Serial Saturday # 38: A couple more #'d/99's--that's how it Gose

I mentioned earlier this week about the great trade package that Josh from the Royals and Randoms blog sent my way.  Today's post is the final 3, maybe some would say the highlights of the package.

Josh added two more football cards to my serial #'d/99 collection, bringing the total to 59.  Far more than I would have expected already.

Starting with this 2014 Panini Select Red Prizm card of 49'ers Michael Crabtree.  I was a bit disappointed in how it scanned, as it looks really nice in hand.

I mentioned in previous Saturday serial themed posts that I was thinking about trying to get each of the serial #'s from 1 to 99 to make this set a little bit more fun.  I took the time a few days ago to go through the cards I have so far, and found that I have a dozen of the numbers duplicated.

Next project is to get the numbers on the appropriate page so I can access it quickly if needed.  The Crabtree is #'d 13/99; 13 was needed so I'm a bit closer to having half of the 1-99 numbers in place.

The other card for this set is this 2013 Panini Prominence platinum of Geno Smith.  Upon inspection, I had no idea why this card would be a "platinum" parallel, but now that I see the scan it makes more sense.  Easily seen is the serial #63, which was one that was needed.

For me, the star of the show in this trade package was this serial #'d jersey card...

2013 Bowman Futures game jersey card, #'d 25/25 of Anthony Gose who was then a Blue Jays prospect.  The card scanned really well, kind of a bluish shine to it.  Also like the powder blue jersey swatch; it goes really well with the bluish background on the scan.

I went from adding nothing for a long time into the Blue Jays hits and autos page to adding 2 in a week.  Pretty much anything that goes into the Blue Jays collection going forward will be jersey or auto cards due to the space limitations that a team collection will create for me.

Thank you very much for the cards Josh, they are really appreciated!!

Enjoy the hobby and stay safe,

Robert

The player collections are filling out nicely

I remember within the past couple of days on twitter Tanner asking when was the last time you traded and what was the deal.  If I had to write one specific trade in response, I wouldn't have been able to do it.

I wound up tweeting this:

Currently have 10 trades on the go at

@tradingcarddb

. Having too much fun there to worry about Project 2020, Bowman, or any of the other craziness that I'm seeing on card Twitter right now.

That was the truth for me, I'm truly getting a lot of enjoyment out of making trades on TCDB because I've traded off a lot of doubles and inserts that I'll never need or look at, and getting cards in return that have helped me build sets, or fill out player collections.

These 3 trades today will help illustrate that...

New trading partner Andrew (TCDB ID: nkandy11), sent me a single card for 3 of my player collections, including the Omega 2000 John Olerud that I think is a nice shot of him just releasing his bat right after that great swing of his.  The Andrew McCutchen almost looks like he's in a Yankees uniform rather than his road grays from the Pirates.  I kind of liked the garish orange that the Marlins had for a couple of years, so much so that I almost went out and bought a jersey.   Almost.

I don't normally go for 1 for 1 trades, but new trade partner Chris (TCDB ID: clutchcity52) didn't have anything else available that matched my want lists, so we broke the ice with a straight up deal that netted me the Golden Moments Andrew McCutchen above.

This is one of those cards you look at and say "don't I have this already?" and then you go to the binder and it's not there.

Last up is a trio of hockey PC cards from Bill (TCDB ID:wbaker01), including a 98-99 Black Diamond triple diamond #'d/1000.  Felix Potvin and his cat mask is another that I won't get tired of seeing new cards for; I'm sure I've mentioned in the past that he's my favorite goalie that played for the Leafs during my lifetime (and there's been a lot of goalies in those 50+ years).

Thank you to all for the trades, they are appreciated!!  Lots more still coming in as well....

Enjoy the hobby and stay safe!

Robert

The post office was just Josh-ing me

Panic. Anxiety.  I felt them both on Monday waiting for some envelopes to arrive in the mail, both PWE and bubble mailers.

One of them was from long time trade buddy Josh from the very quiet Royals and Randoms blog.  I've always enjoyed trading with Josh, as he's quite friendly, and very generous as well.

A couple of dozen Royals of varying years, colors and varieties made their way to the west coast, and Josh knocked down a bunch of A&G wants from 2017.

But while I'm showing off the 44 cards in scan form, I'm going to relay my latest post office story for your amusement.

Along with Josh's 44 A&G cards, I was waiting on 2 other envelopes.  What I love about trading now is the tracking IDs, so I can keep an eye on (OCD like) the packages as they make their way to S. Florida.

I'm on the early shift this month, working 715-1615, and I don't see any texts from the P.O. stating that my packages were delivered.  This was not a major deal as I'm so close to the office that we're on the end of the carrier's route.  Not uncommon for the mail to arrive around 6 PM.

The wife and I have a beer, chat for a bit and have our dinner.  As is our custom lately, once dinner is complete we sit down and watch the Great British Baking Show on Netflix.  I don't do reality shows much, and I'm by no means a baker, but I am really enjoying watching this, as we're on our 5th season already after just under a month of watching.

7 PM rolls around, still no texts.  Not unusual either, as sometimes transmission of the delivery scan lags well behind the actual delivery.  I go to check the mailbox, empty.  I look to the east on our street, and see the mailman on the other side, 4 houses down.  I know from experience when seeing this that it's another 45-60 minutes before he hits our house.

Watch another baking show episode, takes us to 8PM.  No texts.  Now I have to know what's going on.  Look at the postal website, and both the tracking IDs I have an eye on have been returned to the post office with "incomplete address" scans on them.

What a load of crap!!  The driver couldn't finish his route, so he scanned them like that to save his arse.  I got a kick out of it though and told my wife as it happened.

So while I'm working Tuesday morning, at precisely 818, my phone starts blowing up with texts.

The previous day's mail was delivered, 3 bubble mailers and 2 PWE's.  The cards you see above are in one, along with a welcome Blue Jays relic.

I saw the X on the back and thought it might be a die cut that I needed from the 2008 set.  This definitely works too!!  I've kind of stayed away from the Jays a lot, as storage problems will become an issue if I keep going after all the base cards.  Getting relics and autos are much easier to store, as there aren't many coming my way.

Josh sent 3 other cards, which I'll feature on Saturday as they fit that that day's theme quite well.

Great stuff Josh, thank you very much!!

Enjoy the hobby and stay safe!

Robert

dAndy

Sometimes the end result of waiting for a long time for a trade to come in is well worth the wait.  Case in point with this trade from multiple time trade partner Andy (TCDB ID: andyroy) who sent me a big helping of cards to make a few want lists shrink quite nicely.

I still remember sitting at a kitchen table with a buddy of mine 30 years ago, ripping open a box of these cards.  We split the proceeds in half, and they promptly went in one of my many monster boxes and sat for over 2 decades.  I finally decided to get a want list going about 18 months ago, and piece by piece this want list has shrank.

I just looked at the want list, and it's down to just 29 cards, much less than I thought.  This set is definitely on the radar now for completion as the task is a lot less daunting than I imagined.  I'll get that done sometime in 2020.....for sure??

The 85-86 OPC set build is the exact opposite of its counterpart above, as it only has 34 cards in hand as of now.  I'm finally starting to get some in here and there via trading, but it's been a very slow process for this set, which is probably my favorite from the 80's.

The only portion of the trade that saw any baseball come my way was these three cards for the Thome and Olerud collections.  The Olerud collection is starting to pick up a little since I expanded the want list, and it's just a handful of cards shy of the 200 mark.   Thome's collection, which I've been working on for much longer, is now 20 cards from hitting 600, and I had to add a 2nd binder as the first one was just too overloaded and a bit tough to manage each time I opened it.

The last scan is nearly a full page of needs for my various hockey collections, including a much appreciated Mitch Marner card from the 2017-18 Tim Horton's set.

This envelope actually arrived via the Pony Express, as it was mailed in April and didn't arrive until Friday of last week, about 5 weeks enroute.  In the end, it was worth the wait.

Thank you for the trade Andy, it is appreciated!  Looking forward to the next one.

Enjoy the hobby and stay safe!

Robert

Trades aplenty

There was a bit of a lull in trading for a while on the home front, totally understandable with all that's gone on the past couple of months.  But business has picked up again, and I've got a trio of small trades to show off this evening.

First up is three cards from new trade partner Wayne (TCDB ID: family1), who took some 2003 Topps inserts off of my hands and sent me some Olerud and Thome PC cards.

I had to look closer at the third card, the Upper Deck hitters club card, to see what it was that is written halfway up the card.  Apparently, UD thought it a good idea to have Jim's career batting average stenciled on his hip pocket.  At least .287 was a reasonably good enough number to have there, it could have been a lot worse.

Another 3 card trade was care of another new trade partner, J.D. (TCDB ID: CSUBiochem).  J.D. took some cards off my hands and set me these from this years homage to '85 Topps.

This set is coming along OK, I'm now up to 37 out of the 100 cards, but it's also not a major priority at the moment as there's plenty of other sets on the go.

Last but not least is another trade with a 3rd new trade partner, Dan (TCDB ID: DMarcketta), who sent me these 2 Green GQ beauties.

This green set has been a favorite since I laid eyes on it last year, and the amount of cards I've pulled in already may be testament to that love.  231 out of 300 are in hand and I have 3 more on the way from another trade in process.  There's a good shot of getting this completed this year if I set my mind to it.

Thank you to all 3 for the trades, they are appreciated!!

Enjoy the hobby and stay safe!!

Robert