Season Tickets Update for 2009

Each year at about this time, I get a postcard from the Green Bay Packers letting me know where I sit on the waiting list for season tickets. I've been on the list for a few years now and here's the progress I've made:

2007: 69,193
2008: 68,158 [moved up 1,035 places]
2009: 67,338 [moved up 820 places]

I'm sitting at 67,338 on the list and this year I only moved up 820 places. I thought for sure that there would be a big jump this year with the poor year the Packers had last season and the current economic situation. Instead, the rate fell and it looks less and less likely that I will live to see a chance at tickets. At the rate of 820 spots a year, it would take 82 years to get tickets, putting me at a spry 112....I'll still probably hate Brett Favre.

A High End Collector's Worst Nightmare

What is a high-end collector's worst nightmare? A crappy box with junk autos? Nope. A box missing a hit? Not even close.

The worst nightmare is a $600 box of cards that is completely empty.

You can see this wake-up-in-a-cold-sweat nightmare by going to the 2:41 point in this video.



If you aren't familiar with YouTube user "allenmpc" they are a bunch of guys in the Philippines that open HUGE amounts of the highest priced products. Earlier this year they opened over 50 cases of Upper Deck Exquisite Basketball 2008-2009. Basically, if you wonder where the Lebron/Jordan dual-autographs are, they are probably in the Philippines.

I don't think that this is staged but from the video you can't actually see the box in question taken out of the original packaging. As you can see from the video, the room they are busting the boxes in is in disarray and so that particular empty box may have already been opened but I have a feeling they would have caught that.

10 For Ichiro

In honor of Ichiro losing his shit in last night's Mariners/Blue Jays game, here are 10 cards from my collection...

1. 2007 Upper Deck SPx #36


2. 2006 Topps Chrome #260


3. 2007 Upper Deck Artifacts #26


4. 2008 Bowman Chrome #176 X-Fractor 186/250


5. 2004 Topps 1st Edition #10


6. 2009 Upper Deck O-Pee-Chee #41 Preview


7. 2009 Topps Allen & Ginter Baseball Highlights #AGHS14


8. 2005 Upper Deck ESPN Baseball #77


9. Topps Stadium Club #51 [1st Day Issue]


10. 2009 Topps Allen & Ginter Jersey #AGR-IS

Bust

I was listening to the podcast of Tony Kornheiser's new radio show and I was elated when he admitted that he also selected Michael Crabtree for his fantasy football team just like I did. We both feel buyer's remorse today. I thought I was so smart. I was going to pick up Randy Moss Version 2.0 for a 7th or 8th round pick. Even my Dad laughed at me today when I told him my cunning plan and how it was blowing up in my face.

Should I Free These Cards From Their Plastic Prison?

My autograph collection of mid-to-low level stars has recently added these Graig Nettles and Ron Kittle autographs from the 2004 Topps set. They are currently in an official Topps case with an "Uncirculated" sticker on the top. The cases are a bit scratched up which bugs me but I would really just be changing one plastic prison for another.

Does the "Uncirculated" nature of the cards actually help things? I can't imagine it really matters all that much. With the exception of some of the SportKings cards, do any other companies still produce cards encased like this?

The Lost Posts

These are the scanned cards that never got the post they deserve.

These are the ideas that left me as quickly as they came to me.

These are the cards that had some importance to me sometime in the past nine months.

These cards deserve to see the light of day.

These are cards from...The Lost Posts: