A Good Day At The Card Shop

I spent my day off today with a nice trip to the card shop and came away a very happy collector.  One of the employees from the Valley Sports Cards sent me an email mentioning that my redemption has arrived from Topps.  The shop was nice enough to take care of the whole redemption process for me.  Also, this gave me an excuse to go in even though, I wasn't planning on buying too much.

This is the redemption that I pulled from a pack of 2010 Topps 206 about a month ago.  I wasn't looking forward to receiving a Sammy Gervacio autograph.  The name sounds like someone that Joe Pesci whacked in Goodfellas.  Sadly, he is not a character from Goodfellas.  Gervacio is some dude in the Houston Astros organization.

Topps somehow ran out of Sammy Gervacio autographs so, they sent me a Chris Young autograph instead. I have heard of Chris Young!  He was an All-Star!  I watch him play against the Dodgers several times a year!

Awesome!  This was a sweet deal for me.  I am so happy that Topps hooked me up.  This Chris Young card is definitely something that I can trade and get something solid in return.  Please let me know if any of you are interested.  I also probably have some other Diamondbacks to trade because I seem to trade with a Diamondback fan about once every 9 months.

This was just the start of the good luck that I was getting at the shop today.

  The second part of the good luck was getting some of my bid board winnings.  I always walk into the shop and check out the wall of random cards that people are selling.  I usually bid on some that fit into my collection.  If you check out my set needs section, you will notice that I am trying to put together some 2011 Allen and Ginter insert sets.  I have been slowly chipping away. The Animals in Peril set is the biggest one that I am working on.  Being able to pick up a couple of these on the cheap is good news for me.

I have been seeing less and less 2011 Ginter packs at the shop and in retail stores lately.  My Wal-Mart seems to be getting rid of there card section.  The only baseball cards that they have left are the Topps Value packs and a few 2011 Topps Update Rack Packs.  Finishing the 2011 Allen and Ginter sets may take some luck and some work in the trade department.

The shop had some packs of Bowman Chrome, some high end Bowman something that I won't touch and some packs of Lineage.  I am a huge Lineage fan and love the parallels such as the '75 Minis and the Cloth Sticker cards.  The shop worker said that there were only five packs left and the hits have already been gone from the box.  He ended up selling me the five packs for ten bucks.  Sweet!

I was cool not expecting a hit because I dig the parallels and inserts so much.  In the 5th pack that I opened, out popped this super cool Bobby Shantz autograph.  I was psyched and mentioned to the shop worker that he was wrong.  I had to rub it in a little.  He gave me a good deal and I came away with an auto.

Shantz had a solid career.  He played for 16 seasons mostly with the Philadelphia/Kansas City Athletics.  Shantz won a MVP in 1952.  That season he won 24 games and had 27 complete games.  I love that stat line.  Shantz also won 8 consecutive Gold Gloves between 1957-1964.

I am totally happy with the autos that I came away with at the shop today.  I wasn't expecting either one.  The Shantz is a keeper but, the Young is available.