Some serious vacation MOJO.

Wow, where to start on this post...I guess I will start it off by saying that I was just out west on vacation. Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico (Only because of Four Corners Park), and Utah were ALL states that my family and I visited. We hit just about every single National park along the way. Yes, that means Grand Canyon, Zion, and Bryce, among AMAZING others as well. These long drives through states were terribly boring, so I came up with a way to spice them up. I pulled out the Iphone, and figured out that you could pretty much gaurantee that there was a Wal-mart in every other 2 towns you drove through. Most of these towns were run down (but beautiful in a way), and probably had a grand total of no more than 50-75 residents a piece. (For some towns, that's being generous!) So basically, there was no one who cared about the cards at Wal-mart, let alone, could afford them. So I couldn't resist the urge to look at just about every other Wal-mart we passed driving through these towns. I did, and came up with a surprising amount of hits. Anything ranging from Ginter, to Topps series 1 and 2, all the way to Topps Archives. I found it all, and for sure, I hit it BIG. I will also let you know that these cards that I looked through were UNTOUCHED. I found unopened boxes of single packs from 2008 series 1 baseball, all the way to 2006 Topps! The dust had been accumulating on many of the cards and packs for years, so I guess you could say, I got dirty. :) Anyways, I will start to show you what inserts I pulled in all of the packs I bought. I will start with series 1 and 2 Topps, and work my way through the rest of the relics and pruducts. (This is a long post! So please allow a bit of time to read)


Let's start with Yu Darvish...

Three Yu Darvish base cards...Can't really complain! I would be willing to trade for a Harper card, if anybody would like to. Just let me know if this is of any interest to any of YU bloggers. lol


Golden Moments inserts.

From left to right, top to bottom...Granderson, Bench, Gwynn, O'neill, Jones, Kershaw, Cano, Schmidt, and last but not least, Lincecum.

Topps Cut Above inserts.

From left to right, Cal Ripken Jr., Jackie Robinson, and Ken Griffey Jr.

Golden Greats inserts.

From left to right, DiMaggio, Koufax, Aaron.

Gold Futures inserts.

From left to right, Heyward, Kipnis, Trout

Gold Standard inserts.

From top to bottom, Gibson, Banks, DiMaggio.

1987 mini card inserts.

From left to right, top to bottom, Berkman, Phillips, Gibson (SP??), Latos, and Upton.

Does anybody know if this Gibson is a short print of the insert? I wasn't sure...

Career Day inserts.

From top to bottom, Cano, and Kemp.

Gold Foil Base Card Parallels.

From left to right, top to bottom, Texas Rangers, Cabrera, Earned Run Average Leaders, Davis, Morrison, and Dunn.

Now for the Golden Moments Relic Cards.

From left to right, top to bottom, Brian McCann, Ryan Zimmerman, Daniel Descalso, and Carlos Zambrano...

More Relics...

From left to right, top to bottom, Starlin Castro (Pinstripe!), Angel Pagan, Alex Avila, and Alex Avila. (Alex Avila relics are from series 1 and 2 Topps, that's why they are different.)

More Relics...

These were definitely the better Golden Moments relics. The Wade Boggs is without a doubt my favorite!

From top to bottom, Sabathia, Ortiz, and Wade Boggs (HOF relic!).

Now for the Topps Archives.

Topps 3D inserts.

Mickey Mantle, and Chase Utley. The Mantle is an especially nice card here!

Topps Archives Relic cards

Orlando Cepeda (HOF relic!), and Ryan Zimmerman! I love both of these cards to death! Especially the Cepeda! I'll take a Hall Of Fame relic card out of retail anyday. The Zimmerman isn't bad either!

Now for the LUCKY pack of 2012 Topps Allen and Ginter.

The pack...

From left to right, top to bottom, Baseball Highlight Sketches Ryan Braun, Whats in a Name insert Mickey Mantle, Salty base card, A-Rod base card, and a crack the code ad card...

Now you may wonder what was so lucky about this pack...Well first off, it was the last single pack of 2012 Ginter at that Particular store, Secondly, there was a SWEET mini card inside of it!

Check it out...

Still Don't see it? Here, maybe this will help :)

What can I say? My luck was unbelievable on this trip! What a sick card to pull though. Especially out of retail! Of course, as luck would have it, this is a pack I decided not to videotape. :(

Moving on now to 2012 Bowman Platinum! (rackpack)

I just bought this because it's the first I have seen of this product, NOT because I thought it was a hotpack.

With that being said, I did not pull a relic out of this. But still some nice looking cards!

The Gary Sanchez is a refractor, as are the retail exclusive purple cards. The base (color) variations are especially nice though. The Jay Bruce Emerald variation is very eye-catching.

Now for the final hotpack that I found.

2011 Topps series 2.

Inserts.

Banks, Crowe Diamond base variation, and a Topps 60 insert of Brian McCann.

Whitey ford mini. Pretty nice mini card to pull out of this product.

Found some nice shortprints too!

Domonic Brown Sparkle card! This is my first sparkle card out of all the 2011 Topps I bought last year. So nice card :)

The sparkle.

And finally, this Roberto Alomar SP. Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't the Short Prints last year featuring Hall Of Famers? I'm 99% sure this is also a short print, so I'm happy.

ONE LAST THING!

One of the code cards I got redeemed me a Bob Gibson card!

Should I redeem it? I'm thinking yes...I got excited about this because it seems as though these redemption cards for the give away, seem to mostly be unlocking virtual rings, coins and whatnot. So an actual card that I can have sent to my house, is a change I am pleasantly happy with.

So that's about it guys! These were the cards that I pulled over vacation. Hope all you fellow bloggers enjoyed. If you would like, most of these cards were pulled ON camera, so you can visit my youtube channel to watch them. Just type in "baseball10182" and my videos should come up. Please leave me some comments, blog and youtube, and once again, PLEASE follow me if you aren't already! REMEMBER, you guys are the ones that keep this blog and youtube channel rolling! Thank you for reading, and the continued support. I appreciate it!

             - Scott

Here is a blast from the past!

Hey Yankees fans! Here's a card you guys can drool over! A Bucky Dent jumbo patch from 2009 UD Sweet Spot baseball! numbered 18 of 20. (18/20) My little brother pulled this card from our local card shop, it was his first relic card ever! Sweet card! Even being a Red Sox fan, I can respect this card. Props to my little brother for the pull in 2009!

The patch is from the "Y" in Bucky, or Yankees...Any blemishes are NOT on the card, but on the scanner. This card is in mint condition, as he has taken very good care of it.

2 rackpacks of 2012 Topps series 2.

While making the trip down to Myrtle Beach SC, friday morning, I stopped by a Wal-mart to see what I could find, hotpack wise. Well, two rack packs turned up on the shelves of this little Wal-mart, so I bought both of them. I got a card that is very rare to pull out of retail, so I was quite happy! As always, here are the inserts, rookies, and the relics! Enjoy! Also, If you would like to take a look at the recap video I put on youtube, I will post a link at the end of this post.

Here are the better rookies that I pulled out of these two rack packs. The Brett Lawrie, and the Jose Constanza are the nicest I think.

Here are two inserts that emerged from these two packs. The Ian Kinsler is up for trade, seeing as I have about 6 of them, but the Sandy Koufax is not for trade or sale. I thought the Koufax was a sweet card from this insert set.

WOW! I pulled a Red Sox card for myself!?! this is rare for me, so I always get excited when I can find a Red Sox insert. This Andre Dawson card is going into my Sox PC.

I only got this one gold foil card out of the two packs, but it's nice. (Joe Nathan)

Only one of the cut above inserts as well, but if I had to choose one of the HOF players from this insert set, I probably would have picked this Stan Musial card! Love it!

I learned something when I read the back of this card of Jemile Weeks. I had no idea that he and Rickie Weeks, 2nd baseman for the Brewers, were brothers! Pretty cool. I guess you learn something new every day right? You have the Upton brothers, and the Weeks brothers. All pretty solid players.

Of course you have the 87 mini of David Price, my 3rd of this card.

Now for the relic cards...

The first one that I pulled was this David DeJesus.

This was nice I thought, but the next relic was even nicer!

This is a Dillon Gee Golden Moments Gold Foil Parallel numbered to /99. This is a SWEET card! I freaked when I pulled it! The odds of getting this card are 1: 793...WOW!

This card is just sick...first gold foil parallel of the relic I have pulled. So I'm really excited!

Here is the link to the youtube video...I think you will like it! It even has a beach background in it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNbyESsmTSQ&list=UUg9WT-UTxclgIWD0X9CWnyw&index=1&feature=plcp 

My thoughts on 2012 Topps Allen and Ginter

Well, here we are again looking at another stellar Allen and Ginter product from Topps! This product just never seems to get old to me. The base lineup this year is very solid, as are the mini cards. The mini cards have a nice looking design on them this year! Especially the black bordered ones! All in all, I think this is another good-looking line of Ginter! Well worth a try at the Bryce Harper autograph or maybe even the Yu Darvish! Also, Bryce and Yu are in the base set, mini set, and parallel insert set. So there will be no shortage of nice rookie cards. Here is what I got from a rackpack. (Waited at the hobby store today for 2 hrs, waiting for the shipment of Ginter to come in from UPS. Never did show up, so I got a rack pack instead)

You can't really tell in this scan, but my first card of 2012 ginter was NOT good. This card looks like the machines at Topps got hungry for a Todd Helton base card! Creases EVERYWHERE and it even has cuts and random ink all over! The card is so bent it doesn't even lay flat. The cards behind it made up for this one though :)

This is the solid base card lineup I was talking about earlier! Pretty design for this years Ginter base cards! Nice job Topps!

This is what the black bordered mini's look like this year! WOW! Nice design as well! Loving this product more and more, the more I post about it.

This is what the base mini cards look like. Not as exciting as the black bordered, but still nice!

This is the insert that you will get in every pack. Probably a nice insert set to build if you're interested in the insert cards themselves.

And of course...What card have I pulled a ROOKIE of, out of every Topps product this year?

First pack of 2012 Ginter...and I have already gotten myself the Yu Darvish rookie card.

BEAUTIFUL!!!! It's funny, this morning at the breakfast table I was looking at cards on ebay, and I saw the Yu and Bryce. And I wondered hmmm I wonder how long it will take me to knock both of those rookies off my want list from this year's Ginter. Well, one is already knocked out now. Now the only other rookie I need to knock off Ginter, is the Bryce Harper rookie card. That's the one I really want!

Heritage Hobby packs...2012 Topps

Well, dropped into the hobby store today looking for some 2012 Ginter, but I didn't find any. (sad face) The UPS guy was slow AGAIN and the delivery just wasn't in time. I did manage to get my hands on some nice packs though. Some Bowman Chrome from 2011 as well! That will be a separate post though. Anyways, I waited in the shop for about 2 hrs. before I gave up waiting for the shipment of Ginter to come in. The owner and I had some nice conversation about cards, and baseball in general, so that 2 hrs didn't seem like long. So I bought the last 3 packs of Topps Heritage. The owner said she knew that the relic was in one of those last three packs, because she had seen all the packs opened in the store. So I just bought all three to ensure I got the relic. I did, and a decent one too! Here are some of the highlighted cards from those three packs.

How about starting off with 2 shortprints? Not too shabby!

These were some nice inserts for Heritage I thought! I like the 2011 batting leaders card a lot because it has Adrian Gonzalez and Jacoby Ellsbury on it.

A king Felix mini sticker card, and some notable base cards.

A black parallel of Austin Jackson. Nice card! but I thought these were retail exclusive. hmm looks like I have some researching to do.

This was the relic that I was gauranteed by buying the last three packs of the box. I can't complain with a B.J. Upton bat relic card. He is a hustle player, as is his brother Justin. Nice looking card!

Topps 2012 Series 1 rack pack

Some nice looking cards that I pulled from a rack pack from Dicks Sporting Goods! Here are the inserts and the relic card.

Some decent inserts! I especially like the Hank Aaron Golden Greats. Its a pretty good looking card.

Of course, something for my awesome buddy William, over at foulbunt! This will be in your next package my man! Nice bit of sparkle, as far as I'm concerned!

And of course, the Madison Bumgarner relic card. Nice looking card all around. The jersey looks real nice too!