2011 TOPPS END ZONE ICONS

OK I have searched and searched the internet but I can't find the checklist for the 2011 Topps End Zone Icons inserts.  Can anyone help?  Here is the card I have.

BEEN BUSY!!!

OK so I've had it mentioned to me that I'm not posting enough Blogs.  Fair enough, but Football season officially started yesterday which means I am going to be having A LOT of time spent in front of my tv.  I have also been trying to get a good bit more of my cards that I already have logged in and data-based.  I've logged in over 28 thousand so far and that does not include the duplicates.  But I still have so many to go so please understand that I haven't forgotten to blog I just haven't had as much time as of late.  I am going to try to do better as I have been keeping my eyes open for any interesting cards as I log them in but the problem is I've been doing a lot from the late 80's early 90's and those were some really boring card years for me.  Alright it's back to logging in because I've got a High School football game to go to this evening!

DO YOU COLLECT FOR THE MONETARY ASPECT OR FOR THE LOVE OF IT?

You have asked yourself this question before or you wouldn't be collecting.  Some people collect sports stuff just so they can turn around and sell it for a profit.  Nothing wrong with that at all.  I on the other hand collect because I love it.  I really enjoy from time to time going back and looking through binders of cards or flipping through boxes and randomly picking out a card and just looking it over and reading the stats on the back.  If it's an old card I think of what it would have been like to have watched that player play.  And when it comes to Autographs I have gotten, well, I got them myself so I love telling the story of the players attitude and what it was like to meet them.

A couple of post ago I mentioned that I had received an Autograph from Topps Editor Colin Butler.  I had mixed emotions about it because he was an employee rather than a sports figure.  I asked people to post their thoughts on it to see if your thoughts might change my mind into liking them.

I was contacted by a gentlemen named Jake.  Turns out he is best friends with Colin and had been looking for one of his cards ever since the Allen & Ginter set came out, but he was having no luck until he saw my blog on the card.  He asked me if I would be willing to part ways with the card and immediately I said yes just asking a fair price or trade for the card.  While waiting on his reply I started thinking.  I collect cards from every sport that happens to cross my path and a lot of times I get Inserts that really have nothing to do with sports yet I still collect them.  It was then that I realized that even employees could become collectible if marketed correctly as was done with the Allen & Ginters.  I still parted ways with this card because even though it would be collectible it meant something to Jake just like my football autographed by all of the 1998 HOF inductees.  I met each one of them to get their autographs and would never part ways with that football. I understood how Jake felt and knew that the card was going to someone who will really appreciate it and cherish it forever.  Here are a couple photos of Jake and Colin.

Jake mentioned to me that he does not collect sports cards however In my eyes he has just started by collecting one of his good friend Colin and I'm glad that I was able to be involved with helping him reach his goal of getting his card.

The love of collecting.  This transaction is what kindles the spark of opening up another pack of cards or encouraging me to drive many miles to meet that special player.  I hope when you pause and think about your collections whether it's for monetary purposes or for the love of it that you do stop and think of the players, or in this case employees and the people that it does affect!  Enjoy!

2008 TOPPS KMART INSERTS AND CHECKLIST

OK, I don't know how rare these cards are but I had one heck of a time building the checklist for this insert set. I had to go to site after site and get one card here and one card there to get it completed.  I got VERY frustrated!!!  But now it's done and I thought to myself hey if it was this difficult for me then it might be for someone else also so I'm posting the checklist on here if anybody needs it.  First is a picture of the cards that I have in the set and the checklist is at the bottom.  Enjoy.

Checklist
 RV1 Chin-Lung Hu
 RV2 Steve Pearce
 RV3 Luke Hochevar
 RV4 Joey Votto
 RV5 Clay Buchholz
 RV6 Emilio Bonifacio
 RV7 Daric Barton 
 RV8 Eugenio Velez
 RV9 J.R. Towles
 RV10 Wladimir Balentien 
 RV11 Ross Detwiler
 RV12 Troy Patton
 RV13 Brandon Jones
 RV14 Billy Buckner
 RV15 Ross Ohlendorf
 RV16 Nick Blackburn
 RV17 Masahide Kobayashi
 RV18 Jayson Nix
 RV19 Blake DeWitt
 RV20 Hiroki Kuroda
 RV21 Matt Tolbert
 RV22 Brian Bass
 RV23 Fernando Hernandez
 RV24 Kazuo Fukumori
 RV25 Brian Barton
 RV26 Clete Thomas
 RV27 Rico Washington
 RV28 Erick Threets
 RV29 Callix Crabbe
 RV30 Johnny Cueto

MIXED EMOTIONS ABOUT A 1/10 AUTOGRAPH

I love cards that have Game Used items in them, Rare cards and Autographed Cards, but an Autograph of a Topps Employee?  Come on now.  That just seems a little ridiculous to me!  I'll start by saying I really like the 2011 Topps Allen & Ginter's set.  It is a very interesting set with stars from any sport imaginable, even bean bag tossing! (lol it's considered a sport).  I love how they frame their Game Used items and Autographed cards.  The framed cards should stay in perfect shape for many many years.  However I did receive a 1/10 Autographed card of Colin Butler, a Baseball Editor at Topps.  Why?  Are there not enough sports stars to get Autographs from that we have to turn to Employees?  I'm very mixed on this one.  Here is a pic of it.  Let me know your opinion on the Employee Autographs.  Who knows maybe you can convince me to like them more. haha

JUST WANT TO VENT

OK!  It is just RIDICULOUS how many inserts the companies are putting into their sets now.  It's fine and dandy with me if they have numerous different sets because then you could collect just the sets you like but the way it is now all of the sets have numerous inserts!  There is noway for anyone to collect the set and all the inserts without basically buying the inserts off of eBay.  I like opening and searching for my inserts and not knowing from the beginning that I'm not going to find them all.  And then to top it off companies like Wal-Mart create one or two mirror sets of the base sets. ;alsdkjfa;lsdkjf  I'm just frustrated.  All I ask is that the companies limit their insert sets to maybe 5 sets of inserts.  Anything just make it more manageable PLEASE!

2008 TOPPS ALL-STAR GIVEAWAY

Well it's been over a week since I left a blog and I'm sorry for that.  I went on a trip to Mississippi to visit some family but don't worry, I hit up the discount section of their Wal-Mart while there.  I picked up a couple of boxes of mixed year and brand cards.  I haven't opened any of them yet however each box had a card just sitting in a little protective sleeve.  Sooo here they are.  The first one is a Mickey Mantle 1 or 4 All-Star giveaway card:

And the second is a Chien-Ming Wang 4 of 4 All-Star giveaway card:

I haven't collected any of the 2008 set so I don't know much about it however I do have a few of them that I have received in the 2011 Topps Diamond Dig giveaway so I'll probably have those sent soon.  Anyway hope you enjoy these two.

2010 Topps Chrome - Baseball

You know that little section in each Wal-Mart that has the sports cards?  There is always a little section where they place their old boxes that are a year or two old and discounted so they can clear space on their shelves.  Well today as I was glancing through to see what they had I decided to look though that older discounted sections.  And I'm glad I did!  The retail boxes had been discounted to 10 dollars so I picked up a couple boxes of the 2010 Topps Chrome.  I opened up the boxes to log them in and file them away and I ended up pulling 3 Purple Refractors numbered to */599.

I then pulled a Blue Refractor numbered to */199

Finally I pulled a Jason Heyward Autographed Rookie Card.

I'm sorry the Jason Heyward was cut off on the scan.  And the scans don't show the refraction of the others but they are all beautiful cards.  I'm very pleased with that little discount section!

HUGE DAY WITH MY 2011 TOPPS SERIES 2

 Ok today I believe will be my last day with the 2011 Topps Diamond Anniversary Series 1 and 2.  I might have more blogs on them in the future but I don't think I'll be opening anymore.  It was a good day to end on though.  Today I pulled 3 sparkle cards and 1 Canary Diamond 1/1!!!!!

First I pulled a Brandon Phillips #630 Sparkle card and then just a few packs later I pulled another one so that gives me 2 of the Brandon Phillips.  Have to decide what to do with the extra one.

Later I was opening a pack of the Black Parrallell.  Inside it I received the Mike Minor #478 Sparkle.

All total I pulled 5 Sparkle cards and I'm happy with that.  Anytime I get a unique card I'm happy.

Finally I pulled this Dale Murphy #135 Canary Diamond 1/1!!!  I had not seen any of these cards so I'm glad that I was lucky enough to pull one and the fact that it's Dale Murphy makes it that much more special being I am an Atlanta Braves fan.  It's hard to see but if you look on the bottom of his left leg you will see the 1/1.

2011 Topps Domonic Brown Sparkle???

Today I pulled the 2011 Topps Domonic Brown card #421.  Now it's listed as not being a sparkle however it sure looks like it is to me.  If it's not then that is one heck of a reflection off the helmet!  Interesting anyway.

1994-95 Topps Embossed Basketball

Today I wanted to show a couple cards from the 94-95 Topps Embossed Basketball set.  A few blogs ago I talked about card designs and how many of them (In my opinion) I didn't like because they were too busy with the artwork on the fronts.  This however is another set that I like.  I really like how the border is basically like a basketball and then the rest of the card is only dedicated to the player.  The first photo is of the Foil cards from this set.

Here is a regular card from the set with the border that I was talking about.  When I saw this card I decided to show it and tell a little story.  Obviously it's Dennis Rodman.  I met his father a few months ago when I was on vacation in the Philippines.  Turns out that Dennis and his father haven't talked to each other for many years.  Now I wish I could say his father was a great meet however I can't.  He owns a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant basically across the street from where my wife and I had a house.  Now don't get me wrong he was nice enough to talk with but when we would be sitting out front of our house enjoying the evenings he would be inside his restaurant partying with his friends.  Almost every night.  It got real old but hey, it's still neat to have met him and now I have another story to add to my collection! 

1989 TOPPS BASEBALL COINS

I knew that I had some Hockey coins and decided that I would find them and get them logged in but I had forgotten all about my baseball coins.  I have always like things like the coins.  It's just neat to me to look at things other than regular cards.  Here are a couple pictures of what I have of the 1989 Topps Coins collection.  I'm sorry if the backs aren't that clear but hope you enjoy them.

A BEAUTIFUL CARD

As I go through my cards data-basing them I like to pause and enjoy a beautiful card.  There have been many many very bad designs in my opinion!  To much going on with the card that distracts you from the player himself.  I've noticed this with all of the different sports, however from time to time I feel they do it right!  I have felt that way about the Baseball 2011 Topps.  The pictures are very clear, the colors really pop, and I feel the name and team logo placement were done just right.

I had been thinking that this was the best set that I had seen until I was going through my cards and came across the 2001 Topps set.  The cards are beautifully made with a dark rich border inlaid with the typical goldish foil.  The pictures are just as crisp and clear as the 2011 set.  Sadly my set is damaged due to water and I don't think the whole set can be saved but after looking at the cards that weren't damaged I am starting to feel that I might try to build this set again.  Only time will tell.

JUST LIKE CHRISTMAS

Well my household goods shipment just arrived and that means all of my sports cards are here.  Boy did I forget how much I had however it sure feels like Christmas!!!  As I opened the boxes I started remembering the cards from the past.  I'm like a kid with my cards.  I look forward to showing cards from the collection and hopefully you all will find them as interesting as I do.  I have just finished data-basing the the 2011 Topps series 1 so now I'll be working on some of my older sets and can't wait to show a few of the cards.  I'm excited.  Christmas is my most favorite holiday of the year and this year it's coming twice!!! lol

DIAMOND DIE CUTS

Today I received from Topps my package which had a few cards in it that I have received in the Diamond Giveaway.  I decided to show my five Diamond Die Cuts that I've received so far.  Their really nice cards and Topps did a very good job of wrapping them. (Sorry if you see the wrinkles in the wrapping)  I kept them wrapped when I received them and will keep them that way until I decided how I will either store them or display them.  I sure wish I could pull a Black Diamond Die Cut though! haha

MY SECOND SPARKLE

About 4 packs after opening my Alex Rodriguez SPARKLE I opened a Roy Oswalt SPARKLE card #174.  I almost didn't notice it!  The SPARKLE doesn't pop like the Rodriguez card does but it's still pretty cool to me!  Here are the scans of my card.  I have only 1 box of 2011 Topps Diamond Anniversary Series 1 left unopened and I'm not going to open it now.  I'm just going to put that box away because it's a special box to me so I'm done!  I made a good run on this set, completed a few of the insert sets and got a couple SPARKLE's so all in all it was great, however we all know it's not over with Series 2 coming out now! haha

MY FIRST SPARKLE

Well today I pulled my first SPARKLE out of the 2011 Topps Baseball set.  The Alex Rodriguez card #50.  It's a beautiful card and the burst really does pop when you look at it.  The funny thing is about two packs prior I had said "Man how come I can't find a SPARKLE"! haha Well I'm just glad I got one.  It's nice to look at.  Here are the pics of mine even though it's the same as any other online.

TRADING CARDS

So...where do you trade your sports cards at?  This has been a tough question for me lately.  I want to start getting rid of my duplicate cards to decrease the size of my collection.  For now I'm going to create either word documents or PDF files and just post them on here but there has got to be a website dedicated to just trading doesn't there? Hmmm well until I find out or until someone tells me, I'll just prepare to post what I have for trade and go from there.  More to follow on this subject!!

THE FIND

I'm sure we have all dreamed of finding that secret stash of cards somewhere and from time to time we read about someone else who did experience finding something that had been forgotten.  Well in a way I have gotten the opportunity to experience the find!  My father had stopped by a self-storage property that was auctioning off their units that had been neglected.  My father found a unit that had a couple of large plastic totes in it and decided that he would bid $20.00.  Of course nobody else bid on the unit and my dad won.  He opened the first tote and found a few pots and pans but nothing more.  Then he opened the other and there was roughly around 50 thousand sports cards.  I am currently organizing them and data-basing them.  I wish I could say there was a rookie Mickey Mantle in there but we weren't that lucky.  The oldest cards are only dating to the early 70's however there are many complete sets as well as other sets that are close to being complete.  I'm starting to think that there are cards from all sports in this find as well.  I wasn't with my father that day he found this and it's probably a good thing.  I'm sure I would have passed out but it reminds me that there are finds out there if we are lucky enough.  I hope I get to experience the find one day myself and if you have had this happen to you then post it, I would love to read your story!

NEED HELP IDENTIFYING

Ok all I have these 8 cards and I need help identifying them.  I'm trying to find out information about the set they came from i.e. how many cards in the set? Is there a Checklist? Anything.  They are reprints dated 1988 The Sporting News Publishing Co.  Any help would be appreciated.  I made the second photo as large as I could so maybe you can use the information to help.  Thanks again.