Flashing Some Green

For no reason whatsoever, I felt compelled to show off all the Green cards that I have in my still-intact Granderson collection:

2008 Triple Threads #187a Curtis Granderson Emerald (#/50)

2008 Triple Threads #187b Curtis Granderson Emerald (#/50)

2008 UD Heroes #60 Curtis Granderson Emerald (#/499)

2008 UD Heroes #60 Curtis Granderson Emerald Relic (#/25)

2008 UD Spectrum #SS-GR Curtis Granderson Green Relic (#/50)

2008 UD First Edition #SQ-39 Curtis Granderson Starquest

2008 Goudey #69 Curtis Granderson Green Mini (#/88)

2007 Triple Threads #129a Curtis Granderson Emerald (#/50)n

2008 Topps Co-Signers #33a Curtis Granderson Green (#/200)

2009 Topps Finest #102 Curtis Granderson Green (#/99)

2009 Topps #CBQR-CG Curtis Granderson Career Best Quad (#/20)

Now please continue to enjoy your otherwise nondescript Wednesday.

Mail Day!

-edit- I had mistakenly credited Mark of Mark's Ephemera for this first package, but he graciously emailed me to let me know that I was mistaken. Sure enough, I looked through the comments and realized that it was Baseball Dad! So sorry!

It has been some time since a good ol' fashioned mail day, and I've actually got a backlog from a couple. The first two come from Baseball Dad, who fortunately got these cards in the mail before the Tigers came in and swept them this week. as well as reader Mike, for whom I need to find some extra Granderson cards to send his way.

Small packages both, but full of punch. They help shrink that needlist down! Baseball Dad was the first to come through on knocking off a card from my Big Ten wantlist:



Indeed, this is card #5 on the list: 2007 Topps Updates & Highlights #UH215. I guess this means that I need to find another card to add to the list! Thank you so much! But that's not all, there were extras!


No complaints about an extra Pudge, that's for sure. Sure fire Hall of Famer? Full Catcher's Gear? Numbered Parallel? Yes, please.

In 2009 Fu-Te Ni was featured in many, many sets including this Bowman, thanks to his participation in the WBC. At the time, he was a recently signed Tigers farmhand. Since, he has been called up and been a key lefty specialist for the Tigers down the stretch. With Bobby Seay out for a while, we're going to need Ni to step up as we desperately try to stave off the Twins.

Mike sent some cards off the wantlist as well, helping to fill some ever-diminishing set holes:


A 1994 Ivan Cruz Prospects card! I can tell this guy is going to be a star.


Everybody's favorite Mustache, Tom Brookens. Here in 1981 form.


Finally, a 1983 Lance Parrish, one of the most underrated catchers of his era. Parrish was a great player for the Tigers and had a long, productive career.

Thank you to Baseball Dad and Mike for the great cards--now I need to think of something to fill in on my Big Ten list in the sidebar! More great packages to go through as well, hopefully I'll have pictures and a post ready for tomorrow.

Where's Grandcards?

Oh boy, has it ever been a week. Not a bad week, mind you, but just one of those weeks. My entire family was in town from Saturday through Tuesday, and I was actually called to New York on business first thing Tuesday morning. I had to stay over there and then drive straight back to the office Wednesday morning, and now is the start of the busiest two weeks of the work year for us. Whew. The obvious minus is that I haven't been able to scan any cards or pull any posts together. The plus side was this:





What, you think I'd be up in New York and not try to catch a game? I'm a stadium junkie and I was certainly not disappointed by what they did at the New Yankee Stadium. They spared no expense and ended up with a very nice stadium. Even better, it was packed on a Tuesday night, and had especially great atmosphere when Matsui and Posada hit back to back home runs to put the Yankees in the lead. I have only two complaints that really resonate with me.

1. When I walk around the main level concourse, I am completely blocked off from seeing any of the field from the outfield. I am stuck in a tunnel. Lame. I like being able to walk around a stadium and see the game from a variety of angles and I couldn't do that here--in fact, I couldn't do anything in the outfield except for walk.

2. The Yankees do not produce generic bobbleheads. Starting in middle school, every time I go to a new stadium, I get a generic bobblehead of that team. This task was made much harder when Twins Ent. went out of business--they made the best ones. Now, all anybody ever has are player bobble heads, which I don't care about. Still, there are some generics made nowadays (the "Big Head" variety by Forever Collectibles) but not in New York apparently. I couldn't get one when I made my only trip to Yankee Stadium for last year's All Star game and there wasn't one when I went to the new stadium this week. Sadness.

Other than that, I lucked out with some great seats and saw a great game. Now, for additional enjoyment, some Curtis Granderson cards that I've come upon recently.

2008 SP Authentic #62 Curtis Granderson Gold (#46/50)

This is a little known parallel version of one of my favorite cards of last year.

Speaking of last year, I'm slowly chipping away at this set (which I like more and more as the page fills up):

2008 UD Heroes #60 Curtis Granderson Emerald (#118/499)

And for something a little more "now" Upper Deck presents the same general card in two different sets. Notice the different logos though...


So, despite an exhausting week, it never hurts to take a moment and reflect on the good things, which were plentiful. And the Tigers finally won a game at Fenway on the back of Justin Verlander--perhaps a sign of good things still to come?

Ultimate Checklist: 2008 UD Heroes

Let's keep chipping away at '08, shall we? Especially while we're under my self imposed spending ban? UD Heroes is a set that I did not expect to like. When it first came out I thought that it looked dated (it was), I thought the base card coloring was ugly and I thought that the parallels were blinding and tacky. I didn't really both to pick any of these up until months after the original release. I was able to put together a few Grandersons, including a game used jersey or two, and before I knew it I was hooked. Has this happened to anybody else?

You see, while Heroes feels like it would be death for somebody trying to complete a set (even a team set--ugh, it seems so boring), it is absolutely tremendous, albeit a little frustrating, for a player collector. All of those "blinding" colors turn out to be awesome--way better than just the base card. Now, with the majority of the variations under my belt, completing "the rainbow" in this set has risen up the priority chart. Can't you see why? I realize that's not the best picture (I'm still getting used to this "internet" thing--and I don't have a current version of photoshop on my computer) but hopefully you get the jist. Putting all of those colors together is fun. It fills out pages nicely and is so much better than chasing down nearly indistinguishable parallels like Gold, Bronze, Copper, SilverManganese, and Hyper-Polonium. I'm sure that I'll regret saying this as I stare at blank holes in an otherwise colorful page, but it is rather enjoyable chasing down these cards.

Anyway, for those of you who may be interested in joining me on this quest, or starting one of your own, there are Grandersons a-plenty to be had. He is card #60 in the set.

Base
Charcoal
Emerald (#/499)
Black (#/399)
Beige (#/299)
Red (#/249)
Navy Blue (#/199)
Brown (#/149)
Sea Green (#/99)
Light Blue (#/49)
Purple (#/25)

There are also some game used options which, for reasons that I'll never understand, do not follow the same color/number magnitude pattern as the regular cards. They look the same as the regular cards, with the inclusion of a square piece of jersey:

2008 UD Heroes #60 Curtis Granderson: Emerald Jersey

The game used jersey cards fall into the following categories:

Light Blue (#/200)
Black (#/125)
Red (#/100)
Navy Blue (#/50)
Emerald (#/25)

Huh? Does somebody want to explain to me why the Light Blue game used is numbered to 200 while the non-GU version is numbered to 49? aka, the second rarest parallel is the most common game used? Maybe they want to give people a chance of putting a "rainbow" together by substituting game used cards, where appropriate. Anyway, the swatches on those cards are your typical plain-jane jerseys--three out of my four are grey, for what it's worth. But that's not all! There are some patch cards as well, complete with their own incomprehensible numbering scheme:

Light Blue (#/25) --Back to being rare-ish, so far, so good
Beige (#/10) -- 10?!?! for a beige card? Ugh.
Purple (#/5) --another fitting color/number pairing.

So, that's all she wrote on 2008 UD Heroes. Definitely a fun set for a player collector to take a crack at, providing plenty of surprising variety for a release in which every card basically looks the same. I can't imagine having too much fun with this if the same basic design is released again and I have to chase more Grandersons, but I guess if Thorzul can do it, than it can't be all bad.

For those of you keeping score at home, there are only 6 more sets from 2008 left to talk about. Once I've wrapped it up (with a little "Best Of" post, hopefully), I'll be doing the same things with his cards from 2002 to present, with plenty of present day scans and insight mixed in. Again, I apologize for the somewhat sporadic posting--who knew that house hunting and "working for a living" would take up so much time?

More New Cards!

A series of envelopes have come in over the last three days to make up an order of miscellaneous 2008 cards off of Sportlots. For those of you that don't use it, Sportlots is a great way to pick up base/inconsequential cards for very cheap, and without crazy eBay shipping prices. My most recent order added another 17 cards to my collection. Here's what I got:

My first UD Documentary cards of the year, 8 in all:

From Grand Cards

Four more Moments & Milestones to chip away at my set:

From Grand Cards

The base card and Chrome version (#/1959) from Topps Heritage High Numbers:

From Grand Cards

Upper Deck First Edition:

From Curtis Granderson Collection

...and that set's accompanying Starquest Card (giving me all six):

From Curtis Granderson Collection

And last but not least, the Navy Blue version of UD Heroes (#/199):

From Curtis Granderson Collection

A few thoughts on these:

• I do not like the Documentary set, having now seen it in person. It is lame. Out of those 8 cards I have two different pictures and only one of the cards even mentions Curtis. From Game 33: "Detroit worked Daisuke Matsuzaka for eight walks (10 overall) but couldn't capitalize. Curtis Granderson continued his hot hitting with a two-run single in the fourth." That game was at home, but shows him in his away jersey, by the by.
  
• I'm slowly chipping away at the Moments & Milestones set. Please Help Me.
  
• I'm a big fan of the Topps Heritage stuff, especially the chrome.
  
• Upper Deck first edition is perfectly nice, but no different than Upper Deck. At least Topps Opening Day was distinguishable (albeit blinding and somewhat cheap looking)
  
• The Heroes set would be very tiresome to build, but it is a blast for a player collector. These cards are bright and vibrant and relatively inexpensive and make for a very cool Rainbow collection when put together.
  

Mythical Pre-New Years Lot

Alright, that lot of cards that I ordered between Christmas and New Years is now up, bumping my 2009 total from 3 to 17. I will discuss the dynamics of this lot in an upcoming "Value of Cards" post, (aka, how all of these cards were a STEAL). Speaking of which, Part III of that series should be up tomorrow. I have to draw and photograph my diagrams and then we're good.

Anyway, here is my big-time lot that really kicked off my 2009 (Other than my Topps Finest Red Refractor seen here)

2008 Topps Finest Auto

From Curtis Granderson Collection

2008 Topps Heritage High Numbers Refractor (#424/559):

From Curtis Granderson Collection

2008 Bowman Chrome Printing Plate Yellow (1/1)

From Curtis Granderson Collection

2007 Topps Triple Threads (#14/99)

From Curtis Granderson Collection

2007 Topps Triple Threads Sepia (#75/75)

From Curtis Granderson Collection

2007 Topps Triple Threads Gold (#04/25)

From Curtis Granderson Collection

2008 UD Spectrum Auto (#25/30)

From Curtis Granderson Collection

2008 UD Spectrum Emerald (#15/50)

From Curtis Granderson Collection

2008 UD Heroes Relic Green (#22/25)

From Curtis Granderson Collection

2008 UD Premier Milestone Autographs Masterpiece (#06/25)

From Curtis Granderson Collection

2006 Upper Deck Special F/X Red (#12/50)

From Curtis Granderson Collection

2008 Upper Deck Starquest Super Rare

From Curtis Granderson Collection

2008 Upper Deck Starquest Ultra-Rare

From Curtis Granderson Collection