Saturday, October 30, 2010
Nightmares On Cardboard IV... The Final Cut
This card just needed to be made, I totally forgot about one of the scariest movies of it’s time and the 1990 Topps No Name error seemed like the proper way to offer tribute to Linda Blair and the Exorcist. So this card will complete my 2010 Throzul Will Rule Nightmare on Cardboard contest custom cards.
A Georgia Mindset Contest
Act fast, the contest ends Halloween Night, Sunday October 31st at 11:59 PM.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Quality Control Is An Issue
There was a recent posting on the Panini blog regarding quality control specifically with the 2010-11 Score Hockey release. As I have stated before on my blog, I am not much of a hockey fan but this post was more then just about hockey, it is about how the company feels about the quality of their product and the image that they want to portray to their customers.
I just wished that all companies took such serious control of their product. How many of us pulled crimped A&G cards and I have heard of some problems with missing refractors/hits in the Chrome Baseball releases too. Has Topps become so lazy about their production that problems are expected before the boxes even hit the shelves?
So in a time where the hobby seems to be going up one day and crashing down the next, thank you to Panini for taking things seriously when it comes to quality and to Topps, please do something about your poor control over packing out and packaging.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Worth $50,000?
Aron Phillips of Dime Magazine calls this Upper Deck Black Michael Jordan and LeBron James dual autograph-dual patch- 1/1 card “The Most Coveted” basketball card in the world.
I can understand why any basketball collector would love to have this card in their collection I am just not sure that the card would be considered the most coveted. I am positive many people would be willing to argue this point. I would think that any number of Exquisites could make it to the list of “Most Coveted” or how about a top graded ‘87 Fleer MJ or even the Buyback autographed version? And while I realize they may not be priced as high as this MJ/LJ dual card, a ‘48 Bowman Mikan would be a happy addition to any vintage collection.
If you do happen to have $50,000 available burning a hole in your pocket and you feel like making an offer then check out the auction for the card. The seller is respectable (he has 100% feedback with over 1800 deals) but the card has been up for auction since September 4th and there have been 28 offers all declined so I am guessing the seller is pretty set on the sale price.
Any guesses at what you think the card might actually sell at finally?
Nightmares On Cardboard Part III
After posting the 10 cards that I created for the contest I realized I missed an opportunity here. I think I am going to work on one more card, I won't submit it for the contest but I will post it here just for fun.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Nightmares On Card Part II
Next:
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Dont Forget Thorzul's Nightmares On Cards Contest
I created a 10-card set for the contest, 8 base cards and 2 relics. The contest requirements this year is that all the cards have to be based on Topps baseball cards printed between 1970 and 1990. I unfortunately ran out of printer ink after printing a couple of cards (Both of my relic cards were printed but that is it) and can not make it to pick up more ink until Friday so I submitted my cards in digital form, which does not do the 2 relic cards justice.
First up:
1971 Topps: Edger Allan Poe- The Raven
1972 Topps: Malachai Boardman- Children Of The Corn (Corn Stalk Relic)
Monday, October 18, 2010
Is This Card On The Horizon?
I suggest that Topps takes a look at relics that will not be in short supply any time soon. How about a relic insert based on jail garb? Every month it seems like another athlete shows up in another mug shot, so lets take these lemons and make lemonade.
Please note that I am making this post in jest, I really hope that none of the card companies become so desperate as to actually consider this avenue. But, with that being said I introduce my newest custom card set, the Jailbirds relic set. Each custom card will include actual jail-worn garb (Just so everyone knows these cards are just digital mock-ups and will not actually be printed plus I wouldn't even know where to go to get the jail gear.).
Watch for your favorite parolee to make their appearance in this promising new insert set. First up is one of my favorite jail birds, and University of Arizona product, Gilbert Arenas in his Washington DC Department of Corrections gear.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Random Blaster Box- 2010 Topps Chrome Baseball
I have never been the one to buy in to the hype of the various Chrome releases. I find it funny that some bloggers will blast designers like Panini for using foil board but get giddy when they hear Topps’ schedule for Bowman and Topps Chrome. To me shiny is shiny.
Now why I ended up grabbing a blaster of 2010 Topps Chrome is a surprise to me, maybe I finally bought in to the shiny appeal (Don’t bet on it) or maybe I just wanted to see what the “whoop-de-do” is all about, but Chrome is Chrome and here I sit with a stack of shiny cards laid out in front of me. With the playoffs in to the ALCS/NLCS round the MLB season will be finishing up soon so this will most likely be the final baseball packs that I open for a while.
I do honestly like the shine and some of the cards really pop out with the chrome but why did Topps go and ruin the allure of the refractors? Remember when Finest first arrived on the scene in 1993 and refractors were 1 per box? That was when a refractor meant something, now they are hitting at 1 in 3 packs.
I didn’t pull any Mariners, a disappointment for me, but I was fortunate enough to pull 2 young Diamondbacks, Justin Upton and Stephen Drew, so I had some luck with the blaster. One of the coolest cards though was the Prince Fielder; Topps picked a great shot to use on the card. The Upton card is a decent action shot too; it is actually pretty cool how the chrome highlights the slide marks in the dirt.
I pulled 3 Refractors (Zach Duke, Adam Lind and Jair Jurrjens), 3 X-Fractors (Gavin Floyd, John Ely and Mike Stanton) and a Purple Refractor #/599 of Stephen Drew, definitely the highlight of the box. The Drew card is another card that pops because of the Chrome and the Purple Refractor makes it even better. Check out the ball whizzing by Drew’s head, he was safe by barely an arm’s length.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
Meet The Artist- Mike James: Part I
I would like to begin my post with an apology to artist Mike James. I made some assumptions and accusations without knowing the full facts and I am truly sorry for not doing more investigation before writing out my original post regarding his artwork.
Back in June I wrote up a post titled "You Sketch It... I Sketch It" about the "You Sketch It" cards that Topps was including in random packs of the 2010 Topps Baseball release. The cool thing about these “You Sketch It” cards is that artists, both established and aspiring, were able to create their own personal sketch cards and submit them to Topps to possibly be included in future releases. These cards were also being used by artists to sell their work using a dedicated medium (the Topps sketch cards), often people were jumping on the Stras band wagon and attempting to make big bucks with their sketches. Tonight’s post is about how things are not always as they seem.
In my post I pinpointed three specific sketch cards, a Strasburg, Ichiro and Abraham Lincoln card being auctioned for a price that I felt was a bit high. Imagine my surprise when the artist who created these cards contacted me regarding my post.
The artist is none other then Canadian artist Mike James. If you are a hockey collector you may recognize his name, he worked with In The Game and created the 2003-04 Be A Player Memorabilia “Brush With Greatness” insert set and the corresponding contest where collectors could win a Mike James one-of-a-kind hand pained jersey for specific players.
Since August Mike and I have had an on-going conversation, definitely a highlight for any collector and we discussed a number of points that I included in my original post.
First, regarding the prices, Mike let me know that he actually was not intending on selling the cards at that $60-75 price points but was actually garnishing interest in his work which worked out well. He was commissioned to create additional custom cards and eventually sold off the original three sketch cards at a much lower price.
Second, I brought up the $12.00 shipping cost, which many eBay buyers would agree is a high price. I never took in to consideration that these cards are coming from Canada, not the U.S. Mike wanted to make sure that each card was not only shipped securely but also offered the protection of tracking with his orders and this is what brought the price up. Considering that we are dealing with 1/1 custom sketch cards being sent internationally, tracking is definitely something that is needed to protect both the artist and the collector.
I want to thank Mike for taking the time to contact me and for being as personal as he has been. I made the incorrect assumption that he was just trying to make money on Strasburg and the “You Sketch It” phenomenon and that was unfair of me.
I conducted an interview with Mike and will be posting that up soon as Part II to this post. He has sent me some images of examples of his work and I will be including those images with Part II.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Topps UFC Nicknames
Topps recently announced that in the 2010 Topps UFC release there are 25 short printed “Nickename” variation cards. These shot print cards are limited to 250 copies each. The other day I picked up some packs unfortunately I did not pull any of the short prints.
Here is the checklist of the 25 cards and the nickname on the cards:
5 The Irish Hand Grenade (Marcus Davis)
13 The Outlaw (Dan Hardy)
16 The Natural (Randy Couture)
20 The Prodigy (BJ Penn)
26 The Dean of Mean (Keith Jardine)
32 Darth (Ryan Bader)
34 The Phenom (Vitor Belfort)
43 Rampage (Quinton Jackson)
44 The Skyscraper (Stephan Struve)
46 Rumble (Anthony Johnson)
47 The Iceman (Chuck Liddell)
49 Bones (Jon Jones)
52 Ace (Rich Franklin)
59 The Dragon (Lyoto Machida)
64 Minotauro (Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira)
66 The Carpenter (Clay Guida)
72 The Hitman (Martin Kampmann)
77 Hands of Stone (Sam Stout)
78 The Huntington Beach Bad Boy (Tito Ortiz)
79 The Axe Murderer (Wanderlei Silva)
83 The Nightmare (Diego Sanchez)
96 Shogun (Mauricio Rua)
100 Rush (Georges St-Pierre)
106 The Spider (Anderson Silva)
147 Kevin Ferguson (Kimbo Slice)
2010-11 Panini Timeless Threads Basketball
I am posting up some of the preview images that Panini released. When you drop $100 on a pack you really shouldn't be pulling sticker autographs. I mean come on Panini, the NBA Threads release is being advertised as containing "Over 20,000 on-card autographs" and this is a $4/pack set so why is the $100/pack set coming with stickers?

Rajon Rondo base card

John Wall Rookie Recruits
Friday, October 8, 2010
Topps Retail Hijinks
The problem with retail boxes is that while they may contain the same amount of packs as a hobby box, the hits come at a very diminished rate when compared to their hobby box brethren.
Tonight I stopped by the store and while there I took a look at cards and sitting along side all the blasters were a stack of the recently released 2010 Topps Chrome Baseball full retail boxes. Each box contained 24 packs and was selling for $71.48 plus there were no guaranteed hits. What would posses a collector to drop $72 on a retail box when they could spend less then $60 for a hobby box that contained 2 on-card autographs not to mention the hobby exclusive like Printing Plates, Super-Fractors, Team USA autographs and MLB Logoman Patch Cards? Lets not forget Topps recent hobby-only wrapper redemption program too.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Random Blaster Box- 2008 Topps Baseball
I decided to go with my final baseball blaster box, a box of lime green 2008 Topps Baseball Series 2. The 2008 Topps are by no means even in my top sets of the year, I don’t know but the bubble/dots across the top of the cards just bother me for some reason. The design is solid but that lettering seems to ruin it.
I can say that pulling a Griffey made the box worth it for me if I didn’t pull anything else. I find it interesting that I pulled a Homer Bailey card, which in itself is not a big deal, but how much does it suck to be named Homer as a pitcher? A solid hitter with that name would be cool, but you don’t want to be serving them up as a pitcher (To note, he has given up 34 homers in a 56 game career, he is 16-16 lifetime with a 5.09 ERA and 232 Ks in 304.0 innings).
Next up is the double dose of awesomeness from the Topps Stars insert, Jeter and Pujols. I actually like the cards, the gold foiling and stars in the background accent the hitters quite well and to be honest these are definitely two awesome hitters. I know that Jeter had a down year this year but even when he has a down year he often turns it around in the Post Season.
Mickey Mantle, nothing more needs to be said.
As a history buff I love these campaign cards, I know a lot of people are not keen on non-sports cards in a baseball set but this insert seems to fit considering that 2008 was an election year. Madison went on to win the election of 1812 and DeWitt Clinton and the Federalist Party went on to obscurity in the archives of American history. I also pulled a Bush/Kerry 2004 election campaign card.