Almost breaking even

I don't buy cards for the sole purpose of hitting the big card I can sell for a profit anymore. I tried that for 4 years once and ended up with $25K in credit card debt.

That doesn't mean I'm averse to pulling something I can make a little money on if the opportunity is there.

I checks the completed listings on EBay for Byron Buxton Bowman Platinum refractor autos and posted the one I pulled as soon as I could.

I have to say I'm happy that the auction will just about pay for all the BP that I bought. Yes, I realize I bought too much. Getting a Puig base card and the Buxton auto in the first two packs I opened was like winning the lottery the first time you play. I had to play again and again.

Now where is my Gint-a-Cuff box?

Redemption

It's been nearly two years ago now, but some of you will recall that I got lucky and pulled a 2011 Lineage Ian Kinsler auto from a rack pack.  If you didn't see that post or need a refresher, you can check that post out here.

Not even a month later, I was in one of the Daily Dimwit's box breaks and he pulled a redemption for the very same Kinsler auto.  I don't know why I was able to pull that autographed card from a pack one month and get a redemption card for it the next.

I redeemed the card and sort of forgot about it.  One day I got an email from Topps asking if I wanted a substitute since the card was taking so long.  Having seen some of the replacement cards other people were sent by the folks at Topps, I opted to wait.  Again, I forgot about the card until one day, a small envelope arrived in the mail.

Nearly two years after I redeemed the card, it finally arrived.  Good things do come to those who wait.

Or maybe it's good things come to those who forget.
 

Ginter Schminter

Just kidding!  I don't want to anger the Ginter maniacs.  It just so happens that I haven't seen any yet and my Gint-A-Cuffs box had just departed the UPS hub in Memphis the last time I checked.

What I've got for you today is a brief look at the Bowman Platinum I pulled.  I initially purchased a couple of the value packs and a blaster so I could compare the two.  Then I did it again and still hadn't posted anything.  I didn't really see too much of it around the other blogs and here's a brief look at the stuff I pulled.
The first pack I opened had the base Yasiel Puig.

I know that looks like some kind of super gold refractor, but it's the base.  It just scanned that way.

The second pack I opened had this Byron Buxton Refractor auto #146/199.  This is already up on Ebay.

The rest of these are pics I took instead of scans.  I didn't want pics for the cards I was going to sell.

I did a triple take when I saw this XFractor of Mike Piazza.  Mike Piazza????  Yep, it's THAT Mike Piazza's cousin.

I did pretty well hitting Rangers, even though I didn't get any purple refractors.  The only Baseball America Diamonds in the Rough I pulled was a Ranger and two of the three Xfractors I pulled were Rangers.

I pulled 6 of the Cutting Edge inserts.  Notice that one of them is a dupe.

That's the same base Puig and the Top Prospects Puig too.

Finally, a couple other autos.  That's a Beau Taylor refractor on top and an Anthony Meo on the bottom.

I managed to pull 10 gold parallels, 5 sapphire (blue) parallels and 1 ruby parallel.  None of those were Rangers either so I'll probably offer them up in trades.  There you have it.

Now where is that UPS truck?

All hail the mighty Munson

We all have tales of blogger generosity or how the being part of this blogging community has enhanced our collection.  I've been the fortunate recipient of that generosity many times.  This latest encounter with blogger generosity was due to a simple answer to one of Fuji's regular end of post questions.

I was contacted by Max over at the blog Starting Nine and a short time later I received what may well be the greatest play at the plate card ever created.

Max was quick to point out that the card wasn't in the best condition, but I think it's perfect just the way it is. You'll be seeing this card again in the future, but for now just enjoy it's greatness.

Thank you Max, for adding such a great card to my collection.

Pack busting at the dentist

I have an 8 AM dental cleaning appointment so I thought I'd bust a little Bowman Platinum while I waited.

I bought a blaster and two value packs and one of the blaster packs had an auto.

Nate Roberts is no Yasiel Puig, but hey...well, there's no hey really. It's just not Puig. I'm glad to pull an auto anyway and the gold Paul Goldschmidt wasn't bad either.

I'll have a full write up of this and a better round of BP tomorrow.

Best baseball day ever?

Yea, I think so. 

July 19th, Ft. Worth Texas, The Omni Hotel.

The Texas Rangers were honoring Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez at a luncheon because he was being inducted into the Texas Rangers Hall of Fame.

Yours truly was at table #3 sitting alongside former Rangers Casey Cox (1966-1971 Senators, 1972 Rangers, 1972-1973 Yankees) and Kevin Mench (2002-2006 Rangers, 2006-2007 Brewers, 2007-2008 Blue Jays, 2010 Nationals).  I sat next to Casey Cox and spent a good half hour talking to him about what it was like to pitch in his era.  We also discussed what it was like playing for Ted Williams and about the time he had an at bat against Nolan Ryan. 

I didn't go with the idea to get any autographs because I was told that people didn't really do that at these functions.  Well, that was far from the truth and I really missed out on a golden opportunity and if I get to go to another of these things, I'll go prepared.  There were more than 25 former Rangers there and I was like a kid in a candy store.  I did manage to borrow a Sharpie and get Rusty Greer's auto on the Texas Rangers 2013 Yearbook, which was at everyone's seat. 

Here is a close up of Rusty's auto.  He was very gracious and took loads of pictures and signed tons of autographs.  I got a picture with him too, but I don't want to lose any readers by showing my ugly mug. 

Rusty was nice enough to sign another auto for my son.  It was a great experience overall.  We sat two tables over from Nolan Ryan and were not more than 10 feet from Pudge.  Is it too soon to start sucking up in hopes of getting invited back to this thing again? 

I think not. 

Enjoying vacation?

I'm not sure why someone who lives where I live would go CLOSER to the Equator for vacation. It's 90+ headed for over a 100 F here in San Antonio, Tx and I'm sitting in the shade while my kids ride roller coasters. Thank the Lord this park has an attached water park because I hear the lazy river calling my name.

Go Rangers.