Trade Report: The Cardboard Don

The Cardboard Don and I swung a sweet trade recently.  In addition to sending one of the pieces of my trif-ECK-ta, I also received these Fave Five hits.

FIVE:  Shiny

FOUR:  Signed Turkey

THREE: Jeffrey

TWO:  25/25

ONE:  A&G Piece of History Slices

Thanks for a great trade Wicked!

Fave Five: Surprise Bubbler from Angels in Order

Tom of The Angels, in Order, not to be confused with the less interesting The Angles, in Order (SPOILER ALERT: the 90-degree angle gets WAY more coverage than it deserves), sent a great care package to me this week.

Here are my Fave Five from the bubble mailer:

FIVE: Diamond King Walker

FOUR: Ribby King

THREE: Lucky 13

TWO: The Golden Boy

ONE: Big League Minis

Thanks for the cards Tom!

Trade Report: Juuust a Bit Outside

Another day, another trade with another KC Royals fan.  Today's pile of cards from from Kyle4KC who runs the JABO's Baseball Card Blog.  Kyle was kind enough to send me some great Royals and Rockies for the cards that I'll be shipping out to him this week.  Here are some of my favorites.

FIVE:  A Bazooka of a Relic

FOUR: Tulo and Cargo

THREE:  Brett, Bo, and Luker

TWO:  Gordo

ONE:  The Future is Now

As I was looking at the back of the Adcock gold card, I noticed something interesting.

An eBay 1/1 !!?!?!!?!  And, I've lived through both of those years!

Thanks again for the trade Kyle!  I'll be getting your cards to you as soon as possible!

Trade Report: Spelunking in the Quarry

I love making trades with Johnny from Cards from the Quarry.  My Rockies collection would be piddly were it not for his willingness to send so many of his duplicates my way.  This trade was no exception.  For one of my Dexter Fowler autographs, I am now the owner of the following cards, which I'll give a Fave Five treatment.

FIVE: My first serial numbered golf card.

Incidentally, I'll soon be posting the results of the box of 2001 Upper Deck Golf cards I recently won on the Bay.

FOUR:  Heltons

The first card in the scan may be my first Helton Rookie, which means I've completed 2/3 of a Helton trifecta.  I'm definitely going to keep my eyes peeled for a Helton autograph this year.

THREE:  Tulo

TWO: A&G Relic

This was the second Allen & Ginter Rockies relic I've received in as many days and I can definitely see why people like them so much.  Very cool looking cards in hand. 

 ONE:  Mitch Maier Autograph

This is my second autograph of the eldest outfielder on the Royal's active roster, which is a horrible sentence to write because it means that 2012 is the year I realized that I'm older than an entire MLB team's outfield.  Bummer for me.

Thanks for another fantastic trade Johnny and be sure to take good care of Dexter!

Fave Five: Cardboard Heavenly Draft -- The Keepers

Here are my Fave Five reasons why I'm glad I joined the Cardboard Heaven Card Draft that Cam put together to help raise funds for a Rose Bowl ticket.

FIVE:  Royals

FOUR:  Rocks

THREE: Former Brewers

TWO: Mustachioed Flamethrower

ONE: Helton Fabric

I added a slew of Rockies and Royals to my collection, including some former Brewers (Cam's team) who were shipped out to KC for Greinke and anther Helton relic.  Sure, I may have over reached a bit by spending my first and second round picks on the Jeffress and Cain autos  (#4 and #17 respectively), but I made up for it by snagging the Helton relic in the third round.

I was able to get either an autograph or relic with each of my picks through the tenth round.  It was then that I made probably my shrewdest move by picking up my Eckersley die-cut in the 11th round.  How it slipped that far, I'll never know.  

All in all it was a ton of fun for a very reasonable price.  I was able to hand-select a bakers dozen of autos and relics, as well as a pile of commons and inserts, for less than a blaster from Walmart or Target.

Later I shall post scans of the cards that will be headed to my trade bait drawer in the ol' library card file.

Thanks again Cam!

Fave Five: Christmas Cards

The wife and I managed to make it to Christmas Eve Eve before we opened our presents (which actually may be the latest we've waited in the eight Christmases we've been together).  This year we reasoned that we'd best open them tonight because tomorrow we'll be preparing to host my family for a Christmas Eve BoozeFest & Mexican Feast (TM) and Christmas Day will be spent at my parent's house, so we really won't have time to open presents after tonight.  As a reward for reading this entire paragraph, the first person to request it in the comments will get the Diamond Giveaway code I pulled from the below box.

One of the presents my wife gave me was a box of 2011 Topps Series 2.  We opened it together and, as usual, she pulled all the great cards from the box. 

Here are my Fave Five Christmas Eve Eve Cards of 2011.

FIVE:  Eight Sets of Dupes (aka Classic Topps Collation)

FOUR:  Inserts

The Robinson has an original back.

THREE:  Shiny Gold Minis

TWO:  Sparkley

ONE:  Manupatch

Which happens to be my third Orioles logo manupatch, along with the Murray and Bell below, so I'd love to trade away the Bell and Lee for a logo manupatch of a team I don't already have (list of cards needed can be found HERE).

All of the above cards are available for trade, as are all the base cards I got, except for the Royals and Rockies I pulled out for my personal collection.  If you need any of these, I'd love to work out a trade.

Merry Christmas Eve Eve! 

Fave Five: 2012 Collecting Goals

Sure, it's a touch early to be making plans for next year, but I thought I'd get a head start on setting my 2012 collecting goals.

Obviously I'm going to keep picking up Hochevars, Fowlers, and Stocktons whenever possible and I'm going to try to get organized by getting my cards filed away in their library card file home.  But I need specific collecting goals to keep me motivated over the next year.

The nice thing is, unlike most of my new year resolutions (i.e. lose weight, read more than 2 books in a year, stop killing hobos, etc.), I really want these goals to come true and I will have fun accomplishing them.


So, here are my Fave Five 2012 Collecting Goals

FIVE:   Vintage Cards

 I want to get my 1910 Murad T51 and 1948-49 Leaf (baseball) sets to at least 50% completion by the end of next year.

FOUR:  Mustache Portrait Collection 

Yikes, that's some bad scanning

I want to build a mustache portrait collection that is at least 100-cards strong by the start of next MOvember.

THREE:  Manupatch Collections 

 I want to complete both my letter and logo manupatch collections.  The MLB logo collection is 66% complete and the letters collection is just under 50% complete.

TWO:  Denver Broncos Super Bowl Rookies

Obviously this isn't a rookie card, but it's the only Broncos card I had scanned at the moment.

A rookie card of every player on the Denver Bronco's 1997 Super Bowl winning team.  When a rookie can't be found, I will make due with any card that can be found.  HERE is the 1998 roster.  Key players include Elway, Davis, McCaffrey, Sharp, Romanowski, Atwater, and Elam.

ONE:  Eck Trifecta

A rookie, a relic, and an autograph of the greatest mustache/mullet combo in history, Dennis Eckersley.  I also wouldn't mind getting my Eck collection above 100 cards.

There you have it.  Even if I don't reach these goals, even attempting them is going to make 2012 a great year of collecting in the Manupatches and Mustaches house.

MOvember Fave Five -- Prolific Mustaches, Card of the Set, and a HOFer PC

Since the end of the month snuck up on me quicker than I had anticipated, I'm going to wrap up MOvember and the 2011 Mustache Set with the Card of the Set and a Fave Five of the Most Prolific Mustaches of the Set.

Card of the Set

Honestly, how could it not be?

Now for the Most Prolific Mustaches of the Set, but be warned, I did a very lazy job of checking the following totals.  I would estimate that the following card totals are off by a plus/minus of thirty-seven (give or take a dozen or two (seriously, guys, I did not spend much time counting these cards)).

FIVE:  Boggs made 6 appearances in the set

FOUR:  Goose made 6 appearances in the set

THREE:  Gibby made 7 appearances in the set

TWO:  Robin made 8 appearances in the set

ONE:  Eck walked away with the crown this year filling at least a baker's dozen slots in the Mustache binder.

The odd part is that there are a minimum of 5 more of his cards that didn't make the set.

Since I've basically run out of Hochevar cards to chase (at least ones that are within my price range), I need a new player to hone in on, so I'm officially becoming an Eckersley collector.

The guy knows how to rock a mullet and a mustache and a HOFer to boot.  With over 2000 cards spanning four decades that I'll need to track down, I'm willing to trade for any and all Eckersley cards with which you are willing to part.  I'm also excited to try tracking down my first HOFer trifecta (rookie, auto, relic).

Thanks for your support this MOvember and be on the look-out for an announcement tomorrow about the theme of the 2012 Mustache Set.

MOvember Fave Five -- Mustaches Of Which I'm Jealous*

*Like Mom always used to say, "Never leave your participle dangling in public."

The best I can hope for this MOvember is that my mustache is

FIVE: 1/8th as hip,

FOUR: 1/8th as walrus-esqe

THREE: 1/8th as creepy

TWO:1/8th as iconic

or

ONE: 1/8th as manly

as the above mustaches.

My MOvember team -- Team Lame-MO -- has raised a cool $500 for cancer research this month.  I'm hoping to round up a few more Warren G. Hardings over the next couple of days, so if you'd care to donate toward a worthy cause, please go HERE.