I have been watching the cards being redeemed in the Topps Million Card Giveaway trying to time the machine. I know it is a hopeless endeavor but early on the cards seemed to come out in groups by year. That is no longer the case for the vintage stuff as they are sprinkled very lightly now. Still, I tried to apply some of my dad’s slot machine skills to the task.

My dad always believed in having a Cherry Coke at the casino to get the mojo going. If things got slow he would order another to try to change his luck. He also had a particular way that he pushed the button on the slot machine, he rarely pulled the arm as that would grow tiresome after several hours of playing. He had other quirks like always betting the max on each spin and if he won and was waiting on a hand pay out he wouldn’t let his finger get cold waiting on the cash, he would play the machine next to or behind his.

For several years my dad was ahead of the casinos. He always had comped rooms, meals and show tickets waiting on him. He would say he needed money to buy a new washing machine or fix the car and he would head over to Shreveport and win what he needed for the bill. He got his picture taken a couple of times and made the wall of fame but eventually his luck ran out. It was a fun ride while it lasted and he and my mom got to see a lot of shows and eat a lot of steaks.

Anyway, like I said I had been watching the redemptions looking for a pattern but I didn’t really see an opportunity. I was getting anxious to just punch the two codes and roll the dice. The Topps Million Card Giveaway is like a slot machine. You have a chance to win big but only a small few will, the rest will just be left with a bunch of commons. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy the promotion and it is one of the best things to come out of Topps lately. Well, except for Allen & Ginter, but as a promotion Topps Million is my favorite promo.

I didn’t have a Cherry Coke so I substituted a Diet Coke and Crown Royal. I typed the code in the box and then as I reached for my mouse to click the unlock button I curled my hand over the mouse and tapped the button just the way I had seen my dad push the max bet button thousands of times before. No alarms went off and there were no flashing lights, just a 1987 Topps Eddie Murray appeared on my screen. Crap! I don’t hate the 1987 set but I have at least two complete sets and thousands of them in boxes.

Next up in the Topps Slot Machine was the enigma that is Pete Rose. I now have another 1989 #505 Pete Rose. It seems kind of coincidental that I would get a player with a gambling problem when I was thinking about slot machines. Oh well, at least I don’t have to worry about having any of these cards shipped to me.

Now that I am out of redemption cards I need to go buy me some more packs so I can try my luck again.

Several days ago I was shopping around on Ebay for some Ian Kinsler cards but couldn’t find anything I needed at a price I was willing to pay. So I checked around for Chris Davis cards and came up with an auction for a 2010 Topps Gold Chris Davis. The card was numbered 0216/2010 and had a starting bid of a quarter with $1.50 shipping. I placed a bid and won the card for a quarter. It arrived promptly and was just as described.

The day before the Davis Gold card arrived I opened a couple of packs of 2008 Topps Updates & Highligts. In one pack I pulled a Taylor Teagarden Rookie and in the other pack I pulled a Chris Davis Rookie. Teagarden is locked in a battle for the starting catchers position again this year and I hope he wins it. Davis had a tough season last year after a fast start after being called up in June of 2008. He was sent down to the Minors last year but has worked very hard to get his stroke back.

Three simple cards that many would call worthless but to someone that collects baseball cards these are great cards. Thats the difference between a baseball card collector and a baseball card speculator.

I opened the Patch card first which is kind of unusual for me. Much to my delight I saw “Gehrig” as I peeled back the wrapper. Sweet!! But, then I noticed that the patch wasn’t completely secured to the card. Oh well, I don’t care this card is going into my personal collection anyway. The patch commemorates the 1936 World Series between the Yankees and the New York Giants. The Yankees won the Series four games to two. Gehrig had seven hits and two homers with seven runs batted in for the Series.

The two packs that contained the black parallels yielded one of my favorite players, Ivan Rodriguez. I was stoked about that and the card looked pretty good in black. The Yunel Escobar card was pretty sweet too, love the red jersey in that one. The black parallels are not the typical black borders we have seen so many times. These black cards feature the entire photo and border except for the player image converted to black. Now the background image is not actually completely black but darkened in some cases so much that you really have to look close to see anything in the background.

Between the Target and Walmart parallels I prefer the Target retros. I really don’t like glossy cards in my base sets even though the Target fronts are still glossy the grey cardboard feels more like the cards I first collected. That is the main reason why I have bought more of the retro styled offerings from the card manufacturers the last few years. I am still going to build the 2010 Topps base set with no regard to parallels. In other words as I build the set if I need a particular card it will go in the set no matter which version it is.

I also managed to get two more of the Tales of the Game inserts that I needed for the set. One featured Ripken Jr and the other featured Wade Boggs as “Chicken Man”. I was not a Boggs fan, I appreciated his talent and hard work but didn’t collect many of his cards. I also appreciated his superstitions which is pretty normal for Baseball. Through the history of Baseball many players and fans have treated superstitions with caution and fervor. I like this card with Bogg and a coop full of chickens.

I also freed another Topps Million Card Giveaway from hiding with this one featuring Roger Maris on the front. I now have two cards to redeem and I am watching the site looking for another 50′s trend. I am about ready to give up on trying to catch a wave of vintage and just take a shot. In the early days the cards seemed to be grouped by year or decades as they were revealed. For a week now I have been watching looking for a group of 50′s and 60′s cards to show themselves. But, it seems like now the vintage cards are very lightly sprinkled among the others.

Alright back to my kitchen table covered with boxes and cards. I at least want to get those sorted before I open anymore packs or boxes.

Browsing through a stack of 2010 Topps Baseball cards I came across a card that really stood out to me. The card was the Joe Mauer #150. I sat it aside and continued through the stack but I found myself glancing over at the Mauer and losing interest in the others. Even though I am not a big fan of the 2010 Topps design this card came close to perfection.

I don’t think the 2010 design is horrible but it has too much foil, (a pet peeve of mine) and I just don’t like the shading on the left side. But, the photo of Mauer sliding on his knees to pick up a baseball is really sweet. I love action photos on cards especially defensive action photos like this one. Some might say that they don’t like the card because you can’t see Mauer’s face. That doesn’t matter to me because what I see is a great player giving 110%. My coaches always encouraged me to give 110% and not bring anything back to the locker room. It was a good lesson then and it is still a good lesson today.

I labeled this card “almost perfect”, so what would encourage me to call it “Perfect”? As I mentioned earlier get rid of the foil and the shading on the left for starters. The one thing I wished they had done with this card though, would have been to issue it in a landscape format. If they had done that I would probably have to collect every parallel version of this card.

As disappointed as I am in the foil and shading of the 2010 issue I have to give Topps some credit for using some better photos this year. The Topps base issue often features lackluster photography that I barely even take notice of. This year I have found myself studying more photos on the cards this year and enjoying even average player cards because of the increase in quality photos.

I think this card is going to push me over the edge to completing the set this year. It has been awhile since I built a Topps base set from scratch but I am going to have to put my dislike of the foil and shading aside. Now the only decision I have to make about it is what to do about the Target and Walmart versions. I am leaning on building the set and disregarding which versions make up my set. It might be weird later thumbing through the set and seeing different borders, logos and card stock but I don’t care.

Thanks to the almost perfect card #150 I have made a decision about the 2010 Topps Baseball issue. Now, how many blasters will it take? Maybe I should buy a hobby box, it doesn’t really matter I am just going to enjoy my cardboard.

My wife and I went to First Monday Trades Days in Canton Texas this past weekend for the first time together in about a year. First Monday began in Canton over 150 years ago and has grown into a unique shopping experience spread out over 100 acres. There are numerous covered pavilions to stroll through along with the uncovered grounds where you can find almost anything from antiques to home grown honey. This isn’t your typical flea market and you are kidding yourself if you think you can see it all in one day.

Back in the mid 80′s to early 90′s you could find someone selling baseball cards on nearly every aisle but as the glut of cardboard and the speculators took their toll on the hobby there are only a few left on the grounds. I managed to find one booth in a pavilion that was offering some singles along with licensed signs and framed photos. The vendor dressed in his Luv Ya Blue Earl Campbell jersey had something I just love to dig through, 5,000 count boxes.

All of his boxes were organized by team in alphabetical order which I was not quite used to. Most of these type boxes I run across are organized by player or set. I found the Texas Rangers section and began to browse through the cards looking for Pudge, Kinsler, Teagarden, Davis and Andrus. I found 7 Kinsler cards that I needed and sat them aside. I didn’t find anything else I needed so I moved on. The Kinsler’s I picked up were a 2009 Topps Ticket to Stardom, 2009 UD Starquest Emerald Super Rare, 2009 UD Starquest Silver Common, 2009 O-Pee-Chee, 2009 Topps Heritage and a 2009 Bowman. It turns out one of the cards I selected was a dupe, the 2007 Allen & Ginter.

Next up I went through the Green Bay Packers cards hoping to find some nice Aaron Rodgers or Jermichael Finley cards and maybe a Favre or two. I didn’t find one Finley card but I did find one each of Rodgers and Favre I needed. The Rodgers is a 2006 Turkey Red and the Favre was a 2006 Donruss Threads Dynasty insert. I almost didn’t get the Favre because the card was not impressive at all but rather boring. The card had too much wasted space but if I am going to Touch’em All I was going to need it at some point.

I browsed through the Yankees and Astros looking for cards I wanted or would have been steals as every card in the 5,000 count boxes were fifty cents each. I came up empty so I turned my attention to looking for former Texas Longhorns. That is a time consuming process since the boxes were organized by teams instead of player names. I did end up finding a Limas Sweed from the 2008 UD Draft Edition issue.

Another interesting thing about the organization of these boxes was that he had placed all the players by their current team, not the teams they were with on the cards. For example in the Rangers section he had cards of Rich Harden with the A’s and even Mike Lowell with Red Sox. I guess he sorted these before the Lowell to the Rangers deal went south. Anyway, it was great to get to browse through thousands of cards again.

Later in the day I found some bobble heads from stadium give aways the Rangers had done. I was interested in the Jim Sundberg bobble but I didn’t want to pay the asking price of $15, I wished I would have now though. I would have paid $15 if she still had the box, I offered her $8 hoping she would take it or counter at $10. No deal she was firm at $15 so I moved on.

All in all it was a good day of browsing the hand made, home made and old items of today and the past. There truly is something for everyone at First Monday Trades Days.

I just now got around to opening a blaster of 2008 Topps Updates and Highlights that my sister bought me for Christmas. I am bad about getting stuff and waiting forever to open it. I used to drive my friends nuts because I wouldn’t open wax packs in the shop, I always waited till I got home at least. I wouldn’t open stuff in the shop because I didn’t want to damage anything on the way home.

Anyway, I finally opened this box over the weekend and found a really nice Game Used card. As you can see in the scan it is a Game Worn Pants card of Mets star David Wright. What makes this card great and a keeper in my collection is the fact that the paints have a little infield dirt still showing in the fabric. Sweet! I don’t collect Wright but I do love to collect dirty pants.

Another great feature of this card is the photo also shows him wearing pants with dirt on them. One of my pet peeves with Game Worn cards is they often feature swatches that don’t match the uniform being worn in the pictures. This card is perfect, well except for the lower left corner which is a little layered.

Right now I am keeping this card in the wrapper that it came in but at some point I will have to touch the fabric. I have a habit of touching the fabric in all my Game Worn cards. I don’t really know why but I do. Thanks sis, see I told you I was easy to shop for.

I think in most parts of the country the prices for Blaster Boxes are normally within three cents or so of each other. In my area they are regularly priced at $19.99 or $19.98 at the big box chains Target, WalMart and Toys R Us. This year that has changed at one of these stores. I have not been down the card aisle in this store in probably six months so I can’t say when the pricing changed. When I went looking for 2010 Topps Series One Baseball Blasters I was shocked to see the blasters priced at $21.99.

Yep, my local Toys R us is charging $2 more for blasters of not only 2010 Baseball Card issues but also 2009 Baseball and Football issues. Why would Toys R Us charge more for their blasters than Target or Walmart? Are they not buying enough to get the same wholesale price as Target or Walmart? Maybe there is more value in the boxes from Toys R Us. From what I can tell there is not any published differences in the Toys R Us Blasters that would warrant a $2 premium.

My attention was quickly diverted to the 2010 Topps Cereal Boxes so I didn’t really pick up the blasters to try to figure out if they had something extra in them. By the way, Toys R Us charges a dollar more for the cereal boxes than the other guys. I like to shop at Toys R Us for blasters now and again because they will sometimes have something different than Target or Walmart but there is no way I am paying $2 more for nothing.

What is the pricing for blasters from Toys R Us near you? Are there differences in the blasters? If you have paid the extra money and bought any were the pulls any better?

I have now redeemed two cards in the Topps Million Card Giveaway promotion. My first Topps Million Card Giveaway redemption turned out to be a 1989 George Brett #200. Not a vintage card like I had hoped for but at least it was a great player that I enjoyed watching play the game. I was again hopeful for a vintage card with this redemption but I also understand there will be far more modern commons revealed during the promotion than vintage cardboard.

When I clicked the unlock button I was greeted by a 2000 Derek Bell #148. Oh well, I am still enjoying the promotion and at least it wasn’t a checklist card from say 1988. I didn’t buy a lot of wax from 2000 Topps nor did I build the set so I don’t really have any use for this card.

I decided to make a trade request but with my two cards I don’t have much trade bait. I searched to see if any Taylor Teagardens had been unlocked yet but didn’t have any luck. Next I searched for Kinslers and found a few 2005 base cards so I offered up both of my cards for one 2005 Ian Kinsler. According to the note on my proposed trade my two cards are worth more than the one Kinsler but not to me. I have the offer running for a week so maybe someone will take me up on it. If not I’ll find something else I need.

Have you redeemed any cards yet? If so what is your opinion of the promotion so far?

On my lunch break I decided to make a short detour to see what I could find in the trading cards aisle of the local Toys R Us. I discovered that the aisle had moved again since my last visit but the selection was about the same. Hanging on the pegs were the repackaged packs of 2008-2009 baseball, football and basketball cards, along with a few rack packs of various brands and years. None of these captured my interest so I looked below to the shelves with the blasters.

On the shelf were probably a total of 20-25 blasters of various brands, sports and years. There were not any blasters of 2010 Topps Baseball to be found. I picked through some of the boxes from last year to see if they were marked down but none of them were. However, the Cereal Box configuration is back for 2010 and they had a whole row of them. They were not priced so I picked one up and headed for a scanner. Last year I bought a couple of the Cereal boxes at Walmart for $9.99 so I was a bit disappointed to see the price pop up at $10.99.

I decided to get one anyway instead of waiting to see if Walmart had them. I picked out a box with Lou Gehrig on the front and headed for the register. The Cereal Boxes contain 55 cards plus one Legends Chrome Refractor. The checklist for the Legends Chrom Refractors is Mickey Mantle, Jackie Robinson, Ty Cobb, Warren Spahn, Albert Pujols, Mariano Rivera, Jimmie Foxx, Cy Young and Honus Wagner. When I opened the box I fully expected to have dinged corners when I saw the smooshed wrappers inside. The Legends Refractor was individually wrapped like the patch cards in blasters but the top was folded over. The 55 cards were wrapped in plastic and not secured like the old cello packs. There was a piece of styrofoam to help keep things from moving around.

I started not to open this box and just keep it like it is and add it to my unopened small box collection. But, I have the Topps Million Card Giveaway virus so I had to open it to try and get another code. I am very glad I did open this box. No, I didn’t get some rare gimmick card or Mickey Mantle swatch but I did get something just as good to a baseball card collector. Hidden inside my box were cards I actually liked and collect.

First of all the reason I opened this box instead of putting it on my shelf was the hope of getting a Million Card Giveaway Redemption. My wish was granted as I thumbed through the cards and found one of my All Time Favorites on the redemption card, Thurman Munson. Then something that has never happened to me before. I pulled three Topps All-Star Rookies for my longest running collecting habit of saving those darn trophy cards. Not only did I get three but I got Elvis. No that that Elvis but Elvis Andrus of the Texas Rangers. Next up was Gordon Beckham followed by J.A. Harp.

I also pulled 5 Rookies Carlos Carrasco, Drew Stubbs, Kyle Phillips, Josh Thole and Madison Bumgarner. The Stubbs card is sweet since I collect all former Texas Longhorns. I also got a Turning Two for Texas Ian Kinsler/Elvis Andrus card which will go right into my Kinsler box. I wasn’t expecting to find nine insert cards but I did. From the Cards Your Mom Threw Out issue Roger Maris and Mike Schmidt. Both cards feature their 1961 and 1976 Topps respectively. The 1961 and 1976 issues are two of my favorites.

The other inserts were Legendary Lineage Gehrig/Teixeira, Peak Performance Curt Schilling, When they Were Young Ricky Nolasco, ToppsTown Ryan Howard, Turkey Red Derek Lee, History of the Game First Night Game in MLB History and a Tales of the Game Topps Dumps 1952 Cards in the River.

Out of the 56 cards cards I will be keeping 12 of them for my personal collection. I am also leaning on collecting the set this year so that number would go up considerably if I do. I still haven’t decided what I want to do about the set. I would rather collect the grey backs but since they are only two packs to a blaster that would get pricey for this issue.

This 2010 Topps Cereal Box went so well I’ll have to get me another one soon.

Today the much anticipated Topps Million Card Giveaway promotion opened to all kinds of emotions. This morning many awoke expecting to create their accounts and start logging in codes. The site was late to open and even as I write this post the site is still struggling under the heavy load of users trying to redeem their cards. In my day job I work in the automotive industry and this situation quickly reminded me of all the issues the Cash for Clunkers program brought to dealers and consumers.

I have been acquainted with a few site launches that had a great deal of buzz before launch so I was expecting there to be problems today. I checked early this morning to see if the site was up and I checked again during lunch. I was following the redemption activities of a few collectors on Twitter so I knew there were some cards getting redeemed but it was still a struggle. I decided to wait till after dinner to create my account and redeem the only giveaway card I have at the moment.

The site loaded quickly and I entered my information and had my account opened. I logged in and put my code in the box but nothing happened. A window opened in the middle of the screen but it was empty. I wondered if the redemption went through but just didn’t show me my card. When I clicked on the My Collection tab it revealed that I did not have any cards. So, I put the code in a second time and this time when the window opened I was greeted by George Brett.

I wasn’t lucky enough to get his Rookie card, instead I received a 1989 Topps #200 showing Brett warming up before a game or maybe spring training. At least I can say my first redemption was for a great player, just not one of his great cards. Oh well, I probably have a dozen or more of these in boxes around here.

I have to say that I think this promotion is going to be a lot of fun. Plus, it should be good for Topps to help move product and get tons of free press. Granted all the coverage will not be positive but in the long run I think it will be very successful. Now I just have to get me some more redemption cards and see what else I can get.