1986 Fleer Basketball Wax Box on eBay

The greatest modern day wax box, 1986 Fleer Basketball, is up for sale on eBay. There can't be too many of these out there anymore, at least that are legit.

I took a look at the sellers feedback and sales history. The feedback is solid and the past sales are all for vintage wax and old sports programs. I'd say that the seller seems very reputable.

What would you do with a box like this? I know that I wouldn't be able to. There will never be another box from the modern era that will be as desired and highly valued as this. To me, it's just too rare to open. Can you imagine opening it and getting a wax stained Jordan?

View the auction here.

Mark Sanchez TTM Success?

Date sent: 11/8/09
Date received: 11/27/09

I'm not really sure if this is a success or not. The signature shows some similarities to his certified autograph cards but it's not exact. I've compared mine to all the other ones with pictures on sportscollectors.net and it looks similar with one big difference, it's not stamped. All the other recent returns have been obvious stamps, as you'll see in the pictures below. They also all have the personalization in all caps, my name is lower case. I'm thinking since it matches the stamp so closely that it has a chance of being real. You certainly wouldn't have a stamp made of a fake autograph. What are the odds that Sanchez already has a ghost signer and he/she was out of ink for the stamp?

Let me know what you guys think. I'm curious to see some opinions on this one.

Stamped TTM Returns

My TTM return and a certifed autograph

Target Half Price Blaster Saturday - 2008 Bowman Football

I know what you're thinking, how could I be buying blasters when I bought all that stuff at the Blowout Cards Black Friday Sale yesterday. Well, trust me, I thought the same thing. Although, the cards from Blowout won't arrive until Tuesday at the earliest. So this purchase is justified... right?

Anyway, I went to Target specifically looking for 50% off blasters. I wasn't going to buy anything that was full price today. I settled on two blasters of 2008 Bowman Football because the only other choices were 2008 Upper Deck Heroes Football and 2008 Upper Deck Series 2 Baseball. I've been on a football kick lately so I figured I'd stick with it. I also needed to see if the two 2008 Bowman Football Hobby boxes I got from Blowout are worth opening.

To my surprise, the "One Authentic Memorabilia Card" they mention on the front of the box is a 2008 Topps Rookie Premiere Jersey card. I just figured it would be a jersey card from the 2008 Bowman set. As you'll see below, I did very well on these. I got a Matt Ryan and a Joe Flacco. I can't complain about that at all.

As for the rest of the cards, nothing exciting. You basically get two Bowman rookies, one Bowman base, one Bowman Gold and one Bowman Chrome rookie per pack. I also ended with two Bowman Blue cards, each numbered to 500. The best card I got out of all of that was a Tim Hightower Bowman Chrome rookie. There really wasn't anything else exciting. I thought it was really funny that one of my Bowman Blue cards was Tony Sparano. I didn't know they made coach cards in this set.

The Bowman/Bowman Chrome design is boring to me. The Bowman singles have black borders and many of them have chipping straight out of the pack. I'd have been very disappointed with the condition if I'd paid full price. Bottom line, I'm not a fan of this product at all and won't be opening the boxes from Blowout. Those will be Christmas gifts or eBay items.

Blowout Cards Black Friday Purchases

The Blowout Cards Black Friday sale is still going strong but I figured I'd post my purchases to this point.

2 - 2008 Upper Deck Goudey Baseball Retail Box @ $11.27 ea.
6 - 2008 Topps Football Fat Pack Box @ $9.99 ea.
3 - 2008 Leaf Rookies & Stars Football Retail Box @ $9.99 ea.
2 - 2003 Upper Deck Prospect Premieres Baseball Hobby Box @ $29.95 ea.
1 - 2007 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia Football Hobby Box @74.95 ea.
2 - 2008 Topps Series 1 Baseball Jumbo HTA Box @ $11.27 ea.
1 - 2007 Topps Triple Threads Football Hobby Box @ $119.95 ea.
1 - 2007 Bowman Chrome Football Hobby Box @ $11.27 ea.
2 - 2008 Bowman Football Hobby Box @ $11.27 ea.
2 - 2007 Leaf Limited Football hobby Box @ $59.95 ea.
2 - 2007 Upper USA Nationals Team Baseball Box Set @ $42.90 ea.

I love that they're putting a lot of 2007 Football products on sale. Adrian Peterson rookies are fun to go after.

Head on over to their site before the sale is over. They're doing an amazing job of posting a huge variety of products at amazing prices. Thank you Blowout!

Allen & Ginter George Washington DNA Relic Hits eBay

One of a supposed three 2007 Allen & Ginter George Washington DNA Strand of Hair Relics has surfaced on eBay.

The seller claims that one of these sold for between $30,000 - $40,000 in a private auction. I never heard that and find it hard to believe. It will be very interesting to keep an eye on this and see what it gets up to. The seller has a reserve so my bet is that bidding never reaches that amount.

Either way, it's an amazing card and one that's rarely ever seen. I cannot imagine the rush of pulling something like this from a pack. It would certainly make up for a lifetime of bad box breaks.

Link to the auction here

Cameron Maybin TTM Success

Date sent: 3/4/09
Date received: 10/30/09

This is another recent TTM return that I had pretty much written off. I sent it way back during spring training. On top of that, Maybin carries a 12% success rate for members of sportscollectors.net.

I'm not sure what made my request stand out but I got it back and I couldn't be happier.

I've followed Maybin ever since he was part of the trade that sent Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis to the Tigers. I'd heard that Maybin was the key to the deal for the Marlins. I wondered what made this kid so special so I kept an eye on him. He's yet to live up to his 5-tool can't miss potential but he's still only 22 years old.

Maybin made the team last year out of spring training but the Marlins sent him down to AAA in early May as he was batting .2o2. They brought him back up on September 1st and he remained on the team through the final game. In that time he raised his batting average to .250 and hit three home runs.

Hopefully Maybin will make the Marlins out of spring training again and stick around for the whole season.

Half Price Target Blaster Sunday

You'd think with all the stuff that I've opened lately that I'd be content. Well, that's just not the case so I headed to a couple Target stores this morning. I picked up five blasters of 2008 Upper Deck Football. They're part of the 50% off boxes so they were only $9.99 each. That comes out to $1.00 per pack and you're guaranteed a jersey card. I'll take those odds.

You get two Star Rookies per pack so you end up with 20 rookies per box. It's a very large set of rookies. There are 100 in the base set and then 25 more in the SP set. You also have the chance to pull the Target exclusive Star Rookies. All in all, I got one SP rookie and three Target Star Rookies out of the five boxes. Luckily, the SP was Desean Jackson and on of the Target Star Rookies was Joe Flacco. From the base rookies the highlights were two Flacco, two Forte, two Mendenhall and one Chris Johnson. You get one Starquest card per pack as well. You end up with all sorts of color as there are five different colors in that set.

Here's how I did:

UD Rookie Jersey (4)
Ray Rice Gold /350
Limas Sweed Gold /350
Desean Jackson
Jordy Nelson

Team Colors Jersey (1)
Philip Rivers Gold /299

Target Exlusive Rookies (3)
Joe Flacco
Antoine Cason
Kenny Phillips

SP Rookie Card (1)
Desean Jackson

Masterpieces Preview (2)
Franco Harris

Starquest (50, one per pack)
Check the pics below for the highlights.

2009 Bowman Chrome Football Case Break - Boxes #7, 8, 9 and 10

In a word, ugh. This case was definitely a disappointment. The biggest disappointment had to be getting doubles of autographed rookies twice. I ended up with two Nate Davis and two Andre Brown. Obviously had they been two Mark Sanchez and two Knowshon Moreno I wouldn't be complaining.

I gathered up the cards that were worth grading and sent them off to BGS today to take advantage of their half price grading special. I was surprised how many of the cards had scratches or lines on the surface. I had to hold a few back because of that, most notably the Mark Sanchez refractor.

I was able to put together two complete sets. I'll be putting those up on eBay unless someone reading is interested. They've been going in the $40 range on eBay so that's what I was hoping to get. Leave a comment if you want one.

I also got ten severely off-centered cards in one of my boxes. Luckily none of them were rookies or cards of any value. I mailed them back to Topps just to see if they'll replace them. I've never sent damaged cards for replacement so I figured I'd give it a shot.

Here are the last four boxes:

Box 7

Autographed Rookie: Brandon Tate

Box Topper: Donald Brown Silver

Gold Refractor: Jason Smith RC

Green Refractor: James Davis RC

Xfractor: Mike Thomas RC, Lamarr Woodley

Refractors: Johnny Knox RC, Joseph Addai, Matt Cassell, Felix Jones

Notable Rookies: Kenny Britt, LeSean McCoy, Matthew Stafford, Knowshon Moreno, Darrius Heyward-Bey



Box 8

Autographed Rookie: Brian Hartline Orange Refractor!

Box Topper: Louis Murphy Silver

Gold Refractor: Oshiomogho Atogwe

Xfractor: LeSean McCoy RC, Matt Ryan

Refractors: Brian Robiskie RC, Shonn Greene RC, Warrick Dunn, Braylon Edwards, Fred Taylor

Notable Rookies: Mark Sanchez, Percy Harvin, Jeremy Maclin, Hakeem Nicks, Donald Brown, Johnny Knox, Chris Wells



Box 9

Autographed Rookie: Johnny Knox

Box Topper: Mohamed Massaquoi Bronze

Green Refractor: Calvin Johnson

Blue Refractor: Brandon Tate RC

Xfractor: Laveranues Coles

Refractors: Tyson Jackson RC, Randy Moss, Jared Allen, Marshawn Lynch

Notable Rookies: Michael Crabtree



Box 10

Autographed Rookie: Andre Brown (case starts and ends with him)

Box Topper: Tom Brandstater Bronze

Blue Refractor: Frank Gore, Fred Taylor

Xfractor: Jared Allen

Refractors: Brandon Gibson RC, Trent Edwards, Marc Bulger, Jay Cutler

Notable Rookies: Mark Sanchez, Percy Harvin, Jeremy Maclin, Hakeem Nicks, Donald Brown, Johnny Knox, Chris Wells

2009 Bowman Chrome Football Case Break - Boxes #4, 5 and 6

Well, things turned around a bit on these three boxes. The highlights were the Jeremy Maclin Blue Refractor Autograph the Brian Orakpo Orange Refractor and the Mark Sanchez Refractor. The low point was the second Nate Davis autograph in six boxes. We'll see how the last four boxes go tomorrow.

Box 4

Autographed Rookie: Jeremy Maclin Blue Refractor

Box Topper: Austin Collie Bronze

Gold Refractor: Bernard Berrian

Blue Refractor: Matt Ryan

Xfractor: James Davis RC, Jason Witten

Refractors: Derrick Williams RC, Mohamed Massaquoi RC, Willis McGahee, Maurice Jones-Drew, Derek Anderson

Notable Rookies: LeSean McCoy, Chris Wells, Darrius Heyward-Bey, Kenny Britt, Knowshon Moreno, Matthew Stafford



Box 5

Autographed Rookie: Nate Davis

Box Topper: Brian Robiskie Bronze

Gold Refractor: Dwayne Bowe

Blue Refractor: Reggie Bush

Xfractor: Steve Slaton

Refractors: Mark Sanchez RC, Carson Palmer, Chad Pennington, Greg Jennings

Notable Rookies: Michael Crabtree



Box 6

Autographed Rookie: Curtis Painter

Box Topper: Kenny Britt Silver

Orange Refractor: Brian Orakpo RC

Green Refractor: Darren McFadden

Xfractor: Malcolm Jenkins RC, Matt Cassell

Refractors: Brian Cushing RC, Rhett Bomar RC, Greg Camarillo, Terrell Owens, Michael Turner

Notable Rookies: Michael Crabtree

2009 Bowman Chrome Football Case Break - Boxes #2 and 3

Here are boxes 2 and 3 from my 2009 Bowman Chrome Football case break. They got a bit better than the first box but still not great. It was nice to see some rookie refractors and some good base rookies in the third box. If the autographs continue to be like this then the case will be a bust.

BOX 2

Autographed Rookie: Nate Davis

Box Topper: Knowshon Moreno Bronze

Gold Refractor: Eddie Royal

Blue Refractor: Steven Jackson, Lee Evans

Xfractor: Shonn Greene RC

Refractors: Ramses Barden RC, Lamarr Woodley, Joey Porter, Tim Hightower

Notable Rookies: Michael Crabtree



BOX 3

Autographed Rookie: Austin Collie

Box Topper: Glen Coffee Bronze

Green Refractor: Tyson Jackson RC

Blue Refractor: Aaron Curry RC

Xfractor: Clinton Portis

Refractors: Jeremy Maclin RC, Derrick Mason, DeMarcus Ware

Notable Rookies: Mark Sanchez, Percy Harvin, Jeremy Maclin, Hakeem Nicks, Donald Brown, Johnny Knox

2009 Bowman Chrome Football Case Break - Box #1

Over the next few days I'll be breaking a case of 2009 Bowman Chrome Football (purchased from Blowout Cards). I'll post the results of the boxes as I get to them. From what I've seen so far these are pretty hit and miss. There are so many rookies in this set that it would be really easy to miss on an entire case.

Unfortunately, I missed on the first box. I did get what seems like a lot of refractors. Too bad none of them were overly exciting. Here are the results:

Autographed Rookie: Andre Brown

Box Topper: B.J. Raji Bronze

Gold Refractor: DeMarcus Ware

Blue Refractor: Santana Moss

Xfractor: Kenny McKinley RC, Joey Porter, John Carlson, T.J. Houshmandzadeh

Refractors: Brandon Tate RC, Brandon Gibson RC

Notable Rookies: LeSean McCoy, Johnny Knox, Hakeem Nicks, Darrius Heyward-Bey

2008 Allen & Ginter Hobby Break - Red Autograph

I've never opened a box of Allen & Ginter before. I've always liked the way they looked but never got around to buying a box. Well, last weekend I broke down and purchased a box of 2008 Allen & Ginter.

My first impression was the odd shape of the box. It looked more like a box of crackers than a box of baseball cards. Anyway, once I opened the first pack I loved the product. The cards look great and they're perfect for autographs. I'm a big TTM autograph collector so a lot of these will be going out in the mail.

Enough talk, here are the cards that I got:

Mini Baseball Icons (1)
Rogers Hornsby

Mini Black (3)
Marie Curie
Andrew "William Ocean" Litz
Greg Smith

Mini World Leaders (2)
Qaboos Bin Said Al-Said
Robert Fico

Regular Mini High # (1)
Bengie Molina

Mini A&G Back (17)
Mickey Mantle
16 others. Is it normal to get so many?

Relics
Matt Kemp
Carlos Marmol

World's Greatest Victories (1)
The American Revolution

Base SP's (12)

Notable Base Cards
Evan Longoria RC
Jay Bruce RC



I was thinking with a few packs left that I got some cool stuff but the box just didn't have enough bang for the buck. I really went into this hoping to get a Mini Bazooka Back. Much to my dismay, I did not end up with one. Instead, I got a Red Ink Autograph of Rampage Jackson numbered 6/10. I don't watch MMA but I've heard of Jackson. I know that this has to be a popular card but I really have no idea what the value is. One of the regular versions sold on eBay for $51 so this one has to be fairly valuable.



Bottom line: Topps has made a fan out of me. This is a really fun break. The relics looks great and I love the idea of all the mini parallels. I'll be purchasing another box in the future.

Awesome Josh Hamilton TTM Success

Date sent: 2/28/09
Date received: 11/7/09

I wasn't sure that I'd get this item back or not. Josh Hamilton has a great track record for TTM request successes but I had my doubts as it had been 8 months since I sent it off.

I'm thrilled to get this back because this is a ticket stub from the game where Josh Hamilton got his first major league hit, a home run. I was at this game, I lived in Phoenix, AZ for two years and attended many Diamondbacks games while I lived there. This was just any other game, nothing special, but I knew going in that Josh Hamilton was playing.

If you collected cards in the late 90's, you know who Josh Hamilton is. His 1999 rookie cards were the hottest thing going back then as he was the #1 overall pick in the MLB Draft by the Tampa Bay Ray (Devil Rays then). You may have also heard of Hamilton's struggles with drug addiction that lead to him being out of baseball. He worked very hard to get clean and work his way back to the majors.

Anyway, I was completely aware when Hamilton came up in the 3rd inning that he didn't have a hit in the majors yet. He ripped a pitch to right field and his first major league hit was a 2-run home run. A few fans in the small crowd realized the moment and stood to applaud Hamilton, most didn't realize the significance.

Here we are three years later and Hamilton has been an All-Star and a Home Run Derby champion. He had an excellent 2008 season but was hampered by injuries last year that lead to him only playing 89 games. I've rooted for him ever since I heard of his struggles with drugs and his fight to get back to the majors. After receiving this ticket back from Hamilton I'll be more than a casual observer, I'm now a legit fan.

Link to mlb.com game article

Upper Deck Redemption Mail Day

I ordered a tin of 2007 Sweet Spot Football from Blowout Cards about a month ago hoping, against hope to get an Adrian Peterson rookie. Instead, I got Laurent Robinson and a couple average jersey cards. I also got this Reggie Wayne Green Pigskin Sigs numbered to 99. It was a redemption and took about a month to arrive.

Sure, it's not an extremely valuable card and definitely not the hit I was hoping for. But its a cool looking autographed card of one of the top three receivers in the NFL and sure Hall of Famer when all is said and done.

It's a very timely arrival considering that Wayne caught the winning touchdown last night against the Patriots to seal the last second victory for the Colts. I think this one is going to end up in my private collection rather than go on eBay.

Fun Retail Box Break From Target

It's been a very long time since I've posted. What compelled me to get back on the horse, you ask? It was a box of cards that I bought this morning at Target. Rarely is a retail purchase something to write about but this one inspired me.

Target has full retail boxes (24 packs/5 cards per pack) of 2008 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia Football for $24.99 each. That's right, this is a full box, not a blaster. As I was staring at the 2009 Topps Chrome Football blasters for $19.99 each, I just couldn't justify buying another with this Absolute Memorbilia box and its $24.99 price tag staring me in the face. The box claims to yield at least one jersey or autograph per box on average. Let's see how I did.

This was a really fun break, that's why I'm posting and recommending you go pick up a box. Overall, I got four jersey cards, 7 red spectrum parallels, 2 blue spectrum parallels, 1 Gridiron Force insert, 1 Star Gazing insert and the #101 Brett Favre card (short print?). Here are the jersey details:

Rookie Jersey Collection
Early Doucet
Matt Forte
Dustin Keller

Star Gazing Jersey /250
Limas Sweed

As you'll see from the scan below, I got Colt Brennan and Peyton Manning in the red spectum parallel cards. Could I get $24.99 for all this on eBay? Probably not. Could I squeeze $24.99 out of it on COMC? I bet I can.

All in all, this was a fun box to break and there's potential to get some really good cards. For just $5.00 more than a blaster box I think this is a great purchase. Target also has some new half price blasters on the shelf. I saw 2008 Goudey Baseball and 2008 Upper Deck Series 2 Baseball. There was probably some more stuff too that I didn't notice.

I'll be posting more frequently from here on out. I've got some good stuff coming in the mail soon to break, including a 2009 Bowman Chrome Football case. Check back soon for the results of that and some other breaks.