Card of the Day - 2014 Topps Chrome : Carl Crawford Base Blue Refractor Parallel (86/199)

The blue crew pursuit continues and with it I picked up yet another set need.

How many more years will I be pursuing Carl Crawford cards? Don't know but the sooner the better as if I am not looking for them then he must no longer be on the team and if that has come to past the the team I believe is better for it. Till that time I "must" acquire his cards to keep my sets complete.

As with Onleki the demand for Crawford is not very high but this card did cost me a little more than Onleki's which was only $1.33. How much more? 17 cents. I think I can handle that. One more card off the need list with more to come.

86 / 199

Card of the Day - 2014 Topps Chrome : Carl Crawford Base Black Refractor Parallel ( 24 / 100 )

Even though my focus is and always will be more on autographs for now on I still am in search of all black and blue parallels from the Topps and Bowman Chrome brands.

This is my first black non autograph parallel that I have been able to get my hands on from this year's Topps Chrome set. Like every other year they are numbered to 100. When its not a big name i.e. Crawford here it isn't that much of a hassle and not that costly to get my hands on it. Had to wait for the right auction to bid on as most of them had high shipping rates but finally this one came up and it was time to win it. Two bids is all it took and I won it for a few pennies over a buck. First of many black parallels needed but I have the whole off season to acquire them.

24 / 100

Card(s) of the Day - 2014 Bowman : Whole Lot of Blue, Silver Ice, Home/State and Chrome of Multiple Dodgers

Silver Ice of Ryu, Greinke, Coyle and Crawford

The latest and probably last big purchase (volume wise) of 2014 Bowman has hit my mailbox. Wanted to put a big dent in my need list so I went back to one of my most reliable sellers on eBay to see what he might have in stock for me purchase. Still needing over 30 cards I was hoping to comply a big buy from him.

Silver Ice of Yimi and Ethier

At the same time I wanted to keep costs at a minimum. One reason I always go back to this seller is that he has most of his cards up on BIN auctions but if you are a past customer and you don't try to low ball him on offers he is receptive to working with you.

Blue parallels of Trinkwon, Crawford and Yimi

302 of 500

427 of 500

209 of 500

Needing all different types of parallels with the blue ones being a priority I searched his store and came up with a nice sized list of what I wanted. Every single one was a BIN auction with prices ranging from $1.50 to $2.25. Started shooting him the offers as fast as I could so he saw that I was intending to buy more than one.

Mini chromes of Yimi and Coyle

402 of 500

204 of 500

After about the 5th offer ( not even half way done ) I started to receive emails stated he was accepting my offers which gave me the go ahead in my head to keep going as I assumed he would accept them all. 

Mini chrome blue parallels of Zach and Corey

129 of 250

235 of 250

In the end I sent him 13 offers for 13 cards and he accepted every single one of them. The grand total would have been an average of a $1 a card but Corey's blue mini was "pricey" which bumped up the average to a little over $1.40. 

Reasonable I thought. As always I promptly paid him and he promptly shipped out the cards the next day and I had them in hand within a few days. Another smooth and painless transaction with a trusted eBay seller. The end is in sight for the 2014 Bowman set.

Card(s) of the Day - 2014 Bowman : Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez, Brandon Trinkwon and Bobby Coyle Base Blue Parallels plus Others

The lengths I will go to acquire all that is blue when it comes to Dodgers and their cards. I pick up these two rookie cards of Brandon and Bobby in a purchase from a seller but in 4 different auctions.

Brandon 365 of 500

Bobby 128 of 500

The seller had those two and then these two of the veteran Dodgers Adrian and Carl. I needed them all for my set needs but everytime I saw them online sellers wanted at least 2-3 dollars for each one. Wanted them just not at an inflated price.

Carl 412 of 500

Adrian 91 of 500

Well I finally found all of these on one sellers site but there was one side problem to acquiring them. I had to bid on all of these...

That's right. 40 more blue parallels that I had no need for any of my projects. In 4 separate auctions had the four cards I wanted but to acquire them I had to try to win the other 40. Thankfully I sell as well as buy on eBay and I would do one of my patented buy what I need then sell the left over sales. I ended up winning all of cards which included the 4 I really wanted for a total of just a little over $15. Now to get rid of the 40 card excess.

Put my own auction up and surprise, surprise I sold it for a little over $15 and taking out shipping it was a little under $13. So for pennies I picked up 4 cards for my set needs and received a positive feedback for my selling transaction. Win win for the Penguin.

Contest Winnings From Chavez Ravining # 1

It finally happened for me over at Chavez Ravining as the creator spun the random.org button enough times that Dodger Penguin finally won one of his contests. Got tired of always seeing Greg win. Lol.

The booty just arrived and while the main prizes were good the bonus cards that Alex threw in were the real prize to me.

First off the actual cards from the contest :

3 prospects from the cream of the crop insert set from 2013 Bowman

A Kemp card from a 2012 Topps product :

Bison during better days.

A much needed gold parallel from the 2013 Bowman set :

And top off the package a X-Fractor parallel from the 2013 Topps Chrome set :

The gold and xfractor cards to me were the best of the bunch as they filled some holes in my set needs but all are loved and appreciated. Thanks again go out to Alex for putting on the contest. Here's to more wins in the future. 

Card(s) of the Day - 2013 Topps Chrome : Clayton Kershaw and Carl Crawford Base

Another 2 card 2 dollar eBay special.

Continuing to put together the Dodger team set from this year's Topps Chrome and found these two at a bargain basement price of a dollar each.

Even though there is nothing special or sparkly about either one of these I still needed them both for my set and when the price is that low there is no need to wait to pick them up. One card of Kid K and another of hopefully our fourth outfielder for 2014 is welcomed home with open arms.

Card(s) of the Day - 2013 Topps : Full Dodgers Team Set From Retail Factory Box

Day 2 and entry 2 of my Christmas gift from the wife.

Yesterday as seen HERE the main prize for me was the Ryu photo variation that is only found in the retail factory set. The rest of the non-Dodgers will be used for trade to bring in more Dodgers. One way or another the wife is going to be getting me Dodger stuff whether its direct or I have to hustle for it.
= )

Anyways, instead of me hunting for the individual cards of all the Dodgers I was able just to pull them out of the box and be done with looking for them on the bay. Though I have some of them already its always nice to have dups to be used for trades, contests, etc. Though there is nothing specifically "special" about the cards I wanted them all. So everyone into the pool.

Dee, Andre and Kid K

Joe " I cant believe his was a Dodger " Blanton, LL Kershaw and Jansen

Paco, Get well soon Chad and underrated Choate

Nice guy Chris, Why are you still here Josh and Mickey Mouse Adrian

2014 Comeback Player of the Year Kemp, Thank God you retired Lilly and the bane of our bullpen League

Nice blurry Pic Matthew. WTF ??

Harriston, HanRam and Part time wrestler Greinke

Ellis, Cruz and Crawford

Card(s) of the Day - 2013 Bowman Platinum : Matt Kemp Base, Clayton Kershaw Base and Gold Parallel, Adrian Gonzalez Base and Gold Parallel, Carl Crawford Base and Gold Parallel

As more and more sets come out during the year I have grown less fond of this set. Problem is that since I started it I want to finish at least the base set and possibly some of the variants. I am a completest and don't want to just abandon the pursuit of finishing the set even though my interest in has waned since I first started collecting it. One lesson learned though is not to try to collect every new set and stick to the ones I originally planned to collect only. Will apply that lesson to 2014 releases. This will probably my one and only time ever collecting Bowman Platinum.

With that said I went looking for bargains and found all of these on a buy it now auction from a single seller. He had them all up for a dollar a pop. Scooped them up and with that put a big dent in my needs to complete the set.

Cards look better in picture than in the hand. Go figure.

Trade with Fellow Blogger : Chavez Ravining ( Trade Number 1 )

Finally completed a trade with Alex from Chavez Ravining . He loves to run contests which I have not been fortunate enough to win yet but I am holding out hope for one that ends this Thursday. So I wanted to jump in and do my own contest and he happened to win my 2nd one as seen HERE . He is trying to complete a rainbow set of the Dodgers from this year's Topps Chrome set and I saw that he needed a purple Kemp which I had one to spare so I approached him on a trade and sent him the card with his contest winnings. I had nothing specific that I wanted back so I just informed him what I collected and send whatever which he did. I had zero 2013 Topps cards so everything he sent was useful.

An intense looking Zack, Crawford and a great picture of a bat flipping Hanley

Great start but that wasn't all

Another rookie card of Ryu, sure hands Ellis and thankfully long gone Cruz

Six down and then Alex tops it off with some Chrome

Mmm.. Chrome. I know I need the Topps Chrome ( 2 silver ones ) but I think I might have the Hanley which is fine as if I do I will pay it forward somehow.

Nine cards in total. A great package to get prior to Christmas. Thank you again to Alex and watch both our blogs for contests and insight. Trade two is in the process and should be up within the week.

Signed Ball of the Day : Carl Crawford ( ROMLB Sweet Spot )

In honor of the news from yesterday and today that Carl Crawford might not be ( I tend to believe that he won't ) ready for opening day I wanted to post about his autograph that I acquired.

I went to Camelback last month and saw Carl a few times but was never lucky enough to get his signature but considering he will be on the team for quite awhile unless he is traded I am positive that I will get it. When I do it will replace the one I did buy last year. He was traded to the Dodgers back in August in the mega deal with the Red Sox even though he was on the disabled list after his Tommy John surgery. A good time to buy autographed items is when the player is out of commission or are doing really poorly and he fell under both those categories. His tenure in Boston can be summed up as strained and under productive with the surgery just adding the cherry on top. Went onto eBay to try to get a ball at a reasonable price and saw that Honabach and Sons were running some auctions. They tend to run their auctions at Buy It Now's but that week they were doing traditional auctions. They had a Crawford ball that was MLB authenticated with a starting bid of $20. No one bidded on the ball up til the end of the auction and with a few seconds left I put my bid in with some leeway just in case someone else tried to bid but no one did and I was the winner of the auction. For $20 I received an authenticated ball of one of the newest Dodgers with his signature on the sweet spot. Also, with Honabach always at Frank and Sons I had the shipping waived as I picked it up in person. A great deal. Now lets hope he can bring something positive to this team.