Motter's Magenta Hair Flow

The Rays recently traded one of my favorite former Durham Bulls to the Mariners.  It always makes me sad to see players leave and go elsewhere, but at the same time this move will likely result in Motter getting some more consistent playing time.  As a baseball fan in Durham, it has been fun to watch Motter play here the last few years.  

Taylor plays all over the field with a high level of effort and energy.  I enjoyed getting to see him get in some time with the Rays this year and was more disappointed when they sent him back down to Triple A without giving him much of a chance to stick.  The hitting hadn't come around yet at the Major League level, but a lot of other Taylor Motter goodness happened for the Rays with him in the game....

not to say that he did nothing on offense.  He is definitely a capable hitter.  This was one of my favorite moments from his time in the Majors....

hitting a home run against the Marlins which were his favorite team growing up.  Really cool.  

Even though he has moved on to the West Coast I am still excited to collect more cards of this former Durham Bulls favorite.  My most recent card, his Topps Update Magenta Printing Plate, is something I picked up last week.  I have been on the lookout for some non-base Motter cards, but with no relics or autographs, I have been focused on finding some different parallel cards.  The plate is obviously the rarest one I have, but there are a few other low numbered cards out there that I want....

Collecting The Durham Bulls: Vince Belnome

I am a little partial towards Vince Belnome.  He's one of my favorite Bulls players and I was happy to see him back on the Bulls again this year.  Belnome was on the Rays, for a day.  Belnome is not a real prime prospect at this point, but he's one of those older players who can offer a good veteran presence for a minor league team.  Belnome started off in the Padres organization and had a pretty good run in their minor league system.  He posted a .963 OPS in 2009, .832 in 2010, 1.035 in 2011, and .834 in 2012.  After the 2012 season, the Rays picked up Belnome in a minor trade.  In his first season in Durham Belnome posted a .300 average, drove in 67 runs, all while carrying an .854 OPS.  Belnome is struggling a little bit to start off the 2014 season, but he's picking up the pace over the past few weeks. 

Card wise Belnome has one primary baseball card which was released in the 2010 Bowman set.  You can also find Vince Belnome cards in several minor league team issues such as the San Antonio Missions and the Durham Bulls.  All nice cards.  Really his Bowman card is a pretty cool card to track down and is my preferred card of choice with Belnome.  Like all recent Bowman sets, the market for Belnome Bowman cards hinges greatly on the colored parallels.  Most of the time a career minor league player would be an after thought to collectors, but Belnome happens to be a popular fan favorite and that popularity pushes the price of his cards at times. 

For example, I have been able to track down a good chunk of his colored parallels over the past year.  Many of them surface on Ebay, but the bidding is frequently competitive.  Sure, some of the cards are listed by sellers for just a few bucks.  However, short-printed cards with low serial numbers left up to the bidding process can escalate quickly.  I recently picked up the hardest part of a rainbow....

I had saved up my Ebay Bucks, so I was willing to spend a little bit more than I normally would have for a printing plate of a minor league player.  It was a good thing that I had a few extra bucks in the fight because the card drifted north of $20.  While I was a little bit disappointed to see the card go that high, I am excited to finish off my rainbow of this popular Durham Bulls player.  It also goes to show that collecting a player with only a single card can be both fun and challenging. 

Amazing Day of Gypsy Queens

I stopped by my favorite local card shop in Raleigh, Big D's Sports Cards, to open up some Gypsy Queen boxes.  Topps released Gypsy Queen this past Wednesday, but with family in town, it took me a few days to make it into the card shop to check out the newest version of this annual popular Topps release.  Jimmy at Big D's picked up a pair of cases of Gypsy Queen.  My two boxes were pretty amazing.  Small details first:

The base set is the typical Gypsy Queen product that Topps has issued over the past several of years with this product.  The base set is 350 with about 50 short printed cards which are generally the high numbered cards and a few singles scattered throughout the set.  The shortest of short prints appears to be the Tanaka card.  I did not pull a copy of the Tanaka rookie card, and out of the boxes that had been opened in the card store, only one copy had been pulled.  The Gypsy Queen set also features it's usual run of minis.  I pulled six black minis and a sepia mini in my two boxes. 

All of the Black Minis are numbered to 199 and the Sepia mini is numbered to 50.  Jimmy also traded a few minis with me and I also picked up a nice copy of the black Stan Musial and the Adam Wainwright.  I will probably try to pick up a few more of the black framed minis of the Cardinals and maybe a few of the Rays. 

On to the good hits.  Each box of Gypsy Queen should have four hits: two autographs and two relics.  I definitely beat the odds with my box.  Here are my autographs from my first box:

Nothing too great there.  KIckham and Hefner might both potentially be Major Leaguers at some point, but they are not probably going to be anything too great.  Kickham did go to Missouri State.  Connection, kind of...  I also was happy to pull a copy of a Bourjos jersey card with a picture of the Cardinals new center fielder in his new jersey. 

Really happy to pull the Bourjos card.  I had seen a few of these floating around this week and was really eager to add one of these to my collection.  Always nice when you can just pull one out of a box.  Now, for my good hits from the first box which more than make up for the fact that I did not get a second relic card. 

This is the first of my two good hits from my first box.  The plate is the mini Cyan of Dodgers right handed pitcher Zach Greinke.  Pretty nice looking card, but I actually landed a nicer card than this one in my box. 

This Shleby Miller Texas flag patch was my favorite card I pulled out of this box.  The card is serial numbered out of 5 and features a cool flag patch of Miller's home state.  Gypsy Queen has done a few insert sets with flags before in the past, but never with patches and never limited to just 5 copies.  Throw in the fact that the card features a Cardinals player and I am extremely happy with this pull.

Now, I did get a second box of cards, and while the first box was really good, the second box was really cool too.  In fact, the Miller card was the highest serial number (out of 5) of any of the extra hits I landed in my two boxes of Gypsy Queen.  So, my first move in opening my second box was to bust open the small box of minis on top of the box.  My second box was a little short on mini because this card was in the box...

 

I have never pulled a button card, so landing this Greinke was really sweet.  The card is limited to just 3 copies.  Just really really cool.  After landing the Greinke I went through the box and pulled my two autographs and my two relic cards.  My autographs were Steve Delbar and Adam Eaton. 

 

Ironically I returned home sorted out my base set cards and minis and witnessed Eaton hitting a home run yesterday against the Indians.  Eaton is now on the White Sox.  My two relics....

 

After pulling the two relics I was really happy with my second box and would have been more than satisfied with two autographs, two relics, and a button card limited to just 3 copies.  However, I managed to pull one more cool hit out of my box...

I am not a huge plate person and I rarely seem to pull them, but two in a day is a personal record for me.  Plus I managed to land two pretty good players with Greinke and Utley.  Overall, my two boxes of Gypsy Queen were pretty incredible.  Four autographs, three relics, a button card, and two printing plates is a pretty good day at the office.  In fact, Big D's had a great weekend with this product.  In addition to my good pulls customers in the store also pulled.  Here are four other customer's hits that Jimmy posted on his Facebook page including a Yogi Berra 1/1, Reggie Jackson 1/1, Puig Printing Plate, Dual autograph of Julio Tehran and Mike Minor, a Minor printing plate, and a jumbo Stanton.   I actually picked up the Porcello patch from Jimmy in the third picture down.  I will post it at some point. 

2012 Topps One of One Letter Patch Evan Longoria "G"

This is going to be one of those posts where I am going to go ahead and let the card do most of the talking.  It does not happen often, but I love this card and it has been in my collection only a few hours. Today's card hails from the second series of the 2012 Topps set and features a patch from the jersey of Rays third baseman, and former Durham Bull, Evan Longoria.  I love unique patches and this definitely qualifies as such.

2012 Topps One of One Letter Patch Evan Longoria 

2012 Topps Heritage Minor League Carlos Martinez Magenta Printing Plate

I don't dabble in the 1/1 market very often, but was excited to acquire a printing plate from the Topps Heritage Minor League of Cardinals pitching prospect Carlos Martinez.  The 2012 season has marked the debut of Martinez in licensed sets and I have managed to pick up a couple of his autographs early in the year.

2012 Topps Heritage Minor League Carlos Martinez Magenta Printing Plate 

I found this card over on my Facebook page where it was pulled by Ryan, a great baseball card trader.  He can also be found in several of the trading groups, but is always really cool to work with on trading.  Anyway, I sent over a nice Ryan Bruan autograph for the Martinez plate and we also traded out a few nice relics cards from my side for a few nice autographs and relic card for my end of the deal.

2008 SPX Young Stars Signatures Chris Duncan Autograph

First up is a nice Chris Duncan autograph from the 2008 SPX set.  I actually own almost all of the Chris Duncan autographs, but was still missing this one.  I collected Chris Duncan cards for awhile after the 2006 World Series since he was one of the key players on that team.  He has since retired due to a neck injury and works in St. Louis in talk radio.  

2010 Donruss Elite Tyrell Jenkins

I also received a 2010 Donruss Elite Tyrell Jenkins autograph.  Jenkins is one of the better pitching prospects in the highly rated Cardinals minor league system.  He is considered a little bit raw, but is a fantastic athlete and was recruited to Baylor to play football.  Jenkins is also a great follow on Twitter and really interacts with his fans and followers.  

2007 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Bruce Sutter Jersey

Lastly, I received a Sweet Sport Bruce Sutter jersey.  The card has a cool picture of Bruce Sutter with the awesome shaggy 80s beard and a piece of powder blue Cardinals road jersey.  

More Trade Highlights

I put a little sneak peek up for today's blog on my Facebook and Twitter page last night.  The last two post on my blog, the Shelby Miller and Matt Kemp card, were from the same trade.  Today's blog entry is some more highlights from that same trade.  After almost thirty years of collecting, and a few hundred thousand cards, I am trying to sacrifice some of the quantity from my base card collection for some quality in other areas.  The Kemp, Miller, and an Ozzie Smith card were the primary cards that I was targeting in this trade, but ended up with some other really nice pieces.  Today, I will start with the Ozzie.

2007 UD Premier Ozzie Smith Patch Card 

My other highlight card was a 2011 Bowman Platinum Jeremy Hellickson jersey/autograph.  The card is serial numbered out of 99 and took a lot of convincing to get it into the trade.  I have a few other Hellickson autographs, but did not have a copy of this card in my collection.  

2011 Bowman Platinum Jeremy Hellickson Jersey/Autograph 98/99

The rest of the cards in the trade were icing on the cake.  I got a couple of autographs, a few cool relic cards, and a plate as a throw in to make the trade complete.  Here are some highlights:

1997 Upper Deck Rey Ordonez Game Jersey Relic

2011 Topps Finest Michael Pineda Dual Jersey Autograph 

2009 Topps Tribute Prince Fielder Triple Jersey

2003 Topps Chrome Dennis Eckersley Record Breakers Jersey

2009 Upper Deck USA Baseball Triple Jersey Kolten Wong

2011 Bowman Platinum Brandon Guyer Autograph 

2008 Topps Opening Day Ryan Garko Plate 1/1