A Piece of Ichiro

Well not really a piece of Ichiro, that would be kinda gross. More like a piece of Ichiro's jersey. I guess that's not as weird according to the outsiders but the complete norm and totally amazing to the collecting community. Finding great looking jersey/relic/patch are always in high demand for many especially for their PC players. Having a bit of color and variation to the patches make it all the better. These are a few of my favorites. The 2011 Topps Marquees are high numbered but have amazing patches nonetheless and these include a nice looking patch & the other has a part of the majestic patch. The other 2 are 2012 Triple Threads which had 2 variations of Ichiro and these have nice patches as well. They are extra special to me since they are both Ruby 1/1 patches.

Panini VIP Patches & a Fancy Party

The big wigs in collectibles had their annual event held in Cleveland couple weeks ago at the Nationals. To be honest in my mind that is the equivalent of Disneyland to a kid as the nationals are to a grown man....Actually I still really love Disneyland so I guess its no surprise I still love collecting baseball cards. Every year I hear they have exclusive packs only to people spending insane amount of money at the shows and this year it was $10k+ to be invited to the sexy party for Panini and receive super fancy packs of Panini VIP line of cards. A mix of all sports with base, parallels and patch cards. Ichiro was well represented in the set and soon his Mosaic Patch 1/1 made it to ebay along with couple of Cracked Ice /10 Jersey cards and base. Being one of the avid collectors of Ichiro, I knew these beautiful cards must be mine! I soon enough made some deals and have them as part of my collection. The 1/1 Patch is one of my favorite cards in my Ichiro PC and always look forward to finding more nice cards of his.

                                                    Base Red '14 Panini VIP

Couple Cracked Ice Panini VIP Jerseys /10

'14 Panini VIP Mosaic 1/1 Patch

Finally...An Ichiro rainbow has been completed!

I always hoped to complete the '12 Topps Chrome rainbow but this is not the case and may never be. The superfractor is likely sitting in a Ichiro pc never to be for sale again and I spent over a year to find the /75 sepia which isn't very rare at all yet I own 5 Gold /50 and 2 Red /25. Go figure ehh?  Anyways I had a realistic chance to complete the '14 Prizm Rainbow of Ichiro and I went all out trying for it as I didn't feel my Ichiro collection to be complete without at least one. I have been pretty indifferent to Panini products the last couple years. The lack of mlb license didnt bother me too much but rather the plain designs and lack of variety in colored parallels. That all changed in 2014 when Panini stepped it up in a big way with their Prizm line. The cards and colored parallels were absolutely beautiful in my opinion with a total of 11 variations for the full rainbow set. Ichiro's photo was in my favorite batting pose similar to his bowman chrome rc and '12 chrome ssp card.  The color pops out in all his cards and prizm has a nice chrome gloss to it as well. Very excited to own this rainbow for sure.

The crown jewels & the card community

Every collector has a handful of cards they consider their personal crown jewels. Some have some insane collections where they have a handful of cards worth as much as my house. Well...maybe closer to being worth more than my car, Either way the beauty of this hobby and the people I have met online is that no matter what income level or amount of  money invested in your own pc we all cherish and respect and applaud each other's collections,hits,lucky finds personal crown jewels just the same.  Before I entered the cyber world of forums,blogs and social media contacts for the hobby I was in my own little world the first couple years collecting and talking to myself wondering if I was alone as my family and friends thought I was simply weird taking up the hobby again after 20 years away. The last year or so I discovered many other folk just like me and all of a sudden this awkward solitary feeling turned to fun and excitement of sharing my collection, talking about the hobby and seeing other people's collections.  Some do this as a side business or to make a profit which is totally fine. I occasionally sell cards not part of my pc from box breaks and such but I'm in it primarily for the joy of the hobby and collecting my pc players.

    So back to where I started, I'm sharing one of my personal crown jewel cards that I have been desiring for a couple years. These pop up rarely and when they do it's for insane asking prices.  But I finally pulled the trigger and got a great deal on this. Very unique and one of his most highly sought after RC's as only 99 were ever made and /50 were in English back and /49 were in Japanese.  Just an absolute beautiful card, also pictured is my chrome refractor rc which is another favorite of mine.

Whatdayaknow? It's Seattle's own Robinson Cano!

 I wish I was able to share a full Ichiro rainbow someday but until that time I have been working on other projects. Primarily focusing on the 2012 topps chrome line since previously mentioned is my favorite series of all time due to Ichiro's last year as a Mariner and the end of 12 years of mlb licensed/topps brand cards for him. As I continue for the neverending quest for Ichiro Rainbow Supremacy I worked on other all star players for the set. I was a fan of Robinson Cano before his arrival and his signing with Seattle made me a bigger fan of his. He always carried a cool confidence about him and I consider him an elite player. I started collecting his cards a bit since his signing including being able to finish a rainbow. His rainbow was the second completed rainbow in my collection. These sets are pretty difficult to finish and takes great timing/luck and research to complete but always an incredibly fun project. So here is some recent Cano pickups and the rainbow.
UPDATED 5/2/14 : Just received the Cano TTT 1/1 patch. Love it!

Hey I'm seeing Red!

Base parallel cards is something they never had when I was a kid. It was basically the base set and a few insert sets mixed within the packs. Nowadays its all about parallels and collecting rainbows and such. This is a fascinating and fun variation in the collecting world.  Sometimes I sit down and look through my cards and try to decide what parallel color is my favorite. I guess it really makes no difference but I decided the Red parallel is definitely the most striking and bold variation out there. Its just a beautiful looking border and typically a tougher pull as they are usually one of the lower serial #'d parallel in the set. These are some of favorites in my collection, all of them serial #'d to 25.

The PC Rainbow Project

Once I started getting into the hobby again in full force about 4 years ago there were alot of things about collecting that changed. One of the biggest things I slowly but surely noticed collectors were doing was trying to obtain "rainbows" of their favorite players.  I soon realized the massive variations of base cards for every player in most sets these days. The amount of colors and varying degrees of rarity stamped with serial #'s became a very amusing and interesting thing to grasp that soon became a semi obsession to obtain. My favorite player of all time Ichiro was my mark and goal for my own rainbow. My favorite card by far is his 2012 topps chrome card. I think its an awesome action shot and I am a big fan of the design of that year as well as being his last official topps cards as he signed a deal with Leaf and therefore also being the last year him with official mlb gear thats not airbrushed out. I came to the realization attempting to obtain every single variation from the 2012 topps base,chrome,opening day,mini in addition to vault,plates& goldrush series is insanely impossible to obtain especially for a superstar player like Ichiro. I simply keep saved searches on ebay to notify if a supefractor,atomic or other extreme and moderate rarities pop up for sale. Until then I simply enjoy the collection I have and jump for joy everytime I grab another card for the collection. My most recent pick up to the rainbow was a Red Refractor #/25 with BGS grading on it. This is one of the coolest looking refractors in the bunch in my opinion.  I know I likely overpaid for such a card but definitely worth it for a PC card and add in the fact I've been tracking it down for over a year! On the shelf is my 2012 Topps Ichiro PC Rainbow collection including SSP's, SP's and Update Series PC Rainbow & on the wall some more 2012 Ichiro's in rows of color.

Immortals Part Deux

Well that didn't take too long did it??? As I hoped to hold off on the autos in exclusive Ichiro immortals collection an incredible deal arose and could not be passed up. The card was one of the most coveted in the series and one of the blowout card forum members actually pulled it. It was ironic how beforehand I commented how this card was beautiful and would make a "killing" off an ebay auction. So assumptions were this card was way out of my price range. As the card eventually made it to ebay in auction style, I made a very very conservative max bid with about 1 hour left as the highest bidder. As auctions for these high end cards almost always go 3x-4x the bid totals in the last minute as everyone throws their best # out there. I was 99.99% sure I would not get this card and a strange thing happened, no one bid it up! Was it because it was in the middle of the nfl playoff games? Did everyone blow there money from xmas? I'll never know and I literally won the auction around $700 below market value compared to similar selling cards. Card forum members called it the deal of the century and even suspected the seller would back out of the deal. Luckily for me, the seller was honest and I got this "crown jewel" for my personal collection at a ridiculous price and in perfect condition. I also picked up 4 more base cards as well during the week. If you add it all up, I spent less than $150 less than a retail sealed Ichiro Immortals box for the same box set+1 additional base card and with a killer 1/1 auto book I doubt I could have done any better with the gamble of a sealed box as most returned about 3/4 their value. Best week of pickups I have ever had. Still doesn't match the excitement of obtaining the '12 Ichiro Chrome SSP, but it comes very close!!!

Ichiro the Immortal

You have to be a pretty unique player to have a whole set dedicated in your behalf. Once I heard they were going to make set dedicated to Ichiro I was thrilled. Though the price point was a little steep I knew I had to at the least grab a base card from ebay to have in my collection. As much as I was tempted to spend $800 on a box it wasn't worth the repercussions to be had from the wife of buying and justifying such a purchase. They only made 300 sets each including 5 cards, 1 auto and 4 base.  The autos have held strong in price though some variations have dropped in price to the point where its becoming a good value in purchasing these autos in the future. But until then I will enjoy this beautiful looking  #/5 base card.

When Seattle lost its Star

When your a avid collector of cards you tend to be a fan of the mail man. As most of your buys do come from ebay and comc in addition to other online sources. Opening the mailbox with a pile of yellow bubble mailers is always like a mini christmas once a week or two.This weeks mail day consisted of my favorite player in a unfamiliar uniform I still cant get used to.  The highlight of the day was the '12 Five star patch and '12 Topps Update SSP. I covet his '12 cards due to the fact its his last year as a mariner and his partnership with topps.  Fittingly enough he is bowing in both cards in his first mlb game not in a mariner uniform, and first in a yankee uniform ironically at Safeco Field in front of his old team, hence the bowing to his Seattle fans. I still remember the day I think Seattle fans took his superior skills for granted over the years as we simply got used to it to the point when he started to struggle the city turned a bit on him. I still look forward for his return to Seattle even for a few days as a Yankee next season.