Slowing Down

Well, things have slowed down considerably as of late. I have been getting a few new cards here and there and I am making progress towards my goal, but I have had to slow down a bit as my wife and I get ready for our son to be born. We are expecting him to come on March 13th, but it could be any day. I am still very amazed at the support I have received to this point and trading with people in other states has been a lot of fun. I am also glad that my family has been following my posts and have agreed to lend support and look for needed cards.

So here is where I stand at the moment. I have 66% of the blue set complete only needing 110 more cards for the set. I have made several trades for blues and purchased some on eBay, but now I am getting stuck with too many doubles. If anyone knows of a better way to get the ones I need please let me know.

The emerald set is definitely harder to get than I first thought it should be. It is also turning out to me more expensive to complete than I anticipated, but the chase is part of the fun. I currently have 67 emerald cards. That leaves 263 more emerald cards to go. If anyone reading my blog has some for trade I am very interested in trading for as many as I possibly can.

I will probably not post again until after my son is born, but I will continue my quest and I hope people continue reading and following this project with me.


Bubba

Trades, Trades, and More Trades

I am in the process of completing another trade for 150 Blue Border cards and 15 Emerald cards and I have another person interested in trading 12 more Emeralds. I am very excited as to how much fun this has become and how easy people are to deal with. I am sure that not all trades are executed perfectly and that not all trades are fair for both parties, but I am very satisfied with the ones I have made so far. I was asked to put together a list of all of my Jersey Patch cards for trade and I thought this would be as good a place as any to put out a list.


2001 - Upper Deck Pros & Prospects - Rafael Palmero & Jim Thome Dual Bat
2001 - Upper Deck - Garry Sheffield - Big League Challenge Jersey
2001 - Sp Game Used - Ivan Rodriguez Jersey
2002 - Stadium Club - World Stage Jersey - Kazuhisa Ishii
2002 - Upper Deck - Luis Gonzales Jersey #117/275
2002 - Upper Deck - Eric Chavez Jersey
2002 - Upper Deck - David Cone - Stars of 89 Jersey (with Pinstripe)
2002 - Sweet Spot Classics - Fred Lynn Bat
2003 - Topps Finest Jersey - Randy Johnson (with pinstripe)
2003 - Fleer Ultra - Shawn Green - Moonshots Jersey
2003 - Flair Greats - Dennis Eckersley Jersey - Cut of History
2003 - Upper Deck - USA Jersey - Steven Register
2003 - Fleer - Splendid Splinter - Miguel Tejada Bat #338/425
2003 - Fleer Platinum - Edgar Martinez Jersey - #68/400
2004 - Topps Finest Jersey - Rich Harden
2004 - Skybox Autographics - Mike Schmidt Bat #15/350
2004 - Topps Heritage - Clubhouse Collection - Eric Chavez Jersey

2004 - Topps Heritage -Clubhouse Collection - Kazuhisa Ishii
2004 - Skybox Jersey Graphics - Jason Giambi #67/250
2010 - Bowman USA - Red Jersey - Chris Chinea #44/50

2012 - Gypsy Queen - Mini Jersey - Y. Gallardo x2
2012 - Gypsy Queen - Mini Jersey - Z. Greinke
2012 - Topps - Golden Moments - David Ortiz Jersey



I also have 21 Football Jersey Relics and 20 plus Autograph cards for trade. I don't think many are worth much and I will get them listed next. Thank you and if you see something you like let me know. Follow me on Twitter @brianhuens.


Bubba

Blue Border Is Rolling!!!!

Today has been a wonderful day. My wife surprised me this morning with a couple of blaster boxes of Topps 2013 along with a very funny card. When I checked the mail today I noticed several packages which all contained... you guessed it Baseball card. One of which was 140 different Blue Border parallel cards for my set. Fortunately 90 of the cards were useful and only 50 were cards that I already had. I am now trying to resell my blue doubles and purchase some more of the cards I need. I also received the cards that I traded for a few days ago. I was very happy to see the agreed upon cards and I cannot wait to trade again. Trading is one of the great things that have always been done with Baseball cards, and I am glad to see that it continues to this day. I am now up to 40 Emerald parallel cards and about 150 of the Blue parallel cards. It has been less than a month since the release and I am well on my way to accomplishing my task. Please keep reading and if you want to trade just let me know.

Happy Valentines Day,

Bubba

Buying and Trading

Today was a very good day in terms of chasing down these cards. I won my first auction for 140 Blue Wal-Mart parallel cards. I paid approximately $0.29 per card and will most likely have a few duplicates, but I think the price was pretty good considering how many packs it would take to get those cards. I have also completed my first trades via Twitter. I will let you know how it went when the cards arrive, but I am very optimistic that the people I am trading with are genuine and honest. I look forward to doing some more trading and posting more pictures of my progress. Here is a link to my Photo bucket where you will find more cards for trade. That is all for now, I will update again and I will keep on working towards my goal.

http://s1265.beta.photobucket.com/user/bhuens/library/


Thanks,

Bubba

The Chase Has Begun!!!

The theme for the 2013 Topps Baseball cards this year is "The Chase" and I am starting to understand exactly what they mean. On Wednesday night I headed over to Target in hopes of getting a few of the blaster boxes that I just knew they would have. It turns out that they do not update their card isle daily and would not be putting out the new Topps cards until the weekend. I wanted Target because I thought the red border would look better than the blue border that Wal-Mart cards would have. I ended up at Wal-Mart and purchased two blaster boxes, 4 regular packs, and 1 rack pack. When I arrived home I quickly went to our sports room and started ripping open my new obsession. I was very happy with the overall product and I really was surprised at the value that each blaster box contained. Here are a few of the cards that I pulled form the blaster boxes.

The first card here is a blue parallel card of rookie pitcher Dylan Bundy. The blue
parallel cards are only available at Wal-Mart. I currently have more of the blue cards than any of the other colored parallels, so it makes sense to complete that set also. The two cards below are the emerald parallel and gold parallel versions of this year's set. I really like how the emerald cards look, they really stand out and are noticeably different than the other parallel sets. The gold parallel cards area all numbered out of 2013 which makes them a bit more difficult to find in packs than the emerald cards. I will most likely work on the gold set along with the others, but I  am more concerned about finishing the emerald and blue sets first.

The last card that I scanned is one of the 25 SP (short print) cards that Topps put out this year. The theme is "out of bounds" and all of the pictures on these cards depict players catching or attempting to catch a ball that is out of bounds. I was very excited to have pulled one of these cards from my blaster box at Wal-Mart.

Here is where I currently stand on set completion. I have one possibly two complete base sets, 25/330 emerald parallel cards, 14/330 gold parallel cards, 43/330 blue parallel cards, and I have a single pink (breast cancer) parallel. I am looking to buy some lots on eBay if the price is right and I am really looking at trading for a lot of these parallel cards. I will post some more pictures next week of the autographs I pulled from the two jumbo boxes I purchased. I will also be posting more cards that are for trade. Please send me an email if you want to trade for any of the cards I put in my previous post or if you have a lot for sale. I am sure I will be going back to Wal-Mart to get some more blaster boxes later this week.


thank for reading,
Bubba

Update #2 - 3 Days until the Release

Well, we only have 3 days until the release of Topps 2013 Baseball. I have been seeing a lot of pictures of cards featured in the set and it looks like it is going to be a very fun set this year. I have also started seeing some pre-sale listings on Ebay for the complete Emerald set. I am very tempted to consider purchasing it that way, but I feel it takes almost all of the fun out of set building. Throughout this experience I am hoping to make some new friends, visit some new hobby stores, go to a show or two, and have the involvement of my family during this task. While saving money to have someone else complete set does sound tempting, I would be missing out on all of those other experiences, and who knows what I will find along the way. In this case I think taking the road less traveled sounds like a more rewarding experience, even if it does cost me more money along the way.

In my last post I talked about using Twitter.com. I must say I did not really know what to expect, but I am glad I did. Currently I am following 12 different people/organizations and I have 5 followers. I have made contact with a person interested in trading cards in the future. The entire experience is quite simple really and it is also pretty fun. If anyone reading this has a Twitter account follow me @BrianHuens. I know I should have used a different handle, one that suits this blog more, but I am not going to start over now.

I also wanted to post some of the cards that I am willing to trade in order to get some Emerald Foil 2013 Topps cards. So here they are in no particular order. Some are better than others and there are more to come.

Barry Bonds - Topps Finest 2003- Jersey

 Randy Johnson - Topps Moments and Milestones 2007 - 1/1

Derek Jeter - Playoff Prestige 2004 - #008/250

Jose Reyes - Topps Heritage 2004

Alex Rodriguez - Topps Gallery 2005 - Bat Piece


Anyone interested in any these for Sale or Trade please send me an email. I should definately have a lot to share/discuss next week so please check it out.


Bubba

Update #1

First, I want to thank everyone that has wished me well in this little project. I think that the idea of other people actually reading this and following my posts, creates a sense of need within me to keep doing it. I also hope my use of the English language improves with this project. I have often wondered how much of the grammar learned in school is lost when you are not concerned about writing correctly for a very long time.

There is not much to update at the moment as the cards are not officially on sale yet. I did however begin going through my collection to find cards to trade or sell. I hope to have a simple trade list up by next Sunday and I hope to put a few cards on Ebay to try and make a little money for the project. I have tried to get this Blog out quickly and to several people. I even had one of my posts deleted on a forum that I am part of because you are not allowed to promote your own site through theirs. I guess I was a bit overzealous in my attempt to get the word out. (notice the correct use of the word overzealous.)

The next phase of get the word out is going to be through twitter. I have a general understanding of the way twitter works, because I am technically the one who runs the account for the school I work at. I don't know how many baseball card collectors keep track of things on twitter, but I guess I will find out this week. Next week I will hopefully have more updates and information and I will begin the countdown to the beginning of my project.


Bubba 

Starting the Topps Baseball 2013 Emerald Set

2013 will be an exciting year for my wife and I as we welcome the addition of a baby boy to our family in March. I have always wanted a son, so that I could share with him all of the things my father and grandfather shared with me. I started thinking about all of the things I wanted to do with my new son and let me tell you there are a lot. So many of the things require him to be a bit older to enjoy or appreciate, but collecting baseball cards from his birth year seemed like something I could do while he was just a baby. As he gets older I hope to share my love of sports and its memorabilia with him.

This Blog will be used to chronicle my attempt to complete the 2013 Topps Baseball - Emerald parallel set of 330 cards. I really enjoy putting sets together, but to date I have only completed one set. I have several sets started with intentions of finishing them, but the cost or difficulty of finding the cards has always slowed me down. I know that I will need the help of others to complete this task which is why I have taken the advice from www.cardboardconnection.com and started a trading/collecting blog.

Currently I have 2 boxes of 2013 Topps Jumbo packs ordered and plan on starting with that. I should have 20 Emerald cards once I have opened those packs. Hopefully, I can use some of the other cards to trade or sell for more Emerald cards. Once those avenues are exhausted I plan on selling or trading some of the other cards in my collection. I will be posting a Trade list in the next few days and I will update my progress towards completion as I get new additions. I am actually a bit excited to try this out and see what happens.  

If anyone has advice, tips, or cards they want to trade or possibly sell please email me at bhuens@gmail.com. Thanks for reading and wish me luck.

Yours Truly,
 Bubba