Contest Winner and Some Brief Blog Housekeeping

Sorry for the delay on writing this post. I figure that folks are always pretty excited about a contest, right? In total, I had 19 entries into the contest before last night's deadline. So, first things first, thank you all for the great response. I didn't really have any expectations, but those numbers certainly made me happy! I ran the names through the 'randomizer' nine times earlier this morning and the results are in...

...and the winner is The Lost Collector!!! Congrats! Since there was such a great response, I'll also be sending a 'prize pack' out to arpsmith! Since I haven't had the pleasure of trading with either of you fine gentlemen, please send me an email with your contact info: tim (dot) trisomenc (at) gmail (dot) com

I will piece together customized packages and send them out as quickly as I can. Thanks again to everyone for the great responses and thanks for reading!

Now, on to blog housekeeping. Tomorrow morning I will be taking my wife to Duke University Hospital so that they can induce labor for the delivery of our third daughter. In most aspects of my day to day life, this has been a pretty well kept secret, but the cat is out of the bag. Depending on how things go over the next few days, I may or may not have the capacity to compose posts for the immediate future. I realize it's entirely possible that no one would have even noticed I was gone for however long, so I'm not trying to be presumptuous. I resume 'normal' posting as soon as I can. One last thanks to all of you for reading and making my first anniversary contest a really encouraging thing!

Loving 2015 Topps Chrome Update is All About the Nostalgia

Before I begin this post I want to remind everyone that the deadline for entering my one year anniversary contest is tonight at midnight. Thanks to all who have already entered and good luck!

From the moment I laid eyes on this year's Chrome Update cards, I was in love! I decided right away that I was going to try to complete the 50 card, retail exclusive set. Then I wrote about it. Shortly after, I began to see post after post pop up about the set. Most had good things to say about it, but a few mentioned that they failed to see what the big deal is. Those posts that wondered what all the excitement was about made me think about why I immediately liked these cards so much. After some thought, I figured it out. They remind me of another set from my collecting past.

Back in 1996, I pulled this card from a pack of Bowman. At the time, I had no idea what it was. The internet wasn't quite the resource it is today, my local card shop at the time didn't have(or wouldn't share) product info, and I didn't regularly read Beckett. Pulling this card of the best player in baseball at the time and which was unlike anything I had ever seen(and didn't know existed) is one of my favorite collecting memories. While it turns out this card isn't nearly as rare or valuable as I once imagined it might be, it was still a tough pull since these Bowman's Best Preview Atomic Refractors only fell 1:48 packs or every other box. Add to that there were 30 cards possible in the set and it was even longer odds that I was able to pull the Griffey Jr. Over the years, I've picked up a handful of these here and there, but I've never made a serious run at piecing together the set. In fact, despite several attempts, the Jeter Atomic Refractor still eludes me all these years later. That's something I'll have to fix someday.

The next time I can remember seeing that same design was in last year's Bowman products. However, the use of that finish on a recreation of the 1989 Bowman set didn't have me too terribly excited. They're still some nice cards, but nothing I felt compelled to actively chase.

Then, I saw these...

I've really liked the 2015 Topps design since day one. So, when I opened my first pack of Chrome Update and saw cards like these(I didn't actually pull these two in even my first 8 packs), I was once again surprised and thrilled. For a split second I thought maybe I had opened a 'hot pack' of Atomic Refractors'. For me, the feeling of nostalgia...being transported back to 1996, is the main reason I instantly fell in love with this set. Hopefully I'll be able to track down he remaining 8 cards I have left to finish the set without too much trouble.

Anyway, thanks for reading my ramblings and reminiscing. If you're one that likes the Update Chrome set, why do you like it. Does anyone have any similar stories about other sets?

New Blogging Year = New Local Card Shop

As I was doing my research and reflection before writing my one year anniversary post the other day, I really wanted year two to be a little more 'adventurous'. I'm not really sure what I mean by that just yet, but as New Year's Day approaches, I'll probably sit and write a blog goals list for the year to better define it. I decided that an easy way to be 'more adventurous' in the short term was to finally explore a card shop that I hadn't visited yet. This particular shop is in Danville, VA and though I live in NC it only took me about a 30 minute drive to get there. It is actually the most local shop that I am aware of. I knew it existed because they participate in most of the card company promos like Topps' Spring Fever and Panini's multiple holiday promos. I made the drive yesterday just to see what I've been missing. Overall, I'm glad I did!

I forgot to snap a photo of the store front, but I found this image online. It is a really small shop and is primarily focused on comics, but the trip was certainly worth it and I'll definitely be returning on a semi-regular basis. As I walked in the front door, there was a small table that had a rather large plastic storage bin, not unlike this:

It was filled with store made repacks! For a collector like me, it was heaven. Team bag after team bag was lined up in there. All four major sports were represented as were golf, soccer, MMA, and there were even a few non-sport. I loved that there are two 'face' cards to help me pick which ones I want and that there was so much variety, but the best part was the price. There was a small sign next to it stating that they were a quarter a piece or 5 for a dollar. I didn't pay attention to how many cards were in each, but I started searching and quickly began pulling ones that I needed to take home. When all was said and done, this is the pile I had.

That's 16. All but one were baseball(there was one football for good measure). I also picked up four MMA packs that I'm not going to show off here. I picked all of the ones in the box that had Chrome showing in an effort to help fill in my remaining set needs and found a few others that had face cards that were too good to pass up.

As I searched the rest of the shop, there was a decent selection of open packs and boxes available in baseball, football, basketball, WWE, and some non-sport. The prices were in line with what you probably see at most shops these days. They also had a decent selection of supplies. Unlike most shops, they didn't have multiple display cases lined with singles, but they did have a few boxes to flip through that were sorted by team and somewhat alphabetical. I picked a few cards from these boxes to round out the day's purchase. Here are the highlights of the repacks.

These two made the Chrome packs worth it all on their own. The Bautista is the green refractor which is #/99 and the Konerko is the regular refractor of his farewell card. Beyond these, I found a few cards that are already set aside for trade partners and a prism refractor of MadBum too. Additionally, I found 15 cards to cross off my set checklist.

This Kiermaier 'Cracked Ice' card was on the face of one of the packs and I could not pass it by. I've said it before, but he was one of the most exciting players that I had the fortune to watch in Durham!

I picked up a prospect pack because the Adames and Garcia were the face cards and I thought they'd be good additions. Perhaps, if things work out, they'll one day look good with in person autos on them.

That wasn't all the prospect pack had to offer though. This trio was sandwiched in the middle. There were another two guys that I might potentially see come through Durham with the BoSox and Yankees Triple A teams and Kolek played in Greensboro(which is not too far a drive from me either) this past season. The design of these just seems to scream 'sign here"!

The best pack of the trip contained these two oddly sized and shaped cards from A&G. I am not exactly sure what these are(and haven't done the research to find out) but it's cool to add another Josh Hamilton even if I don't actively pursue that collection anymore. These were surrounded by the following cards which blew me away.

The Sano and the Vargas were the cards showing on this particular pack. How it was still sitting in the bin is beyond me. Honestly, it could have been almost anyone from Bowman Sterling and I would have picked it up just to add some more singles from that brand. As if the pack wasn't good enough, I found that sparkly, Bowman throwback insert of Kyle Schwarber tucked in there as well! All for the low, low price of twenty cents!

Here's the final lowdown on these repacks: they are AWESOME, and worth the drive alone. Each pack ended up containing 10 cards which essentially made this bin somewhat of a dime box! Heck, after all was said and done, I ended up adding 20 team bags to my supply reserves that will eventually make their way to many of your mailboxes. Add to that, I love the unknown/surprise aspect of the repack format and it made for a great new adventure!

A Year Sure Does Go By Fast + An Anniversary Contest

WOW, a year ago today, I published my first post on this humble little blog. It's hard for me to believe that I've been writing here for that long already because I still fell like such a rookie most of the time.

The look on Swish's face says it all, I'm pretty excited to have made it this far. When I started things, I had no plan, no expectations, and had no idea how frequently I'd write or if anyone would actually see any of it. I just wanted to explore another aspect of our hobby that would bring my enjoyment of it to another level. Well, here is what my first year looked like:

• This is my 162nd post published
• 25 of you have actually liked the content enough to follow the blog
• I have no frame of reference to know how good(or not) a number it is, but the post that has had the highest number of views in my first year was my tribute to The Ultimate Warrior post that has over 1900 views. For some of you, it may be a regular occurrence to see those kind of numbers, but for me it is unfathomable.

Thank you to all of you out there that have read, commented, and/or proposed a trade. Establishing relationships with all of you wonderful folks of the 'cardsphere' has been great!

Now that the thanks have been given, here's the part of the post that you've been waiting for since you clicked on it: the contest! Since it's my one year anniversary and traditionally paper is the gift that corresponds with that, I'm going to give at least one lucky reader the gift of paper(cardboard is paper, right)! It's the first contest that I've run so I'm going to keep it simple. Here's the details:

• To enter, just leave a comment on this post. Entries will be open until the end of the day on 12/16. To ensure that I get all entries counted properly, there will be a limit of one entry per person. Sorry, no bonus entries for promoting the contest on your blog though I'd love it if some of you would be willing to do that.
• Once all entries are in, I will randomize the entries 9 times to find the winner(Jeter #2 + Elway #7 = 9 times). Depending on the number of entries, I may select more than one winner. I'll keep you updated on this.
• I don't have a specific prize set aside so I'll do my best to customize the prize pack to fit the collecting interests of the winner(s).

There you have it. It's been a great first year and I'm looking forward to building on it to make year two even better! Thanks for reading and good luck!

More Set Needs from Madding

Here it is, almost Christmas and I'm still chipping away at more 2015 sets(or insert sets) than I've collected in he last decade combined. That's why I dig it when I get packages that help me cross numbers off my checklists. Recently, I received more cards from Cards on Cards.

I really like the retail-only All-Star Game inserts and this DeGrom helps me get one card closer. I snapped up a lot of Update his far, but until this envelope arrived, I hadn't been lucky enough to pull that Jeter insert.

These, I really love. We've got a retail-only insert teamed with throwbacks. Between Walmart and Target, there are 50 of these to track down and I'm sure gonna try. Other than the card stock not really having the 'throwback' feel to it, I don't have any complaints about any of these that I've laid eyes on. I think it's a great way to close out a collecting season that has been heavy on throwback-themed inserts.

Great stuff. Who knows, maybe if I keep getting help like this with my set needs, I might be able to complete a few more sets before the dawn of the 2016 collecting season. Thanks Madding!