Una Cosa Mas... Soccer, Nick Markakis, Ebay, Ugly Cards, Brian Roberts, Carl Crawford and a Whole Lot of Rambling...

Please read the previous post if you are interested in soccer cards. I posted a stack of 26 packs of 1990/91 Pro Set UK cards searching for a new home. Well, I just found 3 more packs of that product, PLUS 1 single pack of 1992 Pacific MSL Pro Soccer cards. I probably have more packs, too, I just haven't found them yet. With this addition there are 30 unopened packs of soccer cards on the block. If you are truly interested, claim them and claim quick. I am off to work in an hour and would like to know that these cards will have a new home. Oh, if you do claim them, PLEASE be specifi as to how many you want. There are 30 packs here. Do you want 1, 10, 20, 30? Be specific AND send me your address. These must go SOON. Oh, speaking of addresses, still searching for a mailing address for Anthony K. Okay, back on track? My wife and I are having out of state visitors coming on Friday, so I REALLY need to clean up the guest bedroom which has doubled as the baseball (and soccer) cards EVERYWHERE room. If you REALLY like soccer and don't have anything have anything to offer I would be willing to consider future considerations or a pack to be named later... While hunting around the floor I found an envelope I got in the mail (postmarked 7/02) which for some reason I never opened. It came from a reader (?) named David from Mansfield, Ohio. One card and no note. This is the card. A 1997 Best card of flamethrowing right-handed pitcher Kerry Wood. It's another card of Wood making him appear to be a part of the Devil Rays organization. Now I will definitely send one of these cards out for a TTM attempt. Naturally I will now want to collect EVERY card of Kerry Wood masquerading as a Devil Ray. I love the unusual turns my collections take. My collection nearly took another odd turn this weekend. While showing off my 2010 Bowman Rainbow of Carl Crawford I mentioned that there was a 2010 Topps Platinum card (1/1) of Orioles right fielder Nick Markakis up for bid on the 'Bay. The Orioles are my second favorite American League team and I actively chase Brian Roberts cards. And speaking of B-Rob, here is a new addition to my collection that came from my good friend Captain Canuck of Waxaholic fame. Thanks Captain! I will actually post the rest of the goodies, I promise! Back on topic. I like Markakis. I like his style of play and like many bloggers I feel like he is a superstar in the making. I seriously would not have minded owning a 1/1 card of Markakis. He's a great player and it would have been a great centerpiece to one of the Markakis pages in my "Non-Rays" binder. I day dreamed about the idea of owning that card and hanging onto it until an Orioles blogger pulled a super awesome Crawford card and then trading it away. When I posted the card on Saturday it was at around five bucks. A few hours after I posted it I checked my Paypal balance and verified that I still had more than $20.00 in there. I decided to throw caution to the wind and drop a huge bid on the 1/1 card. I have personal rules and limits for myself. I will NOT let myself pay more than 20 bucks for a current card. I have broken that limit before and I probably will again, but as a general guideline I don't and won't spend that much on a non-vintage card. Anyway, I dropped my bid of $19.11 on the Markakis card and I was the high bidder. I was pretty sure I was going to win it and I immediately felt bad that I had bid so much for a card that I didn't need of a player that I didn't collect. I get post-bidding regret often. Anyway, on Sunday morning I saw the "you have been outbid" message in my inbox regarding the 1/1 card. I was disappointed and relieved at the same time. I didn't want to blow my weekly budget on a single Orioles card, BUT at this point I had thought about it so much that I REALLY felt like I NEEDED that card. I did something unprecedented, I went over my limit and I bid $31.11 for the card. It was a pretty stressful thing actually. I discussed it with my wife and beat myself up over it and made a pros and cons list and really went overboard over this auction. When I got the next outbid notice I didn't make a counter bid. I decided to wait on the sidelines and see what happened. In the meantime the seller of the card sent me an email. He said that he reads the card collecting blogs and thought it was neat to see one of his auctions posted. This was good news because I hadn't asked permission to use the image. I wrote him back explaining that I wasn't too interested in Markakis, but I really wanted the Carl Crawford platinum 1/1 so I was interested to see what the Markak went for. He wrote me back and offered to keep his eyes peeled for the CC version and asked how much I would pay for it. I replied between 15-20 bucks. He didn't write back. To shorten this long story 20 people bid on the platinum card including me. It sold for $122.50. Great news for the seller, but not so great for someone hoping to collect a team set of platinum 1/1s without taking a second mortgage out. Oh well, I should be happy with my Bowman 1/1 and leave it at that. Oh, while we are talking about rainbows I have noticed I have a few different colors of the CC from 2006 Bowman Originals and I have also thankfully received a few different colors of his 2010 Finest card. Does anyone know how many different Finest varieties there are this year? Oh, since this will likely be my only Troll post today and I am trying to cram a lot of stuff into one post... This weekend Play at the Plate brought up the topic of "Worst Picture on a Card". That REALLY got the old wheels turning. Even a good picture of Don Mossi would qualify, but there are SO many cards out there that could vie for that title. Since I am a player collector I naturally started thinking of the worst Carl Crawford card. I nominate this one. I will qualify this by saying that I do have TONS of respect and admiration for artists, BUT come on, this picture really sucks... This topic will return, you can count on that! Thanks for reading. I love this hobby! Go Rays! Troll out.