Panda Watch 2012

"The mood is tense!"

Nah, I just really liked that line from Anchorman. (Brian Fantana reporting live from the San Diego Zoo)

Seriously though...

PANDA WATCH 2012... THE MOOD IS TENSE!

As you all know by now the San Francisco Giants swept the Detroit Tigers to win their second World Series in three years.

The MVP of the Series went to Pablo Sandoval aka Kung Fu Panda.

Panda joined a rare group of athletes that include Albert Pujols, Reggie Jackson, and the greatest player of all time, Babe Ruth, when he hit 3 home runs in Game 1 of the World Series.

He is also the only one of the group to do it in 3 consecutive at bats.

Sandoval ended The Series hitting .500 and earned himself World Series MVP.

Sandoval now has 2 World Series rings and 2 All Star appearances to go along with his new MVP trophy and yet up to this point his cards have remained extremely affordable. 

As a matter of fact I happened to pull a Sandoval auto from one of the many packs of Topps Lineage I've opened since attempting to collect the entire set.  Here it is below.

Currently the book value on this card tops out at $15.

 

My questions to you, the reader, is if you think this card will increase in value by the next time Beckett releases an updated price guide or if you think it will stay flat.

 

Let me know what your best guess is in the comments section.

 

Let's just see how much some new hardware can increase the value of a players card!

 

Stay Tuned for the Fat Head write up!

 

Thanks for reading.

Lineage Trade!!!

PREVIOUSLY ON THE LOST CARDS FILE:

Woogie reminisced about the ALDS

That bastard also got all sappy about his out of his league wife

and let us not forget that tantalizing cliff hanger about his Lineage Trade

and that's what you missed on....

(SCI FI NARRATOR VOICE)

THE LOST CARDS FILE

Well, now that we're all up to speed, let us discuss this Lineage Trade!

I got an email from a guy by the name of Mike in regards to my Lineage Project informing me that he had some cards from my needs list.  Mike had told me he was also thinking about putting together a complete mini set from Lineage and that was how he stumbled on to my blog.  Mike told me he could help me out with some cards, but I'd have to make a pretty good offer to get all the cards I had wanted off of my list.
He threw out some cards he liked from my Trade Bait section and told me he was a Tigers fan.

So I put together my best offer and he told me it was too good to pass up and a trade was struck!  Here is that package I put together for Mike!

I put in my Ryan Perry Peak Performance Auto and Clete Thomas Piedmont Auto as well as an Ian Desmond Chicle Auto.

 

As well as an SP Legendary Cuts dual jersey card of Delmon Young and Gary Sheffield, a Tier 1 Albert Pujols Jersey card, and lastly the Ivan Rodriguez Captured on Canvas Jersey card I scored previously in a trade from Fuji.

 

Then I also threw in the Lineage Matt Batts auto (a card I really loved) and my Chicle Hobrecht Auto /10, and this very nice Adrian Gonzalez 1/1 Sketch card!

 

Lastly

A Tribute Ty Cobb base, a Tier 1 Cabrera base, an Al Kaline All Time Fan Favorite parallel /299, and 1 1978 Lou Whitaker rookie card.

 

In return I got a huge selection of Lineage Cards that helped bring my mini relic number up to an even 40 as well as nearly 2 dozen parallels and insert cards I needed.  Check them out!

 

75 Mini Mize, Oswalt, Wagner, Beltre, Ichiro, Ortiz, Gutierrez, and Kershaw

 

Diamond Parallel Musial, Fielder, Volquez, Rodriguez, and Pujols

 

Platinum Fukodome, Butler, Lee, Price, and Jeter

 

Stand Ups Hernandez and Howard, 3D Longoria, Clothe Sticker Snider, and Venezuelan Bautista

And Finally... Mini relics of Carpenter, Thomas, Beltre, Helton, Ethier, Zimmerman, Longoria, and Uggla!

 

The Frank Thomas was by far the Crown Jewel of this trade for me!

A huge thanks to Mike for helping me out with my project.  Still need a lot more cards!

 

Lastly a shot of all 40 mini relics I have so far.

 

60 to go...

 

Stay tuned for my next post about my Fat Head!

 

 

Till next time...

 

ALDS and Anniversary

So it's been a few weeks since I posted anything and you may have noticed the last time I posted it was right after Baltimore beat Texas in the Wild Card game to send my Baltimore Orioles to the ALDS for the first time in 15 years. 

As you know I was lucky enough to have gotten tickets to Game 1 at Camden Yards and while the game was great up till the top of the 9th, the experience as a whole was amazing!

I was able to pick up 4 tickets to Game 1 when I was selected in a lottery to purchase tickets before the general public which guaranteed me tickets to Game 1.  At the time I had the option to purchase tickets for either the Wild Card game or Games 1, 2, or 3 of the ALDS.

At the time Baltimore was in a dead heat for the AL East title and I decided that I wasn't going to waste money on Wild Card tickets for a game we may not even play in and if we won the East then game 2 or 3 may not happen either if the Orioles went on the road and one the first two games and had the chance to clinch the ALCS in the first game at Camden Yards. 

So Game 1 was the only logical choice at the time.  I knew I was going to take the wife, but at the time didn't talk to anyone else about going with me.  However, I assumed someone would want to buy the other 2 tickets and so I went ahead and bought 4 tickets to Game 1.  Lucky for me I didn't have to look very far as I ended up giving the other 2 tickets to my twin brother.

So as I stayed up late and watched as the Orioles took down a Texas club that was a sure favorite for the World Series I got to experience a feeling I hadn't felt since I was a 12 year old boy.

The Orioles were going to the ALDS and this new sensation that came along with that feeling of jubilation was the shock value that I was going to be able to see them play in Game 1 at Camden Yards!

Game 1 was set for Sunday and unfortunately the weather wasn't looking too good.  I knew they'd get the game in and the four of us (my brother took his son) all braved the elements and settled in for what was sure to be a good game but ultimately heart breaking.

Here is a shot of Camden Yards during our rain delay.  We waited a little over 2 hours past the original start time to see Play Off Baseball in Baltimore for the first time in 15 years.  It was worth it!

At first we tried to stay in the concourse to stay out of the rain but eventually we bought some ponchos and sat in our seats and enjoy the liquid sunshine.

 

This is me and my Queen with our Orange Ponchos trying to stay warm and dry.  We were about as successful as the Orioles... Close but not quite there.

 

Here is my Twin and his Son as well.  You can see a clear difference in our personalities.

 

Yes, my brother wears his sunglasses at night...

 

Finally the game was all set to start!

 

You can see the Oriole Bird waving an Orange Banner just in shallow Left Field.  You can see the house was packed and dominated by Oriole Fans!

 

 

Here is a great shot of the Ware House and Score Board.  It was just an amazing feeling be at that game!

 

Everyone got an Orange Towel to waive at the game and I also picked up a Score Card to keep for the rest of my life.  I'm not sure how I'll put them on display but I'll put them all together to hang in the Cave.  Check it out.

 

Orange Towel

 

I was originally looking for a program, but they only made these Score Cards instead.

 

Lastly I didn't get a traditional ticket stub, but this will do me just fine.  I may go back and print a color version on some nice stock paper for framing purposes, but this is what got me in to the game!

 

 

Even though we lost I'll never forget this game and I couldn't be happier to have spent it with the people closest to me in my life.  Pardon the sappy aspect... but it's the truth.

 

Lastly, today is my 3 year wedding anniversary.  My wife is the Queen of my Castle and is awesome for just allowing me the time to write this quick post.  Her cousin is an artist and as a wedding present gave us a piece of original work that I just got framed (finally) for her anniversary present.  It turned out great and we love it so much we hung it in our living room! 

 

A special thanks to Tina from White Rabbet Gallery in Havre De Grace, MD.  Tina has done work for The American Visionary Arts Museum and has worked on project for Baltimore Legend John Waters. She did an amazing job on the frame and took great care to protect our one of a kind piece of art work! Check her out at www.whiterabbetgallery.com

 

Lastly

 

I previously posted that I was looking for some more help on my Lineage Project and while I only got one response from that post it turned out to be a huge lead and we just pulled off a massive trade!  Stay tuned for that post!

 

Thanks for reading!

 

O's beat Rangers

Going to the Yard on Sunday.  I can't wait!!!

PUBLIC ENEMY #1 CAPTURED!!!

That's correct! 

Yeah, you heard me!

I nabbed the big one!  The top dog!

I got Woogies Most Desired card back!  Via Trade!

NO BIG DEAL...

Okay...

BIIIIIGGG DEEEAAALLL!!!!

So I've taken to hitting the electronic bay looking for some Lost Cards and when I find them I'll sometimes send the seller a message asking if they'd be interested in a trade if their item doesn't sell. 

I'm not sure if it's against the rules or not, but I don't feel like it is.  If they sell it, more power to them.

So recently I found my precious and sent the seller a standard trade offer.  I offered up a couple nice autographs and told him my store of The Lost Cards file and gave him the link to my blog and waited for a response.  I really didn't hold out much hope as I had not been lucky in these endeavours, but what the hell... right?

Naturally the response I got back was... "very neat web blog page, but I don't think i will trade the ______ card, but I'll let you know if I changed my mind"

Again, I wasn't holding out any hope on this but the latter part of his statement made me check back every other day until his item had expired.

Well it happened last night.

I checked my messages and found that he responded again and said he didn't sell the item after all and wanted to know if I had any Reds cards. 

I quickly went down to the Cave and pulled together and offer and threw it on the table.  Here is what I gave up...

1987 signed in person Pete Rose autograph, 2012 Tier 1 Chris Heisey auto, Jay Bruce dual relic card also from Tier 1 (numbered to 50) and lastly an Edwin Encarnacion Stroke of Genius auto from 2008 UD Masterpieces.  As incentive I also threw in this Dustin Pedroia dual relic auto from 2008 Topps Tribute.

 

In addition to those game used/auto cards I added a pair of vintage Reds cards I had.

 

 

1974 Topps Johnny Bench, and 1975 Topps Pete Rose.

 

All that in exchange for this one beautiful card that I've wanted back more then any other Lost Card in the file!

 

My Precious...

 

 

Welcome back Brooks... I missed the hell out of you!

 

Stay tuned for updates to the Lost Cards most WANTED page and possible a new page to chronicle those cards I've traded to obtain my Lost Cards.

 

Thanks for reading!