Snorting Bull September Blog Contest

During the month of September I will be holding two different trivia give aways.  Don't worry this contest doesn't involve photoshopped baseball cards.  Below there is a trivia question about the Durham Bulls minor league baseball team from which my blog draws its namesake.  You must answer the question correctly by 8pm EST on Saturday, September 15.  I will put the names of the correct answers into a randomization.  The winner for this contest will receive a prize related to the contest winner.  There will be another contest the second half of the month.  Your answer can be submitted the following ways:

1. emailed to thesnortingbull@gmail.com
2. pm on Facebook
3. direct message on Twitter

DO NOT ANSWER AS A REPLY TO THIS BLOG POST! 

Question:

The Durham Bulls are one of the oldest minor league teams in all of baseball having formed in 1902.  During that time only one player currently in the Hall of Fame has played for the team.  Who is the only Hall of Famer who played for the team?  

1998 Topps Tek Set

Setting goals is an important part of collecting.  There are a lot of days you can look back into your card boxes and feel a deep sense of accomplishment with the different things you have achieved with your collection.  It's one of the great parts of collecting cards.  Also, yard work.

Tonight, I am blogging about one of my favorite "white whales" in my collecting career: The 1998 Topps Tek set.  The set was released towards the end of the calendar year in 1998 with a simple 90 card set and one huge twist.  Each of the 90 cards would have 90 different variations, meaning that the base set was 8100 cards.  I am sure there are people that sought to finish the complete set, but many people tried to focus on just one player.  I had an easy choice.  Ray Lankford.

1998 Tops Tek Ray Lankford Pattern 50

 1998 Topps Tek Ray Lankford Pattern 70

1998 Topps Tek Ray Lankford Pattern 76 

1998 Topps Tek Ray Lankford Pattern 52

1998 Topps Tek Ray Lankford Pattern 21

The cards were very available in abundance for awhile and many collectors went to work.  I am even positive that some collectors were even able to assemble the full 81 card set for an individual player.  I was off to a good start with my collection and got all the way up to 38.  That was a few years ago.  I added one earlier this year to bring my total to 39.  And now?  Currently there is one Topps Tek Ray Lankford card up on Ebay and it's a parallel listed as a Buy It Now for $24.  There are only 5 available on COMC and I already own those variations.  

I know that it would be an awesome feat to accomplish and I would post way more than five pictures on my blog (I'd post them all) if I ever got the full 90.  The Topps Tek set reappeared two more times before it was retired after the 2000 release.  The set is one of the best from the 90s and one of the most underrated chase sets of all-time.  Ask a person who has a personal collection of one of the 90 players appearing in the 1998 set and I am sure that many would relay the same story.

2008 Topps Triple Threads Matt Holliday 6 Piece Relic

I have enjoyed having time and taking a slight break from work this holiday weekend to blog and write about my cards.  I am going to make two posts today, one now and one later today, about a card that I bought cheaply and another group of cards I spent time with this weekend.

First up for today is an older Topps Triple Threads card from 2008.  The Triple Threads cards first appeared in 2006 and have become a staple release every year since for Topps.  I am a big collector of the cards and actually think they have great improved since the initial few sets.  The autographs have become mainly on card and the amount of cool patches and unique jersey pieces have also increased.

Even though the product has improved over time there are still some great older Triple Threads cards out on the market.  My card today is one which I picked up for less than $5 with a print run of 9, four jersey pieces, and two bats.

2008 Topps Triple Threads Matt Holliday 6 Piece Relic

This card has a book value of $20 which is essential the same as the Matt Holliday relic cards from the 2011 Triple Threads release.  However, a quick glance of COMC or Ebay will show that sellers aren't coming off of the book value for the new Triple Threads cards.  The older cards have closed lower and often start off below book making them a great value for collectors to add to their collections.  The book value of the older Triple Threads cards are probably inflated for most of the cards.  

Must Have Shelby Millers

My blog is going to be sixth months old in a few days and I took some time to reflect back over my posts.  I love blogging and am going to continue to write in this space about my baseball cards.  However, I have gotten away from writing about the cards that I already have in my collection and have primarily focused on cards that I have traded for or bought.  I am going to do a little better about showing the cards already in my man cave a little love.

With that end in mind, I am happy to see that the Cardinals are calling up uber-prospect Shelby Miller this afternoon.  Miller has long been considered an elite prospect, but he had a rough year to the start.  He turned it around the second half and put together a great second half.  So, what cards are out there of this super prospect?  I am going to share three of his cards, two rookies and a second year card, that are easy to find and affordable around $20 or less.

1.  2010 Bowman Chrome Autograph (Sorry my scanner is making this card look ugly) RC

This card is a true rookie and can be found in its autograph form, as pictured, or in a non-autograph form.  The autographed version will run anywhere from $20 to $30 with the parallel version going up from there depending on print runs.  Given the craze on rookie cards at times, this Shelby Miller rookie is really a good investment.  It's a true rookie and it's an on card autograph.  If the guy does anything next year the card will at least hold value if not increase.  

2.  2010 Topps Pro Debut Jumbo Future Games Jersey RC

This is another good Shelby Miller rookie card to keep an eye on and there are several pluses in it's favor.  First, it's a limited print run jersey card.  Miller only has three or four jersey cards, but two of them are limited.  This card has a print run of only 200, which in today's era of tiny relic pieces and high print runs, is great.  In fact, there is only one of these available on Ebay at the moment and none on COMC.com.  However, about five or six have sold in the past month for less than $10.  They are out there, but maybe not for long.  

3.  2011 Bowman Platinum Autograph 

It was hard to decided between this card and his 2011 Bowman Futures Game Relic, but an on card autograph trumps a relic card.  That card could be a 3B if I had a little more time this evening.  Anyway, this is a second year card and again a great value.  This can be found between $20 and $30 and there are plenty of copies floating around.  Like the Bowman rookie there are parallels if you are looking for a pricier investment, but this is still a nice piece to add to your collection.  

A Pair of Piazza Autographs

I spent part of my time the the two weeks helping a friend and vintage collector pull together the last few cards in their quest to complete several late 60s Topps sets.  I am not a huge vintage collector, but I always try to buy or trade for vintage cards in person to make sure the quality is there.  So, while I don't necessarily have the quantity of vintage cards possessed by some collectors I definitely have some quality.  My trading partner also grades out their vintage cards, so that one card in the trade, a 1971 Topps Nolan Ryan, was tied to its grading report.

The card came back with a nice grade and I picked up two great autographs in exchange for the help with the sets.  Initially, I was trading for one Piazza autograph and a handful of smaller cards, but decided to go with two large pieces instead.

2000 Upper Deck Legends Legendary Signatures Mike Piazza

2006 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Signatures Mike Piazza Autograph

Piazza doesn't have a ton of autographs and most of his autographs over the last seven or eight years have all been sticker autos.  If I am going to get a high end autograph I would prefer it be a non-sticker, so I ended up with these two.  The first is from the 2000 Legends set.  It's your pretty typical late 90s-early 2000s Upper Deck set, but the autographs are all in card.  The Sweet Spot autograph is nice since it is one that hasn't faded, but Piazza is on the Padres.  

For most the Padres were definitely not Piazza most memorable team.   However, he played a key role in the 2006 World Series championship for the Cardinals.  The Cardinals ended the 2006 season with only 83 regular season wins.  They played the Padres in the first round and were obviously not favored.  Jake Peavy was pitching the first game of the game of the series and was cruising through the first three innings.  Chris Duncan singled to lead off the fourth with Albert Pujols coming up to bat.  Peavy got Pujols to pop up behind home plate, but Piazza dropped the ball.  The next pitch landed over the right center field fence.  The Cardinals momentum built off of that play and ended a few weeks later with the team's 10th World Series championship.   

2006 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Miguel Cabrera Autograph

One more trade from Facebook for the holiday weekend.  I completed this trade with Brian who is another great trader on Facebook.  He's got a ton of good cards and is great to deal with.  This was a card for card trade with a Matt Moore autograph going back in return for this beautiful card:

2006 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Miguel Cabrera Autograph

I've been trying to add to my Miguel Cabrera collection throughout the summer and actually have a few more nice pieces on the way.  This is my second Cabrera Sweet Spot autograph with my other coming from the 2005 set.  I really like the design of these cards and it's a big reason why I miss Upper Deck somedays.  They are also good cards to chase down because they tend to be condition sensitive.  For example, here is a Kurt Suzuki autograph I own:  

2006 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Kurt Suzuki Autograph 

The faded autograph is really common on the Sweet Spot cards.  Take a few minutes and search Ebay or COMC and you will see dozens of Sweet Spot autos that look like my Suzuki.  Anyway,  I am really happy with my new card!  

Facebook Trade

I completed a trade with an awesome trader on Facebook last week and scored some sweet cards in the process.  Ryan Marcus King Dee is definitely worth an add if you are looking for a good trade.  This was actually a purchase/trade, but Ryan is always awesome to deal with and he also runs a mean box break.

So, let's start off with the big card in this deal.  I added a really sweet piece to my Triple Threads collections with this 2008 Joe Diamggio 6 piece relic.

2008 Topps Triple Threads Joe Dimaggio 6 Piece Relic

The card features four pieces of jersey with pinstripes and two pieces of bat in the middle.  I haven't really dabbled too much with the Hall of Famers in this set, but this is always a good place to start.  I picked up a few other smaller pieces from Ryan too to help out with my Prince Fielder/Miguel Cabrera cards.  I actually traded a nicer Prince relic and broke it into a few relics that I didn't have in my collection.  I love the Lineage cream colored jersey.

2012 Topps Heritage Prince Fielder Jersey

2011 Topps Lineage Prince Fielder Jersey

2011 Topps Gypsy Queen Prince Fielder Jersey 

Picked up one final card in this trade from the 2002 Topps Chrome set.  This card is a dual jersey of Mike Hampton and Ben Petrick.  It's technically a 2000s card, but I have always kind of liked these cards and have a few others from this set.