  Card 7 has either a bat barrel card, a premier logo patch #’d 1 of 1 and a premier card #’d to 3.  So there is a good chance you would get a nice card out of this.  But with every $200 and over product I recommend that you let other people break this and pick up the single cards you want off of EBay.

Basketball:

2007-08 Upper Deck Black- For around $220 you receive 2 boxes of 1 pack.  Each pack has 1 card.  Every card is numbered to 99 or less.  Every card is an autograph or a multi-swatch memorabilia cards.  One of the cards in the box will be an autograph.  There are a huge number of different types of autographs and patch cards in this set.  It’s a player collectors only set since there isn’t a base set.  If this set is anything like the Upper Deck Black baseball set the pulls will definitely not be worth the money.  So wait for the singles to reach Ebay.

Hockey:

2007-08 Upper Deck Ice - For $84 you receive a box of 20 packs of 5 cards per pack.  There are 4 rookies per box.  The rookies are of 4 different levels.  Level 4 is #’d to 1,999, Level 3 is #’d to 999, Level 2 is #’d to 499 and Level 1 is #’d to 99.  The 2005-06 set’s Level 1 rookies were very difficult to find.  The base set is 100 cards.  There are 3 hits other than the rookies in the box, either autograph or jersey/patch cards with at least 1 being an autograph card.  This could be a fun set to collect even though the Level 1 rookies will cost a bunch.  If this set looks like the Trilogy Ice Scripts set then it will be a nice looking set.  I will probably try to collect the Panthers from this set, especially any autographs.  The jersey cards have a number of parallels so if you are a player collector and they are in the jersey set then this will be good to collect. 

So collect singles from Premier and Black, buy Opening Day for your kid and take a reasonable gamble on picking up one of the Level 1 rookies from Ice.

Thanks for reading.

First post at my new card blog!

Hi!

I have made a number of card posts on my other blog, jefflingard.wordpress.com, but I have decided to spin my card posts off to this blog.  I have called this blog “Mid-End Cards” because I like to collect cards between the cheaper brands such as Topps Opening Day and Upper Deck First Edition Baseball and I don’t think I will ever spend anything on the $200 1 pack, 4 cards box. 

I collect hockey, baseball and basketball cards.  I collected football too when I was a teenager and I am hoping to get back into football this fall.  I am planning on having product previews, cards I buy and hobby news that interests me on this blog. 

So welcome to this blog.  I hope you like it here.  Check out some of the other blogs on my blogroll and happy collecting.