Scratching the itch

I broke down and bought one of those repacks that has 10 packs of cards and 4 "jumbo" packs of cards in it.  I was jonesing to bust some packs and this gave me 14 chances.  Well, there's three packs I'm still debating whether or not do something else with.

There were some interesting developments (at least to me).

Such as the the searched pack of 2010 Series 1.  There was a pack of 12 cards and two packs of 8 cards in the box (what's difference?  hobby vs. retail?).  I went to open one of the packs of 8 cards and the bottom was already open.  Sure enough, out came 6 base cards and no inserts.  So I got a searched pack of cards in a re-pack.

I got only one new Angel.  There were two Angels in the 2010 packs, Jered Weaver I have multiple copies of, but Bobby Abreu actually ended up in my Angel Frankenset.

The 2013 Heritage cards were nice, and included Mike Scioscia, the new to me Angel.   [Edit: I did already have Scioscia, but he fits an open slot in my Angel Frankenset]  The 2012 Triple Play, not so much.

The stars of the show were the 2013 Archives.

I never buy Archives, because typically I'd only want to collect one, maybe two, of the four years.  In this case it'd be the 85's.  Then again, the 82's came out surprisingly sharp.  Star power right there. Excellent picture on the Kid.  The 90 Yogi is kinda boring.  There were no retro 72s in my packs.

But then I realized I got a "hit".

Now, I don't collect autographs.  Never had any.  If you gave me a Rod Carew auto, or Mike Trout, I'd keep it and appreciate it.   I didn't even realize it was an auto for awhile.  This isn't even baseball....and yet......  I listened to Mr. Pearcy's band and many of his brethren back in the day.  So this is kinda cool.  I may or may not keep it.

Thank You Huskies

Kerry over at Cards on Cards was nice enough to host a March Madness tournament challenge, which I entered.

After all my Pac-12 schools started dropping out, I was languishing towards the bottom of the standings.  But I still had one dog (no pun intended) in the fight.  When UConn won their Final Four game I shot up to 6th in the standings.  Yes, I had UConn in the Championship game.  Of course, if I had the foresight to pick them to win, I would have won the whole thing.... But I'm happy with 6th place.  And 6th place enabled me to claim a prize:

And I went with this Mike Trout sticker.  (Best player in baseball).  But Kerry didn't stop there.

He threw in this 2011 Topps Chrome Jered Weaver.  (Forgive my ignorance - is this the X-Fractor parallel?)  Unexpected bonus, and it's pretty awesome.

Thank You Huskies!!  Kerry

This Way redux

I hope everyone had a Happy Easter.  I took my daughters up to visit my aunt on Friday and Saturday, then came back for Easter at my mom's house.  So a good family weekend.

Back in February, Mark over at This Way to the Clubhouse sent me some cards.  He included in that batch cards that go into my "Topps Base Angels" binder.  Welp, he decided to send along another batch.  And again he included some great cards from my time away from the hobby.

Some 1999 base cards.  Its funny to look at gold borders nowadays.  15 years ago nobody thought "Parallel?"  Washburn would still be around to give a homerun to Bonds in the 2002 World Series.

They didn't think that in 1998 either.  2002 was straight up orange.  Still not sure what I think of that.  3/4 of this group were prominent contributors to the Angels' World Series victory.  Dickson was busy being released by both the Devil Rays and (ironically) the Giants during 2002.

I just scanned these together because I find horizontal cards scanned sideways to be odd.  And yet, that's exactly how these will be displayed in the binder....

But there wasn't just Topps base cards included.

That is not a green border on Haren.  My scanner just decided that the gold foil (I think that's the right parallel) wasn't gold.  Kinda looks cool though, almost as good as the actual card.  I'm not sure what I think of Heritage parallels.  On the one hand, I'm a sucker for parallels.  On the other, they didn't even consider parallels in 1964.  They did consider parallels in 2010, and I think the gold looks particularly nice against the blue/red combo of the Angels.   And a Wally Joyner sticker?  Outstanding.

Thanks again Mark. 

"O" Yes

In my last post I mentioned that Ryan over at "O" No!! Another Orioles Blog sent me a bunch of Angels.  Let's take a look at some of them.

Hope I like the assortment of Angels?  Much like Tim Salmon up top there, Ryan hit it out of the park.  Every card Ryan sent to me was new to me.  You can't beat that.

I had considered a Chad Curtis PC for a long time.  He was the most exciting player on the early 90's teams for his first few years.  But being the father of two teenage girls, I'm not sure I could justify a PC.  Chuck Finley there is in reality the Angels all-time pitcher.  Of course the man just below him might argue.

These Bowman cards are super thick.  I'm sure anybody who was collecting when they came out would know why, but I haven't looked it up yet.   I was kinda sorry to Peter Bourjos go, but i think the Angels needed to make room for Kole Calhoun.  Who is now injured.  Let's just hope the trade works out better for the Angels than the last time they traded an outfielder to the Cardinals. (That might not be fair to Adam Kennedy).

More Bowman.  Those first two are shiny.  They're dark, but not as dark as they scan.   I usually forget that Matsui was an Angel.  The back of the Napoli looks just like the front, except its a Hank Conger card.  And as long as his velocity doesn't keep dropping, Weaver could be in the all-time Angels pitchers conversation eventually.

Another Ryan and Finley pairing.  This particular Ryan gives me 6 of the 9 cards in the Ryan portion of the subset.  I just need 15, 16, and 17.  That night be the most unflattering picture Upper Deck could find for Troy Percival.  I really like the design on the 2009 Upper Deck cards.  clean.

The back of the Erstad takes me right back to the 80's.  There's a 2009 O-Pee-Chee black and a 2009 O-Pee-Chee black mini.  Which is a parallel of a parallel.  I think.

Yes Ryan.  I like my assortment very much.

Set Building

It's been kinda dark here on the ol' Junk Wax blog.  Because, well... I'm a bad blogger.  So I'll do a quick post for now.

But I've gotten a few packages lately which have helped me with some set needs.

Robert over at $30 a week habit decided to help me out with 2014 and 2013 Topps base needs.  I got so excited to put the cards into the set that they went right in, so there's no scans.  Like I said, bad blogger.

There's the box anyway.  And it was full.  Everyone has seen the last two Topps offerings, so there probably wasn't any new ground to cover there. But suffice it to say, those cards get this set builder excited!  Thanx Robert.

Ryan over at "O" No!! Another Orioles Blog sent me a bunch of cards too.  There were some more of my 2014 needs in there, some Angels cards in there (which deserve another post) and these:

3 more cards towards my 1979 Topps set.  I'm down to 70 cards needed to complete the set.  And ordinarily a 1990 Topps card might not seem noteworthy.  But this one is.  Set Completion!!  Yup, Mr. Bloody Sock up there was the last card I needed.   Thanx Ryan.

More rainbow

I added another card to my Mike Trout rainbow. 

I don't even have the Opening Day base, but I have this parallel now.  Out of all the "sparkly" parallels, these blue ones are my 2nd favorite, so I'm glad to have it.

12/2/13

I pulled this card out of a pack of Heritage:

On the back is a mention of his brother Jemile:

Jemile was traded from Oakland to Baltimore on December 2, 2013.

I also pulled this card from the pack:

which on the back

clearly references his move from Baltimore.  He was traded to Oakland.for Jemile Weeks.

Which is it Topps?  Trade? or No Trade?