Card of the Day - 2014 Bowman Draft : Jeff Brigham Base Chrome Blue Refractor Parallel (271/399)

Chipping away at what continues to be an endless checklist of cards I still need to acquire from the 2014 Bowman brand. Whether it's the Draft release or the flagship Chrome one I still have a lot to hunt down so anytime I can get my hands on one at a minimal cost it brings a smile to my face.

With this card in hand I now only need its black brother to finish off my Brigham collection. The problem for me when it came to this card (and the black for that matter) is that while the cost of the card was reasonable the shipping was not. A dollar or so for the card was fine with me but $3-$5 tacked on for shipping wasn't. Just had to wait it out till someone finally slashed or eliminated shipping on their auction and the wait finally ended as I was able pick this up for under $2 delivered.

It is amazing sometimes that these non stars or minor stars are so hard to acquire but that is the cost of collecting limited parallels. Blue down and black to go.

271

of

399

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin

Card of the Day - 2014 Bowman Draft : Jeff Brigham Base Chrome Autograph Black Refractor Parallel (7/35)

Patience is truly a virtue at times and once again I gained from it by waiting out this seller for a few months.

I saw this card on the bay one day months ago and with an assigned book value of $50 I had no intention of buying it for his asking price of $40 on a BIN auction. I wanted the card but I didn't need the card. I love black autograph parallels but since Jeff is not a "big" prospect in the Dodger organization I wouldn't be devastated if I never acquired on of the 35 copies of this card. The seller lowered his price a couple of times and it sat at $30 for a few weeks. Still not interested. He finally canceled that auction and put it on a traditional auction with a starting bid of 99 cents. Now I was interested.

Wasn't sure what kind of bidding war if any would be attached to this card but I stayed on the outside and just watched to see how it would play out. Decent activity on the auction as there were 7 separate bids on it going into its final day. The cost was hovering around $10. Still reasonable. I entered my bid in and even though someone tried to snipe it at the last second my bid held and I won the card for a little over $16. That is a long way from the original asking price of $50 that the seller wanted but his loss is my gain.

Lucky 7 of 35

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin

Card of the Day - 2014 Bowman Draft : Jeff Brigham Base Chrome Autograph Blue Refractor Parallel (48/150)

$30 for who?
Brigham?
Who?

Prior to this year I did not know who Jeff was but I have since come across his base cards so I did a little research on him. I might know only a little but I know that his this autograph is no where near worth the $30 that it books for.

Verdugo and Holmes are the big autograph names that I am after but I still wanted to acquire Brigham's as long as I could score them at a reasonable amount. Multiple copies of this card have continuously sold for over $10 and sometimes touching $12-$13. I know that is more than 50% off of book but I was not going to part with my cash for that amount.

Finally found a decent copy that was acceptable to me as I've noticed a lot them are off centered. I don't intend to ever send Brigham's cads in for grading but the visual appeal is still important to me. In the end I picked this up at a pretty decent deal. I noticed a few sales prior to mine and they were in the double digit amount so mine for $7 was a nice little figure.

48 / 150

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin

Card of the Day - 2014 Bowman Chrome Draft : Jeff Brigham Base Autograph Refractor Parallel

It was time to venture into the Dodger unknown once again as I was unaware of who exactly Jeff was/is even though he is in Dodger blue.

The more known names like Urias, Seager, Holmes etc were in the 2014 Bowman Draft checklist but there were two names that I did not know and Jeff happens to be one of them. He is a 23 year old pitcher that currently plays for the Ogden Raptors and to be honest this is the first time I have heard of him. Once again, I am bad Dodger fan for not knowing this. Since he is with Ogden that means there is a good chance that he will be promoted to Rancho in the near future which means an in person autograph might be in the cards for me. Till then I went the card route.

Considering he is not a big name I did not expect a big price tag to be attached to his cards other than the "rarer" colored cards which are still on my list to acquire. The base refractor seemed to me to be the easiest and cheapest to possibly purchase and I was right as I won this for less than a burrito at Del Taco. Two bids is all it took for me to win the card. Onto the colored autos now.

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin

Trade with Fellow Blogger : Frankie of My Life in the Sports Card Hobby

It's been awhile but I was finally able to complete a trade as Frankie of My Life in the Sports Card Hobby finished up our second transaction. As with the 1st one this one went smooth with no issues. The trade would have been completed sooner but I was dealing with my grandfather's passing (R.I.P.) so my concentration was a tad lacking. Thank you again to Frankie for being patient and understanding in this matter.

He will probably put up his own post about this trade but what I ended up sending him were these 4 cards :

• Tony Gwynn Five Star autograph BGS 9
• Craig Biggio Five Star autograph BGS 9
• Nolan Ryan Mini Frame autograph BGS 9
• Bo Jackson Five Star autograph BGS 9

The top 3 cards were part of a group of throw ins that Frankie was kind enough to include in the package. I already have the Brigham so that will go into the trade pile or I will pay it forward in another trade with someone else but the Urias and Seager are new additions to the collection so thank you for those.

Corey Seager Bowman Chrome refractor

Another Seager throw in but like with the Brigham I already have this BUT since I am doing the rainbow collection for Seager I am going to put this under the microscope to see if it might grade out to gem mint. Either way, I can't get enough Seager cards.

Brandon Trinkwon Bowman Chrome autograph

The trade for me was centered around 2 autographs with 1 being the more important one but Frankie was nice enough to throw in a couple more. 1st up is this base Bowman Chrome of Trinkwon. I already have this one as well but it's always a good day when you get to add an autograph to the collection.

Jose Bautista Five Star autograph

203 of 333

Now this card is the best of the throw ins. I have had Jose Bautista's autograph on my to acquire list for quite sometime and even had a different copy of this Five Star on my eBay watch list but I never pulled the trigger on it as my resources went to more pressing "needs". Well, Frankie did me a solid and sent me this beauty. This was a great and unexpected bonus.

Now onto the main event of the trade . . .

Strata autograph of Padre great Tony Gwynn

15 of 25

This card while very nice was not what I was after when this whole process started. Frankie ended up wanting my BGS 9 of Gwynn but if that was to happen then I would want this one to replace Gwynn. Since Tony has passed on there obviously will be no more on card autographs coming from him. Even when alive there were not that many to chose from as the Five Star the Frankie received was the 1st one that I found acceptable. While they are both on card autographs this one is at least twice the value of my BGS 9 one that I sent so there was the back and forth between us in trying to make sure we both received equal value and were happy with the trade. With that said that is why is was a 4 for 2 swap.

And now for, literally, the big card of the trade . . .

Over sized Bowman purple ice Julio Urias autograph

6 of 25

You probably can't tell from the photo but this is one massive card of the Dodger's phenom Julio Urias. With only 25 copies in existence I never expected to acquire this card. Other than this copy I have only seen 2 others out there. One from a fellow blogger and another that sold on eBay, I never approached Frankie about this card as I never expected he would let it go since he mentioned he really liked it in one of his posts but it just goes to show you that you never know unless you ask. On top of my rainbow project of Urias I am trying to pick up as many autographs as I can before the prices really get out of control which they border on already. 

So that concludes my 2nd ever trade with Frankie. Some of you might say I overpaid for the two cards I received but that is the beauty of trades, it is what you think is equal and not what others might think. I was able to replace my Gwynn with another, I already have picked up another Biggio autograph so that BGS one was okay to let go and the Bo Jackson and Nolan Ryan while a lot to let go was about equal to the Urias card and value difference between the 2 Gwynn cards. I am happy and I hope Frankie is also happy with our trade. I do feel that he gave me a little more than I sent over in extras so I am already trying to find some other cards to compensate a little. 

In addition both the Gwynn and Urias look to be in great condition and are ear marked for BGS grading. I expect the Urias to come back a gem mint and the Gwynn also has a chance at that grade but a 9 on a thick card like that is fine as well. 

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin