I picked out a couple of my favorites since the whole thing wouldn’t fit on the scanner, but there was a whole stack of Opening Day, Series 1, Heritage, all sorts of great stuff. Here’s some of my favorites.

First up, a great bunch of Topps Finest, including a Wakefield. As someone looking to start a Wakefield collection, that’s certainly a welcome sight.

There were a number of set fillers in there, including these two Youks that I needed for my Icons and PoH sets respectively.

A nice Ortiz emerald StarQuest, a Nomar I didn’t have in my PC yet and a great Baseball Heroes green parallel, #’d 432/499.

Another Nomar I was missing and a couple Heritage from 2009, of which I had none. A Bowden RC doesn’t hurt either.

The aforementioned Heritage, including another Wakefield, and a terribly photographed (ummm, head room?) but awesome in that cheesy sort of way, ’90 Score Wade Boggs.

There was, and I’ll have to double check, an entire team set of Fleer Tradition, which I like a whole heck of a lot. There was even a checklist with a tiny little Nomar head in the corner, lol. As a set builder, getting a whole set is like Christmas.

Last but not least, the cherry on top. A very sweet Topps Unique David Ortiz “Solo Shot”, #’d 196/275. Fantastic

Thank you Kyle for the awesome contest and the fantastic stack of cards you sent over!

First, the break loot. This months special was Heritage, Opening Day and Gypsy Queen.

Believe it or not, but I wasn’t actually planning on buying any Opening Day this year, but I’ve not only got the team set, but a good chunk of the inserts as well. That’s also my 4th blue border. The 3D card is actually one of the nicer inserts I’ve seen in a while as well. At the bottom, the Melacon and the Lavarnway were also the last two I needed for a complete 2nd Red Sox set of Gypsy Queen. So, that’s awesome that he pulled those. As for Heritage, for some reason I had a soft spot for early on this year, and I managed to get 98% of the set via group breaks. That Ellsbury chrome is a very welcome addition and that Ortiz in the middle there is one of only two cards I needed. It’s a high numbered SP. It’s also kinda funny looking…

Was it a “thing” that the SPs were in-game shots, and not in front of a fence at spring training? Or am I crazy? Also… that photo is missing something…

Ah, that’s better. A meme. It was missing a meme. It was either that, or Ortiz just smelled something funky.

lol. I digress.

Last but not least, the trade items. Sam got the Maris relic and all my spare GQ minis, and I got these two beauties. A Lester mini for the collection, and a very nice UD Artifacts Ortiz relic. He’s also sending a Brentz auto I had been after, but that didn’t make it to the scanner in time.

Always a good break from my buddy Sam, and the trades are always welcome. Thank you my friend

After reading my post about Gypsy Queen last week, Topher from Crackin’ Wax was kind enough to email me and say that he had the last SP I needed in his “Take My Cards” pile. He sent it along with the awesome Buchholz mini. But he didn’t stop there, he also sent along the Sox from his Bowman break the other day, including a really nice Buchholz gold. Now that’s the way to start a set! Thank you sir, that was very kind and much appreciated!

That also officially completes my GQ Red Sox base set. Now it’s just minis and a couple relics to go! Yay!

For those of you just tuning in, I was randomly selected to win a box of 2007 UD Artifacts. I had left a comment on a video and a couple days later, here we are. So, a big thanks for those guys over at Beckett for making that happen. Clearly they’re pretty much the industry standard for price guides and their grading service and trading forums are nothing to sneeze at either.

Anyway, I fired up the old FlipHD and recorded a quick box opening. Enjoy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Scans after the break.

A quick random sampling of the base. As far as I know, there are no parallels in the set, so it’s just base and hits. There are quite a wide range of types of hits however.

First up, a Mark Mulder “SportsCenter” Swatch. I’ll be the first to admit, I have no idea what this is. I know EPSN had a short-lived set of cards, and I’m assuming (because of this one) that Upper Deck produced them, but why this is in a box of Artifacts is lost on me. In typical fashion, we have him in not one but two photos wearing an A’s uniform, and the card lists him as a Cardinal. The swatch is of course white, so there’s no telling which on it’s from. Very confusing card all the way around.

Update: I looked up the card, it’s actually from 2005! I officially have NO CLUE why this was in the box. Anyone care to enlighten me?

AL “Division Artifacts”, #’d 167/199, Jeremy Bonderman for the Tigers. Bonderman was a long time pitcher for the Tigers and I believe he’s actually a free agent at the moment. He played 7 seasons for the Tigers before having some sort of weird blood clot and going on the DL “indefinitely” according to wikipedia.

Next up is an “Artifacts Apparel”, #’d 35/130 for Victor Martinez. Nice looking card. Very refractor-ish and gold foiled in the background. This is probably my personal favorite out of the box, but the “biggest hit” is still probably…

None-numbered “Autofacts” signature for Kendry Morales. I really like the look of this card, and Morales has a neat signature. Book value wise it’s probably the highest out of the four, not that that matters, but auto beats jersey any day.

Anyway, I had a blast opening the box, I got some great stuff that’s all up for trade. I’ve got to update my tradebait page with some new stuff anyway, so I’ll make that a priority this week. Shoot me an email if you’re interested in any of those, even the base cards.

I hadn’t tracked any of these down yet, and they are completely awesome. 2012 Pedroia WS Pin card, 335/736 (what a weird random number), commemorating the ’07 World Series. I think there’s just this one for ’07 and there’s an Ortiz for ’04. Right? Then there’s the Fisk and Rice “retired numbers” manupatch cards as well. I wonder if they’re saving some other retired numbers for Series 2. I would assume so. Other wise, why not just do a #9 card right off the bat.

Either way, back to this one, this thing is awesome. Oh, and he also knocked a solid 30 cards off my Gypsy Queen list! Which, in case anyone else is wondering, can be found here. 124 and counting!

Derek, you are truly finding some awesome stuff. You can clean out your desk any time my friend, any time.

Please send me your name and mailing address so I can send the box you won via Beckett.com. Thanks for your time,

Chris Olds

Editor — Beckett Baseball magazine

That never happens. Never. I’ve never won so much as my money back on a scratch off ticket. I might just have to do a video break for this one, lol. I’ll let you know when the box arrives

Good job Cole, keep it up, big fan of the work. lol

Dungeon Defenders, by Trendy Entertainment, is a hybrid Action-RPG and Tower Defense game. Even most non-gamers have played a tower defense game. Desktop Tower Defense, Plants vs Zombies, FieldRunners, Flash Element, Immortal Defense, and GemCraft all fall into that category. It works a little bit like this:

You select one of 4 basic characters (Apprentice, Squire, Huntress and Monk – younger versions of the more familiar “Wizard”, “Knight”, etc) and start off with the ability to use your weapon and put down the most basic of blockade. The enemies enter the level at point A (usually a door) and make their way to point B, your base, or in this case, your “crystal”. The crystals are what you’re defending. With them the monsters can take over, rule the world, etc, the usually good vs. evil sorts of stuff.

So, between point A and point B, it’s your job to stop the monsters. You set up traps, blockades, weapons and all sorts of things in their path to try and kill the monsters before they reach (and destroy) your crystal. For example, my Squire can set up spike blockers, harpoons, and turrets. More in line with the characters persona, my Apprentice (Wizard) can set up fireballs, lightning traps and the like.

As you progress, your characters stats improve, you get new abilities, new traps and new weapons. You get stronger, your traps get stronger, and you can take (and receive) more damage. Also, the enemies frequently drop armor and weapons, which you can also use to improve your character.

What Trendy has done is build a deep RPG like level system, with loot and collecting, on-top of a really fun tower defense mechanic. I’ve always been a fan of the tower defense genre, and Dungeon Defenders scratches all those itches and more.

The graphics, powered by the latest Unreal engine and bright, colorful and very well polished while leaving enough scalability wise to be played on older and slower systems. I can play DD equally well on my new Mac Pro, Macbook, Gaming PC, older PC and there’s even a version for Android/iPhone as well. Thanks to Steam and SteamPlay (cross-platform support), I’m able to do all of the above from a single account, having only bought the game once. Not only that, but it’s incredibly cheap. The entire game is $5. You can also buy add-ons, where I would suspect their real money comes from, for a couple dollars each, consisting of everything from new characters, extra maps, even fun holiday themed stuff and the occasional poke at pop-culture (there’s a Romney vs. Obama addon). The default maps and characters will do you just fine though, as you get at least 30 levels, with 6 levels of difficulty, ensuring a ton of re-playability. If that wasn’t enough, each level also features “survival” mode, which never ends and the monsters just keep getting harder and harder.

For the hardcore players, there’s also TrendyNet, an online only section where players can play “ranked” matches with other players for glory, stats and loot. If online competition isn’t your thing, you can simply play against the computer on your own machine (as I do). Dungeon Defenders is great for killing 20 minutes here and there but can also turn into multi-hour gaming marathons if that’s more your style.

At the end of the day, it’s $5, it’s a ton of fun, it’s a good time waster, and Trendy really hit a homerun with it. The occasional Steam-Sync issues aside, it’s just about as close to a perfect game as you can get for under a Lincoln.

Dungeon Defenders: 94/100

Here’s what I’m missing – red denotes incoming, received are removed:

Updated: 05/08/12

6, 7, 8, 12, 18, 21, 23, 26, 27, 34-38, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 48-52, 55, 57-59, 62-64, 66, 67, 72-74, 76, 80, 82, 86, 87, 90, 96, 100, 102-104, 107, 111, 119, 122, 128, 135, 136, 138-141, 143, 145, 149, 159, 152-154, 156-158, 160, 163, 166, 171, 175, 177, 179-181, 183, 187, 194, 196, 198, 203, 205-208, 215, 216, 220, 223, 225, 227, 231, 232, 240, 242-248, 250, 251, 253, 256-258, 260, 262-264, 270, 272-275, 278, 280, 281, 283, 293, 296, 297, 299.

157 124 and counting

*phew*

Anyway, if you’re busting GQ and happen to have a huge pile of dupes, please let me know. I’ll have to see if there’s anything I have for your interests to trade in return. The tradebait is always open for the taking, and at the very least I can probably send you a big pile of base for your favorite team. This might be a lengthy project, which is ok, it’ll give me something to do in the off-season.

So, a couple weeks ago (as I think I mentioned), the wife’s car broke down. That drained my excess card money and put a stop to most of my card buying, at least for the foreseeable future. The problem with that was that I had bid on… oh.. 40 or so items on eBay literally the day before. They were all 6+ day auctions, so they starting closing last week and I didn’t really have the funds to pay for them. True to my intentions, and because I wanted to maintain a good eBay account, I scraped together enough to cover it all. I actually ended up only winning a couple, but I’m beginning to appreciate them much more than I had a week ago. Admittedly, I had a bit of the eBay fever. That needs to stop, hard and fast. Cold turkey even. So, I’m putting myself on a card diet. For May, I will try to refrain from any card purchases other than already committed to group breaks or trades with fellow collectors. No eBay, no COMC, no sportlots. It’s going to be pretty damn hard, but I think it’s doable. The only things coming out in May are the Olympic set, which I’m sure I can hold off on, Bowman, and Topps Archive which I have zero interest in. Series 2 comes out the first week of June. If I can hold off until then, I’ll be in better shape. Hopefully I can pick up a few freelance jobs between now and then. Anyone need a website worked on, or some photos taken?

Anyway, these are the last cards I bought for the spring (hence the title). I appreciate them far more now that I did when I was bidding on them. I know that seems silly, they are just cardboard, but perspective changes everything.

Alright, enough Debby Downer BS. These are pretty friggin’ sweet…

So, here’s a weird one, with a weird story. I had originally bid on an Ortiz 2007 All-Star Jersey card, with a big neon orange swatch in it. It arrived completely devastated from the USPS. It must have gotten caught in a sorting machine, then backed over with a mail truck. I emailed the seller and, surprisingly, he was completely cool about it. He not only refunded my money, but he wanted to be sure I was happy and offered to send something “similar” instead. I said sure, but that I was completely fine with just the refund, and he didn’t need to bother. A couple days later, this little guy shows up. It’s #86/88, a short printed, black and white mini from 2008 Goudey. I looked it up, and these are A) really hard to find and B) worth way more than the stupid $0.99 All-Star jersey I had originally won. That guy got 5-stars and short listed for sellers I will most definitely buy from again. It kinda restores your faith in humanity. UD probably could have found a better place to put the numbering though… like, oh, I don’t know, THE BACK.

These next couple are just me working through the checklist of GQ awesomeness. I really, really like these blue borders.

Ortiz mini, goes quite nicely with the full sized one I already have. Can’t wait to finish the collection. Just a couple more to go.

And a full sized Lester. Most years his cards are kinda crummy. I really like this one this year. Turned out really well. I kept getting outbid on the mini-version though. Oh well, probably for the best at the moment.

Now, here’s where we get a little crazy. Crazy as in, “you got those for how much?” Remember when I said I wouldn’t buy any more Museum Collection unless it was crazy cheap. Yeah, I didn’t break that rule. 31/50, jumbo swatch for $0.99, umm, yeah. I’ll bite.

What’s even better than /50?

How about /35?

The only thing I can’t figure out is why, having been on the Red Sox for only one year (2010), he has a card in a 2012 product, and a limited one at that. I don’t really mind, more awesomeness for me. But he’s been a Ranger since January 2011. I guess they must have had a couple jersey’s left over or something. Despite his league leading number of errors at 3rd, he was a hot bat in 2010, I wish we would have picked up his option for 2011. Would have helped out when Youk went out with back problems last year.

Anyway, there they are. A couple really nice jumbo patches and some more off the GQ checklist. Looking back, it was a pretty good haul for the spring. Now it’s time to cool it off a bit, trade some more, and settle in until Series 2 and A&G. It’s going to be a long hot summer isn’t it? Yes, yes it is.