Joe Quinn - Beginnings 1880s by Ars Longa Art Cards

I came across the awesome custom artwork and baseball cards done by Jesse at Ars Longa Art Cards recently. Jesse takes vintage baseball cards and creates modern day custom cards using the vintage designs. There's a lot of research and effort that goes in in trying to make the images historically accurate. I was excited to discover that he had a card of Joseph Quinn, the very first Australian MLB player. Even better was the fact that one of them would soon be coming up for sale. I was fortunate to be able to get it, and it finally arrived in the post last Monday.

Here's a enlarged version of the card front. I think the card is awesome - the art work is very well done. More than happy to add this to my collection. It's an awful lot cheaper than the Old Judge card that it was based off of as well.

Beginnings: 1880s #219 - Joe Quinn by Ars Longa Art Cards

COMC - A Nice Bunch of Aussie MLB Autos

Several months ago I did a flurry of buying and selling on Ebay, having the cards I bought shipped to my COMC account.Eventually I had them all shipped to me along with a number of cards I picked up on COMC. Besides a number of Aussie MLB Parallel cards, these were the more notable cards in the shipment. The Card of the Buy™ goes to the Grant Balfour 2013 Topps Tier One Crowd Pleaser Autograph GB1 variation card simply for the design and on card Balfour autograph.

Grant Balfour 2004 Topps Total Signatures GB

Grant Balfour 2013 Topps Tier One Crowd Pleaser Autographs GB1

Grant Balfour 2013 Topps Tier One Crowd Pleaser Autographs GB2

Grant Balfour 2001 Bowman Draft Futures Game Relics FGRGB

Justin Huber 2003 Topps Blue Chips Autographs JH

Mark Hutton 1996 Leaf Signature Autographs Gold 114 (#d 500)

Travis Blackley 2013 Pinnacle Autographs 68

Liam Hendriks 2011Bowman Draft Futures Game Relics LH

Graeme Lloyd 2002 Topps Chrome Black Refractors 178 (#d 50)

 

Box Break - 1996 Futera Australian Baseball League

Whilst in Melbourne on a rare work trip, I managed to pop into CardZone, one of the few remaining brick and mortar card stores in Australia. Before heading on my trip I went through some of my old card sets to see which sets I needed to still complete and took a list with me on the trip.

Unfortunately, the store only had complete boxes of the old ABL sets for sale, and weren't selling commons or packs from those sets anymore. Still I needed most of the 1996 Australian Baseball League set released by Futera. A box of the 1996 cards was cheap too - $45 for a box , so I dutifully plonked down my hard earned money and was rewarded with a box of 40 packs to break at a later date. I savored the box and left it unopened until after my flight home where I dutifully broke it open.

Here's what the box potentially offered.

• 40 x 9 card packs
• Set of 110 common cards (85 player cards, 6 ABl Awards cards, 12 ABL All Stars cards, 7 Retrospective / Checklist cards) - Checklist of all players on cards
• Bottom of the Ninth insert set (ea #d 3000) - 9 cards - inserted at a rate of 1:8 apckets
• Gold Prospects insert set (each #d 2500) - 6 cards - inserted at a rate of 1:18 packets
• Scott Metcalf Redemption card (ea #d 900) - 1 card - inserted at a rate of 1:288 packets
• Scott Metcalf Autograph Redemption card (ea #d 100) - 1 card - inserted at a rate of 1:2400 packets

Of the insert sets, the key cards  in my opinion are the cards of former Australian MLB players David Nilsson (BON9) and Mark Ettles (GP5).

With the stated odds, with normal distribution I should expect to get 5 Bottom of the Ninth inserts, and 2 Gold Prospects inserts.

Here's what my box (box #d 1617 of 6000 boxes) contained:

• Set of 110 common cards: 108/110 with 247 duplicates
• Bottom of the Ninth insert set: 4 cards - BON2 Steve Hinton, BON3 David White, BON8 Scott Tunkin, BON9 David Nilsson
• Gold Prospects insert set:  1 card - GP2 Glenn Reeves
• Redemption cards: nil

1996 Futera ABL Bottom of the Ninth BON 9 David Nilsson (#d 3000)

1996 Futera ABL Gold Prospects GP2 Glenn Reeves (#d 2500)

So, thoughts on the break. Really disappointed that I couldn't get a full set of 110 cards from the 360 in the box. I got all of the key commons, but missed out on a common player and one of the All Stars cards. I also was short changed on the inserts by one BON and one GP card, but the main reason I was buying the box was to try and complete the commons set. I would have been more excited at the Nilsson BON card, except that I'd already bought this card many years ago.

1996 Futera ABL cards 97 Kimera Bartee (All Star subset) and 65 Geoff Blum

1996 Futera ABL cards 15 David Nilsson and 34 Kelly Wunsch

COMC Batch of Serial & Signature Aussie MLBers

My second batch of COM cards arrived recently, and it featured serial numbered and autographed cards of Assie MLB players.All up three autos and two cards numbered 30 or less, makes the Card of the Buy™ a difficult choice. In the end, I've gone with the Nilsson 1996 Leaf Signature Silver parallel card as the Card of the Buy™. Although there are a 1000 of the Nilsson's card in existence, it's a nice, simple  looking card (the scan here doesn't do it justice) with an on card official auto of an Aussie baseballing legend. Thumbs up to Dingo :)

Josh Spence 2010 Donruss Elite Extra Edition Signature Aspirations 167 #d/100

Grant Balfour 2012 Panini Prizm Autographs GB 

Luke Hughes 2010 Bowman Draft Blue BDP65 #d/399

Justin Huber 2005 Bowman Chrome Draft Blue Refractor BDP156 #d/150

Chris Snelling 2002 SP Authentic 222 #d/1999

Liam Hendriks 2012 Bowman Chrome Orange Refractor 39 #d/25

Liam Hendriks 2012 Bowman Silver Ice 208

Liam Hendriks 2012 Bowman Chrome Draft Blue Refractor 19 #d/250

Liam Hendriks 2012 Bowman Chrome Draft Refractor 19 #d/300

Dave Nilsson 1996 Leaf Signature Autographs Silver #d/1000

Liam Hendriks 2012 Panini Prizm National Convention Pulsar 169 #d/30

Ebay - Picking Up Some Minors of the Majors

I managed to pick up several minor league cards from Ebay the other week featuring two of Australia's more recent MLB debutantes. Both pitchers debuted in 2011, Josh Spence with the San Diego Padres, whilst Shane Lindsay debuted with the Chicago White Sox. The Card of the Buy™ goes to Spence 2011 San Antonio Missions card, mainly due to the fact that despite playing 51 games in the majors, Spence has very few cards to his name, so being the oldest of the few of his cards puts it above the other two in my collectability stakes.

Josh Spence 2011 San Antonio Missions Grandstand 24

Josh Spence 2013 Scranton Wilkes-Barr Rail Riders 25

Shane Lindsay 2011 Charlotte Knights Choice 14

Inaugural COMC Motherload - Part 8 - Liam Hendriks

This is the eighth and final part of my attempt to document my initial large load of cards ordered from COMC. This batch features cards of a single player - Liam Hendriks. I have a love-hate relationship with Hendriks.

Why I love Hendriks:

• He comes from my home town of Perth
• He's an Aussie who has had a number of Major League Baseball call ups
• Lots of baseball cards have been made of him

Why I hate Hendriks:

• He continually chokes when he's called up the big leagues. He keeps getting second chances, but he just can't seem to replicate his minor success at MLB level :(

For the record, my Inaugural COMC Motherload lot included 26 different Liam Hendriks cards. I'm not going to put them all up individually, but here's a group shot.

26 different Liam Hendriks cards as a part of my inaugural COMC shipment

There are four possibles for Card of the Buy™ in this lot, which should be pictured below, but in the end I've chosen the 2012 Topps Golden Moments Autograph card as my favourite of these 26 cards.

Liam Hendriks 2010 Bowman Chrome Prospects BCP183B

Liam Hendriks  2012 Bowman Chrome Purple Refractors 39  #d/199

Liam Hendriks 2012 Finest Orange Refractors 77  #d/99

Liam Hendriks 2012 Topps Golden Moments Autographs GMA-LH

Now that the large initial COMC load has been documented, there are a couple of small follow up lots from Ebay and trades  I've received that I'll document as well.

Inaugural COMC Motherload Part 7 - The Pitchers

This is part seven of my attempt to document my initial large load of cards ordered from COMC. This batch includes 11 cards of Australian pitchers who have all recently appeared in the Majors at some point over the last couple of seasons. These include current Texas Ranger Travis Blackley, current LA Dodger Peter Moylan, Josh Spence, who made his MLB debut for the Padres in 2011, and former Aussie MLB pitchers Shane Lindsay, Ryan Rowland-Smith and Phil Stockman.

The Card of the Buy™ goes to the Hyphen - the Ryan Rowland-Smith 2007 Upper Deck Future Stars card for being an autographed rookie card of one of the Aussie pitchers I particularly like.

Josh Spence 2010 Donruss Elite Extra Edition 167 #d/699

Peter Moylan 2006 Topps 52 Chrome 18  #d/1952

Peter Moylan 2011 Topps Update US45

Peter Moylan 2011 Topps Update Cognac Diamond Anniversary US45

Ryan Rowland-Smith 2007 Upper Deck Future Stars 141 (RC)

Shane Lindsay 2006 Waikiki Beachboys Team Issue 16

Shane Lindsay 2007 Waikiki Beachboys Team Issue 39

Phil Stockman 2004 Leaf certified Materials Mirror White 298 #d/100

Phil Stockman 2004 Upper Deck 587 (RC)

Phil Stockman 2006 SP Authentic WBC Future Watch 7  #d/999

Travis Blackley 2004 Topps Pristine 110 (RC)

Inaugural COM Motherload - Part 6 - Old School Aussies

This is part six of my attempt to document my initial large load of cards ordered from COMC. This batch includes four cards of three old school Australian players - Mark Hutton, Dave Nilsson and Glenn Williams.

Mark Hutton pitched 5 seasons in the Majors between 1993 and 1998, totaling 84 games between the Yankees, Marlins, Rockies and Reds. Glenn Williams was signed as a 16 year old by the Braves back in 1993, but took until 2005 before making his MLB debut. His debut was with the Twins, and he managed 13 games before injury robbed him of the rest of his season and future MLB games. The injury was a shame as Williams debuted  quite nicely, hitting .425 and a history of making a hit in every MLB game he played. The final Aussie needs no introduction - former MLB All Star David Nilsson.

The Card of the Buy™ is a tough choice. The Nilsson Starting Lineup card - a card nigh impossible to get in Australia in it's hey day, or either the Hutton or Williams Autos? In the end, it goes to the Glenn Williams 1994 Signature Rookies Auto, as I believe this may have been the first ever American baseball card featuring the autograph of an Aussie.

Dave Nilsson 1995 Kenner Starting Line Up 43

Mark Hutton 1994 Pinnacle Museum Collection 412

Mark Hutton 1996 Leaf Signature Autographs Silver 114

Glenn Williams 1994 Signature Rookies Bonus Signatures Draft Picks P5 #d/1562