In no particular order.....
1. I'm not usually a fan of the tobacco era type cards that Topps trots out each year, but I dig the Gypsy Queen issue. The parallel Kaline card with Tiger Stadium in the background may be my favorite 2011 card.
2A. Pro Debut is out. What a set for suckers. I saw these going for $65 a box at a card show today. I have been to two card shows in the last two days and a grand total of one dealer was selling singles. A couple of dealers I talked to who sell singles of new stuff said they aren't fooling with it because nobody buys them. I'll be surprised if Pro Debut is around next year.
2B. Apparently Jacob Turner is in this set for the second year in a row. Apparently I don't understand what "Pro Debut" means.....
2C. I want a Francisco Martinez card real bad...
3. Could there be a worse issue this year than Bowman? Is there a worse issue any year besides Bowman? Another year of an uninspiring design. Another year of an uninspiring player selection. And where are the Jacob Turner cards? Yes, he's in a couple of the insert series, but no base card? C'mon already! (I will admit the Bowman's Best throwback/reprint is pretty bad ass though.)
4. I'm going to be moving in a couple of months. I've got a bunch of team lots with anywhere between 300-500 cards each that are going to be donated to the resale store down the street at the end of August. If you collect another team besides the Tigers and are up for a swap then drop me a line. There are plenty of stars, inserts, and complete team sets in these lots. Seriously folks, there is some great stuff in here and all I'm looking for are lots of Tigers cards.
5. I bought an iPad 2 a couple of weeks ago and it has already become an invaluable tool in my card collecting. Instead of endless piles and printouts of checklists, I've been scanning each page of my Tigers collection and loading them into Photos. Now if I want to see what I'm missing I can pull up a photo in seconds and tell without a doubt if I have a card or not.
6. Picked up this Mickey Lolich 1973 Kellogg's card for free at a recent show. How cool is that?
7. In 15 years of owning Mac computers, I had my first ever hard drive crash about 6 weeks ago. Luckily I had about 90% of my files backed up. Unfortunately I had 0% of my 2011 RobbyT cards backed up. It's really taken the wind out of my sail as I had 20+ cards already done. I'm hoping to get back into it in the second half once real baseball card season dies down.
8. The Tigers are in first place despite some mediocre play as of late. This "Just-in", Verlander's 8th inning last was fucking incredible. That was more exciting than the 9th inning of his no-hitter.
9. The National is coming up in about 6 weeks here in Chicago. If anybody is going to be there and would like to meet up give me a holler.
10. There is a new forum where a bunch of old Detroit Free Press/World Crossing Tiger fans are hanging out. Stop by and check it out. You won't find a funnier bunch of folks around.
