Saturday, February 14, 2009

it's a Love/Hate Relationship

With this weekend being Valentine's, I hope that everyone out there has a great one.  I'm trying to stay away from the self loathing as much as possible.  But, I think what I'm going to do, on the coattails of my last post is all this weekend post things that I love and things that I strongly dislike.  I don't want to use the term hate as it has a lot of bad connotations.  Well, unless I'm talking about certain people.  So I think this is going to be Teams that I love and Teams that I strongly dislike.


Teams I love (or have a decent liking of):
Atlanta Braves
Atlanta Thrashers
Atlanta Falcons
Atlanta Hawks
Jacksonville Jaguars
Furman Paladins
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
Florida Gators
Duke Blue Devils
Chattanooga Lookouts
Boston Red Sox
Chicago Cubs
Colorado Avalanche

Teams I Strongly Dislike:
Georgia Bulldogs
Wofford Terriors
Appalachian State Mountaineers
Citadel Bulldogs
North Carolina Tar Heels
Florida State Seminoles
Ohio State University Buckeyes
Michiagan Wolverines
New York Mets
New York Yankees
Los Angeles Dodgers (Blame this one on the old NL West)
Los Angeles Lakers
Boston Celtics
James Madison University Dukes
Tampa Bay Bucs
Carolina Panthers
Dallas Cowboys
Philadelphia Phillies
Toronto Blue Jays
New Orleans Saints
Detroit Pistons


I have a lot more dislike than love apparently.



Friday, February 13, 2009

Things That I Am Not Particularly Fond Of

Topps Sterling Cards without Autographs

The price point of Topps Triple Threads

People who get excited over pulling a serial numbered card of the player's jersey number

People who do the same thing to a 1/# or to a card that's the last one printed.

Lima Beans

People who don't care about base cards at all


2008 Sweet Spot

Grey or White game-used swatches

The Mets

Having box hits be scrubs

Horrible Collation

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Blog Bat-Around #4

This is the 4th one of these, yet the first one I have participated in.  I'd like to thank Dinged Corners for hosting this one.  The topic is about the value of cards and what we should buy and hold for the future.  First, if you're in the hobby strictly for profit, get out.  I understand if you make a living that way owning a physical card shop or an e-bay store or something of that nature and your derive most of your income from cards.  However, if you are just in it purely for investment and the return you hope you'll get, it's not worth it.  Your ROI (return on investment) is much greater elsewhere.   Secondly, there are the obvious choices: Vintage (1984 or before) cards of already established stars, autographed cards, cut signature cards, some game-used cards, prospects that pan out, etc.  Here's the problem I see with these cards.  Everyone will be or already is collecting them.  If you look on YouTube, as painful as it might be to watch some of the box breaks, most everyone just goes after the hits and chunks the base cards to the side.  While a decent amount of bloggers are set collectors, they (we) represent a small fraction of the whole of the collecting community most of which is made up of people going after the hits.  You've got to figure out what people aren't collecting right now to determine what will be more valuable in the future.  That's why I think the things to go after are complete sets of base cards that come from products that are driven by hits.  In baseball, it'd be Sweet Spot, Prime Cuts, Topps Finest, Bowman Sterling, UD Ultimate, UD Premiere and other sets along that line.  

I know that many of the high end to mid range sets often are all serial numbered or have tons of short prints.  I think that's another reason why these sets are going to be worth having.  They're in limited quantity and they're hard to put together.  They're not like Heritage or Allen and Ginter which are set collector favorites.  The price point as well as the difficulty of set completion drives set builders away from these products.  Not to mention that these products are not focused at set builder as I previously stated.  They are focused on the collectors looking for the hits.  Imagine if you could get an entire base set of Topps Sterling.  Or National Treasures football.  Even something like 2007 Sweet Spot Classic.  All are limited in their production and would be hard to complete, but having a full set of those cards would be very rare.  And worth holding on to.  It might be worthwhile to become a set builder for the future even if you're looking for the hits right now.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Men's Fitness ranked Dallas-Fort Worth the 14th Fattest City in America

Get ready to move up the list because Tubby Jones is coming to your area!


reminds me of a candy bar....Chunky.

Man Walks Into A Restaurant

Waitress:  Good evening sir, what can I get you.

Man: I'd like a Filet Mignon please

Waitress: Very good sir.  How would you like that cooked?

Man: Rare.

Waitress: Would you like that 

super rare




















or would you like that ultra rare?


















Man:  I.....I don't know.  What's the difference?

Waitress:  To tell you the truth, I don't even know.

Man:  I'll take super rare.  It looks less likely to make me choke.

WOKKA WOKKA!

Thursday, February 5, 2009

I've opened 3 retail packs and one blaster of Topps Mayo Football

For a total of 11 retail packs.  Out of those packs I've pulled:


LaDainian Tomlinson Game-Worn Jersey



Chris Cooley Princeton Back Mini



And now for the biggie.





Wait for it.......




Wait for it......








Andre Caldwell Black Card Back Printing Plate Mini 1/1


I think I'm going to keep buying retail.  Or quit while I'm ahead.  I haven't decided.

Mail Day!!

So I worked out a trade with Jamie, who just got back into collecting recently.  He also proved that yes, people other than the people who have blogs read this thing.  He helped me take out a big chunk of my '08 Heritage set, especially the Black Backs.  So I have adjusted the Needs List accordingly.  Here's what I got:


3 Base



17 Black Backs



2 News Flashbacks



1 Baseball Flashback



3 New Age Performers



1 Then and Now


2 Minis


1 Clint Sammons 2008 Topps Triple Threads #/50

I had no idea about the last card.  He said he was sending me something for a Braves fan, but I never thought it'd be that good.  Thanks Jamie and I'll get your cards out to you ASAP.

I Want, nay, NEED this Card

I'm a big Tech fan and I'm glad to see them represented in the 20th Anniversary set.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Costas Joining MLB Network Exclusively

LINK

Bob is leaving HBO and joining MLB Network exclusively on cable.  It doesn't affect his NBC relations.  I've watched only a little MLB Network so far, but I'm sure that will ramp up in the near future. I've always been a huge fan of Costas calling baseball games over anything else he does, even the Olympics.  And to me, like Ken Burns, he is always going to be linked with Baseball.  Thanks to MLB and their copyright restrictions, I can't find Costas' call of The Sandberg Game, but I'm sure you all remember it, right?

The Next Nostradamus


I'm going to quit law school right now, 15 weeks from graduating, and tour the east coast predicting Topps gimmickry. I'm sure that'll be more lucrative than law right?