Both Rays items I picked up yesterday were signed items from players who had stopped in Durham on their way to the Majors. Really cool items that Jimmy found from a great local autograph collector.
This is a Jeremy Hellickson autograph on a ticket stub from his first Major League victory. Really cool and unique item of one of my favorite Durham Bulls. I love collecting autographs and the vast majority of my autograph collection is in card form, but I love finding unique items like this. Who has a ticket stub from Jeremy Hellickson's Major League Debut hanging out in their house? I do not know, but I am really happy to own this piece. Here's a look at Hellickson during the game. John Jaso is catching....
I also landed a nice ball from pitcher Matt Moore. Moore spent a good deal of time in Durham before landed a job in the starting rotation of the Rays. The ball is from the Southern League and features a nice signature of Moore on the sweet spot of the ball.
Two really nice Rays autographs and both are on unique pieces. On to the Cardinals half of the post. All my Cardinals additions are in baseball card form. First up are a few Yadis.
Starting simple, this is a Molina short print from this year's Topps Heritage set. Not many cards show off Yadi's cool neck tattoos. One more Yadi short print.....
I posted one or two of these variations before with my box breaks. This is the Stats variation which features the Sabermetric stats on the back of the card instead of the traditional stats that Topps has put on their cards for years and years. Topps has already added the WAR stat to the back of the regular cards, but think a few of these stats could find their way onto the regular issue of Topps cards. I'd love to see the OPS+ stat there.
Still staying pretty simple, this is a pair of rookie cards from new Cardinals pitcher Sam Tuivailala. I have a good feeling about Tuivailala and could see him moving into a prominent role in the Cardinals bullpen in the near future. I had posted a pair of his autographs a few weeks back. Nice player, give him a look.
On to things that are a little bit harder to find...This is a nice copy of a 2013 Bowman Platinum Blue parallel. The card is numbered to 40/199. Taveras cards still seem to be selling low even though he has started to pick it up at the plate in recent weeks. Hoping that Matheny can find him some at-bats on a regular basis next season. Next Taveras card.......
I have always love the Bowman Inception cards. Last year the set was my favorite product of the year. It was a nice product again this year, and I have added a few autographs from the set, but not quite as gaga over this year's issue. Still I love this Taveras. He's got a great signature and the card has a nice on-card autograph. This is the green version of the card and is serial numbered to just 75 copies.
Jimmy picked this card up for me this past week. I pulled a copy of the Hank Aaron card like this and was more than happy to pick up a Wacha card numbered to just 25 copies. Have you looked at the Wacha card from Allen & Ginter and compared it to the Trevor Rosenthal? They could be brothers.
On to my favorite. I LOVE THESE.....
Topps puts out all kinds of parallels. Pink, camo, etc, etc, etc. The best of them all have been the Acetate parallels numbered to just 10 copies. I have picked up a few Cardinals cards. Love this card and the set.
Overall, the single cards and items I picked up from Big D's today were all really awesome adds. I am not sure how I would ever find half of the cards I pick up for my collection if it were not for the owner, Jimmy, keeping his eyes open for all of these cool cards. If you live around Raleigh-Durham, or are visiting, a trip to Big D's is well worth your time. If you can't make it into the store, you can also check out the shop on Facebook and Twitter.
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