Time to plug in some contests!

I know a lot of you already know about these two contests but here's the chance for anyone who has missed out on the news. Let's start off with the MLB Postseason contest over at The Great Orioles Auto. Project. Here's your chance to make your guesses on who wins the MLB playoffs with this bracket challenge. All details can be found here.

Over at The Card Hobbyist you can win a bunch of cards just by commenting on the blog during the month of October. You can enter and find the details by hitting the jump.

As always good luck to everyone who enters and if you win any Astros cards I hope you think of me. Ha.

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.

Recent eBay Pick-ups from the past few weeks...

Here are a couple of eBay pick-ups I've received over the past few weeks. I haven't been buying too 

many cards lately due to the increase in comics I've been getting each week. Once I get through September and narrow down my pull list I should be back on my normal amount of card purchases. I got pretty good deals on the following cards and used up whatever was in my PayPal.

I know I said I was done with Hunter Pence cards and I basically am but I set a goal to get all the 2011 Series 1 Astros cards and I couldn't resist this black border 13/60.

Here's another #/60 but at least this guy is still on the Astros (for now at least). I'd much rather have Pence on the team but you'll take what you can get when you're a 'Stros fan ha.

This isn't a #/60 black border but the normal Walmart black border. I am a big fan of Bogusevic and behind J.D. Martinez he is my new favorite Astros player. I got this bad boy for $0.26 SHIPPED!! Yes the card cost less than the stamp to send it.

There you have it, three pretty cool Astros cards for less than $10.00. I can't complain about that especially when the majority of that money came from the Pence card. I'll be writing another post soon about the two auto's I got off eBay and a trade with someone over at Sports Card Arena.

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.

Welcome to the "new 52" from DC...

Last night/this morning I was at Bedrock City Comics in Houston for the midnight release of Justice League #1 which officially launches the new era of DC Comics. Comic shops around the country opened their doors at midnight to usher in what many people hope is a successful era for comics in general. The store I was at had around 60+ people there browsing the racks and chatting about all things nerdy. After a few raffles for variant copies, action figures and posters the time was near for everyone to check out and officially purchase the flagship book for DC's new era. 

 Photo courtesy of iFanboy

I tried to resist reading any reviews before going to the shop but I caved and read a review from Conor over at iFanboy. This time I am glad I read an early review because Conor helped keep my expectations in check for this relaunch. Which brings us to my thoughts on Justice League #1.

I enjoyed this initial issue for what it is, the beginning to the introduction into how and why the JL was created. That may have confused a few of you but what I mean is this is just issue #1 in a story arc that I'm sure cover 5-6 issues. It would be near impossible for the creative team to introduce every member of the JL in a meaningful way within a 40 pg. book. I heard a few people complain at the shop that the story felt as if it were just a Green Lantern and Batman book. Yes those guys were the readers first look into the future JL but I like the approach taken by Geoff Johns. 

Also, mentioning the future "big boss enemy" without spending too much time on it was great. It's the perfect tease for two reasons, 1) it gets regular comic readers excited for the showdown and 2) the casual reader may have missed the mention and as the showdown draws closer they may pick up on these clues and be like, "Oh man that's awesome, didn't they mention him in issue 1? Let me go back and check." It keeps the reader engaged for the longhaul.

I enjoyed the art as this was my introduction to Jim Lee's style. At times there was a bit too much action in the panels but overall the art was terrific. I look forward to how the art will look throughout the rest of the arc/series with Lee at the helm. 

Rating: 4/5

Overall I'm excited for not only this series but for many other series in the new DC Universe. Am I a bit sad to see some of my old regular comics reboot? Of course, I'll miss Zatanna having her own series but I'm also excited to see her in Justice League Dark which comes out in late September. September is going to be an awesome month for DC titles and I have faith it will be a strong start for what looks to be a great future. Next week I plan to review/discuss my pick ups from the first major week of the new DC.

Recent eBay pickups...

Like I said in my previous post I haven't really been buying/trading much lately but a few weeks ago I purchased the following cards. Two of them came from Canada so it took awhile to ship but for the price it was well worth it. 

I picked up this Berkman TT for less than $1 shipped (I needed to spend my $1 so it was a good pickup). It's a nice addition to my small Berkman PC.

The seller of the card below threw this in with my purchase. This card and the next one were the ones from Canada which I picked up for about $5.25 shipped which was an excellent deal. I figured I could wait a few more weeks with shipping for that kind of price.

I love this card and I love Gretchen Bleiler! She's one of my favorite winter athletes and she kills it on the snow. I had been looking for this card for awhile so I'm glad I finally own it.

2005 Astros WS TTM Success

At the beginning of the season I sent out TTM requests to numerous baseball players. The majority of those were current and former Houston Astros. I have an ongoing project to collect as many IP/TTM auto's from the 2005 Astros World Series roster. 

This weekend I took another step towards completing that goal when I received the following cards. I was surprised to see a SASE in my mailbox as it's been months since my last send out. I'm pleased with the results though.

I'm lazy so I scanned them at the same time. Two autographs from Mike Lamb who played IF during the Astros WS run. I sent to Mike courtesy of the Camden Riversharks which was his Atlantic League club this year. 

Thanks for taking a look and I apologize for being MIA lately. I haven't been buying/trading as much lately so not much to post about. I will be increasing my post load now that the Texans are starting up soon, DC comics is releasing their "new" titles and I've been trading/buying some more. So be excited ha.