I Finally Tried checkoutmycards.com

Based on the recommendations of many fellow bloggers, I decided to give checkoutmycards.com a whirl. I've mostly used ebay in the past and tried sportsbuy.com once. Checkoutmycards is, I think, another great option. The cards are easy to search and everything is scanned unlike some of the other card buying sites. I had a little trouble keeping track of how much money I had left to play with because of the various options on how to purchase the cards, but nothing too major. The one thing I don't like is that the shipping seems a little high. The first card costs $3 and each card after that is .25. That can add up quickly. A good way to work around that though (it'll make you feel a little better anyway) is to use the Make A Bid feature. That way you can bid every card down at least the cost of shipping and whamo, shipping is Free! Here's what I got for my first $20 (shipping was $8.50).

I picked up 5 cards of my favorite current Cowboy. Jason Witten is a badass and pretty much all around good guy. He has saved Romo's ass on so many occasions, it's not even funny. I've been neglecting my football collecting so I figured I'd better pick a couple players and focus on them.

I also grabbed these 2 cards of Dirk Nowitzki. I've probably got more cards of Dirk than any other player, but I didn't have these. Dirk recently passed the 20,000 career point mark moving him into the top 35 scorers all-time. He's still got several years left to play so he might even be able to make it to the top 10 before he's done.

The next 15 cards I got are all of Mark Aguirre. Mark was the whole reason I became a Mavs fan in the first place and along with Dirk he's my favorite Maverick. The 2 Star cards cost a couple of bucks each, but I think the rest were about a quarter. Unfortunately there don't seem to be a whole lot of cards of Mark as a Maverick. I don't know if no one was making NBA cards his first few years in the league or what, but anything prior to about '85 seems almost impossible to find.

Mark was traded to Detroit a couple months after I moved to Dallas. I was devastated. I had lived in Indiana prior and was really excited to be able to watch all the Mavs games on tv once I got to Texas. I'm glad he got a couple rings with the Bad Boys in Detroit, but man, it would have been nice if he could have done it here.

Mark finished his career in a Clippers uniform, which will never look quite right to me. I still can't believe Cubes hasn't retired his number yet. Brad Davis is hanging up there, but no Mark. What's the deal? There should be 4 retired Mavs jerseys for sure 12, 22, 24 and someday, 41. Oh, well. Check out checkoutmycards.com. It's a nice site and very easy to find what you are looking for. Maybe a little to easy. You'll probably end up spending more than you should, but that's what makes it fun, right? Later.

2010 Topps - First Pack of the Season is a Good Sign!

Well, I'm definitely not the first person to post about 2010 Topps being live, but I figure I might as well put my 2 cents in anyway. I checked the nearest Target last night, but they didn't have any. Today I called a few more and what do you know, the one closest to my work had them. (Brian, the Target on Marsh, near Love Field has them.) I grabbed 6 packs and, of course, had to open the first right away in the parking lot. The other 5 were supposed to be for Nobie to open, but he got in trouble at school, so he has to wait until tomorrow. Anyway, I'm not really a superstitious guy, but maybe I should be after opening this first pack of the season. Let's see what we got.

Woo Hoo! First card of the first pack of the season and we pull a Ranger. That right there means they'll win the pennant at least, I just know it. What else can it mean? I like Chris Davis a lot, I just hope he has a better year than he did last year. Not sure if I've ever seen anyone wearing eye black and sunglasses before. Maybe I just don't pay enough attention.

Here are the rest of the base cards in the pack. I know many people out there don't particularly care for this year's design, but I like it a lot. The only small gripe I have is that the team names seem a little too large in some cases, I think just using the logos would have been better.

We got a couple of inserts as well, including one of current Rangers President Nolan Ryan. Another Ranger! That's got to mean a trip to the World Series right? Two current Rangers in the first pack of the season, what's the deal? I like the Toppstown cards better this year than last, though they don't have the large team logos in the background like I remember on the previews. Which brings us to the last card of the pack. (It wasn't really last, but I had to add a little drama.)

What the heck? Another Ranger? Yes, sir. Turkey Red Ian Kinsler means the Rangers will for sure win the World Series this year. I'm not sure I should open anymore packs this season, I don't want to jinx them after all. I know Brian will back me up when I say this is a great start to what will hopefully be a great season for the Rangers. Good luck to the rest of you cheering for your favorite teams, but watch out for Texas! Opening day can't get here soon enough. Later.

Something Wicked This Way Comes.

When you get a yellow bubble mailer from South Florida in your mailbox, you know it's gonna be good and this was no exception. Wicked sent my a nice package recently that was a total surprise because I had forgotten all about the card he had posted for trade. What makes the whole thing great is, not only did he send the requested card, he threw in a ton more. Check 'em out.

This gold Fleer Ultra Pujols was the only card I had inquired about getting a hold of, I needed it for my PC. The Elway was thrown in as a bonus and any Elway is always a bonus in my opinion. That's not all though. Apparently, Wicked needed to clean out some basketball, and to that I say, "Bring it on!"

First up, we've got Hakeem the Dream. Notice on the Skybox he was still going by Akeem. I used to know why he changed it, but I've forgotten. Anyway, Hakeem has always been a favorite of mine ever since his Phi Slamma Jamma days. The first pair of basketball shoes I ever bought with my own money were a pair of Pro Keds that I had seen him wearing in Sports Illustrated. My parents had already bought my basketball shoes for the year, but when I saw them on Hakeem I just had to have a pair for myself.

Next up is Cheryl's little brother Reggie. I lived in Indianapolis during my high school years when Reggie was drafted. I watched him play many times at Market Square Arena and I even had a life-size growth chart poster of him in my room that I got at a game. The Pacers as a result are my official 2nd favorite team behind the Mavs.

Detlef Schrempf was drafted by the Mavericks, then was traded to the Pacers and later to the Sonics. I think he ended his career with some spare franchise up in Portland (sorry Guy and TJ).

The Mailman. I always had a love/hate relationship with Karl Malone. I loved him as long as he wasn't beating up on the Mavs, in which case I hated him. That must be the Pony Express version of the Mailman on that middle card. I wonder if he had an extra tall horse to ride.

Finally, Wicked sent a nice mish mash of Mavericks. Love the old school Skybox cards. Man, I wish Fleer & Skybox were still around. Heck, I guess next year I'll be wishing Upper Deck & Topps were still around, at least when it come to basketball cards. Other than Dirk, Roy Tarpley was probably the greatest talent to ever put on a Mavericks uniform, too bad he couldn't keep his life off the court in order. Thanks for the cards Wicked, very nice surprise. Later.

Thanks Mojo!

Its seems as though Mojo has indeed left the building. Before he left, however, he sent me one last envelope. Inside we have...

a couple cards of the greatest QB ever including a gold Mayo mini, a shiny Kurt and a handful of Rangers greatness. Shiny Kinsler and Young and a very nice black border Masterpiece of Mr. Young turning two. Thanks again, Mojo and don't stay gone too long. Later.

I Think I Can Do Better - Entry 2

Welcome to entry number 2 of the ongoing series, I Think I Can Do Better. My challenge this time was to once again "fix" a generic Donini design. This is what I chose to work with. 2009-2010 Donruss Elite Basketball. Here are the untouched cards.

I'm only going to work on the base cards. The Prime Target insert isn't half bad. It's kinda hard to tell in the scan, but the background is green not gray. The only real problem to me is the obvious space left for the relic piece on parallel versions. The top 4 base cards have the same problem as most of Panini's releases this year. Generic gray background and the players are again "Cut Off At The Junk". They did add a small amount of color on the back this time, so that's something I guess. Here's what I came up with...

I simply expanded Panini's own idea of using a team color on the side pillars for the back and did the same thing on the front. I decided that wasn't quite enough, however, and changed the dark gray top and bottom border to a more maroon/brownish color. I feel that these simple changes make the cards much more appealing. What do you think? I still wish the majority of Panini's cards didn't crop out the background.

Now for a bonus. Rather than just bashing what the card companies are doing and "fixing" what has already been done. I thought I would try my hand at creating my own custom cards from scratch. So get ready for the world debut of Big D Premium Basketball cards! First up, a little Nasty...

followed by a little Dirty.

Let the critiquing begin. Go ahead, I can take it! Later.

Baseball Needs More Color, Piazza Takes One In The Jewels And Bench Will "Catch Ya Later"

Goose is doing homework that is way to hard for me to help him with. Some sort of math that needs a graphing calculator in order to solve the problems. I never even owned a graphing calculator. So, since I'm not capable of helping my 8th grader with homework, I decided to write a post instead.

I got some cards from Night Owl recently, several of which were catchers, including this card of Terry Steinbach. Now I'm not a Terry Steinbach fan or an A's fan for that matter (except for Kurt of course) but I do like this card. The reason I like it is because of all the green. MLB teams, in my opinion, need more variety in their team colors. Too much blue, black and red.
Why don't the Rockies play up the purple more or the Marlins go back to the Teal? I think the Rays should tone down the navy in their new scheme and go with more light blue and yellow, it's Florida after all, they should be bright and "sunny". Who knows why the Blue Jays ever ditched their original look, but it was way better than the look they have now. They are the Blue Jays for crying out loud, not the Black Jays. One more thing when it comes to team colors. The world was a much better place when the Padres wore brown and yellow. You know its true.

Something else that's been bugging me the last couple of years is catchers helmets. Several years ago catchers began wearing the hockey type mask and even tricked them up with eye catching paint jobs, but lately they seem to all be generic. Check out the two masks above. It seems to me that most of the catchers wearing these types of mask, now have that paint job.

These two cards from several years ago aren't the most creative, but they do have custom paint. What happened? Did MLB outlaw eye catching paint jobs? Anyone know, or have I just been overlooking the fancier ones?

Here's Mike taking one for the team, at least that's what it looks like to me.

Good 'ol Johnny Bench. I used to love watching his show the Baseball Bunch and the commercials always make me look for Krylon paint to this day. My aunt got me an autographed Bench ball for my birthday in the 80's when he did a commercial for the bank she worked for, if I remember correctly. He signed it, "Catch ya later, Johnny Bench". The writing is barely legible now. I didn't have it in a proper holder for years and it was handled way too much as I had to show everyone that I had an autographed Johnny Bench ball. Oh well, at least I have it.

Well, I guess it's about time to wrap this one up. The wife is waiting on me to come watch Heroes. Here are some cards Night Owl sent for Nobie...

a bunch of Rangers...

and some of my favorites. I love the Garveys and only had one of them already, so they are a nice addition to my collection. Thanks for the trade Night Owl, hope I didn't bore anyone. I wonder if Thorzul will actually ever read one of my trade posts all the way through again? Actually, I wonder if he ever did. Later.

Cut Off at the Junk. What's the Deal?

Panini's basketball releases are driving me nuts. For the most part I like their flagship set, it's a decent card design and a nice value. The rest of their releases, however, leave a lot to be desired so far, and from what I've seen of sell sheets for the upcoming stuff, it's not going to get any better.

This Artis Gilmore card comes from their Rookies and Stars set and has already been the subject of my first "I Think I Can Do Better" post. What I failed to point out in my ripping of this design was that everyone is Cut Off at the Junk! Now I can't lay claim to creating the term "Cut Off at the Junk". That distinction goes to TJ of All Your Base Cards Belong To Us. He came up with it during his review of the same set. The big problem is that Panini is apparently going to keep up the trend in just about all of their releases this season. Check it out...

Dwight Howard cut off at the junk in the fairly recent Donruss Elite release. This set will be my next target in the "I Think I Can Do Better" series. Up next is...

LeBron James cut off at the junk in Panini Threads also newly released. What is the deal? Maybe Panini's upcoming releases will be better. Let's look at a few of them...

Ray Allen cut off at the junk in Certified. Well they didn't fix the no legs problem, but at least they ditched the generic black & white background with cropped from photo player look. Or NOT! What about the next release...

Brandon Jennings cut off at the junk in the upcoming Classics set. Damn. Surely they'll have one set that doesn't do this, right? What's next, you ask...

Blake Griffin cut off at the junk in Contenders. Good Grief! Will it never end? What is it going to take to get some full color, full background, non cropped at the crotch product from these people? I miss Upper Deck already and they aren't even completely gone yet. I sure hope Panini does a lot better with their exclusive license next year, otherwise it looks like us bball collectors are screwed! Later.