Card(s) of the Day - 2014 Bowman : Julio Urias Base Refractor Parallel ( 436 / 500 ) , Mini Chrome Blue Parallel ( 81 / 250 ) and More

I am still trying to learn patience since I've re-entered the hobby but sometimes it is hard but thankfully I had a little here and had a little bad luck on previous auctions which turned into good luck here.

I am trying to acquire all my Urias needs from the Bowman set before they skyrocket. The parallels have been the most troublesome to get my hands on.

81 of 250

As with most cards I usually lose a few auctions before actually winning it. At the time I still had no guide to go by except my personal cost ceiling so with that I kept losing out on this card with most of auctions going over $10. 

The normal sized chrome refractor card also slipped through my hands time and time again with most auctions going for at least $5+. I am foremost a bargain hunter and have to allocate the purge ball funds properly.

436 of 500

Well after numerous losses I found this auction that had both of these cards for a low price but I still had to play the bidding war game. 

Also included were 9 more Urias cards but I did not need these as I have plenty of them but I could always use them for trade, contests or just throw in's. I was hoping that the "odd" wording on the eBay auction title would help my case. It focuses more on the fact that it was a larger lot and not that there were numbered parallels. 

Still wanted to bargain shop this auction and hoped it wouldn't go too high. Surprisingly enough I won the auction for a little over $10 and ended up with a load of Urias. 

Two set needs down and more to give or trade away. A great buy at a great low cost.

Card of the Day - 2011/12 Score : Mike Richards : Base Autograph

The long search for a Richards autograph card has come to an end. Mike's autograph has been the hardest for me to obtain for my Stanley Cup Kings set as most cards have a starting asking price of at least $25 or the auctions end north of that and more times than not higher than $30. I wanted/needed an autograph but was not willing to spend that much.

One day I saw this card listed on eBay and I have never seen it before. It is a sticker auto but if I could get my hands on it I wouldn't care. The seller had an asking price of $30. Ugh, again with the high price. He did have a best offer option so I sent him, or at least in my eyes, a low ball offer of more than 50% less than what he was asking for. To my surprise within a hour he responding back by taking the offer. No counteroffer, nothing. I was fine with that. Considering it was coming from Canada it took almost two weeks to get to me but now I finally have that elusive Richards autograph.

I now have all the "major" players from the team and just need to work on the "minor" ones. A sigh of relief on this purchase.

But it's a sticker autograph... I don't care, I finally have a Mike autograph

Card of the Day - 2014 Bowman : Alex Guerrero Base Blue Refractor Parallel ( 167 / 250 )

This year I have decided to actually look at the back of the cards that I acquire to keep up on stats or see something that I happened to miss. With Alex in AAA I flipped this card over to check his birthday and saw that he will be 28 this year and if he doesn't make it up to the majors then he becomes a very "old" rookie in next year's spring training. He is raking in the minors but will that translate to the bigs? Dee is doing an above average job so far at second and with Hanley entrenched at shortstop there is just no place to play Alex.

Of course no matter what I still want cards of all things Dodger and this beauty had been a bit of a bear to acquire but of course that was because my ceiling cost was so low and every auction went over it. Finally a seller had this one on a BIN auction which was just a tad over my set limit but not too much for me to not buy it. Another blue refractor for the collection with a few more to go.

167 of 250

5 Cards Submitted To Beckett Grading Submissions (BGS) At Frank and Sons On May 24, 2014

As stated yesterday in my Frank and Sons purchase post I swung by there on my way to the Bernie Nicholls signing at Dr. Lui's office I decided to submit 5 cards for grading by BGS. I have/had a stack of over 10 cards that I was going to hold onto until Beckett held another raw grading event at South Bay Sportscards later in the year. Well since I was in the area and I have to go back in 2 weeks to pick up my glasses at Dr. Liu's I thought why not submit the 5 cards that I was pretty sure and/or really wanted graded. Well here are the 5 that I dropped off from the least optimistic to the pretty damn sure it will grade out to a gem mint.

Yu Darvish autograph from the 2012 Allen and Ginter set. The autograph is crisp and centering looks great. My worries are the corners which I think will get a 9 and the surface. Hoping for a 9.5 but would not be surprised at 9. Crossing my fingers here.

Corey Seager autograph from 2013 Bowman Inception which is numbered to 25. The main worry for this card is the autograph as it seems to separate just a tad which I hope won't be docked too bad. The corners are always a concern but I think everything else will compensate for a possible 9 on those.

Frank Thomas autograph from 2013 Topps Five Star. I wanted this one graded due to the fact that it is a low numbered card from a premium brand of a new inductee to the Hall of Fame. Everything looks great but as with my past Koufax from Five Star I am always worried about corners but I am pretty confident as I was with Koufax that this one will be fine.

The second to last one is Bryce Harper from the 2011 Bowman Chrome set. He is second only because he is not a Dodger and the first one is. I think both will grade out to a gem mint with my only really worries on this one is that the centering may be just a tad off. Other than that, everything is clear and crisp.

And the final submission is Hyun-Jin Ryu from the 2013 Bowman Chrome set in it's blue parallel form. I acquired this at a massive deal and once it arrived I looked at it and said, hello future gem mint autograph rookie card. I personally don't see anything wrong with this card but again I am not a "professional".

So those are the 5 cards I submitted and I expect at least 4 of them to come back gem mint with an outside chance of all 5 coming back that way. With the drop off on the 24th I should have the results by June 6th with pick up being the next day. Hopefully June will start off well as I will post the results one by one starting on the 9th. Wish me luck everyone.

Card of the Day - 2012 Topps Five Star : Matt Kemp Silver Ink Autograph ( 23 / 99 )

I was finally able to lock down a card that I have been searching for well over 6 months. It helps when you have friends out there that help you out and direct you in the right area as well. Greg who runs a great blog as seen HERE already had this card so he wasn't in on it but knew I wanted my own copy and for some reason I hadn't seen it myself on the bay. So thanks are in order once again to Greg.

Kemp continues to be my favorite everyday player and that is due more to his off field and in person good will rather than on field performance as that has been lacking. I already acquired the Kershaw version of this card back in June of 2013 as seen HERE and wanted to bookend it with Kemp. Even with the lower demand of Kemp cards this one in particular has been a real bear to get my paws on. Thankfully this one came in much lower than expected and I was able to scoop it up for my collection. It is a great card and the silver ink is beautiful.

The Bison in Silver Ink Form

*** UPDATE 5.27.14 *** Contest #10 - 2014 Bowman Dodger Team Set and Possibly More

Alright everyone. It looks like I won't be hitting 62 followers by Saturday (but you never know) so I wanted to add a little something to this contest as this one has had the most comments and RT's. Thank you again to all who are participating. I will now randomize TWO full sets of the base and chrome Dodgers as seen in the pictures below. 

Since this is contest #10 I was planning to randomize it ten times. For the second winner the person who has the most entries will make the call on how many times I will randomize it again. Pick a number from 1-9. IF it is the same person then I will give out the cards to whoever is in position #7. 

So two full sets are up for grabs. The autograph card is still in play BUT the second winner does not win an autograph. Just the first winner. As always, any questions feel free to contact me. Thank you again for reading.

It's been awhile but it's time for another contest.

This time around I will stagger in some more cards if I get more followers to my blog. Not asking you to hunt me down followers but if your retweets on twitter and/or your pimping on your own blog helps me get more then I will throw in more cards.

Regular readers I am sure have seen that I entered into a few case breaks of  2014 Bowman baseball and I have plenty left over to give out.

So the base prize is the above 16 cards which are all the Dodgers is paper form from the 2014 set. They include Urias and Guerrero. Those hot rookies everyone loves. If my blog acquires 5 more followers for a total of 60 I will throw in the 6 chrome set of the prospects from the same set. After that every 2 more followers I will throw in more cards. The first will be an autograph of my choosing and then after that a relic card and so and so on.

You can earn one entry per day for leaving a comment on this blog entry.
You can earn one entry per day for RT'ing the contest on twitter.
You earn 5 entries for pimping this on your own blog ( one time only ).
I am also thinking of adding another entry earning process but I will update that later.
The contest will run till the end of May.

As always thank you for reading this blog and may everyone have a great day.

5.14.14

New additions to the contest

Frank and Sons Purchase

On my way to the signing being held at Dr. Liu's optometry as seen HERE I decided to stop over to Frank and Sons to drop off some cards for BGS grading. I submitted some good cards and I will post which ones tomorrow. Wish me luck on those everyone.

I had a few minutes to kill before I had to head out so I went over to the Disney pin area to pick up a pin for the wife. I think I did well as I found a purple Tinkerbell one. After that I thought I would see if there were any parallel cards from the 2014 Bowman set I could pick up on the cheap.

Headed over to the one place I know where there are stacks and stacks of various cards and asked if he had any Bowman. He did and we both searched for parallels and came up with these two.

Nothing rare or sparkly but both Adrian and Zack were needed for the set. Combined they put me back a resounding 50 cents. Oh, the horror.Wish all transactions were that cheap. Frank and Sons is great.

Card of the Day - 2012 Allen and Ginter : Yu Darvish Mini Framed Autograph

Been a little while but I was finally able to acquire another of the pricier autographs from the list that I have written up since my decision to liquidate my signed ball collection. Prior to that, getting Darvish's autograph here would have probably been a few years down the road.

Per the norm I would have loved to pick a Bowman Chrome autograph but that was way above the limit I was willing to spend. The other problem was that a lot of Yu's autograph cards seemed to be stickers and I wasn't going down that road. Finally settled on this fine card. A few copies have popped up on the bay but I either lost out on them or the seller was not willing to work with me as one backed out on an agreed upon price. Ass !

This copy ended up being on a traditional auction and with a last second bid I won it. Card looked great on the screen and looks even better in person. A possible BGS candidate.

Player Appearance Recap : Bernie Nicholls @ Dr. Liu's Optometry on May 24th, 2014

This past Saturday the good doctor Alex Liu had a private signing for a handful of patients. A couple days prior Dr Liu sent out an email to patients informing them that he was going to have former King Bernie Nicholls at his office and the first 15 people to respond to the email would have the chance to come down and have a meet and greet with Bernie. Autographs and photo ops would be included. One minute after I received the email I sent a response back that I would love to attend and I was lucky enough to one of the 1st 15.

Included with the meet and greet was the one autograph but you could purchase one more if you wanted which is what I planned to do. I had brought in a puck for Bernie to sign but I also wanted a 8x10 of him in King's gear as well. Thankfully as always the Dr. had some to chose from.

Signing was set to begin around 3 and with the small amount of people it moved quickly. If only all signings could be this easy. This was the first time I met Bernie and he was cordial and polite with everyone. He first signed the puck in silver deco. I think it came out great.

Next up was the 8x10 I purchased. He had a interesting signing process for pictures. He took the picture and held it up and proceeded to sign it. No table for this guy. Thought it was only me he did that to but I saw him do it to the next person after I was done. It got the job done but I have never seen it that way. Whatever works for you I guess.

I was heading out and the good doctor had one last photo left and I was the one patient next him and he said, here you go, have him sign this as well. Oh yeah, freebie. It was the last one because it shows Bernie in Shark gear. Bernie was heading out but I was able to get him to sign this in his patented in the air process. Yes, its him in Shark gear but it is another autograph for the collection. I could always trade it out at some point.

Another successful autograph event at the optometry office. Thank you again to Dr. Liu and his staff for hosting the event and thank you to Bernie for taking time to sign and chat for fans. Can't wait for the next signing. Go Kings Go !!!

Card of the Day - 2013 Bowman Chrome : Hyun-Jin Ryu Base Autograph Blue Refractor Parallel ( 71 / 99 )

The long traveled road to acquire another on card autograph of Ryu is finally over with one card never even seeing a post.

I originally acquired two different Bowman Inception cards via redemption that finally came in. One is a base, which I still have, and another which is the blue parallel that was numbered out of 75. I saw an eBay auction for a BGS 9.5 and thought why not see what mine would grade out. Well the result was gem mint as seen HERE . I am sure everyone that takes the time to read the blog knows my distaste for the "cloudy" Inception cards. Well I saw that Five Star redemptions were starting to pop up on eBay and there was this spiffy looking purple parallel numbered to 15. I wanted it. The hunt was on.

First though I had to make up some funds so I put the BGS Inception up for sale and it sold within a couple of days and I locked into the Five Star auction and ended up winning it for less than what the Inception one sold for. It was the first purple one to sell and within a week it arrived. Ugh..... The notorious Five Star corner issue was affecting this card. The lower right corner was frayed. I was disappointed. BGS 9.5 in a swap for a bent corner is not a good trade in my eyes.

Well I started seeing these Bowman Chrome blues coming up on eBay and we all know how much I love me some blue chromes. I wanted it. The hunt was on again.

I noticed a few other purples selling on eBay for a higher price and put up my "damaged" purple and ended up selling it for $23 more than what I "paid" for it. Now to find me a Bowman blue to call my own. Most of the auctions were closing way too much for my taste but one day as I was refreshing my search this one popped up with a low BIN but also with a best offer option. I quickly sent over an offer at a little under what I sold the purple one for and the seller countered at a little over what the purple sold for. No need to hassle any further. I took his offer and within a week I received this beautiful card. It's corners are sharp, autograph is crisp and the only "problem" I see is that it is ever so off centered. Oh yeah, for sure getting this one graded. That pile is getting bigger and bigger.

So the journey to acquire the "perfect" Ryu on card autograph is over.

Blue Inception #/75
Grade said blue Inception
Sell now BGS 9.5 Inception.
Buy purple Five Star
Sell purple Five Star
Buy Bowman Chrome Blue
and soon to graded Bowman Chrome

A fun ride but thankfully one that is over.
Crossing my fingers for a BGS 9.5

71 of 99

Card of the Day - 2014 Topps Museum : Mike Trout Base Blue Parallel ( 8 / 99 )

Getting ever so close to acquiring all my needs from this year's Museum set and Trout is the only one left but I need(ed) both the base card and its blue parallel. Considering the limited number of blue (99) and the high book price I assumed that I would pick up the base before this one. Nope, I was wrong.

Book value is set at $30 for this card and I lost out on multiple auctions with the closing price ending north of $18-22. Was never going to pay that much but the base card also was steady at $5 which was too rich for my blood as well. I still am waiting to get my hands on the base but yet another blue came up for sale on eBay and once again I was in the mix for it. For some reason there was not a lot of action on this particular card and I ended up winning it for single digits!

Over 66% off for a numbered Trout card? Yes, please and thank you. With this in the fold now I only have the base card left. Think I need to swing over to Frank and Sons to scrounge the tables.

Eight of Ninety-Nine

Card(s) of the Day - 2014 Bowman : Kemp, Guerrero, Kershaw, Puig, Trout and Rookies

Hometown parallels of Kershaw and Puig 

... and now for my 1st "big" haul of 2014 Bowman cards that I did not acquire in my case breaks. 

There are a lot of cards that I need to get my hands on but thankfully for the most part they probably will average no more than a dollar or so which makes this year doable. 

Hometown parallels of Trinkwon and Coyle

I do love the flag/hometown parallels in the Bowman brand. The value is minimal but adds a little flavor other than color after color parallel to chase after. 

Garcia Hometown

Base Trout

Guerrero Silver Ice

I still do love the sparkly silver ice but not to be confused with silver parallel as Bowman has added that color to the parallel rainbow this year. 

And can't forget to get all the Trout cards as well. Would love to have him off the Angels so I didn't have to have Angel cards in my collection but at the same time I love that I can watch him up to 83 times a year down in Anaheim.

296 of 500

Can't forget about the bison or my favorite colored parallel. Still nothing like a Dodger player on a blue card. Once again this parallel is numbered out of 500 which makes it easy enough to finish up the Dodger team set. 

64 / 500

To finish off my purchase I picked up the base refractor of Alex Guerrero. Not sure what to expect of him as he is mashing in the minors but plenty of players have done that and fizzled out once they made up to the big leagues. The main problem for him is that the Dodgers have no current place to play him. He is not trade bait so how long does he stay in the minors is the question.

EDIT - Now he is missing an ear and possibly can't play for 5 weeks. Damn...

A small yet decent 1st "haul" post case breaks. Many more to come as I am on the lookout for a lot of parallels. Any traders out there?

Card of the Day - 2008 SP : Matt Kemp By The Letter " A " ( 39 / 50 ) Autograph

Picked up yet another letter in the ever increasingly hard project that I am still trying to complete. On the flip side I was able to complete a little project within the project as this the second of two " A's " that I needed and with that I am no longer searching for that particular letter anymore.

This is the first letter that I have bought from a buy it now auction. With a print run of 50 and with only one more " A " needed I saw this as my opportunity to mark something off my checklist. Seller had an asking price of north of $40. Yeah...no, so I sent him an offer of more than 50% less of that and see what kind of reaction I would get from that. Surprisingly he was reasonable and actually countered the offer with a more than reasonable amount and shortly the card made its way home to me.

Slowly but surely this project inches closer to completion.

39 of 50 and I have 2 of them.

Card of the Day - 2014 Bowman : Julio Urias Base Chrome Blue Refractor Parallel ( 203 / 250 )

Still working on all my set needs for the Bowman set and Urias is the big Dodger to acquire. Within the set all the rookies have chrome parallels and within that they have color parallels with blue being one of them. I only collect the blue ones (unless I somehow acquire black ones at a ridiculously low price) so a blue Urias was on the top of my list.

Right out the gate these were closing on the bay for over $25 which was too much for me. With 250 copies I was sure I would get my hands on one somewhere down the line. One other thing I have noticed is that the chromes seem to be off centered a tad. Maybe its just the ones I have been eyeballing but for Urias I was going to be overly picky.

This particular one showed up one day on a BIN auction and saw that it was well centered so I didn't hesitate and bought it and shortly there after I had it in my hands. Card looks to be in excellent condition and if and when he ever makes it big I will probably go and have it graded.

One blue down, many more to go.

Two Zero Three of Two Five 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

Contest Winnings From Kalib At Cubs Cardboard

Kalib who runs a great blog over at Cubs Cardboard ran a contest awhile back and I ended up being one of the winners.

I had the most entries into it but that does not guarantee anything as one contest over at Dodgers Blue Heaven a couple months ago had me with the most entries by a landside and I ended up losing. You win some you lose some. Kalib had the contest set up so that there would be 3 winners determined by random.org with the winners that landed on his birthday. I actually ended up on top 2 of the 3 numbers ( month, day, year ) but to be fair I only received the top pick and not the second one as well.

There were 3 cards to chose from and I ended up picking this relic card of Jordan Zimmerman from Allen and Ginter. Doesn't really fit into my collection but I do love winning free cards and somewhere down the road I am sure I can use it for trade or pay it forward in some other way.

Thank you again to Kalib for hosting the contest and head over there for a good read on all things Cubs.

Card of the Day - 2014 Bowman : Brandon Trinkwon Chrome Base Blue Parallel Refractor Autograph ( 11 / 150 )

... and now onto the blue parallels autographs of the Dodger prospects.

Still waiting to acquire my 1st Urias autograph from this year's set but till then I still need to pick up the blue parallels of Brandon and Jacob as I already acquired their base refractor versions.

As with the base ones I assumed Brandon's blue would be cheaper than Jacob's blue. Once again I was correct as with Jacob's autographs closing north of $30 and some over $40 I was able to pick up Brandon's here for just a little over $10.

I believe when book value comes out for this I will be able to consider this a deal but even if it's not book wise I am happy I was able to pick this up so soon after release for what I feel was a small amount.

11 / 150

Upcoming Player Appearance / Signing : Reggie Bullock @ Dr. Liu's Optometry Practice on June 14, 2014

Reggie Bullock who is a member of the up and coming Los Angeles Clippers is making his first public autograph appearance in a few short weeks at Dr. Liu's Optometry practice out in Rowland Heights. Reggie is a former All-American and Tarheel.

If you are a patient of Dr. Liu's you are entitled to one FREE autograph. If you are not or want another autograph from Reggie you can purchase it for the very low price of $15. Each autograph ticket comes with a photo op with Reggie as well.

Anyone who has been to the doctor's office knows that all his events are run smoothly with no problems whatsoever. For those that haven't been there come on down and mingle with fellow fans and acquire an autograph from one of the newest Clippers.

If you have any questions or would like to pre-purchase your tickets feel free to email.

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 of the Day - 2014 Bowman : Yasiel Puig Bowman is Back 1989 Reprint Insert

Ohhh.. sparkly.

Off the top of my head I am not sure what the odds of pulling this card out of a pack is but considering I went through 12 jumbo boxes in my team case break I would think I would have scored it there. Uh, no.

I was not a fan of the 89 issue but add a little sparkle to it and it isn't that bad anymore. Puig is the only Dodger featured in this insert set so it would be a one and done project once I acquired this card.

Plenty of copies on eBay to choose from. No BIN auctions though when I won this. So I had to wait till the auction ended for me to be declared the winner.

Another Puig for the collection.

Card of the Day - 2014 Topps Museum : Mike Trout Canvas Collection Insert

There were 3 canvas collection cards I needed from this year's Museum set.

I didn't have to search for the Jackie Robinson as I "won" that in my case break as seen HERE so that left me with Tommy Lasorda and Mike Trout. I picked up the Lasorda one for a couple bucks but was still on the hunt for Trout. I had lost out on a few auctions as with book value set at $8 I was not going to pay $5+ as that is what I lost most of the auctions for.

Surprisingly when I finally did win this card it was for less than what I spent on Lasorda. Go figure. As always, not going to complain. Finished off the canvas collection and now I just need a couple more blue parallels and I will be officially done with this year's Museum set.