Trading with a soon to be "rival"

  When the Astros (or whatever their name will be that season) move to the AL next season they'll become rivals with the Texans Rangers. That's what every stupid sports talk show mentions when they discuss the Astros move to the AL. 

If you ask fans on either side they'll probably agree and say there won't be a huge rivalry anytime soon. When the Astros were great the Rangers weren't so great. Now that the Rangers are great again the Astros are at the bottom of the barrel. I'm sure there will be years where they're both competitive in the future but it's not happening yet. I'm sure most Rangers fans are pretty apathetic towards the Astros just like many Astros fans really don't care what's happening in Arlington. For the sake of baseball I hope a true rivalry does blossom for both of these teams but I don't like MLB trying to manufacture one. 

I got off course there so let me get back to the happy news, ha. After busting a mini-box of 2011 Bowman Sterling I made a trade with Brian over at Play at the Plate or PatP for short. He was interested in the Ogando dual relic I pulled and he sent me over the goodies below. It was a simple trade but a great one and I couldn't be happier with the results.

I don't have very many serial numbered Bagwells so it was great to get this beauty. The front scan doesn't do the card justice as it looks so much nicer in person. I was expecting a couple of Bagwells but nothing this awesome. 

Three orange Astros refractors are a nice addition to my PC. I didn't buy ANY Topps Chrome last year so every chrome card in my PC from 2011 was via trade. These cards look great in person and now I feel compelled to finish the Astros orange team set, ha.

This was the big piece in the trade we made. I love the look of the Masterpiece base cards and these relic cards are just as great looking. I know Berkman is now a Cardinal but it's still awesome to add a jersey card when you can. I do miss Big Puma but it was nice seeing him get a championship finally.

I just want to thank Brian again for the awesome and simple trade. Brian, don't worry even if the Astros and Rangers become EPIC rivals I'll still trade with you as many chances as we get. After all we know once they're done rebuilding the Astros will go back to being THE team to beat in the great State of Texas!!! Only kidding...kind of.

Goodies from the Platter

Today's mail brought a beast package from Spiegel over at Nomo's Sushi Platter. I recently sent him some A&G minis and a random Matt Kemp card and he sent me this loot. It was way more than I expected and I love it. 

To most of you it's a plain old Brad Mills 2011 Heritage card. For me it's a blessing because I recently took this same card out of my Astros team set so I could get him to sign it when I meet him in a few weeks. Lucky for me I can add it back to the team set and use this card for the autograph. 

Two rookie cards of young Astros Altuve and Martinez. This may come as a surprise to some of you but I didn't previously own a J.D. Martinez base rookie from 2011 Topps. I had pulled/bought every other version of the card except for the base so I am happy to add this to my J.D. Martinez PC. The Altuve is a duplicate but that's a good thing again because I can use this one for TTM during ST. 

In the mail today I received two of these cards. One from this trade and a second one I bought on eBay. You guessed it though, I need both so I can have one in the Astros set and one in the J.D. Martinez PC. 

I was surprised to see a trio of vintage cards in the package (1981 is semi-vintage for me ha). Cedeno is an Astros legend, Rader and Reynolds are both names most Astros fans remember. These three additions are just the beginning of my goals to get more vintage into my PC.

If you read Nomo's recent post about Gonzo signing for him then you may have seen this card before. Truth be told I saw the post as well and when I read it was for a trade he had going I quietly hoped it was coming to me. Obviously I'm pumped to have this in my PC now because I grew up watching Gonzo play. He brings me back to the old days when the family and I would catch a game or two in the Astrodome.

It's funny how things work out sometimes. Sure I got some duplicates in the package but they were needed duplicates. Now I don't have to go searching my LCS or eBay for those cards. There were way more cards in the package but I didn't want to take up too much blog space showing off all the awesomeness. It's always hard to pick out the ones to post so please know the others will be just as loved. 

Thank you again Spiegel for the awesome trade and I hope to do some more trading throughout the year. 

Tomahawk Chopped

That will be my new phrase anytime I complete a trade with Derek from Tomahawk Chopping. After posting my Bowman Sterling results Derek showed interest in the Braves auto I pulled. After a few quick emails we agreed on a trade which sent Sean Gilmartin to Derek and brought Christopher Wallace down here to Texas.

2011 Bowman Sterling Christopher Wallace Auto #BSP-CW

Christopher Wallace was drafted by the Astros in 2010. He's a lifelong Astros fan from here in the Houston area and actually went to the University of Houston. I don't know if he'll ever be a fulltime guy in The Show but it's hard not to root for a hometown kid who is chasing his dreams of playing for the "good guys."

Thanks again Derek for the awesome and quick trade. I love trading with people here in the blogosphere and there's never a trade too small. I hope you enjoy the Gilmartin autograph because I know I love the Wallace. 

I hope everyone's had a great week so far and tomorrow is Friday so that's a plus.

Sometimes it's hard to say goodbye...

About a week ago you may have seen my recent acquisition of a Wandy Rodriguez DDC. That card was part of a trade that would send a Manny Banuelos auto in exchange for 2 Astros auto refractors and the Wandy DDC. Unfortunately there was some confusion and the Astros refractors were never found so the trade was cancelled. Banuelos will be headed back here to Texas while the Wandy DDC is already back in Kansas. 

It was a great week having Wandy in my collection with all his diamond die cut glory but it just wasn't meant to be. I wish you all the best and hope you find a good home Wandy DDC. Maybe you'll come back to me in another trade, this time for good. 

PS: Hunter Pence DDC and Brett Wallace DDC send you their love.

From one 'Stros fan to another

I recently mentioned that I still needed the Brett Wallace DDC from this years Topps Giveaway and Sam from The Daily Dimwit decided to help me out. He had a duplicate so I traded him my 2011 Brett Wallace A&G auto for the shiny DDC.

I now have all 3 Astros DDC's from Series 1 meaning I only need the Walmart black bordered Astros to finish off my 2011 Series 1 Astros collection. I also need the Pence black leather nameplate but I am fine putting that one off for awhile.

Thank you again Sam and hopefully we can work something out in the future for those Astros dupes. 

Two Autos and a Plate

The cards featured below are probably some of my nicer cards I've received this year. Two of them came via eBay and one was from a trade over at my favorite forum, Sports Card Arena. 

I really like the look of these 2011 A&G autos. I picked this one up awhile back for less than $4.00 shipped so I think it was a pretty good bargain. I hope Wallace improves during the off-season and comes back next year ready to take over 1st.

I am in love with this 2010 Bowman Platinum auto from my new PC guy (taking the place of Pence. Bagwell is still #1 with J.D. coming in 5th behind Biggio, Berkman and Ensberg). I looked at these autos in January and I could have paid $5.00 or so for it but I waited and now I had to pay $12.00 shipped once he got called up and got on a hot streak. Since I don't plan on flipping this card for a profit I'm okay with that investment.

This is my first printing plate and my first ASTROS 1/1. Awhile back I was fortunate enough to pull a sick 1/1 patch auto of Don Maynard from 2008 Leaf Certified but I've never owned a 1/1 for my PC until now. This was the card I traded for on SCA and I think it was pretty fair. I traded a handful of 2010 Topps Chrome refractors and a Strasburg rookie for Mr. Manzella here. 

I hope you enjoyed the read and I'll be back soon with a few Bagwell PC items to show off.

Trade with Section 36

I recently traded with Ron over at Section 36 after he posted some trade bait. I have a couple of Oswalt GU already but I couldn't pass up the chance to get this nice looking 2008 A&G GU. 

This is where being fairly new to card collection has an advantage. I think collecting for less than a year now I haven't become fully jaded to all the overproduction of jersey and bat cards. I still get excited getting a one color Astros/Texans jersey from trade or eBay. Heck even when I have a mail day of mostly common or insert cards I get excited. I hope to keep this excitement towards the "little things" for quite some time but I know a time may come when I lose that feeling, but for now I'll cherish it.


If you don't already follow/read Section 36 you really should. It's a very enlightening and entertaining blog that I try to keep up with daily. Today's post about giving away free tickets to games is a good one. Thank you Ron for the trade and hopefully we can do another one sometime soon.

eBay and a Nacho Mail Day(s)

Here's another great mail day courtesy of eBay and Chris over at Nachos Grande. I bought the eBay items using a gift card my girlfriends mother gave me for my birthday. Whenever I have a gift card I'll always buy something I've been putting off. Most of these cards are from the past week but once I got Chris' card in today I decided to finally post.

We'll start off with Hunter Pence 2011 A&G that Chris sent over in exchange for a 2011 Topps Diamond Parallel. A&G and Bowman Platinum may be my last sets I grab Pence cards from (unless Topps Marquee has some good ones with him in an Astros uniform).

I still love the old school look of A&G even if this years set has disappointed many.

Now for the eBay cards...

 

2011 Bowman Platinum Ruby Hunter Pence. I like the design of Bowman Platinum much more this year than I did last year.

 Jimmy Paredes has looked pretty good so far this season with the Astros. They're a team filled with mostly young guys and I'm excited to see how he and the rest progress throughout the years.

Delino is fast and can hit the ball well but I haven't seen enough about him to make my mind up on what kind of player he will be. I figure for $3.00 you can't go wrong with getting a young Astro with plenty of upside.

My favorite eBay pick up would have to be this 2008 Bud Norris auto. I love Norris and he seems to have a bright future in the organization. He likes to strike guys out and he isn't afraid to come at even the bigger guys. 

Thanks again to Chris over at Nachos Grande for hooking me up with the Pence. Thanks to you guys for taking the time to read this and hopefully soon I'll have a few J.D. Martinez auto's to show off for you. He seems to be one of the guys I'll be focusing on collecting now. Have a great one!!!

Trade Time

I recently completed a trade with Chris over at Nachos Grande. I contacted him after noticing I had a few of his set needs and we worked out a pretty quick deal. I've been away from home for a couple of weeks so I'm just now getting to my mail. 

Disclaimer: Remember that just because I don't show a card doesn't mean I don't love it, because I love all of my cards ha. It's always so hard to narrow down which cards will be shown.

I'm still chasing the Astros complete Series 1 (just need some of the #'d blacks, Walmart blacks and a few diamond die cuts...excluding 1/1's). However I don't think I'll be going after too many parallels of Series 2 Astros.

You may not be able to tell very well from the scan but this is one of the foil cards from 2011 Attax. CJ may not be that great of a 3B but he's a real nice guy and is quite humorous. As far as Attax cards go... I'm not a huge fan of them but if they've got an Astro I'll collect it.

 

I enjoy the design of these cards and may consider collecting the set one day now that I've got a couple. I'm kind of sad to see Jeter get to 3000 as Biggio was the last to do it back in 2007. I was there for Biggio's 3000th and it was crazy so I can just imagine how crazy it'll be at Yankee Stadium.

I'm sure all of you can guess why I love this card. Not only is Drabek wearing the blue/gold but he's also rocking one of the sweetest mullets. I'm all for crazy hair, I'm looking at you Coco Crisp, and this hair is no exception. Can you imagine his son Kyle rocking a mullet with the Blue Jays?

Now I would like to show you a card that drove me crazy for a few hours. It's the 1997 Upper Deck Collector's Choice #120 of Bobby Abreu. I'll let you look at it first and then tell you why it drove me crazy. 

Does anyone else see what I see? I may be wrong but the front looks a lot more like Richard Hidalgo than Bobby Abreu. The back is obviously Abreu no doubt about it. I looked on the internet for awhile when I first saw the card and nowhere did I see any explanation on whether it was or wasn't Abreu on the front. 

I'd like to hear what you guys think. Am I dumb and that is Abreu on the front or am I completely justified in my questioning? I know most people don't care and I shouldn't care about it either but it has been driving me nuts.

Chris thanks again for such an awesome trade and hopefully we can work something out again soon. I hope you enjoyed your cards. Anyone else who may want to trade I promise I'll be getting my want list up soon so you can see what I do in fact need.

Trade with Steve

I'm always looking to help people with any of their set/team/player needs so when I noticed I had some cards needed by Steve at White Sox Cards I contacted him and we hammered out a trade. Since the White Sox swept the 'Stros in the 2005 World Series I had no problem sending any Sox I had to Steve. 

He sent over a bunch of good looking cards and helped me knock off some of my needs, here is just a sample of what he sent over.

This is my 10th card in the 2011 Topps Opening Day mascots so I've got a few more to go but this one's special for two reasons: 1)he's a hometown guy/rabbit and 2) one of the guys who performs as JJ is a family acquaintance and occasionally hooks us up with great seats. 

I asked in the previous post which uniform you guys liked most on JJ and for me personally it's this one. I like seeing him as a member of the team more than I do as a conductor. Feel free to leave your opinion or if you don't care feel free to mention that as well, ha.

I'll always love Roy Oswalt no matter what team he plays for. He was usually an underrated pitcher during his time in Houston and I'm glad to see him get a little more national recognition over in Philly. This card design is pretty simple but I like it and the refractor aspect of it makes it even better.

The only reason I added this card is to make fun of it. Not because future Hall of Famer Biggio is on it but because of the color and design. Yes I know it came out in the '90s when that was the style but that's still no excuse. It reminds me of the intro to Saved by the Bell or something distributed by McDonald's.

When I saw this card in the stack I was excited. I've always liked the design of Bowman Chrome from this time period and it's a pretty good picture of a young Bagwell. I don't mind that it's a reprint instead of an original as it's a card I don't have yet so I'm more than happy to own it.

Let me first say I love this card design. It's sleek and modern which I don't always like but it works on this set. Bud looks a little thicker in this photo but he probably was since it's his rookie card.

I know this post is a night later but Bud Norris had an excellent game last night against the Cardinals where he had a no-hitter through 6 2/3 innings. The funny thing is that he wasn't pitching like his usual self. He typically strikes more guys out but last night he had the ball in play more and got the Cards to hit into a couple of double plays. I hope for the Astros sake we keep this guy around for the long haul because he does seem to be a future ace for this club. 

Want to know who broke up that no-hit bid last night? I'm sure you already know by now but it was this guy...

The Big Puma, Lance Berkman, broke up Norris' no-hitter with a home run to the bullpen boxes. Hunter Pence tried his hardest to rob him of a homer but came up 6 inches short of making the catch of the season. After the game Berkman had nothing but good things to say about Norris and that's just the kind of guy Berkman has always been. He's a stand-up guy no matter what some fans may think.

Do Astros fans hate Berkman? 

Some do I'm sure but most of us will always have a soft spot for the guy and wish him well. Even some of those who still love him consider him a traitor which I still don't understand. Berkman wanted to come back to Houston this off season and the Astros could have signed him. They decided not to as they wanted to keep Wallace in place as they're planning for the future (that's understandable so I'm not saying their decision was wrong). I know the majority of fans here still respect him and like him but don't see how some fans can dislike a guy who gave this city so much for so many years. I guess that's how sports go sometimes. 

Sorry to get off topic there for a second. Thank you Steve for the great trade and I hope you enjoy those White Sox cards. Hopefully we can work something out again sometime soon.