My 10 Favorite Card Purchases of 2010: Number 5

This is another card that I knew I had to own when it hit eBay. I'd been looking for the 2006 Christian Colon Aflac regular version for a long time. I'd already picked up the promo version a while back. I couldn't believe my luck when the first one I ever saw was graded a PSA 10 gem mint. I really couldn't believe my luck when another one showed up on eBay just weeks later. I obviously bought both of them.

Colon is one of the players that I've been collecting for almost a year. I've amassed a huge collection of his Upper Deck USA autographed and memorabilia cards. I also picked up a nice stash of his 2010 Bowman Chrome USA cards.

The Royals took Colon with the 4th overall pick in the 2010 MLB Draft out of Cal State Fullerton and quickly signed him for slot money. Colon got some good experience under his belt by signing quickly which should get him to AA this year, well ahead of his fellow first round picks. If all goes as planned, Colon could be the Royals stating shortstop in 2012. Their system is loaded with talent that will be arriving from 2011-2013. The Royals are poised to have a really good team for a 4-5 year span if they play their cards right.

I couldn't resist inserting a tiny rant about Topps before closing this post. Topps claims that only 250 of each Aflac regular version exist. This card absolutely proves that number isn't correct. Colon was part of the Debut Cuts set in 2010 Topps Pro Debut Baseball. That set used cut autographs from 2006 Aflac regular version cards and the Colon was numbered to 200. 2010 Bowman Draft also included Colon in the Aflac buyback autographs. Understandably, the Colon is low numbered (/49) because they used up a lot of them in the Pro Debut Cuts set. That adds up to 249 of these cards that Topps has released in their 2010 products. I obviously own two of these so that puts us up to 251. If you search eBay you'll find a couple more out there, putting us up to 253. How many were produced? Who knows. I know one thing, it's still a very rare card and I'm excited to have two gem mint copies in my collection.

My 10 Favorite Card Purchases of 2010: Number 8

Well how do you like that? Another Aflac card. Like I said yesterday, I love these cards because it's the very first card produced of every player in the set and the regular versions are limited to 250 copies. These cards are handed out at the Aflac All-American game so it can be challenging to find nice mint copies.

I picked up this Matt Purke BGS 9.5 on eBay early on in the 2010 college baseball season. I'm not quite sure what this card would go for today as you never see them. I just know that I was really excited to find this card, let alone graded BGS 9.5 gem mint.

TCU will enter the 2011 NCAA Baseball season ranked #1 in the country. Purke will look to build on his incredible 2010 freshman season where he went 16-0 with a 3.02 ERA and 142 strikeouts with just 34 walks. Two of those wins came in the College World Series where he went 2-0 with a 1.35 ERA.

Purke was drafted 14th overall by the Texas Rangers in the 2009 MLB Draft, but Texas failed to sign him. You can be sure that he'll go higher than 14th if he decides to enter the 2011 MLB Draft in June.

My 10 Favorite Card Purchases of 2010: Number 9

It's funny, the first two cards I'm posting are of prospects in the Minnesota Twins organization, but that's not my favorite team.

This is a card that I searched almost two years for. Topps/Bowman puts out their Aflac All-American set every year, only producing 250 of each card. More common promotional versions were released in 2006 and 2007 and I already had one of those. Landing the regular version at a reasonable price always eluded me. It wasn't until Hicks had a slow start to his 2010 that I was able to pick one up.

I'm a big fan of the Aflac cards as they're always going to be the first card produced of any player featured in the set. Being that they're limited to 250 make them even more desirable in my mind. Also consider that many of them are given to the players and many are purchased back by Topps and released as buy-back autographs, or more recently cut autographs in 2010 Pro Debut Baseball. This makes the non-autographed versions one of the most rare cards you'll ever find for players featured in the sets.

Hicks is rated the #2 prospect in the Minnesota Twins organization by Baseball America, formerly #1. He's 21 years old and will begin his 2011 season in HiA at Fort Myers. He's projected to be a five tool center fielder with good power.