Week in review: Panic relief and the larger half

Before I show off a bunch of 1972 Topps cards that I believe you'll enjoy, have to relay a quick USPS story.  Well, I got another offer from repeat trade partner Mike (TCDB ID:49ants) who lives in CA.  2 for 2, quick and easy, with the key card coming my way being this Ichiro '09 Heritage Chrome

LOVE this card

His end arrives nice and quick, 4 days if I remember correctly.  I sent my end on the 12th of this month.  Mike sent me a message 10 days later, saying nothing had arrived yet.  Now I even paid the extra postage to send it as non-machinable, and was kind of surprised that my end hadn't arrived.  I replied and told him that I'd sent my end as always, PWE on the date that the transaction was updated.

I followed up on the 26th, 2 weeks after I had sent the envelope, asking if anything had arrived.  Nothing.   Now the panic starts to set in, as one of the cards I sent was a 2019 Topps black parallel, which would cost me a few bucks to replace.  Imagine my relief when he updates the trade on 29th as arrived.   17 days!  USPS trying to give me a heart attack!

OK, onward.  The larger half of my trade from Greg at the Collective Mind was a healthy lot of 1972 Topps.  So much so that I'm now above the halfway mark for the set!!  Let's take a look at the bounty.

5 sets of full page scans make up the first 45.  Most of these in the VG to VG-EX range, perfect for my collecting tastes. 

Trying to keep most of the scans reasonably even, I made the next scan just 6 cards.  Nice big rookie cup on the Steve Braun card, and the Sandy Alomar is a nice head shot in my opinion.

Had 11 horizontal cards, and it just worked out that there were 4 Rookie Stars cards and 4 team checklists, including the Yankees!  I remember when putting the '64 set together that the Yankees team card was one of the last, but certainly not one of the cheapest, so I was glad to get this one for this set out of the way early.

Billy Conigliaro was the last vertical card, so he wound up with the remaning 2 horizontal cards.  Love the AL ERA leaders card, all great pitching names, and the Ron Bryant In Action card shows something you don't see on cards much now (that I remember anyhow), and that's a bunt in progress.

Finally, a little Hammerin' Hank for you...

Joe Torre and Willie Stargell as well.   Great looking card, slightly miscut (you can see it plainly on the right hand side of the card), but I still love it.  This haul brings me up to 414 cards in hand, or just over 52% done.  A big lift which has made me a little more serious about completing the set relatively timely.  I'm sure that the high series cards will straighten me out quickly....

Greg, thank you very much for the trade, it really is appreciated!!   Look forward to the next one.

Enjoy the hobby!!

Robert

The smaller half

Maybe calling this post 1/2 of this trade might do a disservice to the other half, but I decided to break up the trade with Greg from the Collective Mind blog into 2 pieces, so both posts get the "half" designation.

In what started as a harmless trade involving just a few cards going in both directions turned into a 100+ card trade that took a chunk out of both of our want lists.

Totally unexpected were these 4 1974 Topps cards, including Canada's own Ferguson Jenkins!

Little bits and pieces of want lists like these 4 are always great, especially when you get Jenkins and Ken Griffey Sr.'s rookie card.  Still 88 cards to go to finish off '74, but that's a task which is a few complete sets away. 

1978 Topps was nicely represented in this envelope, as 14 cards are now off of that want list.

Unmarked checklists.   Check.

The hitters portion of the group, including the man who managed the Jays to two World Series titles, Cito Gaston.  894 wins as the Blue Jays manager still ranks him 1st all time with the club.  I remember Butch Wynegar well, 2nd round pick of the Twins in the '74 draft, he was up with the big club by 1976.   A quick dive into his stats and I noticed something interesting, his number of BB's vs. K's each season.  Butch walked more than he struck out each season of his career but one, which was 1987 in which he barely had 100 plate appearances.  A pretty good eye indeed.

Decided to scan all the pitchers together, and I started to notice the names.  Carlton and Tanana, lefties.  Denny and Leonard, righties.  So I wondered, what were the chances of having an equal number of left/right hand pitchers of this group of 8.  Sure enough, 4 lefties and 4 righties.   Bullet points for all!

• Paul Mitchell was part of the trade that brought Reggie Jackson to the Orioles.
• Joe Kerrigan's birthday is today, happy 66th Joe! I remember Joe as a pitching coach for the Expos, Red Sox and Phillies.
• I didn't know that Ken Brett died young in life, just 55 years of age back in 2003.
• Steve Carlton and Frank Tanana combined for just under 7000 K's, Carlton still ranks 4th all time, Tanana is 23rd.
• Dennis Leonard missed most of the '85 season, the year that KC beat the Blue Jays in the ALCS.
• John Denny had that one great season, 1983, in which he won the Cy Young.  Only won more than 11 games one other time in 13 MLB seasons
• Doug Rau had a great 5 season run with the Dodgers, winning 73 games.  His rotator cuff gave out in '79 and his career ended after a 3 game stint with the Angels in '81.  Doug tripled in his first career AB, and never hit another one after that.  The same picture on his '78 card above is used on his baseball reference page.

 Next up, the bigger half.  1972 Topps.  Lots of them.

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

Gotta love the quick and easy trades

Another couple of trades came in yesterday, one was via the blog, and the other was with fellow TCDB trader Jimmy (TCDB ID: torcato).  Jimmy sent me 7 cards that hit various want lists, and as always was fast and friendly with the trade.

I've probably added more cards to my Jim Thome collection in the past month than I had in the past 12 months.  Finally getting around to adding the cards/want list onto the TCDB site I'm sure had a great deal to do with that.  There's still quite a few base cards to obtain for Thome, as well as the Larry Fitzgerald.   Love the look of the 2007 SPx base card; I still don't have a lot of the cards from the 2000's for Fitz, I'd love to add more of them over time.

Here's the horizontal portion of the trade, a Stadium Club Power Zone insert from 2018 featuring Andrew McCutchen whose collection is approaching the 200 card mark.  Was also happy to see another card for my buddy Chris' 83 Topps FB set, which I posted about last Wednesday .  There's still 77 cards on the want list, so if you have any doubles hiding away you're looking to trade, let me know!

2 more Ichiro's and a 2nd McCutchen round out the trade.  Never heard that Chrome had an update set (shows how much Chrome packs I buy) until I grabbed these 2 cards on this trade.  Still need a lot of Topps Heritage cards for most of my player collections, both base and Chrome parallels, so it's good when I see any of them come by. 

Thank you for the trade Jimmy, the cards are appreciated!!

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert

Serial Saturday #29: A couple of numbered cards for the player collections

A pretty slow week around the house trade wise, and card wise.  I put $40 into my COMC account and bought a few cards for the '79 set, along with the Dave Winfield RC from '74 Topps.  I probably will not see those until some time in February, so let's move on with the one trade envelope that I did get in the past few days.

Traded with a newer TCDB member Bob (TCDB ID:abide), a quick 4 for 2 swap.   I sent off a Kris Bryant manupatch card and a serial numbered card from the Astros and received a pair of Ichiro cards and a pair of Jim Thome cards.

2 serial #'d cards, one for each player, and that's what we'll show today.

A slight crease in the upper right corner was a bit of a bummer, but it's still nice to have an older Ichiro card, this being a 2005 UD Gold exclusives parallel, 54/99.  It's only the 2nd card I have of Ichiro numbered to less than 100, so it is a nice add for sure!  My Ichiro collection is now up to 225 cards, a drop in the bucket for him as he has 16,943 cards listed on the TCDB website.  

I didn't discover these Topps Co-Signers cards until a few years after I started blogging back in 2011, but I kind of developed a soft spot for them.  Lots of foil, and as you can see, Paul Konerko is kind of washed out with the scan.  But the serial numbering is my weakness as you all know, and having one of just 175 copies is always a plus for me. 

I'll look to add more of these serial numbered Co-Signers cards to my collection over time. 

I now have 524 cards in my Thome collection, which only trails Joe Sakic in my player collection counts.  I'm not actively seeking them out for purchase, but I'll add them here and there via trades as time goes along.

Enjoy the hobby!

Robert