Some (not so) Recent Additions

About a month ago I went with fellow blogger/Michigan alum Dennis, or you all may know him as caljr3000, to a football autograph signing. It was a pretty neat experience  all in all. Unfortunately it has been pretty slow at work so I lacked the necessary funds to get anything signed. I did however bring a couple cards I thought I'd try and trade. Dennis was nice enough to pick me up a couple cards in exchange for some cards he wanted off of comc.
Up first is a soon to be hall of famer.

Growing up in outside of Seattle, Griffey was always one of my favorites until he left Seattle for Cinncy.  As a kid I had quite the Griffey collection, all graded of course by 3 different authenticators....sarcasm btw. No but really I thought my Griffey collection was pretty awesome, but I realized I didn't have the card above nor do I have my cards from when I was growing up. Oh well this is a great card to start from scratch.

Next up is one of my favorite players whom I wish I could have seen back in the day.

Another base card to mark off the list. My eventual goal is to get every Maris base card while he was an active player.

Finally the card I was most excited for is.....

an autographed Kaline. I actually managed to trade one of the cards that I brought with me to a dealer for this card. Luckily for me Kaline had just gone through and the dealer managed to get a stack of cards signed. It's only a reprint not vintage, but still an awesome card.

Dennis, I've got some cards picked out from the list you sent. I'm hoping to get them ordered soon.

Diamond Giveaway score Pt. 5

I actually traded for this card right after my post about the Miguel Cabrera diamond die-cut. I didn't think I'd have any problems trading it for a King Felix. Here he is, reigning Cy Young award winner. Now if only the Mariners would invest in a hitter to go with their awesome pitching.

I've had some ridiculous offers for this card too. The only one that has been tempting is a Red Wilson from 1960. I thought about it and turned the offer down: the only way I'd trade this is if someone offers me the Maris die-cut.

Also, I've been in the midst of a move and packing for a vacation so to everyone whom I owe trades/working out trades with I'll be back to regular posting after the 4th of July.

A long lost post

Ted from crinklywrappers and I had a trade that took a few months to complete, which was my fault. I had a few manupatches I was waiting for, but during that time he had pulled them himself. He had one card that I was super excited for and one going towards my Ichiro pc (yes I realize there are quite a few players I have pcs for). Anyways towards the end of May we finally worked out an offer. I sent him most of my diamond sparklies well most of the ones I could find unfortunately my card collection is a mess right now due to an upcoming move and other obligations. I also included a couple short prints I had pulled from the 2011 set.

Sorry for the glare, but look at this beauty. I believe this is now the oldest card in my collection. I originally planned to take this to a recent Kaline signing, but I mixed up the dates and missed it by a week. Although this card would look awesome signed I traded for something which will be revealed in a later post. The card looks great, and I'm glad he reached out to me about trading it!

This was the other card I was looking forward to. Now all I need are the minis and the green border Target insert. Ted was also nice enough to include a handful of Tigers to add to my collection.

Thanks Ted for the awesome trade. I hope you enjoy your cards as much as I do mine!

Diamond Giveaway score Pt. 4

About a month ago I posted that I was able to knock one of my collecting goals off my list. I managed to trade for a '61 Norm Cash.

An awesome looking card of an awesome 1st baseman. Since I acquired this card I had been receiving some crazy offers for it, and I'm not talking about the good crazy. Someone tried offering me a handful of nobodies from the 90's. Listen buddy, I don't care that there are 14 cards for my one, they're crap....reject offer. I was getting tired of rejecting trade after trade. This card books at 8 bucks mint, but the price didn't matter to me. Eventually though I began receiving diamond die-cut offers. One offer was Cuddyer and Liriano die-cut. Although it was a tempting offer, trade bait purposes I swear, I rejected it.
Fast forward to last night. I'm sitting at my computer scrolling through offers and I find this one.

Finally, something I'm interested in! Without hesitation I accepted the offer. I figured what the hell? Cabrera is one of the best hitters in the game right now, and also one of my favorite players to watch on the Tigers.
How in the world could I trade vintage for a Topps gimmick? Well I found a perfect conditioned Norm Cash on checkoutmycards. When I get birthday money it too will be added to my collection, and now I can try and flip the Cabrera for a Maris, McCutchen, or a King Felix die-cut.

TTM Success (Help from a friend)

Recently I've been toying with the idea of doing TTMs. William who runs the blog foulbunt gave me ideas and advice on how to do it. While we were chatting he mentioned that Virgil Trucks is an awesome signer, and that they had become friends. He said he was sending another ball out to him so I asked if he could send one for me as well.

Virgil "Fire" Trucks is most known for pitching two no hitters during the '52 season; 5-12-52 and 8-25-52. He began his career with the Detroit Tigers and won the world series in '45 with them.  He even did his time with the Navy during WWII. All in All he reached a number of feats during his 17 year professional career. Of course I'd want to add him to my collection 2x no hitters, 2x all star, and a world series winner with the Tigers!

Fast forward to today and waiting for me in my mail box was an odd round shaped package. As I carefully opened the package up I was surprised at how awesome the ball looked.

All in all the ball looks great. He's still got an awesome signature for being 94 years old. I've now gotta go and get a ball holder so I can put this beauty on my desk. However, this isn't all he sent also inside was an envelope with a letter and card he had written to me.

The letter is a little hard to read but here's my best shot of transcribing it.

Hi Dustin,
Great to sign this ball for you and give you a card. This ball is from Mr. Regenthal, so you can thank him. And I'm not signing anymore unless they send a few bucks for my church. Have a great time learning in college. 
Sincerly,
Virgil Trucks.

Thanks again Will for your help! Mr. Trucks(or relatives) if you're reading this I will be sending some money for your church. Also if you guys haven't read foulbunt I'd suggest checking it out. Will has some awesome TTM successes, and I understand that he has quite the collection of Virgil Trucks memorabilia.

The SMG is one cool guy.

I received a nice surprise in the mail box today. Underneath the credit card offers was a yellow bubble mailer. Weird I thought. See I wasn't expecting any cards. I checked to see who the package was from, and Larry aka the sewingmachineguy was nice enough to send me a few cards out of the blue. I tore the package open barely containing my excitement. Seriously, my girl friend gave me odd looks from her spot on the couch. Here are the two cards that fell into my lap.

Believe it or not this is my first card of his that wasn't an insert or from the Heritage set from 2011. There he is in his sparkly goodness....too talented for the Pirates.

I love this card. I have the base of this, but not the gold so it is a welcomed addition to my personal collection. I'll be returning the favor soon Larry.
(Note these aren't the exact cards he sent. My ipod is dead so no camera.)

Major Collecting Goal Done

One of my major goals since I got back into collecting was to get a Johnny Damon auto. I checked everywhere at the last card show, but to no avail. I figured someone would have a signed card or something especially since he had a stint in Detroit last year. It's a shame the Tigers didn't keep him around especially since he's hitting .275 with 7 hrs, 55 hits, and 30 rbi as a DH. I'm sure all of you know that Damon is my favorite active player. I have quite the collection of his excluding most of his cards as a Yank.
My desperation to add an auto of his to my collection caused me to reach out to fellow bloggers. William from foulbunt helped me out. I had read that he was hitting the card show so I asked him to look for an auto for my collection. He didn't disappoint. After picking it up for me we worked out a trade for a few Orioles he could add to his collection.

The Caveman himself! Apparently, based off all the sites I've gone to for ttms he doesn't sign many autographs. I was pretty excited to add this card, and it's easily one of my favorite cards I own. William, thanks again for picking me up this awesome card!