Ginter Goodness...

I'll get through this comc package if it kills me. And it just might.

Today we'll show off a whack o' Ginter. Nothing but the hits baby!

I did quite well here... selling off old 2008 Ginter hits of random no names and acquiring 2013 Ginter hits of much wanted Bravos.

Allen&Ginter  had two separate types of relics, full size, and bordered min relics.

Here are the full size. They look sharp. Well done.

Brandon Beachy - $1.08

Craig Kimbrel - $1.24  best reliever in baseball, and the cornerstone of my fantasy baseball team the last three years.

The J-Hey kid... $1.46

and the good Upton. (No, not Kate....) $1.24

I only need the Hank Aaron full sized relic and my set is complete.....

Bordered minis...

Brian McCann - $1.31  I'll miss him. Although I'll see him on tv four times a week now instead of four times a season..... Next on FOX! Yankees vs. Red Sox!

Jason... again.... $1.47  couldn't we have mixed up the player selection a bit? I already have a Kimbrel mini as well... seriously Topps...

oh, and a random Mike Joy for my dad. He got a kick out of it. $2.23

I'm really glad to have been able to pick these up... now I just have to find someone with the full sized Aaron relic....

Yeah... good luck.

Thanks for coming out! Here's a prize...

 the past couple of trade nights at one of the local shops have brought more than just trades or disappointing box busts... they've brought freebies!

now you know how much I like free. If it's free, it's me.

The shop keep likes to hide little gems under the desk for his patrons, and I was the lucky recipient of a goodie each of the last two trade nights.

In September, I got this....

 inside of it, this was hiding...

 BMac! And a sad Dee Gordon sad that he hasn`t lived up to the hype that Topps put on him.

Here`s the back for posterity. Weird that we`ve got the back of Justin Verlander`s card instead of John Jaso.... but Jaso never rang Kate Upton`s bell, so there`s that.

This past week brought another treasure. A Jason Heyward Studio card form some sort of Panini pack giveaway that I knew nothing about. This doesn`t surprise me as I tend to not notice things like this.

and why on Earth would they reproduce this Studio set??? One of the worst sets of all time! Leave it to Panini I guess.

Oh, and there was also this parallel of the Jason Heyward card.

Great googly moogly. What is that?

I have no idea.... but in the Heyward binder it goes.

Thanks Darren!

Jason Heyward was traded!

 

J Hey was traded to me during Thursday trade night at the local shop. He was part of a large 5 cards for 10 cards deal. I ended up with two baseball and eight hockey cards in the swap.

 

The main piece going back the other way was a 2011 Bowman Platinum Edwin Encarnacion bat relic auto /100 that I was going to show you.......... but I can't find the post in which I originally posted it.

 

So imagine it in all of it's green and blue shiny goodness.

 

Now look at Jason.

 

 in case you can't read the wonderful foil, it's numbered 05/18

Jason and his newly acquired Gold Glove can rest for awhile now. They're home. Speaking of Gold Gloves... I can't believe out of the four nominated Braves, only Heyward won. Prado didn't get it, Freddie Freeman lost out to former Brave and Waxaholic fave Adam LaRoche, and the best defensive outfielder in baseball, Michael Bourn, lost out. And that's not me calling him the best, that's a quote from MLB.com.
Apparently being the best doesn't get you very far these days.

But I digress.... I also picked up the #1 best looking card from all of the 2012 baseball cards produced. This one would win any contest or poll.

Look at those beautiful and shiny black borders.

Undoubtedly the best card of 2012.

until I manage to find the Orange one.

or the Blue one.

and the Purple one...

Sophmore Slump

One of the benefits of a player you like going through the dreaded sophmore slump, is that you are able to pick up cards of them a lot more readily. And cheaply too. Mr Heyward is an example of that.

I've gone from not even seeing cards of his as people hoard them away in tightly sealed vaults, to being able to pick them up at card shows and card shops whenever I want.

I visited one of the local shops awhile back and they brought out this little beauty from behind the counter.

 From 2011 Topps Lineage. No one seemed to like this set but me. Although I still didn't collect because of the price point, and the dreaded UNO backs. But this one had a decent back to it.

 For those of you scratching your heads as you can't remember seeing this one in packs, it's okay because it wasn't available in packs. It was a box topper. And bigger than the normal 2 1/2 x 3 1/2.
Here's a shiny Phil Hughes to demonstrate.

Phil is for trade by the way......

Jason set me back $1.25.

Now the only problem is........ how the hell am I going to store this sucker???

New! Shiny! Bowman somethingorothers.....

at last weekend's card show, I picked up a couple of new shiny Braves from on of Bowman's latest releases.

The first, of pitcher Arodys Vizcaino is a very shiny die-cut thingie. I have no idea what insert set this is from. It's number is 10.

 Cool despite not knowing where it came from. Or why the really odd die-cut shape.

The second was a shiny J-Hey. This one was a little easier figuring out where it came from.

Nice.
Not bad for a hockey show in the Great White North.

Local Freebies...

 When I was at my local card shop the other day buying packs, the owner handed me two cards from under the desk.
A 2011 Bowman Gold Fabulous Freddie Freeman and a 2011 Bowman Platinum J-Hey.

I'm ashamed to say I didn't ask if it was the shop's donation, or another customer leaving me cards. Either way, I'm very grateful.
Another two great cards to the collection.

Blame Jason Heyward

so at last year's spring training, Braves phenom Jason Heyward put on a batting display lasting several days. His home runs would be hit so far, they would leave the field of play, cross a smaller field, and land in a parking lot across the street. This parking lot held the cars of Braves execs and managment. In all arbout 14 cars were damaged over the course of the week.

This year?

Well, you can't say the Braves don't adapt and learn from past mistakes.

like an orange on a toothpick...

awhile back I put up my first and only pack break of this year's new Ginter offering. Finding nothing I wanted, I offered it up for the masses. Tunguska from Long Fly Ball To Because jumped at a couple of the cards, offering a JHey RC. Sold! Here's the Rookie of the Year, Most Valuble Player, Comeback Player of the Year, and the newest Hall of Famer....
Tunguska also threw in Jason's TDIH card. On the back it says "Jason Heyward born on August 9th.... and the World rejoiced"

Apparently we don't swap enough, because he'd been saving this card for me since last year.

but it's not just a Tony Romo Mayo card....... it's HUGE!

Thanks to Matt Ryan, we see the true size of Tony. Not coincidently, this is representitive of how the Falcons feel every time they play the Cowboys.......

Thanks for the trade!!!!!