Near Mint Cards

We got a package in the mail awhile back from Nico at Nr Mt. He sent a little something for all of us and guess what! The cards were all near mint!

Nico sent a few football cards for Goose. I'm gonna have to steal the Rod Smith though. I sure wish Brian would have turned out as good as his father, he sure wasn't the second coming of Elway. It's strange that LT has on a red jersey in this card, but not as strange as it will be seeing him in Jets green.

Nico sent me a few Rangers including a couple Michael Youngs that I didn't have. There was also a nice card of Nolan Ryan emerging from a light speed jump to hurl another heater at some poor unsuspecting fool. The Rangers are sure on a tear right now. Let's hope they can keep it up!

Nobie got a bunch of Cubs as he does from most traders. I really like the team photos even though they are kind of small. I wonder why Topps doesn't put them in every year. Seems kinda random when they do or don't.

Nico also included some of Nobie's other favorites. I wonder why Vlad is always so smiley? You think he know something the rest of us don't?

Last but not least, we've got cards for Baby Peas. They include a Moose, a Green Monster, a Phanatic, a Mr. Met and a Byrd. Only one of these was an All-Star. Can you guess which one?

Thanks again for the cards Nico. They were all in very good shape, no dinged corners or wrinkles anywhere. Later.

Last Big D Custom Contest Card Revealed!

Well folks, here it is! The fifth and final custom card prize was awarded to the Troll. It took me a little longer to put it together since the Troll and I had to coordinate the acquisition of photos since he selected a subject that was an "unknown" to most. He wanted a card of his roller derby sweetheart and that's exactly what he got!

I had a lot of fun creating this card as well as all the others for the contest. Thanks, again to all who entered. Eventually, I'd like to have another contest, so keep your eyes watching this very blog! Later.

Perfect Bowman Blaster (For Us At Least!)

Nobie and I have only picked up a pack or two of Bowman this year. We aren't really caught up in Strausburg mania. Sure it would have been nice to get one, but whatever. We do like the cards enough though to collect our favorites, so we decided to pick up a blaster... and hit the jackpot!

We got pretty much all of the Rangers...

and Nobie's Cubs. We also lucked out and got many of our binder players including a Markakis, Pence...

Pujols, Ichiro and even a Kurt! Besides the base cards we landed a ton of the throwback cards!

Again, somehow we had awesome luck in the assortment of players we got. Not one player that isn't in one of our player collections.

We also got 2 of the Topps 100 cards featuring two young studs from our favorite teams. All-Star reliever Neftali Feliz and rookie shortstop Starlin Castro. We couldn't have gotten two better players for us from this set. How did we get so lucky?

Wow, talk about strange luck continuing. Somehow we pulled Turkey Reds, 2020's and Peak Performance cards from Topps' other sets. Odd that they aren't Bowman cards, though they are all 2010s and again favorite players. That's not the weirdest thing though. Check out what else came in the blaster.

A couple Michael Youngs including a Bowman refractor and a SaltyHam Topps card from 2009.
Strange stuff, right? Well, by now I'm sure you've all figured out that these cards did not actually come from a Bowman blaster. They did, however, cost 20 bucks like a blaster but we got them all from Sportlots.com. Nobie and I figured if we were gonna spend $20 on Bowman cards, we might as well make sure we get all players that we like instead of a bunch of prospects we've never heard of before. It's not quite the same anticipation of opening packs, but at least we don't end up regretting our purchase. We did manage to end up with 2 Peavy Turkey Reds though. Somehow, I guess we screwed up our own collation. Oh, well. Later.

Can You Send Cards By Pony Express?

Cameron over at Cardboard Heaven sent us a little package awhile back. It was very "wild west" oriented with some cowboys, broncos, cubs, rangers & indians. Let's mosey on out back and take a gander at 'em, shall we?

Football is just around the corner. The Cowboys begin camp tomorrow in early preparation for their Hall of Fame matchup with the Bengals. To my knowledge, there were no tigers roaming around in the "wild west". If there had been, I'm sure Romo could have taken care of them, being the gunslinger that he is!

Cubs are little bears of course, which would definitely be found in the "wild west". Most of the actual cubs would probably be a lot more fierce than the Chicago Cubs have been this year. Maybe Zambrano could give a wild cub a run for it's money, he's pretty fiesty!

Alfonso fits our "wild west" theme except for when he's in a Yankees uniform. Damn Yankees don't belong out west. They need to stay back east with the rest of the cityslickers!

Here we've got a mess of Rangers surrounding a couple of Indians. Actually that's just one Indian. Victor must have set up a decoy of himself in order to make an escape attempt from the Rangers posse. I don't think he stands a chance, the Rangers rule the West this year! Thanks for the cards, Cam. Later.

If I Make Customs and You Make Customs...

then why don't we swap a custom? That was the pitch I got from Topher over at Crackin' Wax. I'd seen Topher's work on his blog, in fact, he gave me the idea to try making actual "in hand" cards in the first place. I'd seen his posts where he had taken some of his creations and had them signed at various Twins functions, so I decided to try it myself. Anyway, he asked for a Twins card and wanted to know who I would like, so I asked for a Soriano for Nobie. This was what I sent off from our end.

The number one catcher in baseball and all-around Minnesota homeboy, Joe Mauer. I didn't have just one idea, though so I sent a bonus card...

of Justin Morneau. The Mauer was a new design for me, while the Morneau was one I had used before on a horizontal card of Hank Blalock. I liked the design though, so I wanted to try a vertical one. I think they turned out pretty well. Wanna see what Topher sent us?

Well, there you go! Two Sorianos. I guess Topher was feeling just as creative as I was. I'm glad it ended up being a 2 for 2 swap. Nobie got a nice "old school" and one of Topher's Signature originals. The really cool thing though, is that I got to finally see how someone else puts their stuff together, and let me tell you, these things are first class. Very nice craftsmanship. The "old school' card is glossy while the Signature card has a somewhat matte finish to it. I still don't know exactly how he gets the matte finish (I think its top secret) but it's very nice. Both cards are quite thick and appear totally seamless all the way around.

Topher even created full backs for both cards which is a very nice touch. He included all kinds of info down to the tiniest details, even hand numbered 1 of 1 on the signature card. Great stuff! I've been pretty happy with my finished cards, but now I have a new measure of quality to strive for. These things are just about as perfect as you can get for homemade cards. If you have a knack for making your own cards, I suggest contacting Topher about a trade as well. You won't regret it. Thanks again, Topher! Later.

Family Four Pack

We got a package in the mail from Cam the other day and it had a little something for all of us.

In my portion I got a bunch of personal faves including a Kurt, some Rangers, a bobbleheaded Ichiro and another Ichiro stuck inside a television.

Nobie got several cards with x's on them, a bobbleheaded Vlad and a shot of HanRam telling Nobie he's the man.

Goose scored some football which included a Champ, a Fitzergerald (that's what Nobie thought his name was when he was younger) and the better Manning. I may have to steal the Rod Smith for myself, he's an Elway era Bronco after all.

Baby Peas added some obnoxious livestock to her mascot collection along with a couple Murphs and a Byrd. Man, Iwish he was still a Ranger! Thanks for including the whole family in the trade Cam! Later.

Mavs for Grizz

Know what you do when you've got too many Grizzlies in the house? You send 'em to Nick, The Basketball Card Pro. If you do that you'll get Mavericks in return, well, at least I did. I don't really know what you'll get. Check 'em out.

Here we have a couple Dirks, Shawn Marion posing as a Raptor and the Mormon Mantis himself Shawn Bradley. Wonder what he's up to these days?

Next up is a Certified Kidd and 3 Rookies and Stars none of which are actually rookies, but they are stars so I guess the theme fits. Jet would probably only be considered a semi-star, but he fits in well here in Dallas, at least until they let Roddy B loose.

The last 2 cards are Dirk inserts that I didn't already have. The first one features him in "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" mode next to a giant blue shoe. The second one is from a set called Road To The NBA which doesn't really make much sense. The card already shows Dirk in the NBA and several years into his career at that. Seems more like a rookie subset to me, but what do I know. Thanks for the cards Nick! The rest of you remember to send him your unwanted Grizzlies, you might get something much better. Later.

Okay, I'm back!

I'll bet some of you thought I was a goner, huh? Well, I've been on vacation for over a week at a family reunion in Ohio. It was a blast, but now it's back to the daily grind of sitting in my little cubicle and counting down the hours until quittin' time. Hopefully, I'll get back to some kind of regular posting in the next few days. Until then, I'm gonna enjoy the All-Star break and root for the Rangers to make an impact in this years game. Later.