30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Three Year Anniversary = Contest

I recently celebrated my 700th post and today marks the blog's three year anniversary.  During those three years, I've constantly made changes to my collection.  Now it's time to make a change to my blog.

I have decided to scrap the annual summer contest that I run and turn it into a monthly contest.  Why, you ask?  Well... I'm not going to lie.  It was a lot of work.  Don't get the wrong idea.  I loved it.  The interaction between bloggers was amazing and I loved reading and responding to everyone's comments.  But keeping track of points on a daily basis and continuously coming up with new ideas consumed my summer... which for a teacher is suppose to be a break.

Hence the decision to spread things out and run a monthly contest instead.  Think of it as sort of a homage to one of my favorite blogs... Play at the Plate.  I'll even copy his idea of listing his monthly winners on the side panel.

I know... who cares about this silly change.  What am I giving away?  Well, since I cover a little bit of everything on my blog, I figured the inaugural prize should fit my personality.  So this month's prize package will be a smorgasbord of cardboard with players from your favorite team.


In other words, I will stuff as much as I can possibly fit into this flat rate box with inserts, oddballs, vintage, memorabilia cards, rookies, autographs, and/or parallels from your favorite team. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of mixed martial arts, boxing, soccer, or tennis stuff... so you'll have to stick to the four major sports:  baseball, football, basketball, and hockey.

I can't guarantee that you'll receive every type of cardboard mentioned above, because it depends on what I have in my inventory in terms of your favorite team.  But rest assured... it won't be a box full of Bip Roberts base cards.

How do you enter?  It's pretty simple.  Follow my blog and complete one (or more) of the following:

A.  Respond to today's question of the day below.

and/or

B.  Promote this contest on your blog, and leave a link below.

and/or

C.  Leave comments in my posts throughout the month of March.

On March 31st, I will put everyone's names from today's post into the list randomizer on www.random.org.  If you promote this contest on your blog, I'll add your name two additional times.

As a bonus, I will randomly select one of my posts from the month of March using the same website.  Anybody who left a comment on that particular post will have their name added four additional times.  That means if you play your cards right, you could end up with seven possible entries.

Okay... let's get to today's question.  The Cardboard Gods have cursed you.  From this day forward, you are only allowed to collect one type of cardboard for the rest of your life.

What would you collect?  Inserts, oddballs, vintage, memorabilia cards, autographs, parallels, rookies, or other?

I guess it's only fair that I answer the question myself.  It was really tough, but I'd go with oddballs, which narrowly beats out vintage and rookies.  I've always found oddball issues to be so interesting, because they're distributed in so many different ways.

Okay... let the games begin.

Happy Saturday and sayonara!

CCW Members:  

Since I don't check my CCW feeds on a regular basis, you'll need to leave responses on my actual blog in order to participate.  I apologize in advance for the inconvenience, but I'm trying to keep this as simple as possible.

58 comments:

Spiegel83 said...

This is a tough one to answer, Fuji. I guess that I will go with vintage. If I stopped collecting everything else, then maybe I could pull my money together and pick up some vintage Brooklyn cards.

night owl said...

Toughie between vintage and oddballs. I've actually entertained the thought of ditching everything and collecting only oddballs, so I'll go with that.

Happy anniversary!

Spankee said...

If I could only collect one thing, it would be current base cards. I like getting any and all cards from the guys I collect, but I the Topps (and Upper Deck, for that matter) base cards are the ones I always want to make sure I have. I could be happy just building sets, more so than any other type of card, if forced down that road.

Doc said...

Everything Vintage except Upper Deck Vintage ;-)

I just love getting one step closer to Topps Nirvana.

The Dimwit said...

Autographs, in person only.

Daniel Wilson said...

I'm a D-Backs fan so vintage would be out for me if I could only collect one. I'd have to go with autographs.

The Lost Collector said...

Vintage!

Right now I've been picking up vintage cards of HOFers to put in a binder for my 14 month old to have one day. It's been the most fun I've had collecting in a long time!

Jeff said...

I'm mainly a set collector, so I'd say vintage. I've started into the 70's, but I love just about anything before 1986 (and vintage for me is before 1981 I guess, but that's a debate for another day).

Roy-Z said...

Three years, Dang. I'm about there, but with about 1 and a half missing in the middle.

I would collect rookies. I love looking for trade package items and stumbling across early-mid 00's Bowman cards of guys I never would have expected to become great.

Recently I've found rookies of Chase Utley, Grant Balfour, Brandon Phillips...all from the same Bowman issue.

shoeboxlegends said...

Great contest...out of the options you listed I'd say rookie cards. But, if I could focus on just a team I'd give up all of my other cards to still be able to collect the Hartford Whalers!

hiflew said...

I would have to say modern base cards would be great for me. This was a much tougher question to answer than I first anticipated. I went through the process of elimination by removing the guaranteed "no's" which for me would be memorabilia, autographs, and rookies. Vintage is tempting, but as a Rockies fan I'd never get a card of my team. Inserts and oddballs are too hit or miss for me, for every great set there are at least 10 bad sets (Tombstone Pizza, anyone?). Parallels were the most tempting, but the rarity of some parallels would make this collection have no chance at completion. Base cards are what got me into this hobby, so that's what I would stick with.

Nick said...

I'd have to go with vintage, although oddballs are a very close second. On the other hand, if dime box-type cards fall into the "other" category, I'd pick those slightly over vintage.

Happy three-year anniversary!

JediJeff said...

I guess my answer would be oddball. Autos would be a real close second though.

gcrl said...

I'll stick with vintage, as long as I can loosely define the term. That way I'd still have most of my garvey, cey, Russell and Lopes cards.

Congrats on the anniv!

Section 36 said...

I'm having too much fun tracking down vintage these days to give up. So, I'd pick vintage.

Congrats on the anniversary!

Jafronius said...

Happy anniversary Fuji!

I'd go with rookies, actual rookies, not those minor league / Bowman types.

Thanks for the contest, although I don't know if holding monthly contests with multiple posts would be easier on you than the summer contest, which is, what, three monthly contests altogether!

Robert said...

Congrats on the 3 year achievement!

I've had such a blast recently picking up vintage that I would have to go with that as my choice.

Dhoff said...

Congrats on the milestones.

I'm going to go with vintage. Those cardboard gods are kind of cruel, but I suppose I understand destroying all false idols so that I can focus my love on mildewed, dinged-cornered, creased cardboard. I guess I'm qualifying my vintage as specifically beat-up vintage.

Skroeker said...

3 Years = Well Done!
I collect Hockey Cards. My favorite Team is the Winnipeg Jets/Atlanta Thrashers. In addition to Jets, I collect Rookie Cards of any NHL prospects!

Skroeker said...

Promoted your contest on my site!
http://cardsforfree.weebly.com/1/post/2013/03/any-sport-various-box.html

Mariner1 said...

I would have to go with the oddballs. There is always new ones that you continue to find when you thought you had them all. It is fun to find new stuff. The vintage woe definitely a close second because of the historical connection of the cards to the players.

Dawgbones said...

I shall choose parallels, because nobody else has picked them!! and because I do like different versions of the same thing... and I'm really going to miss the summer contest!! The last two summers has been a blast!

Anonymous said...

i would have to go with vintage cards. love the look of the old guys in the old uni's. not to mention the inherent lack of perfection in these cards. i get too caught up in a perfect card with perfect centering and corners, the oldies don't have that and it's quite refreshing.

congrats on your 3 years!

arpsmith said...

Happy Anniversary and thanks for the contest. I think I would go with Vintage. I love picking up cards for greats I have only read about that were before my time.

Commishbob said...

Vintage without a doubt. I wouldn't even squawk if the 'gods' restricted me to a single decade. I'd pick the 1950s or 1910s.

Paul Hadsall said...

"Other" - I'll stick with base cards. Baseball cards are a way of chronicling history for me, so I'm not going to be happy if I have to limit myself to a type of card that's only going to include rookies & stars, or that would only have players that retired before I was old enough to remember seeing them play.

Congratulations on hitting the three-year mark.

Unknown said...

Congratulation on three years! I'd go with Rookies. When I pull any rookie I get excited thinking about the possibilities for the future for that athlete, and the card. It's interesting to look back and see which one's lived up to the hype and which one's snuck into the professional ranks before leading to successful careers.

dayf said...

I wish like heck the Cardboard Gods would curse me... then I could stop being tempted by $11.99 cheapo blasters and new shiny things that will be $11.99 blasters in 6 months and finally focus on Vintage cards.

congrats on the milestone!

Hackenbush said...

Happy anniversary (insert Flintstones song here). I'd go with vintage. Still leaves a lot to collect and they're the real deal.

Captain Canuck said...

not sure what you mean by vintage.... '88 Donruss is 25 years old, but to me it is NOT vintage...

so I'll avoid that potential hell and go with base cards. Keep your memorabilia cards and your shiny inserts, just give me base cards with stats on the back and maybe a cartoon.

Play at the Plate said...

Is go with my definition of vintage which is pre-1981 cards. Cool!

Anonymous said...

Whoa, that is crazy. Today is my 3 year anniversary of the blog as well!

And I'd go with Vintage. Eventually today's cards will be vintage, too!

Zippy Zappy said...

Congrats on the milestone(s), I tip my hat off to you Fuji :).

What do I collect? Hmmm, I'll go with oddball Yankees.
Whether they're cut-out cards from old Kelloggs cereal boxes or gaming cards written in Japanese I try to pick up as many as I can.

Dion's IP Autos only said...

Fuji,
This is an easy one for me AUTOGRAPHED cards love the graphs and to a small extent can be all of the other classifications. Thanks, for the contest and will post a link to you contest.

http://dionsipautosonly.blogspot.com/2013/03/contest-alert-over-fujis.html

hockey kazi said...

Oddball for me--I've always liked pick up these items that are not mainstream---maybe because I'm an oddball

Fuji said...

Lol... I've learned that everyone has their own "personal" definition of "vintage".

Fuji said...

Congratulations on your 3 year anniversary!

Fuji said...

Thanks for the plug!

Fuji said...

Thanks for the plug!

The Diamond King said...

Gotta be Vintage for me. I'd miss it more than all the others combined!

Greg Zakwin said...

damn this is a hard question.

as of right now I'll say vintage anything.

that might not be my answer tomorrow though.

jamicfin said...

This is like one of those "If your house was on fire, what would you grab first?" questions...

I'd probably have to say vintage, because at some point the current autos/base/relics will be vintage!
So, how about that?

jamicfin said...

Also:
http://unabashedinterest.blogspot.com/2013/03/what-to-do-what-to-do.html

Chuck's Used Cards said...

Your list of the 4 major sports is inaccurate. Even in your area The NorthWest) soccer is bigger than many of the other sports listed.

While I realize you may not have soccer cards to give away in our contests - that is not the point. It sets a prejudice that should not exist.

The number one sport in Seattle and Portland is soccer. There is a a good bet that if they have not overtaken them, soccer will be the # 1 in LA, San Jose and San Diego.

Good luck with your contests. If you want to know more about the World's Game - come read my blog: CHUCKS USED CARDS

cheers

Fuji said...

Thanks for the plug!

Fuji said...

You're right... soccer is huge in San Jose (especially with my students). I should have added the words "I collect" behind "the 4 major sports".

But in terms of collecting cardboard, I'd guess that in N. America... baseball, basketball, football, and hockey outsell soccer.

Chunter said...

Hm, I would say....

...

...

Oddballs.

Here's my plug:

http://thehomeofthebraves.blogspot.com/2013/03/contest.html

Thanks and congrats!

AdamE said...

Easy question Base Red Sox, because that is about all I collect now.

Unknown said...

i collect rookie cards because i find them intersting

Fuji said...

Thanks for the plug!

Stealing Home said...

thanks for the contest and congrats on your blog's long and productive life. I would definitley collect only vintage. I love those old-time cards of old-time players.

Chuck's Used Cards said...

The interesting part is that lots of collectors write me who now collect international cards (Panini and Futera) that include the biggest clubs in the world - Man. Utd, Chelsea, Barcelona, Real Madrid. With tv coverage of these teams, its no different that now living in an NFL city and being a fan.

Have you seen the price of a Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi rookie card ?

Go Earthquakes ! (have two Championships more than the Sharks)

Jason said...

I would probably collect base cards, since I don't have much in the GU/auto realm. There are so many of them, you could never get bored! But maybe I'd go with inserts. The nineties had a lot of crazy inserts, and there are a few 90's hockey insert sets I'm currently focused on.

PenceNixPierre said...

I would most likely collect rookies. My two favorite cards from my collection, after all, are my 2009 Topps Andrew McCutchchen RC and my 2011 Heritage Minors Mike Trout.
My Plug: http://pencenixpierre2012.blogspot.com/2013/03/remember-to-check-out-fujis-contest.html

Thanks for the contest!

PenceNixPierre said...

McCutchen. I can't spell anything right today.

irondequoit36 said...

Congrats on your blog success.

My choice is Oddballs.Whats not to like about panini and their worded jersey cards? ( Look no further than Justin Mastersons " Jedi " card )


Contest plugged:
http://oldfoulcardboard.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-chronicles-of-fuji-has-questionand.html

CaptKirk42 said...

Thanks for the contest. Wow what a question, very difficult to answer. I think I would have to go with VINTAGE.

Oddballs, insterts and Autos are all came in very close at second.

Reds Card Collector said...

Vintage with autographs a close second....but not just any autographs. They MUST be through the mail. I prefer having a player sign a card a send as compared to a sticker that more than likely he never touches.