Card of the Day - 2014 Topps Chrome : Onelki Garcia Base Blue Refractor Parallel (182/199)

It was time to make a real dent and/or complete my blue parallel collection from the 2014 Topps Chrome release. First up was what I thought was the easiest of the group of players left to acquire.

With Onelki on the shelf the whole 2014 season I did not expect much demand even though this card is limited to 199. I was correct in my assumption as there were no bids whatsoever other than mine which netted me the card for a mere $1.33 delivered.

One down and still more than a handful to purchase of these blue parallels. Let the hunt continue.

182 / 199

4 Box Break Results of 2014 Topps Chrome

Alex of Chavez Ravining held a four box break of 2014 Topps Chrome a little while ago and I had two entries in the mix. Since Alex was hosting/breaking the boxes he obviously had first dibs on what team he wanted which of course were the Dodgers. I still wanted in on the action so I strategically picked the White Sox and the Yankees. With each paid entry you also received a second team so I had a total of four teams when I was randomly given the Twins and the Braves. A week prior to the break I swapped out from the Yankees to the Tigers as my plan to land two hot rookies had to be adjusted. Since I didn't have the Dodgers I wanted to acquire autograph rookie cards of White Sox star Jose Abreu and Yankees star Masahiro Tanaka. Well the checklist came out and Tanaka was no where to be seen so I didn't want the Yanks anymore and switched over to the Tigers as they had some decent autographs to go after. The big fish for me still was probable rookie of the year Jose Abreu. Crossing my fingers for that autograph. Here is what I came away with :

First off are the "lowly" Twins and not much of them were in the four boxes as I ended up with 5 base cards and a refractor of Joe Mauer.

Next up would be the Braves but Alex and I did a trade after the break so I don't know what and who were in it other than there were no autographs. Again, I only had one horse in this race and didn't worry about anything else per se. More on that trade later.

Base Tigers . . .

. . . and some more base Tigers

Die cut refractor of Kinsler

2 Refractors and a X-Frator

The Tigers yielded the most cards out of the break for me but of course that is to be expected as they had a lot of players on the checklist. Obviously as a non Tiger fan any and all of these are available for trade and if not I will pay if forward and contest them out.

71 of 199

... but the Tigers didn't leave me empty handed. I did score this nice blue refractor of Nick Castellanos. Hobby wise he has dropped quite a bit from last year when he was a hot rookie that was chased after. He has no place in my collection so again if anyone is interested in a trade feel free to contact me. 

Now for the trade with Alex. Again I had no use for the Braves so taking them off my hand was a plus but getting wanted cards was even better. He offered me a couple cards that I couldn't say no to.

Another Onelki autograph for the collection

138 of 199 

I have so many Onelki autographs but with no use for Brave cards why not take another autograph of a Dodger? At worst it can be trade bait down the road. The card I really wanted though was the blue Puig as I am still collecting all blue and black parallels of Dodgers in all chrome products. Why pay $10ish for the card on the bay when I can just swap out unwanted cards with a fellow blogger that doesn't need/want the Puig? Easy trade and I happily took the Puig of Alex's hands.

Onto the White Sox and my dreams with an Abreu autograph still dancing in my head.

Unlike the Tigers I did not end up with a lot of White Sox. I did get a base Jose Abreu card which books for $10 but it is not centered. Never entertained the idea of grading it but I would like all my cards centered but lets be real that is not realistic. As with the Tiger cards, all except the Abreu card is available for trade. 

Well all the cards have been accounted for with one last one which I believe was in box 2 ...

OOOHHH.....YYYEEEAAAHHH !!!

The card/autograph that I wanted and desired and basically the only reason I joined the break and I was lucky enough to score it. Not only is it an autograph of Abreu but it is the numbered ( #/499 ) and limited refractor parallel. The card currently books for $200 but can be had for a lot cheaper on eBay but I didn't pay anywhere near that in this break. My plan worked to perfection and I couldn't be happier.

Thank you again to Alex for hosting the box break and hopefully next year I can pull the same magic once again. 

Card of the Day - 2013 Bowman Chrome : Onelki Garcia Base Blue Refractor Parallel ( 88 / 250 )

Down to two Dodgers left in my pursuit of the blue parallel set. Both are rookies with Onelki getting the call up last year for a cup of coffee in the bigs. With all the pitchers the Dodgers have in the fold I seriously doubt Onelki will see much time this year with the big league team unless there are a lot of injuries and in that case all I would have to say about the 2014 season is, uh oh.

Just like Paco I found a seller on eBay that had this card up on a buy it now auction with a best offer attached to it. Sent in my offer of $2 which was only a dollar and quarter off his asking price. No counter as he accepted it and I gladly sent him the money to get one step closer to finishing the Dodger subset.

88 of 250

Card of the Day - 2014 Bowman : Onelki Garcia Base Blue Parallel ( 94 / 500 )

Addiction to the blue parallels from this and any Bowman brand is time consuming due to the fact that there are so many players to acquire. With the Museum brand or any of the other higher end sets it is a little more doable as there are usually less than 10 and sometimes even a smaller handful to chase after.

Onelki here is one of over 20 players to go after and that is just for the blue copies. That is not taking into account silver ice, black, hometown and if there is a chrome card then various other parallels for those. With all that said it was nice to be able to pick this card up for a penny south of a dollar. I never did get all the cards I needed for the 2013 Bowman set. We shall see if I can do it this year. The hunt continues.

Nine Four of Five Zero Zero

Card(s) of the Day - 2013 Bowman Chrome : Onelki Garcia Base, 2 Base Refractor Parallels and Base Blue Refractor Parallel Autograph ( 45 / 150 )

A right time and place purchase for me with these cards.

I have been in the market for the blue version of Onelki's autograph card for quite some time. Book value still has it at $30 and I have lost on a few auctions as they have crossed the $20 mark. Maybe I was being cheap but I just didn't want to fork over that much. Well my stubbornness paid off here.

A seller had the blue card I wanted but also had 2 base refractors and the regular base card as well in his auction. Well I needed both for my set needs as well. He also had the 2014 Topps card of Onelki in the auction but I already had plenty due to my two case breaks. That would be 3 cards I needed and I could get them all in one auction for a cheap price. The seller had his asking price of $25 and I debating on just pulling the trigger there but he also had a best offer option and if it exists you might as feel it out. Sent him an offer at a little over $14 and waited to see what his answer would be. He didn't accept it but after a couple of counter offers I picked up all these set needs for a little under $16. A great deal for me.

45 of 150 of blue goodness 

1 refractor is available for trade if anyone needs it

Card(s) of the Day - 2013 Bowman Chrome : Base Blue Parallels ( Multiple Players ) and Onelki Garcia Base Autograph

Yet another small amount of bowman chrome blue for my return to the hobby project. This batch though came with an added bonus of an autograph.

A seller had these 5 cards up for purchase at a minimal cost but as I was about to send payment I decided to see what else was in his eBay store. Not much but I did find this Garcia autograph. I already have this card in my collection but for the asking price of less than $2 I couldn't pass up adding a future trade bait card to my collection. I don't have the most extensive collection of cards that are trade able so if I can pick one up for a low cost I will. Anybody need a Garcia card?

Carlos Beltran, Billy Butler and Saxon Butler

Nick Franklin, Aaron Hill and a spare Onelki Garcia Autograph

Card(s) of the Day - 2014 Topps : Hanley Ramirez, Onelki Garcia and Adrian Gonzalez Red Foil Parallels

Three for three.

With one 2014 Topps project done ( photo variations ) I can focus more on the blue and red foil parallels. I've picked up a few red foils here and there but this is the first time I was able to get 3 in one transaction at a low cost. 

Found a seller on the bay selling tons of red foil cards and within them were 3 Dodgers that I needed. All for only a buck on buy it now auctions so I snapped them up and put a small dent in my parallel project. Mostly just scrubs left with Ryu being the biggest name on the table. Would love to complete this before the season started but we shall see. 

Card(s) of the Day - 2014 Topps : Base Blue ( Wal-Mart ) Parallels ( A Whole Lot of Dodgers )

Time to really make a dent if not just complete the whole blue parallel set from this year's Topps set. I wanted to get as many as possible of the Dodgers so I didn't have to search for them anymore and move onto other projects. Found a seller that had a majority of what I was looking for at pennies on the dollar.

It pains me to see Brandon in a Dodger uniform knowing that unless he is traded ( God willing ) or released he is here for two more years.

I just love Young's card for the fact that he is doing a baseball play with his eyes closed shut. A professional but glad he did not resign with the Dodgers in the off season. On the other hand I hope Hanley does come to an agreement on an extension in the next few weeks.

Sophomore slump? I have a feeling that Ryu will not fall into that category and look for him to be a solid number 3 in the rotation. Adrian hopefully will be up to his playoff Mickey Mouse antics and produces like usual but with a little more pop.

The lightening rod
The wild horse
Yasiel
This will be an interesting year and other than Kemp I think he will be a main x-factor on how far the Dodgers go.

10 blue cards down and only Nolasco and the two Kershaw League Leader cards are left for me to complete this parallel set. Hopefully I can lock those down soon.

Card of the Day - 2013 Bowman Chrome : Onelki Garcia Base Autograph Refractor ( 119 / 500 )

The gamble of buying newly released cards is that you might overspend value wise once prices are released a month or so later. I have done that a few times and here is another example.

A week or so before I won this card, I won Onelki's base autograph for $6. Not a big amount but at the time I regretted putting in my bid that high. Then I went and won this card for $2 less than the base even though this one is the numbered refractor version which is "rarer" than the base. You win some you lose some but I think it evens out in the long run. I believe I got a bargain on the refractor so that wipes out the bad taste of my self perceived overspend purchase on the base version. Both are nice pick ups but this one I am more satisfied with.

Rookie Garcia in Refractor Form.

119 of 500

Card of the Day - 2013 Bowman Chrome : Onelki Garcia Base Autograph

The first Bowman Chrome card from this year's release has arrived and it is an on card autograph of one of the newest Dodgers, Onelki Garcia.

I didn't know much of Onelki's back history prior to this year and totally forgot about him until he received a late season call up to shore up the bullpen. I went to look for his cards and found out that he had an autographed rookie card in this year's Bowman Chrome set. Autographs and chrome are a great combination. So off to eBay to get my hands on a copy for my collection.

Since the set was just released the prices were probably a little inflated considering the newness of the cards. I missed out on a few auctions but finally settled in on this one and was the winner at the end for a few pennies over $6. All things considered that was probably a couple dollars overpay for Onelki but I don't regret the purchase and am happy that I have now added him to my collection.