Cardboard Stress Relief

Chrome Pushed Back again

2009-09-01T11:35:00.001-04:00

Verious sites around the net have updated the 2009 Topps Chrome Football release to Sept. 10, 2009

WARRRGARRBLLLLLLLLLLL!

2009 Topps Chrome Postponed

2009-08-26T12:19:00.002-04:00

Frustrating to say the least. Won't be arriving until Sept. 3, while I am on vacation . Was really wanting to bust something today, maybe I will go grab a Magic blaster, people seem to be hitting alot of autos there.

Start of football season breaks

2009-08-19T13:28:00.003-04:00

Been saving up some boxes and broke them last night to celebrate football being back. Some good, some awful, but alot of fun either way.

Will start scanning these in tonite and they will be for trade either here or on SCF.

Dammit! First Day?!?!?!

2009-08-03T22:22:00.002-04:00

Dammit to hell first day of training camp and we lose our starting Defensive Tackle.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=4375204

Doesnt look like a good start to the season.

Mohamed Massaquoi is worthless to Beckett

2009-08-02T02:36:00.000-04:00

2009 Topps Magic Alumni Autographs Dual #SM Matthew Stafford/ Knowshon Moreno - bv $175

2009 Topps Magic Alumni Autographs Triple #MSM Knowshon Moreno/ Matthew Stafford/ Mohamed Massaquoi - bv $175

Show some respect to Massaquoi! At least bump it up to 178 or so.

Beckett is so funny.

What a shitty day

2009-07-15T08:36:00.001-04:00

Woke up to find my car window smashed. GPS, iPod, bookbag full of cards, my driver and my football (random) all gone.

Return of the Hobby Shop?

2009-07-01T14:59:00.002-04:00

With the huge ammount of fakes on eBay these days, is it just a matter of time untill the hobby is forced to return to hobby shops to be sure to get a legit card?

And fakers - jesus at least try to make them look real.

Finally a product I'm excited about.

2009-06-29T11:36:00.002-04:00

The collector-popular Bowman Sterling Football returns in 2009 featuring all the top rookies and super veterans for the upcoming NFL Season. With every card sequentially numbered and featuring stunning Chromium Technology, the Bowman Sterling brand is known not only for its eye-catching beauty, but for its high-end autographed and relic cards.

Every Pack Guarantees: 1 Autographed Card, 2 Relic Cards and 2 Rookie Cards

Every Box Guarantees: 2 Autographed Relic Cards

Every Case Guarantees: 1 Dual Autographed Gold Refractor Card

All autographed cards feature 5 parallels including:

Refractor - numbered to 75

Black - numbered to 25

Gold - numbered to 10

White – numbered to 5

Red – numbered 1 of 1.

And all relics feature the same parallels:

Refractor - numbered to 199

Black - numbered to 50

Gold - numbered to 25

White – numbered to 5

Red – numbered 1 of 1.

2009 Bowman Sterling NFL Football ships late August and carries a $50 SRP per pack.

2 box 2009 Elite Break

2009-06-17T00:16:00.001-04:00

Scans tomorrow maybe.

Lots of Panthers, thats a good thing.

2009 Upper Deck Heroes

2009-06-16T16:29:00.002-04:00

Well this product lost me as a customer early. Stopped in to AAA to buy somoe poly sleeves and saw the new case sitting there. Grabbed a handful of packs and got 2 hits. First was a Brian Westbrook GU, meh. The second was an auto redemption..... Boy was I thrilled to turn it over to see Michael Johnson (runner). WTF, its bad enough stuffing that crap in this product, but to make it a redemption on top of that..... I would rather just have 1 auto a box than get this junk.

Sports Card File Cache - Upper Deck/Razor

2009-06-10T21:43:00.001-04:00

Wanted to save this from oblivion.

Upper Deck - RazorJun 3, 2009
Well, I knew all this would come out at some point because too many people have known about it. I did not want to be the one to initially report this story because it does not achieve any specific objective. I have never had definitive proof of a contractual relationship between the two parties, but I had seen enough during my tenure at Upper Deck to know there was some kind of business relationship between Upper Deck and Razor.

As to the validity of the memo that spawned all of the commotion, I have verified with two different agencies/agents that it is indeed legitimate and was sent by someone at the MLBPA.
Since the story is out, I will tell you what I know and what I do not know and you can draw your own conclusions as to what you think the real story is.

I do not know for a fact that Richard McWilliam owns Razor, nor have ever seen any documents that would suggest he enjoys even a partial equity stake in the company. I have had a strong inclination that he did, but was never able to factually validate those suspicions.

My knowledge of this story began in March 2008 when I was asked by my supervisor at UpperDeck, the Director of Product Development, to build a list of the top 10-15 prospects for the 2008 MLB Draft with autograph quantities and pricing totaling $1M. Curious as to the reasoning behind this, I asked if we (Upper Deck) were going to release an unlicensed draft baseball product. I was told that we were not going to, but Brian (Gray of Razor) was going to manufacture these products as a way to damage the Bowman product line and to preserve impact rookie cards for future Upper Deck products. At that point I started asking a lot of questions out of simple curiosity. At one point I asked why I was doing the list in. I the first place since I was already behind schedule and besides, I couldn’t care less about Razor was told by my supervisor in a sarcastic tone, “Who do you think is paying for this?” implying thatUpper Deck and/or Richard was funding the project.

During the next couple of months leading up to the draft numerous conference calls were held between myself, the Director of Product Development, Brian Gray and Jim Grant (then part-owner of Razor and owner of Peach State Wholesale) in which various players were discussed. During a short period of time after the draft, the list was expanded for the project – as well as its budget. By the time all of the players had been signed the list had grown to over 40 players and the budget had reached $2.5M.

When asked for comment both Upper Deck and Razor stated they had no comment to make about this story.

The perfect merger of failure

2009-06-10T21:31:00.002-04:00

http://beta.beckett.com/group/456991/?tab=tabArticles&p=671972#ViewArticle

Nice to see 2 out dated and dieing mediums teaming up to milk people out of their money.

Another UD Box shortage

2009-06-10T13:07:00.001-04:00

Busted a box of UD Masterpieces yesterday, no auto.... shorted a gu, shorted parallels.... We shall see how it goes.

2008 National Treasures Break

2009-05-08T19:18:00.006-04:00

Break Day

2009-05-05T21:41:00.002-04:00

Stopped by the LCS for a box of SPA today since Voluntarheel had been having such good luck. My first attempt however was less than ideal.

Needless to say with 1 box remaining on the shelf I, much like Black Bush, can't sleep on that.

Thank fully this one went a good bit better:

I felt much better about the outcome at this point so decided to grab a box of SPX and bring it home for the wife to open. However once I got here she was more interested in filming a break than participating in one, so without further ado here we go:

What can i say..... I am a Matt Forte magnet. The last 2 weeks my breaks have yeilded this:

Tomorrow I will get the blog caught up on my mailday trades, picked up alot of nice Panthers stuff lately.

Panther's Draft Musings

2009-04-28T16:51:00.002-04:00

Everyone is killing the Panthers for drafting these "undersized" D-lineman (Brown 6'2 256, Corvey Irvin 6'3 301), doesn't that say to anyone what it does to me? Maybe our new Defensive Coordinator Ron Meeks is going to put more of his thumbprint on our defense than anyone has expected - he seemed to have pretty good success (read: win a Superbowl) with an undersized DE named Freeney (6'1 268) and tackles that are 6'2 265 and 6'3 254.

2006 National Treasures Break

2009-04-27T19:52:00.001-04:00

Scans will be coming up later tonite.

Cellphone camera fail and ramblings

2009-04-27T15:15:00.004-04:00

So I had this big post typed up questioning some of the things I observed at the local show this weekend in Charlotte, namely a deal with a TON of extrordinary patches (shields, reebok logos, team logos) who was quite actively attempting to buy any 1-2 color high end cards at pennies on the dollar (he almost nutted over my 1 color exquisite Henne) but that post doesn't really work without the photos that I completely failed on with my phone. So in the meantime I will post this and give a little update about what is coming up over the next day or two for me.

Have a big mailday from Saturday and some things from today to scan in this evening along with scans from the UD Premier 2008 box i bought and busted at the show. And from what my wife tells me my box of 2006 National Treasures arrived today so we will have a new video break to post up.

Friday Night Group Break Results

2009-04-24T23:46:00.003-04:00

Well the break went extremely well for me:

Hit a very nice 4 color Trent Edwards RC Patch numbered 22/25 as well as a Lawrence Taylor "prime" gu numbered 19/25. You can see the entire break on SCU.

Mail Day

2009-04-24T00:08:00.002-04:00

Not a huge mail pile tonite, but I wanted to share the cards I picked up from my lunch time trade.

First up, couple small pick ups... Beason RC from Donruss Threads and a random Event mem piece of Stewart I didn't have yet.

Next we have my first in person card trade in over 12 years courtesy of Voluntarheel:

And to wrap it up the first of the trade spoils from my Exquisite breaks trickling in, the Steve Slaton 1/1 was turned into this via www.sportscardforum.com:

Best Box of 08 SPA yet for me......

2009-04-23T15:43:00.003-04:00

But that isnt saying much! hehe

Met up with Voluntarheel around lunch at the LCS and after watching him pop a 1/25 Eddie Royal Gold Patch I felt obligated to give it a shot....

John David Booty 1 color Auto/Rookie 197/999 meh

I'll get the scan in here later tonite. Other hits were:

Autos:

Chevis Jackson 831/1199

Darius Reynaud 21/1199 - He and I have a serious Love/Hate relationship - i hate pulling him and he loves showing up in my boxes.

Rookies:

Lance Leggett - Browns

Kregg Lumpkin - Packers

Donovan Woods - Steelers

Darnell Jenkins - Texans

I am Joe Collector: 2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces Case Break - If you are from Upper Deck Please Read. The Craziest Case Break You Might Ever See.

2009-04-23T11:05:00.000-04:00

I am Joe Collector: 2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces Case Break - If you are from Upper Deck Please Read. The Craziest Case Break You Might Ever See.

Wow, this is just incredible, I encourage anyone stumbling across this to go read this asap.

Sports Cards Uncensored: 07 NT 2 Box Break- Slot Assignments Coming Tonight

2009-04-22T23:25:00.001-04:00

Sports Cards Uncensored: 07 NT 2 Box Break- Slot Assignments Coming Tonight

Wish me luck!

Finally got my Panthers (and trade) buckets up to date

2009-04-22T22:08:00.003-04:00

Seeing as how its been a really slow day, not much in the news (hopefully we can trade Peppers off soon and I can start to enjoy mock drafts), no breaks (though I should have my box of 07 NT soon, and I am in a 2 box group break of NT that should come off Friday night to give me something to write about) and not even a mail day today so I thought I would celebrate my boredom by sharing a bit of my high end Jonathan Stewart collection:

Got a few nice ones incoming including a 1/1 Letterman from Donruss Threads, McFadden/Stewart dual from Bowman Sterling and another TTT 2/3 (I think im the only guy that likes these) still but the Exquisite 2008 is still eluding me.

Recent Case Breaks

2009-04-22T03:58:00.006-04:00

Here are the first of hopefully many breaks I will be posting here. 1 2006 Upper Deck Exquisite Collection Football and 1 2008 Upper Deck Exquisite Collection Football. Some very nice hits, including 1 that when we hit it I really couldn't believe how nice it was. Most of these cards will be making their way to my bucket in the next couple of days and a very few have found new homes already.

Tomorrow I hope to begin showing off a little of my personal collection. For a 3 month work in progress I believe its coming along nicely.

Should have a box of 07 National Treasures incoming in the next few days for a break and if you are interested in a group break of this product be sure to head over to SCU and get in on it before its tolate.

Welcome - a bit about me.

2009-04-22T02:54:00.004-04:00

Welcome to my new blog. Hope you all enjoy it as I am sure many of you out there can relate to me.

I am a 30 year old

reborn collector. I have been collecting -something- as long as I can

remember. Around age 4 I started with boogers, but quickly decided that moving on to GI Joes and Transformers was far more rewarding. Sometime around 1987 I got my first pack of baseball cards (why couldn't I have been smart and went Fleer basketball instead). Good old 1987 Topps. I had boxes full (still do if anyone needs kindling), my m

om would pick a pack up for me when I was "good" out shopping, amazing how relative that was hehe. In 88 I moved more to Donruss where I acquired a fabled

Gregg Jeffries card - holy crap, it was worth almost $10 in Beckett. My collecting continued along these lines until sometime around 1990-1992 when I stared really getting serious about playing baseball, i was quite a catcher in my younger days and my coaches affectionately nick-named me Yogi after the Yankee great. Not having a clue who that was I of course ran home to Beckett to look up his cards and was blown away. Soon after I acquired my very

own Yogi Berra a 1954 Topps #50,

It was not in great shape but I was truly blown away by my mom agreeing to spend $70 on a card for me at a LCS (alot of money for my family). It remains one of the few cards I still have from my pioneering collecting days and a personal favorite.

Around this time I found a new more affordable personal hero from the team I selected in 1989 during the WS to be MY team to collect. A young fellow named Mark McGwire with a penchant for hitting HUGE home runs and injuring his ankle. From this time until my retirement from collecting sports cards in 1998, when I moved on to a game called Magic the Gathering to scratch both my competitive and collecting itches with the loss of high school athletics, I amazed a huge collection with over 95% of his cards from the time period including my all time favorite card the 1991 Topps Desert Shield Mark McGwire #270. To say I was ecstatic when #62 was hit was a slight understatement and I had a bit of longing for my old hobby at this time. But alas things change, I began to lose serious faith in not only the hobby but humanity when my youth pastor at my local church became one of the largest pack searchers/eBay sellers of the time period. And I found myself drifting further and further away from these cards.

Fast forward 12 years to February of 2009 and we find myself here, walking into a LCS with no

idea what the hobby had become, my love of baseball completely vanquished by steroids and the Carolina Panthers. My first experience back in the card store brought make so many memories, good and bad of my grandfather, good deals, false accusations it was almost overwhelming. But seeing as how I was there, have grown up a bit and have some disposable income I found myself drawn to a box of Topps 2008 Triple Threads the first pack contai

ned this fascinating Joe Flacco/Ray Rice Dual Crest Auto NFL Shield card and I was again officially hooked all over again.

These days I am dipping my feet into the hobby slowly. I love to bust wax, will have some video links up soon, am active on www.sportscardforum.com and thoroughly enjoy reading some of the blogs out there these days (Sports Cards Uncensored, Cardboard Reflux, and The Sports Card File) - by the way feel free to recommend new ones to me, always looking for reading material.

I am focusing (and this blog will do so primarily as well) on football cards for the foreseeable future. I am collecting Jonathan Stewart, Deangelo Williams and other players from the best team ever to call Charlotte, NC home :) Over the next few days I will be beginning to show off my PC, mail days and breaks. (If I work out all the kinks with this blog thing hehe) I hope to eventually provide group breaks of boxes and cases - I still have my love of breaking wax, even if none of the cards are for me.

This is strictly a hobby for me, I'm not here to make my fortune. I am here to have fun, like alot of you (especially in our current economy) I don't like my career particularly, have a loving wife and sometimes just want a mental escape. I have a dark sense of humor at times, like silly jokes and TV shows, love movies and sports. So if you think like me drop me a line, and if you are in the Charlotte area maybe we can grab lunch one day.

Bobby