The Final 9 of 2009!!!

Check out the My Favorite 9 pulls of 2009!!! Let me know how I did!

#9
2009 Topps Finest
Finest Moments Auto
Alex Rodriguez

#8
2009 SPX
Rookie Signatures Redemption
Koji Uehara

#7
2009 SP Authentic
By the Letter
Pablo Sandoval
#18/28

#6
2007 Sweet Spot Classics
Classic Cuts
Lorne Greene
#4/4

#5
2009 SP Authentic
By the Letter
Ken Griffey Jr.
#10/24

#4
2009 Sweet Spot
Sweet Spot Signatures
Derek Jeter
#086/150

#3
2009 Sweet Spot
Classic Patch
Jim Palmer
#06/22

#2
2009 Allen & Ginter
Framed Auto
David Wright
(Only 49 Made)

#1
2009 SP Authentic
Signatures
Derek Jeter


This is an amazing pull as Jeter fan I have heard that there are only 10 of these made.


Let Me know what you think of my pulls in 2009. Happy New Year looking forward to a great 2010 full of many Trades, Box Breaks, Yanks Cards & More

11th & 10th Best Pulls of 2009!

#11 of my favorite pulls of 2009 is:

Product: 2009 ALLEN & GINTERS
Card: MINI BAZOOKA
Player: Michael Phelps
Details: 06/25

When I pulled this card I wasn't overly excited because I only collect baseball cards. Not swimmer cards but after flipping it over and seeing that it was numbered to 25 I was a little excited when it sold $130 it moved into one of the better pulls of 2009.

#10 of my favorite pulls of 2009 is:

Product: 08/09 UD TEAM USA SET
Card: Team USA PATCH
Player: Stephen Strasburg
Details: #02/50

I bought this set in hopes of pulling a Strasburg Auto but instead pulled in this low numbered patch.

13th & 12th Best Pulls of 2009!

#13 of my favorite pulls of 2009 is:

Product: 2009 Bowman Chrome
Card: Auto
Player: Tommy Hanson

#12 of my favorite pulls of 2009 is:

Product: 2009 Topps Finest
Card: Rookie Redemption
Player: Tommy Hanson
Details: Auto

Tommy Hanson was one of the hottest rookies this year I was luck enough to pull 2 of them. I sold both for a pretty penny I couldn't be happier.

15th & 14th Best Pulls of 2009

#15 of my favorite pulls of 2009 is:

Product: 2009 Ballpark
Card: Rookie Auto
Player: Pablo Sandoval
Details:#284/300

#14 of my favorite pulls of 2009 is:

Product: 2009 Ballpark
Card: Rookie Auto
Player: David Price
Details:#079/150


Wish these weren't stickers autos but I gotta be happy I pulled 2 of the better rookies from Ballpark.

Retail: 1/2 Price Break

Stopped by Target today was searching around the card section and there wasn't much there. Behind a few boxes I found 2008 Stadium Club blaster boxes 1/2 off. The box was 8 packs with 5 cards per pack for only $9.99. I thought this was a good deal and after seeing everyone's success with retail I bought the only 2 boxes. I loved these cards last year when I opened a hobby box the imagery is amazing. The first box I pulled a very nice 1st Day Issue Evan Longoria Rookie card. In the final pack of the first box I pulled a beautiful Elliot Johnson on card auto of him bowling over Yankee Francisco Cervelli. The funny thing with this card is I have seen it featured on 2 other blogs recently and I really wanted it I even placed an offer on one on EBAY. I pulled a few Yankees cards I needed so this was a great deal for less then $20.

Christmas Disappoinment! Not Really

When I was growing up every year in my stocking I'd find about 5 packs of Baseball cards and boy was I excited. About 4 years ago this stopped it was very disappointing. So this year I took it upon myself I purchased myself 2 boxes of 2009 Bowman Draft to be disappointed as Yankee fan. Now your thinking how can any Yankee fan be disappointed your team just won the World Series. Well as I ripped these boxes I noticed something that was missing and it was that interlocking NY. I'm very disappointed in Topps they didn't include a single Yankee in this set (Jeter & Bernie are in WBC Uniforms). The Yankees signed 29 of the players the drafted in this years draft they couldn't include one? They should know Yankees are the most collected team. I guess to steer away from utter disaster I pulled a Aflac Auto of Donovan Tate so I can't be to disappointed. You can check out my full review of the 2009 Bowman Draft Break @ On Card Autos as for Christmas presents that wasn't a disaster also my parents are paying for plane tickets for me and my wife to fly out Vegas for 3 Days and then head over to Arizona to take in some spring training games at the end of March.

Trade with Play at the Plate

A few weeks I sent Play at the Plate an email that I had a bunch of Rangers cards I was looking to unload. He said he was interested in them so I sent him the cards. On Christmas Eve I received a package back from Play at the Plate and boy was I amazed. The card I was the most excited about may shock you it was a 1996 Leaf Signature Extended Autographs #140 Jeff Nelson. I never really new this card existed I always wanted a Auto from the 1996 Leaf set and always went after the Andy Pettite which was way out of my price range. Jeff played a major part in the Yankees winning 4 world series titles in 5 years. I was lucky enough to meet Nelson at the 2008 All-Star Fan Fest and got him to sign a ball. Also included in the pack was Phil Hughes jersey card #/75 that I needed & many more amazing cards. If you haven't already checked out Play at the Plate please do.

If you collect a team please let me know I have about 15,000 doubles I need to unload with 90% of them coming from 2006-2009. Some teams I have over 800 cards of. I'd be willing to work a deal out to liquidate some of those cards in your favor.

Taste the Rainbow

So I put my first Bowman Chrome rainbow together a few months ago. I was extremely excited it was Mike Dunn at the time a Top Prospect in the Yankees farm system with trade a Phil Coke a few weeks ago he was supposed to be in the big league pen. But yesterday he was traded to the Braves for Javier Vazquez. I met Mike Dun during the 2008 season @ Trenton and he seemed like a nice guy and looked like a good pitcher in the minors. I guess I'll have to try my next rainbow with Yankee Prospect Justin Snyder I'm just missing the Refractor & Red refractor for it. Don't you just hate when a player you built a great collection of gets traded. I don't know what I would do if Phil Hughes got traded .

16th Best Pull of 2009

#16 of my favorite pulls of 2009 is:

Product: 2009 T206
Card: Silk
Player: Manny Ramirez
Details: #37/50

Not a huge fan of Manny but he is one of the bigger names Major League Baseball so when I pulled it I was pretty excited. Got a nice buck for this pull.

EBAY Pickups - Building My Phil Hughes Collection

Made some nice purchases of Ebay recently to help build my collection.

Card: 2008 Upper Deck Heroes Jersey Autograph Red #113 Phil Hughes #24/25
Price $14.50
Great addition to my heroes collection I currently have 8 I feel this was decent price and haven't seen this one listed recently.

Card: 2007 UD Black Triptych Triple Autographs Gold Spectrum #HMP Phil Hughes/ Andrew Miller/ Glen Perkins #5/5
Price: $22.25
Amazing find I was willing to go up to $30 on this I think it was a steal @ $22. I don't think I'll ever see another of these again.

Card: 2007 Sweet Spot #135 Phil Hughes AU SP
Price: $16.50
I might have overpaid for this card as I have been trying to get this card for months I didn't want to pay over $15 but felt that I have bid on this card so many times and lost I had to go for it this time.

The paypal account is kind of empty after these purchases but I hope to fill it up real soon.

Trade with Sooz @ Cardboardproblem

About 2 weeks ago I sent Sooz an email that I had 2 Kevin Kouzmanoff Autos sitting in my collection 2007 Exquisite Rookie Sigs Imagery Autos Gold #KK2 #07/10 & 2007 Exquisite Rookie Heroes Auto Gold #KK1 #05/15. I picked up these 2 cards in a lot of 20 Autos about 1 1/2 years ago. I had considered putting them up on Ebay but found they had little value. So I was extremely happy when I found a great home for them. So I sent those over to Sooz and in return she sent me a list of Phil Hughes card that she had. After looking over the list I found 6 that I needed and a deal was done. Thanks for the trade Sooz don't forget to take a look at her blog its really great. You can check a scan f the cards she sent me below. If you have any Phil Hughes cards your looking to trade that I need let me know & we can work out a deal.

17th Best Pull of 2009

#17 of my favorite pulls of 2009 is:

Product: 2009 Icons
Card: Letter Patch Auto
Player: Justin Masterson
Details: #6/6

Tough pull here as these only fall 2 per case I was very fortunate to pull one that was numbered so low. Should have let go of this card when I was first pulled it. As Masterson lost 6 of his last 7 starts so when I sold it in October I was a little disappointed in the $21 I got for it.

18th Best Pull of 2009

#18 of my favorite pulls of 2009 is:

Product: 2009 Goudey
Card: 1933 Goudey Buyback
Player: Elwood "Woody" English

Pulled the case hit out of 1 of my 3 boxes of Goudey I bought. Prior to puling this card I didn't own anything older then a late 50's Yankee card so to pull a card from 1933 was very exciting. I could tell the card wasn't in great shape but not horrible and never had a card graded before so when I went to the card show in August I had it graded by PSA and it came in at a PSA 4 I was pretty satisfied.

19th Best Pull of 2009

#19 of my favorite pulls of 2009 is:

Product: 2009 Bowman Chrome
Card: Auto Refractor
Player: Pat Venditte
Details: #340/500

This was a nice pick up because I'm big fan of Venditte he is a switch pitcher and plays for my favorite team the Yanks. When I was opening these boxes this was one of the cards I was looking forward to pulling and that's how it came in at #19. It is currently in my personal collection.

20th Best Pull of 2009!

To start the list of my favorite pulls of 2009 #20 is:

Product: 2009 Topps Finest
Card: Letter Patch Red Refractor
Player: Bobby Parnell
Details: #2/5

Nice very low numbered letter patch at this point in the season he was expected to have a big year but fizzled out. Auto could be cleaner looks like scribble to me. But after all my breaks this ranks as my 20th best pull of 2009.

Karma Baseball Card Style

Taking a look back at the year that was 2009. When 2009 Topps heritage came out in early March I purchased 2 Hobby boxes after 3 weeks they never showed up. So I contacted Ebay and they gave me a full refund. With that money I ended up buying 5 retail boxes 2009 Heritage. Then when I got the boxes the 3rd box I opened 3 packs in I realized 7 of the 8 cards matched from all 3 packs. So I investigated and found out that those 7 cards were the Super short prints. I continued to open 4 more packs with exact same luck. The only pack in the box that didn't contain these cards were the bonus pack. I could not believe my luck. I ended up pulling 49 of the Super SPs. I was shaking with excitement and told my wife if I broke $4,000 selling these cards I'd buy her something nice. I ended up having sold 48 of them Ebay for over $4,800. With that money I bought my wife diamond earrings & have purchased over 60 boxes baseball cards in the last 9 months and it has been a fun run. I had some great pulls and some real crappy ones. Before this year I never purchased more then 15 boxes so these 49 cards have helped me quadruple my baseball card habit. Over the next few days I'll be taking a look at my pulls of 2009. I have also put a good chunk of this money into my Phil Hughes collection. Imagine what I would have got if those first 2 boxes of Heritage showed up on my door step. I guess it must have been karma!

EBAY: BUY, PAY, WAIT WAIT WAIT......PLAYER GETS TRADED!

So on November 30th I purchased 2 Phil Coke cards in a lot on EBAY. The lot included a 2009 Sweet Spot Auto #/699 & Ticket to Stardom Rookie Blue Parallel #/99. I won the auction at a very reasonable price of $1.28 and shipping was decent at $2.95. I won the cards on Nov 30th Paid for the cards minutes after the auction ended. Here is where the disappointment comes from the seller who doesn't ship the item till December 12th it doesn't arrive till the 15th. Should I leave neutral or negative feedback for this seller? He never contacted me to let me know that there was going to be a delay. He also states in his auction that item will usually ship within 2 business days of receiving cleared payment. My payment cleared the same day his auction closed. I sell a good amount on Ebay and work about 55 hours at my real job and still find time to get all my packages to my buyers in a fast time period. To make matters worse during that time period Coke was traded to the Tigers. He was great out of the Yanks bullpen last year and I will miss him. Done complaining for this moment....

Collecting a Player: Phil Hughes

Over the years I have collected a few different players more heavily then others. When I was growing up it started with Willie Randolph then moved onto Don Mattingly as these players retired I started to focus on Derek Jeter but by the early 2000's I was priced out buying scarce Jeter cards. When I went away to college I left the hobby for 2 years. When I returned in 2005 I started to think let me start with a minor league Yankee who's cards were of reasonable price. That ended up being Brent Cox. He missed the whole 2007 season with injuries and has been side tracked ever since with 2007 Bowman signs of the future being his last card.

At the end of the 2006 season I started following a player by the name of Phil Hughes at this time he was one of the games top prospects and his cards were through the roof. So I had a few cards of his base cards. In 2007 the Yankees had some injuries with there pitching staff and called upon Hughes to pitch April 26th. Once I heard he was going to pitch that game I said I had to be there so me & my friend Mike got tickets on Stub Hub and saw his debut from the upper deck. He didn't pitch overly spectacular but I knew I need to follow this player. His cards have taken a dip in price and I have taken full advantage. I currently have 165 of his cards and counting everyday some of them as low as 1 of 1. You will be seeing a lot of Phil Hughes cards right here on my blog so stay tuned.

Game Used Reegie Corona Spikes

Since most of you readers don't know me I'm a huge Yankee fan I follow them from the minors to the majors. So that leads me to this a few weeks ago I was surfing EBAY and came across some game used items from AA affiliate of New York Yankees the Trenton Thunder. There were plenty of item from game used Hats, Balls, Bats, Ect. Most of the item were autographed and the proceeds were going to a good cause domestic violence. But I didn't want to own an item that was autographed so I found these Game Used Reegie Corona Spikes that were unsigned so I bid on them and with a $40 bid I won. My goal this summer is to get them signed myself. Corona ended up playing most of last year with the Scranton Yankees. He will either be there again this year or be the back up infielder in New York. I met Corona once in the 2007 season after a playoff game an he signed some cards for me. Currently Corona only has 2 major card releases 2007 Bowman Chrome & Bowman Heritage. I pretty much have his attainable cards I'm still on the lookout for the Gold & Orange Refractors.

Box Break 2008 Bowman Chrome & Masterpieces

Bought some boxes from Blowout on Black Friday check out how I did.

(3)2008 Bowman Chrome Baseball Hobby Box
(3)2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces Baseball Retail Box


Enjoy

2008 Bowman Chrome Box 1
5 Base Refractors
1 Blue Ref Base - Randy Johnson #005/150
1 Blue Ref Pros - Jordan Norberto #149/150
1 Gold Ref Pros Auto - Daryl Thompson #38/50



2008 Bowman Chrome Box 2
6 Base Refractors
1 Pros Refractor - Helder Velazquez #402/500
1 Pros Auto Ref - Brian Dinkelman #095/500
1 Base Xfractor - Luke Hochevar #236/250
1 Blue Ref Base - Johan Santana #119/150
1 Blue Ref Pros - Carlos Rivero #046/150
1 Base Gold Ref - Miguel Cabrera #41/50



2008 Bowman Chrome Box 3
6 Base Refractors
1 Pros Auto - Jake McGee


What a disappointing last box

2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces Baseball Retail Box 1
6 YSL
1 Blue Boarder - Chris Carpenter
1 Black Boarder - Roy Halladay #071/100
1 Captured on Canvas Jonthan Papelbon

2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces Baseball Retail Box 2
6 YSL
1 Blue Boarder - Joba Chamberlain #12/50
1 Captured on Canvas Albert Pujols

2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces Baseball Retail Box 3
6 YSL
1 Blue Boarder - Max Scherzer #052/125
1 Black Boarder - Robinson Cano
1 Captured on Canvas Felix Hernandez


Pulled a nice Joba & Cano out of the masterpiece other then that a lot of junk.