Sometimes a gentle reminder is all it takes

Much to my delight and surprise, I received a bubble mailer yesterday from the one and only....

Love this card.  Need to get me an autographed copy one day

Totally unexpected was this fine package of cards, and it provided me a reminder of my first National back in 2012.  I'll get to that shortly.

First off, the meat of the package.   A bunch of 2017 A&G which is quickly getting close to completion.

7 base cards, including an Ichiro which I also believe is needed for the Ichiro PC.  Seeing Nick Jonas reminds me of driving to South Carolina last summer and "Sucker" was being played on hit radio constantly.   I really like that song, and taking a quick look at the back also let me know that Nick collects baseball cards.  Cool!

To go with those were 7 Short Prints, very nice!!  I still look at these cards and remember 3 years ago my disdain for them when they were first released.  Boy that changed, as I can honestly say that my tastes have shifted and I've become more of an A&G fan overall.  My only beef?  Well of course it's the price, as I'd love to see it be a little lower.   You can't have everything though, right?

22 cards left for the set, 14 base and 8 SPs.   This set will be part of the "next 10" that is completed when I finish the '74 Topps set, hopefully some time soon.

The lone Jim Thome card in the package is from the 2005 Fleer National Pastimes set.  It's either #601 or 602 in the Thome PC.  Nice card, you can't see it in the scan but the photo of Jim has a kind of 3D look, almost raised off the card a bit.

Both this package and the last one that Greg sent my way each contained a lone 1969 Topps card.  Not a set that is on everyone's radar, but it's one that I love. 

I can actually tell you when I fell in love with it.   Let's go back a little over 8 years ago to the 2012 NSCC show which was in Baltimore.  It was my first, and I can still remember my awe when I walked through the hall.  The enormity of it just astounded me.

I went for two days, and I remember on the 2nd day I sat at a table in the back of the hall, and if I remember correctly, I was the only one at the table at the time.  It was a woman running the table, very pleasant and easy to chat with.  But it was one card that jumped out of the box and into my pile that I think was the highlight of the show for me, and started my love of the '69 set.

Lefty was just $12 (yes I still remember the price), I loved the look of the card and the pink back had me hooked.  I was pretty sure that one day I would start putting together this set.  Roberto Pena up above brings my total up to 207 cards, still not even a third of the way through. 

Pena was a reminder of my love for this set, and it's got me wanting to give this set a little push before too long. 

Thank you for the envelope Greg, the cards are really appreciated!!  And yes, you did beat the Trading Card Database guys.

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

Tradecenter--2s and 3s

It's been a busy month on the trade month so far.  17 trades completed and a lot of walks to the post office, sometimes with 2 or 3 envelopes in hand to send to fellow collectors.

Today's post is just a quick homage to 5 trades I've made that all saw me receive just 2 or 3 cards, which for me works just as well as bigger trades, but I don't have to stand in line at the post office to send PWE's.

The 3 cards I received above were my first trade with someone from Slovakia!  I remember him telling me that the trade might take a little longer because he's in Europe, and I thought to myself it's not a big deal, I was only sending a few cards so why not?

I received the cards in a little over 2 weeks, no different than if they came from Canada.  Fabulous.

Loving the chase for the '85 inserts from this years flagship, and the two trades above netted me an extra card for a pair of player collections.  A fairly large need for the Olerud collection are cards that feature him as a Met, Mariner, Yankee or Red Sox player.  70% of the collection features him as a Jay, even though half his career was spent elsewhere...

I was going to chase the series 2 set this year, but the card insanity at the retail stores, and the brick and mortar shops selling boxes at $120 (really!) has made me think twice.  I grabbed the McCutchen in a trade and that will be all for Series 2.  Meanwhile the 2019 GQ green release keeps chugging along, and it will certainly be part of the next 10 sets that I work on once '74 Topps is done.

Haven't really shown off a lot of vintage on the blog in recent weeks, so a trio of '72 Topps I'm sure is a welcome sight for some.  I really haven't looked at this set much recently in trades, and now that I've worked my towards the semi-high and high numbers, this will probably stay slow for a while.  There's a long way to go though, as the set is only 55% complete. 

Still have more trades to show off, mostly player collection stuff which I've taken some time to enhance my want lists on the TCDB website.  These will be more of the 7-9 card variety, filling those Ultra Pro pages in the PWE's quite nicely.

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

Serial Saturday #41: Two more Sakic's on the way to 1000

Inspiration struck in a couple of different ways for this post.  Naturally, the pair of serial numbered cards you're going to see shortly, but I've also been buoyed by a pair of bloggers who have recently hit the 1000 card mark for one of their player collections.

A couple of days ago P-Town Tom notified us that he hit the 1000 card mark with his Ryne Sandberg collection with this post celebrating that milestone.  Love that the card he chose from the group that put him over the top glows in the dark, well done!!

While I wasn't aware of the approaching achievement by Tom, AJ's Tino Martinez milestone was more in my radar, as I followed it on Twitter for a while as he counted down to 1000.  AJ's post notifying us all of his accomplishment with this post .  I also liked AJ's choice for 1K, as it was the silver signature parallel from the 2000 UD MVP set, long one of my favorite parallels out there.

I've been collecting Sakic cards since the early 90's, and it is one collection that I never gave up on or decided to pare down or sell.  I did go quite a long time in the early part of the 21st century without adding to it, but since I started blogging almost a decade ago, I've off and on noted the additions to the collection, which now stands at 832 cards, including these 2 serial numbered cards.

If I had a preference for this insert from the 2002-03 Rookie Update set, is that Joe Sakic should have been featured with a younger star player that might have looked up to him as a role model. Otherwise, the card for me is just fine as it's always good to add a serial numbered card to the collection. 

Artifacts is a set that should be right up my alley; serial numbered cards, colorful parallels and lots of rookie and star power.  Alas, the packs are a bit too pricey, and my luck with blasters in the past has been pretty awful for the most part, so I'm pretty much down to buying singles on the secondary market for as cheap as possible. 

Both of these cards hit the mark price wise, each was $1.99.  Maybe it's time for me to get cracking on the Sakic collection a little more on eBay if I can keep finding prices such as these...

Enjoy the hobby!!

Robert