Swag from Play at the Plate - 2010 Topps Chrome - Including an Orange HOF

Play at the Plate ran one of my favorite kinds of contests - A random Winner Contest! Those happen to be the kind I am best at - and guess who won!

The Prize in the PATP contest was a 2010 Topps Chrome Value Pack. Seen a lot of these around the blogs and it was fun to open my own pack.

I was hoping for a cool Rangers card to send back PATPs way but unfortunately came up empty - The 3 packs plus Orange Pack also lacked Phils but were fun to open. Here are the Highlights:


Refractor - Orange

Mickey Mantle
Delmon Young
Carlos Quentin

As with other Topps Products the Mantle is card #7 in 2010 Chrome. Jury is out on the Orange - cool idea having basically an extra parallel pack of cards in with a 3 pack retail product. Kind of weird - I think of Chrome as a parallel set to begin with and they just keep adding parallels to it.

Inserts

Refractor Erick Aybar - I think these used to be X-Fractor's but the card sez Refractor
Refractor - Purple Mike McCoy (#d 237/599)

I think the Purples are 1:12 so those come at about 3/box in retail. Aybar is one of those steady Middle Infielders that none of us folks on the East Coast no anything about. Mike McCoy is a career minor league player who finally broke into the majors in 2009 at the age of 28.

Highlights


Jake Peavy
Chris Heisey
Shin-Soo Choo
Cliff Lee

Chris Heisey is an intriguing player to me - I went to school with a group of brothers named Heisey that were all very good athletes. From his Bio have determined that Chris Heisey went to college very close to my hometown. Have not tracked down weather he is related or not, but I am following the talented prospect.

And of course after Monday Night's performance what Phillies post featuring cards from a Rangers fan would not be complete without mentioning Mr Cliff Lee.

Thanks to Brian over at PATP and hope this gets the Rangers some Mojo 2nite as they face the Yanks.

20080830 - Exton Mall Card Show, Exton PA

Almost every week there is a card show at some mall in my area. Whenever I have a free weekend and the show is at a convenient location I try and stop in and check out what is a available. This week I was mostly perusing the cheap dime and nickel boxes. Here are some of the highlights.

In the 3 cards for a dime box:2004 Bowman Chrome #147 Rickie Weeks
2007 Allen & Ginter's #146 Carlos Quentin
1986 Topps #717 Dave Winfield All-Star/1985 AL Leaders Runs
1991 Donruss #28 Tino Martinez

I fear this guy may not be returning to the Exton show. He always has bunches of Bowman Chrome in a 3 for a dime box. This week he had a whole bunch of 07 Allen & Ginter, I came home with 28 of those including the Carlos Quentin above. The Winfield card falls under my Hall-of-Fame clause. Whenever I am picking up a stack of cards I try and make sure I get at least one HOF player in the bunch.

In a mix of some nickel and dime boxes I found bunches of Phillies and former Phils:

1996 Pinnacle Zenith #105 Bob Abreu
2007 UD Goudey #3 Aaron Rowand
1993 Leaf #507 Jim Eisenreich

The pre-Bobby Bob Abreu card is a nice find - not as a nice as a Pre-Roberto Bob Clemente card, but a nice addition to the collection. I picked up lots of retro-cards at the show; Some Heritage, some of the Topps T205 and T206 cards from a few years ago, UD Play Ball and some Goudey like the 07 of Phillies Fan favorite Aaron Rowand. I like this leaf set with another fan favorite Jim Eisenreich, The b-side of the card features the player in front of a local landmark. In the case of this Eisy card he is superimposed upon Philadelphia's city hall. Other Phillies cards in this set have the Liberty Bell for a backdrop.

Fun cards in other dime boxes:

1993 Topps # 529 Shortstop Prospects including Chipper Jones
2008 Allen Ginter #282 Jeanette Lee

It's not his true rookie, but it is an early Chipper Jones card - so early that he is a Shortstop prospect. And of course the beautiful and talented Jeanette Lee. I was a little surprised to see the 08 Allen Ginter commons in the dime box and probably should of devoured some more of these, but only had time to pick out a few.

I also picked up a couple of packs of 08 Goudey and will be opening those up through the upcoming weeks.

There was a whole stack of 08 A&G Game used at one booth for $3 a card, which I didn't bother sifting through.

The Damages:
3 for a dime box , 113 cards (A&G, BowChro, NFL Bow Chro, Phils, Orioles, Vikings) 3.00
miscellaneous singles, 7 cards (Chipper, Heritage) 1.00
nickel box, 62 cards (Phils, Orioles, Yount's, Retro/Heritage) 3.00
Dime Box, 30 cards (Phils, Retro, 08 A&G) 3.00
Grab Bag, 50 cards -25 decent (Griffey, David Wells, Hudson, Glavine, Helton) 1.00
08 Goudey - 3 packs 12.00
Total 23.00

well worth it for A fun day at the show.