Joy!!!

I was pleasantly surprised to see that Ryan Braun signed a 5 year, $105 million, extension to put him in a Milwaukee uniform till 2020.   After reading the article it made me make up my mind and decide to add Ryan Braun to the list of Players I actively collect. Sure I already collect Brauns cards as a matter of course being a Brewers fan and collection Brewers team sets and cards, but now it's official and he might even get his own album and box.  Such an honor has only been bestowed to a few greats.  My 3 HOF Player collections, Rollie Fingers, Robin Yount, and Reggie Jackson, my other two favorite baseball players growing up, Frank Thomas and Bo Jackson, my only "current" football player, Brett Favre, and I'm probably soon going to announce that Jordy Nelson and Aaron Rodgers get the official nod too, although Rodgers cards are currently hella expensive.  I had been toying with adding Prince Fielder to that list but seeing as he probably will be with another team next year I'm holding off. 

So welcome Ryan to Cynicalbuddha's hallowed halls of collectingdom!  I'm hoping that this card will be the next in my collection as well.

1971 Topps Milwaukee Brewers Set Finished

I've been accumulating Brewers cards for about 25 years now so it's about time I try to make sense of it all.  Hence the Brewers Super Set.  My first main goal of the super set is all the Topps flagship base cards, including Traded and Update Series.  And I just got my the final card I needed to finish the first produced Brewers Team set, 1971 Topps.

I suppose there are a few ways to order your team sets.  I prefer to order in number, but you could order your set alphabetically or by position.  Whew one of the hard ones down.  It may be complete but a lot of the cards are far from mint, hell they're far from excellent, so there's always room to upgrade later on. The black bordered cards Topps produced are terrible for showing flaws and that continues to this day.  I'm just happy to have the set done.  Now on the 1972!!!

1983 Gardner's Bakery Brewers Set

I came across a 1983 Gardner's set on ebay a few weeks ago.  It was hard to pass up for a buck and shipping.  Not only do I get the whole 22 card set in one go I get a Rollie Fingers and Robin Yount for the Super Collections, and a Paul Molitor and others. 

I love the old Gardner's sets.

Something old.... 1971 Topps coins.

Wow it's been awhile since I've had something to post here.  My fault, I guess I could have pulled something outta the closet before now, but I've been busy watching the Packers win.  With football winding down I'm really looking forward to baseball starting up.  Anyway....

Here we have some 1971 Topps Coins I got for super cheap a while back.  I'm still waiting for Topps to put out a new set.  The last time Topps put out a coin set was in 1990.  Actually they put out 4 sets in a row from 1987 to 1990.  I bought a few packs back then.  There kinda silly but they are different.

According to the Standard Catalog these coins had 3 types of backs,  1-50 had brass backs, 50-100 had silver backs, and 101-158 had blue backs.  You can see the difference in the backs here.  According to the Catalog these are worth about 2 bucks a piece in mint.  These are not mint.  I think I picked all three up for under a dollar. 

Topps also put out a coin set in 1964, which has some huge names in it.  Not that the 71 set doesn't.

Back in 2003 Topps Gallery had cards that had money embedded.  While I don't think we need another set of Topps coins.  Personally I think their a little awkward.  But I think Topps could come up with a hybrid card maybe with a Topps coin embedded in the card.  They could have parallels like most of the other stuff, even buybacks.  Well it's just an idea.  Oh maybe even 24kt gold coin cards.  If they can make 24kt gold cards I'm sure Topps could mint a 24kt gold Topps coin.  That would make an interesting 1/1 card.

cb-out

Hot damn finally some interesting if not good news for the Brewers.

So I was just reading that Zack Greinke is coming to Milwaukee.  Finally the Crew is addressing the abortion that is the Milwaukee bullpen.  Don't get me wrong there are a few bright spots in there but come on. 
In the deal we ended up getting rid of Alcides Escobar and Lorenzo Cain and a couple pitchers for Greinke and Yuniesky Betancourt.  So we get a shortstop for a shortstop and a pitcher for an outfielder and 2 pitchers.  And while that seems lop sided I think this was actually a good trade for the Brew Crew.  And Zack didn't have a great year last year going 10-14 with and ERA of 4.17, but 2 years prior he had a winning record and an ERA around or under 3.00.  and in 2009 he went 16-8.   He's no Cliff Lee or CC but after watching a great offensive team get its ass handed to them more often then not due to pitching it's a promising sign.

Prince Fielder 2004 E topps in hand

Continuing my mail bag postings across my microblogoverse I found this little gem on ebay a few weeks ago.

A 2004 Prince Fielder eTopps Rookie in hand!

I actually have one of these in my online account but I couldn't resist picking this us for so cheap.

Sorry about the scans.  The plastic case really diminishes the look of this card.  It's really nice.  This is my first eTopps have had in my hands, except for the Reggie Jackson Allen & Ginter Yankee Legacy card I have in my Reggie collection.  That card originally could only be bought as part of a $100+ set on eTopps so there was no way I was going to buy in but I ended up picking up the Reggie for pretty cheap.

Here's the back.

And the Cert of Authenticity, notice the id serial numbers match up, good, good. 

cb out.

Some new pickups from COMC

By far my favorite set of all time the 1972 cards look like they should be in a episode of Cheers.

1973's I love the little silhouetted position player on the card fronts.

1974's very yin/yany.  The arrows point you in the right direction.

Ah and the iconic 1975 Topps.  I love the random color schemes.  Not a bad haul for under 5 bucks.