I found a card shop !!

It's not real close, about an hours drive from my home. Its called Medina Sports Cards and Collectibles. Located in, well, Medina ,Ohio.

I had a redemption card for week 5 of the Home Run Legends promotion. I figured there were some card shops up around Cleveland or down by Columbus or Cincinnati but I definitely did not want to drive that far. So I checked Topps website for other HTA dealers. That's how I found Bill in Medina. They are even open on Sunday so I called to make sure he had the Legends card, which he did, so my wife, our oldest son Josh and I went for a Sunday afternoon drive.


This is the card I received. Bill informed me that I was one week early as the next weeks offering would be Mickey Mantle. Just my luck !! But I'll take Arod.

My wife went looking around town, they have a lot of antique shops and other interesting places there, while Josh and I looked around the card shop.

I haven't followed Panini and their baseball products so I didn't really know what I might find in these packs, but I figured I needed one of these wrappers for my collection. Bill said there were some auto's possible.

Well, no autographs and not even any players I knew of except Andrew McCutchen. I'm not sure I like cards without logos but I will add them to my sample collection.

There was also a box full of some older packs. I always liked Zenith so I decided to try one of these also.

I got some decent base cards including Steve Carlton.

Museum Collection inserts were 1 in 3 packs. I did get lucky here with Joe Mauer.

But then the luck got even better.... or did it ?

At first glance it looks real good. It could have been a triple bat, that would have been really nice.But when I got home I looked a little closer.

This is the back of the card, can't read it ?

Try this view. Enclosed pieces of jersey !!??

So Donruss, you're telling me J.D. Drew wore a jersey made of wood ? The card doesn't appear to have been tampered with, but how could they let this happen ?

Oh well ! We have all seen strange things amongst memorabilia cards.

Looking around the shop, Josh and I spotted these cubes of cards for sale. $3.99 each or 3 for $10.99. Of course, you can only see two of the cards you wil be getting, but we love mystery "packs" !

The cards you see here are not the ones I could see when I picked my three cubes.

These are two of the cards that helped me make my choices. I could also tell there were some old Topps die-cuts in the middle. The odd shapes made them easy to pick out.

These are the Topps die-cuts. There were twenty-five in all.

The rounded edges of the Studio " credit " cards were also easy to pick out, but I didn't realize they were all the gold versions. There were fourteen different ones.

There was a nice mixture of cards in all the cubes. SP, OPC, Topps Embossed and others.

Here we have some Bowman Chrome and a very nice SPx die-cut Chipper Jones.

There was also a lot of "04 Topps Total if anyone is interested in that set.

More Bowman, Select, Donruss "The Rookies" and Pacific.

And it's not all trade bait !

Tribe cards ! Lots of Joey..err Albert Belle.

Thome and a chrome Sizemore.

And I think I actually need these last four !

All in all it was alot of fun opening these up. And the price was right. I got 258 cards for $10.99, or just a little over 4 cents a card. Of course, the number of cards you get will depend on the thickness.

Well Bill, thanks for the cards and I'm sure you will be seeing us again !!

If any of you bloggers are interested, this link shows you where it's at.

And this link is their website where you can purchase cards. It has 40 pages of various boxes and individual cards, including some very nice vintage. They also deal in racing, football, basketball and gaming cards.

A very late contest post from The Diamond King

Way back in December, The Diamond King, ran a terrific contest .I was fortunate to win the above stack of cards. The best part of the stack is that they are all serial numbered !

My favorite was this Ultimate Bob Feller,

and this Legendary Cuts Jim Thome I need for my collection.

Two more Tribe cards showed up from Topps.

Here are some more of my favorites from the stack.

At 75, this was the card with the lowest total production.

At 2/100, this was the lowest card number.

Numbered 510/1000, this Al Kaline is definitely a keeper !

There was a wide variety of these Skybox prospects.

Another very nice card.

A very shiny 89/100 Barry Zito Silver Spotlight.

Vintage players from Sweet Spot Classic are always welcomed.

As well as this Mike Schmidt.

Some more classic players from the past.

Talk about rainbows, these old Pacific cards really set the standard. They were the parallel kings along with 1997-98 Score.

Simple and to the point. I love the glove background.

Last but not least we have four more shiny Topps Super Teams cards.

Thanks so very much for the contest and the great cards !!

Opening Day is here today !

I happened to stop at Target on my way home tonight and Opening Day was on the shelf.

Almost on the shelf.
There is an unused checkout lane right next to the card aisle. The card distributors use this as a table when sorting new products. I've seen unopened cartons sitting there before but they were always sealed. Tonight it looked liked whoever was unpacking the boxes was taking a break. There was a partially unpacked box, with some blasters inside, sitting on the conveyor and several of these hanger packs just laying there loose. I checked with customer service and was told it was OK to take what I wanted so I grabbed one pack. It looked like a gravity feed box inside the carton also, so there may be regular packs available tomorrow.

I'm not going to get to carried away here as we have all seen 2012 Topps and the Opening Day logo doesn't make them that much different.

This is the 24 card hanger pack priced at $3.19 or about $.14 per card.

Here is a sample of what I got.

Miguel seems to be watching a long drive coming off his bat. Looks almost like he's saying "Oooo, I got that one !"

Ryan Roberts, I'm not so sure about. May be the end of a dramatic fist pump or he got hit on the hand by a pitch !

C.C. looks like he is really filling out that uniform.

David Wright seems to be watching the fight of a ball also, but maybe one slicing foul from the way he's holding his bat.

The mascots are always interesting cards. According to the back of the card, this will be the Moose's 13th year representing the Great Northwest.

I was semi excited about getting a blue border until I realized they are seeded 1 in 2 packs !

These Fantasy Squad inserts, also 1 in 2, are certainly colorful.

The one Tribe card I got couldn't have been any more fitting. Cleveland's opening day starter !

Opening Day is always a nice set geared toward the younger set. Hopefully it will spark some interest in some young collectors to carry on the hobby as we get older !!