Why Oh Why? Butl 1 /50

I picked up my first laundry tag off a seller on eBay the other day for a reasonable $8.99 plus shipping and received it yesterday. The card is a 2009 Panini National Treasures Rookie Colossal Prime Materials Laundry Tags Deon Butler card. I am super stoked. 

When I get a card, I inspect it for damage and sadly found some on this card and while I am bummed and considered returning it but, in the end, I decided to keep the card because the damage is only visible at an angle. 

A bungling dealer decided to write out a tag on top of the card leaving an impression on the card face. I have seen this happen quite a few times and it still surprises me that there are sellers out there that don’t think. Remember, top loaders and one-touch mags save card lives.

I highlighted the letters and number that was written across the card face. Yes Butler's name and the serial number are written upside down from each other which means the seller rotated the card to do more damage.

I won’t get in to the fact that Panini states “Game-Used” on the front, but on the back, it says the jersey was from the Rookie Premier and that it was “Event-Used”. I posted about it on Twitter and tagged Panini. I know with this card being 9-years old I am sure this discussion has been brought up before, but I am late to the game.

Lets Face It

If there is a unique memorabilia card, I want it. The stranger it is, the more I have to have it and it doesn’t matter what sport. Most sports I will try to find one of a player or team that I like but in cases like NASCAR I will take anyone if the relic is cool.

Last year I picked up two face mask cards, both from 2003. The Koren Robinson is from the 2003 Donruss Elite Masks of Steel insert and the Marcus Trufant is from the 2003 Leaf Rookies & Stars Masks release. 

These pieces are from the Rookie Premier, so they aren’t game used, but I don’t have a problem with that. There are several Leaf face mask sets between 2001-2007 and most are rookies with the pieces coming from the premier and those that are game used, like John Elway, are significantly higher in price.

Bad Decisions Come With Consequences

Former Seattle Seahawks back-up QB Trevone Boykin has resorted to selling his personal items on Twitter to make money since his contract was terminated by the Seahawks following a domestic assault charge this past spring when he was accused of breaking the jaw of his girlfriend during a dispute. This was his fourth time being arrested since 2015 so there doesn’t seem to be any future for him in the NFL.

Boykin has made immature choices during his college years hut the Seahawks gave him a chance signing him out of college as an undrafted free agent following the 2016 NFL Draft. During the 2016 season he played in 5 games but was demoted to the practice squad for the 2017 season. 

I picked up this 2016 Leaf Metal Draft Armed & Dangerous red parallel #3/5 for $1.25 on COMC in January 2017 and I tried to flip it during the Black Friday sale but when there was no interest I added it to my shipment. A great looking card but a shitty person, a waste of $1.25 in my eyes.

RIP Coach Knox

This morning, long time Seahawk’s coach Chuck Knox passed away at the age of 86 years old after a lengthy battle with dementia. He wasn’t the first Seahawk’s coach, but he spent 9 years in Seattle and was who I remember leading the team when I first became a Seahawks fan.

Coaches don’t get much cardboard love but during the heyday of the Pro Set and Pro Line years coaches made appearances each year, so Knox has a couple of cards between 1989-1992 including a couple of official autograph cards.

Care Packages x3

Since the beginning of March my health problems have worsened which has left me in a terrible state. My arthritis pain is significantly worse, I will be returning to my pain specialist soon to begin treatment on my hip degeneration, multiple seizures and migraines have floored me and some days even walking is a struggle, so my body is very strained and I have been dealing with depression. You probably noticed my posts have been less frequent because it is difficult to focus but I am trying to keep myself engaged.

Over the past few weeks I have received three care packages, which have lifted my spirits. They came from Tom at The Angels In Order, Jon from A Penny Sleeve For Your Thoughts and Angus from Dawg Day Cards. Between the three there were probably 100 cards, this really put a smile on my face.

Unfortunately, I had the cards in three stacks on my computer desk and I moved a blanket off of the end of my bed, hitting the desk and sent most of the cards to the floor in a big jumble so I don’t remember who sent which card. So I am going to present some of the cards that helped lift me up, know that while I am not posting every card I want to thank all three of them for the care packages and each card is now happily in their place in my boxes and binders.

Tomorrow I will post up the rest of the Mariners cards

Starting with the Seahawks

1992 All World Greats of the Game (Straight off my wants list)

1994 Bowman Rick Mirer (One of my favorites)

1997 Totally Certified Red Chris Warren

2015 Panini Intros Richard Sherman (Still upset about the way things went down)

For my Griffey PC

1990 Donruss Best of the AL

1994 Church’s Show Stoppers

1999 Upper Deck Textbook Excellence

Tommorow Marshawn Lynch Will Be A Raider

It is official, the Seahawks have agreed to trade Marshawn Lynch to the Oakland Raiders for a trade of late round picks in the 2018 NFL Draft. Lynch, who is expected to take a physical in Oakland today, will sign a one-year contact for $3 million but will also include bonuses based on his stats and can end up hitting a max of $8.5 million.

With the Raiders in the AFC I am good with this trade because Lynch gets to play for his hometown team and one last “Hoorah” and the Seahawks show their complete respect for him by working with what Lynch wanted.

A Trade Package From Twitch Part 1 of 2

In a time when my spending is completely halted as far as cardboard is concerned trade packages have become a welcome distraction of sorts. I still have the fun of ripping a package open, flip through cards and organize them. My most recent package has come from Twitch, AKA Lonestarr.

It was an amazing package that includes Mariners, Seahawks, Sonics and comic cards. All my favorite things. There were well over 100 cards so I cannot cover them all but here are some of my favorites beginning with the comic cards.

There were quite a few Marvel cards with my favorite Marvel movie being well represented; Guardians of the Galaxy. Rocket Raccoon is my favorite Marvel character and is one of my secret PCs.

When I got back in to collecting in the early 1990s I only collected sports cards but I was talked in to checking out comic cards by my best friend and he introduced me to the early Impel sets, this 2015 Fleer Retro took me back.

Next up is the DC Universe with some 1995 Skybox DC Legends and 1996 Skybox Firepower Outburst. The 1995 DC Legends is a chrome set, here are Count Viper and The Baron and the 1996 Skybox Firepower Outburst is embossed.

There were not many basketball cards but the ones that are included are perfect for my collection. The first one is a 1994-95 Flair Steve Kerr, who is one of my secondary PCs.

One of the best Sonics ever, Gary Payton, and one that would have been one of the best if the team wasn’t stolen, Kevin Durant.

Since the card had a printing error, it appears that someone accidently put the team name and logo of a fictional team on the card, I fixed it.

A pair of Seahawks QBs rocking the Elite design; 2007 Donruss Elite Hasselback and 2015 Panini Elite Russell Wilson.

Shaun Alexander has been my non-QB favorite player for the Seahawks and Paul Richardson has potential but has taken off yet as a receiver but I do dig the 2014 Topps Fire designs.

I close with a 1938 Churchman’s Boxing, these cards are from England and I have a partial collection but I did not have this Harry Mizler so this was a great vintage addition.

AI, Durant And Warren

My recent COMC order included a large portion of Ken Griffey Jr but I always like to pick up some of the cards off of my personal want list. Usually these are cards that I have on my list that are essentially Gray Whales that I don’t consider unless they are on sale. Here are some of the cards that I had shipped following COMC’s Black Friday sale.

I wouldn’t say that Allen Iverson is one of my player collections but I do seem drawn to his cards. He was arrogant and lets not even touch on his feelings about practice but he is probably one of the most prominent guards of his generation and possibly an all-time Top 10 shooting guard. When it comes to basketball, I have pulled AI hits more than any other player so I kind of became a mini-pc collector by default.

These cards are from the 2012-13 & 2013-14 Panini Crusade releases. They both are from the Crusade Blue checklist.

This card is from the 2014-15 Court Kings release, specifically the Rookie Royalty insert. As I have said before I refuse to collect any player wearing the jersey of the team stolen from Seattle but I do have a couple of cards of Durant in a Sonics jersey and this card is now the top of Supersonics collection. Oddly this card rarely shows up but when it showed up for sale on COMC for a couple of bucks I grabbed it up quickly.

I added a couple of 1996 Pacific Chris Warren Litho Cel cards. These cards were an interesting idea originally coming out as promotional cards, these are the ones listed as Cel-000, and then later as part of the regular Pacific Litho set. When you line up the four levels (Bronze, Silver and two cels) you are supposed to see a color image of the player. I picked up two promo cards and one cyan cel insert card. I will eventually pick up the other cards to put together the image but it isn’t a rush and when I paid about $1 for all three I was happy.

See, Seattle Can Win... Just Not As Often As Others

Last week following the Seattle Sounders won the MLS Cup I had written a post about Seattle championships and I just realized that I did not save it but here is the best shot at what was in my original write up.

Now that the Sounders have won the MLS Cup Championship a team from Seattle has won a championship in every professional sport except for the Seattle Mariners. This list does not include college teams, minor league teams, semi-pro teams or leagues that only the most die-hard fan would know about (sorry women's soccer, rugby, lacrosse, ultimate Frisbee and roller derby), only the leagues/teams that were accepted as "Professional" or top league at the time they won their championship.

The Seattle Mariners were a MLB expansion team in 1976 and in the team’s 40 seasons between 1977 and 2016 they have gone to the playoffs four times, making it to the ALCS three times but they have never made it to the World Series.

The Seattle Supersonics were an NBA expansion team in 1967 and in the 40 seasons between 1967 and 2007, when the team was stolen, they went to the playoffs 22 times. The team made it to the NBA Finals three times; 1978, 1979 and 1996, winning the NBA Championship in 1979.

The Seattle Storm were a WNBA expansion in team in 2000 and in the 17 seasons between 2000 through 2016 they went to the playoffs 12 times making it to the WNBA Finals twice, winning both times in 2004 and 2010.

The Seattle Seahawks were an NFL expansion team in 1976 and in the 40 seasons between 1976 and 2016 they have gone to the playoffs 15 times. They have gone to the Super Bowl three times, 2005, 2013 and 2014, winning the NFL Championship in 2013.

The Seattle Sounders were a MLS expansion team in 2007 and beginning their first season in 2009, this is not counting the team’s origin in the NASL in 1974 and USL time since. In the 8 seasons between 2009 and 2016 they went to the playoffs each season. They have gone to the MLS Cup Finals once, winning this year. In addition to this championship they have been US Open Cup Champions four times and they won the Supporters’ Shield once.

Now you are probably thinking “But Corky, how can a team from Seattle win the Stanley Cup? There isn’t even a professional hockey team there”

Well the answer is the Seattle Metropolitans, the first American hockey team to win the Stanley Cup in 1917, twelve years before the Boston Bruins won the Cup in the NHL.

The Seattle Metropolitans were an expansion team in the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA) in 1915 and in the team’s 9 seasons between 1915-16 through 1923-24 they went to the playoffs 7 times. They made it to the Stanly Cup Final three times in 1916-17, 1918-19 and 1919-20, winning in 1916-17 and tying in 1918-19 with the Montreal Canadians. The Stanley Cup in 1918-19 was suspended with Seattle and Montreal tied 2-2-1 due to the Spanish Flu outbreak.

I can also include MMA/UFC fighters

Randy Couture is from Everett and went to school in Lynwood, both about 20 minutes north of Seattle. In his 14 year MMA career he was the UFC Heavyweight Champion three times, UFC Light Heavyweight Champion twice, the UFC Interim UFC Light Heavyweight once, the UFC 13 Heavyweight Tournament Champion and is in the UFC Hall of Fame.

Benson Henderson grew up in Federal Way (Where I lived half my life), about 20 minutes south of Seattle. In his 10-year MMA career he has been the WEC Lightweight Champion once, the WEC Interim Lightweight Champion once, UFC Lightweight Champion once and he fought for both the Bellator Welterweight Championship and Bellator Lightweight Championship in the last 8 months, losing both times.

How about a couple of wrestlers from the Evergreen state?

Greg “The Hammer” Valentine was born in Seattle and in his 37-year career wrestling mostly in the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF/WWF/WWE) and World Championship Wrestling (WCW) he won over 20 Heavyweight Championships, 16 Tag-Team Championships and a dozen or so various championships. He is also in 4 different Hall of Fames.

Daniel Bryan is from Aberdeen, about 2 hours west of Seattle and is also the birth place of Kurt Cobain. Bryan wrestled professionally for 17 years, which includes 6 years in the WWE, and he won a number of championships. In the WWE he won the World Heavyweight Championship once, WWE Heavyweight Championship three times, Intercontinental Championship once, US Championship once and Tag-Team Championship once.

Seattle may not compare to New York, Boston, Montreal, Chicago or LA when it comes to championships but when you consider that when Seattle teams have made it to their respective Championship game/series they have gone a decent .545% (6 out of 11 chances not counting the 1918-19 Stanley Cup that ended in a tie). Occasionally the Emerald City teams can put up the big win.

A Successful Trade With SCC

In August the Sports Card Collector reviewed a box of 2016 Donruss Football, which is my favorite football release of the year so far. It is a case of going back to Donruss early releases and keeping the design simple with some cool inserts that makes me appreciate this set.

 

The big hit of his review was a Markus Wheaton Press Proof black parallel #/10 but in my eyes the pull of interest was the Thomas Rawls Aqueous Test parallel. I was hoping to add this young Seahawk to my collection so I contacted him and we worked out a deal for the card, which I really appreciated.

 

Rawls replaced Lynch last year after Lynch was hurt and had pretty good results. As the starting RB this season Rawls has not had the same type of results and was hurt last week so he will not be playing in the upcoming game against the 49ers.

 

Additionally, SCC tossed in a couple of Mariners’; Tyler O’Neill is a prospect outfielder currently with the Mariners AA Jackson Generals where he is batting .293 with 144 hits and 24 HRs in 130 games. I expect to see him in Tacoma next season. The other guy is well known by the Seattle faithful, Edgar Martinez. Now that Griffey and Johnson are in the Hall of Fame there is hope that Edgar follows them in but having spent a good portion of his career as a DH he has an uphill battle considering that he was just on his 7^th ballot and while his numbers are increasing, he hit 43% this past ballot, he only has three more years to try and hit the magic 75% needed. The 2016 Bunt release is one of my favorite baseball releases this year.

 

I close with a trio of Griffeys, always the best way to make me smile.

 

Actually I close with a tool SCC tossed in, a BCW Card Thickness gauge. Too often I have made a judgement call and purchased the wrong size top loaders and one-touch magnetic holders and the card I wanted to fit doesn't quite work out so this is a perfect tool that really every collector should have in their collection.