Big summer blowout

Credit: http://otionsoap.com

Overall, I'm not the biggest Blowout Cards guy. I appreciate the site, but I have found the message boards to be a bit of a mess, and mostly indicative of the current state of the hobby where most collectors only care about hits and high-dollar cards. I know it's not the case for every collector on there so I don't want to generalize too much, but I've seen that in a lot in my limited interactions on the site and forums.

However, I do spend time in the TTM section of the forums. I like to see what other collectors are obtaining via TTM, and share some of my successes. For the most part, my TTM successes are my blog posts that perform the worst and get the least amount of interractions. That's ok, that's not why I blog and am not upset when a post gets little views and no comments. No big deal to me. However, the forum gives me an alternate space to share some of my successes with those who are a bit more interested.

Although, I must say, for a TTM forum, a lot of people post in-person (IP) successes. Kind of odd, but whatever. There are a lot of prolific IP 'graphers, so it can be cool to see of their loot.

From time to time, a collector will list some autographs for sale, mostly obtained IP. Recently, someone listed hundreds of cards for $.75 each, mostly of minor leaguers. While I tend to stay away from purchasing autographs that aren't certified, I have no reason to believe that members of a TTM forum are screwing people over. So I decided to take a look and see if anything struck my fancy, and as it turns out, I was able to add three new Yankee autos for a total of $2.25.

Thairo Estrada, one of ZZ's favorites, is a guy that has eluded me TTM, so I was happy to pick up this one for $.75. He's definitely under-the-radar in terms of current Yankee prospects, mostly due to the fact that he's so young. However, he had a great 2016 as a 20-year-old in mostly high-A ball, so I think his days of going unnoticed are numbered.

The second guy I picked up, and two of the same card, is Tyler Wade. Wade is one of the best, most-advanced shortstops in the Yankees system, and projects to be a solid Big Leaguer. I think we'll see him in the Bronx at some point this season. The Yanks are trying to make him into a Ben Zobrist-type to help his path to the Majors, including him playing OF in the AFL last season. He doesn't sign TTM (as far as I can tell), and I haven't picked up a Bowman auto yet, so I figured this was a decent gamble.

I don't think I'll make a habit of buying from sales like this, but it's a great option once in awhile for those tougher-to-get signatures.