2011 Topps Diamond Giveaway Haul

I waited very impatiently today for UPS to show up at my door, and finally, at about 3:15 p.m., the brown truck arrived with my haul from the Topps Diamond Giveaway. Here's what I was pleased to find:

After a LARGE number of trades, I managed to get my hands on a Cubs team set from the die cut set, which I was very proud of. The cards you would expect to be easy to get were easy to get, but the Castro, Banks, and Sandberg cards took quite a bit of effort. Like everyone who has seen these has said, they look good on the computer, but FANTASTIC in person. WELL worth all the effort it took to trade for these.

I knew the Robinson and Maris cards would be a challenge, and they were, but I did not expect for the Hamilton to be as hard as it was. I actually had one early on, but traded it for my Sandberg, and had the worst time trying to get one back. Hamilton RARELY has a bad looking card, and the full view of the name and number on the back of his jersey was a great looking shot.

(Note: these things are NOT easy to get back into the penny sleeves after taking them out to scan)

I also got a few cards from the early '80s of players I like, as well as some Cubs from the '60s and '70s.

My free pack was from 1980. I was expecting '87 or '88, so something from earlier was a great find. I won't scan in all the commons, but here's the best of what was in my pack.

Three hall-of-famers. Not bad at all.

I also got the special "Diamond Edition" set, or whatever it's called. Not sure whether to open it, put it in a binder, or sell it on ebay.

I had a lot of fun with the Diamond Giveaway. With so fewer cards on the Golden Giveaway, it won't be quite the same, but as soon as I can actually unlock a few, we'll see how it goes.

Story Time with the Fargo Force

Tuesday night, the Fargo Public Library hosted a story time event featuring players from the Fargo Force, our local USHL (junior hockey) team. We got there a little late, missing out on a few stories about Penguins, but we did make it in time for arts & crafts time, where the kids were able to make trading card frames and hang out with the players.

The two players, forward Alex Iafallo and defenseman Neal Goff, spent time with the kids while they put the crafts together ,were great with the kids, and gave some encouraging tips to the young hockey players there. The cards available of the two players were taken up early on, so we got them to sign copies of the event flyer. My wife picked out the card of backup goaltender Reed Peters for Caroline's frame, mostly because she like the team's blue alternate jerseys.

We all had a great time at the event and it's always good to see players interact with fans, no matter how small of a level it may be.

(Contest) Pimpin' Ain't Easy - Cards Beyond Oceans

Cards Beyond Oceans is holding a cool contest for a great-looking Duke Snider auto/jersey relic card from Sportkings. Head over to his blog and get involved.

Trade Bait Draft With Jaybarkerfan

If anyone is looking for some card drafting fun, head over to Jaybarkerfan's Junk.  At $10 per slot, this is easily the cheapest I have seen, and it has some of the best potential cards available. Entries close Friday, so hurry over.

Topps Golden Giveaway - Day 1

After a couple of weeks following the release of 2012 Topps Series 1, the Golden Giveaway site finally went live. While past on-line gimmicks have not been well received by all, I am a big fan, and am eagerly looking forward to participating this year. I had three codes to enter, and received no cards. Instead, I received three virtual coins, one each of Matt Kemp, David Wright, and the 2012 New York Yankees. We'll see how it goes, but if I don't get some actual hardware soon, I might havea difficult time being as enthusiastic about this year's offering.

On another note, I finally placed my order for my Diamond Giveaway cards, and I think I did pretty well in 2011. In addition to a few cubs vintage cards, I also will be receiving a complete Diamond Giveaway-stamped set of 2011 Topps, a pack of cards from the 70s/80s, and Die Cuts of all 7 Cubs (Sandberg, Banks, Castro, Colvin, Byrd, Marmol, and Ramirez), plus Josh Hamilton, Roger Maris,a dn Jackie Robinson. From what I've heard, these are some incredible-looking cards, so I'm looking forward to seeing them up close and in person.

Trade With "é rayhahn, rayhahn"

Seeing as though I keep track of my fellow bloggers through the Blogger news feed, I am somewhat isolated from others who ise other servers, such as Wordpress. One of those bloggers, Rhubarb-Runner, who writes at "é rayhahn, rayhahn", contacted me about a trade for my Twins trade bait. It turns out that my current place of residence of Fargo, ND is his former place of residence, which was pretty cool. It was also cool, because this makes him a hockey fan, which gave him the ability to help me with my Upper Deck hockey needs. Always nice. He also send me some of my needs from 2011 Topps and the following cards:

While a Johan Hedberg card doesn't turn any heads nowadays, he was a goaltending phenom for the Pens for a season or two. 

Felix Pie was a great prospect for the Cubs who just didn't pan out, and is a reminder of a history of things not going our way. It's funny how at a  certain point of a torturous existence, you embrace your team's misfortune. 

You just can't go too wrong with a Soriano relic. 

This is just a fun card in the simple fact that I never knew that Hinske had any association with the Cubs, much less had a relic card from his time with the team. 


That's the nice thing about card collecting. Especially in this case, it goes to show you, one man's junk is another man's treasure.