Friday, November 25, 2011

My Black Friday Leads To A Little Retro Mojo! Obak... Oh My!!!

Hopefully your Black Friday was one filled with great deals and devoid of pepper spray.  Perhaps you visited your local card shop and were able to snag some of those really cool Panini Black Friday packs.  Maybe you stayed at home and ordered online, grabbing some of the great deals on Blowout Cards for example.  Last year, I did just that with great success.  But of all of my Black Friday purchases from last year, the most mojo goodness came from the two boxes of 2009 TRISTAR Obak Baseball I was able to pick up from Blowout Cards for about $26 a box.  The funny thing is I wouldn’t find out how good those boxes were until a year later.

I had a few reasons for buying Obak.  I’m a fan of retro cards.  2009 Obak contained a lot of hot rookies, like Buster Posey, and some proven prospects. But most attractive, especially at 26 dollars, was the two autos per box with one of the hot autos being Duke Snider.  Snider’s auto had eluded me.  Being a New York transplant living in Los Angeles, I had always wanted to pull a Duke auto.  At that low a price point, with a limited run of 3600 boxes, it was definitely worth a roll of the dice, or two.

The boxes arrived and I put them on my shelf, looking forward to a quiet moment to open them.  As new releases of cards came out, I wanted to make sure to open them first to keep my blog current, so the boxes of Obak just sat there.  When I opened my box of 2011 Topps Tribute and I pulled a Duke Snider auto, the boxes of Obak got pushed to the back of the shelf.

As I was preparing my post on this year’s Black Friday, I decided to pull the boxes of Obak off the shelf and open them.  I thought it was silly that it had been almost a year and those boxes had just been sitting there unopened. 

The first thing I saw upon opening box one was this limited 4 panel mini card with Brooks Robinson and 3 of the 4 parallel variations of Nolan Ryan.

As I starting opening packs, I really liked the base set.  I pulled Ted Williams first minor league card.

Here are some of the other greats of the game in their minor league uniforms.

Stan Musial

 Dale Murphy, Al Rosen

 Solid Players of the past like Ryan Sandberg, Bobby Grich, Jim Rice

I also scored that Buster Posey card

And some other rookies and prospect

Eric Hosmer, Madison Bumgarner, Neftali Feliz

Jose Montero, Austin Jackson, Mike Stanton

These also come in minis.  Here is Phil Rizzuto in regular and mini for size comparison.


And more minis

Tommy Hanson, Jason Heyward, Mike Moustakas

Some of the best cards are of players you probably haven’t heard of like... 

 Russell Arlett 

Ox Eckhardt

Monty Stratton

 Grover Lowdermilk

And "Game Changers" like...

 Russell Blackburne who developed baseball rubbing mud

 William Cummings who is credited for throwing the first curve ball

 Foxy Irwin who created the full finger fielding glove

Jackie Mitchell, the first woman to sign a pro contract.  
She also struckout Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in the same exhibition game.

 George Rawlings and Albert Spalding of equipment fame.

But we can't forget the hits.

In my first box I pulled this purple back Bo Jackson 1/1

a Bryan Shaw auto #/200

and a green back Tom Seaver auto #/25

From the second box, my hits were...

 a Logan Schafer auto #/200

and this purple back Duke Snider auto 1/1

Seriously, I was happy pulling the Seaver and the Jackson, but pulling that Snider 1/1 was just ridiculous.  It might have been even more exciting had I opened the boxes a year ago.

So my advice to you is... if you’ve got it, rip it.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

2011 Black Friday Specials And Deals For Collectors


Even before the tryptophan is starting to wear off, people must exercise their American right... to shop... at a discount.  And if companies are going to get us up off the couch after a day of overeating, parades, Football and The National Dog Show, those discounts had better be DEEP.

Sure, there are tons of no name flat screen TVs, clothes that you wouldn’t normal wear and cameras with barely a megapixel that you can get for a steal.  But what about those items for us, the card collectors?  Well you are in luck. Of all the Black Friday deals out there, the best ones are available to collectors thanks to the card companies and the stores the cards we want.

Mind you there are still some cards that great buys even without a discount like SAGE 5 Star Football that offers 40 autographs a box or Press Pass Legends that offers 6 hits per hobby box of the greatest drivers in the history of racing or any of our other highly rated cards like Panini Crown Royale Football, Topps Triple Threads Baseball or Rittenhouse Archives Warehouse 13 and Star Trek TNG cards.

But for those of you that want to save big, here are the best places to check for Black Friday Specials and Deals listed in alphabetical order.

Blowout Cards
2011 Blowout Cards Black Friday
Friday
Items will become available throughout the day in limited quantities, first come, first served.  Items must be purchased right away for discounts to be applied. Most deeply discounted items tend to be older stock but there are some new stock deals to be found. They will also bring back their phone in contest for free Beckett Magazine subscriptions. For complete details and rules, follow this link.

CheckOutMyCards.com
2011 Black Friday Thanksgiving Special
Thursday – Sunday
From 12:01 AM Thursday through 11:59 PM Sunday, COMC will be offering a shipping special of $4.95 for the first 20 cards and 11 cents for each additional card.  Sellers will also be offering discounts on select cards.  If you have never been to COMC, this is for picking up singles, not boxes.

Dave & Adam’s Card World
Black Friday Weekend
Friday - Sunday
Starting at 12:01 am, there is a new deal every hour with extra bonus deals on Friday from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm.  In the past these deals sometimes 25% to 30% lower than their normal sale prices.  There will also be sales in their Brick & Motor stores in Upstate New York.


Onyx Authenticated
3rd Annual Black Friday Sale
Friday
Starting at 8:00 AM while supplies last, there will be huge sales on selected items.  Sign up for their email alerts for specific sale notifications.

Panini
Panini America Black Friday
Friday
Just like Panini’s famous wrapper redemption madness at the National and recent Toronto Expo, exclusive Black Friday cards will be available to those who purchase boxes of select Panini America cards at participating stores and in limited quantities online at icollectPanini.com.

Press Pass
Black Friday Promotions
Now until Wednesday November 30th
Press Pass has deals for both retail and hobby purchases. 
Retail - anyone who purchases at least $40 worth of 2011 Press Pass retail products at Walmart and/or Target will receive a special gift package including a minimum retail value of $20 of 2011 racing packs! One randomly selected Grand Prize winner will also receive a hobby half-case of 2011 Main Event (over $1000 value)!
Hobby - anyone who submits a photo of themselves holding a hobby box of 2012 Press Pass Racing in front of their local hobby shop will be entered to win a half-case of 2012 Press Pass Racing. For more details, use this link - http://www.presspassinc.com/news/press-pass-announces-black-friday-promotions

Topps
Black Friday Weekend
Friday – Monday
There will be limited daily deals in addition to 20% - 30% off the entire Topps online store.  There will also be Free Shipping on orders of $75 and over.