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

Mail Call: Double Dutch.

       As of the beginning of March, I had never traded with continental Europe and now, just six weeks later, I have done so twice - both times have been with the appropriately named Dutch Card Guy.  When I posted my Topps Heritage box break, the big "hit" I got from that box was a CC Sabathia Mint card with a 1965 nickle embedded in it numbered to /15.  A neat card for certain, but not one exactly in my wheelhouse.  Enter DCG.  I knew he was a CC collector but I wasn't sure if he'd want the card so I put it on eBay.  I got a bid on it immediately, which wasn't too surprising, but low and behold, it was by the aforementioned DCG, which was.  He messaged me that he wanted the card and was willing to bid for it.  I told him, nonsense!  I am sure we can come up with a trade for it.  He told me he had this card he pulled last year:

A coin for coin swap?  Perfection!  I pulled the card's auction immediately and we hammered out some details and this wonderful trade was complete.  I don't know if I am ready to become a Mike Trout super collector but a card like this might get the ball rolling on such a thing.  If I can trade awesome hits for cards like this, it might be doable; his cards aint cheap, ya know...

The details included that wonderful 2005 Topps Steve Trachsel red x-fractor you see below.  Those red refractors really pop and I have found for some reason, the 2005 ones really work, not to mention that is a nifty picture of The Human Rain Delay.  I didn't have a Mets one of these and now I do. As good as the scan here shows it, believe me, it is ten times shinier than that, even.

He also threw in a couple awesome unexpected goodies, that 2014 Donruss Puig and that 2008 UD Masterpiece Ryne Sandberg, great cards both, ones I did not have and will definitely keep.  So thank you once again, Jeroen, for a unique trade. I also want to thank the Dutch Postal Service, which once again got a package across the Atlantic to me in less than 10 days. Sometimes the USPS can't get things across two states in less than 10 days.

***

Also in the mail today were these two cards, both interesting in and of themselves even if on the surface they appear rather bland.

I picked up that Roy Campanella on the right from Listia and is just a glorious card.  It is a TCMA card from 1979 and it emulates the classic 1953 Bowman Color set.   It does two things for me: it completes my Campanella player page and it also shows him on a card with a full photo standing - something I neither had seen before nor owned.  Given his tragic accident, I think this was a necessity for his page. 

I picked up the other card on the left from eBay and it doesn't certainly look extraordinary at all, does it?  I mean, it is a player so obscure I had to look up since I have never heard the name - turns out Mike Leclerc had himself a decent couple of years in the NHL before retiring at the tender age of 30.  I will chalk up his anonymity in my world to the fact that he played on the west coast and the Devils don't play the Western Conference much.  I kinda like it because it shows the old garish purple and teal-green colors of the old Anaheim Mighty Ducks plus that so-awful-it's-kinda-neat logo of theirs.  It is a jersey card too, so I get to touch the fuzzy.  But the key to this card is the serial number; anyone who has dug deep into my wantlists knows I have an affinity for the number 527 and lo and behold, yes, this card is serial numbered number 527.  But there is something very special about this particular card, look at the back and see if you can spot it:

Here, I'll make it very obvious for you, in case you are missing it...

Enhance!!!

^^^^^^^ look here dummy.                               

Yes, you are seeing that correctly.  That is a card serial numbered higher than its supposed edition.  I gotta say, there is a lot of reasons that Pacific went out of business and I wanna say quality control might be one of them.  I have never seen such a thing on a trading card?  Have you?  

Recovery.

       First and foremost, we are all okay.  Hurricane Sandy blew through New Jersey and most of the northeast Monday & Tuesday and knocked some trees around and took the power out.  Luckily, my family and I all made it through in one piece.  Unfortunately, the power company says I will not be getting any juice back for another 5-10 days(!) so I am currently a refugee in Pennsylvania because my brother somehow kept his electricity thought out the storm.  I am making good use of myself by dog sitting his adorable puppy while he and his wife work overtime, so I have some time on my hands.  While the dog sleeps, I figured it would be a good time to post. 

I recently had some COMC.com purchases mailed to me, and since this is probably the last bit of mail I am gonna see for a while, let's take a look at those:

I have threatened to make a page of the Upper Deck Heroes blue parallel Mets and I plucked four on the way to that goal.  The Gypsy Queen base set isn't much to look at, but some of the inserts are marvelous.  I picked off the regular and mini version of the Endy Chavez Glove Stories.  For three innings, that was the greatest catch ever.  Still, six years later, it is pretty damn good.  I also grabbed the Gary Carter mini numbered out of /99 since these cards work well in mini and sepia tones.  Also here are a couple of David Wright cards (the Mets just wisely picked up his option for 2013 and *gasp* may actually spend the money to sign him long term....).  While I am not a big fan of plain white jersey squares, this year's Ginter picture of Wright is so good - and the price was so right - I grabbed it anyway.  The last card there is a 1976 SSPC card of Jerry Koosman and Duke Snider that Night Owl featured a while ago and I was so taken with the card, I immediately went online and bought it.  The internet = instant gratification.  Of course, I waited almost 4 months to have it sent to me, so I also delayed gratification on that one too.

The second part of the batch; I was on a Tom Seaver kick:

The card that started that kick was the Allen & Ginter What's in a Name insert.  I found that one and decided to grab the other two 2012 Golden thingies I needed.  I also then got the Archives base and floating head rubdown.  The 2012 Ginter search lead me also to the Sketch card, which I grabbed, and then, somehow, I got to the 1984 traded (which I could have sworn I owned but it turns out somehow I didn't) and also some 1984 ultra oddball rubdowns.  Twins fans would like that one too.  The last card there is a Mike Piazza manufactured patch card.  Something seems a tad amiss with that one...let's take a close look:

Enhance!!!

Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, look at that!  That's not even close, Upper Deck. Nice quality control.  What you can't really see there is the smear of glue where the patch was placed and then somehow slipped off.  I guess UD should also put the "contents may settle during shipment" warning they place on cereal boxes on their wrappers.  Oh, and this was not the card they had scanned into COMC either. I don't know who to complain to about this one...well, other than to you guys.

And on a serious note if you were in Sandy's way, I hope you and your family are safe, that the damage isn't too bad, and that the power and insurance companies are expedient.   Plus, it is times like this when we all pull together and figure stuff out.  As long as you and your loved ones are safe, that is all that matters.