You've probably heard that Chris over at The Collector is celebrating his big Anniversary Celebration Extravaganza. He's intending to wind down accumulation of sports cards but keep the blog going, and I wish him luck there. His blog is a favorite to read and he's a good dude. He's generous, too, running a celebration giveaway for the handful of readers savvy enough to grab a slot.
Here's an overview of my prize package, complete with a pack of penny sleeves and friendly letter.
Kicking off the cards with a selection of Joe Musgrove, highlighted by a pink refractor from '24 and a diamante parallel '26 He's been slow getting back from injury, but I'm hoping he's back on the mound soon.
Another current favorite Padre of mine, Jackson Merrill, in the house with some nice stuff here.
Part of the giveaway's entry process was to pick a player with a low-numbered jersey number which Chris would correlate to something later, and Jeter's 2 was the first to pop in my head, and now I've got a Chrome Anniversary card commemorating that choice.
The Trenton Brooks 2025 Update base card was nice to find in there. That's a card I'm "trying to rainbow" (guy from my high school pictured playing for my favorite team), but you guessed it, I focused on the parallels and hadn't secured the base card yet, holding out hope that one would fall in my lap eventually. Sure enough!
It's kinda bittersweet seeing James Wood blossom into a star, seeing how San Diego traded him away in the big Juan Soto deal that ultimately didn't help the team win much. But I'll hoard all his cards I can get my grubby mitts on.
Since Fuji also had a slot in the giveaway, I had offered to renounce my claim to the Padres so as to simplify Chris' sorting process (and snag the Braves, who were "hot" in the Chrome Anniversary boxes Chris busted), but he was on top of things and didn't seem to have trouble finding enough Padres for both of us. But my "secondary team" the Braves had a few decent cards included as well.
Here we've got some guys I collect who played for the White Sox and/or are named Gavin. I've got a Christmas Card of that Hoyt, so it's nice to get the base too. And glad to see Topps use that quirky "wearing shorts" photo of Goose on a card. I used that same pic on a custom a decade ago.
Lots of other good stuff from Chris filling up the box; pile pic here for brevity.
Some unopened packs! I might keep the '86 as-is for my Dick Williams PC, as long as Chris didn't have his heart set on me tearing into that cellophane. This post is long enough, so I'll hang on to the Brockum Rock Cards and the National Hockey Card Day packs for a rainy day rip.
But I definitely tore into the Mystery Pack. Let's reveal the mystery..
Autographs of Colton Cowser and Domingo Acevedo get top billing, plus a couple more solid Padres.
Non-baseball highlights for me include shiny Prizms of greats from yesteryear.
Modern players, too, with lots of guys named Jayden and Jalen and a few other dudes I'm somewhat familiar with despite not paying much attention to those sports these days.
I'm always a sucker for refractors.
And the rest! Oldest card in the lot is an oddball from 1980 of Babe Ruth dancing in the batter's box.
Well, that was a lot of fun to go through. Big thanks, Chris! Thrilled I was able to get in on the celebration. Congrats on 10 years of the blog and 40 years of collecting!
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