Georgia on my mind... and massive hits in my post...

I spent five full days in Georgia. I had big plans: scan all the cards in my type collection, awards collection, and all my set-building cards from inserts and oddballs. I wanted to go through my extras boxes and find some awesome trade bait and hopefully discover some random Roy Halladay autographed rookie card or something spectacular like that, which could then finance my card habit for the next several months. None of that happened.

Don't play this video at work or around children with the sound turned up. Or go right ahead. You're the boss.

Two of the days were spent just moving boxes for hours. I managed to photograph evidence that I have belongings, and some of the belongings that were in some of those boxes. Day three was spent with my friend Craig, mostly playing Guitar Hero. Day four: three batches of fudge. My last day in Georgia involved several errands including more box moving and a tiny bit more Guitar Hero with Craig. All my free time at my mom's house was spent working with a few boxes of cards - scanning what I could and prepping the rest for shipping. Those are the cards that I have been scanning these past several days.

On the first day, I made my way to my old LCS (Champion Sports Cards in Kennesaw) to say hi, and I browsed the relics and found a few great pickups. I had to visit a card store for supplies on Friday, so I had my first stop at Freedom Cardboard's location.

First, Freedom Cardboard. I was there for cardboard boxes, and the guy working there was very helpful. They had a good assortment of cards, including several awesome jumbo patch cards (at a couple Benjamins or more each). I wish I had more time though, because there were three 3200-count dime boxes sitting near the entrance where I could have easily wasted a couple hours. I came across a small grouping of some cards that probably didn't belong in the box, and I might show my dime finds to you soon. I just realized I hadn't scanned them and almost just tossed them into the extras pile without looking! Anyway, the store is spacious and at least half of it caters to the CCG and roleplaying crowd. I saw one group there with the tiny action figures working out some Dungeons and Dragons or war games type of scenario. Hopefully their store inventory will grow as I hope to return to a store that requires several hours of bargain box hunting!

There is one card to show you today that I bought at FCB: this Shoeless Joe Jackson card from Leaf.

 I haven't looked into what set it's from, but it's always nice to find these "obscure" singles in stores or at shows, since I tend to only see Topps products (or other mainstream releases) most of the time. Yes, Leaf isn't that obscure, but they are a minor player in the baseball card market for now.

Now on to Champion. I think I mixed a few cards I grabbed from my own collection in here, but these cards are pretty nice:

 When Play Ball came out I was just absolutely in love with it, and I still am. I bought a box on the spot and built a complete set (no SPs, I don't think), and briefly considered building a master set. Most of the insert sets are relic or autograph lines, though, and doing so would be quite costly.

 Ichiro! I bought this to take to Japan if I don't need it for my type collection. I should be able to trade it for something pretty cool.

 Likewise, and this is shiny blue refractor relic books for $50 - and I bet I could get at least that in cold hard Japanese yen if I carry it across the ocean! I like it, though. I might have to keep it.

 Sorry, Jim.

 Look at that beauty! A nice five-color (because the jersey white and patch white are two different whites - just ask a woman [is that too sexist?]) patch card of D-Train.

 Holy cow! That's even more awesome! It may not be five-color but it's a triple patch! I miss 2005 Donruss products. Hey, box breaker people - if you bust late-season Donruss/Leaf/Playoff products you can expect a ton of hits like this! If the price is right, 2005 may be the best year out there.

Okay, I should have put this card before the patches to end on a high note, but it's still a cool manupatch autographed card. If I'm still running this blog in a couple years (I hope I will be) and I can get all my cards in order, this may be part of a card display that spells out the name of my blog. I have an I and an L already. So I just need the rest of the letters in THIS CARD IS COOL. So, three down, 11 to go!

I leave for Japan in ONE DAY! 24 HOURS! How come every song about tomorrow is really about how bad crap is now?

We need something HAPPY.

I believe I've used this before, but it's good.

Oh yeah. Old school!

USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! (Goodbye USA?!)

How appropriate is it that I purchased this set right before I leave for another country? The annual USA Baseball set is in stores, and I found a retail set hidden at a nearby Target. For $10, not only do I get a full 61-card set, but there's an autograph included too!

 The set has the Collegiate, 18U, and 16U teams. Okey dokey?

 Apparently Chris is a good player. He just had a birthday, too!

 This Chris is an Elder to Okey. HAH. I should be writing for 2 Broke Girls.

So that's my autographed card. Who knows, he could be some superstar in a few years and I'll be rich beyond my wildest dreams, Bryce Harper style! And then Strasburg style, my card's value will crash like a Kia running into a bus.

 All Topps Autograph card signings are witnessed by a Topps Representative. That's good to know, and not so tough to do with a Team USA product. And hey, it's probably quicker getting the autographs back from the professionals if the rep shows up and says "We had an appointment to sign these 5000 copies of Gypsy Queen today, Mr. DeJesus. So let's get started."

There's the base card checklist. Why didn't I scan the back? Oh well.

Gotta finish with a patriotic video, right?

Have a great Saturday night!

Draft Heaven: Liquor in the Morning

We'll keep the conversation down to a minimum on this post. Here is the first of a few posts bringing you my loot from Cardboard Heaven's trade bait draft! I could run a whole bunch of awesome drafts like this with all the cards I have in Georgia, and perhaps in a few years I'll have the time and ability to do so. In the meantime I'll probably just keep participating in everyone else's drafts!

I picked up more liquor than I can bring to Japan without paying taxes! Towards the end of the draft, I ran out of cards that could benefit my collection, so I told Cameron to just grab the liquorfractors he had to fill my stack. What am I doing with them? I'm just going to pass them on! Hopefully I can remember to get these packaged up tomorrow for someone who told me he's trying to build the set. I might need a couple cards, but the rest are all (hopefully) headed your way!

 Oops. Scanned that the wrong way.

And that is all! Not a bad selection of players!

There's so much liquor here, you might have alcohol poisoning! Do you feel a bit ... tipsy?

Are you spacing out?

Stay tuned! I have some really cool cards coming up later!