Happy New Year to you all!

I'll keep this short since I dont have much time before I go out and celebrate the New Year.
Its been a great 2010 collecting wise. I have made contact with a bunch of UK collectors.
John, who has been very generous with his trades and hobby knowledge.
Simon, who makes me jealous every time I see the cards he picks up!
Martyn, new to the collecting game but a great and well informed baseball fan.
I have also made some friends on the other side of the Atlantic through some of the great trading sites out there and through the blogosphere.
Mark, or Fuji if you prefer, writes one of the best blogs out there. And his customary question at the end of each post is a lot of fun!
Matt, I met this guy on Sports Card Radio and have traded with him a couple of times. I actually have a package to send you way.
Finally I want to mention the good guys at Sports Card Radio, Colin and Ryan.
Colin puts out a great show about coming releases and general hobby advice.
Ryan is the guy that usually busts the boxes (did I mention they do free breaks on the fan forum?!). So thanks to you guys too.

And of course Happy New Year to everyone that reads this drivel!

Here's to another great collecting year in 2011 and of course another Giants world series!!

Mail from COMC

****First of all, can the guy that was interested in trading for the Bowman Jason Heyward please send me an email, I have managed to wipe most of my emails and have lost your contact details. Thanks.****

These arrived yesterday from every card collectors best friend, COMC. I have decided to try my hand at prospecting although I will admit that I don't know a great deal about it and I'm by no means an expert. I have probably just picked up a bunch of scrubs (with one definite exception).

I did do a little research with the players below. I read the various threads on FCB, Blowout and also used a website called Top Prospect Alert. Once I had learnt who were in the Giants organisation I searched for them on COMC and managed to pick up a few autos and chrome cards for fairly cheap.

Anyway enough with me waffling on, lets take a look at who I picked up.

Jorge bucardo, RHP. This is a 2008 DEEE auto numbered out of 819.

Do you think his auto looks like it took him a little while to write? It certainly looks slow and laboured to me.

Hes 21 years old and currently playing in A+ ball. Probably wont amount to much.



Seth Rosin, RHP. 2009 DEEE auto /710.

Now that's a much better auto than Jorges. This guy has got some potential from what I have read. Hes a huge bloke standing 6 foot 7 and weighing in at 230lbs. He has been described as a 'good old fashioned plow horse', which I guess is a good thing. He could be one to watch.

Yet another pitcher. Craig Clark LHP. 2010 Bowman Chrome auto.

At 26 hes a little old to be considered a prospect but hes actually not to bad. This is another wait and see player.

Ehire Adrianza, SS. 2009 Bowman Sterling gold /50.
This guy has great potential in the Giants organisation and has had a few good years in the minors. I'll be keeping an eye on him.

Thomas Neal, OF. 2010 Bowman Chrome auto and purple refractor /777.

He is the number four prospect for the Giants at the moment and seems to be a fairly good all rounder. With him, Adrianza, Bumgarner and Posey, the Giants have a great set of youngsters.

And now the only Giants prospect that I didn't pick up.

Yu Darvish, SP for the Hokkaido Nippon - Ham Fighters. The cards above are a 2009 Bowman Chrome purple refractor and a Bowman draft blue.

He is considered one of the best pitchers in Japan and is highly sought after by many Major League clubs. Darvish has said himself that he plans to play in the MLB in 2012, with the Mets being named the current favourites.

Mail from the Sewingmachine Guy

Finally the postman has resumed his normal duty after almost a week! The last time I had mail it was the day before Christmas eve. Thanks to Christmas, then the weekend and two bank holidays there has been no nice little deliveries for me to open... until today!


Today there was a mountain of post on my mat as I came through the door. Most of it was late Christmas cards and the usual bills. Hidden amongst the crap were two bubble mailers, one from COMC and the other from Larry, the Sewing Machine guy.


I had no idea what was in the package from Larry and I was pleasantly surprised to see some A&G minis inside. I have neglected all my sets since becoming a player collector and thats something I hope to rectify. I have made a decision though, once I have finished the Ginter set I will probably never (notice the probably) chase down another set. I have given up on 2010 Heritage, so i have a whole bunch of SPs to trade if anyone is interested.


Anyway onto the goodies!

Jorge Cantu of the Marlins, A&G back

Juan Pierre of the White Sox, black border


Thanatos, a Greek demon. According to legend he lost in hand to hand combat to Hercules.

An Elk, the national animal of Sweden. The second largest species of deer apparently.

Nomingia. A bird like dinosaur that was six feet long and ate both plants and animals.

Larry also sent a regular back Todd Helton to assist with my set. Cheers for the additions Larry!

I will share my mail from COMC tomorrow. There wont be a single Adam Lind card featured!!

How was everyones Christmas?

Here's a belated Merry Christmas to you all out there! Hope you all had a good time with your families and friends.

So how did everyone do cardboard wise? Did anyone get any nice little treats sitting at the bottom of your tree? Any big pulls?

I had no cardboard to open this Christmas because none of my family or friends have a clue on what I like and I would have probably ended up with a few packs of 1989 Topps or a nice big stack of 88 Donruss. Oh the horror.

But on Christmas eve my wife and my stepson both said they wanted me get myself something nice and they would consider it my main Christmas present. They both gave me a budget and told me to see what I could find.

I had my eyes set on pre-ordering a jumbo of Topps 2011 and very nearly pulled the trigger. I then set my sights on a box of Bowman Chrome and a box Bowman draft, again I let them go. Instead I picked up a couple of singles, including my first 1/1! I'm not showing off the 1/1 until I get it in hand, just incase it gets lost in the mail but I will let you take a look at some of my other cards.

First up with have this Manufactured bat barrel from Topps update 2010. This was from my stepson. The card has a print ran of 25, the card I have is 25/25, so that makes it an eBay 1/1! Awesome! I now have both the brown bat and the black bat versions of this card. I will probably never have the pink. It was on eBay about a month ago but went alot higher than I anticipated.


This is one of the cards that was from my wife. It came up on eBay as BIN with a price 5 times lower than the other BINs of this card, it was even cheaper than the one on COMC so I thought, why not? The seller also had another cheap Lind auto. I'll save that one for my next post.

This is another card from my wife that came by way of The Bench. It does have quite a large print run of 175 but its been tricky tracking down a non graded copy. Its a dual auto featuring Ryan Klosterman. I had no idea who this guy is and had to be a bit of digging. It appears hes been slugging it out in the minors, hovering between AA and AAA. Hes currently in the Marlins organisation. Who knows if he'll make it.

Theres plenty more to show although I will save them for my next post.