Treasure hunting and Wall art.

Ever get that incredible pull that seems to good to be true? The kind of pull that feels like a true piece of art work that deserves to be displayed for all to adore?

Well I haven't!  But I'm still questing for it!

Don't get me wrong... I have a lot of nice cards and some of them are just too good to stick away in the card catalog.  Since I'm still working on the Cave I won't show it off at all but I do have a couple of interesting things on the walls already that I'd like to share in case anyone else gets inspired.

Treasure hunting... Is it safe to say we all do it?  I know I do.  I find myself stopping by the Goodwill or Salvation Army from time to time looking at the shelves and in the cases for some discarded baseball cards or other items that I might find for a steal.

Not too long ago I stopped in the local Goodwill down the road from my house and was looking for such a find.  I wasn't there for any particular reason and was just looking around when I came across something that really caught my eye.

It was an old Baseball board game from the early 1950's and all it was was the actual game board itself with out any of its game pieces.  Here is an example of the game itself with its original box that I found online.

This is what I picked up.

When I first saw it I thought it looked really unique and had never really seen anything like it.  It's big in person and stands about 4 feet tall.  I knew instantly that It'd be perfect for displaying some of my nicer cards.  I didn't see the price at first but when I turned it on its back I saw a small little 5 written in the corner.

$5? That's all? Of course I had to buy it!

I took it home and pulled out some of the nicer cards I had in my collection and began the debate of which cards I should display.  I decided that I'd try and pick an All Star for each position and with the exception of Short Stop I managed to do a very nice job.  Here is the final product below as it is hung on my wall.

You might notice that there appears to be more cards then your standard 9 positions on a baseball diamond.  At the very top of the game board I decided to put in a bull pen and those cards are mainly my nicest super star pitcher hits.  In the field of play I decided to put a couple of cards in the on deck circles as well as on the bench which I decided would be the bottom corners of the game board.

Here is a close up of the infield.  Pujols relic card at 1st with a dual relic auto of Dustin Pedroia at 2nd.  SS is an Inglesias auto of the Red Sox for now as he happens to be the best current SS card I have. From what I hear he is the future full time SS for the Red Sox.  My case hit Longoria is on 3rd and I have "The Freak" on the mound Tim Lincecum jersey card.  Behind the plate is a dual relic of my all time favorite catcher and boy hood hero Ivan Rodriguez.  In the Batters Boxes I have a dual relic Ryan Howard and Chipper Jones Jersey card.  On the bench I have a Gary Sheffield and Delmon Young combo relic card as well as the "Flying Panda", Giants catcher Pablo Sandoval auto.

This close up of the outfield shows Ichiro in Right, Hunter in Center, and a sick patches Braun in Left.  In the bull pen is a CC jersey, Smoltz jersey, Cliff Lee All Star jersey, and my favorites Neftali Feliz rookie auto and Kershaw relic auto!

Here is a nice close up of that nasty Ryan Braun patch card. 

Of course not everyone can find a nice little item like this and for those of you who are thinking that I have an answer for you as well!

I also started trying out other methods of displaying some of my nicer cards and I recently put this together for the Cave.

All this is is a record frame I picked up from Target for $10.  Framed are some nice cards that aren't top of line but still have a value of $10 or more.  In the middle is a 1/1 printing plate of Michael Young and a 1/1 Sketch card of Adrian Gonzales.  Combined in this frame is over $125 worth of cards. 

Now that's what I call pricey wall art!

Until next time...