Guess what my lovely sister-in-law got me for a Christmas present? A gift certificate to Al's Card Shop, my LCS. Guess what the kids on the tee-ball team I coach got me as a thank you? A gift certificate to Al's Card Shop, my LCS. What a great sister-in-law! What great kids! What did I buy, you ask?

Well, here's some of the singles. Rest assured that I did not spend 90 bucks on these cards. I'm just saving the boxes for another time.

The Griffey and Ichiro 2009 Legendary Cuts cards complete my set of four. I pick up Lincecum and Felix back in July when I was visiting the States. I must have been to Al's at least five times since then, but it wasn't until now that Griffey and Ichiro were in the binder, ready for me to take them home. There was actually quite a bit of new stuff in the binder...


Such as this Franchise History card featuring Timmy from A Piece of History. I pulled the Jays and Red Sox in my box, two teams I don't care about at all. I don't care about the Giants, either, but I do care about Lincecum. So that's a keeper.



This was probably the best trip I've had for getting Lincecum cards at Al's. Here's two cards from 2009 O-Pee-Chee: the base card and a League Leaders card. I'm not really a big fan of the multiple player card, particularly because I feel duty bound to collect the cards if my players are on them, but there can also be other players I don't care to have clogging up my binders.



More Griffey cards, random inserts from his first stint with the Mariners and time with the Reds. I'm actually collecting the Hot Commodities set, so I needed two copies of this card. This is copy #2 and I feel much better.


And - SUCCESS! Another card for the Griffey White Sox project. This goes into the PC, when I bust another box of A Piece of History (and I will) if I get a Griffey it'll go into the set binder. Now I just have to chase all the parallels...

There is one more single I picked up, but that gets its own post. You'll see why very soon. Stay tuned...

I planned to start this post by congratulating King Felix on his well-deserved Cy Young award, then showing off the cards of his that I bought on my trip to Al's Card Shop today. Small problem - they didn't have any Felix cards. Well, that's not strictly true; there was one, but I already owned it.

So what to write about? I was stumped. I bought some cards, to be sure. A few Griffeys, Ichiros, Lincecums and even a Matt Wieters. A couple of team bags full of commons from the 2009 American Heritage set that I haven't decided will be a new Good Little Set for me to collect or not (it probably will, because I've reached The Tipping Point - expect a post on that soon). And some other stuff.

The big news is that Len finally got some new baseball stock, including 2010 Topps Update. Of course, I had just ordered a box of that earlier this week. But hey, this is a rare opportunity to pick up a couple of packs of the most current release, just like everyone else in the blogosphere does. So I got two packs from a freshly opened hobby box. Len even gave me the rookie chrome refractor, which was nice. Turned out to be Sam Demel, which wasn't great, but I took it as a sign that I had arrived as a Valued Customer.

As far as the two backs, I can't complain. No ZOMGSTEPHENSTRASBURG!!! cards, but from what others have written, I'm not too worried, my turn will come, probably in the jumbo box that's currently sitting in Singapore. I did get a Legendary Lineage, a Card Your Mom Threw Out and a Turkey Red card - which happens to be the only insert sets I care about. And I got an MCG redemption card.

Because I'm up in Perth, I decided to redeem the code straight away because I don't trust myself not to lose it. Looking at the "recently unlocked cards" I wasn't holding up much hope - there was even a 2010 Strasburg amongst the last ten. I typed in RwsxKDF4L (what do I care - it's already redeemed), hit click, and up popped:

Sure it's a Cub, I've never heard of the guy, and it looks beat up all to hell, but it's a 1956 card. And it's the oldest one in my collection (although only by 3 years). A nice way to wrap up my first '10 Update purchase.

I spent the past two days up in Perth at a conference (yes, teachers can go on business trips, too) and still managed to find the time to squeeze in a trip to Al's Card Shop. I was glad, when I walked in the door, to see Dave behind the counter. Dave is the brother-in-law of the store's owner, and not only is he a friendly guy, but he also always gives me a better deal on the cards I buy.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much in terms of boxes available. The promised shipments have been delayed, and I could probably get a better deal buying and shipping them over myself. So I decided to go through the binders and see what I could find for my PCs. Turns out, there was quite a bit:

I found two base cards that I needed for the 2009 Topps base set; #377 (Trevor Crowe) and #353 (Derek Jeter). But that wasn't the only #353 I found in the binder...

As soon as I saw this short-print of Cal Ripken, it went into the stack. This is now my second 2009 Topps short print, and infinitely more exciting than the first, a "CC Sabathia as a Yankee" card. Couldn't you have waited for Updates & Highlights to have made that one, Topps?

I also got the Lincecum and King Felix base cards from the 2009 Upper Deck A Piece of History set. I had the Reds in the group break that Thorzul did a few months back, and was able to get a Ken Griffey relic card for my troubles. But these two cards represent my first APOH base cards for my PCs.


I like the look of this set. Once again, it reminds me of how Upper Deck could do some really good stuff if they wanted to, and I for one miss their involvement in baseball. But plenty of words have been written on the subject, so let's move on. At least, we could if the next card wasn't another 2009 Upper Deck product...


...in this case, SP Authentic. This is a "Faces of the Game" card of King Felix showing what is suspiciously like a zoomed-in version of the same picture they used in the Piece of History set. This card is numbered 35 of 59. Why 59? Did they forget that it was Topps celebrating 59 years of collecting?

Speaking of which, I can't wait to see what crazy stuff Topps comes up with for their 60th anniversary. Maybe a Stephen Strasburg Cards Your Mom Threw Out contest. Oh, wait.

I got some Ichiro cards, too. Although, I think I'm pushing the limits of what I can remember, because I picked up a couple of cards I already have. Guess they'll go in the Mariners binder, now. I also got the Ichiro and Griffey '09 SP Authentic base cards. I knew I had Lincecum and Felix already, but I wasn't sure about the other two. Turns out I did have Junior, but not Ichiro, so I'm glad I got them.


The other card there is the red parallel of 09 Spectrum, to help me with my Ichiro rainbow. I also recently acquired two more cards for that, which takes me to four. The Ichiro rainbow is the furthest along of the four. This card is numbered 126/250.

The final Ichiro card I purchased was one of three cards from the Upper Deck 20th Anniversary set. I basically bought all the cards in the binder from this set that featured one of my four players. Turns out, there were three of them, an Ichiro and two Griffeys:


The Ichiro commemorates the magical 2001 season, when the Mariners won 116 games, hosted the All-Star game, and some rookie from Japan won the Rookie of the Year and the MVP award. When I think of the Mariners of my youth, it still amazes me that they're the franchise that holds the single-season wins record. But I guess I shouldn't be that surprised because the previous record holder was the Cleveland Indians!

The two Junior cards are 533, telling us that Griffey wasted no time showing his "powerful form" by hitting 22 homers in each of his first two seasons. How quaint! As we can see from the next card, he picked things up a few years later, hitting 45 home runs in his fourth season (1993). Save the PED talk - Junior is beyond reproach, and this was before the steroid era. Heck, Barry Bonds had just joined the Giants in '93, and his head was still normal-sized.


A couple more Griffey cards - first, the 2007 SP Authentic base (which I didn't have) and a card commemorating his All-Star appearance at Safeco in 2001. Only one problem - he didn't make the NL All-Star team in 2001. It's safe to say that Junior also didn't "take a run at the home run crown" as the text on the back predicted. Ah, the pitfalls of insert sets printed before the season begins. Nice one, Upper Deck.


Finally, a self-indulgent purchase. This is a sketch card that appeared in the 2000 Upper Deck MVP set. It's another Griffey, and it was drawn by a 14-year-old named Brendon Murphy. While the back of the card said young Brendon was a Yankees fan, he at least had the good taste to admire Junior "because of his excellence on the field." But the reason I bought this card is because Brendon is from Four Oaks, N.C., about an hour away from where I grew up. I never would have thought of Four Oaks as "nearby" (it's in the country whereas I grew up smack dab in the middle of suburbia), but when you're half a world away, any place close feels like home.

The second shop that I visited was Turn Two Collectibles in Raleigh. Turn Two has been around for a while - in fact, I think I may have gone there when I was a kid. Regardless, it doesn't look like things have changed for a long time. I mentioned in my earlier post that when I went to Cardiacs, even though it wasn't the biggest store, it felt roomy. Well, Turn Two was the opposite - it was bigger, but there was so much stuff, it felt claustrophobic in a way.

For all it's inventory, there wasn't a lot as far as new stuff goes. I was able to get some 2009 Series 2 cards off my list, which was good, since I got a bunch of Series 1 the day before. But the customer service was, sadly, lacking. I was the only person in the store, but the guy behind the counter didn't seem interested in striking up a conversation. I guess the CSI repeat was more important than a new customer. Basically, there was one box of cards from 2009 (none from this year, I was told) and I was handed the box, pointed in the direction of a card, and went through it. No conversations, no small talk, nothing, really. So I made the decision to get what I need and get out.

At Cardiacs, I bought some stuff I didn't really need because I wanted to give them some extra business. At Turn Two, it was strictly business. Oh well, their loss.

Here's some highlights of what I did purchase:

2009 Topps 206 George Sisler (bronze parallel)
The card I got is exactly like that one, except it has a bronze border. If you check my want lists, you'd see that Sisler is one of four old-time players whose cards I will always endeavor to pick up if given the chance. That's because of his connection to Ichiro, first due to the single-season hit record, then due to the fact that they're both really good hitters. This means I find more than a few cards with both players on them, which is a win/win for me.


2005 Heritage Flashbacks Luis Aparicio
Another player on my "get whatever card you see" list (the Robinson boys are the other two, by the way). I'm a bit lucky I got this card, honestly, because as a 2005 card, it was obviously mis-filed with the 2009s. No matter, I'm happy to spend the dime or whatever it was and add it to my Little Looie collection.

(ed note: Holy crap, I just looked at the COMC entry and the asking price is a buck! Instant profit - if, you know, I was going to sell it. Which I'm not.)


2009 SP Authentic Ken Griffey Jr.
After coming across this SP Authentic cards in the box, I must say, I am a fan. Too bad it's another product line that was killed following the move to a single license for baseball cards. I liked the feel of this particular set, and have since tracked down the Lincecum and Hernandez cards as well (okay, I confess, I went back to Cardiacs). I'll also have to look for '08 Authentics and older. But I'm too lazy to look it up - are there parallels I have to find, too?



2009 Upper Deck Spectrum Felix Hernandez base
This is funny, because I actually got the red parallel of this card before I found the base. There was a pile of Spectrums in the '09 box, and I was hoping King Felix would be in there. He was. I was so happy, I went and bought a playmate for him the next day.

Grade for Turn Two
Store - Presentation: C-; Inventory: B
Customer Service: C-
Overall: C
If I was in the point in my collection  that I was looking for cards older than the past few years, I'd probably find them here. But because their newer inventory wasn't as robust as I would like, not as good a trip as the one to Cardiacs.

Photo credits:
George Sisler courtesy of Amazon
Luis Aparicio courtesy of Check Out My Cards
Ken Griffey Jr and Felix Hernandez courtesy of eBay

The first of the three card shops that I visited on my trip was Cardiacs in Cary. Cardiacs is a fairly new shop, in fact, its next door to the place garage I used to take my car to be serviced. The two principal owners are Johnny (who works at the garage) and Jay (a law enforcement officer).

Because Johnny and Jay have full-time jobs, Cardiacs is only open in the evenings and on Saturdays. I wonder if that's not the future of card shops - part-time concerns owned by people who don't rely on the shop to make a living and do it as a labor of love. In the three years that Cardiacs has been open (they arrived on the scene the month after I left for Australia), they have developed an impressive array of baseball, football, basketball and hockey cards.

Jay was extremely generous with his time, and I enjoyed speaking to him. He gave me a bit of insight as to why some online sites won't ship internationally, although I still don't understand why they don't. I found that of the three shops, Cardiacs had the best range of newer cards, and perhaps that is a function of their relative newness. At any rate, since I'm focusing on collecting from 2008-2010 and then working my way backwards, Cardiacs met my needs.

Although it wasn't the largest shop I visited, Cardiacs was the most comfortable. It didn't feel cramped, and everything was laid out well. I found a bunch of cards to cross off my 2009 Topps want list, as well as a couple of insert cards. In addition, I got a couple of Allen & Ginter packs, and I noticed that they had reduced the prices of their A&G boxes down below the $100 mark (it was $99, but still...) Johnny mentioned that they had hosted an A&G case break a couple of nights before - case break parties are a regular feature at Cardiacs.

Some highlights of my visit:

2010 Allen & Ginter Allosaurus mini
I was really hoping to pull a dinosaur, even though the odds (1:12) weren't good for me given the fact that I only bought two packs. So you can imagine my delight when I saw the allosaurus staring back at me in pack #2. Much better than a real allosaurus, which you do not want to mess with.

I wanted a Monster of the Mesozoic because my wife's class studied dinosaurs this term in school. The fact that she actually showed some interest in this set I took as a positive. It's a big reason why I've done an about face on Allen & Ginter and am now a fan.


2009 Topps 206 Felix Hernandez (regular and mini)
My first mini (since I pulled it out of the box before I bought the A&G packs) and the regular card to go with it. At this time, I was still a 206 fan. I'm sure I'll be getting all the 206 cards of players and teams I care about, though. The back of the mini is a Piedmont back, as well.


2009 SP Legendary Cuts Tim Lincecum and Felix Hernandez
Not sure what I think about this stamp design, but since my goal is to collect, collect, collect cards from these two players, I picked them up. I've found that part of the deal is just finding out what's out there. If I see a new card with one of the "Big Four" then I now know to investigate and see if the other three (or two, in this case) also have cards in that set I need to collect as well. Besides, there's a possibility that this could be a Griffey White Sox card. Can you tell I haven't actually investigated this set yet? I'll do that after I post.


2009 Topps Chrome Tim Lincecum and Felix Hernandez
I did a good job picking up King Felix and The Freak, as you can see. Both of these cards are nice and shiny, and now I need to add Ken Griffey and Ichiro to the collection. Donations gladly accepted. :)


Grade for Cardiacs
Store - Presentation: A; Inventory: B
Customer Service: A
Overall: A-

I highly recommend a trip to Cardiacs if you ever find yourself in Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill or Cary. Remember, though, that it is a part-time concern, and their opening hours are M/Tues/Thur/Fri 5-8, Saturday 12-8ish (they usually close early). It's not on their website, but you have been informed. Regardless, stop by and give Jay, Johnny and their staff a look.

Image credits:
Allosaurus, Hernandez 206 and Chrome, Lincecum Legendary Cuts and Chrome courtesy of eBay
Hernandez Legendary Cuts courtesy of Amazon.com
Hernandez 206 mini back courtesy of Check Out My Cards

Before I flew out to the States, we went up to Perth for the weekend to rest up before the flight and see the dog, who went up the weekend before so he wasn't underfoot when we were moving house. After what could rightly be referred to as "the week from hell," I earned a trip to Al's Card Shop, I thought.

I didn't get much, just a handful of singles for various PCs and team collections. But I spent an hour talking to Len the owner, who is, despite being a native Australian, a pretty big baseball fan. I always love finding Australian baseball fans - I think they just love having someone to talk ball with.

Anyway, here's what I got. Six Griffeys for the PC, including a Skybox with more delightfully ludricrous gangsta text. The late '90s Skybox cards are definitely a guilty pleasure. While the ridiculous set name (Hip-No-Tized) originally caught my eye, just one look at the back and I knew I had to take it home with me:

Here are three parallels from the 2000 Topps subset called "Magic Moments." All three cards are numbered 475, but as you can see, they are all different moments in Griffey's career:


And then two cards of Griffey in Reds gear (there weren't any White Sox cards, or I would have for sure snapped them up). One is an Upper Deck "E-Card" from 2001 (is that before or after e-Topps debuted?) which I picked up because it's all fractal and I wasn't sure when I'd see it again. The other is an '06 UD "Amazing Greats" subset serial numbered to 699. I know many people are through with serial numbers, but I still kinda like them.


It wasn't all Griffeys. I also got a couple of Ichiros, including his 2009 Spectrum base. I like the design of the Spectrum that year and have decided to go rainbow chasing. I've got Ichiro and Griffey base (which is also a Griffey White Sox card, so I was going to collect them anyway) and King Felix's red parallel. No Lincecum cards yet, but I hope to change that soon. Did I mention that as you are reading this post, I'll be travelling around Raleigh going to card shops? Because I am.


The other Ichiro card is a 2007 SP Authentic card that commemorates his 45 steals that year. Basically, if Ichiro is on a card, I want it and I'll probably buy it or trade for it.

Finally, we have some Robinsons of both the Frank and Brooks variety. I'm a bit annoyed because I forgot to scan one of the Frank Robinson cards, and now it's back in Australia and I can't get ahold of it. First up are Frank, Brooksie and Joe Morgan all appearing in a Topps Stars "Spotlight" set. I bought all the Orioles and Reds that were available. Rest assured, had Bench or Palmer been in the binder, I would have grabbed them, too:

Over the weekend I made a badly-needed visit to Al's Card Shop up in Perth. While I was there, I found that the pickings in terms of baseball boxes were slim. Apparently, about a week after I visited the last time, a couple of guys came in three times over the course of a week and pretty much cleaned them out of their hobby boxes. I was planning on buying an '08 Topps base, but I had to settle for '09 Bowman. I don't know if those people found out about Al's from my previous blog post or not, but the timing was kinda strange, because baseball cards aren't a big seller in Perth. If I threw some business their way by my free advertising, then I'm glad I did.

It wasn't a huge tragedy, because it allowed me instead to focus on the collection of singles at Al's. I picked up ten cards for various PCs that I am trying to get started, as well as some badly needed supplies. Here's the haul:

Let's start off with a couple of Hall of Famers, shall we? These cards are part of a ten-card set that Fleer produced for Sports Illustrated. They had some, but not all, of the cards in the set, so I just grabbed the two Orioles. If they had all ten, I probably would have bought them all. Maybe I'll go back and get the rest later.

It's a nice crisp design and I really like the poses. Both Frank and Brooksie look so youthful - seeing Frank in a Baltimore uni like that reminds me that Bill DeWitt traded him away from Cincinnati in part because he was "an old 30." As you know, he only went and won the Triple Crown that season. Grrr.


Another Brooks Robinson Hall of Fame card. Again, if there had been other Orioles (or Reds) available I would have snagged them. This is a Topps production, and the back of the card contains all of the text on Brooksie's plaque. I should make copies of this card and hand them out to all my infielders so they can see what "ready position" looks like. You can't have a better fielding instructor than Brooks Robinson, in my opinion.


Here's two 2008 Topps Co-Signers cards, Junior Griffey and Ichiro. I can't figure out if the Ichiro card is mis-cut or not. I suspect, looking at Junior's card, that it is. Regardless, I figured I'd get it, put it in the PC, and I can always replace it when I come across a better one.

By the way, we have now entered the Junior portion of the blog post. You have been warned.


Here's Junior's 2009 UD Spectrum base card. I mention this card for a very important reason - I have an official announcement to make. For a while, I have been kicking around the idea of doing something similar to Thorzul when he decided to collect all of C.C. Sabathia's Brewers cards. I have decided to do the same with Junior's White Sox cards. The situations between the two players are comparable, right down to the fact that both were traded for the 2008 stretch run.

Even though Junior's wearing a Reds uniform in this card, the White Sox logo makes this a Chicago card as far as I'm concerned. So this is the first card in the quest - every Ken Griffey Jr. White Sox card. Now, I just need to find a list of all those cards so I can check them off. Thorzul, where did you find your Sabathia list?

Oh yeah, we're not done with Spectrum. Hold that thought for a second...


Before Griffey was traded to the Sox, he was a Red, of course, and this is his final Upper Deck base card - 2008 Series 1 #239. It's sad that Junior rated such a non-descript card number, but I love that the card shows his trademark home-run swing. I hope that he didn't actually just rip a pitch foul.


Here's two different card companies' takes on the same event - Junior becoming the youngest player ever to hit 350 home runs (ah, those were the days, when Junior was a legitimate threat to break Hank Aaron's record). On the left, we have Skybox. On the right, Topps. The Topps effort is fairly staid, with a picture of Junior's batting stance and a chart on the back showing the youngest players to 250 (Griffey, Jimmie Foxx, Eddie Mathews, Mickey Mantle and Mel Ott, in case you were wondering. Hank Aaron was 6th). The fireworks in the front are a bit distracting, but overall, what you would expect from Topps, I would think.

Skybox, on the other hand, went with a different tact. Lots of gold leaf. Reflective chrome writing (which is a lot more readable in the scan than it is in person). And on the back, a breakdown of his 1998 home/road and day/night splits. But that's not all. Because the observant among you would have noticed that this is 1999 Skybox. And that means only one thing:


GANGSTA TEXT!!!

"What's up Junior Griff?" Ugh. The things I do for having a robust Griffey PC. Time for one more card to get the bad taste out of my mouth:


Why hello there, red parallel Felix Hernandez 2009 Spectrum that was misfiled in the 50-cent box with the Spectrum base cards. I believe you'll be coming home with me.

Not a bad trip to the card shop, I must say. I'm about halfway through the Bowman box and I haven't pulled anything earth-shattering, but I did get the Ichiro and King Felix base cards for my respective PCs. And a bunch of chrome cards that will be heading out to appropriate fans of other teams when the situation arises.