The Joy of a Completed Page - Yo Mama Edition...

So I getting more and more organized every day. Making lists and checking them several times. I am also getting back into the trading game and I am in the process of hammering out a trade with a Mets fan and blogger, the famous blogger who runs B.A. Bennys Baseball Card Buffett. As it turns out he is chasing 2010 Topps inserts, too. HIS needs list is RIGHT HERE. Speaking of needs lists... BA Benny knocked cards off of nearly all of my lists including 2009 Topps Updates which has been collecting dust for far too long... I would REALLY like to finish this one off before 2010 U and H hits the shelves. Speaking of sets that I will probably NEVER finish - BA Benny is sending me 13 cards from 2010 Topps Heritage. That list is updated as well. I hope to get a little closer to finishing that one BEFORE Heritage high numbers come out. Anyway, this post was intended to be about the Joy of a Completed Page. While organizing cards I did in fact finish a page. CYMTO10 through CYMTO 18, beginning with 1961 Roger Maris up to the 1969 rookie of Mr. October. Apparantly your mom threw out Mickey Mantle cards quite often. He appears twice out of these 9 cards and he showed up on the previous completed page, too. So out of 9 cards you have 7 Hall of Famers with Mantle appearing twice and Roger Maris being the lone player locked out of Cooperstown. Thanks for looking and sharing my Joy and scoping out my wantlists and BA Bennys too. Next up is a wantlist for 2008 Allen and Ginter, so stay tuned... Go Rays! troll out.

2010 Topps - Getting Organized...

So, the super cipher breaker and code cracker Mike G from JDs Wild Cardz was the first to answer my want list call so my list of insert needs is a little smaller. I also went through everything I had from Series 2 and typed up a needs list. Feeling organized. Now if I can manage to not loose them all before I buy a binder I'll be doing great... Oh, I redeemed all of my remaining code cards... Nothing worth posting, but I don't intend to get them. There are 7 cards - 2 from the 70s and the rest are 80s or worse. Let me know if you want them... I collect the Rays and other stuff. I put up my top-21 in the side bar. Yup, I am super organized. Go Rays! Troll out.

Group Breaks, Nachos, Topps and More!

Well, I have officially shipped a package to EVERY participant in the group break that lives in the US (Captain and Anthony you will ship this week) whose address I have. Those of you whose address I don't have are on the sidebar in yellow. The last package I shipped was to Chris AKA Fan of Reds AKA Nachos Grande. As you might have guessed, he had the Reds in the group break. Some Reds were pulled, but I doubt it was anything he didn't have 12 copies of already. I do think that I included one, if not 2 Barry Larkin cards that he didn't have. I should mention that the reason that I was so tardy in sending his package was that I was searching for cards off of his 2010 Topps wantlist to complete a trade as well. He has sent me some inserts I needed for my very slow chase of 2010 Topps completion and domination. I plan on showing them off in this post right here... As a matter of fact, since I am posting them, I am scratching them off of my wantlist which is now 100% up to date and accurate. I finished Legendary Lineage for both series 1 and 2. Although I don't really care too much for Peak Performances, I am nearly halfway there, so I might as well try and finish it. The subsets that I am really into are Turkey Reds and the Cards Yo Mama Threw Out. These are a priority! I mention that my wantlist is up to date for two reasons. One, because you are more than welcome to check them out and see if there is anything that you can help me out with. The second reason is that this is a trade post from Nachos Grande, who is the MOST ORGANIZED blogger I know. I think I might have traded with him more than anyone simply because it is so damn easy. His wantlists are clear and always up to date. The only problem is that he rips and trades like crazy and in this instance I was only able to send him 2 cards off of his wantlists in exchange for all the goodies he sent me. Anyway... you can find HIS wantlists HERE and see if you can help him out more than I could. You can also check out the 2010 Topps inserts that he sent me... The trio from Peak Performance is shown above. From Turkey Red we have a pair of Aces: a current Dodger and a Hall of Fame pitcher. He also included 2 cards from Tales of the Game. Carlton Fisk in one of the most memorable games in baseball history AND Josh Hamilton taking second place in a batting practice exhibition. Thanks so much to Nachos for these great cards. If anyone is interested, I can post up my dupes. There is a surprisingly big stack of Turkey Reds. I might also put together my list for Series 2. Can you tell I am suffering from Nachos Grande wantlist envy? Thanks again and if your name is in yellow in the side bar, please email me your address. Go Rays! Best team in baseball, for real. Oh, by the way... The card at the top is just a reminder that I am STILL a Carl Crawford supercollector. Oh, while I am dropping updates... I am still in for the Long Fly to Because Allen and Ginter case break. I believe that the price has dropped considerably. I know most everyone is bored of these by now, but I haven't even held a pack yet. Only 13 teams have been claimed, what are you waiting for? troll out.

Unclaimed 2010 Topps Series 1 Inserts, Come and Get Em!

Okay, with my want list for Series 1 officially straightened out I have also determined what is extra. I decided not to chase Ticket to Topps Town Gold and have 5 cards-Vlad, Manny, McCutchen, Longo and CC. I also elected not to collect the When They Were Young Cards so Damon, Doumit and Verlander are available. I have Your Mama dupes as of right now-CMT 15, 16, 26, 40 and 42. I also have original back cards of 1978 Nolan Ryan and 2009 Longoria-(these are taken). There are also a couple of History, Tales, Peaks, LL and a whole mess of TTT and one lone Turkey Red of Willie McCovey. I still have about 50 or 75 dupes from the base set. If you want anything, claim in the comments and send me an email. If you can help with anything on my lists, bonus, if not I can help you out anyway... My want list for '65 Topps and 2010 Heritage and Rays team sets are up to date... Go Rays! troll out.

The Joy of a Competed Page-Yo Mama Edition

This Joy of a Completed Page segment is brought to you by Peterson from the Sign Here and Here blog. He hooked me up with a ton of stuff including the Duke Snider and Frank Robinson cards to finish off this page. I hope to post all of the Rays goodness he shipped my way soon. For now, enjoy a reprinted sample from each year from 1952-1960. I would LOVE to own any one of these amazing cards. I kinda wish that Topps had included Clemente and Aaron in this, but that is my only complaint. This filled page looks GOOD! Thanks so much to Peterson and everyone else who helped me fill this one up. My want lists for this set are up to date. For this set, I still need these cards: 13,14,20,24,27,29,31,37,39,42,43,44,51,52,54,55,56 and 57. #13 and 14 would be my Most Wanted as that would fill up another awesome page. Get in touch if you can help a Troll out. Don’t forget to check out a Pack to be Named Later. I have a ton of wax I will be ripping over there. Today’s pack is 1985 Topps Super. They are big! Oh, as a reminder. All of the stuff I rip on a PTBNL goes into the team piles for the group break, so you should really check it out. Go Rays! Troll out.

The Troll's Take on the Million Card Giveaway, In Both Senses of the Phrase...

I have scanned a lot of cards today and I am ready for some serious posting. I also got my car back (early) and it didn’t explode when I turned the key, that is a good thing. It actually looks just as bad as it did-not a bit worse. I also went by the post office today. It was a postal holiday, so I couldn’t get the packages out that I need to ship, but I was able to empty my box. 18 packages, 18 freaking packages!!!! WOW! I owe a lot of people a lot of thanks. I will somehow get to posting all of these. I do really appreciate everything. Sets are getting closer, personal collections are growing and basically I am surrounded by some fine new cardboard and I haven’t even opened half the packages I got. I do want to thank everyone, but I also want to chime in with my two cents on the Million Card Giveaway. I had 6 of these TMC inserts. I put them in my binder with the rest of the set and the inserts. I even made a note of the cards that I was missing. I hadn’t thought much of it really. I didn’t ACTUALLY READ the back of the card-I just tossed them into the random insert pile when I opened the packs. I didn’t think of it until last night when I got home from work and started checking blogs and the Cardboard Junkie mentioned something about it. I tried to go to Topps Million dot com, it didn’t work and I eventually fell asleep. This morning, before and after class, I noticed the address saved in my computer’s address bar and went there. The site was actually “working” at this point-I could see that there were recent redemptions, but I got the white screen treatment when I tried to log-in. I gave up pretty quick as I had other things to do. After getting my car back and hitting the jackpot at the post office I decided to go to Target and buy 10 more packs of 2010 Topps. Now I am REALLY overwhelmed! SO much great stuff to write about and I don’t know where to start! Actually I do. I am starting with the Million Card Giveaway. With my 10 extra packs I received 2 more TMC cards to give me a total of 8. At around 8:00 PM (Eastern) I was able to create a user name and log-in. There were a few set-backs and I AM AT WORK, but the process of unlocking 8 cards while occasionally paying attention to customers took about an hour and a half. I was honestly as excited waiting to see which card I had unlocked as I was ripping the packs. I thank the Cardboard Junkie for the reminder and I also blame him for the system crash. He IS the king of the blog-o-sphere and him bringing it up at midnight surely caused his MILLIONS, make kajillions of readers to immediately attempt to log on to Topps dot com. Damn you dayf! You and your readers! Anyway, it was a REALLY nice bonus from Topps. Remember that you are getting a 1 in 6 chance at pulling a TMC code card inside of a 2 dollar pack of cards that will have 11 other cards in it. That is a really NICE bonus. I actually got excited pulling 2 more of these cards and I got more excited when I was able to redeem them. I don’t think that Topps anticipated dayf mentioning the live date and therefore didn’t have the tech issues figured out in time, BUT it is running fairly smoothly now. Before I was able to redeem anything, I did have a thought pop in my head. It hurt. It happened as I was taking the bus to the body shop to pick up my car. I starting thinking about what I spent shipping out cards on the group break. I still have a few more to ship, but I sent out 25 packages (with extras) and it came to 68 bucks. Granted some went out of the country and I went priority with a few (which was my stupid fault), but it was around 70 bucks worth of shipping. I COULD add in the cost ($3,000) of my car accident on the way to the post office, the missed work and the medical bills, but I will leave it at 70 bucks. Anyway, I started feeling sorry for Topps imagining all of the shipping charges that they would be stuck with when they mailed out these one million cards. I almost didn’t want to redeem my 8 TMC cards because I didn’t want Topps to waste money and destroy the environment so I could receive a 1989 Dwight Smith that I may potentially throw away. With that thought in my mind I decided to check the fine print. In order to actually receive the cards that you UNLOCK, you must have a credit card, share it with Topps and pay $2.92 for the first card and 53 cents for each additional card. THEN, 4 to 6 weeks later, you will receive your 1989 Dwight Smith card. From experience I know that you can ship about 50 cards for $2.92, AT LEAST. I know that Topps has to pay shipping and receiving people, blah, blah, blah, but this promotion is supposed to be geared towards kids right? Kids don’t have credit cards. Hell, I don’t have a credit card. That part of the deal sucks. Anyway, I had to get that out, now here are the 8 cards I unlocked. Oh, the cards scanned in here are some of the “hits” that I got out of the packs. Yes, there is a lot of Tommy Hanson cards shown here, no I am not a Hanson, yes some of them might be tradeable, no I don't know where the black one came from. No morewords on them (that will come later), they are just pics to break up the text before the excitement of the cards that I unlocked, but will never actually get because I don’t have a credit card. Okay, here we go! I will say I was really excited and sweating a bit as I waited for my cards to be unlocked… (note: I unlocked all 8, but this is the first 2 for now...) Here is what I got: 1985 Topps Craig Lefferts 1985 Topps Father and Son Bob Skinner and Joel Skinner

Yes, this rant ran long as usual... I will post the rest little later on. Maybe I got a hit, you will have to stay tuned! Go Rays! troll out.