News From Sin City

Now that I live in Nevada I get to hear all the latest updates on professional sports teams moving to Las Vegas on the local news. I actually live further away from Las Vegas now even though I am in Nevada then I did when I lived in the East Valley in Arizona.  

In June the NHL announced that there will be a new expansion team in Las Vegas, making it the 31^st team in the league, beginning play in the 2017-18 season. The next step for the City of Sin is to come up with a name and if you are a fan of obscure names you are in luck. Get ready for the Las Vegas Desert Knights!!!

Reportedly the final name had been Nighthawks followed by back up names of Desert Hawks and Red Hawks but they were deemed too close to the Chicago Blackhawks so the names were all jettisoned. Next up came Black Knights, pretty cool name but the Army said “NO” so it went to Knights but there is the London Knights in the Ontario Hockey League so those too were kicked to the curb. So here we are at the Desert Knights.

While writing the post I did some searching to find out if there was anything I could use to repurpose to create a logo mock up and I did find out that there are a couple of biker gangs named Desert Knights, so the team has that going for them. Some names that I could suggest based on Nevada wildlife would be Golden Eagles or Mountain Lions. There are no NHL teams with similar names, obviously in the NFL but these are different enough. I did find a couple of colleges with the Golden Eagles name but nothing major. Two names that would be 100% better than Desert Knights.

Now on to news announced today, the Nevada Oversight Committee voted to recommend $750 million public funding for an NFL stadium in Las Vegas in an attempt to lure the Raiders to town. In addition to the public funding, the casino mogul Sheldon Adelson has plans to offer $650 million and the Raiders are offering $500 million for a Las Vegas stadium. Nearly $2 billion would build a beautiful 65,000 seat domed stadium that would also be the home of the UNLV football team.

I wouldn’t feel any different about the Raiders being in Las Vegas and the taxes being raised are room taxes in Las Vegas so it doesn’t bother me but having seen the Mariners and Seahawks almost move and the Sonics stolen I feel bad for the cities that loose professional teams because it affects the fans.

A Custom Card Contest Entry

Jedi Jeff from 2x3 Heroes is holding a custom card contest featuring yourself as an athlete as a teenager or younger.

My card is from 1988 when I was a Junior in high school, so I used the 1988 Topps Football design. I had to colorize the picture because it was black and white from my yearbook. I am including the original picture scanned from the yearbook too.

We Salute Your Honor

It has been 15 years and the world has changed greatly since 9/11/01 but one thing will never pass and that is the respectful memory of those who lost their lives that day and the families that have been affected.

Welcome To The NBA Hall Of Fame

 Today the NBA welcomes 10 new members in to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. The class includes Shaquille O’Neal, Allen Iverson, Yao Ming, Sheryl Swoopes, Tom Izzo, Jerry Reinsdorf, John McClendon, Darrell Garretson, Zelmo Beaty and Cumberland Posey (Who is also in the Baseball Hall of Fame).

Shaq was the reason I returned to collecting in 1992, specifically the hunt for his 1992-93 Stadium Club card. A card which I consider such a big part of my collecting that it is my wallet card…I really need to take that out and take some photos.

The player out of this group that I collected was Allen Iverson, maybe not the most pleasant guy and he had an issue with practice but he played with heart and ferocity and he carried the 76ers to the 2001 NBA Finals. The thing about Iverson is he is the athlete out of all sports that I have pulled out of packs the most hits.

A Card Memorial For Wilder

 

Last week Leaf stepped in to the on-demand trading card market with the release of Leaf Live. The way the program works is similar to Topps Now and Panini Instant/Eternal where a card is designed based on an athlete or event and it is sold for a limited time. Leaf Live cards are open for a 1-week period and are being sold through Leaf’s eBay store with cards selling at $4.99 with free shipping, larger lots are available.

The first card is Gene Wilder, which has led to some people to be angry over Leaf’s use of Wilder’s passing as a way to sell cards but those people seem to forget this happens quite often like the 2005 Topps Chronicles release, even yesterday my post was a memorial card for Andy Whitfield. I believe that Brian Gray had this card designed out of complete respect for Gene Wilder and in his memory.

The next two cards on the checklist are currently available with #2 Yoan Moncada through today and #3 Dak Prescott through 9/12/16.

A Spartacus Memorial

When Starz released Spartacus (Full title Spartacus: Blood and Sand) in 2010 the graphic historical genre was riding a 10-year high after hits like Gladiator, 300: Rise of an Empire, Deadwood and Rome had people talking. Each one seemed to be even more graphic than the previous one and Spartacus took it over the top and it was one of my favorite shows.

The series is loosely based on the true exploits of the gladiator/slave Spartacus who led a slave revolt in 73 B.C., known as the Third Serville War. Since very little is known of the real Spartacus Starz improvised with plenty of sex and blood with the lead character played by Andy Whitfield. After the first season ended Whitfield was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, normally a very survivable cancer (My brother is a survivor) so Starz decided to do a prequel during Whitfield’s treatment. Sadly, Whitfield lost his battle in September 2011 and Starz decided to go on with the series for the originally planned three seasons with Liam McIntyre taking over the role of Spartacus for the final two seasons. But the show wasn’t the same, though entertaining, without Whitfield as Spartacus the origination storyline seemed broken.

Starz did include previous unreleased scenes of Whitfield through the series and after the series finale after the credits rolled they showed Andy Whitfield screaming “I Am Spartacus!” which was very appreciated by fans.

 

Rittenhouse released sets for each of the Spartacus seasons which some included Andy Whitfield autographs, though they were extremely outside of my price range, but when I came across an Andy Whitfield shadowbox In Memoriam card I had to have it. These were inserted as box toppers in the 2012 Rittenhouse Spartacus Gods and Arenas (the prequel) release and because the very limited boxes were released with $750 SRP (I believe there were 250 total boxes produced) these shadowbox cards rarely show up, though they are not very expensive when they do sell.

The Ichiro Count

I have been a fan of Ichiro since he stepped on to the grass at Safeco Field but prices for his cards started out high and have remained there throughout his career in the U.S. and now that he hit the magical 3,000 hits (In MLB) prices for his cards are climbing. I have been uncertain about collecting his cards, I already have my Griffey collection and I would rather spend my time and money on his cards instead of working on a whole new collection. So I have decided to instead so with a mini-PC, probably around 100 cards. Getting a trifecta is going to be quite difficult because his autographs are still exceptionally high so I am just aiming for a relic for now, I already have his 2001 Topps rookie card.

 

In the meantime, here are some recent pickups. I want to stick to unusual cards when possible along with some Japanese cards. I am currently at 31 unique Ichiro cards.

2007 Topps Chrome #158

2008 Topps Trading Card History #TCHC 19

2011 Bowman Chrome #351

Happy Labor Day

Happy Labor Day

Today we celebrate the American worker with our family and friends and there are plenty of parties and BBQs. We headed to the Best In The West Nugget Rib Cook-Off, which is a local event. Think of it as a small country fair where half of the booths are cooking ribs and it smells like a beautiful BBQ the entire time you walk around.

Living on the edge I tentatively ate alligator for the first time, not bad, it was fried with a salty-spicy flavor.

Have a wonderful holiday and stay safe.

Please, I Need Some Help

I am hoping someone can help me out. I am in need of a scan of the back of a 1980 Topps Richard Todd #405 card. I am working on a custom card based on his card for a future TTM attempt for an actor and the only backs I can find are small/pixelated or contain a COMC watermark.

You wouldn’t think that a mid-career card of an underperforming QB who had more interception than touchdowns and entire career is defined by him replacing two Hall of Fame QBs (Joe Namath in 1976 and Kenny Stabler in 1984) would cost $2 or more so I am hoping I do not have to spend that to just get a good scan of the back of his card.

A clean scan 700px x 500px or larger would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thank you

One Part Of A Collection Is Complete

 

I can finally close the book on the 2015 Topps High Tek Star Wars Rebels cards with my most recent pick up #105 Captain Rex (Millennium Falcon background). The card is actually numbered as part of the Clone Wars checklist but Captain Rex played a big role in Star Wars Rebels last season along with two other Clone Troopers Wolffe and Gregor so I am counting it as part of the Rebels checklist.

I am not closing the book on collecting cards from the set I still plan on collecting the bounty hunters and evil aliens but with the Emperor’s Throne Room background. I actually just picked up a Taylor Gray (Ezra from Star Wars Rebels) autograph from Aaron Goodwin, I just had to buy something from my favorite Ghost Adventurer