Greetings Once Again

After an absence that lasted way too long, I am back with enough clarity to start blogging again on what I hope will be a regular basis.
I won't bore anyone with the details of why I seem to have dropped off the face of the planet for the second time but suffice to say I was/am dealing with some pretty heavy family issues and I did not want to turn this forum into my own pity blog. To prevent that I walked away to clear my head and I can now get back into the swing. As I mentioned though....some of these issues are still ongoing so I might not be a daily writer for a bit but hopefully soon all will be back to as close to whatever normal is as they can be.
In the months & months that I have been away, I have managed to get to the cardboard crack dealer a few times and I have some great pulls, some dumb pulls, and some average pulls that I will be scanning over the next few days and posting along with comments and general impressions.
Stay tuned.......

Back Again

It seems like every time I get on a roll with this blog again something comes along and shoots my wheels clean off.
This time it was Hurricane Ike. While I live well north of Hurricane Ike's path, I am in the same state and many of my friends, as well as my office is in Houston. I have been covering for most of my co-workers while they deal with the aftermath of Ike and the terrible destruction it wrought. Most have no power and some lost more.
As for Galveston...having spent some time there, It was not my favorite place but I have a lot of great memories from there and if you have never been to Galveston, you will never see it the way it was again. Destruction is an understatement.
I will keep updating the blog as time permits but until my friends and co-workers get back on their feet, I will do all I can to help them from here.

Stay tuned as I have not dropped off again.

First Allen & Ginter Autographs Posted

I have scanned a few of the A & G Autographs and posted them. I have added a link in the upper right corner of the blog. If you don't see it, click here. This little undertaking is really for nothing else then to give me something to do. Due to a bit of an economic downturn I will not be able to pick up new stuff like I used to so I wanted to do something to keep the blog fresh that still involved cards. Hope you enjoy it.

Wax Heaven has Andrew Miller and I have Allen & Ginter Autographs

Anyone that reads my blog regularly knows I am a big fan of Mario and the Infamous Tatiana over at Wax Heaven. They are big fans of Andrew Miller and Mario has made it a mission to get his hands on any Andrew Miller cards he can and then scan them for posterity. Well...I have decided to do the same. Since 2006, my wife and I have been collecting every Allen & Ginter Autograph we can. I have decided to start scanning them in and document them for all to see.
Currently we have 22 different Allen & Ginter autographs and while that is not earth moving considering how many autos (mostly crappy ones) Topps tosses into every set, I am still pretty proud of our little collection. I will start scanning in the next couple days so check back as I will post a link to the page.
And Mario......the Marlins don't suck. The GM sucks. The Marlins have a great team but the GM just doesn't know that a good team needs to be kept intact. They still have more World Series wins then just about any other NL team in the last 10 years and if they ever get a new stadium, I bet South Florida will become an MLB hotbed again. Same goes for Tampa Bay. They have a legit shot at going deep into the playoffs this year and they still draw less people then Costco on a Sunday. My local team..the Texas Rangers..have a very similar issue. The Ballpark here has no roof and day games routinely hit 115 degrees (130 on the field) and night games hover in the 95-98 degree range. Pretty miserable. The worst thing about the Rangers situation is that we have zero hope of getting a new ballpark with a roof since the one we have is not that old. The assclown that decided to build an open air stadium in Texas should be beaten.

2008 UD Icons Football

I know I have been very football focused lately. I have more baseball coming but most of the pre-orders were football as it is just that time of year.
I pre-ordered a box of 2008 UD Icons mainly because it was new, it has a Dallas Cowboy on the front, and it seemed pretty balanced between legends and newbies. From the box I ripped I can attest to that. My box was about evenly balanced between current players, legends, and rookies. I didn't scan the base cards as they have been posted numerous times elsewhere. Really the only thing I scanned was the hits. Before I broke this box, I hoped that I would get more classic players when it came to relics or autographs since I knew I was going to be selling them (out of need not out of want). As you can see below, I was not disappointed:



Roger Craig Autograph #'d to /25 and Billy Sims Relic #'d to /150. Yeah...the sticker autograph sucks but hey....it's Roger Craig. I was very pleased with these pulls. Before I continue, here is a card from the Rookie Brilliance subset. Very nice:



I knew I had at least one more hit coming and it came in the last pack. I heard very ominous music playing kinda like in a movie right before the hero gets his throat slit and dies while the villain stares into the camera victorious. I just knew my last hit would have something to do with Marcus Monk. I could feel it. The last pack of cards was open in my hands and I could see that the hit was 3 cards away. As my thumb slid one card then another I could feel the bile rising into my throat. When I got to the hit.....here is what I found:



Thank the Lord! I will take a Mendenhall relic over just about any current RC escpecially the Red Kryptionian Marcus Monk. Really nice set and really nice pulls.
I guess if I had a final verdict, if you dig football cards pick up a box (or just watch for when I post the hits and RC's on eBay). The prices I have seen since it went live are about $95 a box so it could be worth it or you could pull a spare RC and spare legends and feel like crap. If I had the dough I would pick up another box as I truly dig owning relics and/or autos from players of the old days of football.

Marcus Monk has become my Joe Koshansky

Hope everyone had a nice Labor Day. Being close to the Gulf Region, I spent most of it watching CNN and praying for our neighbors in Louisiana. As I have a lot of ties to Louisiana and particularly Port Fourchon, I was a bit relieved to hear Gustav moved slightly west but felt for the folks that were not expected to be in it's path...but suddenly were.
One thing of note did happen in my card collecting universe. I got a call from a friend of mine that owns a card shop and he said he had something for me. He made be promise not to divulge where or how I got them (not a big deal really he just doesn't want any notoriety) but I will be in his debt when I get out of mine as I managed to walk away from his shop with a mini box of the newly released Bowman Sterling football.
Having read Uncensored's review of the product I was not looking to land anything major but as beggar's cannot be chooser's, I tore into it. I soon realized....like the title says...that Marcus Monk (Red Kryptonite) has become my football version of Joe Koshansky (Green Kryptonite). If you don't know what I mean here is the story. From late 2007 to current baseball releases, just about every box I busted landed me a Joe Koshansky autograph. 2008 Co-Signers..got it, 2008 Moments & Milestones...got it, 2008 SPx...got two of them...you get the picture. I currently am the proud owner of more Joe Koshansky autographs then anyone other then maybe Joe's mother. Who is Joe Koshansky? Where is Joe now? Click here to find out. Needless to say, I think these will be an albatross around my collection for a long time. Enter Marcus Monk.....
It started with 2008 Donruss Classics. It continued with 2008 Playoff Prestige, then with 2008 Donruss Threads, then 2008 Topps Staduim Club, now.......2008 Bowman Sterling has infected me with another junk Marcus Monk autograph. First of all, for those that didn't read the Monk link above, he has been cut. Not just cut by the Chicago Bears, the team that drafted him THIS year, but he has also been cut by the New York Giants. Mr. Monk is currently the starting wide reciever for the "I Coulda Been a Contenda" Sucks Asses and his autographed RC cards are rotting away in my collection with little hope of ever dumping them on eBay or trading them for a used tissue.
Now..back to the 2008 Bowman Sterling mini box. After busting the mini box, my opinion doesn't differ much from the one I read on Uncensored. The base cards are nice but not anything I would break my back to complete the set for, the jersey cards are nice but not spectacular, and the autographs are...well.....Marcus Monk. My final opinon of the 2008 Sterling Football set is mixed. I like the cards but I don't really care about them. The Darren Sharper I got is nice because it is a swatch from his Pro Bowl jersey and the Malcolm Kelly is nice because it is a larger then some swatch from his "event worn" jersey and includes a bit of a patch but I could really give a crap about any of them. I probably sound like an ungrateful jackass to some but my critique has nothing to do with how I got the cards and everything to do with the quality and variety of the cards I pulled. Here are the scans:

And finally.....my Red Kryptonite....yes...I introduce Marcus Monk.....

One more before the long weekend........

I got scan happy last night with the intention of having three or four days of posts in the can but since I have missed doing this so much I just cannot stop posting. So here is one last post before I check out for the long Labor Day weekend.

2008 Topps Stadium Club Football
OK.....I know this is yet another JC move. Call me a sucker, and idiot, whatever but I knew what I was doing and I did it anyway. Anyone that has been collecting since about 1990 remembers Stadium Club. The photography is great but the set never really impressed me. Now...Stadium Club has re-emerged. At one hit per pack and a dealer pre-selling below MSRP, I couldn't resist.
I opened the pack in anticipation of something......I don't know....different. At first I thought I had pulled a buyback of a classic Stadium Club. I flipped the card over and the stats were current and the date was 2008 so I suddenly realized that it wasn't a buyback...they just look almost EXACTLY the same as the SC cards looked when I was in f-ing high school and college. You would think that after maybe 10 or 15 years that Topps would maybe change the design around as the original Stadium Club cards sold about as well and a jar of fart scent...thus causing Topps to drop it from it's lineup. Nope...retro rules even if it is retro-boring. The photos are pretty great though but I wasn't impressed. Could the relics look any plainer? Good Lord Topps..... calling these relics IMPACT! is like calling a donkey a stallion. Miniscule patch sliver or no..the relics are just...blah. Look for these cards on an eBay autction near you in the very near future. Everyone have a safe and restful Labor Day holiday! Here are the piss poor highlights that I scanned all at once as I didn't want to waste my time (To be fair, I will say the Ray Rice is nice):