Topps Dynasty: I feel like I made a deal

     It's been a while since I posted anything up here. I've been telling myself to get into a better habit of posting but the busy work life and other priorities make it a challenge sometimes. Anyway's I hope this is a start to more consistent posts to come.
     The start of baseball season has begun and the Seattle Mariners have already given me numerous headaches in the shape of blown leads and walk off losses. It's only a week in, I hope they can turn it around soon as I know it's very early. But we in Seattle are too used to this!
   For this post I wanted to share some of my Topps Dynasty cards. I have always been intrigued with this set since its inaugural release in 2014. A box only consists of one card. A price tag of ~$300. Just think about that for a second... People constantly run the numbers on ROI (return of investment) on box breaks. It's gets pretty simple to calculate when your dealing with a box that contains one card! It is the ultimate roll of the dice. Odds are you will not come out ahead, as all of us know going into any break but it becomes so very clear so very fast with Topps Dynasty.  I personally do not break boxes/cases I simply don't have the heart for it. I am not a gambling man. I do occasionally break retail blasters and packs purely for the fun of it with very minimal costs associated with it.
    If you hit a Ichiro, Jeter, Harper, Bryant, Griffey Jr, Trout and a few others then Bam you covered your costs and then some! But if you hit a Bobby Abreu then you just lost $270 just like that. I won a Abreu auto for $30 on eBay & it got lost in transit & I was refunded. So I was very bummed I wasn't able to receive that card. I buy a bunch of Dynasty cards if the price is right, knowing these came out of a $300 one card box gives me a lot of excitement. Like I got a "deal" I suppose. Of course not all cards are bargains, I did spend close to or more then a cost of a box worth for the Ichiro & some other 1/1's.
    All costs aside these are beautiful cards and I love collecting them.  Last count, I believe I have 18x Dynasty cards. Here are some of my favorites below. Thanks for reading! See you next time.

My first Dynasty Card. '14 Braun

'14 Dynasty Iwakuma #1/1

'15 Dynasty Kyle Seaver

'15 Dynasty Fielder #1/1

'16 Dynasty Fielder #1/1

'16 Dynasty Gray

'15 Dynasty Cano

'16 Dynasty Cano

'16 Dynasty King Felix #1/1

'15 Dynasty Ichiro

The White Whale's have been found & captured!!!

     First off, huge congrats to Ichiro for hitting the historic 3k in the mlb. An amazing accomplishment by an equally amazing baseball superstar and humble iconic sports figure.
    Now to the main point of this post, only my close circle of collector friends understand or at least accept my obsession with the 2012 topps base and chrome sets of Ichiro. It was at a time where my collection of his was gaining momentum and suddenly became the last year he would be in a mariners uniform. The next two years he wasn't signed to be in the topps cards for reasons unknown which helped fuel my interest in these cards. Collecting the whole chrome rainbow has always been my ultimate goal but after the superfractor was sold early on when chrome was released I accepted the fact that it would never surface in the market as its likely sitting in another Ichiro collection never to be seen again.  That's fine, I learned collecting such a international superstar there will always be heavy competition for high end cards, so get what you can get and move forward....  With all that being said, I was able to grab an incredible amount of parallels and variations in the 2012 set including the very rare ssp chrome card that I wrote about in the past along with many parallels and all the other sp's.  Over the last 4 years I was able to get every one of these parallels except for 2..... One is the atomic chrome /10 which popped on the market 2 years ago and I was out bid even though I padded my max bid by over $100 to ensure I would win. Guess that still wasn't enough! The other is the infamous chrome sepia /75. You would think a chrome /75 wouldn't be so difficult right? Wrong!  I have 10x black parallels /100, 5x Gold /50  and even 2x Red /25 but  I literally searched for this sepia /75 for 4 years and asked friends and acquaintances to search for it as well and offered to overpay or overtrade for it if needed to have it in my hands. Even with such offers, no one could fine one. Year after year, not one has surfaced. It became a running joke. I've accumulated a massive collection of high end Ichiro's cards and rare 1/1's of other players yet I couldn't find this sepia. My white whale.
          Fast forward to last week and while doing my daily search for the sepia on ebay (yes, I have a problem, couldn't you tell?) it suddenly surfaced. I was in so much shock, I couldn't believe if it was real. I was praying it would be a Buy It Now to end the suspense that second and thank goodness it was. Many fist pumps later I anxiously waited a week for it to arrive now worrying if it will be lost in the mail. No drama there, it arrived safely and I haven't been happier in my collecting life. Couple days later the mini white whale of the atomic somehow shows up on ebay as well. Same story as above and I grabbed that card as well. Somehow lightning struck twice in a week span. Unreal luck!
          The Hobby is about the joy of collecting, searching for cards that make you happy and celebrating your favorite players. Yes, I show off high end cards constantly on twitter & forums and enjoy seeing other big time cards from fellow collectors but it's these big battles and goals with cards with little cash value and high sentimental value that mean more in my humble opinion. To some collecting is a business which is totally fine, they trade, flip and sale all day long. For myself its purely a hobby and for the joy of collecting and keeping my cards. It's my escape from a stressful career and the day to day activities of life.  Thanks for reading if you somehow got this far.

The White Whale! The Sepia!!!!! 

The Atomic!

A new season and a Chase for 3k

         Hello all! I can't believe its been almost a whole year since I updated this blog. It has been a crazy busy year! I was promoted from a GM position to a Corporate management position in my career that has me constantly travelling all across the country. This led to less time organizing and searching for cards in the last year. This definitely doesn't mean I stopped! I just have been more selective in my purchases and had to squeeze time in wherever I could to enjoy this great hobby.
        Today is the official start of baseball season and its great to see Ichiro getting so much attention for his shot at 3k this season. I will be following his at bats as closely as I can. I was fortunate to be part of an article written about the upcoming season and Ichiro that you can read here: http://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/ichiro-baseball-cards-3000-hits/
       I also had the opportunity to have a Photo signed by Ichiro during a private signing at an LCS close by that has exclusive signings with him. This is the first time I've seen an option to have hum customize the autos which was a huge deal for me as I always wanted one from him personalized. Yes I know it basically makes the market value non existent but for a Super Collector like myself that doesn't mean a thing. I don't plan on selling it or any other parts of my collection ever!
       I have also attached some select pick ups over the last year or so.  I hope to be able to update this more often this season with my other and future pick ups, especially as Ichiro continues to progress to 3k. Thanks for reading!!!

Personalized Ichiro Auto Photo:

2015 Topps Five Star Auto:

Diamond Kings Patch #1/1

Ichiro, Pujols, Hamilton, Jeter Quad Patch Book

2016 Topps buyback Ichiro, Griffey Gold #1/1

2015 Donruss Buyback Auto #1/1

The Japan-Fractors & Ichiro is Flawless

I always considered the 2012 series of cards to be significant to Ichiro collectors like myself, As I stated before its my favorite set since its Ichiro's last year with the Mariners and last year with Topps.  I believed I have seen every 2012 card released but somehow I totally missed the rare Japan-fractors Bowman Sterling set. This was some sort of subset to the standard Bowman Sterling set that had Japanese stars in it including Yu Darvish and Ichiro.  I have only recently seen these hit the market in /25 die cut base cards. They were going for serious coin $150-200. I then saw the 2 variations of the Relic die cuts /5. I happened to make a deal on one and found 2 more that surfaced and immediately contacted the owners of these cards and made a deal to acquire them. These are one of my favorite new cards in the set, they are a bit taller then standard cards so they wont even fit in a one touch holder!  

      Another recent arrival came in the newer '14 National Treasures Flawless set. I was always a huge fan of the Flawless design when they first hit with Basketball. They were very subtly beautiful and had an embedded gem inside each one. They just had a great very high end look to it. When I found out Baseball was going to have this design and Ichiro was in the checklist I became super excited. I was able to make some deals and complete the 3x card flawless set Diamond /20, Emerald /5 and the Diamond 1/1.

Japan Fractors /5

Flawless Diamond /20

Flawless Emerald /5

Flawless Diamond 1/1

The Immortals Exhibit

          This is by far my favorite set obviously because its only Ichiro! I have dedicated the corner of the Ichiro Vault (man cave) which is all Ichiro anyways to the Immortals Plates. I have some base cards displayed throughout while my high end autos from the set are kept in the lockbox.  
 I have never been a big fan of printing plates to be completely honest. But of course like all things there are exceptions and that of course is printing plates of your main PC guy. I have only accumulated 2 Ichiro printing plates over the years as there were not many that caught my eye. The Leaf company decided to release there whole line of printing plates on ebay recently and I thought it would be great to grab a couple. A couple of plates soon turned into a whole mess of them. Ichiro does something to my brain where all senses of logic and moderation goes out the window.I quickly gathered almost every single Black printing plate (these are my favorite looking plates of the 4) in the whole set and a handful of others that I thought looked nice. I decided to print out the 3 page promo sell sheets as well to hang below the 3 display cases of plates. Overall I have 63 new plates for the Immortals collection.
       Photos below are of the plates and various singles of the set. I just received a nice lot of base /5 and /20 cards from comc but im so tired from the workday I haven't had the energy to organize and take photos of them. You get the jist of it all anyway eh? Hey who am I talking to? ok bye.
 

The Immortal Plates 

Close up w/ Leaf Sell Sheets

Base Cards /51

Base /5 & /20

Base Gold 1/1 w/ set /5, /20, /51 & Black Plate not pictured

Base Auto /5

Pendulum Auto /5

Mays Ichiro Dual Auto Book 1/1

Ichiro becomes a Fish & takes over Leaf Q

So the news finally broke after much speculation that the Marlins were interested in signing him. Pending a physical he should be a solid 4th outfielder and DH for Miami. I am happy he finally found a team to sign him but sad he didn't go to an AL team so I have a chance of seeing him return to Safeco to play some road games. I do look forward to seeing some sick Miami Patch cards for the upcoming year as they have a very colorful design. The high end cards which include Ichiro of the end of 2014/early 2015 already hit with the Leaf Q line, Last year it was the exclusive Ichiro only line of Ichiro Immortals. And this is a nice follow up from Leaf for more high end Ichiro cards.  The best Ichiro cards by far were the patch auto cards. The one specific one they were using for their promos was in my opinion the best patch auto card of them all. I believe it had the perfect cut of patch with good chuck of lettering and color. I was lucky enough to work out a deal with the person who pulled that exact card. It definitely earns a spot in my top 10 PC cards. I also accumulated a nice batch of PURE glass autos which are one the coolest and unique looking cards I've ever seen along with some nice patch and bat relic cards.

14 Leaf Q Patch Auto /10

Another Patch Auto /10

The 2 Patch Autos are a continuation!

PURE Glass auto Charcoal x2, Blue /25 & the Patch Auto

Patch cards & Bat relics

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.