An New Year’s Accumulation

I’ve taken the post-Christmas time frame to make a few card exchanges, pick up some more difficult to find cards, look for any eBay finds, hit a free card show, and spend my gift certificate from “Santa” 😉

This batch includes my first autograph cards of Twins HOFer Jim “Mudcat” Grant and of Levi Michael.

clockwise, from top left: 2004 Upper Deck Legends Timeless Teams #8 “Mudcat” Grant (auto); 2008 Upper Deck A Piece of History Franchise Members Quad #FM4-16 Joe Mauer w/Rodriquez,Varitek,Posada [13/99] (jersey); 2007 Upper Deck Elements Clear-Cut Elements Bronze #CCE-FL Francisco Liriano [279/350] (auto/jersey); 2010 Topps T-206 Piedmont #TR-GP Glen Perkins (auto); 2008 Upper Deck Goudey Graphs #GG-GP Glen Perkins (auto); 2012 Bowman Platinum Prospects #AP-LM Levi Michael (auto)

I picked up a whole scad of low s#’d Twins cards, many like these below.

clockwise, from top left: 2004 Donruss Classics Team Colors #TC-47 Bert Blyleven [027/100] (jersey); 2003 Fleer Mystique Ink Appeal Gold #IP-MR Mike Ryan [13/54] (jersey); 2005 Upper Deck Past Time Pennants Gold #3 Bert Blyleven [17/50]; 2007 Upper Deck Artifacts Antiquity Artifacts Gold #AA-HU Torii Hunter (jersey); 2004 Playoff Honors Credits Gold #118 Torii Hunter [09/25]; 2003 Donruss Champions Statistical Champs #SC27 Rod Carew [04/50]

And of course, a few of Lew!

clockwise, from top left: 2005 Fleer Authentix Mezzanine #68 Lew Ford [10/75]; 2005 Donruss Zenith Museum #183 Lew Ford; 2005 Topps Chrome Black Refractor #192 Lew Ford [172/225]; 2004 Donruss Elite Extra Edition Status #36 Johan Santana [07/56]

So what have you been up to? Don’t forget to check out my trade bait page and see if there’s something there for you!

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Quality Merchandise

I try not to dip into eBay much, as it could easily get in the way of my card collecting’s requisite spousal approval, but with some overtime here and there, I don’t mind browsing for something inexpensive. This past week or so, I lucked into some excellent cards at very reasonable prices. In addition, the bottom card was saved for me from my LCS owner, bless him.

clockwise, from top left: 2007 Upper Deck Premier Rare Remnants Triple Gold #RR3-SJZ Johan Santana w/Johnson,Zito [25/25] (jersey); 2003 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites Relics #FFR-RCA Rod Carew (bat); 2002 Upper Deck Sweet Spot USA #USA-JM Joe Mauer (jersey); 2012 Topps Golden Moments #GMA-LH Liam Hendriks (auto); 2004 Donruss Elite Extra Edition #305 Kyle Waldrop [102/823] (auto)

And speaking of Quality Merchandise, there are more and more teams being added to my TRADE BAIT page, so take a look and make a trade offer!

Building Up The Portfolio

I decided to hit up eBay for some reasonably priced items to build up my havelist of GU, AU, and printing plates, and it happens to include a couple of the new toast of the Mets, Johan Santana.

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s…acctingman69, from Sports Card Freaks. He threw a post on a forum there mentioning he had several eBay listings, and checking them out I found one with five Twins cards, three of which I needed. I made a reasonable max bid and let it go, and ended up taking it home. acctingman69 was also nice enough to throw in a Black Diamond card that I needed too, which is very much appreciated.

clockwise, from top left: 2001 Upper Deck Heroes of Baseball #B-KP Kirby Puckett (bat); 2004 Upper Deck Etchings #BE-HU Torii Hunter [013/250] (bat); 2004 Donruss World Series #WS-105 Johan Santana [019/250] (jersey); 1999 Upper Deck Black Diamond #107 Eric Milton [0689/2500]

And from a couple of other eBay purchases:

Two By Two

(Hey, I have loads of inserts and s#’d cards from many teams; if you have Twins cards I might need, fire me an email or comment)

Here are four cards from The Bay of E and from devintolly from over at Sports Card Area. I rounded up over 30 Justin Morneau cards from my dupes box that he needed, and in exchange he had a nice Santana/Liriano dual GU and a Slowey GU. In addition, from eBay, a “lucky” bid on a sweet s#’d 5/9 Morneau GU and a Tom Quinlan auto card!!1!!1! That’s going in a screwdown in a hurry…

clockwise, from top left: 2011 Topps Triple Threads Unity Relics Gold #TTUSR-228 Justin Morneau [5/9] (jersey); 1996 Donruss Leaf Signature Extended Tom Quinlan (auto); 2009 Upper Deck Goudey Memorabilia #GM-KS Kevin Slowey (jersey); 2007 Upper Deck Ultimate Collection Ultimate Ensemble Swatches 2 #ES-SL Johan Santana/Francisco Liriano [39/75] (dual jersey)

(Hey, thanks again Devin; those two bombs from Morneau the other day are hopefully a sign of things to come.)

Dipping My Toes Back In The Bay Of E (Conclusion)

I can safely say it’s the conclusion, because I’m sure I’ve exceeded my “spousal approval limit”…for the time being. I picked up this potpourri from the same eBay’er; when picking up the Mahomes AU, adding the others what I also needed made shipping reasonable for the bulk.

clockwise, from top left: 1997 Donruss Preferred #71 Paul Molitor; 1996 Leaf Signature Extended Pat Mahomes; 1998 Topps Finest Refractor #203R Ron Coomer; 1998 Leaf Rookies & Stars Great American Heroes #17 Paul Molitor [2354/2500]; 1998 Topps Chrome Refractor #291 Paul Molitor; 1998 Topps Chrome #257 David Ortiz w/Sexson,Ward

But this purchase was a winner, even if it was Luis Castillo. This makes plate #3 for me.

2006 Bowman Heritage black printing plate #168 Luis Castillo [1/1] (plate)

Meanwhile, I mailed out five packages today, so I’m looking forward to some incoming trade packages in the near future…

Dipping My Toes Back In The Bay Of E

I took another dip into eBay the last few weeks, looking to pick up a few inexpensive AU or GU Twins (or even printing plates), and picked up some nice cards at reasonable prices.

clockwise, from top left: 2007 Upper Deck Ultimate Collection Ultimate Ensemble Swatches 2 #ES-SW Johan Santana w/Webb [51/75] (dual jersey); 2011 Topps Allen & Ginter Relic #AGR-JMO Justin Morneau (bat); 2003 Upper Deck Prospect Premiers Star Rookie #P105 Scott Baker (jersey); 2004 Bowman Signs of the Future #SOF-DS Denard Span (auto); 1996 Donruss Leaf Signature Series Bronze Frank Rodriguez (auto); 1996 Donruss Leaf Signature Series Bronze Pat Meares (auto)

But the real treat was filling a hole in my vintage collection by picking up this high # 1962 team card at an excellent price: clean edges, really nice corners, and not too off center.

1962 Topps #584 Minnesota Team

To be continued…

Trolling The Bay Of E: Part V — Summary

Finally, the last of my eBay experiment posts — one month hitting eBay to bolster my “relic/auto havelist” with cards I needed — which I was able to bolster considerably. Question is, was I able to keep the price per card at less than my goal of $3 apiece including shipping?

# of transactions: 15
# of cards: 33
12 autos, 1 auto/jersey, 2 bat, 1 bat/jersey, 15 jersey, 1 patch, 1 low s#'d

	card cost	shipping cost	total cost
total	$68.24	$21.80	$90.04
per card	$2.07	$0.66	$2.73

Nailed it. Also part of the end total was a wrong relic card which I didn’t order (later refunded after no reply from the vendor required eBay to intervene) and a non-Twin relic card that was part of a lot; assuming I turn these two around for an additional Twins relic or auto apiece, that brings the total down to $2.57 per card.

I know of at least one eBay vendor with many Twins autos & relics within my price per card limit, but at this point I’ve hit Mo’s you’ve spent more than enough on eBay, knock it off limit. Well, thanks for letting me play around a bit, Hon!

The last item to post, a current Twins player who isn’t one of the scrubs:

2006 Upper Deck SP^x Rookie Signatures #130 Jason Kubel [776/999] (auto)

Trolling The Bay Of E: Part IV

Yet another in the continuation of the previous posts, showing items I picked up off eBay, with the goal of increasing my “havelist” but keeping the price per card at less than $3 apiece including shipping.

The fourth set, the first half containing autos:

clockwise, from top left: 2004 Best #BB-LTH Luke Hughes (auto); 2003 Best #BB-JM Jose Morales (auto); 2006 Autograph #228 Willie Eyre (auto); 2009 Signature Stars Impressions #IMP-GP Glen Perkins (auto)