Trade with Dime Boxes.

This month has been declared the one where I settle all draft folder business.  This week I am focusing upon the trade posts that I scanned and set up, but for some reason, did not complete. 

Last July, I had a card overload, full of show trips, dog sitting, and sorting through a lot of new product that I had ripped but not collated properly. I had a great time doing nothing and as I read through blogs, I could go through want lists and help out.  Enter Nick and his blog Dime Boxes - The Low-End Baseball Card Collector's Journey (sort of the blog equivalent of How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb). I am a huge fan of this frugal and eclectic approach to collecting.  When I posted Topps series two, Nick let me know he was building the set and would like to swap to get my cards since I was not.  I checked out his wantlists and saw he needed a bunch of other 2014 stuff as well and I sent him an email and after the usual back and forth, I sent off a metric fuckton* of cards from his lists.

In return, a few weeks later, I found a fat and heavy jiffy pack full of Mets cards. 

That John Maine covers not only my love of Mets cards but one of my favorite collecting quirks. It is also impressive to find a Mike Piazza card I do not have.

This pack was loaded with oddballs and oddities.  I mean, when was the last time you got a package with two pitchers batting cards?  Not to mention a player taking photos card?

Plus there was two vague shiny Mets I didn't have, that 3D Bonilla and that dufex Murray.  The early 90s were a black hole for the Mets, but the cards were pretty sweet.

And the oddballs keep coming fast and furious here.  Food issues, box sets, Ted Williams faux-vintage and...

...SSPC cards.  How great is it when an Archives reprint is the least oddball of any card in a scan?

Speaking of faux-vintage, there was some Tom Terrific cards too.  And some Nolan Ryan on the Mets cards. I need to make a Nolan Ryan Mets page now that I finally have more cards of him in blue and orange than cowboy hats.

And low and behold, it's one of my all time favorite card sets from the 1990s, that hot pink Classic update set.  I have the whole set somewhere - I recall buying a bunch of those on clearance at Bradlees back in the day - I just didn't have a single of that Julio Machado card. Machado was a pretty terrible pitcher but he is famous for eating iguana and randomly killing a woman after a car accident.  Seriously, I couldn't make that up if I tried.

Not only were there great Mets cards in the package, there were some cards straight off my want lists too.  He sent cards for my Mike Trout collection and my Jim Bunning and Jim Kaat pages.  I am still torn if I should start a Trout collection but I am accumulating his cards anyway.

Also from my player collections were a couple of Jeff Bagwells and Reggie Jacksons, two of my faves.  That center Bagwell hologram is so beautiful yet so vague, I'd never even seen it before. 

There was so much in that package, I obviously ran out of patience for it and just did a Gilligan's Island "and the rest" on it.  Just from here, I see Diamond Kings, more food issues, more Classic, some 1985 All Star cards, 1990 Score Traded, a couple more Reggie Jacksons, and I wisely emphasized the 1966 Topps Dan Napoleon. That is a super card.

Nick put a friendly little note in with the trade pack and yes, I can assure you these cards found me well.  I am just sorry it took me so long to post this awesome trade.  Thanks, Nick!

*it's an industry term