A Wonderful Terrific Monds Auto, Plus Stuff from Behind These Hazel Eyes and JD's Wildcardz!

I recently went to the mailbox to find a package from Behind These Hazel Eyes, a package from JD's Wildcardz, and an Ebay buy of mine. I'm very excited about all three packages and want to get them up, so I'm throwing them into one biggish post. Hope that's cool!

The Ebay buy is the Monds Auto, which I still can't believe exists. I have Wonderful on my Ebay watch list, as he has so few cards that they don't show up a lot online. The other day I'm drinking on the porch with my girlfriend and my laptop and I find a gmail link saying that a Monds auto is available on Ebay. I really doubted that such a random, career minor leaguer would have an auto card back in 1995, but I gave it a looksie, and saw this:
Looks legit enough...I mean the cards legit, and the weirdo serial numbering is there. But was it real? I had no idea, but some basic Beckett research told me that it might be. So I put in a minimum bid (I think $9.99 with $2.50 shipping) and forgot about it until a few days later, when I won the card. The front is obviously the focus, and totally awesome at that. But the back proves the card is real, albeit in rather ghetto fashion compared to the cards of nowadays:
Boring? Maybe. But as New Card Smell mentioned today, it's nice to know how your autograph or relic came to be. I can only imagine Wonderful Terrific Monds signing nonstop under the watchful eye of some Upper Deck lackey. It's a little frightening to think of that actually, but I'm glad I have the card!


Shifting gears, I'll now move from the Great Sports Name Hall of Fame to the Baseball Hall of Fame, with this Eddie Matthews game used pants card:
So starts the cards that I received from Charley of Behind These Hazel Eyes. The delivery took a while, but the wait was SOOOOO worth it. I actually ended up with 4 relic beautiful relic cards, and a fifth may be on the way!

Relic 2 can be seen in the bottom center row here, sandwiched between a Prince RC and a Prince Ticket to Stardom card. The top right franchise history is serial numbered, which I obviously loved given my collecting goals!

Charley also sent me another Prince, as well as a ton of Rich Hills for another one of my player collections. The prince he sent is the blue chrome (I already had the others). Two of the MANY Rich Hills that he sent are the yellow and charcoal Baseball Heroes (the Sea Green is a recent COMC buy of mine, numbered to 99. I'm pretty sure it was only $0.50).

Relic 3 was a David Carr jersey piece. I'm still sad that Carr went to the 49ers instead of the Browns...I would have loved to see him battle Jake Delhomme and Seneca Wallace for the starting spot. The 2005 version of me would have died if he knew how close the Browns came to that trifecta.
(Charley also sent that Shaq card. Shaq is an odd collection of mine, in the fact that I get one or two cards of his in almost every trade. So he's not a quick build like Prince or Gary Sheffield, but he's never stagnant like Porfirio Altamirano or Tanyon Sturtze. Steady).

Relic #4 is a little out of left field, but actually started this trade way back when: a Shalrie Joseph jersey card. My family has season tickets to the New England Revolution and so I've seen a few games, and I love the way Shalrie plays. So obviously I was psyched to get this card, as well as the Shalrie and Kenny Mansally (what a name, right?) base cards.
I think Fred and Zaza Pachulia are in there for name reasons, which is funny because Zaza is a guy I've debated collecting before. I guess I just like goofy centers with wacky names (Dino Radja, Shaq, Zaza, etc.). And as for the Brian Williams card, all I will say is that the shadow in the background is EPIC!


Many gorgeous cards down, 2 to go. The first is what I received from JD's Wildcardz after I guessed what the card was in a contest he had a while back. Cole Hamels, Tim Lincecum, Jose Reyes, AND Adam Jones? A random combination that I don't totally understand (young talent maybe?), but a nice little collection. And the Hamels piece is two colored, so I'm loving it.
That said, I may end up trading this card. I do love it , but I think it may be worth a few McGriffs to others out there. I do have someone in mind, but if you are reading this and like this card more than me, feel free to offer for it in the comments!

Update: BA Benny offered me something I truly could not refuse, so the relic card is going to him. For a hint: one real nice relic turned in to two relics + some base cards that I will cherish much more. Enjoy your new home ColeTim ReyesJones!

Last but not least (to me anyways), I thought I'd show this Tim Hasselbeck auto:
I mentioned in my trifecta post that I bought 5 autos/relics for $20 at a card shop the other day. 2 were Seneca and Tyronn, two went out to complete a trade, and the last one was Timmy here. I've always liked Tim Hasselbeck: he was the worst player in several Madden incarnations (including, I believe, 2002 and 2004) with ratings like 39 and 42, he shared my name, he married the cute girl from Survivor who became the kind of annoying girl on the View...what wasn't there to like? Plus now he's one of my favorite game analysts out there...the guy can really do no wrong. And now I have an auto of his numbered to 500. I'm happy.


So thanks Charley and Mr. WildCardz, and thank you Upper Deck for asking Wonderful Terrific Monds to do an autograph session for you back in the day. Truly random, but it's those kind of cards that make a collection dontchaknow?