A LOOOONG awaited update!

Hello all of you in the blogger world. It's been a minute hasn't it? Or maybe a couple months...

ANYWAY,

With school having started, and me lacking a job, it's been a squeeze to get anything when it comes to cards. I've actually received a few things over the past month, though. William managed to send a few minor things my way- random pickups from the card shop and what not. Always having to thank him, damnit. He definitely looks out for me whenever he's at the shop and I will always be indebted to him when it comes to cards and the such.

Luckily, I have been able to get organized enough to find time for collecting again. Thank goodness. I also have a job again, so money isn't TOO big of an issue anymore. So with all the recent happenings, I was able to meet up with William here in Raleigh to go to the Inside Pitch card show. As you can read on his blog, (foulbunt.blogspot.com) the vintage findings were

somewhat slim, as well as any of those "awesome" finds. However, it was still of course a fun time, and I managed to get some pretty significant stuff. So without any further ado, here are some of the "new" things I've been able to pick up.

Here's some cards I pulled from a couple packs William brought me. The Ticket to Stardom cards are pretty cool, I must say. Really sharp looking. Pulled the Kaline out of a pack of Goodwin Champions which almost made my day by itself. Couldn't help from laughing after opening the second pack of Goodwin and discovering that there were more basketball than baseball cards in it. Actually, there was only one baseball card haha. Out of a pack of Bowman chrome came the sexy looking Billingsley. I really, really, enjoy Bowman chrome. Definitely one of my favorite sets I've found in my days of collecting.

Up next comes a really SWEET pickup from over the weekend. With all of the Team USA happenings occurring in the Raleigh/Durham area, William and PA, (http://player2b.blogspot.com/) were able to easily gain access to meet baseball's young phenom, Bryce Harper. Yes, I said BRYCE HARPER. Like the awesome guy he is, William was able to get me a signed ball, which looks pristine, does it not? I am REALLY REALLY REALLY excited about this thing and almost jizzed when I held it in my hands. I showed it to a fellow baseball fan/suitemate who thought it was equally as awesome. This should be a priceless object sometime in the future, and I'm glad I own it. (knock on wood) Head on over to William and PA's blogs to see some more stuff they got from Harper.

I decided to post one of the many random cards I received from William, just because it's really pretty, and badass...

SP Legendary cuts Tom Glavine/Chad Billingsley jersey card. Pretty nice, huh?

Next up we have the acquisitions from the actual show. First up we have a few '09 Heritage cards I was able to pick up to help that set. The Smoltz and Francisco cards happen to be short prints/high numbers, a group of cards that I'm desperately trying to knock out.

Also from the show, comes something that isn't cardboard! I saw it and just HAD to have it. 2 minutes later, it was mine. Got it purrty cheap too...

Isn't it absolutely beautiful? Haha, but really, this picture does no justice to how it really looks, William can vouch for that. It will end up being another addition to the Awesome Wall whenever I make it home again. New pics of that will be posted when possible.

I actually ended up finding SOME good vintage, at least for me. The pic at the top is a '69 fold out I found for a couple bucks, just like the Robinson William picked up. This one really caught my eye, it turned into another one of those "gotta have it" finds. A pretty sweet addition to my collection.

Last but definitely not least from the show:

I managed to knock out a decent chunk of the 1960 set. All in all I ended up getting 19 cards for under 10 dollars, which really excited me. Actually, turned out to be 20 cards because some jerk, AHEMMM, decided to pick up another one for me. Yeah, it's the Gibson. Obviously, it's not THE biggest card in the set, but it's still a Bob Gibson card, second year no less.

Well it looks like that seems to be it, for the time being. Definitely expect more blogs to come, more frequently, seeing how I've hopefully ended my hiatus.

Nice Pack of '08 Stadium Club

You figure that with 1 autograph per pack, you can get at least some excitement out of a pack of Stadium Club. I had no idea that my excitement would be on a different level than what I expected. Out of my pack I ended up pulling the Evan Longoria Rookie Auto:
Awesome pull to say the least. This is a sweet looking card with an even sweeter signature on the card.
Oh the surprises don't stop there either. Once I saw this I was completely satisfied, but had no idea that there would be even more awesome-ness left in the pack. Shown here is the other cool pull, actual bunting flag fabric from old Yankee Stadium. Numbered 147/199.
As much as I am not a Yankee fan, (Jackie's on the card though haha) I have a thing for cool memorabilia like this, and boy, is this awesome or what?

Overdue Updates

First I'll start off with some miscellaneous additions to the collection. I always love getting some Dodger/favorite player cards, even if they aren't truly essential to building a set or what have you. They are essential, however, to my personal liking...The Garvey on the left comes from good ole' 1979, the Gibson from 1989. Couple of nice cards to span the decade. Thanks to William for both of these.
Also from William comes a 5,000 count box full of some randomly assorted cards. This will serve as an awesome time and boredom killer and will also give me many more opportunities in the near future to include more blog entries here.

Up next, a few cards received in a little trade with Mike from jdswildcardz.blogspot.com. Mike managed to grab me a couple of Topps golds (Randy Wolf, Chad Billingsley) and a couple SP Legendary Cuts (Manny and Clayton Kershaw). Thanks a lot Mike!
Also recieved in the mail from the blog world...
A Topps Opening Day Chad Billingsley from Steve at steveisjewish.blogspot.com

Thanks for this card Steve, I'll be sure to be on the look out for a couple of things to send your way.

Trip to William's or "You mean you brought home more stuff?"

Some new schtuffff I had waiting for me...
Thanks Pete for grabbin' these for me!
We got good old Jeanson up there, a Goudey jersey card and his Chrome Topps Rookie. Also we have a Goudey Ethier Mini and a Gold Bowman Loney. Nice pick ups fo' meh.

And now folks, a review of the most exciting box break in history. Oh yes, I'm talking about a box of...


...1988 Topps!!!!!
That's right, William and I busted a box of '88 Topps he had sitting around. What's better is the fact that there are a couple blogworthy cards that came out of it.
Of course, I always love getting Orel...
...who in this photo looks like he's gracefully "gliding" like a fairy off the mound.
Up next is the prettiest card that came out of the box. Me and William actually couldn't stop laughing for at least a couple minutes after pulling Mr. Chest Pubes...



Ok, I'll admit. It looks A LOT better in person and was a lot funnier at the time. I guess Mr. Baller just looks goofy anyway.
Also, out of every pack, we pulled out a little mail in form to enter a sweepstakes. The winner receives a trip for 4 to the 1989 Spring Training camp of your choice. I've always wanted to send one of these in and see the reaction I get, so this will be my first one to do.

ALSO! Be sure to head over to foulbunt.blogspot.com and check out a little bit of me and William's day. The videos he just put up should be enough to entertain you for a few seconds.

I think that's pretty much it for this post, except for one more, serious and AWESOME thing. William, who is a "jerk" [ :) ] decided to pick me up something so ridiculous, I felt the urge to punch him. All the more reason to continue to maintain our good friendship haha. Here's a new Cherishyzm, one that should soon be on display:


"Jerk", haha.

Quick little notice I wanted to put out.

I've put a little list to the side (<---) of cards I am searching for at the moment. Right now of course I only have a few up there; I'm too tired to stay up any longer. So, tomorrow, my lists of Heritage and other sets will go up, along with other individual cards I'm looking for. Please send me an e-mail! I'm would LOVE to trade with what I have! (Also being posted soon)

Trip to the card shop and more overdue whatnots...

I guess you could call this first part of the update my 2nd installment of "Cherishyzm Collecting". I didn't really announce the first one, but it included my first big vintage find, my 1954 Kaline Rookie. (Cherishyzm is not only an ongoing joke, but it is a reference to cards that really, really, REALLY mean a lot to me. One of William's for example would be the Brooks RC.) I figure that I can put all of these such cards in a category, either "A", "B", or "C". "A" being a true prized possession, an irreplaceable card. And REMEMBER! "B" or "C" cards are most definitely still Cherishyzms, just not like those top ones. So, after all of that rampant explaining, I present you my newest class "A" Cherishyzm:1957 Kaline that I got from William. THANKS WILL! Apparently he got it for a near steal, so I don't feel AS bad haha. Oh, and this has helped me officially decide that Kaline is the big vintage player I'm going after, from now, until the end of time.

Ok, next up are some class "B" Cherishyzms:
Picked both of these up at the shop outa the vintage case. 1973 on the left and 1974 on the right. These are both great cards, and a nice addition to my Kaline collection. The '74 should be specially noted though. First- in the small info box on the back it shows that Kaline's present home town is Bloomfield Hills, MI. Definitely cool, as this is where my dad spent part of his childhood and saw Kaline play on numerous occasions. The second reason being that this is Al's last issued card for years he played. Listed on the back are stats from his incredible career, which he spent the entirety of with the Tigers. '73 dating back to '53 when he played a few games with 28 At Bats and a homer. I now have his "last" card as well as his first, a really cool accomplishment to say the least.

Here's another class "B" Cherishyzm:
1960 Topps Elston Howard. Sharp looking card for sure. Pretty good condition, too. I will be saving this one for a later post, I will explain it's personal value then.

Now for a grade "C" card. I'm not really actually meaningfully-tied to this card, but I feel like it is definitely of value to me . Not to mention it is TOTALLY BADASS.
Yes, I did pull this out of a new pack of '09 Legendary Cuts at the shop. GU Jerseys from Hanley Ramirez (with a nice pinstripe) and Ernie Banks. MR. CUB! Totally awesome. Gotta love the old wool uniform. I was really, really excited when I pulled this.

Now for some other stuff. They may not be "Cherishyzms", but of course they're cool.
The new SP Legendary Cuts look awesome, not sure how you could argue that. Managed to pick up a couple packs where I happily pulled Russ and Kemp:
Also, let me remind you, all of these pics are Hi-Res and look really good when you click on them.
Alright, up next a special shoutout to William's brother John who managed to hook me up with some sweet stuff. One card of which is a 2008 A&G Manny jersey. Very nice...
Also from John, I got a large number of other Manny cards as well as a few Hershisers. MORE OREL!
After coming home last time with a bunch of cool posters and stuff for the Awesome Wall, I decided to go ahead and grab as many Flashback Friday cards from 2007 as I could. (One of the posters compelled me to go for it.) I managed to get a bunch, but couldn't find the first five in the set. These came in a starter pack from '07. If anyone has any extra of these, or know where I could find them easily, let me know!
I'm going to go ahead and finish this update off, I'll post another soon, maybe even tonight once I get my bearings straight. Here are some Russell Martin's to finish up. I've had these for a while, but they haven't seen the blog.

Quick Update

Set complete: 2009 Topps

Finally, officially completed Topps 2009. LOVE these cards. They really do look great.

Now for other stuff...
Let's see, I managed to pick up a few more, different Manny's. Seen here we have the Topps Gold border, Target Classic parallel, and the Wal-Mart Black parallel. I really like all of these cards, but the Black especially. It looks SWEET!I also picked up the Russ Martin Gold border. I would really love to get the Wal-Mart and Target Martins, as well as both Manny and Martin Topps black borders. Keep your eyes peeled for those, please!

RUSSELL MARTIN PRINTING PLATE WOOOOOOO. A beauty isn't it?And more Russell Martin...
The blue refractor is really just ridiculous. Looks so much better in person, I have a hard time keeping my eyes off of it.

Here is just another random card I picked up, Clayton Kershaw Spectrum. This is one of those you just have to talk about because it's Clayton Kershaw...
...batting. Haha.

Oh, and last but not least...
The latest edition of mail time...
Pretty, isn't it? I thought so, too.