The Top Griffey Pickups Of 2016

This year I decided to split my favorite Griffey 2016 pickups from the other cards because it really would be too difficult to try and combine all of the cards and come up with only a Top 10 list.

This year was a big year for my Griffey collection, I entered 2016 with 552 unique Griffey cards and I am currently at 1,255 unique cards, an increase of 703 total cards. I would like to thank the fellow collectors and bloggers who have helped me with my endeavor.

Because it is so difficult to pick out one Griffey card over another as which are my favorites I will instead just post them in release order.

1.      1987 Bellingham Mariners Team Issue

2.      1988 Best San Bernardino Spirit Team Issue

3.      1991 Topps w/ Jim Arnold NFL Back Error

4.      2001 Topps Employee Exclusives

5.      Upper Deck Authentics Reverse Negative Image

6.      2003 Topps Kanebo Japan issue

7.      2005 Upper Deck Reflections Dual Signature Sr/Jr

8.      2006 Konami base and Konami foil parallel Japan issue

9.      2010 Sega CardGen Japan issue

10.  2013 Topps mini Game-Used White Sox relic

Honorable Mention:

This 2003 Upper Deck Ultimate Collection relic is my first birthday card. I got it very cheap because of the border chipping along the left side.

The Top Pickups Of 2016

Last year I did a Top 10 Pickups of 2015 so I decided it would be a nice piece to follow up with at the end of each year. This year as I was working on my list I realized I had way to many cards so I decided to do two lists with one solely Griffey cards and one list of all the rest.

This one was very difficult because I did pick up some wonderful cards and I did add some very nice cards to my Ryan Bader, Jay Buhner and Steve Largent collections plus there were some cards I would have added to this list except I had intended to write a post about those specific cards so I decided to leave them off this list but the list is still some wonderful pickups this year.

1.      1955 Topps All-American Jim Thorpe

2.      1933-34 National Chicle Skybirds Manfred von Richthofen

3.      2012 Upper Deck All-Time Greats Kelly Slater Auto Booklet

4.      2015 Sportkings Vault Evel Knievel Memorabilia card & 5x7 autograph

5.      Wrestling Quadruplets

6.      1977 Topps Star Wars C-3PO Golden Rod Error

7.      Jeremy Bullock autograph

8.      2000 Upper Deck Ovation Ichiro

9.      2015 World Stars Toreka Isshu card

10.  2008 Rittenhouse Stargate Atlantis Danny Trejo autograph

 

 

Honorable Mention:

 

1977 Topps UK Star Wars Obi-Wan Kenobi

 

2010 Topps UFC Ryan Bader Ruby parallel #5/8

 



R.I.P. Carrie Fisher

Today the world lost an icon with the passing of Carrie Fisher.

I am actually quite saddened, I do not really know what to say. I picked up this card last year from a dealer on the East Coast, one of the highlights of my Star Wars collection.

The World: We love you Carrie Fisher

Carrie Fisher: I know!

 

Merry Christmas To All

Merry Christmas to all of my readers and I hope you have a safe and wonderful holiday.

Bad Assery Boba Fett

 

I came across the artist John Soukup/Kettle Art on Raz’s blog, his art style is quite unique and very popular. One of the things that makes his work standout is because he is not afraid to use multiple mediums together or to repurpose cards. Most of his official sketch cards are well outside of my budget but I was able to take advantage of some late night auctions and a mislabeled card.

 

I came across some very cool Boba Fett cards and jumped on them. The first is a multi-medium repurposed card where Soukup painted Boba Fett on a separate piece of cardboard and then attached it to the front of card #210 from the 1980 Topps Empire Strikes Back set. The original card showed Boba Fett in the carbonite freezing chamber but he was blurred a bit behind fumes so this is an amazing upgrade over the original card.

The second card is amazeballs, I have never said that about a card before but this one deserves it so I am going with it. Again he repurposed a 2011 Topps Update Jose Batista card for what is really just the coolest art card that I have ever owned.

 

The card is multi-layered, a 3D card, and Soukup is not satisfied with just having multiple layers but he uses them for the best results. Boba Fett’s body is painted on the top of the Batista card with the solid red painted around it. Level 2 is the arm with the blaster and level 3 is the boulder he is hiding behind. The arm is pinned through the card and moves up and down. Taking a page from somebody from Boston’s South End, this card is wicked-cool.

 

For the introduction to John’s work I have a package for Raz. I don’t have your address and I tried to send an email to you but I don’t know if it was the correct email so if you can contact me I will get the cards sent your way.

Oh How I Love COMC

Because I prefer to buy singles instead of boxes one of my favorite deals is COMC’s Black Friday sale. In addition to the sales being offered for individual cards they also give free shipping and they toss in a scratch card for each 20 cards included in the shipment.

 

I usually will put some money on to my COMC account from time to time so I can pick up cards throughout the year and then I wait for the Black Friday sale to request shipment. This year was a little different because I ordered a number of Rodney Hampton cards for a trade with Sport Card Collectors so my order was a bit less than what I have ordered over the last couple of years.

 

I just got the box from COMC and my order was 235 cards so I got 12 scratch cards. One Griffey card didn’t make it in to the box before shipping so I contacted COMC and they found it still in the warehouse so they shipped it this morning. I didn’t have much luck with the scratchers, ending with two cards giving free $3.99 shipping and that is it. But when you consider how much of a discount I got on many of these cards the scratchers where just icing on the delicious cake.

 

It will take a number of days to organize and scan the cards in so I will be covering my pickups next week.

Garbage Pail Kids Friday Nightmare On 13th Street

Over the past couple of months Topps’ has had some online exclusive GPK cards. Most have been political and I wasn’t interested in them but in between the run up to the election they have released some based on television, music and movies and that’s where my attention lies.

 

Shortly before Halloween they released a horror movie inspired exclusive set and two caught my attention, cards based on Friday The 13^th and Nightmare on Elm Street. I put in my order and waited, turns out there had been an error somewhere in the system and I was charged but my order wasn’t actually ordered. In between getting ready for my move I contacted Topps’ customer service and I was worried they would just refund my money, which I was not too keen on because each set was selling on the secondary market in the $15-20 range and I spent $20 on both sets through Topps’ website. The customer service department ended up taking care of me and got my cards sent out so I appreciate that greatly.

The Art Gallery: 2015 Nightmare Before Christmas ACEO

This month’s Art Gallery comes from an artist that is selling his own artwork over the internet. It is a pretty standard ACEO type of sketch card with a blank back, except for the description and artist’s signature.

 

I picked up this card up right before last Christmas and as you know I am a big fan of The Nightmare Before Christmas and since there are no official TNBC sketch cards I went with this bad boy, a pen and colored pencil piece. I just looked it up to see if I could find the artist’s name, besides D. Quinn, and I realized I paid a lot more than I should have paid. Probably double what I would pay for an ACEO sketch card today. I must have been feeling quite festive.

 

The scene is right after Lock, Shock and Barrel kidnapped Santa for Jack and bring him back in their trick-or-treat bag. Santa pops out of the bag and Jack comes over to explain that Santa can take a vacation because he will be taking his place. There are two small errors that the artist made; at this point in the scene Jack does not have his own Santa hat, he takes Santa's hat off of his head, and he doesn't wink his eye but otherwise the card is pretty spot on.

I promise, this is my last Nightmare Before Christmas post until at least next Halloween.