10 Years of Allen & Ginter Minis

Allen & Ginter is celebrating their 10th anniversary this year.  As a result there are plenty of "buybacks" floating around with the 10th anniversary logo floating around the secondary market.  I've been trying to pursue adding at least 1 mini of the framed commemorative inserts.  Many have fallen in the 99 cent range which is about all I value them at.

Here's 8 of what I have so far.

2007 Chris Duffy
2008 Jason Bay
2009 Ryan Doumit
2010 Zach Duke
2011 Jose Tabata
2012 Joel Hanrahan
2013 Garrett Jones
2014 Ralph Kiner

The Zach Duke is the A&G back while the Hanrahan and Jones are black borders.

G.I. Jones makes a pink appearance

I can't say too much for Garrett Jones that hasn't already been said on this blog.  He's a great guy with a lot of homerun power in his swing, but he strikes out too many times and doesn't play a very rangeful first baseman.  The Pirates cut ways with Jones after 2013 and he signed a 2 year deal with the Miami Marlins.  He provided the numbers that many Pirates came to expect from him, an average around .250, 50+RBI, and mid teen homerun totals.

Oh well...I grabbed this card of the former Pirate for $4 delivered.

And since his nickname is G.I. Jones, here's some G.I. related boobs to make this post better
a hot girl dressed as Lady Jaye from G.I. Joe

It came from Japan!!!!

I've shown off a few of my Sega CardGen cards in the past that are imported Topps cards.  I recently came across a few others.  I'll show off the whole lot in a future post, but figured today would be as good a day as any to highlight some former Buccos from Yesteryear (literally these guys were on the rost last year). 

Jason Grilli has played for 8 major leagues (counting the Pirates) and a handful of minor league organizations during his long career.  His best seasons came while a member of the Pirates though and was rewarded by being elected as a 2013 NL All-Star for his superb pre All-Star break perfect save record.  While with the Pirates, he posted a 3.01 ERA to go with a 3-11 record.  His WHIP was 1.18, but his K/9 was an insane 12.4, having struck out 222 batters in only 161 innings. 

Garret Jones provided a lot of fireworks in a Pirates uniform as he hit exactly 100 longballs over his 5 year career with the Bucs.  His highest mark came in 2012 when he hit 27 round trippers.  His overall line .256/.318/.462 (.780 OPS) wasn't as bad as it appears mainly because he hit only .194 vs LHP but a respectable .270 vs RHP.  His best season was actually his first with the Pirates when he posted a 3.2 WAR in 2009 by smashing 21 HR batting .293 and playing the corner outfield positions and first base.

Both Grilli and Jones were fan favorites while in Pittsburgh, but both have moved on to Miami and Los Angeles respectively.

The Best Ebay Lot EVER!!! Only 5 cents a card!!!!

While browsing for some good deals on ebay, I stumbled across this ridiculously cheap lot of 670 Pirates cards for $35 with FREE SHIPPING.  When you break that down, it's only a little over 5 cents a card.  Forget about your dimebox heroes, these are nickel heroes.

As part of the lot were 4 autographs from Francisco Cordova, the last Pirate to be involved in throwing a No-Hitter. Mike Kingery, Jon Liever, and Steve Cooke were the other signatures in the lot.

Also were 10 new Andy Van Slyke cards for my collection which I showed off yesterday.

It was overflowing with complete team sets from Topps, Upper Deck, Fleer, Donruss, Gypsy Queen, Pro Debut, etc.

It had over half a dozen minis.

Plenty of duplicate Andrew McCutchens (31 to be exact)

Plenty of new Andrew McCutchens (8)

More Jason Kendall, Brian Giles, Freddy Sanchez, and Jack Wilson cards than I will ever know what to do with

A Garrett Jones 2010 UD Biography card I've been chasing for awhile along with some more favorites that are all new additions to the collection

Several gold, blue, sparkle parallels (but my favorite is the blue Alex Presley shown below)

Oddballs and Diamond Kings

Some Hall of Famers

and a boatload of rookie cards for Gerrit Cole, Jameson Taillon, Gregory Polanco, Josh Bell, Luis Heredia, Tony Sanchez, Nick Kingham and Austin Meadows including a 2013 Bowman Refractor mini of Jameson Taillon

Of course there was junk in there, but considering that the cards were only 5 cents a piece, I think I got my money worth.  What do you think?

My loot from the Crackin Wax break

I decided to participate in the Crackin Wax Allen & Ginter 2013 Case break and of course chose my beloved Pirates.  The Bucs had several good hits from the set list and I was hoping to add one or two to my collection.  Unfortunately I got shut out, but that also meant I got a $5 reimbursement which I've already used to purchase a Starling Marte auto which I'll show off in a future post.

2013 SPs: McCutchen & Martin

The Pirates did have two SPs in the team set (Andrew McCutchen and Russel Martin) and I managed to grab two cards of each.  I will consider trading a copy if the offer is right.

2013 Base team set: Clemente, Mazeroski, Kiner, Stargell, Burnett, Jones, Alvarez, Walker, Marte

The rest of the Pirates team set includes 9 base cards

2013 Across the Years inserts: Stargell and Clemente

The Allen & Ginter Across the Years set includes two Bucs greats (Roberto Clemente & Willie Stargell).

2013 Minis: Walker Black Border, Kiner base, Kiner A&G back, Stargell base, McCutchen A&G back

One of my favorite things about A&G is the minis.  I didn't exactly hit on anything of major note, but did get two A&G backs (Kiner and McCutchen) along with a black border Neil Walker.

As an added bonus I received two cards from 2013 Platinum that I desperately needed to add to my collection.  They are of top prospects Gerrit Cole and Alen Hanson.

I can almost make my own Garrett Jones baseball cards

I'm halfway to making my own 2013 Gypsy Queen Garrett Jones cards.  I just picked up both the Cyan and Magenta printing plates for a total of $35.  I've yet to see the yellow printing plate pop up for sale and the black printing plate just recently sold on ebay, unfortunately not to me.

Happy 4th Of July

I saw this Garrett Jones 4th of July Manupatch from 2010 Topps on ebay a few months back and had to have it for the $4 price tag.  I wasn't much of a fan of manupatches and am still not, but I think this looks nicely displayed with my collection.

Happy 4th Everyone!!!

#Let'sGoBucs!

New Additions to the PTR

Yesterday I showed off some new trade bait including some Japanese import gaming cards featuring MLB's finest.  I also managed to pick up a few of my favorite Pirates from that set including Joel Hanrahan, Garrett Jones, and the PTR's favorite Bucco Andrew McCutchen.

I also found a few of the 2009 World Baseball Classic (WBC) gaming cards of Pirates too including Hanrahan (Team USA), current Pirates closer Jason Grilli (team Italy), and Pirates swingman Chris Leroux (team Canada). 

My recent Ebay purchases include a Ralph Kiner autograph for $10.  I've been on a Ralph Kiner kick lately and will be adding to this part of my collection a lot more this year.  I really want to focus more on my HOF Pirates collection this year so expect to see more Stargell, Clemente, Maz, Kiner, Honus Wagner, and the Waner brothers added to my collection this year. 

I realized that I had never posted this prior to my "fallout" from the blogging community.  It's a tri jersey featuring Jason Bay, Albert Pujols, and Ken Griffey Jr. that I won for $8.50

2 future HOFers and a Jason Bay.  It's numbered 49/50 so yup, I'll take it.
I have several more cards that I still need to add to this site that were purchased from many months ago.  Most of them are Jason Bay related.  I'll try to do a few massive updates over the next couple weeks.

Finally A Win!!!!

Today marked the first time the Bucs have won in a week.  The Pirates haven't had any complete blowouts besides Matt Cain's near perfect game, so they look like they are still competing with the NL West teams.  The Bucs will face off against the Diamondbacks starting tomorrow.

To celebrate the win today, I'm going to show off some of my recent purchases.

Kevin Correia pitched another great game to start the season.  If he continues to pitch like this through July, he may earn his second All-Star game as he picked up the win today and had his ERA sitting at 1.50 while allowing only 3 hits over 6 innings pitched.  The card pictured above may look familiar to those that read my blog regularly.  That's because Julie from Things Are Funner Here sent me the red swatch version of this card in a previous trade.

Garrett Jones had a solo HR to put the Pirates up 2-0 in the 2nd inning which was the game winning run.

Joel Hanrahan came in to close the game out in the 9th and had some control issues, but earned his first save of the season.  WOW! It feels good to get a win today.

As stated above, the Pirates will be traveling to Arizona to face off against the D'backs tomorrow.  Don't forget to cheer on the Bucs for a chance to win free cards.

The cards given away for this series will include future pitching superstar Trevor Bauer's Bowman rookie card, a Dan Haren 2010 red parallel (numbered123/299), and a Curt Schilling Flair Jersey Heights white jersey card.  Root for the Pirates to win the series and you could win free cards!  Let's Go Bucs!!!!

Girls like to collect cards too

My girlfriend is very entertained with opening up boxes of cards and digging through relic/auto cards.  Every time we go to a Target or WalMart she looks through the card aisle to pickup a pack or two.

She even challenges me to a game of Ginter cuffs.

Her favorite players are Ross Ohlendorf (she loves that last name), Garrett Jones, Buster Posey, Bryce Harper, and Pirates prospects Starling Marte and Andrew Lambo.  She's also taken to Casey McGhee this spring training.

She absolutely loves old vintage cards especially Bowman.

On Sunday I mentioned I might do a future post about her collection.  Well, here's some of her favorites of the collection.

Ace of Cakes is one of her favorite shows so I surprised her for Christmas with this fans of the game Duff Goldman autographed card inserted into 2011 Pinnacle Hockey boxes.

Some of her vintage. 

I didn't want to scan every single Ross Ohlendorf card she has, but she has about 2 printing plates, 30+ autographs, 20+ jersey cards, and way too many parallels.  She's also got a couple game used items from Ohly including a complete 1979 throwback uniform signed by Ross himself.

 

My girlfriend and one of her friends excited to meet Ross before a rain delay game.

 Here's Garrett Jones and Ross Ohlendorf posing with her at PirateFest 2011.

Lots of Autographs from Pirates vs. Phillies game

So the Pirates may have lost 7-2, but I left in the middle of the 5th inning because I had to travel back home for work.  At that time the Bucs were up 2-1 thanks to one of my favorite prospects to collect Robbie Grossman. 

Before the game started I saw Robbie out on the field warming up with the Bucs and he seemed extremely happy that someone recognized him and asked for his autograph.  He signed a baseball for me on the sweetspot and thanked me for his support. 

Also before the game started I was able to add to my sign I started in Spring Training a few weeks back.  This wooden sign is turning out great.  I added Matt Hague, Pedro Alvarez, Neil Walker, Jeff Karstens, and team president Frank Coonelly. 

I also managed to get a few other balls signed between the two game series.  Joel Hanrahan, Pedro Alvarez, and Matt Hague all contributed to my solo signature balls collection.  The Hague was a game-used ball with some small dirt marks on it.  Matt actually tossed me a ball after the 4th inning when the Bucs were coming off the field, but I gave the ball to a little kid sitting behind me. 

I got a few cards signed as well.  Cards are a pain in the ass to get signed at games in Philly because you can't get near the dugout to seek out autographs.  I rarely bring cards unless I know that the player is very fan friendly and will accept a card being thrown at them like Gambit from the X-Men.

 2012 Topps Heritage Clint Hurdle

2011 Topps Opening Day Stadium Lights Pedro Alvarez

Former Dodgers Top Prospect and current Pirate Prospect Andrew Lambo
2010 Bowman Chrome Topps 100 numbered 82/499

The absolute best thing that my girlfriend and I got signed though was this 8x10 photo below.  We attended the Monday night On Deck game and the Red Philly Phanatic was taunting Pirates slugger Garrett Jones before the game.  Jones was trying to avoid him and shuffling back and forth.  My lady took a picture of the incident and printed out the picture before the Tuesday game in hopes that Garrett would sign it.  When he saw the photo he started cracking up and said this is the best thing he ever signed.  We prepared for that and gave him his own copy to keep as he signed ours.

Here's some other pictures that she took from the game.  For those wondering how close we were, try row 1 behind the Pirates dugout.  With pictures like this, she might have a job at Topps right?