Look at the Harper kid

Posted by cardboard hogs on January 14, 2014

Here are a couple more pickups from the Mall 205 card show for one of the new kids on my PC block. A few inexpensive Harper cards that set me back a grand total of $2. Can’t beat that for this kids baseball card.

look at the kids well manicured eye brows here. Very precise, just like his nearly flawless swing. Seems to be some very minor controversy about him ‘ballooning’ in weight over the off season as if he’s lost control of everything and just letting himself go…DC media…build you up and knock you down.

look at the clean shaven Harper. There has been some crazy beard action going on in this country and it is very heavy in Portland…i’m putting full blame on the hipsters and all those folksy/campy 12 piece banjo bands that keep popping up on my spottily streams. One thing I will not miss is the beard phase. You know what’s worse? A dude with a full grown beard, a vest and a handlebar mustache. Absolutely no excuse for that, at all!

I will post a couple Strasburg cards I picked up from the dollar bin as well soon! Good night kids.

Reed Book(let)s

Posted by cardboard hogs on January 13, 2014

Here is the next gem of a card to add to my ever growing Jordan Reed collection. This one is a booklet. My first Reed booklet and my 3rd overall (2 Leonard Hankerson’s).

This was a pickup from the Mall 205 card show I attended last Saturday…which was lightly attended. I guess most of the dealers come down from Seattle and wanted to watch the Seahawks put a hurtin’ on the poor Saints…so they decided to stay home rather than make the three hour drive.

I was pulling for the Saints to knock off the heavily favored Seahawks and so was the VERY talented Australian actress Margo Robbie. I have no idea why an Australian lady actress would be a Saints fan, but whatever…

https://twitter.com/MargotRobbie/statuses/422208544872873984

…we were both heartbroken…If you haven’t seen The Wolf of Wall Street and are ok with gratuitous everything and anything, then you should kill 3 hours as soon as they can be killed by you. Beats driving to Seattle (I LOVE Seattle, just not the drive…LOVE IT!!!)

Getting back to the card since this is card blog. The guy that i picked the Reed from had purchased it from e-bay specifically for me. Pretty cool huh? That’s what i love about these shows. You attend them enough and chat up the guys, they will go out of their way to find things for you…and not mark up the price! This is a great example of the hobby and what it can be. Very cool…too bad I can’t remember the kids name!!??!?!!

alls they wanna do is win.

Posted by cardboard hogs on January 9, 2014

Big day for all you Redskins out there. The organization has a new head coach and I am really excited about it…until it bombs and I cycle back through my football depression. I think Jay Gruden will be a lot of fun. He has a pretty good sense of humor and a wonderful accent…sounds just like his brother minus the television schtick. Hail to the Redskins!

Ok, enough about football teams. The real reason I want you to read this blog of mine is to let you kids know, I am putting my sorting and collating skills to work over here at the Hog household. I’ve started work with the Redskins Topps cards of the 1970’s. There are some unbelievably wonderful cards and some very exceptional hair stylings like Mr. Hanburger. This guy.

What about the good ol’ days when the Cowboys and Redskins played in NFC Championship games…and the Redskins won!

If you have some extra cards you are dying to get rid of or care to make a trade, take a look at my checklists for the 1970’s Redskins. I’ve managed to pick up a few little gems like this shiny and bright Sonny card!

I also have some gems like this…

…and this…

But I still have quite a few holes left to fill, so if you can help a brother out. You just let me know and send me an electronic mail my way to see if we can work something out.

no more Mickey Mouse Horseshit football please.

Shiny Baseball Cards

Posted by cardboard hogs on January 6, 2014

My football card blog is lagging in baseball card posts…not really, I just have a few Harpers and a Hanley I wanted to show you kids.

These bad boys have been sitting in my man cave aka, my closet! Just sitting there, precariously perched on a box of top loaders stacked on a box of books, next to a pair of jeans that no longer fits my ever growing winter ass.

Bryce Harper everyone!

I managed to pick up 3 Harper cards that do not have him with a Curly W Nats hat.

This one is very patriotic and shiny and Prizm-y.

Here is the Hanley Ramirez card I noted in the very first sentence of this post. I love Hanley and hope that he can stay healthy next year.

I have paid more attention to the Dodgers in the 1 1/2 years since they picked him up…this also gave me a great opportunity to listen to Vin Scully. Man, I miss baseball already…

Panini Prizm Redemption, I.Pead

Posted by cardboard hogs on January 4, 2014

WOW! Two redemptions in less than a month and it’s a decent auto of a decent player. Isaiah Pead, I.Pead. With a name like that he’s lucky that he’s fast and incredibly athletic. I can only imagine how difficult elementary school could have been.

This card, as you can tell was from last years Prizm set. I picked up a box of this from Dave and Adam’s and really loved the design and layout of the cards…plus they have a great feel to them. This completes the hits from that box that I opened up 315 days ago. Better late than never, I guess.

I have two more redemptions that are in the hands of Panini. I’m going to give it another week or so and give them a call to see if I can get a Redskin replacement for the two outstanding redemptions. I will keep you kids posted. Until then, good luck to you and enjoy collecting!

Black Friday Reeds

Posted by cardboard hogs on January 2, 2014

Going back to Black Friday. As I mentioned earlier, I jumped all over the COMC.com Black Friday sale and picked up some very nice Jordan Reed cards. These are the kind of cards that you want to put in nice card holders and present on some prominent shelf in your sports card room. I don’t have a sports card room, so they will be shown here on the blog.

Here are the player worn patch/player worn relic/player worn memorabilia cards in landscape format. The first one is from Topps Inception. I love these cards with the very cool over processed images and intense photography. Plus it’s number 1 of 93. What’s up with the random number 93?

Next up is Bowman Sterling with Mr. Reed staring very intensely into the cameraman’s lens.

And here is a quad patch numbered to 75.

Here is the autograph portion of the post. The Bowman card along with the three above are super thick cards that barely fit into a penny sleeve. It’s kind of a shame that a card this thick and nice is a sticker auto.

The next card is from this years Prizm set. I love Prizm.

For the last two cards, you will notice they are crazy die cut cards with reflective shiny-ness all over them. I love the die cut cards, but they can be a pain to put back in the penny sleeves.

This one was more difficult to put back in the sleeves. Not putting the toothpaste back in the tube difficult, but difficult no less. I happened to scan these along with the thicker cards, so pardon the shadows…although they create a nice depth to the card and the angles. So nice!

If you are in your late 30’s like me and love some good ole Hip Hop, then you should listen to this as I am doing right now. This takes me back…life moves way too quick.

PS – I’ve updated my 1970’s Redskins checklist…check it out if you think you have something to help me complete my team sets.

Hobby and Collecting Goals for 2014

Posted by cardboard hogs on January 1, 2014

My first year of blogging is in the digital books. I have had a great time and was able to connect with quite a few bloggers that i’ve been reading for a couple years now. There are a lot of friendly collectors out there and it gives me hope for our community. My objective for starting the blog was to be able to connect with other guys like me and I think that i’ve started to do that this year. I’m hoping that 2014 will be an even better blogging year and that I can connect with more bloggers. Before I look forward though, i’d like to take a look back at what I wanted to do and what i accomplished.

First and foremost, i really need to get organized and finish getting my checklists in order. This is something I have been working on for years and always start great, but never finish. I have managed to get the Redskins team checklist set for Topps cards, but the player collections are really lagging behind. Guess i should get some excel time in soon. -Ummm, no. Like many of you guys out there I am lagging in my organization skills. That seems to be the trend with our hobby. The very basic and generic foundation of this hobby is collecting, consumption and to some extent…hoarding. I’ve done a fantastic job of picking up cards that I do not already have, but I don’t have any of them documented. Without any kind of documentation, i’m not really sure what I need…or really have.
As a follow up to the item above, i would like to complete the Redskin Topps team sets for the 70’s and 80’s. This is mostly complete except for the 1970-1973 sets and some random cards for most other years. Once the season is over i can start posting completed pages of Redskins joy! There is a great shop in NE Portland where i could probably knock out the missing cards on one Saturday. -I have visited the NE Portland shop a couple of times and picked up plenty of cards that I don’t already have. Unfortunately, this goes back to the lack of organization. I believe I have most of the 70’s Topps Redskins team sets complete and have a great deal of the 80’s cards done as well.
For the past 3 years, i have been scooping up Chris Cooley, Clinton Portis and Santana Moss cards with no real recollection of what i have and what i want. This is the year i get these guys organized and stored properly. Why these three players you may ask? Well, these three guys reflect some great and miserable times as a Redskins fan. All three players were vital to the playoff runs in 2005 and 2007…especially Clinton Portis. I know there are a lot of fans that don’t look too highly on Portis, but for me, the way he carried the team down the playoff stretch will always be remembered. Not to mention the way he rose to the occasion after Sean Taylor was taken away from us…These guys are always going to be Redskins in my mind and am so happy that Cooley and Moss are a part of the 2012 NFC East Division Champions! -Organization, collating and documenting is lacking…again.
Speaking of Sean Taylor…He was a phenomenal player, someone that created so many problems on the field for offenses and made some nasty hits on receivers…and punters. When he was murdered, i was completely shocked and felt like I had lost one of the potentially greatest players of our generation. Some idiots like Colin Cowherd and Michael Wilbon made light of his murder with callous comments suggesting he had it coming. Regardless of what you think of Sean Taylor, he would have been a great player for many years to come. I have been working for years to collect all of his base cards along with some jersey cards, probably staying away from the 1/1 cards though…too much for me. -I actually have not picked up too many Sean Taylor cards this year. His cards are hard to find at shows and card shops and the stuff I see on ebay and COMC are more than what I want to spend. This one is something that I’d really like to focus on again this year.
Last and definitely not the least of my goals. I would really like to get one, just one, on card autograph rookie card of Robert Griffin III. I’m only shooting for one right now due to the cost of the cards…crazy expensive right now and i can’t rationalize spending $500+ on any piece of cardboard right now. At the last card show i noticed the Leaf Signatures card…such a beauty…but going for $250. Kind of steep…but if it’s still around for the next show and i can convince myself that it’s an investment, i will pull the trigger! -Ok, this goal was accomplished…twice this year. I was able to find a great deal on two cards from ebay just after the injury. There were a lot of people dumping his cards and I was able to jump on them for a great price. I had been saving my paypal money and ended up with two on card autographs that I am more than happy with.

Now as I look ahead to 2014 and what I want to do. Organization has to be at the top of the list along with the purging of stuff I don’t want or need. I am also hoping to generate a few more trades.

Organize my Redskins! Get my Redskin Topps team sets organized, in sleeves and in binders with labels on the spines. Maybe if i just focus on the Topps stuff the other brands and sets will quickly follow.
Purge, purge and purge again! I’m hoping to post more items on ebay or COMC this year…or make trades to get rid of cards that don’t fit into my selected PC items.
Trades! I’ve made some nice trades with The Daily Dimwit, Fantastic Catch, My Cardboard Mistress, Collector’s Crack, Cardboard Collections and one in the works with Nachos Grande. I’d like to expand my export/import operation with a few of you bloggers out there in hopes of completing some our checklists.
Read! I know this isn’t really something that’s sports card related but i’ve really been trying my best to find some time to read more. As you may have noticed, I posted two images of books that I am reading on the right column. My hope is to read 24 books this year. I’ve finished the two that you see now and am looking to add two more. I have plenty of books available to me (it’s fantastic and terrible working across the street from the largest independent bookstore in the world, Powell’s) I’m not doing book reports because I’m 38 and have done that already. Although, if any of you folks out there are reading/have read the books, i’d love to discuss them with you.
Add and Purge! Since I decided to start collecting Tim Duncan, Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg, I think it’s time to cut the chord on a couple other players that were once in my collection. I will be getting rid of my duplicates for Justin Upton, Evan Longoria and Carl Crawford. If you are interested in any of these guys, let me know what you need and I can see if they are available from my collection.
Posts! I was hoping to keep my list to 5 items but am going to add a 6th for good measure. I am pushing to have at least 200 posts. I got 127 out in 2013, which is ok for the first year. I do have a personal rule of making one post a day and plan on keeping that. I may end up writing multiple posts about one visit to stretch this out…but maybe that’s cheating?

There it is. My list of things to reach for 2014. I hope all of you had a safe and fun first day of the new year and wish you all good luck in your collecting adventures. I love reading the posts and plan on keeping/getting in touch with most of you guys this year.

Thanks for reading and as always Hail to the Redskins!