JBF's World Cup of Trading

As many have undoubtedly seen, JBF of Willinghammer Risingheld his World Cup of Trading. In return for the good below, I sent Wes an 8x10 acrylic on canvas painting of Josh Willingham:

I’ll start by showing what I claimed. First and foremost, a signed Kevin Mitchell jersey:

I did feel a little bad about claiming this, as I feel a Giant fan would have really liked it. However, in a previous Big Fun Game held by Wes, I had a Mookie Wilson signed jersey and some point that was stolen from me, so I felt like this was a second chance at adding a signed jersey to my collection, which is a first for me. I do plan on hanging it alongside the area in my attic where I am organizing my cards.

I also claimed two cards:

The Andy Carey, because 1956 Topps. And the Carmelo relic? Well, I don’t really collect basketball, but Melo is a favorite of mine from my Syracuse days, and I thought it’d be cool to add a jersey swatch of his to my collection. I have a rookie card too, so I guess now I need an autograph?

As Wes usually does, he included a stack of Yankees.

I could never have enough of this card.

This is a great card. It’s like a 20 year old Superfractor, although not 1/1. It’s from 1994 Pacific Prism. I really don’t need to show any more proof on why Pacific was awesome, but I’m going to keep showing off their cards because they dominated the ‘90s, most people just didn’t know it.

Circa Thunderboomers! I already had this card, although this one is in better condition than the one I had. The hole in the wooden fence is actually clear cut. Pretty neat.

Classly looking Jeter card.

I liked these Bunt Lightforce cards. Pretty fun design, and in my opinion, what an insert card should be.

Last but not least, a confusing, yet cool set: Topps Stars N Steel. I’m not surprised this had a short shelf life, but they were actually pretty cool. They were metal! It’d be neat to see this come back as a one-off, maybe in some high end product.

Wes, my man, thank you as always!

JBF Epic Boxes: The End*

*because I've since received two more epic packages from Jaybarkerfan's Junk. 

Anyhow, this will be the finish of the two flat rate boxes from a few months ago. These were a blast to go through, and netted me a ton of awesome cards.

Pack 15

This is a cool Stadium Club Members Only team set card of Brien Taylor. Most of the set was in fact here, but I'm showing the "what could have been" Taylor. Not a bad design, although the gold chips easily.

Collector's Choice brings me back. It was my favorite set as a kid...affordable, cool inserts, parallels that weren't too obnoxious, and good designs. I miss these. They represented summer for me.

This has a crease, but I don't care. It's a sweet Jimmy Dean '92 oddball.

And the card of the pack? How could this SWEET ASS UltraPro hologram not be the card of the pack? There is just so much to this card.

Total cards in pack: 52
Running total: 551

Pack 16

Eric Hinske looks exactly like The King of Queens, right? Right?

Two sweet Mattinglys. Holy crap, look at that Select '95 Big Sticks. It's on fiyaaaahhh.

The final card of the pack? A Tino relic, baby! Can't end any better than that!

Total cards in pack: 33
Final total: 584

And there you have it! Almost 600 hundred cards between the two boxes. Wes, you are the man!

P(WE)-Town Tom delivers

P-Town Tom of the blog Waiting Til Next Year is quickly becoming PWE-Town Tom. I think this is the third PWE he has sent me in the past month or so. I saw a card that Tom had won on Listia asking if it was for trade. Indeed it was. I shot him an email that said "PWE trade?" and he replied, "I already shipped it out in a PWE this morning, so yes." Classic.

Here is the card that started it. I love holograms, especially holograms of Yankees. They are such an early '90s Upper Deck thing. I would love to see them as in insert in a newer Topps release (like Opening Day??), but that would be a lot to ask, of course. You know, issuing cards that are fun.

Tom stuffed the PWE with four cards. The Yankee Stadium card is awesome. I've been using these types of cards for TTMs when I don't have a card of a player, like a prospect or a retired player from way back. I like it better than the generic "Signature" cards.

A cool oddball Mattingly from 1990 Statline.

 Miller Huggins! Maybe this will go in Joey's HOF binder. I like these cards a lot. Very nice cardstock and texture.

Lastly, Michael Kay! I actually have this card signed my Kay from a TTM I sent him, but I didn't have a second copy. Luckily, I do now.

Thanks, Tom!

I don't always read...

...but when I do, I bookmark my pages with long baseball cards.

Ok, so I usually mark my pages digitally these days because most of my books are on my Kindle. I needed an excuse to show off this Danny Tartabull 1993 Bookermarkers card, brought to you by Listia for 50 credits.

I especially liked the short write-up on Danny. He had impressive batting skills, you know.

Tartabull contest winners! Scott Crawford and BA Benny

 I had twelve entrants into my contest to give away two Danny Tartabull TTM autos. I put the first twelve into a random.org drawing. Once a winner was picked in that one, I removed that entrant and randomized again.

Winner #1 is Scott Crawford!

Scott was then removed, and winner #2 is BA Benny!

Congrats to both! Scott, I have your address. BA Benny - shoot me an email (thelostcollectorATgmailDOTcom) with your address. Thanks to everyone for playing!

Last chance for my quick contest!

I'm giving away two Danny Tartabull signed cards. I sent him a TTM request and gave him some cards to keep, but he signed them all so I'm sharing the wealth. Go here and sign up - contest ends at 11:59 PM ET tonight. No pimping, no following, none of that. Just leave at comment on my original post here:

CLICK HERE

Quick contest for an autographed card

Anyone want to win a Danny Tartabull signed card? 

Last week, I sent a TTM request to Danny Tartabull. I have a lot of his cards, so I included a few more cards than I usually would in a standard TTM request (I usually include no more than two). I stuck a post-it note on the cards asking him to sign two and keep the rest of the cards for himself. Well, Mr. Tartabull ended up signing all of the cards – and now I have more signed cards of him than I really need.

I figured I’d share the love and give away two of them. Simply leave a comment if you’re interested now through July 31 at 11:59 PM ET and I’ll put all entries in a drawing. No extra points for following or pimping – just keeping things simple.

TTM Success: Danny Tartabull

In the early '90s, there wasn't much to cheer about for Yankees fans. They always had good players, but never managed to do much with them. One player I was fond of was Danny Tartabull. He hit HRs, drove in runs, and wore cool wrap-around shades...one of the first to do so! Looking back at his stats, he was a pretty good player. Decent BA for a power hitter and a good OBP to boot. He struck out a bit too much though. Anyways, he really was a key member in turning the bad Yankee teams around from 1993-1995. Unfortunately he didn't get a chance to play playoff baseball with the Yanks. The strike took away a sure playoff berth in 1994 and then he was traded at the 1995 deadline for Ruben Sierra.

Tartabull signed a few more cards than this for me. I actually asked him to keep a bunch for himself and he signed them all.