Friday, November 15, 2013

Ginter Project - Mid-November Update

Greetings Mafia,

I do apologize for my absence. It is sometimes required of me to travel, which I had to do earlier this week. I'm back and have resumed the Ginter Project. I lost Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday for collecting, so I feel as though I am a little behind. It happens. To help make up for it, we did visit the bottle redemption room. Lets take a look at what we have:

MyCoke Rewards Points: 117 (Almost at that 3rd 20 oz beverage coupon!)
Mt. Dew Codes: 61
Flavor Codes: 1 (holding off on auctioning it on Listia for now)
Listia Credits: 9114 (should be enough to nab a free card or two to start the cardboard part of the stash)
Unredeemed Bottles: 0
SwagBucks: 450 (Enough for a $5 Amazon Giftcard)

Cash on Hand: $2.75

I'm really very pleased so far with our progress. Again, we started with nothing and have roughly $10 in the kitty. I'll need to start focusing a little more on consolidation and advancing the actual goal.

In other news, I barely missed out on a 2013 Allen & Ginter Bill Buckner autograph from Listia this weekend. Just more motivation to amass more credits so other opportunities don't slip through our fingers again.

Until next time. Oh, and keep it in the family.

Monday, November 11, 2013

Happy Veteran's Day + Ginter Project Update

Greetings Mafia!

Happy Veterans Day to you all and thank you to all of our nation's veterans for their service!

I'm sure you're all anxiously awaiting a Ginter Project Update, so I'll get down to it:

MyCokeRewards Points: 92
Mt. Dew Codes: 45
Flavor Codes: 2 (1 up for auction on Listia with a bid of 100 credits)
Listia Credits: 2236
Unredeemed Bottles: 18

Cash on Hand: $1.40

Weekends appear to be pretty slow for bottle caps and bottles. Unfortunately I go into my off days now, so it's a double hit to production. Oh well. Will have to overcome and adapt.

Again, thank you veterans!

As always, keep it in the family.

-GG

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Ginter Project Update - 11/08/2013

Greetings Mafia,

Figured I'd offer up a little pre-weekend update on the project. Been making some progress this week and I'm feeling pretty good about the overall progress. No actual physical cards yet, but we have our first actual contribution that is... dare I say it, real!? Yes. We have successfully taken off from nothing to actually having *something*.

Here's the haul --

86 MyCoke Rewards Points (Could redeem for 2 free 20 oz bottles of soda/Powerade/whatever)
41 Mt. Dew Codes (I estimate I'll need between 300 and 500 to actually get anything out of these, but they're fairly plentiful and the bounty is... bountiful. XBox One, anyone?)
2 Facebook Flavor Codes (I had 3, auctioned 1 off on Listia for 100 credits)
2141 Listia Credits (Will be looking to snag some free cards off of this site, and use various codes and whatnot to fuel it)
9 cans/bottles (Should be more, but I've been tossing several in the recycling so I could maintain my dignity... have to abide by the rules!)

Ginter Project Funds: $1.40

Yep. A buck forty. Redeemed a box of cans and bottles at a nickel apiece. Twenty eight of the suckers later and I've almost got a dollar and a half. Not enough to even mail a bubble mailer, but a Master Ginter Set was never built in a day. Unless you're Brentandbecca.

I'll conclude by pointing out that if you're interested in anything in the Ginter Project at any point and want to barter/trade/swap, drop me an e-mail or a comment and I'll get in touch. I expect this to be a bit more legitimate when I get cards, but if you're sitting there with a parched throat going, "Man, I could really use an ice cold Coca-Cola three weeks from now, but all I have is this Yasiel Puig Rookie Card." I'm you're man.

As always, keep it in the family.

-GG

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

The Ginter Project: 11/06 Update

Greetings Mafia,

As promised I have an update for you. Keep in mind that I technically started this on the 1st of November, so these numbers are not indicative of a single evening of effortless collecting.

Current Project Assets:

74 MyCokeRewards points (40 points are redeemable for a free 20 oz Coke beverage...)
2 Facebook Flavor Codes (Redeemable for Facebook Credits? Don't know much about these.)
24 Mt. Dew Codes (Unlikely anything will come of these, but it's worth a shot)
16 cans/bottles ($.05 apiece. $0.80 once redeemed)

Not bad. Will keep this place posted of any updates as I get them.

Oh, and keep it in the family.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

The Ginter Project

Greetings Ginter Mafia,

With Gint-A-Cuffs in the past (an a recap post overdue... thanks again to the Commissioner for hosting!) it is time to turn our attention towards the horizon. I've been kicking around a few ideas for projects and have finally settled on one.

I'm sure you've seen any number of attempts at recreating the famous 'Red Paperclip' project in the hobby. Folks will take a single card and try and wheel and deal to obtain some fancy target card like a Ken Griffey Jr. PSA 10 Gem Mint Rookie Card, or a Mike Trout Autographed Superfractor, or a Bryce Harper Rookie 1/0 Invisfractor. All very admirable goals. I'm going to take it one step further, however, and be slightly different. More unique, if you will.

The Ginter Project's goal is simple - obtain the best Allen & Ginter card or cards that I can. It is an ongoing project without any sort of "end." It will end whenever it dies, and that will be that. Having amorphous goals is generally bad, however, so we'll start out with a simple goal: Obtain an unripped Allen and Ginter RIP card. Any year, any player, any serial numbering. Our starting point will be the following: Nothing.

Yep, you read that correctly. Nothing. I am going to physically start with nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Squat. Not a single card to the project's name. I will need to discover ways to obtain things for free and trade/sell them towards my goal. This includes rescuing cans and bottles from landfills and redeeming them for their container deposit ($0.05 per can/bottle!). Here are the rules:

1) Dignity will be maintained. That means no dumpster diving or stealing from recycling bins. Retreiving cans/bottles from garbage cans discreetly is permissible. The Ginter Godfather isn't a bum.

2) No personal funds will be permitted. The Project will have its own pile of money (probably in the form of quarters, nickels, and dimes) to pay for EVERYTHING - postage, envelopes, supplies, etc.

3) I am permitted to trade with myself. The trades need to be fair using SELL VALUE ONLY. Because if you can find someone who is willing to pay book value for all of my cards, I'll give you a 10% commission.

4) As an addendum to Rule 3), I can trade/buy supplies from myself. This way I don't have to buy an entire box of PWE's or something silly like that.

5) Any and all avenues are available but must be documented here. I can use message boards, LCS's, FeeBay, etc.

6) No extraordinary measures are to be taken. This is to prevent me from driving around aimlessly to pick up cans. I'll burn more in gas then I would obtain in bottle deposits. Everything must be done in the course of my regular day.

Seems pretty easy, eh? I'll post a recap for the day either every day or every couple days to keep everyone abreast of my progress. This will be fun, I think!

Just keep it in the family.

-GG