Card of the Day - 2011 Bowman Chrome : Mike Trout Base Blue Refractor Parallel (72/150) BGS Graded Gem Mint 9.5

... and another mini rainbow project is done and that is only because of luck and timing as if those two things did not happen I have no idea when I would have acquired this card.

Though this post won't go live till well into the season it is being typed up in late March at the end of the off season. In season the cost of this card would have been a lot higher I assume so securing it now was important. This mini rainbow only consists of 3 cards, base, base refractor and this blue refractor. I will not be going after the gold parallel with its small print run of 50. I already had both the base and base refractor in hand already but was still on the hunt for this card but with the high price attached to it I did not foresee myself landing it anytime soon. Of course then lady luck with a little bit of timing intervened and I couldn't be happier.

I had this card on my watch list and for months it stayed there as no one else anted up to the seller's asking price. He lowered it a couple times but I contacted him to see what his absolute minimum he would take for it and once I knew that I informed him that if I could ever come up with it I would contact him back. Back in March I had a very limited (15/16) 2016 Topps Framed parallel of Corey Seager who I would like to point out is a PC player of mine. Well knowing the market I decided to submit it to BGS for a raw grade and hope that it would come back as a pristine 10 or at the very worst a gem mint 9.5. My thinking was that if I could get one of those grades I could clear enough on the secondary market to pay for this and maybe even more..

Well I received even more than I thought I would (imagine if the Seager card would have earned a 10?) and it was more than enough to pay for most of that BGS submission batch AND the full amount for this card. My thinking is that even though I love Seager's upside, Trout is a proven talent and this card can only keep going up while I believe that framed parallel of Seager's was inflated at the time. Like I said perfect timing a little luck.

With this card now in hand for the double mini rainbow from 2011 Bowman Chrome products I just need the purple refractor from the Draft release. Thankfully that one is not numbered and is somewhat plentiful. I probably will wait till I get enough in a future eBay quarter and use the eBucks to pick that one up.

Seventy-Two

of

One Hundred and Fifty

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin

Card of the Day - 2011 Bowman Draft : Mike Trout Base Chrome BGS Graded Gem Mint 9.5

As the off season comes (came) to a close I finally picked up the base card of Mike Trout from the 2011 Bowman Draft set. Funny how I can acquire the harder ones prior to the so called easier ones but I think when it comes to those I expect a better bargain than the more limited ones. With that said I had to go across the pond to pick up this copy as it originated from Taiwan.

Finally with this card in house I have the blue parallel, the base refractor parallel and only need the purple refractor to "complete" my rainbow for this set. I will "never" really have the full rainbow as the colors gold (50 copies) and orange (25 copies) are too rare for me to win at any type of discount. Hopefully I can locate a purple one at a reasonable in the coming weeks before they skyrocket in value as I suspect they will once the season starts.

With more and more eBay wins from sellers located in Asia I wish more of the cards I am looking for would be from that area of the world as I continue to strike gold money wise over there. I won this on a traditional auction for $10 less than what they were going for here in the USA. I am a patient enough man that I can wait an extra 2 weeks for a card when I can pocket some lunch money.

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin

Card of the Day - 2011 Bowman Chrome : Mike Trout Base BGS Graded Gem Mint 9.5

The off season is quickly coming to a close (at the time of writing this post up) and during these past few months it was my goal to get as many graded Trout and Kershaw cards as I could and with this card now in hand I am just 1 card short from the 2011 Bowman Chrome base set. That just happens to be the blue parallel which is numbered out of only 150 so to be quite honest I didn't expect to acquire that one as it has a high price tag but I am glad to say I have this one now.

There are 2 Trout cards from 2011 Bowman Chrome sets but this is the one that is considered the one to have compared to the Draft version (even though I want both and still in search for that one). Even though this cards is plentiful I have had a hard time locking one down but finally the card Gods smiled down on me as I landed this on a traditional eBay auction at a reasonable price. While I don't expect it rise too much in price I believe it will inch up in the coming months rather than inch down so it was nice to finally win this and move on to other wants and needs for the Trout collection.

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin

Card of the Day - 2011 Bowman Draft : Mike Trout Base Chrome Blue Refractor Parallel (16/199) BGS Graded Gem Mint 9.5

... now this is more like it. A gold banner for the golden player.

Yesterday I showed off a different copy of this Bowman Chrome blue parallel but unlike this one that one was certified as "just" mint by Beckett. My goal this off season was to have this card in a gem mint 9.5 case not a mint 9.0 but I couldn't get one at a cost that was agreeable to me even though it was not going to cost anything out of pocket (had sales from other cards, books etc. to cover it). So what I had to do to pick this card up was to pick up that silver one. How and why so?

These don't come up for sale very often and when they do sellers want an arm and a leg and I don't have one of those to spare so I just had to play the waiting game. Days turned into weeks and after almost 2 months this card popped up but was pared with the silver one from yesterday. To get my gold banner card I would have to pick up the silver one at the same time. Of course 2 graded Trout cards would "cost" more than 1 so I had to figure how to work this out and get the card I wanted for my collection.

Well I did some research to see what a mint 9 of this card could sell for and came away with an amount that seemed pretty easy to recoup. So the plan was to pick up both of the cards in the auction and then sell the mint 9 to partially offset the amount of acquiring both cards. The trick now was I assigned an acceptable amount that this gold version was worth to me which meant that its cost plus the funds from the sale of the silver one could only go so high. The auction was a traditional one so if I was to win the cards I would have to do it the old fashion way without any help with a best offer option. Not surprisingly there were 20+ separate bids when all was said and done but in the end I finally won not 1 but 2 Bowman Chrome blues of Trout.

What was a surprise is that after the sale of the silver one and deducting that amount from this auction I won the cost of the gold one is a lot less than I expected I would have to spend to pick it up. On top of that the auction ended on a day that eBay was running an eBucks promotion and I earned almost $40 for the quarter. A great day indeed

Sixteen

of

One Hundred and Ninety-Nine

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin

Card of the Day - 2011 Bowman Draft : Mike Trout Base Chrome Blue Refractor Parallel (169/199) BGS Graded Mint 9.0

The long wait is over. Since I started my off season goal of acquiring as many Mike Trout graded cards that I could get my hands on this blue refractor from Bowman Chrome has been 1 of 2 (the other being a red Topps Update card) that was on top of that list. Now to be fair there is actually another blue one I want to acquire which hails from the base Chrome set but if I could get either one I would consider it a good off season for me. Well I indeed picked one up but I had to do a little eBay hustle for it.

When it comes to the 2011 cards of Trout unless it is very limited, aka less than 100 print tun, I want/need all of them to be at least gem mint 9.5's so why did I pick this one up when it has a silver banner and not a gold one? Well the reasoning and explanation will be in tomorrow's post but till then here is a blue graded beauty of the best everyday player in baseball today. Bowman Chrome was my favorite brand when I left the hobby back in 2001/2002 and is still one of my favorites since I came back.

One Hundred and Sixty-Nine

of

One Hundred and Ninety-Nine

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin

Card of the Day - 2011 Bowman Chrome : Mike Trout Base Refractor Parallel BGS Graded Gem Mint 9.5

This off season I made it a goal to round up as many "bargain" deals on eBay and other sites for Mike Trout cards in general and graded ones specifically. This one in my eyes became the best of the batch so far and it happened to be on a traditional eBay auction,

While I already picked up a pristine refractor copy of the draft version from the same year I still needed a copy from the base set which is still considered the more desirable one to have. With the pristine draft in hand I didn't need to have the base to have that grade as well but it did have to be a gem mint 9.5. No exceptions on that front. Most times when this card comes up for sale it is on a BIN auction with a price north of $225 and I would have none of that. So when this one popped up on the bay for a starting price of $9.99 with no reserve I zeroed in on it and hoped for the best.

I was armed with enough funds from my non core 4 liquidation auctions that I had a soft ceiling that I thought was reasonable for this card. I looked at recent past completed sales of this card and while they were lower than $225 it was still closer to $200 than $100 so when I landed/won it for barely above book I was giddy. Another gem mint Trout for the collection. With the 2 base refractors out of the way I can now concentrate on the non refractors from both sets which are much cheaper. Might even make it around to the purple refractor if all plays out right. I'm sure the wife will claim that one immediately considering the color. Ha Ha

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin

Card of the Day - 2011 Bowman Draft : Mike Trout Base Chrome Refractor Parallel BGS Graded PRISTINE 10

My two primary players that I collect are Clayton Kershaw and Mike Trout and I am sure I am not the only one that makes that claim. I was finally able to obtain my first and possibly only ever pristine 10 BGS graded card of Kershaw (edit: I've have "acquired"/earned 2 other since this write up). You can read about it HERE if you like. Well with Kershaw in the fold I had to have a Trout to pare it with. While the Kershaw was an autograph I knew there was no way I could get a pristine Trout autograph on any type of deal so I turned my attention to the only logical place in my mind to get the perfect pristine Trout card, his rookie card year aka 2011.

While Mike has cards in the 2009 Bowman Chrome release his "true" rookie cards are found in 2011 and with that there are actually 2 options to go after. To be honest I am still on the hunt for the other but this is the one I was able to get a deal on first. This is the draft version which sports a different picture than the base one. There are numerous colored parallels but I put my attention and efforts into this unnumbered refractor parallel. I had seen various others sell for a lot more than what I "paid" for this. My wallet was powered with funds from sales of cards that I sold in anticipation of acquiring a pristine Trout and when this popped up on eBay for less than what other refractors and non refractors sold for I was shocked. The only problem I had was that this seller also put a best offer option on it. To bargain and get a better deal and hope no one else swoops in and buy it or just click the buy it now button and be done with it? Option 1 for me.

I sent over an offer and the seller declined and countered. He and I went back and forth for a couple days doing that all the while I watched the watch list of the auction getting higher and higher. When the seller and I finally agreed to a price the watch list had grown to 10. Thankfully we came to a deal as I don't know how much longer it would have been available to me. I now own my first and hopefully not last pristine Trout card but if it is the last this is a good one to have.

Pristine goodness!

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin

Trade with Fellow Blogger : Kyle of Nolan's Dugout

I love how my presence online is getting just a little bigger each month as fellow bloggers and/or Twitter friends are reaching out to me for trades. I guess my trade bait list actually was a good thing when I spent a day making it up as Kyle contacted me about some cards on the list that he was interested in.

Kyle runs Nolan's Dugout and though I have never dealt with him before I was more than happy to meet a new internet friend and do a trade. He picked out a few Yankee cards that he desired and asked what I would like back. I wasn't that picky and I ended up with 3 cards for the batch I sent him.

Kyle ended up with a Ruth "relic" card so I ended up with a Kershaw "relic" card.

I have actually owned this card in the past and now I am an owner of it once again. It really doesn't fit anywhere in my collection so it is available for trade if anyone is interested in it. You might ask why would I take something that I had no "use" for? Because I wasn't attached to the cards I traded and I want to help others when and if I can.

The second of three cards I received is a blue beauty.

2011 Bowman Chrome Base Blue Parallel

130 of 150

I do love me some horizontal cards and Kershaw's wingspan is on full display here on this great looking card. Even though Kershaw is my main player to collect now the following card was my main get out of the trade.

Kyle (like Luis a couple months ago) must have read my mind as they both seemed to know that I am trying to collect the rainbow set for Corey and I had not come across this card in my eBay searches for a reasonable price. Acquiring this card via trade is so much better anyways. I can tell this card is a little off centered but everything else looks good so when I submit it to Beckett for a raw grade review when they are back in my area in a few months I think it will come back with a bare minimum of a mint 9 grade and that is all I ask.

That is the all from my side of the trade and Kyle may or may not blog about the trade but thanks go out to him again for contacting me and completing our first trade together. Hopefully it is not out last. 

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin

Card of the Day - 2011 Bowman Chrome : Jose Fernandez Base Refractor Autograph (454/500) BGS Graded Gem Mint 9.5

edit : I forgot to post this entry mid last year and just saw it in my que. I decided I am not going to re-write it so as it would have me redoing the whole post hence the references to his performance prior to his injury. Still a great pick up in my eyes.

Just cruising along on eBay one day and thought I would see what the past sales were on this card. I have Jose on an on card autograph from the 2013 Five Star issue and I also ended up picking up a black signed baseball but when it comes down to it I always come back to Bowman Chrome.

Jose is dominating right now and at his young age I wanted to pick up this card if I could at a reasonable price. Still had funds left over from the sale of my baseball collection and if I was going to pull the trigger on this card I had to have it graded by BGS as a gem mint and it would have to be at least a numbered refractor. Looked at the blue refractor which is numbered to 150 and it was way out of price range so back to the regular refractors that come in numbered to 500.

I had a feeling this card would skyrocket soon so I had to figure what I could do in a short manner of time. Found this card on a BIN with best offer auction and sent in a low amount to see what he would counter with. Came back with a reasonable amount but thought maybe I could do a little better. I countered his counter and he accepted in a few short hours. Woo hoo. 

As the card was making its way to me through the mail the cards book value went up $50 for a raw copy. The few BGS cards to sell after this one sold for at least $20 more than I spent for mine. I had great timing on this purchase and with Kershaw probably out of the running for Cy Young we might be looking at the 2014 Cy Young winner. NL ROY one year and Cy Young winner the next will only do wonders for the value of this card.  

Card of the Day - 2011 Bowman Chrome : Bryce Harper Base Autograph

A biggie that I wanted to acquire prior to the baseball season. One Bryce Harper.

I am in the Trout camp when the two are compared but at the same time I think Bryce will have a fine career and I think this upcoming year might be his breakout one. I've tried to get my hands on this card for years but it never was at a price I was comfortable with. Now with me selling the autographed ball that I had in my collection of him I had funds to try to finally get this card.

Unlike some years the refractor and non refractor versions are not that far apart in price. For Bryce it is only $50. With that I focused on the non refractor as I just wanted a Bowman Chrome autograph of Bryce and didn't care if it shined or not. Prices were starting to jump on this card when I began my pursuit so I had to make my move. Stipulation was that it had to be a copy that looked like it would grade out to a gem mint 9.5. That made it that much harder.

Found this copy and the seller had it on a BIN with best offer and I sent in my offer and noticed 30 minutes later that there were 3 other offers. Bidding war anyone? Seller countered me and two others and in turn I countered back and sat and waited. I guess my counter was better than the other two and I finally got my hands on an autograph Bowman Chrome of Harper.

Centered, non frayed edges, four sharp corners and the surface is defect free

Looks like this card will grade out well.

Knock on wood.

Card of the Day - 2011 Bowman Chrome : Dee Gordon Base Autograph

How the "mighty" have fallen. I remember in late 2011 and early last year that this card was selling on eBay for well over $10 and this is the non refractor version. The refractor obviously went for much more. At the time I wasn't in the hobby so I just liked to keep an eye on prices just for kicks. Well now that I am back I wanted to acquire a copy of Dee's card and with his downward spiral in the organization his cards are now cheaper to acquire.

One day I went trolling on the bay to see what I could get real cheap and this card came up on an auction that ended the following day. The starting price was a mere $2. As expected no action on the auction up until the end and at that point I put my bid in and won the card for the seller's opening price. Never a bad thing when you spend only a couple dollars on an autographed card. Hopefully Dee can contribute somehow on the big league team in the future but I see him more as trade bait down the road.

Card of the Day - 2011 Bowman Chrome : Nathan Eovaldi Autograph

Another card of a former pitcher that we could have used this year but at least this pitcher yielded us a great player in one Hanley Ramirez. Still, I wanted to have an on card autograph of this former player. Nathan Eovaldi come on down.

Nathan had a decent little run with our team and since has started to pick up some steam with the Marlins which is saying something as they have a very crappy team other than Stanton. I was never able to get Nathan's autograph while he was here and have since bought a pre authenticated signed ball as seen here but wanted a card to compliment the ball. Set my eyes out on Bowman Chrome as that has always been my favorite set to through the years and came across his 2011 rookie card. In the end there were 5 different bids but I came out on top at the small amount of just $4 and some change. Bargain hunting at it's best.