Inbound and Down #43: Baseball Card Breakdown

It's funny how things happen sometimes.  The other day I received an envelope from Oscar after going through a period where I hadn't received anything in my mailbox card related.

Then, I received an email from everyone's famous custom creator, Gavin from the Baseball Card Breakdown blog asking me if I'd received a PWE that he had sent a week previous.  The answer I had was no, I hadn't received anything yet.

The email actually reminded me that I had won a contest at his blog a while back.   My memory isn't tested as much as it used to be, so it doesn't work quite as well.  But that's another story...

The PWE came on Saturday, and it was full of cards that hit home.

Perfect.  Not only is it a Joe Sakic card, but it's one of the top 10 most wanted cards for my player collections, listed on the top of my other blog which can be seen here.   The list is down to 9 cards now, and the number of followers on that blog is slowly creeping up (it's at 19 now).  Maybe if hits 30 by the end of July I'll do some kind of COMC giveaway here...

Everyone knows that serial #'d cards are a true weakness of mine, and Gavin didn't disappoint in this department.

2006 Topps Co-Signers silver/bronze Vernon Wells/Lyle Overbay, 7/125

Aaron Hill 2007 Bowman Chrome blue #120/150 and Alex Rios 2008 Bowman Chrome X-fractor #202/250.   Love em....

2015 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects Green Jon Harris #28/99.  And to show how far behind the times I am with current card releases (more on this in my next post), a Jose Bautista 2017 Topps Gold Label (one of my all time favorite sets) blue parallel Class 1 #27/150.   I was very pleased to see the great response that Jose received in his return to Toronto last week.  I saw a few people on Twitter calling for him to be entered into the level of excellence and having his number 19 retired.  Not sure if I would go that far, but I certainly admit that he was a big part of the Blue Jays over the past decade.

Last, and certainly not least, Gavin sent me a couple of his specialties, customs!!!

Doesn't hurt that you learn a little something from custom cards, now does it?  I knew the name Nate Colbert but had absolutely no idea that he attended spring training with the Jays in 1977 before being forced to retire due to back problems.  Love the homage to him on a '77 design.

Now, I had to look twice at this card.  Originally, I thought it was a card of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who as most of you know is a big time prospect in the Jays minor league system.

Looking again I realized it was VG Sr.!  2012 design had me thinking "did VG ever play with the Jays?"  On the back Gavin noted that Guerrero hit .358 in the Jays minor league system (A/AAA) in 2012 before hanging up the spikes at the age of 36. 

These are great and will never not be a part of my Jays collection. 

Gavin, thank you very much for the cards, serial #'d and 1 of 1 customs.  They are very much appreciated!!

Thanks for reading, Robert