2008 Allen and Ginter Cabinet Cards That Are Available For Trading...

As promised these are the 2 cabinet cards that I picked up this weekend. These are pretty awesome and naturally I want to collect the entire set, but I don't think I have the time, space or resources for it so I will throw these out there for trade. They are both from the Historic Battles subset and include card #HB1 of the Battle of Trenton. This card features General George Washington and General Nathaniel Greene. The other is card #HB3 of the Battle of Gettysburg and features Generals George Meade and Robert E. Lee on the front. If I were to keep one it would be the Battle of Trenton. I have seen collectors use these on the fronts of their binders and they look pretty sweet. I can't figure out to affix them though. If it were a historical battle between the Twins and the Braves circa 1991 I would definitely be keeping them! As an end note this Markakis cabinet from 2007 Turkey Red is still available. Speak now Orioles fans. If I don't hear an offer soon it is going in my Orioles binder forever! Thats all for now. Go Rays! Troll out.

2010 Topps-Give and Take

I am REALLY getting antsy to finish off 2010 Topps Series One. I am SOOOO close I can feel it. A ton of bloggers have helped me on this mission, but most recently it was the Play at the Plate dude who hooked me up with Turkey Reds by the pound. Most recently he sent this awesome Turkey Red Johnny Bench which is NOT for trade. It is locked away in the binder and my binder is now up-to-date and so are my lists. I discovered that there were a few cards that I thought I had covered, but still need. It is all straightened out now. It was a very productive sleepless night, it was.
Anyway, I was being greedy and hanging onto extra cards of favorite players and I was thinking of chasing Topps Town Gold, but now I just want to finish the base set, Cards Your Mom Threw Out, Turkey Red, Legendary Lineage and Peak Performances. I have about 80 base card dupes and some inserts. Here are some scans of dupes that could be yours. Just check out the want list!!! It is coincidentally the trade list, too. Yep, two lists in one! I am chasing the Rays team set in GOLD. I don't have a list for that yet. I know I have Jeff Niemann covered... By the way, that is a gold Pat Neshek card and yes I am willing to trade it to finish up Your Mama or Turkey Red. I lucked out and got dupes of both Neshek and Niemann. I am still hunting for Price, Davis, Zobrist and a few other GOLD Rays, but right now I just really wanna finish off the insert sets before Series 2 comes out. I also really want the Rays mascot card from Opening Day. Raymond rules! Anyway, check em out and get in touch if you can help or if you need anything. I will be in Port Charlotte blogging LIVE inning by inning for TB Rays News dot com. Check it out!!! Go Rays! Troll out.

I Can't Stop Posting About 2010 Topps! Plus the Joy of a Completed Page and 2010 TRADEBAIT!!!

I broke down and bought a few more packs of 2010 Topps. The more I rip it, the more I like it. I picked up 9 packs which wiped out my local Target. I still have the same issues with poor collation, crappy inserts clogging every single pack and the redundancy of Tales of the Game and History of the Game, but I really like the design, I like the value (12 cards for 2 bucks), I like the excitement of the Million Card Giveaway AND I am really excited about the season about players arriving for spring training and opening day approaching fast. All of those led to me picking up another 8 packs. I am at 77 cards away. I have pulled all of the Rays, Pirates and Orioles cards and pulled off a few trades, but I still do have a few dupes left to trade. I also experienced the JOY OF A COMPLETED PAGE! I have many more cards on their way to me, floating around the USPS, but it feels good to fill up a page. Here is what I have available to trade. You can find my WANT LIST HERE. I am chasing all of the insert sets right now and I really want to get my hands on Rays cards in black and gold. Here is what is up for grabs. I want to trade only for Rays inserts or cards from my list right now…Please check out my 2010 Topps want list, I will add these cards to it.
The Following Cards are ALL Available for Trade!
BASE CARDS: Card # 7 Mickey Mantle,39,41,44,54,59,61,67,69,74,93,97,100 Pujols, 104,12,117,118,120,129,139,148,155,159(2),181,185,189,205,208,
217,222,240,249,260,265,281,296,301,307,310,315,316,316,318,323,
325(2)
Ticket To Topps Town
(I don’t know the numbers, but…)
Albert Pujols, Manny Ramirez, Kevin Youilis, Hanley Ramirez, Joe Mauer, Ryan Howard,
Roy Halladay, Josh Hamilton and CC Sabbathia

Red Back Target Minis
#1 of 45 Mickey Mantle

Peak Performances
#PP 13 Mariano Rivera

Topps GOLD (1:18 RETAIL)
#101 Scott Baker Minnesota Twins (#ed 0750/2010)

Card Your Mom Threw Out Original Back (1:24 Retail)
1979 Topps Ozzie Smith (Cards on Cards claimed)
1999 Ivan Rodriguez
BLACK (Wal Mart???)
#20 Tommy Hanson
Turkey Red
#TR16 Ozzie Smith (Cards on Cards claimed)

2010 Topps Want List is here...

By the way, I am presently in debt to a few bloggers. In particular Thoughts and Sox, Saints of the Cheap Seats, Democratic Roadkill, Cobb and Halladay, Mr. Scott, Carl Crawford Cards and Cards on Cards (to name a few). Any time you guys see something you need, claim it cuz I owe you. That said there are quite a few people out there who still owe me-I haven't forgot, hope you haven't either... By the way again-am I the only one who is creeped out by the card of Curt Schilling's bloody sock???
My double shift ends at 7 AM Eastern, I will have my first post on 2010 Upper Deck up by then... Thanks for looking! Go Rays! Troll out.

Trade Bait, Updates and a Trade With The Hamiltonian!!!

Today was another cool and crazy mail day at the Troll box. 4 packages total, 2 from Canada and 2 contained my first two (different) Brian Roberts relics cards. Thanks to Roll Out the Barrel, Beardy, Captain Canuck and The Hamiltonian! Of course I am still way behind on my posting, but I did get a bunch of packages out yesterday, so I at least I am caught up on my trading! Trade bait has come and gone and with the dust settled very little remains. The Curtis Granderson and Magglio Ordonez cards are still awaiting a Tigers fan to claim them. The rarest card of the bunch, serial number 1 of 10, autographed Rickie Weeks card is still here. Current Rockies closer, Huston Street and his patch card, numbered 33/50 is also still here. A new hit, an Upper Deck Masterpieces Captured on Canvas card of Red Sox starter Josh Beckett is here. I really like the look of this card and I would prefer to trade this one for a Crawford or Kazmir from the same set. The Joakim Soria dual swatch, number 60/75 is still unbelievable unclaimed. Every time I do a trade bait post I include this card, then people write to me about it, but no one offers anything in return, then if I offer to just send it, they won’t send me their address. What’s up Soria fans? That is it, everything else is GONE! I have shipped out over 30 relics in two weeks and I have already got some beautiful Rays cards in return. My want lists are getting smaller for the Heritage sets and SotCS and reader GreggG have knocked 200 cards off of my 1978 Topps list between the two of them. That list (and all of them for that matter) are updated. Every set is above 90% complete and I would really love to finish one of these! For 1978, I am still missing the Murray, Nolan Ryan and Paul Molitor, so I may never finish the set, but if I can complete it minus those 3, I would be a happy Troll! If you want any of the cards that I listed above, please check out my want lists and drop me a line at bacontowne at yahoo dot comm. I have one hour to leave for work and I feel rushed already. The package from the Hamiltonian had the elusive Carlos Zambrano sketch card I have been hunting for the last two months in it. That means the Allen and Ginter, Baseball Highlights, Kong sketch cards set is complete. The very first blaster I opened I got the David Price card and I was hooked! I made a few trades, including one with Mike of JDs Wild Cardz, he sent me 17 of these bad boys! I though the set would be a breeze to finish with that big head start, but a few blasters and boxes later and I had 3 partial sets, and all of three of them were missing cards 2, 3 and 4. Those eluded me for a while. I have had good luck trading away my dupes and I finally found the last remaining card. I had promised to not post any of these until it was done and now it is, so my next post will be the complete sketch set. I’ve heard mixed reviews on this one. I like them. I don’t love their choice of highlights, but the cards are beautiful. I was disappointed that some of them already appeared on UD Masterpieces, but since I didn’t rip much of that (up till last week!) they were brand new to me. Tricia didn’t send just one card either, she hooked it up. I will show just a few cards before getting into the set. Aside from Mike-I think I got a card or two along the way from Beardy, Brian/Play at the Plate and Nachos Grande, so thank you guys! For a while, Nachos, Beardy and me were all looking for the same cards to finish our sets. I hate Topps collation. Anyway, here are just a few of the highlights of the Hamiltonian trade. This card is easily the coolest part of the O-Pee-Chee set. It is the Face of the Franchise, card # FF22 of Evan Longoria. Sweet. I pulled the Lincecum on my box and sent it to JD Wild and he is a total OPC hater, but he liked that card. I have been looking for this Longo for as long as I knew that he was in it. Thanks Hamiltonian!!! My OPC set is now missing just the regular Longo card, JP Howell and Gabe Gross and I am done!!! She also included a bunch of Ginter minis that I needed. I still don’t have a list yet for the regular set. I plan on doing what several other bloggers have done and fill the set (1-350) with cards from various years. The wrinkle that I have added is my set will be baseball players only…. Anyone with a stack of old minis that needs a new home hit me up!
I am only going to show a few of the minis because I want to make sure I have time to post the highlights set. Here are two Negro League minis I needed, Frank Evans and Art “Superman” Pennington, she also heeded my call and sent some full sized Negro League cards, too. I love the Creatures of Myth and Terror set even though I had no luck pulling these. I now have two cards, the Unicorn and the Dragon, which she sent me. Thanks to Tricia and Duane from Democratic Roadkill, my Hoaxes set is nearly complete. If any one has Hoaxes card #5, PLEASE, please think of your friend the Troll! Okay, back to the trade…she sent a few including this one of Victor Lustig, the man who sold the Eiffel Tower. I love Ginter! A history lesson in every pack! I am going to end this post now, but a huge and hearty thank you to Tricia from the Hamiltonian blog for this trade!!! I am so glad to be done with this set and the extras you sent are awesome!!! Thank you, thank you so very much! I look forward to trading again with you soon! A few endnotes... Minesota Twins, you guys are gonna need a lot more than a few card bloggers rooting for you to get past the New York Yankees, good luck! This is a pic from the Sunshine Skate State Championship in February 2009 that I just got. Seven very geeky derby announcers from all over the country, all in the same place at the same time... Captain Canuck, a package is heading your way, be on the lookout for it in the next month or so. The Chipper sketch I promised in there along with some very cool stuff that you very well may enjoy...Go Rays!! Troll out.

More Trade Bait!!!

More trade bait… I do have a lot more, but this will be my last trade bait post until after the baseball season is over. I do have more stuff, a lot of jersey cards from early 2000s. Jeff Bagwell, Roberto Alomar, Tom Glavine, Andruw Jones, Edgar Martinez… I also have a few Topps Updates Star Relics-Brian McCann, David Ortiz, George Sherrill...Just don’t have time to post them right now and I want to keep the blog free for breaking news and a lot of you know what I have and I got a few offers already for cards I have not yet posted, so I will keep this brief for now. I probably will keep these trade bait posts up through Friday. A few trades have been made and noted and a few are in talks, but the cards are still out there. Here is some more. I will be at work till midnight, so don’t get worried if I don’t reply right away. I do sneak time on the net while at work, though…
Enjoy!
2001 Pacific Authentic Game Used Bat-Rickey Henderson *TAKEN* (Mariners!)-Card#158 2009 Upper Deck SPx Game Jersey Autograph-Fausto Carmona *TAKEN* -Card#GJA-FC 2006 Bowman Signs of the Future-Rickey Romero-Card#SOF-RR *TAKEN* (one of my favorites) 2009 Allen and Ginter Code Cards- *ALL TAKEN* #118 Scott Olsen, #129 Brian Giles, #134 Jered Weaver, #150 Prince Fielder, #182 Jose Reyes, #207 Jack Cust, #223 Scott Rolen and #267 Melvin Mora 2006 Bowman Heritage Game Used Bat Relic-Vladimir Guerrero-Card#PG-VG 2008 Upper Deck Spectrum Retrospectrum Swatches-Albert Pujols- *TAKEN* Card#RS-AP 2009 Upper Deck Series 1 UD Game Jersey-Joakim Soria-Card#GJ-SO(60/75)2007 Topps-Ted Williams .406 in 1941-Card #sTW6, TW12,TW18 2007 Upper Deck SPx Winning Materials Patch Card-Huston Street-Card#WM-HS (33/50) 2009 Topps Career Best Game Worn-Curtis Granderson-Card#CBR-CG 2009 Allen and Ginter Baseball Highlights Sketch Cards-Card#s AGHS6 Beckett *TAKEN* , AGHS7 Manny *TAKEN* , AGHS11 K-Rod, AGHS13 David Wright, AGHS14 Ichiro (2), AGHS18 Jeter and AGHS24 Marianno Rivera 2008 Upper Deck Spectrum Dual Swatches-Prince Fielder/Ryan Braun-Card *TAKEN* #SDS-FB Okay, make sure you read the post below this one for more cards and rules and stuff. Thanks for looking and make me an offer! Go Rays! Troll out.

TRADE BAIT POST PART ONE!

As you can imagine, I had a really long intro for this post, explaining where this cards from, which I pulled, which I purchased and what color socks I was wearing when I did so. The freaking post was three pages long before I got to the cards, so I will try and redo this and do it a little quicker. I spent too much money buying cards and ripping wax. Bottom line. I extended my collection to include everything I thought looked cool (and some of these cards look really cool!) and every player I thought was worth collecting. I want to keep on collecting, but I wanna stay focused. I want my Rays collection to keep on growing and above all I wanna finish one of the freaking Topps Heritage sets before the series reaches the 1987 Topps design. Here are my trade bait cards, I am not in a rush to get rid of any of them. Some are okay, some are good, some are awesome. I want to get equal return for them. If you see something you like, you can claim it in the comments section, but please send me an e-mail, too. Tell me exactly what card you want and tell me exactly what card(s) you are going to give me for it. I am looking for cards from my Topps Heritage Wantlists. I am also looking for Ginter hits-a rip card, Bazooka back, silk or Negro League autographs. I will trade for Rays relics or autos. I will also trade for base cards (not one for one) of Carl Crawford, Jason Bartlett, Wade Davis, Evan Longoria, Tim Beckham or Desmond Jennings, provided I don’t have them. Basically, if you see something you want, e-mail me an offer. Most of the relics cards are in thick Lucite cases and don’t scan well at all, but the scan will give you an idea. This is trade bait post 1, you can thank me for making this into a LOT shorter. While you are here, check out my wantlists, read some of my other stories, follow the blog, make a comment, whatever. Thanks for looking and lets do some trading! Oh, I have uncompleted trades (my end) with Madding from Cards on Cards and Jeff from Closet Full of Cardboard. You guys have first dibs. Here we go!
2009 Goudey Memorabilia-Joe Mauer-Card *TAKEN* #GM-MA 2009 Allen and Ginter Game Worn Jersey Relic-David Wright-Card #AGR-DAW2 *TAKEN*

2008 Upper Deck X Relic-Jorge Posada-Card *TAKEN* #UDXM-PO 2009 Topps Heritage Chrome Refractors-Card#C73-Chris Davis (505/560) and Card#C83-Adam Dunn (430/560) 2005 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia Team Trios Astros-Richard Hidalgo, Moises Alou, Jeff Bagwell-Card#TT-43 (070/150) 2008 Upper Deck Timeline Certified Auto-Rickie Weeks-Card#267 (01/10) 2009 Allen and Ginter Game Worn Jersey Relic-Magglio Ordonez-Card#AGR-MO 2007 and 2008 Moments and Milestones-Johan Santana-Card#87(007/150&024/150) and Francisco Liriano-Card#66(18/29) 2003 Upper Deck National Pride Game Worn Relic-Conor Jackson-Card#NP-CJ 2001 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Game Worn Jersey-Chipper Jones-Card#J-CJ 2009 Allen and Ginter Short Prints-Card #s 300 TAKEN ,320,336,345,347 TAKEN and 349 2008 Topps Heritage Clubhouse Collection Game Worn Jersey-Eric Chavez-Card#CC-EC 2009 Upper Deck Series 1-Game Used Patch-Roy Halladay *TAKEN* -Card#GJ-RO (12/25) 2009 Upper Deck A Piece of History-Certified Autograph-James Parr-Card#131 1997 Donruss Preferred Tins-Derek Jeter, Cal Ripken or Albert Belle 2009 Allen and Ginter Black Bordered Minis-Troy Tulowitzki #14, Albert Pujols #71 *TAKEN*, Justin Upton #84, Tim Lincecum #224 *TAKEN* or Brett Gardner #295 That’s all for tonight, much more tomorrow! If ya see anything you want, e-mail me your offer at bacontowne at yahoo dot com. Better images can be provided by request. Thanks for looking! Go Rays! Troll out.