Dime Box Glory

After I made a haul of 30 some Tigers at the dime box of my LCS, I noticed that Nick over at the Dime Box blog had wrote a nice recap on Dec 26th of our recent trade.  Check out his trade analysis here,

Yesterday (Dec 30) I had all but lost hope on accomplishing 3,000 Tigers by NYE.  However, when I returned home today, I found two packages in my mailbox, could it be?  Sure enough Nick's side of the trade came in and will certainly push me over the top.

Lots of good stuff:

The Gator

The Bird, Papa Grande, and Cabby

It's a good day when both sides win in a trade! Thanks Nick for closing out 2012 on a collecting high note.

Happy New Year!

Keep it hot on the corner, pat.

2,944 Tigers on the wall

As 2012 comes to a close, I have been trying to finish things off with the Tigers collection before the end of the year: complete a team set here and organize some cards there.

2,944 puts me about 250 cards ahead of Robert and his Blue Jays at  $30 Week Habit, but I know I will be slowing down here with more vintage cards left to acquire.

The Nothing But Tigers binder is filling up as well, close to halfway to 802 cards in number order. (Please trade me your doubles, check the most up to date list here)

This week's additions include:

MINIS!

Backstop Cards also sent me an impressive stash of minis.

I overlooked these cards in the trade post earlier this week, but they were a highlight in the trade.

 I finally received a 1992 Fleer Ultra team set on Saturday (bought on the 14th, mailed on the 20th, received on the 29th), to find that the second set I ordered was not mailed.  This rarely happens to me but frustrating, nonetheless, UGH!

This design really appeals to me.  I don't know why, maybe as a member of Generation Y but all the new graphics that technology exploded with in the 1990s allowed for some "cool" new options for collecting.

Trammell of the Week was an ebay win for a 1984 Drake's Big Hitters

I am a big fan of the 1984 style on the back of this card, something about that nice red print, grey, and blue border. and this Trammell puts me at 141 different Trammell's.

Once I got back into collecting this summer I had no real goal. After some trips to the LCS the focus shifted to only Tigers and I had hoped to hit 3,000 total by the end of the year.  Close to 1,000 cards added to the wall since this blog began and with 56 to go,  we'll see what comes in the mail tomorrow - but I am sure my wife will agree - I have put a ton of time and effort into re-growing this collection.

Here's to a great 2013, go Tigers!

Keep it hot on the corner, pat.

A trade with a Padre...

I was blown away today opening the mail. Backstop Cards offered up a team trade before Christmas and I quickly looked through all my Padres and sent them his way.  He recently wrote about his thoughts on the trade here.  What I got back today was awesome!

(Dimebox Cards also put a post today about our trade here)

Loaded with Verlander,

Trammell,

Cabrera,

Fielder. "I never thought it could happen."  Well me neither, why would we add a first baseman?  Wow!

But it didn't end there...more Tigers!

I am very grateful to Backstop Cards, let's do it again!

Keep it hot on the corner, pat.

Trading Tuesday, er, Wednesday

Read about my recent trade with All the Way to the Backstop here.....

Looking forward to the mail today....

All Grown Up

Many times you will hear pro athletes say "We play a kids game for a king's ransom"

I sometimes think of this with card collecting, we're all just big kids.  And we want the cool cards, so in order to get what we want, we're going to have shell out some cash to do so.

ESPN's Dick Schoenfield wrote recently (to check it out click here) that all the card collectors have grown up and essentially the industry has lost out on later generations.  Many factors contribute to this: less cards per pack, more money per pack, Short Prints, "Base Sets", relic, autos, "hits", Topps only Baseball, etc.

I would be one of these "grown up" collectors, I am that guy Schoenfield talks about returning to the hobby and I do find myself not so much collecting current product, but to the 1980s and the baseball icons I admired.

All kinds of great memories building sets, buying packs, trading cards, card shows and the list goes on.

So where is the hobby headed? Are my kids going to enjoy this as much as me?  Is it really worth it to buy a $3 pack for 8 cards?

I don't know the answers, I have not been back in the hobby to make a case. I have seen others online discouraged.  I do know that  you have to know what you like and want to collect and not worry about all the rest. I do know it's not what it was back in the 1980s and 1990s, but I do know what makes anything strong are the people that are behind the cause, and in about 4 months of actively pursuing the hobby, I can say I have quickly found great people to keep it going for me.



Keep it hot on the corner, pat.

After they were Tigers

My brother in-law Keith picked me up a rack pack of 2012 Topps Update Christmas and I pulled in consecutive order the following cards of four former Tigers.  THANKS KEITH!!!

Plenty of Tigers lore here, most of which Damon and Inge were pretty good for the Tigers but in the end they had to go.  I am sure Jason Grilli is loved somewhere, but I just could  not stand him in Detroit.  I thought he was gone forever until the Tigers played the Pirates this past year during inter-league.  Unbelievable this guy. Rodney, another guy who had antics with the kicked hat and such and in the end blew the one game playoff. 

We just knew how it would end.  

The part about it all is that F-Bomb and Grilli were run out of town for their inabilty to either keep the ball in the yard or keep a lead.  

And then become All-Stars in 2012. Ugh!

It's fun to get a pack like this and recall so much about these guys' past.

Keep it hot on the corner... pat

2,656 Tigers on the wall

Thirty more cards this week.  The holiday season has kept me busy and away from the blog world (which is a good thing.)

First, I received ten 1962 Topps Tigers...I really do like this wood border (as well as 1987 Topps & 2011 Topps Heritage) Something about it, maybe since the wood design is not over done like everything else in society it give some appeal.

Don Wert and Terry Fox also made it into the Nothing But Tigers binder.

Three more Cecil Fielder's made it's way to my door this week.  I always liked Cecil.  My dad took me to the game he hit a homer out of Tigers Stadium.  He ranks 4th All - Time in my collection with a little over 50 cards.  Led the AL in RBIs four years straight.  

Lastly, I picked up some 2008 Upper Deck First Editon and was able to score most of the Tigers sans Inge and Chad Durbin.  Pudge may have been the guy to allow the Tigers to attract better players to Detroit but it was Tiger Killer Magglio Ordonez that in my mind was the difference to being a playoff contender. I was a Magglio believer when the Tigers signed him back in 2005, I bought his jersey and sung his praises prior to 2005, then he hurt missed the season with illness and injury, and everyone around me let me hear it: what a waste!  But I kept on believing that Maggs was the difference maker.  Later in 2006, When he hit the ball "way back" to send the Tigers to the World Series, I felt absolute joy, he did it. Don't stop believin'

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good Hot Corner Night!

Keep it hot on the corner....pat

Need 4 more

I only need four cards to complete the base set of 2012 Topps Update:

38 Elian Herrera RC

127 Josh Harrison

129 Giancarlo Stanton

300 Mark Kotsay

If you can help out, I would love to work out a trade.

Keep it hot on the corner, Pat.

2,638 Tigers on the wall

Twenty more Tigers added this week.  Mostly from going through lists and adding ones already in the personal collection and a few cool finds on eBay.  Looking forward to seeing how some trades pan out to bulk up the Tigers by the New Year!

The week started by adding a new Trammell of 1987 Donruss Highlights "September Player of the Week"

...and added this cool 1970 booklet made by Topps

We already knew Stan Papi was not a pitcher.  Both of these cards complete the team set for me.

1961, 1962, 1968 Topps Tigers rounded out the week

I can't get enough of the 1961 style, I don't know what it is and I also liked the 1987 Topps wood border a great deal.

All I know is that the three greatest words are only about 60+ days away  "pitchers and catchers report"

Keep it hot on the corner, Pat

Stan Papi was a Pitcher?

I have been searching to complete my 1981 Fleer Tigers set with Stan Papi, needless to say I wasn't looking very hard.  This week I was browsing around the eBay dollar deals, and  Stan Papi surfaces for a great price, free ship and buy it now!

On second glance I think the picture was more humorous than the error of ol' Papi as a Pitcher.

So keep it hot on the corner, and keep your shirt on when selling on eBay.

FREE Cards!!!!

I won some 1961 & 1968 Topps off an eBay auction and these cards were included with the Tigers I bought.  To pay it forward from Funner Here, I will give these three cards first come first serve to the person who claims them.

Just write EAT EM UP TIGERS! and the card you want.

Choices:

1968 Ed Stroud SENATORS              1961 Reno Bertoia TWINS      1961 Pumpsie Green RED SOX


Zip me an email at bpweber5 AT gmail DOT COM! should you become the 1st, 2nd or 3rd post.

The Season of Giving....

"It doesn't cost a dime to be nice..." - Sparky Anderson

I contacted Funner Here to see what she would want for a couple of her Tigers that included a X Fractor Miguel Cabrera.

Her simple response: "Happy Holidays, Tis the Season!"

Really?  Surely you want something?  Are you sure?  You know it's Miguel Cabrera, MVP, Triple Crown?

What a kind, simple gesture.

Please people, set up a trade with Funner Here, pay it forward to someone this holiday season.

UPDATE: A 2012 Topps Update Oman Infante Gold parallel also included!

Thanks

Keep it Hot on the Corner, Pat.

Trading Tuesday Knows BO!

As I was sitting around Saturday after a long day, I remembered the new 30 for 30 after the Heisman would be about the career of Bo Jackson.  Instantly impressed and equally excited to recall I had received a important card (for me) in the mail this past week.

Fittingly, Community Gum had been checking out my blog and let me know not only would he hook me up with his Topps mini Tigers but he would include another Tiger I am happen to be a fan of : BO!

Bo was the man.  No other human being did the stuff that he was able to do.

He was the reason you chose the LA Raiders in TECMO Bowl, he was the reason you watched the KC Royals in the late 1980s, he was the reason they beat Alabama in the Iron Bowl, he was the reason you watched MNF to run over Bosworth, the list goes on and on.  Bo knows....

Thank you Jon for sending me one of the cards I treasured as a youth.  Bo sure doesn't get the respect of other transforming athletes of his time like all time greats Gretzky and Jordan, but his cultural impact is endless.

Keep it hot on the corner. Pat

Nothing But Tigers

So, I read $30 A Week Habit, everyday.   Robert has this insanity serial collection.  Making a collection of serial numbered cards 1 - 1500, 50 cards a team, 30 teams, 1500 cards.  Very creative, indeed.

I have always had this vision that my basement walls would be covered with all kinds of Tigers cards.  I got the idea from ESPN Zone in New York City.  In this restaurant (which are now defunct) They had a winding staircase plastered with cards on the walls leading up to the bar area.  What a sight.  So I have had this vision of what I would like my "man cave" to look like.

Now, how am I going to do it?

So I started going through my cards this summer after a 10 year hiatus to see what I had.  I filled two 800 count boxes of Tigers in various condition stages.  Then I started thinking about how I wanted to arrange the cards.  On plywood?  On some kind of 4x4 cheap table top?  Varnish?  I don't know and my "man cave" won't be really in the works for at least 10 years while my kids play around in it.

Then I started recollecting (get it, RE-collecting) about my collection as a kid and wanted to get back in the hobby and at least bulk my collection to place it was (and sharper corners and less creases in the cards).  So I started visiting the local card shop, Extra Innings. and grabbing cards out of the dime box and any Tigers set I could come across to at least get my "big project" a healthy re-boot.

So here I am now, in the deep end of collecting, searching eBay, writing about it online, trading across the country, stacks of boxes in my basement, it's endless.

Now the Insanity Collection has spawned the Nothing But Tigers collection.  All Tigers # 1 - 802 (that is the highest numbered Tiger I have found)  I will need some guidelines like:  No same player or brand year on the same page.

Send me your Tigers doubles and I will do my best to get something to you.

It's fun to me.

Keep it Hot on the Corner

2,618 Tigers on the Wall

The Hot Stove was blazing on Hot Corner Cards....A week of blockbuster trades catapulted the Tigers collection forward by about 50 cards.  The off-season keeps getting better with trades a online finds.

Grand total of Tigers is inching closer to Robert at $30 A Week Habit and his Blue Jays collection.  Not even close to the 14,000 Phillies.

2x3 Heroes came through with a big stash of Tigers, which I highlighted on Tuesday.  But he also threw in some Trammell's that I did not have, can you ever have enough Trammell?  Thanks for the trade plug.  We got another in the hopper 2008 A&G for EVERY TIGER he owns (you will have mail Wednesday!)

Wilkin Ramirez 2010 Bowman Chrome Prospects X Fractor Green

Funner Here provided another nice quick trade of some Tigers for some Halladay's, mostly impressed with the low numbered (194) Hank Greenberg.  She's looking for some more trading partners, look her up!

Community Gum hooked me up with a pile of 2012 Topss Minis for some Tony Gwynn's (you will have mail Wednesday, too!)

$30 A Week Habit put another plug for the Hot Corner today, it's good to have trading partners! Thanks Robert!

The excitement keeps the hobby going by actively seeking other trades, the web makes the world smaller to find product and send to others.  I am very satisfied with this week's work, er, hobby work.

Thanks to all!

Keep it Hot on the corner.  Pat.

Trading Tuesday (a day late and a dollar short)

A couple days late but I have been trading away with baseball fans out there.

Just like the Hot Stove League right now in MLB, collectors are dying for some action and trading is feeding the desire.

What started out as a simple plain white enveleope trade for three update cards turned into a huge a deal with 2x3 Heroes that included my stash of 2007 Allen & Ginter for quite a few '12 Topps Update (only need 3 more cards to finish the base!) and plenty of Tigers.

A couple of Trammell's, a Verlander,

The heart of the deal was a 2012 Topps Allen & Ginter Miguel Cabrera mini black relic (say that ten times fast)

This was a great swap and we're going to do another real soon for 2008 A&G, I am sure for some Tigers.  I am sure it is easy for a guy from Chicago to part with Detroit cards as it is for me to give away White Sox.

As they are saying in Nashville, a trade that benefits both squads.

I want to thank Robert at $30 A Week Habit for keeping up with all the things I have been sending his way and the plug he gave me on his site, maybe even forced trades.  I found a Joe Sakic RC in the bin at my LCS for a small price and knew $30 A Week could take it in.  His blog is great and his insanity collection has spawned my own which I will share later this week.

Keep it hot on the corner, Pat