Card of the Day - 2014 Bowman Inception : Julio Urias Inceptioned Autograph (22/35) BGS Graded Gem Mint 9.5

Look who's back in the collection? Yup young pup Julio was once one of the players I chased after and even started a Bowman Chrome rainbow project ala Corey Seager but late last year and earlier this year I decided to move away from Urias cards. Well that lasted all of one baseball season.

After watching Julio grow up on the mound this year and with me finishing a few other projects I decided to start up on collecting Julio again but with a slight alteration on what I would be chasing. Gone are the colored parallels and everything numbered. So unlike the other 4 core players I collect (Kershaw, Seager, Trout and Koufax) I will ONLY be collecting autographs of Julio Urias and nothing else. While that might "cost" a little more per card acquisition it will cut down on the multitude of pieces I will be searching for. Of course when I made this decision I looked up autographs of Urias on eBay and this one had 28 minutes left on its auction.

I owned this card once before (redeemed from Topps) and once it came back from a BGS RCR event as a 9 I promptly sold it and made some decent change. Now that I was back in the Urias game I looked for this and some Bowman Chrome autos but knowing this has a low print one made this more of a priority. Lucky me that on my first eBay search in almost a year for Urias cards yielded this beauty and I made it a mental mandate that I was going to win this and win it I did.

For my first card in my reentry into Urias cards I am more than happy with this being in my hands once again. To top it off I did a population report on this after I won it and found out this is the only one in existence to earn the coveted gold banner. Yup, a great way to start up my Julio collection once more.

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Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin

Card of the Day - 2014 Bowman Inception : Julio Urias Inceptioned Autograph (28/35)

What to do...what to do....

Months ago I was all about Seager and Urias but I decided I needed to concentrate on a smaller amount of players and Urias was dropped from my chase lists and I sold/traded off my collection of Julio cards. As I did that I knew there was 1 card that I did not have but at some point I would end up receiving and that time is now and this is that card.

I won this card in redemption form back in September of 2015 and posted about it in October. I moved on from Urias cards in November/December but this card was still M.I.A. and had no idea when I would receive it. Well a couple days ago I received an email from Topps stating that it was on its way and today I officially got it. The card looks beautiful in hand and now the question is what do I do with it? Keep it? Sell it? Trade it?

Centering looks to be perfect and surface and edges look to have no issues. The only problem I see is that one corner looks a tad rounded but I think it would grade out to a 9 at worst and if that holds and everything else gets a 9.5 then I would have a gem mint autograph card that is only limited to 35 of the young phenom. One of the lowest numbered autographs that Julio has on the market.

The one thing I will do is submit it to BGS in a couple weeks and get a raw grade review and if it indeed earns a 9.5 then I might just have to submit it for full slabbing. I think though if it comes back as a 9 then I will flip it on the bay.

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Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin

Card of the Day - 2014 Bowman Inception : Julio Urias "Inceptioned" Autograph (#/35)

Another example of a forgotten pursuit of card being finally acquired due to the fact that I saw something similar online while I was doing a search for something that was totally unrelated to this card.

When 2014 Bowman Inception came out last year this cad was on my want list as it is only numbered to 35 which makes it one of the more limited autographs of the future Dodger pitcher. I am always looking to add more Urias autographs to my collection and I wanted to call one of these my own but they were price prohibitive out the gate. I saw a few sell which meant less and less would be available so I turned my attention to other cards. Months later I came across another auction that reminded me of this card and I wondered if there were anymore out there to be had. There was one and this was it.

This card (to be redeemed) was on a BIN auction but for me was still too much for my liking. Beckett has this valued at a high of $150 and a low of $60. Even though the seller had an asking price of just a little more than half of book I just put it on my watch list and sat on the sidelines to see what would happen. I was 1 of 7 watchers when I found this card.

I received 2 emails one morning when I woke. One informing that this card's asking price had dropped and was now in my ballpark price and I was now ready to acquire it but two that eBay was running an eBay bucks promotion that was to start at 8 in the morning. That was still a hour and half away. So do I buy it now at the lower price or hold out till the program started so I could earn more bucks for future purchases? I waited it out and thankfully it was still there at 8 and I promptly purchased the card and had it in hand a few days later. Code has been redeemed and now I wait for my next Urias autograph.

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day.

-Penguin

Lucky Trade Number 7 with Alex of Chavez Ravining

Another month and another trade completed with Alex of Chavez Ravining

Second to last post of the year and with it my final trade of the year as well. Alex and I have stepped it up this year with multiple trades and this is the seventh overall between us. May it not be the last.

Awhile back Alex posted about some of his 2014 Stadium Club hits and had an autograph of Joe Kelly from it available for trade.

I don't go out of my way to purchase autographs of non Dodgers or non stars but if I can get my hands on one without any money out of pocket I'll do it as autographs are the main focus of my collection.

The trade was going to be a simple one with a couple cards for Joe's autograph but then we ended up expanding it to include a Kemp autograph that Alex had his eyes on. In return I ended up with some more autograph cards for the collection.

2014 Bowman Inception of Eddie Butler

2014 Triple Threads of Mike Olt 

Love the fact that both of these are on card autographs as I loathe sticker ones which I am sure everyone knows by now.

To top it off Alex also included a Dodger to the batch.

2013 Topps Tribute of Andre Ethier

Though I have many Ethier autographs why not add another?

As with all past trades with Alex this one also went about without a hitch. To see what I sent him you can take a gander HERE .

Thank you again to Alex for the great cards and I look forward to more trades with you in the new year.

Thank you for reading and have a blessed day

- Penguin

BGS Submission Update Ten - 2014 Bowman Inception : Julio Urias Base Autograph Blue Parallel ( 16 / 75 ) Now Graded and Slabbed a Gem Mint 9.5

Original Submission Post
Beckett Book Value : $40

I'm in the stretch run now and all I have left to show are Dodgers. 4 cards left and still 3 surprise grades with Julio here is the first of them.

I did not have any luck with a 2013 Bowman Sterling autograph I submitted to BGS as it came back with a 9 grade on the autograph. So I sold that card and acquired this blue limited beauty in raw form. Once in hand I knew I wanted to submit it for grading as well and hope for the best. Autograph looked clean but my issue was with corners as I could tell they weren't as crisp as I would like them to be. I was also weary on the edges sub grade so I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

As expected the corners were not the best and earned a 9 grade. The surprise is that the other grades were gem mint with one getting a pristine 10. Autograph also received a 10 grade so I now have a nice gem mint card of a great Dodger prospect. Still have one more autograph on the way to me and I can only hope it comes out just like this one.

Card(s) of the Day - 2014 Bowman Inception : Julio Urias Base Autograph Blue Parallel ( 16 / 75 ) and 2013 Bowman Sterling Base Autograph

The third of 3 Bowman Inception blue parallels is finally in hand and with it came a bonus card.

Urias was/is the big name on the Dodger front from this year's issue of Inception and he was the last one I needed to acquire but each time I tried to buy this card I was out bid at the last moment. There are only 75 copies in existence and with a $40 book value the demand is high and copies are limited.

Well I had a 2013 Bowman Sterling card of Urias that I got graded as recapped HERE but it earned a disappointing mint 9 on the autograph and even though the overall grade was gem mint it still bothered me. Well I saw this auction for this Bowman Inception card and though I wanted/needed it the auction had another card that drew my interest and made me want to win this auction even more.

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If I could be the high bidder ( which I was obviously ) I would not only win the coveted Inception card but I would also win this other card :

That's right, another Sterling autograph card. My thinking was if I could sell my "disappointing" Urias graded card that would help if not pay for most of this auction. I ended up selling said Sterling card the day before the 2 card Urias auction was to end and with known amount of funds that I had access to I knew what my ceiling would be. Thankfully the auction did not get too close to it and I came out the winner for both cards.

The Inception card would probably grade out to a 9 with an outside chance of a 9.5 ( going to submit it either way ) and the new Sterling card has a flawless autograph ( no 9 here ) but the card itself is like the Inception one and will for sure grade out a 9 with an outside chance at gem mint. Still debating if I am going to try my luck again with BGS on the Sterling card.

Swap out one Urias autograph card for two. A win any day of the week.

Card of the Day - 2014 Bowman Inception : Chris Anderson Base Autograph Blue Parallel ( 30 / 75 )

The second of the three Dodgers that I am pursuing within this year's Bowman Inception set has now been acquired.

I had already gotten my hands on Guerrero and now needed Anderson and Urias. Surprisingly enough the Anderson card was going for way more than I was willing to spend. Book value has it at $10 but most of the auctions that I partook in ended at or over that amount. eBay is supposed to be bargain hunting right? Ha Ha. Anyways, with only 75 copies of this blue card I had to keep my eyes open for any new copies that might show up. Finally this one came up for sale and had a reasonable asking price on a tradition auction. Had to wait a full 7 days but at the end of it I was the one and only bidder on the auction and became the proud owner of the card.

I have missed Chris the few times at Rancho Cucamonga so I have yet to acquire his autograph in person but considering the season he has had ( average at best ) I suspect he will start next season there so hopefully I can get him then. Till that happens though I have this nice blue copy to tide me over.

Two down with Urias the final one to acquire and my mini project will be complete.

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Card of the Day - 2014 Bowman Inception : Alexander Guerrero Base Blue Parallel Autograph ( 20 / 75 )

Another new set recently was released and like Allen and Ginter, Bowman Inception was collected by me last year but this year it was cut from my list of brands to hunt for. But just like Allen and Ginter I will never pass on autographs of Dodgers.

There are 3 Dodgers of note within the set, Julios Urias, Chris Anderson and Alexander Guerrero. I will not be pursuing the base versions of any of their cards but I will be hunting down their blue parallels that are numbered to only 75. Alex here in fact has a black collection autograph card within the set that is numbered to only 25 but unless I score a major deal then I will be passing on that one.

Julio is my primary need/want from this set but Alexander is a close second as unlike Julio this is Alex's first certified MLB autograph on a card and since I sold my Alex autographed ball I had no representation of him in my collection.

I was surprised at the high sales of this card as he isn't even on the team and is 27 years old. But everything Cuban nowadays seems to be hot so I had to bide my time and wait for the right time to win this card at the right price. Finally that day came when someone put this up on a buy it now for less than every closed sale prior to that day. Didn't wait and snapped it up and within a week it came in. It will not be a candidate for grading as I can tell it would only grade out as a mint 9 which is not bad per se but I so do love my gem mints. No biggie as I am just happy to have his autograph back within my collection.

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