Good Luck Roger - Single Card Post Sunday

This afternoon, London will see one of the best tennis players in history play for his seventh year end ATP World Tour Championship title.

Nothing against Novak Djokovic, but I'll be pulling for Federer to add another title to his incredible resume. I picked up this Netpro Federer 'RC' from Listia a while back. The more I see of these, the more I like them. In recent years, I've worked to narrow the focus of my collecting, but if I could find a reasonably priced box of these, I'd pick it up in a second. It's been a real treat to watch one of the all-time greats and I'll hopefully be watching another championship chapter of your legacy being written today. Good luck!

A Tribute to a Great Champion - Single Card Post Sunday #5

I had hoped that this would be a celebratory post following UFC 193 last night. Like many, I assumed that the dominant force named 'Rowdy' Ronda Rousey was just going to keep right on rolling. As everyone knows, that was not the case. In a somewhat shocking result, she was knocked out by challenger Holly Holm. Still, Rousey is one of the best fighters in the world and I post this as a tribute to her impressive championship reign.

I don't really collect UFC cards, but I'll pick up a few here and there if I can find them for the right price. I found this awesome debut card tucked in a 5000 ct box at a show a few years back. I looked in vain for a few more copies of it, but I had to settle for taking home a single copy of this treasure for just a quarter. Here's hoping that the former champ can pick herself up, brush herself off, and regain the belt in her rematch which may take place at UFC 200 in July. Thanks for reading!

Crossing One Off The Cardboard Wishlist - Single Card Post Sunday #4

I am rapidly approaching my one year blog-aversary. For the majority of the time I've been blogging, my Cardboard Wantlist has been mostly the same. Thus far, I've only crossed one card off that list and that was accomplished via trade. Well, I finally scan say that I can cross off card number two from that list. About a week ago, I found the card that has inhabited the second slot on the Wishlist for the majority of the time the list has been in existence on eBay.

This Bernie Williams hails from the 1990 Topps TV glossy set. That year, Topps created 5 team sets and an All-Star set that were sold in factory set form through a 1-800 number on a television promo. It is a rookie year card of one of my favorite Yankees of all time. I haven't seen many of these sets or singles floating around since I learned of their existence shortly after starting the blog. I have been watching two complete Yankee sets for months on eBay, but the cost was a bit more than I really wanted to pay. I had only seen one single previously, and the asking price on it was around $50 which is way more than I wanted to pay for this. When I found this listing a little over a week ago, it had a few days left to go and had a starting bid of $3.59 plus $2.50 shipping. I waited until the final hour of the auction and placed my best bid. As it turns out, it ended up being the only bid on it.

The win shortens my list of Bernie 'rookie' cards that I need to the 1990 OPC and the Topps Tiffany. I plan to check those two off the list in the not-so-distant future. For now, I want to enjoy the feeling of crossing a second card off the Wishlist. I think going into year two, I'll reconfigure the list a bit to hopefully facilitate being able to cross more off in 2016. As always, thanks for reading. Happy Sunday!

Single Card Post Sunday #2

Welcome to the second week of what I hope to make a regular series: Single Card Post Sunday. I had this week's card all scanned and ready to write about until Friday night. That's when I picked up a few rack packs of Topps Update and when I pulled this insert, I knew that I wanted to share it today. That other card will just have to wait until some other Sunday.

Josh Gibson is one of my favorite players from the Negro League era. There's just something about the many legends/myths that surround his career. He was known by some as the 'black Babe Ruth' and by some accounts hit over 800 home runs in his career. In fact, it is said that some who were fortunate enough to have seen both Ruth and Gibson play actually called Ruth the 'white Josh Gibson'! While there is no fact to back any of this up, it sure does make for great storytelling. 

This new Tape Measure Blasts insert isn't the most imaginative, but I do like adding another Gibson to the collection. It's definitely a bonus that this card highlights a home run that he hit at Yankee Stadium when he was only 18 years old. This card hits on so many of my collecting interests; Negro League player, it's tied to the Yankees, and it's a great bit of baseball history immortalized on cardboard. This moment was sure a glimpse of what was to come in his all too short career.

Single Card Post Sunday

Today I'm going to start a regular new series of posts: Single Card Post Sunday. I'm not going to set any rules on what type of cards show up here, they'll mostly be ones that I want to share that don't fit easily with another theme or group.

Before I share the first card in this series, I wanted to take another moment to make the suggestion that you guys check out the latest Nachos Grande group break. It'll be the final one of 2015 and it should be a lot of fun. Chris always runs a great break. So, if you haven't claimed a team yet, click here to check out the few remaining teams. Let's help him sell this break out!

Fittingly, I start this new series of posts with a true baseball pioneer. Rube Foster was one of, if not the greatest, African-American pitchers in the first decade of the 1900's. Some say he was unequalled on the mound, even by the likes of Satchel Paige! When Foster's playing career was over, he founded and served as president of the National Negro League. Known as 'the father of Black Baseball', he was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1981.

This card hails from a great insert from 2001 Topps Chrome, called What Could Have Been. It highlights ten great Negro League players. I completed the flagship version of the insert set way back in 2001 and currently have more than half of the Chrome set that I still need to hunt down. I've toyed with the idea of chasing the refractor set as well, but in searching eBay, singles are often priced higher than I'd want to pay. I was lucky enough to find this one floating around on Listia and won it for a reasonable amount of credits. It stands as the only refractor from the set that I currently own. Perhaps this pioneer will lead me on a new collecting endeavor as well.