Cards for Clunkers 02: Trading Card History Chrome

Here's how this works. I'll make a bunch of cards (aka clunkers) available for trade - you make an offer for whichever card(s) you want and whatever cards you are going to offer (based on my want list preferably). From there, I'll evaluate your offer...and then off in the mail will go the clunkers, hopefully to a home that will appreciate them more than I have.

Cards for Clunkers 02: 2008 Topps Chrome Trading Card History

Chrome version:
TCHC10. Jose Reyes - Mets
TCHC11 - Johan Santana - Mets
TCHC17 - Justin Upton - Diamondbacks
TCHC18 - Alfonso Soriano - Cubs
TCHC34 - David Ortiz - Red Sox
TCHC35 - Andruw Jones - Braves

Chrome Refractor version:
TCHC27 - Manny Ramirez - Red Sox (#ed 017/400)

If you you see a clunker you'd like, check out my want list and make an offer!

Cards on eBay - Topps Short Prints & Commemorative Patches

As I had said earlier this month, I decided (for financial reasons) NOT to chase the 2009 Topps Commemorative Patch set. I also, reluctantly decided to couldn't complete the 2009 Topps short print "set"...so I've listed all of mine on eBay with the hopes of earning enough money to both pay some bills and maybe buy some new cards (since I certainly can't simply stop buying cards anytime soon)!

If you are looking for any of the following cards:
2008 Allen & Ginter: Ancient Icon - Gilgamesh

2008 Allen & Ginter: No number - Adrian Beltre

2009 Topps: Commemorative Patch: Babe Ruth

2009 Topps: Commemorative Patch: Ernie Banks

2009 Topps: Commemorative Patch: Lou Gehrig

2009 Topps: Commemorative Patch: Walter Johnson

2009 Topps: Short Print: Barack Obama #44

2009 Topps: Short Print: Cy Young #60

2009 Topps: Short Print: Jackie Robinson #30

2009 Topps: Short Print: Rogers Hornsby #10

2009 Topps: Short Print: Ryne Sandberg #350

2009 Topps: Short Print: Lou Gehrig #290

I would be quite honored and happy if you put in a bid on them. You can find all my items for sale here.

Delivery Time! Turning Running into Dodos via Beardy!

I pulled a relic of Cannonball Run dude Brock Yates.

Beardy pulled a hard-to-find Dodo bird.

I wanted the Dodo bird a lot, the Yates a little.

Beardy wanted the Yates a lot, the Dodo a little.

Ergo, we swapped and everybody wins!

As always, if anyone else would like to make a trade, check out my want list and make an offer!

Cards for Clunkers 01: Topps Chrome XFractors

Although not an entirely original idea, here's the first round of Cards for Clunkers. (My sincere apologies to everyone who has done something similar before, perhaps even with the same name. I knew I liked the idea when I saw it...but now I forget where I saw it - tell me and I'll gladly give you a link as an example of a great idea!)

Here's how this works. I'll make a bunch of cards (aka clunkers) available for trade - you make an offer for whichever card(s) you want and whatever cards you are going to offer (based on my want list preferably). From there, I'll evaluate your offer...and then off in the mail will go the clunkers, hopefully to a home that will appreciate them more than I have.

Cards for Clunkers 01: 2008 Topps Chrome XFractors

I admit it, I simply don't get the appeal of these very shiny cards. I bought a blaster (or maybe two) last year and the cards have been sitting around gathering dust since then. Here's the XFractors that are available.

9. Joe Mauer - Twins
48. Phil Hughes - Yankees

93. Fausto Carmona - Indians
106. Johnny Damon - Yankees

151. Curtis Granderson - Tigers
155. Joba Chamberlain - Yankees
159. Rich Hill - Cubs


There you have it folks - and with three Yankees out of seven XFractors, you can see why I consider these clunkers! Check out my want list and make your offers! No reasonable offers will be denied...and first responses will get priority.

Barry Larkin Collection 26: 1993 Fleer Ultra #30

Barry Larkin
Year: 1993
Brand: Fleer Ultra
Card number: 30



Cardboard perfection? Let's see, you've got a picture of a shortstop fielding on the front, a close up of his face on the back, AND a picture of him hitting...sounds pretty good to me. All those pictures come at the expense of full statistics, but you can always refer back to cards such as this one or this one for full stats right?

Delivery Time! Trade with Nick from Cardboard Overload

Nick from Cardboard Overload and I recently completed a trade. I sent Nick a pile of '08 Upper Deck Masterpieces, six '09 Allen & Ginter short prints, a code parallel, and a couple of National Pride cards. In return, Nick sent me the following from my 2009 Allen & Ginter want list:

Mini (regular back) cards:
152. Phil Coke
168. Adrian Gonzalez
191. Hiroki Kuroda
193. Khalil Greene
209. St. Patrick's Cathedral

216. Derek Lowe
221. Brandon Webb
237. Walton Glenn Eller
261. John Danks
267. Melvin Mora
268. Andy Pettitte
283. Mike Aviles

286. Matt Kemp
325. Dioner Navarro
349. Aubrey Huff

National Pride minis:
NH5. Yi Sun-Sin
NH12. Alexander Nevsky

NH20. Tadeusz Kosciuszko
NH33. Skanderbeg

NH35. Janos Damjanich

N43 Boxloader:
N43-GS. Grady Sizemore

Thanks a lot Nick, those cards really put a nice dent in my Allen & Ginter want lists. If anyone else would like to work out a trade, please check out my want list and make an offer!

2009 Allen & Ginter Blaster - A Relic & a Vampire

I had to go to Target today...which meant I had to walk by the card aisle...which meant I had to purchase a blaster of Allen & Ginter. Trust me, those things were all mandatory.

Anyhow, it turned out to be a fairly decent blaster...plus it helped restock my duplicates from the set that are available for trade!

Let's dig in:

A whole slew of common base cards that have been added to my duplicate list plus some National Pride cards (my non-short print set and National Pride set are both complete so these are all available for trade).

Four short prints:

302. Stephen Drew
323. Derek Jeter
340. Richard Gatling
346. Dominigue Wilkins

Once again, I struck out looking for the last two short prints that keep eluding me. These are all available for trade.

Two baseball sketch cards:
AGHS18. Derek Jeter
AGHS19. Albert Pujols

The Pujols card was needed, the Jeter was not...so all you Yankee fans can jump on that.

Mini cards:

I had two A&G back minis, a black bordered mini and two regular back short print minis!

National Heroes:
NH23. Oda Nobunaga

I really like this insert set...each card I get seems to make the entire set grow on me a little bit more. There's certainly something to be said for learning something from your baseball cards!

Creatures of Legend, Myth, & Terror:
LMT13. Vampire

These cards have been hoarded by every blogger (or so it seems) so I was ecstatic to pull one that I needed. Everybody seems to like their scary creatures which makes trading options almost impossible!

World's Biggest Hoaxes, Hoodwinks, & Bamboozles:
HHB19. The Cardiff Giant

And finally, a retail hit:
AGR-KF - Kosuke Fukudome

Overall, not a bad blaster at all! I got a relic I didn't yet have, plus a bunch of hard to find minis and a sketch card...and I reloaded the 'ol trade box! If you'd like to work out a trade, check out my want list and make an offer!

Barry Larkin Collection 25: 1992 Upper Deck #144

Barry Larkin
Year: 1992
Brand: Upper Deck
Card number: 144

"Rounding third and heading to home" was the 'ol lefthander's (Joe Nuxhall) radio signoff after every Reds game. This card captures that sentiment perfectly as it appears Barry Larkin just hit a game winning homer and is taking his final trot around the bases for the day.

On the back, Upper Deck featured a second photograph (in this case showing Larkin priming his bat). I think all card companies should look back at cards like this and realize that most collectors want multiple pictures on the card front and backs - not the same picture cropped! I know a lot of people love the 1993 Upper Deck set (which is nice) but I think the 1992 set is even better!

Delivery Time! Trade with Derek from Hey, That's Mine!

In the last couple of weeks, I've found a number of new blogs - and some new people to trade with. One of those aforementioned blogger/traders is Derek from the Hey, That's Mine blog.

I sent Derek a few cards that he was looking for (you can see his end of the trade on his blog here). In return, Derek sent me the following cards off my want lists:

2009 Topps:
Base:
369. Matt Harrison
506. Paul Konerko

Another two base cards, I'm down to missing only #s 383, 401, 416, 427, and 551 in the set. If you happen to have any of those available, please contact me so I can knock this set off the 'ol want lists!

Topps Town Gold:
TTT19. Carlos Quentin

Sometimes I acknowledge that I'm a fool. This is one of the times. Why do I bother collecting pure crap like a parallel of a filler card? I don't know either...but I do know that I'm only missing 18 of the Gold Parallel cards between Series 1 & 2, so that's something right?

2009 Upper Deck Spectrum:
79. Greg Maddux

Upper Deck Spectrum must be the least collected set of both '08 and '09... I've had the same 15 or so cards on my want lists for each of the two years with nary a trade offer for either set. As such, you can imagine how excited I was to finally acquire another purple monster card that I needed for the set!

2008 Upper Deck Timeline:
266. Corey Hart
I bought a ton of this set but I'm still missing about a hundred or so different cards. I have posted my entire list of cards I have for trade here so check it out and see if we can maybe work out a deal for the ones I need...

2009 Topps Heritage Chrome:
C74. Brad Penny
Another difficult set to put together, I'm slowly inching my way through the Chrome version of Topps Heritage. Admittedly, I don't have all that many Chrome cards so this set may have to be scrapped in the interest of saving some money. However, I haven't given up on it yet so if you have some Chrome cards for trade let me know.

Thanks Derek for a great trade. It's always nice to be able to knock cards off of multiple wish lists - in this case, the want lists for 4 different sets got to shrink a little bit! As always, if anyone else wishes to work out a trade, check out my want list and make an offer!

Phlogging: Little League World Series

One of the benefits of living in Williamsport, PA is that I can easily run over to the Little League World Series whenever I feel like it! Tonight was another beautiful night here in central Pennsylvania, so I headed over to catch a couple of Little League games.

First, I watched the Caribean beat MEA in a 5-3 tight contest in Volunteer Stadium (the newer of the two stadiums at the Little League complex).



I wish I could find the team rosters some place online so I could add in the player names. Either way, the game was a great display of baseball - plenty of emotion for both teams.
Another great thing about the Little League complex (besides the free admission to the stadiums) is that you can easily walk from one stadium to the other and watch Little League baseball all day long if you so desire! A quick walk to Lamade Stadium and I was able to take in the nightcap game - Iowa (Midwest) vs. Staten Island (Mid-Atlantic).


Even late on a Monday night the famous hill behind the outfield fence is loaded with hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of fans.


In the end, Staten Island won 8-3 and knocked Iowa out of the Little League World Series. As always, it was a great time at the Little League World Series...and if you are a baseball fan you owe it yourself to make it to the World Series at least once in your lifetime.

Delivery Time! Trade with Topher from Crackin' Wax

Any day that there's at least one yellow envelope in my mailbox (and preferably no bills) is a good day in my book. One of my latest yellow envelopes came from Topher over at the slick looking Crackin' Wax blog (I keep telling myself that I'll make my blog look "slicker" but it hasn't happened yet and probably never will)... Anyhow, Topher and I recently completed a quick little trade. I sent him three 2009 Allen & Ginter National Pride cards and a sketch card. In return, he sent me the following:

2009 Allen & Ginter:
Regular back mini:
102. Edinson Volquez

I'm ever so slowly adding to my regular back mini collection. I still need a ton of these to complete the entire set but every little bit helps. In this case, it is an extra bonus because this card depicts a Red!

World's Biggest Hoaxes, Hoodwinks, and Bamboozles:
HHB12. Victor Lustig

At the time we worked the trade out, I didn't have this Hoax card. Of course, as it usually seems to happen for me, I bought a blaster a few days later and pulled a Lustig card...which means that this one is up for trade.

2008 Topps Heritage:
Black back parallel:
523. Jose Molina

I loved the 2007 and 2009 Topps Heritage sets, but for whatever reason the 2008 set has really become stale to me already...perhaps it is the agonizingly slow pace that has taken over as I try to acquire the last few remaining cards. With that in mind, I'm extremely thankful to be able to knock another card off the list, I'm only missing five of the black back variations.

Thanks a lot Topher! And of course, if anyone else would like to work out a trade, please check out my want list and make an offer!