Yes, it's more Strasburg Money. In this case, I was able to buy a lot of Legendary Lineage cards that have helped me put a big dent in my collection. Now I have not just one, but two completed pages, both from Series 1:

This is the first page, the first nine cards in the set. Of the two, it's the one I like better. Why? Have a look at the top-left-hand corner. There's your answer. It makes up for the preponderance of Yankees in the bottom right.


Here's page two (cards LL10-LL18). Highlights include Cal Ripken, Johnny Bench, and that card right in the middle. Warren Freakin' Spahn.

I love the Legendary Lineage series. It's one of the two insert sets from 2010 that I'm collecting (the Yo Momma cards are the other). In both cases, the sets are ones that tie in the history of the game with today's baseball. Of course, some of the selections are questionable and the links tenuous at best (Grady Sizemore and Tris Speaker, anyone?). But I like the simple design of the cards, and they have featured some of my absolute all-time favorite players. Overall, it's been a really enjoyable set to collect, read and display.

Well, another term is in the books here and that means two weeks off for me. I also got a package in the mail from back home - there were clothes from Old Navy for my lovely wife and a bunch of baseball cards for me. These were cards I purchased with Strasburg Money and had sent to my folks' place because the sellers would ship internationally. There's also three various hobby boxes waiting to be opened.

What does this mean for you? Well, more posts for the next couple of weeks, of course. Maybe even a post a day, starting.......now!

Here's another Strasburg Money card. This is my fourth short print from the 2009 Topps sets. But unlike some of the others, it's one I actually wanted. I mean, really, really wanted:

Being an Obama card is great in and of itself. But the fact that he's in a White Sox jersey (yes, I know he's a Sox fan) makes it all the better. I'm almost considering making Obama the "fifth PC". This is my fourth Obama card. I won't stop until I reach 44 cards.


Anyway, that's my latest acquisition. But there's plenty more cards to come, so stay tuned!

(This post is fourth in a series of what I bought with the money I got for a 2010 Bowman hobby box. You know, the one with Stephen Strasburg on the front)

I had been waiting for a while for this particular package to come, and it took a couple days extra than I expected. I've given up trying to figure out Australia Post - this particular package was mailed, from California, a day after another was mailed from Pennsylvania. Both used the same postage rate - International First Class. The one from California - three thousand miles closer to Australia than Pennsylvania - took three days longer to get here. If you can figure out why, please let me know, because I can't.

Anyway, on to my latest purchases. Yes, this is more Strasburg money, folks. I'm almost starting to feel bad - when I coined the term and started this series, ol' Double S wasn't even on the disabled list, much less the operating room table. It now feels kinda like profiting off someone else's misfortunes. Kinda.

Let's start with the big ticket item. This was the card that I really wanted, the rest I just bought to help defray shipping costs:

It's a 2009 Spectrum rainbow card, in this case, a turquoise Tim Lincecum. It's numbered 9/25 and is the second rarest, in terms of print run, card in my collection. I have a 1/1 printing plate that I pulled out of a box of '09 Topps Series 1. But this card is infinitely shinier and better looking than a printing plate. I can't even remember what color plate it is now.

I'll admit it - I've caught rainbow fever. I've got four Spectrum rainbows in various stages of completion (care to guess who?) and I'm thinking of starting others. But this is the first top-end card I've actually got in my possession, although there may be another one arriving within the month. Stay tuned.


Here's the next favorite card in my bundle - a 2007 Brian Roberts relic. You know, from back when he was healthy and could play. His 2010 season just sums up the Orioles in general. Disappointing.

But B-Rob is a fellow Tar Heel, even if he left midway through his college career. I don't fault him for it - after all, the school fired his dad, former UNC baseball coach Mike Roberts. I'll always appreciate Coach Roberts - he brought me on board as the team's announcer, and I enjoyed every minute of working for the Tar Heel baseball program.


Let's stay with the Orioles for a minute. I picked up this Brooks Robinson mini for a very reasonable price. Something happened with my scanner because his name on the bottom looks just fine on the actual card. I was just too lazy to re-scan it. But the best thing is what's on the back:


IT'S POLAR BEAR, BITCHES!!! IS NOW, ALWAYS HAS BEEN, ALWAYS WILL BE THE BEST. PERIOD.

I assume they mean best cigarettes. If so, I guess they were wrong about that.


Finally, two random Ichiro cards for the PC. I don't really have that much to say about either one, just that I didn't have them before, and now I do. The Flashback Fridays one on the lest is kinda interesting, but I have no idea what Topps means by "Flashback Fridays." Flash back to what? And was the card only made on Fridays, or sold on Fridays, or supposed to be looked at on Fridays? At least I received the card on a Friday.

Hmm, maybe Australia Post knew what it was doing, after all...

On the occasion of Sufjan Stevens's 35 1/6th birthday, a post title that sounds like it could have been one of his songs...

I posted the first card I bought with some of my Strasburg Money - it was a 2009 Spectrum Swatches Ken Griffey card, as you can see from the link. Well, guess what? It turns out that Junior has not one, but two cards in the Spectrum Swatches subset. Which means twice the relic and auto cards I need to collect. There's this one, the "base" card, SS-KG:

And then there's this one, which arrived in my mailbox a few days ago. It's card SS-GR:


Both show Griffey in his Reds uniform, but with a White Sox logo. And because of that, both need to be collected. Damn you, Upper Deck!!! *shakes fist in the general direction of Richard McWilliam*

Also in the mail was this little beauty:


I was perusing the seller's other listing for cards I could buy to save on shipping, when I came across this little beauty. The patches themselves are plain - boring old gray and white, although Felix's looks like it has a seam. But hey, any time you can get a serial numbered quad patch card featuring two of the players you collect, you gotta do it, right? The only question is, do I need to get two? One for the King Felix collection, and one for the Freak collection? What do you all think? Let me know in the comments section.

More cards are on their way from America, Stay tuned for parts 4, 5, 6, etc. in the epic series...

...thanks to the latest purchases with my Strasburg money.

When I'm looking for cards on eBay, I always try to give my business to people who ship to Australia, have reasonable shipping rates, and provide discounts. I've bought enough cards to know how much it really costs to ship a couple of singles from the USA to AUS. Don't insult my intelligence by saying in your listing that it costs you $10.76 to mail the cards to me. It costs about three bucks, tops, using USPS International First Class. Besides, I CAN LOOK AT THE STAMPS AND SEE HOW MUCH YOU PAID!

When I find someone who fits my criteria, and has a card that I want, I look at their store and see what else they might have. That's how I ended up with four cards in this purchase instead of just the one.

First, the card I wanted - a Ichiro 2009 Spectrum blue parallel for the rainbow. It was originally listed a 99 cents, but the auction ended without any bids. Sure enough, it was re-listed with a 49-cent start price, and that's what I got it for.


Another 49-cent Ichiro was this '09 Bowman gold parallel of him in his Japan uniform. Now I have to track down the base card. I'm pretty sure I didn't get it in the box of '09 Bowman that I busted. Crap, now I'm not sure - maybe I did. Anyway, I like this card, especially at 49 cents.


Speaking of 49-cents, here's Big Time Timmy Jim's Turkey Red rookie card. This is actually the first Lincecum rookie card that I've acquired, but no doubt will be the first of many. Until then, it's hanging out in a page in my PC with some of my 2008 cards.


Finally, the only card that I ended up paying more than 49 cents for. It's a good thing I put in a higher bid because somebody else actually tried to outbid me for this 2009 Upper Deck Biography card. The nerve of some people! But since this card has two of my favorite people, Ichiro and Barack Obama, I wasn't going to let that happen. $1.25 later, and it's at my house now.

Yeah, the shipping for these four cards ($3.50) cost more than the cards themselves. But when I look at it another way, I could have ended up spending 99 cents each on the cards a week earlier, but my patience saved me $1.25. And that's more Strasburg Money that I can spend on other cards.

A few months back, I received a free hobby box of Bowman. This was back when it had just been released, and none of the Stephen Strasburg 1/1 cards had yet to be discovered. The only trouble with this prize was that it was sent to my parents' house, not mine. In the end, however, this turned out to be a good thing, as you'll see.

Of course, we know what happened next. The Superfractor was found fairly quickly and the red parallel followed soon after. But I held on to the hope that the 1/1 red autograph was waiting for me somewhere in that box sitting at my parents house. Like Willy Wonka's last Golden Ticket, the red auto card caused hordes to swarm any and all Bowman products.

Until mid-June, when the card was pulled. Oh well.

Somewhere between when I got the box and when that last card was found, I realised that I didn't really like the Bowman set. Maybe it was my thoroughly uninspiring 2009 Bowman box that caused it. But the truth is, I didn't want the box once I found it there was not chance at the Golden Ticket.

For some reason, the price of Bowman boxes remained pretty crazy, even after all the 1/1 cards had been found. It wasn't as inflated as before, but still pretty high. So I decided to sell my box. Since I got it for free, my profit margin was, well, infinite.

By mid-July, a month after the last Golden Ticket was found, I managed to find someone on eBay who took the box off of my hands for nearly 160 bucks. But what to do with the money?

I thought about getting a box of Ginter, or maybe some Obak, or both. But instead, I decided to use the money to buy some singles. Cards that I need for collections and sets, or just plain cards I want to own. This was a chance to put a dent in the Griffey Project, and get some cards for my other PCs as well.

Over the coming weeks, or months, however long it takes for my funds to run out, I'll be posting the cards I buy as they arrive in the mail. I'm calling the $160 my "Strasburg Money" because, let's face it, if it weren't for the hype surrounding Stephen the Great, I never would have gotten that much for that Bowman box. So thanks, Stephen - you've helped me grow my collection.

I'm writing all this because the first card showed up at my house today. It's a 2009 Upper Deck Spectrum Swatches card of Ken Griffey with a nice pinstripe. Pay no attention to the jersey on the front - the logo on the back means it's part of the Griffey project:

There's a few more cards somewhere between America and my mailbox, so look for more Strasburg Money posts soon.