Contest over at GA Mindset

Hey, interested in winning a free hobby box of Topps Chrome?  Head over to GA Mindset and enter!

Shelliebee Rocks... Pun Intended

For those of you who don't know Shelliebee is a Rockies fan with a great card blog.  Check it out if you have not already.  So she and I completed a trade about a month ago in which I sent her a Dexter Fowler auto and a bunch of Rockies for a bunch of Mets that I collect.  It worked out for both of us. 

Then, she broke a box of Topps Chrome and pulled an Ike Davis refractor.

I have been looking for any Ike Davis cards I can get my hands
on, so I was very grateful when she sent it my way.

However, the generosity did not end there, she also sent me a bunch of other Mets that she pulled including a David Wright Xfractor. I did not even know there was a difference but the Xfractor has the checkerboard look and the Ike Davis does not and looks like a normal Chrome to me other than the word refractor next to the number on the back of the card.

When she told me she was sending me this jewel I was overjoyed.

 

Not just a David Wright relic card, of which I had none, but my favorite brand of relic card (A&G) and a blue piece of jersey (Met blue being my favorite color).  Seriously, I could have hardly asked for a better card!

So thank you Shelliebee, and I will be sending some cards your way though nothing as cool as these gems unfortunately.

Congratulations Giants

Well, after a depressing first round of the playoffs, the second round went as well as this Met fan could have hoped.

Since I congratulated the Rangers with a game used card I got from the local card shop, here is a game used card from the same shop that I picked up last year.

Game Three Winner of the NLCS: Matt Cain.  I think he is a bit underrated, but he is quite good.  As an NL fan from NY I'll be rooting for the Giants whose logo while in New York clearly influenced my favorite team's current logo.  However, I won't be to upset if the Rangers win, which is good because I think that is the more likely scenario.

Regardless, good luck Matt Cain!

Incidentally, I thought this was a relatively nice card back for a game used card.

Congratulations Rangers

Thanks in large part to this man, who was involved in four of the six Rangers runs in the clinching game, I will now definitely have a rooting interest and reason to watch the World Series.  If the Giants can beat the Phillies, it should be really fun.

I actually just picked up this card the other day at my local card shop.  I have always liked the way Ginter does relics: a combination of plastic, card stock (I think), and the game used material which is wood in this case.

Thanks again Vlad!  With the way you rebounded this year, you could actually make it to 500 HR with over 2500 hits, and I think those are Hall of Fame numbers.

Return of Card of the Week

1998 Leaf Fractal Materials #13
Jose Cruz Jr.
Materials: Wood and Cardstock

 
The Player:

Jose Cruz Jr. had a solid career.  He put up one stellar season in 2001 when he was with Toronto.  He posted an OPS of .857, stole 32 bases and got caught only 5 times, and hit 34 HRs and 38 doubles.  He also had one outstanding defense year winning a Gold Glove in 2003 with the Giants as a result of 18 assists and stellar play in Right Field.



The Card:

In 1998 Leaf created several parallels to their normal set, the most notable were Fractal Foundations, which was a refractor, and Fractal Materials.  Now each of the Fractal Materials parallels could be die cut to add another level of paralleling, but what interested me more than the cut was the four different materials used in this set: Nylon, Leather, Plastic, and Wood.  This particular card is one of the wood parallels.  Basically, the image is printed on wood and then the piece of wood is glued to cardstock so the back of the card appears normal besides the stamp indicating the run of the card.  Of the non-cut cards, I believe the wood cards had the shortest run.  It was a set definitely up my alley.  In the coming weeks I'll post cards with the other three materials from this set.  If anyone has any other wood cards from this set that they are willing to trade let me know!

Interesting Group Break

Hey, check it out.  Cardboard Collections is running a very reasonably priced group break with a couple of interesting boxes.  Check it out, there are still a bunch of cool teams left!

The Hatless Horsemen aka Topps 206 Mets

So I stopped at a mini card show this past weekend.  Many of the dealers were packing up, but I found one that had a bunch of 2010 stuff unsorted in large boxes and was happy to wait around as I poked through them.  One of the benefits to being a Met fan in the Chicagoland area is that Mets are pretty much thrown in with the commons.  This guy had a whole bunch of Mets mixed in with his 2010 Topps 206, so I picked up a bunch.

First, I found a Jackie Robinson.  Not a Met I know, but he still fits in with this theme since the Citi Field entrance is a fitting ode to him.

Look ma, no hat!

Next came a trio of pitchers.

The Ace

The Up-and-comer

The Kid

And a trio of hitters, now more question marks than exclamation points unfortunately.

This card perfectly summed up Beltran's season, nice work Topps!

The one Met hitter who had a very good year.

 His smile can still light up a field.

And finally, one I picked up in a trade rather than at the card show.  A Tom Seaver mini piedmont!

Hats off to madding over at Cards on Cards for this terrific, puns intended, throw in.  I will probably get around to posting the central card in the trade another day.

I'd be interested to hear what other Mets fans think of these.  I don't mind these hatless cards, but maybe the Mets just have interesting looking heads even without the caps.