Jon’s Christmas Haul

I hope everyone out there and a great, safe, action-packed, cardboard-packed, relic-packed, on-card auto-packed, pack-packed holiday season!

The presents are all unwrapped and the candy cane high is finally starting to wind down, so I think it’s about time that I showed off the goods that were waiting for me under the tree.  Since this is a card blog, I’ll only feature the cards I got for Christmas.

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Okay, now that that’s done, I can show you what I bought myself around Christmas time that will act as my presents.

Hey, if Justin Bieber can have cards, so can Weird Al!

One of the presents I gave to my brother this year was a good chunk of these.  As far as I know, you can only order them from the official Weird Al website store.  You can buy 50 card decks or 10 card packs to get yourself closer to the 110 card set.  I saw some of the ones my brother got, but have not yet opened the solitary pack I kept for myself.  Expect a post on A Pack to Be Named Later!  On to the PC stuff.

Oooo, shiny

I know you probably think you’ve seen this card before, but that’s only because there are a million variations across a couple different sets that use this same picture.  I really like the purple refractors.  It may even edge out blue for the best looking border.  All I’m missing now is the Gold border and the X-Fractor versions from Chrome (aside from the Heritage insert and variations).  Not too bad, really.

9's for everybody!

This is the first 2010 206 card I have bought this year.  I considered buying a case since you can find them for about $350 if you’re patient enough, but ultimately decided even that was a risky proposition.  It would have been fun, though.  I don’t know if this is actually the toughest non-1/1 to get, but it’s the lowest number I have to chase as far as I know.  If anyone out there has any of the other 206 Dempsters (mini or otherwise), let me know because I need ’em.

I didn't know backwards "C" was a number

I found this jersey card for relatively cheap on ebay.  Shipping price was right and nobody bid on this jersey card #/199.  It would have been a pretty good buy, but when I took it out of the envelope I noticed it’s damaged something awful.  You can sort of see it here. Look between the E and N of Authentic and the J and E of Jersey.  You can see two lines running up.  They extend as far as the yellow border up top and there’s a crease near the jersey window on the back too.  I took a look at the auction picture again, and these don’t appear there, so my guess is it happened during shipping.  It came in a PWE, but had the toploader and a teambag.  I still contacted the seller to let him know what happened.  It’s not a great looking card to start with (not a fan of that green and yellow and dull gray combo), but I doubt I’ll find a replacement as cheap as this one was, so it kind of sucks.

I should have asked for a new scanner for Christmas

The new stuff.  The professor has 55 different cards in 2010 Topps Sterling, if you include printing plates and all the variations.  How many are numbered 50 or more, thus fitting into my collecting goals?  Four.  Phew.  Dodged a huge bullet there.  Of course, if I ever raise my limit the 25 or more, I’ll be in trouble, but still not in horrible shape since autos are only 10 or less.  This card is out of 250 and is what you consider the regular base card.  That border is supposed to be “blue” and not “it’s about to rain, grab your bike and park it in the garage before it rusts” like it looks.

Another one?

Sterling is cheap right now.  If you’re willing to pay shipping, it ain’t hard to get them for a small price in an over-saturated market.  That’s how I got this White border version from the mystery pack for basically the same price as the one you just saw.  Yes, Greg Maddux has two cards in the set.  It could be worse I suppose.  I am half-way home now after all.  It sure as hell beats buying a box of this stuff!  And you know what, I think I like the blue version more than the rarer White.  I know past years had a suede-like finish.  If this had any sort of textured feel to set it apart, it would win.  Because it’s just glossy and void of color where others have it, it loses.  But it was cheap and a card I needed, so that makes it a damn fine Christmas present to myself.