Return to Card Land

Things have been busy. The blog has been quiet since late-August and, until last weekend, I hadn't purchased, looked at, or even thought about cards all that much since that last post. It's just been that busy. 

Work got crazy as fall began and then I found myself interviewing for a new job (a process that lasted a few months). I got the job in late-October and it's been even busier since. But the job came with a company car and a sizeable pay raise, so it's not all bad. 

Anyway, I was back in California visiting family last week for Thanksgiving and made a stop at my former LCS. Perhaps it was the lack of cardboard in my life over the last few months, but I quickly found myself opening up several hobby boxes, including a box of 2019 Stadium Club, two mini boxes of 2019 High Tek, and a box of 2019 Allen & Ginter. 

I'm still trying to go through all of the cards, but I wanted to get back into blogging and thought I'd show off some of the hits, including a few big ones. 

High Tek

 

A decent pair of autos in Corbin and McCullers. Really great looking cards. 

A couple of Springers. Green and Purple parallels numbered to 150 and 99, respectively. 

Stadium Club

The Poncedeleon and Santana are meh hits, but the box also included a pretty sweet Big Mac boxloader. The bottom bent a bit during my travels back to NY, so that's a bummer. 

Allen and Ginter

This box alone was worth the price of the rest of the cards. Upon cracking the box open, this Goldschmidt was sitting at the top as the box topper. It's an N43 auto, so it's a bit oversized, but it's certainly one of the coolest cards I've ever pulled. 

As if the Goldschmidt wasn't enough, this Darryl Strawberry 1/1 mini black printing plate fell out of the very first pack I opened. The cards in that pack were all gold-bordered (sorry I don't have any images), so we quickly figured out that this was a hot box. Hot damn. 

Next up was another mini, this time a framed relic of the Hall-of-Famer, Roberto Alomar. 

Though I already hit the three hits each box contains, two more relics found their way into my hands. Not bad. 

All in all, it was a pretty successful day and a welcome return back to card land. Hopefully, I'll be back soon with the rest of the cool stuff I pulled from these boxes. 

The One Where I Pull A Corey Seager Auto...Redemption

I've long spoken about friendships on this blog, whether they have been virtual (Nick at Dime Boxes or William at Foul Bunt), virtual turned real (Matthew at Dodger Penguin or Greg at Plaschke, Thy Sweater is Argyle), or just plain real (my buddy Dikran, for instance). Card collecting is a wonderfully fun hobby, but it seems like collecting with friends makes it even better. Dikran and I have been collecting together for a few years now, and before I head off to New York in a few weeks, we thought it would be fun to go out and bust a couple of packs one final time.

And man. It was worth it.

After browsing the rather messy card aisle at Target, we walked away with a couple of hangar packs of one of my favorite products, Stadium Club.

Stadium club is well-known for its great photos and full-bleed design (though flagship has gone that way in recent years), and the quality of the cards makes a pack well worth the $5.99 price tag for 12 cards. SC differs from most other Topps products in that it is filled with non-action games shots, much like the Strasburg above. I love when the dugout serves as the backdrop for a card.

Of course, SC also features some past players, much like Dave Winfield here. I totally dig Winfield's pose, and everyone's gotta love those old-school brown and yellow Padres' unis. Here's to hoping Gavin at Baseball Card Breakdown can successfully convince the Padres management to bring them back full-time.

I've been out of the card game for too long, and I cannot remember which blogger has a subset for 'desert cards,' but I certainly think this Adam Jones black parallel fits the bill. 

Inserts are also seeded every few packs this year, and I managed to score a pair of pitchers trending in different directions. Verlander, arguably the best pitcher in baseball a number of years ago, has been losing steam as he enters his mid-thirties; the back of the card points back to a pair of scoreless starts he had in 2007. On the other hand, Julio Urias, the 20 year-old Phenom, appears to be on the rise. That is, until the injury bug hit, wiping out the remainder of this season and possible all of next year as well. Here's to hoping his incredible talent makes some headlines soon.

Two cards into my pack I uncovered this gorgeous Beltre, the newest member of the 3000 hit club. Too bad the Dodgers let him walk after the 2004 season. #CrossingMyFingersForAnOffseasonTrade

The best card of the pack, however, goes to a slice of cardboard that isn't really a card at all: a Corey Seager Black Foil Autograph. 

These are numbered to just 25 copies, so its seems like the baseball gods were on my side after this purchase. I think this is just the second autograph we've ever pulled from a retail pack (I cannot remember the first), and it's definitely an exciting way to end my card collecting in California. 

Dikran is holding on to this bad boy until Topps sends in the real card, though we still haven't decided who is gonna keep the card after it arrives. I suggested we can share the card, with me keeping it on Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays a la Bart Simpson's idea in "Three Men and a Comic Book", but Dikran didn't seem too enthused. Regardless, it's a hell of a pull, and a fun way to close out our random retail splurges. 

Though I've taken my collection digital in the recent weeks, there's nothing like busting open some real packs. Perhaps that Corey Seager auto was a reminder that I can't fully give up the real stuff.