Two Off the List.....

Two cards are coming off my Top 10 Wanted List tonight.  I started my list a few months back and it started off slowly.  I have mixed up the cards a bit, some simple targets and a few hard ones, and the pace of cards coming off the list has really picked up.  Tonight's two are one of each: One card that has been up for a few weeks and another that has been on the list since day 1.


Let's start off with the 10th Card on the list first....

I have already picked up all of the autographed copies of the Bowman Flashback cards, but still had one of the non-autographed cards to pick up.  I pulled a few out of packs and boxes and traded for a few of the others as a lot which left me with just this Baerga.  I ended up finding this in an envelope from Tim who writes the blog I Love the Smell of Cardboard in the Morning.  I am putting together a return envelope and I thank you for crossing a card off of my list.

Which brings me to the second card on my list which has been there since the first day it was posted a few months ago.....

Justin Ruggiano is one of my favorite all-time former Durham Bulls players.  I have a ton of his cards and enjoy collecting him.  Even that year he was on the Cubs.  I love the acetate cards and have been looking for an opportunity to add one of these cards of him and I finally found one last week on Ebay.  I probably slightly overpaid for the card, but knocked more than $40 off of the asking original asking price of $60.  It's an acetate, the first one on a 2015 card, so we have to look at the back of the card....

Just an awesome piece of cardboard.  Again, thank you to Tim from I Love the Smell of Cardboard and I will update my Want List with two new cards at some point this weekend.  

The Hobby Equivalent of Hitting A Home Run

I was really excited to get home this evening, empty my mailbox, and make a few scans of what I picked up over the weekend.  On the surface the cards I picked up are pretty nice cards, but the are the completion of a project that I took up recently and polished off quickly.  Let's take a look at my three new cards which are all from the Bowman Flashback Autograph set....

I traded for the Baerga and Olerud and bought the Gonzalez.  All three cards helped me complete the seven card Bowman Flashback autograph set.  Here's a quick look at the four other cards which have been picked up over the previous two weeks weeks since the release of the 2015 Bowman product.

It has been a long time since I put together an autograph set.  While it's a smaller set, I feel really great about this accomplishment and love looking at all of these cards all together.  Thanks to everyone who helped by trading me some of these cards.  I couldn't have done it without the generosity of a few awesome collectors.  Thank you!

AAAALLLLLLOOOOOOUUUUUUU!!!!!

There have been a lot of Bowman posts on this space during the past few weeks.  I like minor league guys, Bowman is filled with minor league guys, seems like a natural fit.  Right?  However, I am actually more excited about a set of veteran player cards in this year's Bowman set than the rookie/young guys.  I have got all summer to pick up the young guys, well probably longer than that, there is not really a time deadline on completing a set.....

So, I mentioned a few posts back about my love of the Flashback insert set.  I landed a copy of the non-autographed Moises Alou card in my jumbo box and have been working on adding some of the other cards over the past week.  Let me catch you up with the latest additions.  First, I picked up another copy of a base card:

A few more will be showing up later in the week, or early next week.  However, the really big pick up in the past week has been this card........

I am going to add a few more of these Flashback autographs, but completing the entire set is going to be a definite challenge.  The hardest card is likely going to be the Frank Thomas card which is both hard to find and expensive in price.  Still, it's a small set and I would love to give it a run.