Saturday, January 31, 2015

2015 Goal Accomplished

Well, not one of my Top 5 goals.

A "I hope to accomplish this also" goal. Here's what I said:

Though I doubt I will have the money, I would like to add a certified Bryce Harper auto to the collection. I would also like to add a Mantle to my collection (any Mantle - I'm not picky), but I don't know if I will be able to afford it.
It isn't the Mantle that I added.

I snagged this guy:


It's the 2011 Heritage Minors Real One auto of Harper, numbered 34 of 154 (an eBay 1/1!!!). I've always liked this card, just never thought one would hit my price range.

I know what you're thinking: "Judson, bro...you said that you would have to cut back on cards once you started school! What gives?!?!"

Well, before I left my last job, I was able to close a couple deals that netted me a bit of cash, a small part of which was put away for cards. So I grabbed this one and I'm looking at a few others. This one, though, is far and away the most expensive, but I still spent less than $140 on it. I can sleep at night, so I'm okay.

Anyway, life as a PhD student has been...interesting. I teach a class that the students don't want to take. That's interesting. I am in class till 9 p.m. Monday through Wednesday. However, I have already been asked to work with a team requesting a $20 million grant (that number still blows my freakin' mind), and I will also be on the team that does the research if we get the grant. So that's cool.

So keep an eye out. I have more cards to share, but I wanted to show the Harper off a bit. I hope everyone is well out there!

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Pretty Good Day At My New LCS

I visited my new LCS today, Lone Star Sports Collectibles. It's a pretty nice shop. I bought a box of 2013 Bowman Chrome and 2014 Bowman. To say that I did pretty well might be a huge understatement.

Each box promises one auto per box. Both of my boxes had two. I wound up with four autos out of two boxes!!!!

Even more awesome: three of the four autos had color, the highest being numbered to 50.

So what did I pull???


From 2014 Bowman, a Lewis Thorpe blue wave auto numbered 7 of 50. I also pulled an Enny Romero orange wave auto, numbered 8 of 25!!!

From the 2013 Bowman Chrome box, I snagged a Cameron Gallagher base auto. The big hit of the day is the Adalberto Mejia purple auto numbered 3 of 10!!!!

The Gallagher is up for trade, but I haven't decided on the others. Feel free to make an offer, but I don't want to make it seem like I am trying to move these guys.

Monday, January 26, 2015

Holy Crap, A New Post!!!

So, I haven't blogged in a while. By now you know that I decided to get my PhD and I have little to no free time. Turns out, teaching is actually work and reading is quite essential.

But hey, I'm not one to give excuses. But I guess that qualifies as one.

Dammit.

Anyway, I picked up a new card for the Martinez PC. Let's take a look:


It's the silver version of the 2014 Pro Debut auto. This one is numbered 15 of 25.

Sadly, that's all that's new in my collecting world. Life has been good here though. Outside of all the aforementioned work, I've put together a quality group of friends outside of school to be my support group. I even found a young lady I enjoy spending time with. Don't think too much into that - my schedule is crazy and school has to come first, so we are just spending time together when we can. Nothing more.

Quick alert: if you have no interest in talk about faith, go ahead and stop reading now.

Still here? Cool, I really appreciate that. I started another blog as a spot for me to discuss some things related to my faith. I'm calling it "In The Shadow Of His Grace" and you can visit it here. This is my way of venting about how I don't really fit in to the churches I've attended. If you feel the same way, I hope you'll join the conversation! If not, no worries - I hope to still talk cardboard with you! And don't worry, this will be the last time I mention it on this blog!

Monday, January 12, 2015

I've Been MIA!!!

The move has officially occurred, and I have just been waiting for the cable guy to show up and fix my internet and cable. I got tired of waiting and fixed the internet myself, so now I can share with you all that I am, in fact, alive.

But I really don't have much to say, cardboard-wise. So let me update you on what #WalletHarry has been up to.







Wednesday, January 7, 2015

A New Matty H. For The PC

I've been watching this card for a while - even before I decided to start the Harry PC. The seller had it listed for $40 or Best Offer. I made a couple offers I thought were reasonable, but was shut down. After waiting about three months, I offered again and finally got it.

"What card?" you ask?

This card:


It's the state coin variation from 2013 Gypsy Queen! This one is numbered four of five. I've always thought the cards were neat, even though it's kind of a cheesy idea to put a coin in a card. I just kind of assumed the coin was glued in....


But it isn't! It's encases in plastic and moves freely "inside" the card. Cool enough to keep this simple mind entertained!

Speaking of Harry, if you haven't noticed already, I've added an "Adventures of #WalletHarry" page on the right-hand side. You can click on it to get a link to every #WalletHarry tweet I put out! You can also click on the link below my Twitter handle on the upper right. I plan on posting a lot, so get ready. I know some people may think this is all cheesy, but I think it is incredibly fun and I can't wait to look back on it all in 50 years!

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

A Trade Post LONG Overdue

Sometimes, I just fail miserably as a blogger.

I fail at showing my appreciation for the cards I receive from other bloggers.

One of these bloggers is Jeff of My Sports Obsession.

I sent Jess some AJ Pierzynski cards that no longer fit in my collection, not expecting anything in return. Jeff would have none of that. He sent me back a padded mailer stuffed full of goodies.


Like an idiot, I didn't scan the cards in. I just took photos of them with my phone (hence the reason I forgot to post). There were a ton of awesome cards - including a Darvish ice! - that will fit into my collection!

But wait - there's more!


More Darvish, a Cruz Heritage Chrome, and (though you can't rally see it) a Profar Future's Game relic card!

That's incredible!

Jeff, I can't thank you enough for the cards, and I am truly sorry it took me so long to thank you on the blog!

Monday, January 5, 2015

Wallet Card: The Craze Sweeping America!

In case you haven't heard by now, Gavin, a.k.a. Mr. Baseball Card Breakdown and the blogosphere's current trendsetter, came up with a great idea last Friday: stick a card in your wallet, carry it with you for a year and take pictures of it in interesting locations.

I was down with Flat Stanley, so naturally I'm going to be down with this.

My biggest problem was going to be deciding which card to use for this Great American Experiment.

Well, that really wasn't a problem at all. I didn't want vintage because I wanted something in pristine condition so I could see just how much wear and tear my wallet would cause. I obviously had to choose a Ranger, and I had to choose someone I was a fan of. Hmm....bingo!


Let me introduce you to #WalletHarry!

This is the card that I will be carrying with me for the next year. Wallet Harry will be traveling with me as I start my new journey back in the world of academia.

I made my announcement last night via Twitter:

I very nearly trimmed Wallet Harry to make him fit better in my bifold, but ultimately decided against it. I'm pretty sure at the end of all of this, I am going to send Wallet Harry to PSA to have him graded and slabbed so that I never forget this upcoming year. Hopefully it will be a year filled with good memories.

And can you imagine the look on the PSA grader's face? "Why in the hell is this guy sending a 2014 Heritage Matt Harrison in for grading when it's in this terrible condition?!" Hahahahahahahaha!!!!

Anyway, I'm creating a spot on the right-side menu bar just for Wallet Harry so you can keep up with his escapades! He's already made an appearance this morning!

Thursday, January 1, 2015

What I Want Out Of 2015

As I sit here mindlessly watching the cursor on my screen blink, I've come to a realization that what I want out of the hobby will have to adjust for the next couple of years. My budget is going to be strapped for a bit, and to be honest, I won't truly know how it will affect my collecting habits until that time arrives.

That being said, I have put a little thought into how I can change my hobby spending habits and still enjoy the hobby. Gone are the times of buying two or three boxes of random products. In are the days of buying complete sets on eBay. Gone are the Bowman Rainbow chases on eBay. In are the days of working harder to acquire cards I want in trades.

With all of that in mind, here are my Top 5 Goals of 2015.

1. Limit box purchases to three. What I mean here is that I will limit my purchases to three products. Heritage will be in the 1966 design and I'm cool with that. I will buy 1 jumbo box each of Topps Series 1, Series 2 and Update. Lastly, I will buy a box (maybe two) of Bowman. Bowman Chrome is out and Bowman Draft may be a casualty of my limited spending budget, as well.

2. Host a 2015 Topps Heritage break. I enjoy hosting breaks. For me, it's fun to open the packs and interact with people as I do it. So I intend to keep that going with 2015 Heritage. The product streets Friday, March 6. Cases are currently selling for roughly $705, so that would put each slot at $55 (choose a team, get a randomly selected team) including shipping. If a case is too much, we could do a half-case and each slot would be roughly $30. So keep all of this in your mind if you're interested.

3. Increase my followers by 10 percent. Perhaps I set my hopes too high by wishing for 50 new followers in 2014. I'm going to take a different approach this year and shoot for a 10% increase in my follower base. This comes to a total of 9 new followers. Completely doable, right?!

4. Complete the 1982 or 1983 Kellogg's 3-D Superstars set. I've been contemplating this one for a while. I've come across many of these on eBay and read about them in one of Nick's posts. These seem to still be reasonably available and affordable. Each set has a run of 60 cards (I think that's the same for each set, not 100% on that one yet), so putting together a set should be doable in a calendar year.

5. Make significant progress on my player collections. Define "significant progress," you say? Fine. I want to add ten percent of the total cards from each PC to my collection, with Luke Jackson as the exception. This means that I need to add 8 cards to the Nick Martinez PC, 32 cards to the Matt Harrison PC and a whopping 78 cards to the Rusty Greer PC. Initially, I was concerned about the Greer cards, but then I remembered that Brian, a.k.a. Mr. Play At The Plate, probably has some doubles he would part with and Sportlots has a ton of singles for cheap. No worries there. With Luke Jackson, I define "significant progress" as knocking out most of his 2011 Bowman cards. I can do that.

So those are my Top 5 Hopes and Dreams for collecting in 2015. But that's not all I want to do. There are a few other things that I hope to accomplish during the year, but I won't count them against myself if I don't.

I want to see if I can put out the once-monthly newsletter that I talked about a bit ago. Daniel said he's interested in helping out, but I definitely need others since I will be starting grad school again.

I want to continue adding to my Bowman Autograph Project. I was able to snag the base auto of every Ranger featured in this year's Bowman, Bowman Chrome and Bowman Draft products, all for very reasonable prices. Next year should be no different, though the Rangers have the fourth pick in next year's draft, so that auto (assuming it is in '15 Draft) could be pricey. Also, I need to find a better checklist for the signors for the various Bowman products and update my list accordingly. I am pretty certain my list isn't correct.

I've said it  million times but have yet to act on it. 2015 will see me make it happen: I will make MCH more aesthetically pleasing. I will come up with a custom banner at bare minimum, but hopefully I will have a complete redesign of the page.

Though I doubt I will have the money, I would like to add a certified Bryce Harper auto to the collection. I would also like to add a Mantle to my collection (any Mantle - I'm not picky), but I don't know if I will be able to afford it.

And there are many more things I would like to accomplish. (I cringe at beginning that sentence with "And") Hopefully, these will give me a bit of a good start for the year. I think that perhaps my Top 5 are  a bit more realistic than last year's, which were made without much consideration. It has taken me three days to write this post and I have narrowed down many hopes into just five. All that's left is for me to make them happen.

Happy New Year, everyone!!!

(PS - If you think you might be interested in the Heritage break, it doesn't hurt to say so in the comments below!!!)