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My hilight was pulling a Bob Gibson sparkle auto /10 out of series two. It might not be a monster card that would fetch thousands of dollars, but in my short collecting career of about two years, it is without a doubt the best card I’ve ever pulled.

I would say my collecting highlight was getting wrapped up in the Topps Value boxes. People were pulling monster hits out of them and I decided to try my luck. Ended up pulling a bowman chrome Bryce Harper gold auto. Great feeling.

Bought my first Starlin Castro RC’s.

What was your baseball collecting highlight of 2012?

For me, it was entering the Topps Golden Giveaway codes and finding out that I hit a Yu Darvish auto #’d to 25. But of course Topps found a way to wreck this happiness by taking 8 months to fulfill, and on top of the wait, replace my Darvish with Cespedes unknowing to me till I received it yesterday. I truly believe they do not care about their customers and this really pisses me off. I’ve been collecting since 1978 when I completed the Topps baseball set with my father and it’s going to take some convincing to get me to purchase a Topps product after this fiasco…

My highlight was pulling a Hank Aaron Topps Gypsy Queen auto. I bought it on a whim as I don’t collect a lot of baseball but I thought the product looked nice so I gave it a shot. Needless to say I bought a few more boxes and ended up completing the set.

While busting a case of 2012 Bowman Platinum at the National was a blast by far had to be the start of my Michael Morse collection. It started July 4th when I purchased the Topps Tier One Crowd Pleaser 1/1 Inscribed BEAST MODE! As the year progressed I then added 5 of the 2012 Topps Triple Threads White Whales and almost the full rainbow for Topps Tribute including a 1/1 inscribed THE BEAST. Also when attending the first Nationals home playoff game in the team’s history I purchased a game-used bat of Morse from a game in September. The bat, broken, is covered in pine tar.

Finding out a jeter “sample” card (thats how it was sold) I bought was really a ’97 donruss “executive” card which has sold for $400. Didn’t know it when I bought it.

Buying a case of 2012 Topps Heritage and pulling an Real Ones Dual Autograph Clayton Kershaw/Sandy Koufax. Also an Mike Trout 2012 Topps Update All-Star Stitches Jumbo Patch Autograph, from an single hobby box purchase, My down fall was not receiving an Bryce Harper from ($100.) the 2012 Topps Heritage factory set, bought directly from Topps, I had to purchase the card on Ebay for $49. (Haven’t heard anything from Topps yet)

My highlight from 2012 actually started with a product from last year.
Early this year, I bought a box of 2011 Bowman Sterling and pulled a Canary Bubba Starling Auto 1/1. (Had Beckett grade it).
So, I had to try 2012 Bowman Sterling and bought a box of that for Christmas. Out popped a Bryce Harper Redemption card for a Showcase Auto. These are numbered to 25 and have a sterling silver frame!
So, I am now eagerly waiting on 2013 Bowman Sterling.

just getting back into the hobby after 20 years was fun last year(2012) there is some really nice stuff these days, actually too much. impossible too keep up with everything. starting a stanton collection has been fun (105 cards). also tried nascar cards and shockingly its my favorite right now. a piece of sheet metal from a car is more satisfying then another jersey card. kris, port st. lucie, FL

Coming into 2012, I had game-used jersey cards from just about every Mets player who has had a jersey card released (more than 160 at the time, plus a few minor leaguers), but I had been neglecting bat cards. By a quick count, I figured that I was missing bat cards from at least 50 different players. As a result, I resolved to get a bat card from one new Mets player each week. I more or less held to that for the entire year and built a more complete list of missing players along the way. On December 31, I received the final two bat cards to put my total at 130 different Mets, all of the ones I know of who have had bat cards issued. I’m probably still missing a few, but this sort of collection is never complete.
Matt, Tyngsboro, MA

My Highlight of Collecting this year was finding 2 boxes of 2011 Finest and pulling 2 monster cards. The First box gave me a Auto die cut to /10 of Eric Hosmer. The next box gave me a Mike Trout X-fractor auto needless to say I was jumping for joy!

Bought 2 boxes of Archives and pulled a Bryce Harper SSP!!!

My collecting highlight was pulling my first big hit from 2012 Topps Triple Threads.Even better, it was my favorite player, from my favorite team, Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angeles. I was stoked when I pulled it and it is one of my favorite cards in my entire collection. Nick Redondo Beach, California

Had a blast at the National in Baltimore last year.

Highlight of the year happened in December when I purchased a 1966 East Hills Pirates Set for $40. Not super elusive, but I have wanted to own one since I was a kid in the 1970′s. Needless to say it took me awhile to get it, but that it made it all that much sweeter to find & buy now.
Thanx,
Ron Schluter
Andover, CT

Flipping cases of the various Bowman products for big money to all the rubes.

My highlight this year was watching my two daughters, Jaina (10) and Judi (8) pull some amazing cards including: Rally Squirrel SP (1st pack of 2012 Topps any of us opened), 1/1 TTT White Whale Verlander Auto/Relic, and a Topps Vault Redemption card from Topps Archives for a Ted Williams Topps Contract (odds 1:196,000)! We also loved going to the National Convention Show in Baltimore.

I’ve been an on-and-off collector since 1987 and bought a blaster of Archives after seeing a Box Busters video from Chris Olds. I opened the box with my wife (who has never opened a single pack of cards) and she pulled an authentic 1971 Topps buyback of Nolan Ryan.
Needless to say she was hooked and the very next two boxes (hobby) we broke she pulled a blue Bowman chrome Darvish auto ($800 BV at the time) and an Archives Bryce Harper ($25 BV at the time).
Now we both open a box about every couple of weeks and love doing so.
Jason – Raleigh, NC

Two Highlights for the year:

Discovering that everything Junk-wax is new again. Seriously. I started pulling Mets and Yankees cards from all of those small sets from the late 80s and 90s and made them available. People went wild. I know it doesn’t sound like much but all of those sets are filled with stars which also move and the Mets fans who found cards of their bygone heroes from 86 were floored. Twenty Five years ago is a long time but we tend to laugh off all of that stuff. When my Dykstra collector found several cards of Nails he had never seen from those sets, it was a joy to see. The Mattingly fans couldn’t remember seeing those cards either. Go break a Fleer’s Limited Edition set from 1987 and you’ll see what I mean.

After reading about “someone’s” exploits trying to locate cards from the movie Major League, I started looking for cards from Bull Durham, and found some. They are oversized and printed on weak cardboard but I love them and they aren’t going anywhere….

Opened up my last box of 2012. It was a 2012 Update Jumbo. I got a Jordan Pacheco auto and a Tim Lincecum golden ring collection. I opened the last pack with my younger sister and pulled a triple relic /25. Kemp/Hamilton and one of my PC players, Mike Trout. Me and my sister were screaming with joy.

Buying my first full game-worn jersey was my highlight. It was of Dirk Hayhurst, who I SuperCollect.

My highlight was my fiancee actually asking to open some 2012 Bowman Draft packs with me “Because it look’s fun” she said. I said sure here are a few packs but knowing my luck you will get the autograph in the box or a superfractor or something ha ha ha…. Well 2 packs in she says “I got something really shiny”…. And to make a long story short. It was a Superfractor of Jake Lamb BDPP110…. And then her saying “Is That a good one or something”…. LOL….

Sorry, for the Superfractor Story Jerome J Wood SR…. Slinger,Wi.

Panini’s cracked ice from the national…the long lost 1993 Donruss Elite Series cards.

While I’m not really into pack ripping for the hits, my highlight would have to be pulling my 2012 Topps WWE Aksana Kiss card from a retail pack. The odds were stated 1:1125 packs! I was beginning to think you couldn’t pull hits out of retail, but that wonderful piece proved me wrong.

My best part of the year was pulling a redemption card out of a normal pack of Topps cards from Walmart. Why? Because when I went to redeem it on the Topps website (it was the 50th anniversary promotion) I got a 1/1 Diamond card of Magglio Ordonez! I’m not huge fan of his, but the fact that I was able to obtain one of the diamond cards was the best pull of my collecting career.

This isn’t my favorite card in my collection, but it is definetly my biggest hit ever- Was busting a hobby box of 2012 Allen & Ginter, and had pulled 2 normal relics of average guys. Wasn’t too happy about that, but I still had one hit left. Ended up being a Mini Framed Silk card of just the guy named NOLAN RYAN. Numbered /10 and the first Silk card I had pulled from Ginter. Awesome card!

Paul Angilly
Windsor Locks, CT

My collecting highlight for 2012 was not a big hit, but the end of a long quest. Many years ago I had bought a pack of Nashville Predators cards (my favorite NHL team) off eBay that was an arena giveaway involving all three major manufacturers during the 1999-2000 season. My pack included two Pacific and two Topps cards, plus a header card. Yet the header card also had a logo on it, and later in looking through the Beckett annual price guide, I saw there was in fact supposed to also be two Upper Deck cards in the team set. So for about a decade I searched eBay every week, looking for someone selling those two missing cards, with no luck.

Then this past year, I took a vacation to Nashville and saw a Predators game in person, among other highlights of the trip. I also hunted down a local card shop there, figuring that would be the best place to find Predators cards. As it turned out, it was a pretty small shop and not well organized, so I didn’t find much, but in looking through a $1 bin I did find an unopened pack with those two Upper Deck arena giveaways I had been searching for so long. So I only spent $2 at that shop, but it was the best $2 I spent all year, even though the cards probably aren’t even worth that much. But ending a 10-year long search? Well worth the trip!

opening a box of 2012 topps chrome and getting a jordan paccheo auto and a jesus montero blue refractor auto.
Also opening 3 hobby boxes of 2009 signature stars baseball and getting a prince fielder auto, Carlos Gonzalez auto, Gerrit Cole Usa auto and also his USA jersey.

Completing the ’73 & ’75 Topps Baseball Sets & finding a mint Derek Jeter UpperDeck SP Rookie in a box of misc Yankees that I kept before selling my collection in 1994 to buy my first house.