2001 Upper Deck Minor League Centennial

This sure is an interesting set. It’s chock full of hall of famers sporting their minor league uniforms in old grainy photos, along with prospects of ’01 to fill the 100 card set. And if you’re lucky, you’ll find a Michael Jordan Minor League Memorabilia Card. When I pulled the Ozzie Smith, I was surprised to see he played for the Hawaii Islanders of the Pacific Coast League. I’m from Portland, OR so I grew up with the Portland Beavers PCL team. And I’ve never heard of the Islanders.. it turns out they became the Colorado Springs Sky Sox in 1988. The road trips for the Islanders must have been hell.. but it’d be worth it to play minor league ball in freakin’ Hawaii, and it turns out that, along with Oz, Barry Bonds and Tony Gwynn did just that.

Here’s what I got:

#14 Jason Hart
#27 Jamal Strong
#53 Bill Hall
#79 Pat Strange
#81 Ozzie Smith

What it cost me: $3.00

Beckett NM/MT worth: $2.25
Insert odds I beat: N/A
Most valuable card: #81 Ozzie Smith @ $ .75, #53 Bill Hall @ $ .75

1996-97 Fleer Basketball Series 2 European pack 2

Here’s what I got:

#166 Minnesota Timberwolves
#204 Samaki Walker
#212 Terry Mills
#213 Otis Thorpe
#215 B.J. Armstrong
#256 Dontae Jones
#264 Lucious Harris
#291 John Stockton

What it cost me: nothing!
Beckett NM/MT worth: $1.00
Insert odds I beat: N/A
Most valuable card: #291 John Stockton @ $ .30

Scan!!!

The pics of the cards I post will be much better now that I finally ventured out into the world and picked up a Visioneer OneTouch 9420 high-res flatbed scanner so I can start using actual scans of my cards rather than stock photos off the internet. Oh and I can scan squished fruit too..

1992 Pacific Football pack 2

It’s a good thing these were free.

Here’s what I got:

#26 Carwell Gardner
#38 Chris Zorich
#236 William Thomas
#237 Jessie Small
#247 Mike Jones
#258 Louis Lipps
#269 Nate Lewis
#280 Charles Haley
#291 Andy Heck
#301 Reggie Cobb
#302 Robert Wilson
#312 Russ Grimm
#313 Mark Rypien
#323 Ricardo McDonald [rookie]
#324 Joe Bowden [rookie]

What it cost me: nothing!
Beckett NM/MT worth: $ .85
Insert odds I beat: N/A
Most valuable card: #38 Chris Zorich @ $ .10, #280 Charles Haley @ $ .10
Yes, most all packs are a waste of time, but this one takes the cake! Worst pack of ’08. At lease I remember Mark Rypien.. maybe I’ll keep that one.

’07 Topps Total Football pack 8

So far, every color parallel card I’ve pulled from this box has a huge dent on the bottom left corner. Kind of upsetting…

Here’s what I got:

#119 Sam Hurd, Mat McBriar
#167 Nate Burleson
#173 Michael Clayton
#208 Jeff Backus
#262 Roydell Williams
#283 Shayne Graham, Kyle Larson, Glenn Holt
#372 Jason Peters, Derrick Dockery, Langston Walker [red parallel]
#483 Aundrae Allison [rookie]
#505 Brandon Mebane [rookie]
#AW2 Drew Brees [2006 award winners insert]

What it cost me: $ .91
Beckett NM/MT worth: $9.10
Insert odds I beat: 1:4 [red parallel], 1:8 [2006 award winners insert]
Most valuable card: #372 Jason Peters, Derrick Dockery, Langston Walker [red parallel] @ $2.00

1996-97 Fleer Basketball Series 2 European

2 of these packs I got got free from someone on Craigslist along with the ’92 Pacific football packs I mentioned earlier. I’ll crack the first one today. This European set appears to be the same as the regular set except there are a few more cards to this set. Plus I think they released this set in 7 different languages.. these packs being of the English language set.

Here’s what I got:

#160 Houston Rockets
#205 David Ham [rookie]
#214 Jerome Williams [rookie]
#254 Allan Houston
#255 Larry Johnson
#312 Michael Jordan [all-star]
#314 Karl Malone [all-star]
#5 Grant Hill [swing shift insert]

Pack Stats:

What it cost me: nothing!
Beckett NM/MT worth: $5.50
Insert odds I beat: N/A
Most valuable card: #312 Michael Jordan [all-star] @ $2.00

1992 Pacific Football

This is the first of 4 packs of ’92 Pacific I got free from some guy on craigslist, among other things. I didn’t know too many players when I was 11 and watching football, I only remember Irvin and Harbaugh out of this lot. What the heck.. they’re free!

Here’s what I got:

#5 Chris Hinton
#17 Mark Kelso
#18 James Lofton
#30 Jim Harbaugh
#31 Jay Hilgenberg
#43 Reggie Rembert
#44 Anthony Munoz
#54 Ed King
#55 Reggie Langhorne
#65 Michael Irvin
#76 Gaston Green
#90 Herman Moore
#101 Ron Hallstrom
#112 Drew Hill

Pack Stats:

What it cost me: nothing!
Beckett NM/MT worth: $1.40
Insert odds I beat: N/A
Most valuable card: Michael Irvin @ $ .25, Jim Harbaugh @ $ .25

Craigslist Luck

If you’re looking to expand your collection, subscribe to a “cards” search feed on craigslist, and you might come away with some great free or cheap stuff! This guy had 40 of these in his garage and he was GIVING them away! Oh snap! It was probably a blessing he didn’t give me all 40, in order to be fair to everyone, or they would be the death of me, like my wife has always threatened me with. These boxes were full of cards straight out of packs.. probably looked through once and then put away. Mostly sets from ’95 to ’99.. but some nice cards so far. It was obvious he didn’t pick out the good ones. Plus he was using unopened packs as dividers. I got 4 packs of ’92 Pacific NFL and 2 ’96-’97 Fleer Basketball Series 2 packs, all of which I’ll be opening over the next several days for the blog of course.

I’ll post an update on the best cards out of these boxes.. probably as soon as I find myself a flatbed scanner any day now.

Favorite Card of the Week [1.11.08-1.17.08]

I’ve fallen in love with this set of cards. How often does someone pull a beautiful card of the “The Georgia Peach”, Ty Cobb, in ANY pack of cards since cards began? This picture is especially interesting because it looks as if he is attempting to score by using a flying kick to the crotch, a strategy which would be useless if they wore cups back then.. I don’t know. LOL.. In all seriousness though, I think this is my first Ty Cobb card ever and it struck a chord with me at first sight.

2007 Topps ’52 Rookies

Couple of dynamite cards in this one!

Here’s what I got:

#20 Ryan Braun [rookie]
#24 Jamie Burke [rookie]
#29 Mike Fontenot [rookie]
#147 Cesar Jiminez [rookie]
#182 Shelley Duncan [rookie]
#DD6 Hideki Okajima, Daisuke Matsuzaka [dynamic duo]

Pack Stats:

What it cost me: $ 2.99
Beckett NM/MT worth: N/A
Insert odds I beat: 1:4 packs [dynamic duo]
Most valuable card: N/A