Trade with Martyn from Abitrary Crap

There is a small band of UK baseball card collectors out in the blogosphere. Limited by the availability of baseball product and it being readily accessible. It is easier now, through e-bay and COMC, than it has been in the past, however the US Postal Service, Royal Mail and UK customs are trying their hardest to thwart out collecting efforts.
In a effort to get my hands on some recent baseball releases I contacted Panini. Panini America will not deliver to the UK. International postage is limited to Canada only. So I contacted Panini directly. Firstly in Tunbridge Wells England, that's Royal Tunbridge Wells, a very posh place. Spoke to a nice lady and explained that I was hoping to get hold of a recent baseball  release called 'Triple Play'.
She advised that I should contact Panini Europe, in Modena Italy, which I did.
My local newsagents in Westgate-on-Sea is up to its armpits in Panini stickers and has even had Panini basketball cards for goodness sake.
So what did Panini Europe advise, after I had explained my dilemma?
I'm afraid their only advise, if I really wanted to get hold of these cards, is to look online and see if there are any collectors that could sell them to me.
In other words look on e-bay or somewhere like DAcardworld who will charge $24.00 for a $24.00 box of cards. That doesn't include being hit by the friendly people at UK customs and excise.
Which leads nicely to the importance that trading has for UK collectors.
One of the small band of UK collectors is Martyn from Abitrary Crap. He is holding a contest at the moment, so take a look. (I'm sure the stadium picture is in the UK, definitely not Fenway!)

Martyn sent a whole host of cards including the mother lode of Jacoby Ellsbury relic cards, which is great - I very rarely pull him from a pack. The red All-Star game worn is intriguing because it is not the usual white.

A John Lackey game used.

A Big Papi, when he was a littler Papi, game used bat.

And the worlds thickest base cards from the ridiculously expensive 2007  Upper Deck Exquisite. Which, if I remember correctly was selling for about $300 for a 6 card pack. Although each pack contained at least 5 autographs, one of them being a 1of 1 card. The 100 card base set was limited to 99 of each card, imagine trying to collect the base set?

These two cards are part of the parallel set numbered to 75.

Thanks Martyn.

Trade packages ahoy

It is so good to be on holidays for a while. Its the only time I get to really sort out my card collection. There have been stacks of cards, unopened packs and Red Sox screaming out for organisation. In between watching the Olympics, seeing Australia get crushed in the swimming pool and rowing, I have posted a number of packages  to the usual suspects
Kevin -Orioles
Steve -White Sox
Tribescards-Indians
Matt- Royals
Tim- D-backs
Capewood- Astros (some Phillies too)
Tony - Giants
Simon - Bay Rays
Brian - Rangers
Tom -Angels
Ted - Blue Jays
James - Braves
Travis - Padres
Steve -Yankees
Greg - Dodgers
Paul - Cubs
 a couple of Red Sox packages to Martyn, Matt and Anthony

still to go are
Kerry - Cardinals
Michael- Pirates
Big B - football
Dayf - packs

AND (hopefully)
Jason - Reds
Ed - Brewers

The only ones missing are
Athletics
Marlins
Tigers
Rockies
Mariners
Nationals who are all still looking for homes.

2012 London Olympics Panini Stickers

 The second Olympic collection is stickers from Panini. Not exclusively UK athletes, but I still cannot bring myself to collect the whole set.
From the official Panini site.

"Panini are proud to announce the launch of their official Sticker Collection for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games! Packed full of fun facts, stats and imagery, it’s the perfect souvenir guide to the UK’s biggest sporting event this century. Get stuck into this awesome collection and discover info on all the highest profile Team GB and International athletes. The Official London 2012 Sticker Collection will serve as your ultimate guide to the tournament with all of the key dates for each event, venue information, Did You Know flashes and Fun Fact flashes.

There are 444 stickers to collect with 24 kiss-cut stickers and 24 rainbow foil stickers to look out for. So what are you waiting for? Start collecting now"

Not for me thanks. A quick glimpse of some of the stickers available.

At this present time, the most famous athlete on the planet. Completely mobbed at the opening ceremony by other athletes.

Also featured are some of the Paralympic events. Have you ever tried this? We did blind football, with a preference for the sport being called five-a-side football at school with the children. We also played blind cricket. The ball contains a number of small bells or ball bearings and its is bloody difficult to kick or hit. The children loved playing the game though and it really made them trust each other. I was always tempted to have a quick peek.

This set contains a number of international sports stars. I have been watching the Tour de France recently and both the men's and women's road races. Amazing how interesting it can be.

These are the two very strange and slightly scary mascots from the 2012 Olympics called Wenlock and Mandeville.  

2012 London Olympics

A few cards in honour of the 2012 Olympics, which has just started. We are watching the Olympians arriving in the stadium. There is great speculation about who will light the Olympic flame. The favourite is Sir Steve Redgrave, but other possible contenders are David Beckham, Muhammad Ali, Roger Bannister , even HRH The Queen has had a mention.
There are two sets celebrating the 2012 Olympics available here. This first set is of cards from the Adrenlyn XL series.
There are 350 cards to collect. 250 in the base set. All the cards featured are of UK athletes, I didn't know there was that many.

 Sir Chris, the cyclist, is actually Scottish but represents the Great Britain team. He won three gold medals at the Beijing games. The first Briton to do so for 100 years. He has been chosen as the flag bearer for the 2012 Olympics.

 One of the 'shiny' cards available.The Bronze medal. Apparently only located in 1in 50 packs.

All the sports are covered in this set, even the more obscure ones. I don't think I will be staying up to watch the dressage.Out of the four packets I bought I recognised about 10 names.
Panini also produced a set of stickers, which I will show later.
Enjoy the games.

2012 Topps Archives 1980 Topps design.

  

A set that featured in the early days of this blog was the 1980's Topps set. As I explained back then, the 1980's Topps cards were the first baseball cards I owned -EVER.  Cards #101-150 from the 2012 Topps Archives are in the 1980 design. So there is no better way to celebrate collecting all 726 cards from the original 1980's set but to try and collect the 50 cards available in the same style.

1980 George Brett

2012 Archives George Brett

2012 Topps Archives
1980 Base design
101 Adrian Gonzalez
102 Dee Gordon
103 Ricky Romero
104 Yovani Gallardo
105 Torii Hunter
106 Alex Gordon
107 Josh Johnson
108 Cliff Lee
109 Catfish Hunter
110 Jose Bautista
111 John Axford
112 Todd Helton
113 Ryan Howard
114 Jason Motte
115 Gio Gonzalez
116 Alex Avila
117 George Brett
118 Desmond Jennings
119 Yu Darvish
120 Tim Lincecum
121 Heath Bell
122 Dustin Pedroia

123 Ryan Vogelsong

124 Brandon Phillips

125 David Freese

126 Rickie Weeks

127 Evan Longoria

128 Shin-Soo Choo

129 Darryl Strawberry

130 Mike Stanton

131 Elvis Andrus

132 Ben Zobrist

133 Mark Trumbo

134 Chris Carpenter

135 Mike Napoli

136 David Ortiz

137 Jason Heyward

138 Joe DiMaggio

139 Ivan Nova

140 Buster Posey

141 J.P. Arencibia

142 Ozzie Smith

143 Marco Scutaro

144 Ike Davis

145 Howie Kendrick

146 Jarrod Parker

147 Justin Masterson

148 R.A. Dickey

149 Dustin Ackley

150 Clayton Kershaw

28/06/2012 48 to go 130, 149 from packs
10/08/2012 42 to go 121,122,125, 137,147 from The Angels, in Order.
16/10/2012 33 to go 102, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 124, 135, 144 from Home of the Toddfather
19/11/2012 24 to go 105, 108, 117, 118, 120, 136, 139, 141, 145 from packs
24/01/2013 19 to go 101, 103, 104, 106,107 COMC
12/02/2013 14 to go 110, 109, 116, 119, 126 COMC
25/03/2013 8 to go 128, 132, 133, 134, 142, 149 COMC
11/04/2013 0 to go 123, 127, 131, 138, 140, 143, 146, 150 COMC

Completed  11th April 2013

Easter Holiday baseball card haul

You just have to love a boss who makes yearly excursions to the USA and takes the time out of their busy schedule to find cards.
My head-teacher once owned a house in Florida, but to my disappointment sold it. I'm sure they thought carefully about the huge impact that selling the house would have on my card collecting. Unfortunately they just went ahead and sold it anyway.
Luckily for me, they love America. Although the house is sold their regular trips will continue.
This time around they went to Las Vegas, travelled down the west coast to San Francisco and Los Angeles but didn't find cards until they went to a Target in Florida.
On their return I was presented with this superb swag of goodies:

1 blaster of 2012 Topps Series 2

1 blaster of 2012 Bowman

1 blaster of 2012 Gypsy Queen

1 jumbo pack of 2012 Topps Series 1

1 jumbo pack of 2102 Topps Archives

5 packs of 2011 Topps Update 

They remain unopened, except for the Archives. The Topps 1980 design card in this set are fashioned after one of my favourite sets. I will open them all in search of Red Sox at 'Pursuit of Red Sox'.

Thank you Jane and Ashley. Long may your travels continue.

Bitter disappointment of a failed TTM

I was mildly excited when this letter dropped through my letter-box this morning. A letter from the Boston Red Sox. I wasn't sure what to expect, however what did arrive I had completely forgotten about.
Think back to about 3 years ago, May 2009 and this post Postage USA and TTM autographs.
Can you believe it? Just over 36months ago I send an envelope laden with US stamps and carefully followed the suggestions regular autograph collectors offered. And then promptly forgot.
In the May 2009 post I wondered 'whether I was wasting my time!'
It appears so.
Enclosed within the envelope, which came nowhere near the $3.00 (give or take 50c) that I had worked out was:
My two cards (unsigned ) but politely apologising about high volume...unable to personalize (sic)...to every fan...yadda...yadda.

So no luck there.
Secondly was a letter. A little more personal and friendly. Pretty cool too.

Finally the official team photo.

You have to admit even after all this time the Red Sox still replied and returned my cards, that in itself is an impressive bit of PR. I am also the very proud owner of a personalised letter(and envelope) from the Boston Red Sox. I may even dream a little that Jacoby Ellsbury sat down in front of a computer and typed this message all by himself. That may be stretching it a little.
I never did receive cards from Mario. Should I expect them soon as well.