Trade Bait: Restocking the Stockings with Game-Used Stockings

Cards for trade. Take a look and let me know if anything strikes your fancy.

Joe Morgan: 2012 Topps Historical Stitches

Rick Hague: 2009 UD Signature Stars USA Star Prospects Jersey Autographs #ed 154/399

Michael Young: 2008 Allen & Ginter Relics

Esmil Rogers: 2010 Topps Chrome Rookie Autographs

Jerry Sands: 2011 Topps Pro Debut Materials (some creasing around swatch)

Adam Lind: 2012 Allen & Ginter Relics

Jim Thome: 2004 Ultra Turn Back the Clock Jersey

 

David Ortiz: 2010 Topps Heritage Clubhouse Collection Relics

Johnny Damon: 2012 Allen & Ginter Relics

Cole Rohrbough: 2008 Playoff Contenders Season Ticket Autographs

B.J. Upton: 2012 Topps Golden Moments Relics

Martin Prado: 2012 Topps Golden Moments Relics

Nomar Garciaparra: 2003 Sweet Spot Swatches

Ruben Sierra: 2005 Bazooka Blasts Bat Relics

Justin Upton: 2009 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions Memorabilia

Duanel Jones: 2011 Donruss Elite Extra Edition Franchise Futures Signatures #ed 616/890

Ian Kinsler: 2010 Upper Deck Game Jersey (crease around swatch)

Scott Rolen: 2004 Flair Diamond Cuts Game Used

Cole Hamels: 2007 Sweet Spot Sweet Swatch Memorabilia

Chad Billingsley: 2009 Topps Heritage Clubhouse Collection Relics

Kosuke Fukudome: Allen & Ginter Relics

Leave me a comment or send me an email (dustinhoff86(at)gmail(dot)com) if you want anything here and make me an offer. I'm looking for similar cards for my player collections, or other things off my want lists. And don't forget to check out the trade bait page for other cards. Thanks for looking.

Early Cootmas: Discount Heritage Blaster

The wife and I already had our Christmas, before we headed up north to see the rest of the family. She gifted me a blaster of 2012 Topps Heritage, which actually means I found a discounted blaster I wanted at Target, wrapped it, and then put her name on it. Happy Cootmas to me.

As far as book value goes, this was the big score of the box. I guess these are somewhat rare. I could really care less about the BV, though, of course. This is a really cool card. I'm a Kennedy fan, watch any documentary I can find on the Kennedy family, yet I don't think I recall seeing a photo of him from his college days looking this young.

Next up, a foursome of rookies. Pretty cool that Lawrie scores both the rookie trophy and the logo.

A gaggle of floating heads. Or perhaps the proper term for a bunch of floating heads is a herd, a flock, a murder, a decapa-party?

I snagged a few nice inserts. I especially dig the Koufax, though I'm pretty sure it will end up in a trade package eventually, with all the Dodgers traders out there.

And here are the short prints. You could certainly do worse than this for a group of SPs, as far as players go.

Overall, it was a fun box to open, besides the fact that there wasn't a single Tiger in here. Before this, I'd only opened one pack of this year's heritage, and I have to say I dig the design. I'd only buy it at discount, and I wouldn't collect the set, but it was fun. This made for a good start to a Vealtones Cootmas.

No Average Trade, No Average Verlander

At this point, most of you probably know all about Jason and his great blog Joe Average Collector. I was lucky to chat with him and trade with him early on in his blogging career, and we've had some amazing trades since. And they all started with one card Jason originally offered me, a card I still can't believe I own:

What an extremely stunning card. This is my first Verlander patch card, and that's about the primest patch one could get. I think this is my favorite Verlander card I own, and one of the shiniest gems in the collection.

 

And with this trade, Jason, being the super generous guy he is, threw in a bunch of sweet extras:

 

 

More Verlanders, including a 2006 rookie.

 

 

We also traded for this very cool All-Star Avila card.

 

So, that was our first trade, and since then, Jason just keeps sending me awesome cardboard:

 

Such as this dynamic duo of vintage and new, well-loved and manu-patched, all-star and hall-of-famer. This was our second trade, which leads to our most recent one.

 

For this most recent trade, Jason dug into his vintage and found a bunch of great gems. Here we have a quad of my favorites, '68s and '58s. This Charley card might be the most unmanly card of a Tiger ever, which makes it perfect.

 

He also sent a woodgrain '55 Bowman Tiger I needed. Zuverink only started a couple dozen games for the Tigers, but his vintage visage was one I needed for my vintage Bowman Tigers team sets.

 

To wrap up this vintage trade, here's a complete work of baseball card art. I absolutely love this card, Gray's portrait, his somewhat sneaky-looking smirk. The background is so cool too. Man, this is one of the best cards I've seen in a while. Good luck, modern cards, in trying to compete with this.

 

Oh, yeah, there is that. Sorry, '53 Gray. This card is a bit more thrilling.

 

Thanks, Jason, for an amazing trio of trades. Be sure to check out Joe Average Collector's Blog for tons of great writing, and if you're lucky enough to get to trade with him, you won't be disappointed.





Acquiring Iconic Rookies: The Toddfather

I'm always looking for them, those iconic rookies of hall of famers or future hall-of-famers or near-missers like the unfairly ignored Sweet Lou Whitaker.

Well, here's one of those rookies every collection needs:

It's a very awkward Mr. Helton from 1993 Topps Traded with his aluminum bat and his USA uniform. What's not to love about this? Sometimes a rookie card is like looking at embarrassing pictures of someone posing for their freshman year Chess Team photo.

I snagged this off of eBay for $1.50 shipped, which is a pretty decent deal. This card has definitely become more affordable lately, it seems.

Helton's gearing up for his 17th year with the Rockies. He's also reaching his 40th birthday. He's likely looking at his last season or close to it. It'll be the end of an era for Rockies fans, I'm sure. I doubt there's a player that's more of a posterboy for that team. Without a doubt, though, this is what I'd call an iconic rookie card of the '90s.

Bowman Heritage Packs from the LCS

This post comes to you from one of my favorite local card shop's, All-Star Sports Cards in Grand Rapids, Michigan. If you're ever in the area, visiting this place is a must. The workers are the nicest people you'll ever meet, the store is clean and organized, and there are tons of great bargain boxes. So, OK, onto the loot.

Speaking of dime boxes:

I wasn't collecting in 2006, so I missed out on this set, which I think was maybe one of those hobby shop giveaway type deals. Anyway, these are from Topps Rookie of the Week, and they're all Archive-style reprints. Well, I'm sure you've all seen these.

I've seen them before, but they sure look nice together. I only snagged these 13 out of the dime box. I'll probably try to eventually finish this set. You can't really beat it, if you're a rookie/archive collector.

The best part of my last trip, though, was by far the discount packs I found. I had to do a double-take when I saw they had 2007 Bowman Heritage packs for $1.50 each. That's a crazy good deal for hobby, and an even crazier good deal if this happened to be your favorite modern set, which it is.

I think I bought 8 packs, for the price of a discount blaster. I'll spare you the whole thing. These are the short prints. These were all doubles. In fact, almost everything I got was a double. Here was the only base card that I needed:

I needed this Varitek for the set I'm still trying to finish. What a great card this is, though. The catcher's gear looks awesome, especially with the thick black outlines characteristic of this design.

These were my favorite one-per-pack rainbow parallels. I'm still not sure if I'll go after this parallel set. Probably not. But these are great-looking cards regardless. Snagging the Mantle was a good find.

I even managed a hit in these packs. A Curt Schilling jersey isn't too bad. As much as I love this set, the Pieces of Greatness GU set never really blew me away.

So, one measly card closer to finishing my set. I loved opening those packs, but they didn't help me make much progress. Maybe you can? Check out my set want list if you have any 2007 Bowman Heritage cards to trade.

Card Show-off: Epic Vintage Bargains

Along with all the great stuff I got out of the dime boxes from the South Haven show, I also picked up a few vintage gems.

I love catchers, vintage Tigers, and 1956 Topps. What a perfect combo. Toss in a play at the plate in the background, and the fact that this cost me a buck, and what can be better?

Well, maybe this:

An iconic rookie card I didn't think I'd ever own when I was a kid. This is the mini version, and it's in pretty great shape, aside from a creased corner and a little damage on the others. I bet you couldn't guess what I paid for this. One dealer had a box full of great vintage cards marked half off. I lumped this into a deal for about seventy cards I pulled from his dime box. I ended up paying $6 for this. What a steal, right? I'm so happy to add this to my rookie collection, and it makes me love it even more with the crazy deal I got.

Card Show-off: Sweet, Sweet Dime Boxes

I just attended a card show last weekend, but I won't post about it here, as I am backlogged with not one, but two card shows I still haven't posted about prior to the most recent one. I can't think of a better way to jump back into a few weeks off of blogging than to do some card show posts. Who doesn't love a card show post?

So, this one was in South Haven a few months back. South Haven is a little tourist beach town on the coast of Lake Michigan, and they somehow manage three or four card shows a year. They're small shows, but the dealers are all super nice and I always find great stuff.

Some sweet dime box finds:

Sweet Lou, that is.

More from the dime boxes. I snagged a bunch of Archives from the '90s, and here are a few of my favorites. Yogi and Duke earn honorary awesome-status and get to hang with the Tigers.

I also found these reprints in the dime boxes. I have a lot of trouble turning down interesting reprints for a dime.

Some sweet Pudge cards. I'm getting close to a binder page full of 1991 Topps Traded Pudge doubles. I just can't not pick these up for a dime.

And a few Ripkens I needed.

These were just random cards I liked. I love these framed Gypsy Queen cards. Intrigue caught me with the Griffey; I didn't recognize the make of it. Mother's Cookies? And this is my first 1993 Finest card. When I was a kid, I dreamed about being able to afford a pack of '93 Finest.

Last up were some of the more impressive rookies I found in the dime boxes. Believe it or not, this is not the first time I've found a Halladay rookie in a dime box. I'd been trying to find a Oswalt rookie for a good deal for a long time, but I didn't expect to get it for a dime. It's pretty unlikely I'd pick up a Shawn Green rookie, even if it was a dime, unless it's a 1992 Topps gold parallel. In my head I still imagine these as super rare, exotic cards. I remember sending away 347 wrappers for three gold cards when I was a kid.

And finally, one more rookie:

This may be the best thing I ever found in the dime boxes. A for-realsie Topps Derek Jeter rookie. The bottom isn't cut off. It was just my scanner. But you can see why this was in a dime box. There's some paper loss at the bottom. Still, what a deal, right? I can't help liking Jeter, since he's from Kalamazoo, and he's just a fun player to watch.

I actually got into an argument with a colleague of mine at the bar during the playoffs. She heard me saying I respected Jeter, and she had a little blow up. I hadn't heard this, but apparently Jeter gives the girls he sleeps with gift baskets on their way out in the morning that include signed baseballs and, I don't know, Yankee-brand bubble baths. She pointed out how insulting that is. But, hell, that's better than most of the world gets (both men and women) after a one night stand. My wife and I agree--you could do worse than getting a signed Jeter baseball after sleeping with a celebrity.

This wraps up my dime box card show post. I have one more post to do from this show, and then I'll get to the others...eventually.