Friday, September 28, 2012

HELP! Lineage Project

This is a call to arms!  Not really anyway.  I just spend time watching the Orioles kick the Red Sox ace in the first 5 innings (up 7-1 at the moment) while going through my Lineage collection and updating my master check list and I thought maybe it's time to put out a wanted list to make it easier on your eyes.  If anyone has any of these cards I NEED them.  So help a blogger out!  If you have any Diamond, Platinum, or 75 mini cards i'll ask you to look at my list for those or just tell me what you have if you don't feel like checking.  I will list the inserts I still need below.  As always... I'll make trades for all of them!

Lineage Venezualin I need...

TV1 Derek Jeter
TV9 David Wright
TV10 Troy Tulowitzki
TV11 Clayton Kershaw
TV17 Joe Mauer
TV20 Ryan Braun
TV22 Jose Bautista
TV23 Adam Dunn

Lineage Box Toppers I need...

TG1 Albert Pujols
TG4 Joe Mauer
TG5 Derek Jeter
TG7 Joey Votto
TG8 Ichiro
TG9 Miguel Cabrera
TG12 Josh Hamilton
TG15 David Wright
(The only relic version I have is Evan Longoria, so if you have any of those I'll trade as well)

Lineage 3D

T3D1 Ichiro
T3D3 Ryan Howard
T3D4 Mark Teixeira
T3D5 Joe Mauer
T3D8 Joey Votto
T3D9 Adrian Gonzalez
T3D10 Alex Rodriguez
T3D11 David Wright
T3D12 Carl Crawford
T3D13 Miguel Cabrera
T3D15 Evan Longoria
T3D16 Jason Heyward
T3D17 Kendry Morales
T3D20 Josh Hamilton
T3D24 Derek Jeter
T3D25 Albert Pujols

(I don't have any of the "experimental" SP versions... i'll take those as well)

Lineage Cloth Stickers

TCS2 Derek Jeter
TCS3 Buster Posey
TCS6 Cal Ripken Jr.
TCS8 George Sisler
TCS9 Hanley Ramirez
TCS10 Stan Musial
TCS11 Jackie Robinson
TCS12 Ryan Howard
 TCS14 Hunter Pence
TCS15 Mike Schmidt
TCS16 Nolan Ryan
TCS17 Duke Snider
TCS18 Reggie Jackson
TCS19 Alex Rodriguez
TCS21 Carl Crawford
TCS22 Troy Tulowitzki
TCS24 Al Kaline
TCS26 Eddie Murray
TCS27 Tris Speaker
TCS28 Evan Longoria
TCS29 Honus Wagner
TCS30 Babe Ruth
TCS32 Ty Cobb
TCS33 Cy Young
TCS34 Hank Aaron
TCS35 Chipper Jones
TCS36 Ichiro
TCS37 Roy Halladay
TCS38 Jason Heyward
TCS39 Joe Mauer
TCS40 Tim Lincecum
TCS42 Miguel Cabrera
TCS43 Adrian Gonzalez
TCS44 Ryan Braun
TCS45 Robinson Cano
TCS46 Bob Gibson
TCS47 Tom Seaver

(yeah... i need alot of those...)

Lineage Rookies

TR3 Brent Morel
TR4 Aroldis Chapman
TR18 JP Arencibia
TR20 Brett Wallace

Lineage Stand Ups

TS1 Jose Bautista
TS3 Albert Pujols
TS4 Felix Hernandez
TS6 Ryan Howard
TS8 Jason Heyward
TS9 Ryan Braun
TS11 Miguel Cabrera
TS12 Adam Dunn
TS15 Carlos Gonzalez
TS16 Mike Stanton
TS17 Matt Kemp
TS19 Alex Rodriguez
TS20 Roy Halladay
TS22 Hank Aaron
TS24 Juan Marichal
TS25 Sandy Koufax

You can also check out my relic check list and I'm up for any trades on them as well.  Thanks for looking... hopefully I can atleast knock off one or two more off this list from this post alone!  Thanks!

Sunday, September 23, 2012

DIY: Man Cave Bar!

Basic Woogenomics states you gotta DIY when ever possible.  When the wife and I bought this house I had the perfect place for my Man Cave and was excited to finally have a place to store everything I had collected since my childhood. 

One thing that absolutely had to happen was a bar.  I can remember in the weeks leading up to buying our home that I would spend hours online looking at other guys Caves and seeing how they set up their bars and trying to figure out how I would set mine up.  The first thing I noticed was that these things weren't cheap!

I shopped online for used bars, bar plans, and even portable bars.  All of them started at a couple hundred and went up from there.  Not that some of those weren't affordable options, but when it comes down to how I'd like to spend my extra hard earned cash the answer is always baseball cards! lol... So I decided I was going to have to build my own to try and save as much loot as possible.

As luck would have it I had one (sorta) fall right in to my lap.  It wasn't a bar per say, but what can I say... I've got vision and see things that other just can't. 

As I've stated in the past I work for a certain rental car company... let's just say "I'll come and pick you up!" and my company was doing a city wide remodel of all rental car branches.  As a branch manager I had a responsibility to help get my office cleaned out and set up to make the new furniture move as smooth as possible.  We were getting new everything... counters, desks, computers... the whole nine.

That's when I noticed that my old rental counter would make one helluva bar in my Man Cave!  Check it out...

Allow me to play Cap't Obvious... This is the counter from straight on
 
And from the side... and finally...
 
from the rear.
 
The plan for them was to discard this... I believe they were going to send the old furniture to a recycle center.  So I jumped on the phone and asked our Operations guy if I could take it home.  First he asked me why and I explained that I wanted to turn it in to a bar.  Then he said yes, but on one condition.  That I show him the final results when it was finished.  Done and Done!  Turns out I was the first person ever to ask to take any old furniture home and they didn't require any type of money for it at all.
 
Boom Baby!  A FREE Bar! 
 
So on Move Day I rented a Cargo Van and loaded it up.  It was actually all taken apart while I was away from my office on other work business so I didn't get to see it deconstructed.  That would become a challenge eventually but I assumed it'd be easy to take care of.  So I unloaded it when I got home and began the process of organizing all the pieces in to groups.  Here it is at home all taken apart.
 
 
 
 
So I was basically left with 4 panels, a table top, a counter top, and a box of hardware and not a shred of directions.  Easy... right??
 
First thing I did was paint the 4 panels that made up the walls of the bar.  They were made of this recycled wood type material and were a bear to move around.  I painted them black and once they were dried I began to figure out how I was going to put them back together.  I went to other offices at work that hadn't been made over yet and tried to figure out how they were put together.  Honestly it helped a little but not really much at all... I was just going to have to wing it. 
 
Lucky for me I married a genius and was able to convince the wife to give me a hand.  She turned out to be the X factor I needed!
 
Here we are putting it back together piece by piece.  After we figured it out it was pretty easy.  Mostly snap together parts.
 
Once we reconstructed the four panels all we had to do was lay down the table top and screw it in place and then the counter top went on the other side.  Here it is all put together in its new home!
 
Looks great!  But not done yet!  Next thing I wanted to do was to really set this off and what better way to do that then with a Baseball Card Collage Bar Top!?!  Lord knows I have enough cards to do it.  So I went online and did some more research and came across a few pictures of other examples of this sorta project and went to task.
 
I went ahead and grabbed a roll of butcher paper and some spray glue from the local craft store and planned my layout before I actually executed it.  After all once you start that kinda project you can't turn back!
 
I decided that I liked the look of all the cards being turned in different directions but with clean parallel lines at the same time.  A clean look, but more unique then just putting them all in the same direction. 
 
Once I had a rough idea of how I wanted them to look I went to the Cave and got it started.  I got some great shots of the progression of it all... Check it out!
 
Much like the Free Masons I needed a corner stone to start my project.  I choose an excellent Brooks Robinson card and began to work my way from right to left.
 
The Bar Top wasn't the perfect width to be able to lay out all my cards with out having any gaps so it forced me to use some other cards that weren't standard sized and I think it makes it look that much better.  You'll notice I used tobacco sized cards as well as the Goudey sized cards to fill in the blanks.
 
There were two ways I could have done this.  I could have sprayed the glue directly on the bar top or on the back of each individual card.  I choose the latter.  If you decide to do this make sure you try to keep one hand clean the entire time to help lay the cards down.  If not you'll find your self with a mess on your hands... literally.  Here is the rest of the progression.
 
 
 
 
Once I got 3/4 of the way down I decided to start from the left and work my way back and bridge the gap so ensure the other end had a nice clean look.
 
 
Now it was just a matter of bridging the gap.
 
 
And now the finished product!
 
 
The last thing I needed was a couple of Swanky Bar Stools.  I picked up these two from Value City and are the perfect match to complete this bar.
 
 
Talk about a transformation!  I think it looks amazing.  The only thing I have left to do is put a couple of clear coats over the bar top.  I'm undecided if I want to do a clear resin top or pick up a custom piece of glass to put on top.  Feel free to make suggestions.  Hope it inspired some of you!
 
Stay tuned for the full unveil of the Cave!
 
 
 
 

Friday, September 21, 2012

I Found $50...

Worth of Baseball Cards!  Rookie Cards to be exact.

So after watching my Orioles finish off the Red Sox I took the wife up to bed as she had passed out early in the 6th and really didn't know what to do.  It was about 10:30pm and I just wasn't tired.

I decided I'd crack a brew and head down to the Cave and work on one of my final projects.  I recently installed a bar and have been planning on doing a baseball card collage bar top.  I'm still in the lay out stage and it's driving me crazy.  Who knew it would be this difficult for me!  Anywho... my attention toward the project started to wane and I found myself gravitating towards my card catalog.

I had just picked up a new Beckett and really hadn't thumbed through the drawers in a while so I decided I'd just do some browsing to see if I had any thing nice that I wasn't really aware of.

Turns out I did!  The collection is pretty vast (although I know it pales in comparison to many other collectors) and I find I continue to add to it with out actually knowing what is in it.  So cards that I had purchased what feels like not too long ago have actually been buried under a mass of new product that I continue to acquire on a monthly basis. 

So tonight with nothing really on TV I decided to see if I could find anything of interest and I actually came up with a few Super Star Rookie Cards I really didn't know I had.

First player I'll bring up is Evan Longoria.  When Upper Deck came out with its Masterpiece Line I fell in love.  The canvas cards felt awesome and the art work looked amazing.  I bought some of the product from both 2007 and 2008.  So looking through my 2008 stack I came across a pair of his rookies from that set.


 
Book value on this is $5... but I found 2 of them and puts me at $10...
then I stumbled on an even better Longoria rookie that I had no clue was in my collection!
 
This is from 2006 Bowman Heritage and is No. BHP (Bowman Heritage Prospect) 76
This card books at $10 right now, but again I found 2 of them!  Too cool...
Now I'm up to $30...
 
However I went back to the Master Piece Line and looked through my 2007 stack and found this bad ass rookie!
 
This would be my ONLY Tim Lincecum rookie card in my collection and until tonight I didn't even know I had it!  This also books at $10.
 
However my night wasn't over yet!  I stumbled on this last rookie from Topps 52
 
This is a 2006 Topps 52 Dynamic Duos Matt Kemp and James Loney Rookie Card.  This Kemp RC actually books higher then his base rookie card from this same set and is currently at $10.
 
I do believe that is the only Kemp rookie I have also.  Honestly, who knows what other gems I have sitting in that catalog... turns out that I sure don't!  Hopefully in 20 years these $50 finds turn in to a couple hundred dollar finds!  Only time will tell. 
 
Until then...
 
I'll keep searching... you keep reading...
 
 
 

A Damn Good Friday!

So today was a damn good Friday!

It has been with out a doubt one of the most excellent ways to start off what is sure to be a great weekend!

A 3 day weekend to be specific!

I'm off Monday as I will be attending the Orioles double header against the Blue Jays from my wash out about a month ago... and am totally amped!  This means I can also stay up late Sunday night to hopefully watch the Ravens pound the Patriots on Sunday Night Football.

However what made today such an excellent day is the fact that I was one of the lucky ones....

TO BUY TICKETS TO POTENTIALLY THE FIRST PLAYOFF APPEARANCE BY THE ORIOLES IN 15 YEARS!!!

That's right folks!  Today I bought 4 tickets to Game 1 (at Camden Yards) of the ALDS!  Last week I entered the lottery for the chance to buy play off tickets and received an email last night with a special code to be able to purchase tickets for either the Wild Card game or Game 1 2 or 3 of the ALDS in Baltimore. 

I passed on the Wild Card game because in my heart of hearts I believe the Birds can over take the Yankees and win the East and for go playing in the Wild Card Game.  Now being able to go to Game 1 will either be the actual first game of the ALDS or the 3rd game of the ALDS.  BEST CASE scenario the Birds go on the road first and win the first two games and I get to watch them win the ALDS in Game 3 at home.

Regardless... I'm just amped for the chance to go to a play off game in Baltimore!  I really can't wait!

I also was able to pick up another card for the Lineage collection!  I wanted to try to get this in a trade with one of my readers but I got the feeling it wasn't going to really happen and I found it at a super good price so I jumped on it!

It's a great looking card and I believe makes for a total of 32/100 Mini Relic Cards.  I plan to do a major update on the Lineage Project very soon!  All in good time.
 
For now I'm content watching the Orioles beat the Sox 2-1 right now and hopefully sweep those guys this weekend! 
 
Till Next Time!

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

DIY: New Addition to the Cave!

So this next post doesn't really relate to baseball cards but if you recall I posted about the wife and I re felting an old table to put in my Man Cave as a poker table and it seemed quite popular with the readers... so here is my next DIY installment!

Now my wife and I bought our home a little over a year ago and since then I've been working on odds and ends to finally make my Man Cave an acceptable place to play cards, watch sports, or get sent to the dog house.  It's been slow going at times, but I've got a lot of little quirks in it that I feel will make it one of the best (in my circle anyway) and you just can't rush these kinds of things. 

About a month or two after we moved in I was on the phone with my brother and was having a random conversation and at the time I was just nosing around my basement just really getting the lay of the land.  The basement is partly finished with the one half being my Cave and the other looking more like a natural basement.  The Cave portion is walled off in a unique type of way because our hot water heater and A/C unit is set in the middle of the basement floor.  Essentially my cave has a sort of horse shoe shape to it as it is designed around this obstruction.  For most of you this may be hard to picture... so I took the liberty of drawing a photo! 

(However I didn't draw this for the sake of this post but for the lay out of how I wanted to set up my man cave... everything was scaled down so that I could see exactly how all of my furniture would fit... feel free to make fun of my anal retentive nature at any point)


Now you have a better idea of the lay out and will understand this next part of the story a little better. 

So like I was saying... I was checking out my basement talking on the phone when I went back behind the hot water heater (which would be the other side of the wall behind where you see the card catalog) and saw these two dust covered pieces of wood.  I couldn't really tell what they were because they were tucked so far back in this corner, but when I unearthed them I couldn't help but laugh at my AWESOME luck!

Now my house was built something like 50 years ago or maybe 40.... I really don't remember, but regardless the place just yielded a lot of little nifty secrets and cool shit that I couldn't believe just came with the house.  Some people might have thought this junk... I am not one of them.

Behold... the ultimate accessory for a man cave...

SALOON DOORS!  WHAAAAATTTT!!!
 
I freaked out on the phone talking to my brother.  I couldn't wait to get these things up on the wall.  Well finally a year later that started to happen.  I had found them and then stuck them in a corner to be used later.  When I went back to them and took a closer look they were all kinds of gross!  First thing I did was to remove the old hardware that was attached to the doors.
 
Stuff was nasty and rusted mostly.  After that I went to Home Depot to get new hardware so I could hang them properly.  At first they tried to sell me some hinge for an actual full sized door that was $16 per hinge... that's what you get when you ask for help I guess!  At least they got me to the right section of the store.  After a minute of scanning I came across this!
 
and only at the modest price of $6! 
 
So I took my new hardware home and started on my doors.  First thing I needed to do was clean them.  I'm sure I could've done a better job then what I did but I still think they look 100x better then what they did.  I'll likely end up painting them, but check out my before and after.
 
Before
 
After.
 
Would've looked a lot nicer if I had let my wife clean them!
(I'll pay for that later, but she knows it's in good fun)
 
So after I got them scrubbed up I went to put on the hardware!
 
 
For the most part it was easy but I did run in to a snag...
 
The holes already in the doors worked fine for the new hardware at the top, but I needed to drill new holes for the bottom hardware but ran in to a problem with the spacing of the old holes and the new ones!
 
So back to Home Depot I went.  I needed a simple wood putty to fill the old ones so I could drill my new ones!
 
This product worked great!  I simply filled my old holes and let it set up over night.  The next day I sanded them down and drilled my proper holes and attached all my hardware!  Now I was ready to mount!
 
Sadly I got so caught up in putting them up that I forgot to take some photos to document the rest of the way so lucky for you, you get to be spared these other details and get to see the final product.  Check it out!!!
 
 
They work GREAT and look hella sweet!  Who needs a crummy old door when you can have these bad bitches hanging on the wall!?!
 
Most of these doors go online for about $100 to $300!  Not a bad little find at all!  Stay tuned in the future for the full unveiling of the Cave!
 
Till Next Time... Thanks For Reading!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Where was Jackie Brandt? Nobody knows...

This is a lyric from the Orioles version of Talkin' Baseball by Terry Cashman and is a song I love to listen to every blue moon.  It has a great melody and just makes you nostalgic for the golden age of baseball. 

This particular line always caught my interest because

A. I'm not sure what it means.  It just seems kind of quirky.

B. When I was a kid and first started collecting cards this specific card was my first vintage baseball card and I still have it to this day...

1960 Topps Jackie Brandt
 
 
C. Umm... I don't think I have anything for C... but I started doing this letter system and it felt stupid to not have at least a "C" option...  Any who...
 
The reason I post about Jackie is because the wife and I went to the O's game last night and watched our beloved Orioles stomp a mudhole in the Rays beating them 9-2 with JJ Hardy hitting 2 homers both being 2 run shots.  It was just a really fun game to go to.  We ended up taking the light rail down to the stadium and it was packed with fans and we had to stand as there wasn't any seats available.  In front of us were three people sitting including a dorky looking kid and then an elderly couple and all three were attending the game.  For the first 15 minutes we all rode in silence but eventually someone broke the ice and we started talking baseball when this little kid piped up and said his grandfather used to play for the Orioles and had gotten him his ticket.  The elderly lady next to him asked who he was and he said "Jackie Brandt".
 
Well blow me down...  I told him my first vintage card ever was of his grandfather from when he was first traded from the Giants to the Orioles.  That was about the extent of our conversation but it got me thinking of this card and the song I've referenced at the start of this post.
 
I decided to dig a little bit and apparently (which could be completely false for all I know) Jackie Brandt was nick named "Flakey" because he would Flake so to speak.  Like go play 18 holes of golf when he had a double header that day.  So the line in the song... "Where was Jackie Brandt, nobody knows..." is a reference to that.
 
By all accounts Jackie was a good ball player and was an All Star and gold glove winner.  Apparently he was traded the year before the Orioles won their first World Series, a fact which his grandson had mentioned still rubs him the wrong way this day.  Regardless I still love this card and now have a neat personal experience to go along with it.  If you get a chance take a listen to the song... here is a link for it on the YouTubes...
 
 
Hope you enjoy the song and my post...
 
Till next time!


Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Monday Night Lights!!!

What an amazing time to be a Baltimore Fan!  The Orioles are playing amazing baseball and have made believers out of the entire city.  Even if we don't make the play offs... WHICH WE WILL... these birds have given me more hope for the future then I thought possible. 

Now its also football season and so far the Ravens are looking like the real deal... and if you don't think Joe Flacco is for real then call your doctor and get a check up because your sick!

I'm actually going to the Orioles vs Rays game tomorrow and I already took Monday off on the 24th to hit up the double header against the Jays from my rain out of a couple weeks ago.  Its shaping up to be a really nice fall in Baltimore!

I actually got some mail today from my brother from another mother in Arizona...  Mr. Aaum Woogrow. 

Aaum and I have always been pretty tight, but I must say that collecting cards has brought us closer together and its to the point that we keep an eye out for sweet deals that we know the other couldn't pass up.  It's because of this relationship that I now have a couple new cards to add to the collection and both are fuggin sweet!

I got a call about a week or so ago and Aaum told me about a card show going on at his local shop and that a guy had a few super nice deals on some Oriole cards and that he had already made the decision to pick them up.  I talked to him on my way home from work today and he told me he had mailed them on Saturday.  Cool I thought... I'll get'em by Wednesday! 

Well apparently the post man was bored and needed something to do because the package was already on my table when I got home.  I couldn't believe it... dropped in the mail in AZ on Saturday and in my mail box in MD on Monday.  Get a load of my mail day!

I'll start with this nice short print of the Iron Man... Calvin Edwin Ripken Jr.

This card is really nice and is numbered 442/500.
 
Next are a pair of autographed cards from Brian Roberts.  B Rob may be done by all accounts in Baltimore but the man meant a helluva lot to Baltimore at a time when we didn't have much to celebrate.  He has spent his entire career for the O's and was a 2 time All Star.  I actually got to meet him when I managed down at BWI and he was extremely nice (and has a smokin hot wife too).
 
((atleast thats what my friends said Mrs. Woogenomics))
 
Check out this Sweet Spot Auto of B-Rob.  It's actually just like the one I had of Jeter in my Lost Cards File.  Hopefully I get it back in the collection one day!
 
 
Serial numbered 67/199!
 
Next up is the real gem however... Check this card out!
 
 
SP Authenic Auto Letter numbered 9/14.  Just a beautiful looking card!  If it looks a little scuffed up its because the case has a scuff on it, but the card is pristine!
 
I did end up paying it forward to Aaum with a nice game used hockey card which doesn't sound like a fair exchange at all... and it's not.  I owe you one Aaum!
 
Thanks for reading...