* Insert Austin Powers Joke/Pun Headline Here *

Because this post has "Mini Me" and "GOOOOOLLLLDDDD" written all over it.

Or, I guess I could have gone with a "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" reference.

Stepping Up To The Plate

Grabbed another printing plate.  If I was a good blogger, I'd go through my collection and find out how many of these fellas I have.  But I'm not.  But I do have a bunch of them and this is one.

Which goes nicely with these:

And, yes, I still dislike this picture. But I do like being 50% complete on another printing plate set.  One of these days I'll complete the 4/4 quadfecta, and that day will be grand.

Birthday Cards

My family is pretty cool as they continue to put up with my odd (to them) hobby of card collecting.  So when my birthday rolled around, I was pleased to see some birthday trading cards attached to my birthday birthday cards.

From my wife, some Masterpieces:

From my sister and brother-in-law, a chromey Series of 1s and 2s:

And, finally, an eBay seller threw in some Bowman extras with a card to be shown later:

Opening packs sure is fun.  I just wish I had a greater desire to seek out packs more often.

Back to the Basics

One of the great things about the Hochevar Buy-Out was that it brought me back to the basics of why I restarted my card collection.  Showing off these Hochevars is probably definitely way boring for most readers, but he's the reason I collect cards again and he's the reason I found the card-blogosphere, so I'll continue to show them.

Here's a back from the 2010 A&G base card that, prior to the HBO, I'd yet to own.

And the rest of the backs.

And, if you're keeping score at home, I'm half way through the 2010s, which means that I'm over half way done showing off the HBO cards.

Enjoying Some Birthday Pi

Today I turn 31.  My 30th year had its ups and downs, so I'm glad to have entered my 31st trip around the sun.  As I usually try to do, I have requested that my family bring me birthday pie instead of birthday cake, since pie is the superior dessert.

So, feel free to join me in enjoying a slice of red "pi" on my big day.

(So this was the post I was planning on doing today, but my lovely wife preempted me by putting up the below post.  Good thing she's so damn cute or I'd have to be mad at her.)

Happy Birthday, Fella

Because you only turn 31 once.  

Happy Birthday, Pal.

Zooming Out To See the Big Picture

About a year and a half ago, I lamented how much I hated the picture of Hochevar that Topps used for his 2010 flagship card.  Looking at the two cards below, a red/orange border parallel and the team set card, it's plain to see that the tightly cropped picture is way worse than the wide shot.

And, since showing off rainbows is what I do now, here are my non-chrome 2010 Topps cards.

Lots of sweet variations of an awful picture.

The Scanner Was Out Of Commision For A Week

No, not the machine. It was fine. When I say "scanner", I'm talking about the person responsible for scanning my cards.  That jackass decided to take last week off. But he's/I'm back. I can tell you're all very excited to hear that.

How about we hop back onto the HBO-train and enter the 2009 section of my purchase. Since the blog had cooled off for a week, a polar bear decided to set up shop on the scanner when I got there.

Not too shabby of a little card.  Here are the rest of the '09 Topps T206 cards in my collection.

Now that the scanner is back in town, be on the look out for some more HBO purchase cards.

Picture This......

......card featuring a picture of the person who signed it.

How cool would that be? 

Buying A Card Sight-Unseen

Will often sometimes lead to owning a headless autograph.

No, I'm not becoming a Broxton collector.  It just so happens that this is my first two-sided autograph card.  Numbered 4/5, the other side of this coin card is another Tristar "cut" graph for my Hoch collection.

Awful design. No picture. Unnecessarily encased in a giant lucite holder.  Ugh, being a player collector is broo-taal when there's a monopoly in town.

3/1

I'm half tempted to only collect the 1/1 cards of the 2012 A&G Hochevar release.  I mean, I'm already over half way there.

Oh, who am I kidding.  Feel free to send me your extra 2012 A&G Hochs.

Black Shirt

No, not the Nebraska Cornhuskers' defense.  The "black shirt" I'm talking about is the piece of All-Star Futures Game game-worn jersey.

And my rainbow continues to grow.

In fact, it's about too big for my scanner.

Box Topper

Being a player collector sure is fun. Take for instance this SPx Rookie Signatures card.  I have no idea how many times I came across a similar card and passed it by because I thought I already had it.  Well, this particular card was listed as a "box topper" in the eBay listing, which piqued my interest. 

After a little research, I learned that it was indeed a parallel to the SP Rookie Signatures card I already owned.

Now, anyone looking at these two cards notices right away that they are different, but when I'm scanning eBay, I don't always do a card by card comparison to the ones I already have in my collection.  So, mega thanks to the eBay seller who was smart enough to label this one correctly as a box topper.

Patchey Elegance

Another recent eBay purchase is this 2007 Tristar Elegance Showtime game-worn patch, and it is absolutely AMAZING looking in person.

It goes great with the other Elegance cards I got in my HBO purchase.

Royal Blue

I'm going to take a little break from showing off the HBO winnings and feature a handful of recent eBay purchases.

First up is a 2004 UD USA Baseball blue autograph of Hoch.

With this new addition, I'm getting really close to finishing off this rainbow set.

I know I still need the blue autograph jersey card, so I'll keep my eyes peeled for it and will wrangle it into my collection as soon as possible.  Also, I like how each different version of the card features a different photograph.  Way cool.

HBO: Fresh off the Presses

Here ye, here ye!!!

Fresh off the presses!!!

I have another printing plate!!!

HBO: Mini-Me

Numbered to 88, this green-back 2008 Goudey is a peach. But the best part is that it only cost me

/pinkie to the corner of my mouth/

ONE MILLION DOLLARS!!!

Sound the Horn

Just like the chap in the Furman University Murad card, I'm sounding the horn and pulling out the megaphone to ask everyone to keep their eyes peeled for any of the 66 remaining Murad cards I need for my Murad T51 collection. 

Furman University -- 88/150, 58.7%

HBO: Premier Signatures

In the HBO, there were a handful of times when I'd add the HBO cards to my cards and end up with a pile of dupes.  Sometimes they were simple base-card dupes.  Sometimes they were low numbered autograph cards.

Take for instance the UD Signature Premier cards below.  The blue cards are numbered to /45 and the gold cards are numbered to /15. 

As my Hochevar player collection gets deeper and deeper along, I'm guessing that these instances of duplicates will occur more and more, which is cool with me.

The Cabin in the Woods

No, not the horror movie.

No, not the coffee-table picture book.

No, not the "how to build a cabin in the woods" plan kit.

It's just a tiny piece of 100-year-old cardboard featuring a cabin in the woods.

Hamilton College -- 85/150, 56.7%

And it's the second to last one I have from the lot-of-27 I bought many moons ago.  Just like many lakes around my state, the electronic bay has dried up of Murads I need.  Hopefully they will start springing up during the autumnal harvest.