Trade with Greg the Night Owl.

      Turns out blogger uses the European calendar and because I can't read simple letters at the top of a page, we went a few days without posts.  And here I thought I was being all organized by having a few new posts prepared ahead of time and scheduled to post by themselves.  Oh well...so, welcome back.

       While my first online trade was with Kevin over at The Great 1965 Topps Project (and he remains a steady partner), the most prolific of all my blogging traders has been Greg at Night Owl Cards.  He has been good enough to send me all his excess Mets cards and in turn, I segregate all his beloved Los Angeles Dodgers, to which I am ambivalent. We basically have a nonstop shuttle of padded envelopes to each others mailboxes full of our mutual teams.  He has been very generous over the years and this time was no different. 

     My most recent package to upstate New York wasn't very impressive (so I thought) but it contained a card that hit a nostalgic nerve with old Night Owl.  I have certainly sent larger and more valuable packages.  It is, I think, the collective that led to the final two cards shown here.  First, the fun:
 
I am not buying much new product, so any 2012 cards are greatly appreciated.  Seeing that the Justin Turner celebration is his regular card (not a ridiculous short print) makes me genuinely happy, since the Mets usually dole out joy in such a miserly manner and this card shows a rare moment of Metropolitan exuberance.  The Seaver cards from this year make it only two left that I need from the bloated Golden Moments inserts and the 1962 Seaver from last year is one I have been meaning to snap up for a while.  And the Johan?  OOoooooo.....shiny....Good stuff.

The next group is a sad tribute to what the Mets have become:

Where once we signed big ticket free agents like Beltran and Delgado, this time around we wouldn't pony up the money to keep our own homegrown hero Reyes.  The bottom three are various rookies, one of whom has a future, two of which only have pasts.

Also included were some early 90s gems, O-Pee-Chee and minor leaguers and some Classic board game cards; there was a whole rainbow in 1991 - Blue, Red, Yellow, Pink - but somehow the green stayed under my radar until now.  I'll have to check out if there are more Mets in the Green set.  The Panini stickers I have plenty of, but how can you go wrong with Kid and Mex in any incarnation?

I always write a little note to my trade partner, usually on a post-it or something, just so people know where and when the cards came from, since my biggest fear is that most people are as organized as I am (read: not very).  Greg included this little blurb explaining the best two cards in this package:

The Bonilla signature is perfect for my Mets autograph collection.  Plus, the 1993 Topps card of Bobby Bo was so optimistic of his stay in the Big Apple, until the horrible truth of the whole situation became abundantly clear later on.  The A&G mini is from 2008 and it is what you think it is, a wood 1/1.  It is my first Mets 1 of 1 card.  It doesn't even matter that it is of Ryan Church, it is damn cool. 

And he even welcomed me to the wonderful world of blogging.  Once I learn how to read the calendar, I'm sure I'll have a ball.  Thanks Greg!