Waxy wonders... minus the wax!

Show me a person who says that they don't like free stuff, and I'll show you a liar!

Whether it's free samples at the grocery store, or a free tire rotation from your local mechanic, or even free ebooks on Amazon; humans just like free stuff. [Although, I've never been one to eat free food from grocery stores, but that's just me not trusting the cleanliness of the person handing it out]

Bloggers, and blog readers, certainly like free stuff. There's absolutely no doubt about that. It's a fact that's been proven over and over again. This works out well too, since bloggers are also fairly well known for their generosity, which can take many forms, but probably the most common two are A) Sending out cards with no strings attached to fellow bloggers, and B) Hosting some sort of contest or giveaway on their blog. And when it comes to the latter, there are no shortage of ways for free cards to end up in the hands of others, some, like my self, prefer the simple (but very effective),and less creative "Here's a bunch of free stuff for whoever wants it". While others like, Jeff, from Wax Pack Wonders, prefer to get more creative, which is why you have things like his Pick 3 giveaway.

For those that haven't seen it, there's three categories made up of twenty or so baseball names, and if you're one of the first five(?) people to show up, you get to pick a name in each category, which nets you three free cards from each of those three names. It's a pretty easy concept, but quite clever in it's execution.

I've only participated once (you gotta get there quick), and it's been a few months now since I did so, meaning that the details are a bit hazy, and I don't remember what the three categories were. And sure, I could go back and see what they were, but that would be cheating, so instead I'm going to try and figure them out based on my picks. Sound good? [Hopefully you said yes, because I'm gonna do it anyway, I was just hoping that we would be on the same page]

Category #1: HOF's (or possibly just players of yore)

I have a small Luke Appling collection going, and all three of these were new to me, so the first pick worked out well. I say that these "three" were new to me, but there's kind of only two here, given that Panini apparently only has one picture on file of Luke. Like most of the modern Topps baseball sets, I can't tell the Diamond Kings sets apart from any other year, they just all look the same to me. It's also not one of my favorite products either, so that probably doesn't help either. With the cards having been put away many months ago, I don't know what year it is, but from an aesthetic standpoint, I like the middle design more than the right.

Category #2: Former All-Stars (or possibly a$$holes of yore)

I never saw him play, and I'm a tad too young to have seen him manage, but for some reason I still find myself drawn to Billy Martin. He was a prick when he played, and when he managed, and normally I'm put off by such people, but his antics are just so legendary. I want to read the stories, I want to see the videos (when applicable), and I want to collect his cards! I have a few from his playing days, but none as a manager, so this turned out to be another solid pick.

Category #3: Future HOF's 

I was 3 for 3, as all of these were new as well. For some reason I never thought to see if Ichiro was in any of the Tek sets, apparently he was, although don't ask me the name of the pattern, because I have no clue, all I know is that it's just a neat card. The one on the top right is one of those "Cards That Somebody In Your Household May Have Thrown Out" kind of reprints, which aren't my favorite thing, but at least it's shiny. Astute observers may have noticed that there's four Ichiro's here, yay you if you did, 'cuz you'd be correct. I don't know why I got more than three, although if I had to guess, I'd say it probably has something to do with that blogger generosity that I was talking about earlier. No matter the reason, I'm not gonna be complaining about getting an extra Ichiro, or in this case, two extra Ichiro's...

Even though this one is on my list of cards that I can never have too many copies of, I never expect to receive any, it's just not one that I think many people will come across in their travels, and if they do, who's going to remember that someone, who they've never met btw, is hoarding it? 

It was neat to receive this very unexpected card for multiple reasons, one of which, and probably the most exciting for me, was that it...

... completed a page! So pretty! I love seeing pages full of the same card like this, it sort of feels like I've accomplished something, granted, it's something that most collectors don't understand (or appreciate), but in my world it's something; which is all that really matters (don't let anyone tell you how to collect, kids).

A thousand and one thanks to, Jeff, for the great envelope. Lots of fun cards, and nary a drop of wax on a single one of them!

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.