Japanese Cards of Aussie MLBers - Part 1

Ryan over at This Card Is Cool was kind enough to chase up some Japanese cards of Aussie players in return for some Australian cards that I sent to him. Thanks very much :) It's taken me a while, but I thought I'd start posting up some of the images of the cards he sent me. This post features Aussie former MLB players Jeff Williams and Brad Thomas. My Card of the Trade™ from these two players would be Williams' 2009 Touch the Game card - a high end, nice design card.

2005 BBM Hanshin Tigers Central League Champions #15 Jeff Williams

2005 BBM Hanshin Tigers Central League Champions #43 Jeff Williams

2006 BBM Hanshin Tigers #38 Jeff Williams

2009 BBM #667 Jeff Williams

2009 BBM Hanshin Tigers #T26 Jeff Williams

2009 BBM Hanshin Tigers Foil Parrallel #T26 Jeff Williams

2009 BBM Touch The Game #66 Jeff Willaims

2013 BBM Legendary Foreigners #68 Jeff Williams

2006 BBM Nippon-Ham Fighters #F8 Brad Thomas

Trade With Beckster - Micheal's in the House

Thanks to Beckster for another trade. My eTopps Snellings finally arrived, and Beckster was kind of enough to trade a Nakamura auto and Japanese card as well as some Aussie MLB commons that I needed. The card of the trade is a toss up between the Nakamara cards - the smallish numbered auto vs the Japanese card. In the end, Card of the Trade™ goes to National Pastime Signs of the Future card for being a serial numbered auto which is in shorter supply than the Japanese card, even though the BBM card might be harder to get for a non-Japanese resident.

Grant Balfour 2008 Topps Update UH48

Micheal Nakamura 2004 National Pastime Signs of the Future Red MN  #d/133

Micheal Nakamura 2006 BBM Nippon Ham Fighters F89

Trent Durrington 2007 Buffalo Bisons Choice 4

Travis Blackley 2005 Donruss 31

Hitting Moylan's Sweet Spot

I made a recent purchase from fellow collector Beckster - a 2006 Sweet Spot Update Rookie Signatures card of Australian MLB pitcher Peter Moylan. The card features Moylan's signature in Blue Ink on a Bat Barrel. It's a fairly rare card - serial numbered to 10, so it's  nice acquisition to my personal collection.  It's always good to get a hold of an extremely rare card of an Aussie player.

Peter Moylan 2006 Sweet Spot Update Rookie Signatures Bat Barrel Blue Ink 183 #d/10

Card back for the above Peter Moylan 2006 Sweet Spot card

On the downside, one of the corners is rather dinged, but with such a small production run, it's something I'll have to live with. The bat barrel is very thick too, meaning that the card is very thick in width - a quick comparison shows it to be about the same thickness as about 8-9 normal cards. How exactly do I display or store this card? Hmmm. Thinking cap will have to go on. Still, I don't want you to think I'm unhappy with this card. It's a nice card, and thanks to Beckster for the opportunity to acquire it :)

Trade with Klattsy - Refractors & Relics

I recently completed some trading and purchases from Klattsy over from the OzCardTrader website in return for some cards of Yankees players that I was able to add to his collection. The most exciting card for me and Card of the Trade™ is the low production Liam Hendriks 2009 Bowman Sterling WBC Relic Black Refractor. Thanks Klattsy!

Brad Harman - 2008 Bowman Chrome Refractor  196

Brad Harman - 2008 Bowman Prospects Blue BP99

Rich Thompson - - 2007 Bowman Chrome Draft Futures Game Prospects  X-Fractor  BDPP78

Liam Hendriks - 2009 Bowman Sterling WBC Relics Black Refractor LHH #d/25

Liam Hendriks - 2009 Bowman Sterling WBC Relics LHH

First Trade in Years!

It's been a long time since I've traded, so many thanks to Aussie baseball collecting legend Beckster for my first trade in ages and it was full of Australian MLB goodness :). Yes, most of them are commons, but I'm missing so much from the last 5 years, that even commons are still needed in my collection. The Phil Stockman SuperScripts auto takes out the award for Card of the Trade™ though.

Grant Balfour 2010 Upper Deck #490

Chris Oxspring 2005 Donruss #311

Ryan Rowland-Smith 2010 Upper Deck #449

Luke Hughes 2004 Bowman #241 Rookie Card (The line is from my scanner, not on the card!)

Liam Hendriks 2010 Bowman Chrome Prospects Green X-Freactor #BCP183

Phil Stockman 2004 SPx SuperScripts Rookies #PS

Trade Lists

I still have enough card designs for the 2012-13 season for the blog to be updated each week day for several more months. Unfortunately, the start of the next ABL season is still almost 7 months away, so I do have some time for posts with non-card designs in them. I've decided that I'll start to include some other card related information in this blog, including cards of Australian sportsmen that I acquire through purchase or trade.

I have a fairly extensive collection of sports cards that, unsurprisingly feature Australian baseballers. For a number of years I used to run the Best of Both Worlds website. Best of Both Worlds featured checklists of cards for Australian players in the MLB, NBA, NFL and WNBA. Unfortunately, the lists became too big too maintain on a static site, and changes in work and life meant that I no longer had the time to put into the site or my personal collection, and the site is now defunct. (Well, technically a partially working copy of it still exists, but it has hardly been updated in over 8 years :)

I'm still interested in keeping my commercial card collection up to date, but rarely get the chance or money to do so. I figured however that I'd post my trade and want lists as pages on this blog in case anybody is interested in trading. Feel free to email me at oz mlb @ hotmail . com (without the spaces :)) if you'd be interested in discussing a trade.

Expect to see more posts about my card acquisitions scattered throughout the regular card design posts, and please fell free to check out my want lists and trade lists (when posted!).