Leather Helmets and Art, Pt. IV

Posted by cardboard hogs on February 2, 2014

What a dud of a Super Bowl…I didn’t have a dog in the fight so I wasn’t too concerned with which team won. Although i’ve made my feelings known in the past about the football franchise from Seattle, they were hands down the best team in the NFL all season. So i guess it’s good that the BEST team won. I really like that Russell Wilson kid too, he seems like a genuinely nice and grateful kid. I’m really happy that he is now a Super Bowl champion…if only the game could have been a little more exciting.

Next up for the 1950 Bowman Redskins I picked up from e-bay is Harry Ulinski. My second Harry…speaking of which, have you read Fuji’s post on Bush?

Harry is one of those guys that doesn’t have much information on the internet about him, unless you dig relentlessly and go like 12 pages deep on a google search of him…which is always kind of a creepy thing to do anyways.

Harry was another one of those mid-century american kids that defended our freedom in Asia. Doing so for four years of his life with the United States Air Force.

He was also lucky or maybe unlucky to play under the great Bear Bryant. So, this kid was a Center in the no face mask era, but his nose looks great. I would image that a guy playing in the middle of the field like that would wind up with one of those great boxer noses in no time. You know, those flat bent ones that seem way too long for the faces they are on.

Leather Helmets and Art, Pt. II

Posted by cardboard hogs on January 30, 2014

Bill Dudley, the manliest of men.

The back of this card isn’t big enough to note all of the amazing things Mr. Dudley was able to accomplish in his 9 year NFL career. Three of which were spent as a Washington Redskin. In his impressive NFL stint, he was quite the scoring machine and was able to put points on the board from defense, offense and special teams. Nobody does that. According to wikipedia, he is the only player to score a touchdown by rushing, receiving, throwing as well as a punt return, kickoff return, interception return, fumble return, a lateral pass AND kicked field goals and the soon to be obsolete PAT’s.

Holy crap!

If only he could have gotten that elusive safety!

Mr. Dudley also served in the military for three years defending our freedom from evil doers. After his playing career he ventured in to politics, because being a great football player, joining the military and being elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame just wasn’t enough. This isn’t a politics blog, so i’m not going to get in to all of that stuff. I really just want to show off this beautiful card.

Look at those clouds! Look at the bold border around his shoulders and head. Just look at it!

Part III coming soon!

Trade Post: My Cardboard Mistress

Posted by cardboard hogs on January 26, 2014

When I broke down a few weeks ago and picked up a few retail packs of Prizm from my local friendly Target store i pulled a couple of cards for Adam over at My Cardboard Mistress and sent them along. Adam was nice enough to return the favor with the Redskins he pulled from his recent hobby box of Topps Strata.

As he mentioned in his blog posting, the Jordan Reed autograph numbered to /99 was on it’s way…and it’s a beauty. The colors of the card are great and i love the thicker card stock on the hobby cards. I have been able to pick up quite a few Reed autos and he isn’t exactly winning me over with his ‘less is more’ autograph approach. Just a simple JR is all we’re getting right now. Still a pretty nice card though.

Adam also sent along the base version of Reed’s card.

The last card sent over was the Topaz/orangy/goldish parallel for Pierre Garcon, or boy waiter if you are prone to speak the language of love, French. Maybe, you’re Canadian, eh?

Thanks Adam! Love the cards.

I should be receiving my box of Topps Magic this week and doing a break review of the exciting cards i pull from the box. If i come across any Hokies, they will be headed your way.

Also, Dave…if you are reading, your Heritage stuff is on it’s way in the morning. Hope it helps.

A DC Die Cut Delivery Day

Posted by cardboard hogs on January 22, 2014

I came home to a few PWE’s with my name on them and a rigid piece of something in them. It’s card delivery day! YAY! I’m sure those cards were just waiting to get delivered to my mailbox after the holiday yesterday. Ironically all three cards were die cut cards of young DC sports stars…and here they are!

The Jordan Reed card is probably my favorite as it appears to have the least amount of surface area and was a little tricky to get the 2.5″x3.5″ box around the card when I scanned it. It’s a pretty simple card. No flash, no serial number, but the perimeter of the card is quite nice.

The Stephen Strasburg card is also pretty cool. This one is a little more flashy since it’s from the Topps Chrome collection. This one seems like it should have a stand in the back so you can display it somewhere nice.

The man-child Bryce Harper with the mountain main beard was the last card I received. Only minor die cut action going on here, but Bowman Platinum is always a nice card. Plus with Topps pledging to bring me closer to the game from the past, present and future, I feel good about these three going in to my player collections. I should add these to the page, eh?

Chromeo Rainbow

Posted by cardboard hogs on January 18, 2014

Here are the last notable scans from last weeks show. These Chrome gems were picked up from my first table stop, Tom. Tom always has some great new Redskin stuff for me…makes my collecting easier plus I can save some time by not sorting through a ton of cards I won’t ever purchase.

Tom has been my mainline for Jawan Jamison short print and serial numbered cards…and he continued with this beauty.

$13 TC Jawan Jamison Refractor Black Border 96:299$

Next up is the start of a beautiful chromey Amerson Rainbow.

Amerson Refractor!

$13 TC David Amerson Refractor$

Amerson X-Fractor!

$13 TC David Amerson Refractor X$

That’s all for now…here is some Chromeo to ride out to…

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!!??!?!!

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.

Christmas Eve Pickups

Posted by cardboard hogs on December 24, 2013

I had an extra hour today because I decided that work was so slow that I shouldn’t be there. I left to run some errands and was able to get over to see the fine folks at Hoopla sports cards. I had been in there many times, but never really had the time to look around. They have a ton of stuff and are super friendly guys, so they helped me find a couple of things I was looking for…and of course some other things I didn’t know I needed.

As my building of the Tim Duncan collection begins, my main focus is on base cards and cards that I just like the look of. Getting in to basketball cards is completely different…they don’t wear protective head wear so you get a great look at each players face. Here are two pictures of Timmy’s emotionless face. So stoic.

I also picked up my first jersey card of Duncan. That is one BIG STAR.

I love the overhead view in this card. There was a guy in the shop opening some high end version of Hockey cards…man, Hockey cards are REALLY AWESOME. As an amateur photographer, I love the contract of the white ice and the colorful jerseys. I’ve noticed some of these nice contrasts in the basketball cards…but not this one per se.

Here are a couple of cards i didn’t know existed of Ryan Kerrigan and Jarvis Jenkins. I also picked up Paul, Helu and Royster…but I like these guys more so I scanned them instead.

The next one is a beauty. A Stephen Davis Turkey Red jersey card. This card is all kinds of wonderful and cost me $2. Not bad at all for a jersey card.

This is where it gets fun. Heath Shuler. He was a highly touted QB coming out of Tennessee and was to be the face of the franchise for years to come. His QB guru head coach was going to groom him in to the next Troy Aikman, or at least some other great Hall of Fame QB.

A lack of pocket presence and multiple injuries helped derail his career along with inability to really learn the offense that was tailored to fit his specific athletic abilities.

Luckily for the Redskins, they drafted another QB…you know, just in case The Man didn’t work out. Why does this sound so familiar…?

Breaking Box

Posted by cardboard hogs on December 18, 2013

Some of you kids, if not most of you have heard of Collector Revolution. It’s supposed to be a revolution for collector’s in that it’s not ebay…or feebay as some like to call it. For those that don’t know, it’s a place where collector’s can sell their goods to other collectors online. Not a new concept, but a pretty cool place to find some good cards at a good rate from people you can sorta trust. I still prefer COMC as my #1 online shopping for singles, but collectors revolution is something i may be looking into in the coming year.

One thing they have that really intrigued me was their online box breaks. The intriguing part for me was that they are fairly inexpensive for good product…the drawback is that the breaks are all random, at least the ones i’ve seen. If you are into big hits, which i tend to not be, than this is something you may be interested in. For me, I like a little more focused collection process. I don’t have a ton of money to spend on the hobby so any dollar I have to spend on product is stuff for completing sets or chasing players i like from teams i like. That said, i wanted to give the breaks a few chances.

I was a little weary about the breaks at first, so went with a lower end football break of 2013 Leaf Certified and Platinum Football as well as a break of 2013 Topps Triple Threads. I picked up two spots on the football break and one for the baseball break for a total of $30. As i expected, I got teams I wasn’t excited about – San Diego Chargers and Indianapolis Colts. I was hoping for a Luck auto…but the best card i received was this Dan Fouts serial numbered card.

The baseball break was a little better. I got the Tigers and received these two very nice cards. An Al Kaline serial numbered card…

…and a Prince Fielder Largest Card memorabilia card. Nothing too exciting, but nice cards no less.

Me being a glutton for punishment, i went in on a 4-box break for 2013 Topps Chrome…and pulled the Jacksonville Jaguars…i know…

$13 TC Denard Robinson 86 Refractor$

Not wanting to go out on a bad note, i thought i would buy a spot for the Topps Five Star for $14.50. I figured, i would never buy this product ever and may end up getting lucky. I was essentially buying 7 mega millions lottery tickets…and I lost. I pulled the Astros and ended up not getting anything in the box. When you go hitless in the box break, you name is added to a special bonus box break…which has yet to happen…i’m hoping it happens soon though!

All in all, I like the idea of the box and case breaks but not the random teams. I’d rather pay a little premium to get the Redskins or Yankees or Nationals. I guess at the end of the day it’s no different than buying a pack or box of cards in that you have no idea what you will get. You could end up with a short print auto relic or you could end up with a 7th round offensive linemen…it’s always a gamble. One that I will probably avoid in the future as it doesn’t fit my collecting tendencies.

PS – If you are interested in any of the cards above, let me know as they are up for trade!

PPS – as a side note and something completely unrelated…my favorite album of the year Run the Jewels from El-P and Killer Mike was noted as Okayplayer.com top album of 2013. There are a few other albums on their I need to dig deeper into before I can agree with the ranking (Earl, Tyler and Chip).