Checking In

Hello, friends.  While I sit here bored out of my mind in U.S. Politics, I decided to check up on the baseball card world, and wow... I'm lost.

To start off with, what products have come out since August?  I noticed Topps Chrome and Triple Threads are hot.  How is Chrome this year compared to last year's disastrous effort?  Triple Threads?

Hope everyone is doing well.  Just got caught up on the latest from everybody, and all the blogs look great!  Keep it up people.

Crossroads, Hiatus

If you are not aware, I am leaving for college in a couple of weeks.  Yes, it’s another big chapter in my life, and I’m eagerly looking forward to it.  However, when you are attending a school that is four and a half hours away from your home, you are limited in what you can do.  Like collect baseball cards and then blog about them.  Since I will be away from all my sources, I’m afraid I’m left with no choice to but to put For Card’s Sake on a hiatus.

Now, don’t panic, you have two more weeks left.  I’ll try to post as much as I can of all the stuff I have lying around, including a couple of packages from some great bloggers.  I’m giving everyone a heads up just in case someone wants to do some last minute trading or anything of that sort.  Hopefully I will be done organizing my entire collection and shipping off extra cards to a ton of bloggers.

This does not mean the end of Nick, however, or for For Card’s Sake.  I will still be around, reading posts and commenting (and possibly telling you guys to hold some cards until I return home) and the such, making my presence known.  I may post about general topics on the blog from time to time as well.  But the maildays and the box breaks… well, they’ll have to wait for a while unfortunately.  Probably during winter/spring breaks when I have a lot of time to write and scan.

So, as of right now, For Card’s Sake is commenced to shut down on August 27, 2011.  I will have some goodies waiting for you that day as well.  I will leave you with this humorous picture.

You Know It's 2007 When...

… when team exclusive sets featured Johnny Damon and Chien-Ming Wang.

(Thanks to …Joe from The Sandlot for these blasts from the short past).

A Long-Awaited Standing Ovation

Along with Smed’s Spring Cleaning from many moons ago, I have yet to show off my stack of cards I received from the Daily Dimwit’s group break a few months back.  He busted an entire CASE of 2006 Upper Deck Ovation, and I quickly jumped in on the great price and the awesome amount of cards I could receive.  Sure enough, I came out with an entire base set of the product, a lot of cool inserts, and these big hits.  I had the Yankees and the Diamondbacks.

2006 Upper Deck Ovation Apparel OA-DJ: Derek Jeter

Yeah that All-Star break really helped out that .260 average…

2006 Upper Deck Ovation Center Stage Signatures CS-CW: Chien-Ming Wang (Numbered to 25)

Man if I were only selling this… this card is very, very rare.  Now, it would make sense for this signature to be in Taiwanese, and it probably is, but there’s a slight possibility this might be in another Asian language.  I can read some Chinese (yes, I’m serious), but I don’t recognize these characters.

2006 Upper Deck Ovation Gold Rookie Autographs #112: Stephen Drew (Numbered to 99)

This is a great card of For Card’s Sake favorite Stephen Drew.  Unfortunately, the D-Backs put the young shortstop on the DL after breaking his right ankle.  Tough break for a team that’s looking to make a run at the pennant in a weak NL West division.

Thanks to the Dimwit for the awesome group break and I can’t wait for the next one!

The Case of the Missing Team Bags (And Some News)

My team bags disappeared.  I have no idea where the hell they went.  They’re not with my penny sleeves or toploaders, they’re not in a random drawer in my computer room… they are gone without a trace.  I would blame the cleaning ladies (whom I blamed for my missing Chad Billingsley autographed card), but something tells me they wouldn’t be interested in that.

It’s quite eerie.

So, if I’m trading with you and I send you a nasty looking team bag, my apologies.  I’ll probably pick some up at the next card show or order some online.

I’ll also be down the shore on and off for the next two weeks.  If we try to work on a trade of some sort and I can only ship on select dates, that’s why.  I’ll have posts scheduled so no worries about missing your dosage of For Card’s Sake.

Yay.

This Post Is Not from Any Specific Time, Year, or Blogger

The debate of jersey/bat/relic cards have been made time and time again, and I won’t be you with another opinion.  However, I will show you how pathetic it has become with evidence found right on Topps’s fingerprints.

You may remember these from yesterday as the two relic cards I received from Smed.  Let’s take a look at the backs.

2011 Topps Gypsy Queen Relics GQR-JP: Jorge Posada

“You Just Received a Topps Certified Relic Card of Jorge Posada of the New York Yankees from 2010 Topps Gypsy Queen.”

You know, at least the acknowledge the fact that it’s from Jorge Posada.  Too bad they forget what year Gypsy Queen was released.

(As a side note: have you seen the checklist for the Gypsy Queen Relic set?  Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Cal Ripken Jr,, Ryan Braun, Robinson Cano, Jacoby Ellsbury… damn those are some impressive names.  I know, I know, relic cards aren’t all that awesome anymore, but considering on a set of 20 cards and arguably the worst player is Jayson Werth, that’s a pretty good checklist.)

2011 Topps Heritage Clubhouse Collection Relics BG: Brett Gardner

First off, I love the cartoon.

But.

“The relic on this card is not from any specific game, event, or season.”

Jesus!  Might as well say it’s from the batboy instead of Brett Gardner.  Notice how small the font is?  And how readable it barely is?  That is truly pitiful.  In fact, that’s straight up turrible.

But I love that cartoon.

Smed's Spring Cleaning... In the Middle of Summer

I owe Smed a huge, huge, huge, huge, huge apology for taking this long to post all the fantastic stuff he sent over in his Spring Cleaning.  But understand why it’s taking forever… there was so much awesome stuff I had no idea what to scan and show and how much.  Should I break it up into a three-part post of the highlights?  Should I make a video going through every card?  These decisions, it torments a blogger endlessly.

I decided to post all the hits and “new” stuff Smed sent over, even though everything he shipped to New Jersey was fantastic and helped out this Yankees fan’s collection.  A lot of his stuff will be used for future posts and for the team binder.  Thanks man!

Smed gave me my first lick of 2011 Topps Gypsy Queen… and I can clearly see what the fuss was about.  These cards are very nice, from the inserts to the on-card autographs.  Yes, on-card autographs.  Sweet.

I remember when everyone was blasting this set when Topps first released the product information.  Now it’s considered one of the best products of the year.  Collector’s these days… sheesh.  Now the problem for Topps remains this: the only reason Gypsy Queen prices were high as a kite is because it was under-produced.  Now that people want it, Topps will run the presses like it was producing Allen & Ginter.  You’ll see either a) the popularity wane leaving a ton of product available for cheap or b) Gypsy Queen overcoming Ginter as the most sought out painted product Topps releases, putting the nail in the coffin for Ginter.  It’s fun to think about.

Keeping with painted sets, here’s a C.C. relic from 2009 Topps Allen & Ginter.

He pitched a good game last night… unfortunately James Shields pitched a better one.  So goes the life of an AL East team.

One final “retro” card, a Brett Gardner bat piece from 2011 Topps Heritage.

After a slow start, Brett Gardner is putting up a Brett Gardner-season; .290 AVG, .370 OPB, and is currently tied with Jose Reyes for second in the league in stolen bases with 30.

For all those shiny lovers, we have a 2010 Bowman Chrome Draft Purple Refractor of Ivan Nova.

Yeah, it looks blue because of the scanner, but it is purple.  Nova, since being sent back down because of Phil Hughes’s return, is pitching lights out in Triple-A and we should see him back in New York fairly soon.

Smed, thanks so much for all the cards, they were a great help for the collection!

Mmmmm.. Bread

I made a lot of pickups the past week, but this was probably the best one.

Free pastry with registry.  Hell yeah.