2010 Topps Super Bowl XLV Packers Set

I'm back baby!

Well after a whirlwind 2 weeks in the lower 48 I'm back at work and it's snowing in April.  Ah Alaska.  I had such a good trip got to go to Lambeau for lunch and a tour to start the vacation and ended the vacation with a baseball game at Wrigley Field.  Both of which I plan to post about over at Collector's Crack.

But while at Lambeau I visited the gift shop which was a bit overwhelming.  Having not lived in Wisconsin for over 13 years the pure variety Packer stuff was incredible.  I was very good I got out of the store for under 30 bucks.  I bought a very nice Super Bowl pennant. 
I also picked up the Topps Super Bowl XLV Packers set.  I had been looking online and found the price with shipping to be outrageous and my local LCS had sets for 12 bucks and I was probably going to pick one up when I came back but I saw the sets at the Packers Pro Shop for under 10 bucks so I picked it up. 

Matt over at Heartbreaking cards has already posted the checklist.

But here is the full set in pictures with backs.

There you have it the full 27 card set.  I like that Topps did a 27 card set as it all fits nicely into three 9 pocket pages.

5 More Years of the Hawkmeister

Interesting week to say the least on the Packer news front with AJ Hawk getting cut then what seems like the next day getting a 5 year deal.

I listen to ESPN radio on the ride home from work and when I first heard he'd been cut my first thought was WTF?  And then of course the blurb included that it was for cost cutting reasons and Hawk was due a 10 million dollar payday.  OK I get it, but damn I liked that dude.  Then yesterday on the ride home I hear he signed a 5 year deal.  The specifics aren't out yet but it's rumored to be worth about 35 mil over the 5 years.  Or about 7 million a year with 10 million guaranteed.  Of course these are rumors, but supposedly it's close.

The link will take you to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel page with the article.  I was searching around Yahoo but the AP article I found couldn't even get the name of the head coach right.  It kept calling him McCartney not McCarthy.  Christ I could be an editor there. But then I noticed that the MJS article did it too.  Then I realized that it was AJ Hawk who screwed us by picking an agent by the name of McCartney. Mike McCartney.  I guess I should read slower. Sorry guys.

What ever I'm glad to have AJ back for a while.  At the start of last season it was reported that he put his house up for sale in Green Bay.  I can only guess it's been taken off the market.  .

He was an integral part of the Super Bowl team and stepped up when Barnett when down.  I think the Pack is going to have a great defense this year, if we get to see them play and locking up a great linebacker like Hawk is awesome.  As long as AJ can stay healthy.  I think it should be a great 5 years.

Some Jordy Rookies from COMC

I just got my package from Checkoutmycards.com.  I ended up going the economy route and was picking up cheap filler from some insert sets.  Mostly Turkey Red 2009 and 2010 inserts and some Monsters of the Mesozoic to fill the gaps.  But I also picked up a few Younts I needed and found these nice two Jordy Nelson Numbered Rookie Parallels for super cheap I couldn't pass them up.

First up is the 2008 Masterpiece Red Framed parallel #d to 199.  I might have to try and get  a mini rainbow if I can find the other parallels this cheap.

And this ....

A 2008 Score Gold Zone rookie #d to 400.  Some nice additions to my Jordy collection.

There will be no Jordy hating here, ever. Packer Love long distance style.

Wow what a weekend.  I've been in shock.  And a little hungover.  You'll notice I've been pretty quite here and on Collector's Crack about the Packers winning the Super Bowl.  Thorzul will Rule had a great post about how I'm feeling right now.  It's surreal.  I mean we had a terrible year with injuries and losing close games.  I even went into despair in week 5.  I've seen it before, you lose half your team you start to fall apart.  But to my surprise, while we struggled through most of the regular season, the final run was a little bit of luck and a lot of players stepping up to fill the void.  And while we had almost no running game all season some how it didn't matter. 

During the big game I saw quite a bit of Wide Receiver hate going on on Facebook.  Well actually it was after the game when I got home from the bar, but it was mostly from my friends still in Wisconsin.  And yes if Greg Jennings, James Jones, and Jordy Nelson would have caught some key catches the score would have been very lopsided, which would have been fine with me.  And actually Jordy got the most hate.  He had the most dropped passes.  5 or 6 I do believe.  Well to be honest he had the most passes thrown at him too. And was the receiving yards leader in the Super Bowl, that includes both teams. 9 Receptions, 140 yards and 1 TD.  Those would be great numbers in any game let alone the Super Bowl. I predicted big things out of him too.  It only made sense.  Greg Jennings didn't even have half that and he came away with 2 TD's.  Still a great effort.

I was reading Gellman's post over at Sports Card's Uncensored about the Super Bowl living up to expectations.  I can only imagine he was writing it through gritted teeth.  I can understand, him being a Vikings fan.  I can understand how terrible it's going to be next year to be a Vikings fan.  If they Vikings hadn't gotten Favred last year in the NFC Championship there's a good change they might have won the Super Bowl and then I would have had to listen to Vikings fan tell me how great their team is for finally winning a Super Bowl with Packer scraps, and listening to Favre say I told you so.

Gellman also goes on to give analysis about the skyrocketing prices of Packer cards.  Mainly Rodgers and Matthews cards.  Earlier this year I had contemplated going after some Rodgers and Matthews autos.  Didn't pull the trigger and I now probably will never be able to afford any.  Which is alright because I wouldn't want to sell them.  I'd want them for my collection and I'd be too tempted to sell given the current prices. 

What I didn't agree with was the bashing he put on Jordy Nelson and James Starks.  Actually he was bitching how the card companies will probably flood the market with their auto, since they'd be cheaper to obtain than Rodgers or Mathews both of who are fairly rare. First I'm not going to get into James Starks.  He's an unknown entity right now.  Finally got to play the part of the season and had a few good games running,  but you saw in the playoffs, besides a few small break outs not much there.  He was fairly easy to contain.  Will he get better next year?  Lets hope so.  I don't even know if he'll be on the team next year.  What I do know is that Jordy made his presence know. And I'll concede he drop some passes he should have caught, but so did Jennings and Jones.  But if he had caught that one pass in the end zone and a few others there's a real chance he would have been MVP. 

Pshaw you say.  Don't get me wrong Rodger's deserved it.  3 TD's, over 300 yards passing, no interceptions, a QB ranking of 111.5, in the freaking Super Bowl.  Yeah I won't contest that man deserved it.  But Jordy certainly stepped up.  And to be honest if I was a wide receiver on a team I would rather be #2 or #3.  Who gets the best coverage?  #1 right?  So when your #3 guy, and you can catch and get open, he's going to get the ball and make some plays.  Hopefully.

 Jordy had a great day and this blog is all about the Packer Love.  So congrats to my team. Congrats to all the players and fans.  Congrats to the great city of Green Bay, the State of Wisconsin, and the Cheesehead Nation.

Here are few new Jordy cards I got cheap, before the Super Bowl.  I hope that I can continue to pick some of these up for a song. 

A beautiful 2009 SPx Winning Materials #d to 99

And I just got this in yesterday.  A 2088 Absolute Memorabilia Rookie Premiere Materials #d to 100.

I look forward to more big things in the 2011 season from Jordy, just to prove Gellman wrong.  And one final thought, which kinda excites me. If a team that was broken and battered all year and lost it's running game in the first game of the season was able to beat all odds and win the Super Bowl, what are the possibilities for next year??  Well if there's a season next year.

cb out

Continuing the Jordy Nelson Lovefest

I picked up another great and cheap rookie card of the old Jordster.

Of course all the material is event worn or used.  Although how much use could you give a football at the rookie premiere.  Check out the cool bubbling from the football leather on the foilboard.  And the leather has holes in it from the stitching.  Still a beautiful card the scan doesn't do it justice. 

Go Pack!!!

2010 Packers Police Set

Since 1993 the Packers have partnered with local Wisconsin Police departments to put out a Packers Police set. Since 1990 the set was standardized to 20 cards per set and the cards are usually released in groups of 4 per week for 5 weeks, I'm not sure how they are distributed.  But you can usually find complete sets pretty easily.  I found this set on ebay for cheap and added it to my collection of Police sets.  The only player I think that was missing this year from the set was Jordy Nelson, but with his year this year I'm sure he'll make the cut in next years set.  Enjoy.