Be back soon

And the Winner is... (2006 Ultimate Bonus Pack)

Beginning the box break, here is the bonus pack that promises a printing plate, Ken Griffey Jr. Buyback Auto, or a Legendary Materials card. I announced that I pulled a printing plate and gave readers a chance to win the card.

And the winner is...

Matt Pedersen! The first comment was also the best!

Cam Newton's Newest Fan plus a Quick Contest

Recently I pulled this Cam Newton auto.

Today I managed to sell it for $625. Life is good.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Cam-Newton-2011-Topps-Chrome-Bowman-Chrome-RC-3-Color-Patch-Auto-5-10-/200683113369?pt=US_Football&hash=item2eb9a54b99#ht_500wt_1287

Cam Newton is officially one of my favorite players.

I also busted a box of 2006 Ultimate Baseball that I bought on Black Friday and I'll post it pack by pack.

I'm giving away the bonus pack's 1/1 printing plate, and all you need to do is guess what team the player depicted on the printing plate is on (the team on the plate, not his current team). To eliminate a couple of teams it's not the Giants or A's or I would have kept the plate. It's also not the Yankees or Red Sox so there's no need for lots of guesses for both of those teams.

If Gary Payton Gets into Blogging, We Might as Well Retire

If only I could make half as entertaining box breaks. He also bought packs for the kids in the store so kudos to The Glove.

Thanks for a Great Black Friday

Hi everyone, thanks for your support and for reading during Black Friday! I hope that next year the blog formatting will be well-organized and possibly self-updating.
I also hope that next year Black Friday will be more community-oriented with people posting deals and highlighting the best ones.

I was really disappointed with Blowout Cards and Dave and Adam's Card World for their server instability and the fact that I was not rewarded for being up from 3-5 AM at all. Once again, great job to Orange County Sports Cards for their great deals and organization, and good job to Panini inspiring lots of business at LCS's.

The blog received nearly 900 views this weekend, which is awesome since the blog only has 7,000 views total. I took almost all of October and November off for family reasons, and I may be inactive for a couple of weeks, but I fully expect to return to blogging by the end of December.

Thanks for reading!

Black Friday 2011: Blowout Cards Cyber Weekend

Blowout Cards is offering a second chance at all of the non-super specials. They are offering this sale and apologizing for the terrible server issues encountered today. Check out the specials here.

Black Friday 2011: Pittsburgh Sports Cards

All the deals seem to still be in stock here. Almost all cases or huge retail lots.

Black Friday 2011: Onyx Authenticated and Panini Authentic

I can't really figure out how the Onyx Authenticated sale works, but lots of random items are marked down. Feel free to explore the site. There is a Pineda autographed 8 x 10 for sale for $30.

If you're a big spender, Panini Authentic has some cool discounts on their big-time products from Kobe, Dirk, John Wall, and Blake Griffin. PLEASE PLEASE someone buy me that Dirk autograph...

Black Friday 2011: Overview and Great Job to Orange County Sports Cards

I went to the LCS and got 5 Black Friday packs that I will share with you soon. No hits though. I also bought a box of 2011 Certified. The owner said he hadn't seen a hit yet come out of the black friday packs, so they might not be as loaded as panini advertised.

I was up at 3 AM to check out Blowout Cards and Dave and Adam's Card World, but the websites had huge stability problems and were offering pretty terrible deals.
Blowout Cards is picking things up now though, but that kind of angers me. Why didn't you reward the customers who were first in line? Also, you have to pay shipping individually per purchase. Use the coupon code BKBB1111 $5 off $50. The website is still unstable and the boxes sell out immediately.

Atlants Sports Cards and DCS Sports Cards took a more conservative approach with decent sales that were listed all at once.

The huge surprise of Black Friday 2011 to me is at OC Sports Cards. They have been livestreaming on blogtv with a great reveal structure. Every 15 minutes a box goes on sale, then a memorabilia item. Almost every item is a 2011 product, the website is stable, and there are good quantities of items. Check out all the deals at their blog. Be sure to add the 2011 Rated Rookie set to your cart if you spend over $100, since it will be free along with free shipping. They have some great prices going on today. Use the code Beckett5 for 5% off a purchase above $100. If you're keeping track, that's a free 2011 Rated Rookie set, free shipping, and 5% off in addition to any savings. Some other sites seem to penalize you for buying from their sales.

UPDATE: They are opening a pack of '86 Fleer Basketball at 3 PM on their blogtv!

Almost All Deals Live: Check out the Sidebar

Happy Black Friday (and 3 AM to my fellow west coasters).

Most of the deals are live and the threads have been updated, so check out the pages in the sidebar to the right!

Biggest Deal so far? 2010 National Treasures Basketball Hobby Box for $319.95 at Dave and Adam's Card World.

A bit of a slow start, but Blowout Cards' deals every 10 minutes should heat things up.

UPDATE: Deals starting to come every five minutes at Blowout Cards.

Black Friday 2011: Atlanta Sports Cards

Deals are live over at Atlanta Sports Cards. They will have cheap BIN's that will pop up randomly on their eBay account in addition to their specials.

Black Friday 2011: Orange County Sports Cards LIVE

OC Sports Cards will be livestreaming deals on their blogtv starting from 7:30 AM tomorrow morning! A deal will occur every 30 minutes.


Products will include:
2011 Topps Finest Baseball
2010/11 In the Game Enshrined Hockey
2011 Topps Update Baseball
2010/11 Panini Contenders Patches Basketball
2011 Panini Threads Football
2011 Topps Heritage Minor League Baseball
Spend at least $100 and you'll get a FREE set of 2011 Rated Rookies Football with 1 Autographed Rookie Card!!!!!
Taylor Swift signed CD covers
Blake Griffin signed items
Charlie Sheen signed items
Other AWESOME Autographed Memorabilia


UPDATE: Check out the stream for details!

Black Friday 2011: DCS Sports Cards

DCS Sports Cards has begun their Black Friday Deals! Their deals are on their home page. Nothing too amazing here in my opinion.

Dave and Adam's Card World will be next up starting at 9 PM. Check out the post for the deals here.

Really sorry for clogging up the blogroll...

Black Friday 2011: Baseball Card Exchage and Checkoutmycards

Baseball Card Exchange has already started their Black Friday promotion: free shipping and 10% off any order above $50. This sale mainly benefits large purchases. Maybe some of you want to join together on a purchase?


Checkoutmycards has plenty of sales that are run by its users. Also, all purchases on COMC or Blowout Cards will be rewarded with a $20 off coupon for first time sellers.

There will also be a shipping special:

$4.95 for the first 20 cards and 11¢ for each additional card.

Black Friday 2011: First News

Hi everyone, happy Thanksgiving and welcome to the first Black Friday here at Cheap Card Collecting.

Check out the sidebar on the right for the compilation of posts. The posts will be by retailer/website.

Check out the new Online Sellers page from the above tabs in order to see the deals that sites are offering.

More posts will be coming after my Thanksgiving dinner!

Black Friday 2011: Dave and Adam's Card World, NOW LIVE

Dave and Adam's Card World will be the first major retailer to begin their Black Friday promotion when sales start at 12:01 AM EST (Baseball Card Exchange is running a minor promotion). This start time is awesome for West Coasters like myself.

They already have some nice products on clearance.

Check back here later for the deals.

UPDATE: Looks like the servers have crashed...

UPDATE:  Deals are live! It will be one deal an hour and then at 6 AM EST there will be a large amount of deals that will stay live until 6 PM EST.

12 AM EST: 2010 NCAA Sweet Spot Football $49.95

1 AM EST: 2011 Topps Pro Debut Baseball $36.95

Black Friday 2011: Blowout Cards LIVE

Blowout Cards is the retailer with the biggest Black Friday promotion.


The sales will start at 6 AM EST, which kind of sucks for everyone. However, all you have to do is set your alarm, go to your computer for 5 minutes, and go back to sleep.


The official forum thread will house all of the deals, so stay tuned to that page. They have already posted quite a few deals.


They also will post their deals on their Facebook and Twitter pages before updating the dorum thread.


Be careful, some of the deals they have posted are on products that go on sale for similar prices every week. However, there are also some huge deals to be had.

2007 Leaf Limited Football Hobby Box

Normal Price - $88.99

SUPER Black Friday Price - $29.99!

2011 Topps Chrome Football Hobby Box

Normal Price - $113.99

SUPER Black Friday Price - $79.99

2008 Topps Triple Threads Baseball Hobby Box

Normal Price - $184.99

SUPER Black Friday Price - $99.99!

These are the three biggest deals so far, and I'm sure a lot of bloggers (like myself) will be excited to see triple threads in an affordable range.

I don't really get the huge rise in Topps Chrome, even though I pulled one of the biggest cards in the product (see here). I think the product is really fun to bust, but at around $110 and with only one autograph, the value is pretty low. 

There are so many boxes on sale and so many people with different tastes that I can't cover all the deals. Please check out the forum thread posted above and update this post with any deals you like!


UPDATE: Deals are now live, starting it off with Razor Signature Series (please tell me I'm up at 3 AM for something better).
Deals are coming every 10 minutes from their facebook page!
UPDATE: Deals starting to come every five minutes.


UPDATE: Most deals are not limited in quality, but super deals will occur each hour. Check out the facebook page for details.

Black Friday 2011: Panini's Black Friday

First of all, checkout the debut of the online sellers page. Some of the sites haven't listed whether or not they will have Black Friday promotions, so check them out and if you find anything, be sure to tell me.

Let's start off with the company with the biggest promotion this Black Friday.

Panini is really pushing a Black Friday promotion that includes special Black Friday packs. It looks like the rate will be one pack for each $25 spent. Here is a list of LCS's participating. Be sure to check if your LCS is running any sales Friday!

You can also participate by buying from the Panini store.

The big inclusions in the packs are Super Bowl XLV Relics and autos, a Marshall Faulk gold card, Tebow on-card autos, and numerous rookie cards.

Some cards have already been popping up on eBay.

Black Friday Updates Coming Tonight

I'm very excited to share this first black friday with the blogosphere, considering this blog is all about deals.

For now, enjoy your thanksgiving! Happy Thanksgiving!

Best Pull of my Life by far

Hi everyone, don't consider this my return to blogging since there is still a lot of family instability going on as older relatives get older and have passed away. Luckily, stability is approaching and things are improving.

I still had to share this quick card since I've never pulled anything like this before. 2011 Topps Chrome has been exploding, and I managed to pick up 30 packs for $90 from baseballcardshop.net , a local store in PA (didn't think I had lost my bargain-hunting nose did you?). They have fast shipping so be sure to check them out.

# 5/10

I absolutely freaked out when I saw this card. I saw the back and thought it was an insert. What a pull. I've never experienced anything like it in the card world.

Hope to be back soon and thanks to the bloggers that commented on my last post, Anthony.

Hope to resume posting soon

Thanks to everyone for your patience. Family situations have stopped me from posting recently, and I don't know how soon I'll be back. I will still try to read and comment.

Pimping a Group Break

Over at Community Gum you can find an awesome group break that perfectly fits the blogging community. Lots of baseball from lots of different years. Check it out!

10/14/11 Weekend Deals: Crashes and Oddballs

I've had an absence from posting, and I noticed some trends while updating the deals.

2011 Topps Marquee, Minor League Heritage Edition, 2011 Sweet Spot, and 2010 Panini Totally Certified have sustained big drops in price. 2011 Triple Threads has been extremely popular and taken over the $150-200 range in baseball cards. Maybe Topps should have waited to release Triple Threads? Marquee has some weak autographs and boring patches while Triple Threads has a good amount of HOF'ers in both the triple relic hits and the new single jersey hits..

Upper Deck is struggling this year in football even though they eliminated jersey cards from Sweet Spot and pushed out the first video cards in 2011 Upper Deck. The sticker autos don't look that great and the autograph checklists are weak. I opened a box of regular Upper Deck this week since the prices have crashed to around $65 and I think that's a fair price for the product.

The 2011 Football products have been hot, with Platinum and Finest rising in price this month. Prime has stayed around the same price, and it is actually my favorite football product of the year so far. Unfortunately, the photoshop jobs on the rookies and the base set pictures are terrible. I was expecting big things from Prime after last year's amazing base set.

2010 Obak has dropped again down to $44.95 and it's a pretty good buy especially for baseball bloggers.

2008 Razor Letterman, one of the best boxes, is on sale. Lots of the players in this set made big impacts this year in the majors.

711cards.com joins the lineup this week as they are offering the lowest price on Prime. Sensei322 over at bustingpacks.com has spoken well of them, so they should be trustworthy.

New products include: 2011 Leaf Metal Draft Baseball, 2011 Topps Finest Baseball, 2011 Topps Update, and 2011 Topps Gridiron Legends.

Basketball Joins the Best Boxes: 2009-2010 Panini Season Update Basketball Box Breaks and Review

Hey everyone, sorry for the lack of posts but I have been busy and have some urgent family stuff going on. I broke these two boxes of 2009-2010 Panini Season Update a couple of weeks ago, but I just got around to posting them.

These boxes once retailed at around $30-40, but they now go for around $60. Advertising 1 autograph and 2 jersey cards per box but providing many more than 3 hits, the boxes rose in value. In my first box, I received 2 dual autographs and 3 jersey cards. In my second box, I received 4 jersey cards, 1 dual autograph, and 1 legend autograph. Most boxes have around this amount of hits.

Each box should provide most of the 200 card base set. The base cards have a clean, nice look, with highlights cards and all star cards.

These are some of the base cards and inserts. Each box also has 1-3 numbered cards that are indistinguishable other than numbering on the back. They are numbered pretty randomly but seem to be somewhere around 1/1 to 1/100.

These jersey cards are the main  hits in the product. These Christmas Cards jersey pieces were worn on Christmas day. These cards are numbered to 499 and have prime patch variations numbered to 25. The Rookie Challenge jerseys are not numbered and don't specify if they are from all-star weekend.

Here's another main hit set:

I received one Lakers Legacy jersey card in each box. They are not numbered, but Nick Van Exel and Kobe  jersey cards are awesome pulls. If you're a Lakers fan, I recommend these boxes strongly.

Now we get to the cards that set Season Update apart from other mid-range boxes.

I pulled a redemption for a Robert Horry auto /50. 

There are around 53 legends and current stars who have redemptions for autographs in this set. They range from the lower-end "stars" like Michael Beasley and Baron Davis to greats like Dominique Wilkins, Chris Mullin, and Kobe. One has a decent chance to pull one of these autos since the current players' are numbered to 100 while the legends have variations numbered to 50 and 25. Also, the other autographs in the set excluding prime auto parallels of the aforementioned insert sets are the rookie duals and triples:

I pulled a redemption for a Jermaine Taylor David Andersen auto /99 and these two dual autos.

These duals are numbered to 99 while the autos with the top rookies (Evans, Curry, Jennings, and Blake Griffin) are numbered to 49. The 2009 draft class is an unbelievable class, where even the cards numbered to 99 still have great players. I pulled probably three of the worst dual autographs in the whole set, yet I still had capable players in Jerekbo and Summers. Players like James Harden, Eric Maynor, DeMar DeRozan, Jrue Holliday, Darren Collison, Omri Casspi, Taj Gibson, Jeff Teague, DeJuan Blair, and Rodrigue Beaubois help make up the lower-level autos. Almost every player in that group has the potential to be an all-star with in the next few years. The triple autographs have cards like the Blake Griffin triple autos (he has three of them) which provide some chances for huge mojo that one rarely sees in mid-end products.

Since this season update brand also utilizes cards that Panini couldn't fit into other sets or needed to update, there are also some oddballs. There are manupatches for five all stars (Kobe, Dirk, Bosh, LeBron, and Wade) and Prestige rookies with auto variations of players who were left out of the original set.

These boxes really epitomize providing something for everyone. The base set is really nice and clean, and it provides something different from the usual sets with the allstar and highlights cards. The inserts also look nice. Each box should get you almost all of the base set. The hits have clean designs, and the Christmas Cards are interesting concepts. Each box contains a good amount of hits and the strong rookie class makes this product suitable for hit-seekers. There is mojo available with the legends autos and the great rookie class that is uncommon for a $60 product. Boxes like Limited and Classics may provide the nice hits or the collectible base set, but 2009-2010 Panini Season Update provides both.

Note: about the 2010 Season Update, the rookie class is much weaker, and almost every box has only one single autograph. It looks like a fun break, but the hits aren't that great.

Dave and Adam's Card World $65.95  Use a coupon code from the newest monthly Beckett to get $5 off.

2011 Diamond Giveaway Odds?

Hey everyone, I've been busy and will probably resume posting next week.

Meanwhile, I think my luck in the diamond giveaway contest has been terrible. 17 codes, no die-cuts and only one card from the 60s...
How about you?

9/23/11 Weekend Deals: Fall Sale and Non-Sports Boxes Sale

Over at Dave and Adam's Card World, there is a fall sale where "virtually any newer box is marked down."

There's no way to show which products are on sale, and most of the price still aren't lower than other sites.

Blowout Cards is having a sale on non-sports boxes, including a box of Simpsons stickers for $3. That sounds like a good throw-in if you're making a purchase, but otherwise, the shipping costs might be a bit prohibitive.

Check the sidebar for the rest of the deals. Most of the boxes have gone down a few more dollars. The links go to the cheapest price I could find.

New this week to the weekend deals: 2011 Heritage Minor League, 2011 Marquee, 2011 Obak Football, and 2010 SP Authentic Football.

Finally Finishing the August Card Show Pickups: Inspired by Bloggers

I couldn't really tell how to fit these cards into a theme, so here they are. Miscellaneous cards.

As you can see, I couldn't really figure out to fit them onto the scanner.

Most of these pickups are actually inspired by bloggers.

The Sewing Machine Guy is completing this magic relic set, and reading about the scarcity of these relics made me pick this card up. It was $1 and it's an eBay 1/1, so I'm pretty sure that quality covers the cost.

I picked up the Fred McGriff for SpastikMooss over at The Great Sports Name Hall of Fame, so I hope he doesn't have it yet.

Some guy was selling his Kobe stuff 50% off, and I figured I should have a rookie card of one of the best players ever (even though it was the very cheapest one).

The Brandon Jennings auto is numbered to 149 and set me back $4. The Gold Standard cards are really nice and aren't holding much value, so I'd recommend picking up a card of your favorite player. I bought this card from some guy who always busts cases of what turn out to be terrible products in terms of value. For some reason he busted half a case of Totally Certified and hit almost nothing... if he had bought the whole case the video card would have paid for half the case anyways....

I really hate my scanner... here are three Bowman Beaters that were inspired by a long-ago post by dayf over at Cardboard Junkie. Although the post only came three months ago, I believe the post precedes his pony infatuation. 

Introducing the New Weekend Deals Format

Hey everyone, I think I've found a good way to post the weekend deals each week. Most deals repeat, so I'm putting a banner on the right side of the blog with newer products and any especially good deals. The links go to the lowest price I could find for each product. Let me know how this format works for you.

Two Triple Threads Steals

I picked up a couple of Triple Threads cards of eBay which had no bids on them even at the last minute.

A Hall of Famer triple relic card for $10? Even though Frank Robinson's cards aren't that expensive, this one is a beauty. I now have relic cards of HOF'ers Mel Ott, Frank Robinson, and Carl Yastrzemski.

I think people didn't bid on this card because the intent of Bradford's injury was unknown at the time and also because collectors are focusing on Cam Newton. This card is the sepia variation # to 27. In real life, the card is more of a sepia tone that goes well with the Rams colors. I picked up this great-looking card for $25. 

Unbelievable Thanks to Stale Gum

So there were some NFL team lots available by the inch over at Stale Gum.
I picked up an inch and a half of Rams for $30. I was a bit apprehensive because usually team lots mean lots of junk wax and random base. Not in Chris's mind.

He doesn't collect football but he has received boxes since 2009 for review. I can't believe this card was in the lot...

#/99. Bloggers are the best.

Here are some other notable cards. I paid $3 for one of those Topps 52 Bradford's earlier this year. It was nice to find a second hit in the lot and I always appreciate Laurinaitis rookies.

The cards curve a lot so it's hard to get them to line up straight on the scanner. There were also a lot more rookies and a nice blue O.J. Atogwe, but none of them are Rams anymore.

BTW: PABLOOOOOOOOOO Cycle!

Blogger Jinx

Wow... what a terrible game for the Rams.

Serious injuries to Steven Jackson, Danny Amendola, Jason Smith, Ron Bartell, and Quintin Mikell
and an unknown injury to Sam Bradford.

I really jinxed it: http://cccollecting.blogspot.com/2011/09/august-card-show-rams.html

Every player I posted about got injured.

Still, I have to put these injuries in the larger context of today, and assuming that all the players recover within a season, their plight does not match those of the men and women who serve our country.

Thanks to those in the military, public service, and also homeland security for all you do for this country.

Contest Winner and Lots of Shiny Trade Bait

Only four people guessed correctly that the Ackley auto cost more than the Jordan 8 jersey card. The Ackley cost $6 more than the Jordan and I 'll release the prices if/once I sell the cards. Thanks to everyone for their advice. C'mon, everyone knows that the market values prospects/rookies more than four hall of famers and four more of the most iconic NBA players ever ;).

Congratulations to Napkin Doon! Contact me about your prize.

Speaking of your prize... I picked up a box of 1991 1953 Topps Archives cards for $20 at the GT Sports Marketing card show. I haven't busted the whole box, but here are some highlights.

The black and white and the Hank Aaron cards are extra cards that were made in 1991. As nice as the designs are, vintage doesn't look right completely new.

I've been opening some 2011 Bowman Platinum.

The Leo Nunez is an interesting card, a bat card for a NL closer?

The Jose Reyes is green and the Robinson Cano is gold.

The McCutchen and the Carl Crawford are gold.

I also picked up some packs of 2011 Threads.

Cortland Finnegan is one of my least favorite players in the league.

Here's my first look at 2011 Chrome. The Heritage Neil Walker is really cool because of the woodgrain texture on the back of the card. The Vernon Wells is numbered to 225. 

Let me know if you're interested in any card.

EDIT: WTF is going on. It was like 90 degrees earlier and now it's thunderstorming. Also, the Giants are beating Clayton Kershaw?!?!!? (albeit 1-0).

EDIT #2 : @#$! !@%$# I JINXED IT.

Two Boxes of 2009 Gridiron Gear

Checkout the quick contest in the post below! I'll announce a winner tomorrow as I showcase some of the archives cards!

I really like Gridiron Gear. The checklist is unbelievably better than Certified and the Topps products where most hits are of terrible rookies. Gridiron Gear also contains ridiculous patches of veterans, lots of rookies, and some nice low-numbered cards. I also like the base set designs. I picked up the first box for $55 at the card show and the second box for $65 from Chris over at Cardsinfinity.com (had him break it also).
Here's a reminder as to why Gridiron Gear is one of my favorite products:

I pulled this unbelievable patch from 2010 Gridiron Gear earlier this year.

Box 1: 

The regular rookies are numbered to 999.

The X rookies and the Jason Smith are numbered to 250.

The Peyton Manning is numbered #14/25.

OK, so Rhett Bomar isn't the best rookie... but that's a ridiculous patch #38/50!

Steve Largent Patch with stitching # 4/250. Calling San Jose Fuji!

Love these Rookie Gridiron Gems pullout autos, #98/100

Box 2:

Same Numbering as above, the Jim Brown is numbered to 250 and the Rivals card is numbered to 100.

Strangely enough, I pulled the Peyton Manning platinum X #15/25!

Brandon Gibson is ready to breakout this season after proving he's the Rams most reliable and best YAC receiver. I picked up one of his Sterling rookie autos also.

The Josh Freeman is numbered to 250.

The Percy Harvin Jersey is numbered to 250, the MJD dual patch is numbered to 100, and the Knowshon Moreno patch auto is numbered to 25.

I love these patches....

A Couple High-end Cards: What Should I Do? Quick Contest!

I recently jumped one on of those port sales on Checkoutmycards where a seller lists each card at a huge discount. I picked up two cards for great prices that I could easily flip for profit, but I kind of want to keep them too:

2009 Donruss Elite Extra Edition Elite Series Autographs #1 - Dustin Ackley/100 #/100

Interested? Make an offer here!

Normally I could never afford a prospect/college auto of a future great (is it too soon?), but these Ackley cards have been hot and I figured I could sell this card easily. However, this is a card that I can see myself proudly displaying in a few years as one of the best cards in my collection. Still, I'll probably flip the card and buy a rookie/prospect Posey auto (I don't have any yet).

2009-10 SP Game Used 4 on 4 Fabrics 65 #FFGUARD - Walt Frazier Clyde Drexler Spud Webb Steve Kerr Michael Jordan John Stockton Jeff Hornacek Dan Majer #/65

Interested? Make an offer here!

I didn't even realize this card held eight jersey swatches when I bought it.... 

I really would like to get this card delivered to me before I sell it. Picturing four hall of famers and four other iconic NBA legends, this card is simply incredible. I'm really debating whether to sell or keep this one especially since I've never had a Jordan memorabilia card.

For a chance to win some 1991 1953 Topps Archives Cards:

Which card do you think I paid more for?

 What should I do with the cards?

You must answer the first question correctly to get into the drawing.

Two Quick Trades

Captain Canuck from Waxaholic sent me two Giants relics and a nice Laurinaitis rookie for a Ruby Freddie Freeman rookie and some other Braves cards.

I sent Ryan G from This Card is Cool a Gio Gonzalez auto for some Lineage Giants because he had them in a group break.

He sent me the team set and some American Pie Giants.

Here are the highlights, two diamond parallels.

Thanks for the trades!

The Future of the Blog: Developing Cheap Card Collecting

I thought I'd dedicate a post to want I want this site to become. Although I enjoy making the usual trade posts, pack breaks, and card show posts, I really want to develop the value-finding and "Cheap Card Collecting" part of the blog.

The inspiration for this blog is the site, http://www.cheapassgamer.com/

     Although I mainly play video games during the summer now, I used to spend a lot of time on Cheap Ass Gamer looking for deals. Basically, the site highlights deals on games throughout the internet and tracks prices (along with the usual website duties). When I used Cheap Ass Gamer to look for deals and the best times to trade in games, I basically spent only $80 dollars a year without altering my buying habits. I still bought new games and whatever other ones I was interested in, but I barely had to spend any money. Gamers who bought the same games as I did at full MSRP and without trading in old games probably spent $400-500 a year.

     When I returned to the card collecting hobby at the beginning of the year, I had never bought full hobby boxes or understood the prices and gambling that come with modern-day card collecting. I'd like to contribute to the community like how Cheap Ass Gamer contributes to the gaming community. Without trying, I spent most of my time searching for which boxes have the best balance of design, hit resell value, price, and photography. I spend hours watching box breaks and reading previews trying to find out which products will deliver. I create a database in my head of which cards are pulled from certain products and look up their values. Don't think that I only judge on resell value though, because I know that you don't bust boxes to make a profit (unless you bust cases of Bowman). I look at base design, inserts, numbered cards, checklists, etc. I can't spend hours sorting through base cards to build sets, but I'll spend hours trying to find products that provide the best value. It's just the type of collector I am. Even though each person looks at products differently, there are plenty of products that 90% of collectors can say provide poor value (see 2010 Limited football where most boxes contain two plain jerseys and a terrible rookie autograph).

Here are some objectives I'd like to complete for the blog:

• List online sellers with reasonable prices and update weekly for special deals (I don't update every week because most of the time, the sites feature the same deals each week).
• Price tracker for popular boxes and products in the sidebar highlighting the lowest prices.
• Guides to selling on eBay, Checkoutmycards, and Sportlots.
• Tips on finding value outside of the main products--- card shows, sites that assemble their own boxes, how to find a good lot, etc. Some opportunity for guest posts here?
• More reviews on whether a box has good "value"
• Increased user interaction and reader opinions on products.
• Turn into more of a full site than just the daily blogging.

My Diamond Giveaway Cards

I've entered 11 codes with no die-cuts but no modern cards either.

Let me know if you'd like any of these cards.

August Card Show: Rams!

First of all, good job to the Giants and Carlos Beltran for finally remembering how to hit.

Here are some Rams I picked up from the card show:

Bartell is a top cornerback. Some Rams fans use metrics to compare him to Revis and Asomugha, but Bartell is simply a good no. 1. I was pretty surprised to find this rookie numbered to 99 since I've only seen two copies of the /499 version (for around $3-5). I'm not a fan of the mid 2000's Bowman designs, so this card is probably his best rookie.

The Jason Smith patch is pretty incredible, and this card is numbered #1/25. I don't really like Absolute Memorabilia's die cut materials, but I'll gladly make an exception for this card. I picked this card up for $2, probably because he's a right tackle now. Even though he started his career slowly, Jason Smith has had a strong pre-season and could approach pro bowl status soon.

Of course, I had to overpay for a Bradford rookie ($8) since I'll never be able to afford most of his cards.

I'm proud of this Danny Amendola pickup since I got the card, numbered #15/50, for free! You'd think leading the league in all-purpose yards would earn some respect. Amendola only has one true rookie which is from 2008 SP Authentic and goes for around $15. He only had around seven 2010 cards (which each had many variations) and this card could go for around $5.

Also see:

Amendola is one of my favorite players since I love the small receivers with great hands. Wayne Chrebet is another one of my all-time favorites.

This Bowman Sterling Jason Smith looks really lame compared to the Stargazing patch...