Breaking a Bowman Blaster

Well, indeed it has been an awful start to the summer. It literally rained from Friday evening right up through last night. Plus, temperatures were in the high 40s. What a mess! I did use some time to organize my disaster of a card area, including deciding to order a BCW card bin to house my Tino collection. I am saying goodbye to binders.

Yesterday I needed a pick me up, and got it while watching the Indy 500. I got an email ping on my phone that a blaster of 2021 that I had ordered from Target had been delivered. I went outside and quickly rescued the box, which was getting poured on. Luckily, the box held up and the cards were fine.

I know it's fun around these parts to crap on Bowman, but I am not one of these people. I like Bowman more than most. In fact, I would rather open Bowman than:

• Allen & Ginter
• Gypsy Queen
• Heritage
• Stadium Club
• Big League
• Opening Day
• Donruss

I like the mix of current players, rookies, and prospects, including a draftee's first Bowman card. I like the inserts, which usually are very shiny. I like the chance at a prospect autograph.

Let's start with the RCs. I was glad to get Clarke Schmidt, as well as a few others like Alec Bohm and Jo Adell. Schmidt just started a throwing program in hopes of coming back later this year. He's got a world of talent, but it is starting to feel like he'll never be one who is healthy. I hope I am wrong.

I did land one parallel as well, a blue pApEr of Rockies catching prospect Drew Romo.

On to the Chromes, where the highlight was Blaze Jordan of the Red Sox. Sweet name. Not sweet team. I hope he doesn't torment the Yankees for years. This card alone will pay for at least half the price of the blaster.

I did ok with the inserts, although in pack 2 my day was made when I pulled a Jasson Dominguez Scouts Top 100. I have a couple Dominguez cards already, but this is the first time I pulled one for myself from a pack.

Here's the rest of my inserts. They always pack a lot of shine.

The weather looks better today to salvage some of the weekend, but overall, I'm happy with my blaster, as it helped save a rainy day.

Staying Melo on Memorial Day Weekend

Man, what a shitty Memorial Day Weekend.

The forecast calls for rain all weekend, as well as record low temps here in New Jersey. This is a very 2020 thing to happen...not 2021! It's especially disappointing after last weekend was in the '90s. The town pool opens today, but no one will be there.

I'm especially bummed because I really needed a nice, relaxing long weekend after a tiring few weeks at work. I guess nothing will stop it from being relaxing, but there's not much to do other than sit inside. I'd rather be out on the patio with a drink and enjoying the weather.

Regardless, I can't control the weather. But I can control my mood. And I hope to stay mellow. Or Melo. Just like my newest basketball card.

I totally missed collecting during Carmelo Anthony's prime, as I not only stopped collecting during many of those years, but stopped buying basketball cards. However, I do like to pick up Carmelo cards here and there, and an autographed card by him is high up on my want list.

For now, I'll grab singles here and there. I especially liked the shiny foil look of this one, plus it shows him in a Syracuse uniform.

I hope your weather is better than mine this weekend. But most importantly, I hope you all can relax and stay Melo.

Mantle lives on

A recent development in the trading card industry is that Mickey Mantle (or rather his estate), is once again part of the Topps family.

From the '90s right up through the last few years, Mantle was a staple in Topps products. Whether it was constant dedicated insert sets that no one was asking for, or inclusion into base sets, Mantle was always there. And he was there basically to the point where it wasn't special to get a Mantle card in a pack, which is sort of a weird feeling. He was just another guy in a pack.

But then his estate's Topps deal expired and he became a Panini guy. And while Panini didn't bash us over the head with Mantle, he was included in most sets, such as Diamond Kings and Optic.

In the last few weeks, Topps has brought Mantle back into the family, and he made his return in the Topps Living set. I haven't bought a Living Set card in a few years, and don't pay much attention to it, but I thought this card was really nice looking, so I snagged a pre-order on eBay for a few bucks and it arrived yesterday:

I think it's just a simple, classy looking card.

I'm sure Mantle will once again be shoved down our throats, but for now, it's nice to see him back.

I'm basically Mel Kiper

Around the time fo the NFL Draft last month, Elliptical Man of View from the Third Floor held a contest. All you had to do was select five players who you thought a particular team would draft. To make it a little tricker, you could not choose one of the projected first three players since they were fairly set in stone.

Being a Bengals fan and keeping an eye on mock drafts, I decided to roll the dice. I only got one out of five players right, but the one was Ja'Marr Chase, their 5th overall pick. I felt like everything was trending toward the Bengals choosing him, and luckily I was right and victory as mine.

The Elliptical Man sent me a PWE full of football cards. Here are a few highlights:

Thanks for the contest!

A buck buck buck for #1,100

I'm ripping off Collecting Cutch's post today, where he won a sweet Andrew McCutchen Panini relic /5 for just a buck.

I too won a cool card for just a buck, and it has the double bonus of being unique Tino #1,100 for me! 

Last August, I hit 1,000 Tino cards, so it took me about 9 months to secure 100 more. Not too bad at all.

Anyhow, the card is from 2000 Stadium Club Chrome, and is the Refractor. I wouldn't say this is an overly rare card. It's not numbered to /5 or anything. However, I don't recall seeing it pop up on eBay, so I quickly snagged it for $.99 plus $.99 shipping.

This was actually a pretty sweet Stadium Club design. Fairly minimalist with a lot of room for the photo. Name within a pennant with the team logo just to the right. Very sound design and very baseball-y. I also like how Tino is seen rounding second base after what appears to be a homer.

I was glad to get this card for a buck, and nice to have another round number for my Tino collection.

Gold borders 27 years apart

I had two Tino Martinez cards come in this past week. They couldn't have been more different, yet they shared one common trait.

Gold borders.

The first was was Allan Kaye's Sports Card News and Price Guides. It's uncommon when a Tino from 1992 I hadn't seen pops up, but sure enough, this one did. I was unfamiliar with it, which is definitely surprising since I have a sound grasp on most of Tino's early stuff. But sure enough, I didn't have it, and it was a quick and easy eBay win.

I was surprised to see gold foil borders on this card, as that was still fairly rare for 1992 and generally oddballs were made fairly cheaply. I appreciate the effort, as well as the nice, clean design.

The other was from 2019 Archives Snapshots, a set I have little use for. But when a low-numbered Tino is available, I'll snag it if the price is right. In this instance, the card is hand-numbered 04/10. Weirdly, I also own the gold autograph numbered 04/10.

These two Tino cards put me at 1,099. Just one away from another round number!

Too many Tinos

One of the nice gestures in the hobby is when someone is at a card shop, card show, or just flipping through their collection and they come across a card that they think you might like.

I recently got a Twitter DM from Dennis over at Too Many Verlanders. He was at a card show, and said he picked this up at a show and wanted to check if I needed it.

Indeed, I did! As I did not have this particular card numbered to 350. 

Within a few days, the card arrived safely in a PWE.

I'm still surprised when people do this. It has happened many times over my decade of blogging, but it still strikes me by surprise that someone was at card show, flipping through cards, and snagged one with the intention of sending it to me if I needed it.

Great gesture by Dennis, and an excellent addition to my Tino collection.