Black Zapday

Got a nice mini Zippy Zapping in the mail.

Manuel Margot hasn't yet blossomed into the perennial all-star he was projected to be, but he just turned 24 and still has a lot of prime years ahead of him. Hoping for a breakout 2019 season. And I sure do love black refractors!

It was a little eerie to get a Patrick Mahomes card from Kenny, as I only added him to my wantlist like a couple days before. Now that's service! But yeah, I scored some cheap Mahomes cards at a card show a couple months back and that helped inspire me to add a rare current football player to my wantlist. This is a nice addition.

Sweet! Fernando Tatis, Jr is pretty much the only thing that keeps Padres fans from crying themselves to sleep at night these days. I gotta think chances are good he'll make the '19 opening day roster, and we're hoping he takes the league by storm and hits a grand slam every at-bat.

While I don't collect Mariners or Kyle Lewis, I'm always happy to receive refractor/#'d prospect cards in trade. Kyle's a 1st rounder (2016) who hasn't put it together yet in the minors yet, but still has potential.

And we'll finish the highlights of the envelope with some more Padres top prospects. Fingers crossed these guys pan out and help San Diego be competitive over the next several years.

Good stuff. Thanks, Kenny! I'll hit you back with a little something soon.

Sportscards from the Dollar Store and the Night Owl

I turned that accidental Richard Hamilton printing plate from SCC into the catalyst for a trade with Doug at Sportscards From the Dollar Store.

Nice auto of San Diego's top pitching prospect (and 2nd overall prospect behind Tatis Jr.), MacKenzie Gore!

Some more up and coming Friars.

More Padres.. some good stuff here.

Bonus Cubs prospect auto. Don't know much about Michael Rucker, though he seems to be progressing through the minors pretty well, with a solid '18 season in AA. (Unfortunately, a few of the cards seem to have taken a little damage through the international shipping process, as can be seen at the bottom of the Rucker.)

And Doug hit some non-baseball PCs I've been trying to build up, too.

Awesome.. Thanks for the trade, Doug!

-   -  - ---o

Next up is a trade with Night Owl, hitting me back for a PWE I sent his way recently highlighted by a Shirley Manson custom I whipped up for him.

Sweet Trout lot. The RC is actually a "Topps Rookie History" insert from '18 Archives, though the foil didn't show up well in the photo. I have a running gag with Greg that if/when he ends up with another Trout liquorfractor rookie (like the one he ended up with from a reader a few years ago and then gave away in a contest on his blog), that he has to give me first dibs on trading him for it. (The card often sells for $1000+ these days.)

Some Padres action. I can see myself going after '83 Fleer once I complete some of the other 80s sets I'm working on at the moment. Love the Margot SP.

But the real jewel of Night Owl's mailing..

The great Larry Doby! Makes me very happy adding another Hall of Famer to my '57 Topps setbuild.

Much appreciated, Greg! Thanks for another terrific trade.

Turning over some new Leafs

While not as prominent as Topps or even Panini, there are still new Leaf baseball cards out there. They're often a cheaper option for picking up autos of hot prospects. Here are a few that I snagged recently.

Super excited to pick up an autograph of the Padres top prospect Fernando Tatis, Jr for about the price of a blaster a couple weeks back. ESPN scouting guru Keith Law just ranked Tatis as the No. 3 prospect in all of baseball, comparing him to a young Manny Machado. Tatis just turned 19 this month, so he isn't expected to crack the bigs for at least another year or two, but he's been wowing them in the minors and Dominican Winter League. Really hoping he pans out. I even had to give the honor of putting the card in a refractor screwdown case to maximize shininess and currently have it out on display. When the light hits it, it's really a gorgeous sight.

It's a blue parallel numbered 6/25. From the brief write-up, you can see Leaf isn't scared of using team names, something Panini shies away from.

And here's the Padres' top pitching prospect, Mackenzie Gore. This is the card I alluded to when I showed off the Bowman Gore auto Sport Card Collectors traded me recently. San Diego could really use another dependable arm in the rotation, so hopefully he's ready to go in a couple years when all the rebuilding should start paying off.

This one's not numbered, but still a nice, shiny, on-card auto.

Luis Campusano is a 19-year-old catching prospect for the Padres. He's not as highly touted as those other two guys, but I won this Leaf Valiant card for a few bucks the other day.

What really made me go after this particular card is it's a Christmas Card.. woo!

And a non-Padre pickup: another Gavin Sheets auto for that new PC. His Bowman autos are still running a bit pricier than I'd like to pay, but you can find Leaf autos for much less.

In the spirit of this post's title, I'm also showing the back. Green parallel numbered to 99. Apparently this product came with an already-graded card in each box or something, and this is one of those. I don't care too much about grading, but again, the price was right.

Have a great weekend.

Smoothing over a trade with Sport Card Collectors

Friendship. 

I've traded a lot in recent years with my bud who runs the Sport Card Collectors blog, but it's usually swapping blind PWEs... he gets some NY Giants and maybe a couple Yankees or a Griffey.. and I get some Padres and maybe a few PC guys. Once in a while, though, we break out the big guns and negotiate a trade involving better cards.

Sometimes working out a trade like that can be stressful, and under the pressure of year-end work stuff at the time, I overreacted to something and things nearly went off the rails. Thankfully cooler heads prevailed and we were able to keep our trading running smoothly.

This sweet Hunter Renfroe autograph was the card that kicked off our deal. It's a nice looking red parallel #'d /50. I really like these 2017 Topps Clearly Authentic cards. I wish the product had a less dumb name, though. Maybe like Topps Translucent? (might be too similar to Topps Transcendent.) Topps Crystalline? Topps Glass? Topps Lucid Edge? Topps Liquid Prime? Even just Topps Clear would be better than Clearly Authentic. I'm still waiting for Topps Clearly Inauthentic which will feature the same cards but with sloppily forged signatures by interns.
But enough of that, it's a nice card. Another thing Topps should do is include a few Tek-like base cards in each pack. The one-card-box approach Topps has been using lately is so risky for the consumer. At least some decent base cards and a parallel could take the sting out of pulling an auto of somebody not worth much.

Here's another uncredited appearance of Austin Hedges. Also a Chris Brown buyback and a gold parallel Christian Friedrich.

I've gone on record as not being much of a fan of the Topps Gallery revival, but I always love seeing Big Dave Winfield in the brown and gold. A tidbit I found for my new @PadresBreakdown Twitter account is that today is the anniversary of Dave's HOF election. Cool.

OTD in 2001, Dave Winfield is elected to the Hall of Fame along with former teammate Kirby Puckett on their first year of eligibility. Dave chose to go in as a Padre, which rankled the Yankees. Here's a Yankees auto card that I made a Padres overlay for. https://t.co/vwwvQ9AjYt pic.twitter.com/htNePVRMU8

— Padres Breakdown (@PadresBreakdown) January 16, 2018

Ha, I used the same photo for my custom overlay as the picture on the Gallery card.

This looks like 5 of the 8 total cards in the Padres team set of 2017 Bowman Draft. Nice. (I'm now just missing Buddy Reed, Fernando Tatis Jr, and Mason House.)

Getting into some good stuff here! Reggie Lawson blue mini, Blake Hunt (careful saying that name out loud!) refractor auto, and a couple numbered Campusano cards sharing the same photo.

More bright young Padres.

The package wasn't all Padres, though, as SCC snuck in a couple Gavins I needed, too. That's the first licensed Sheets card in my collection (I've bid on a few of his Bowman autos but keep getting narrowly outbid at the end), and it's a refractor, to boot.

Finally, this was the card at the heart of our big trade. MacKenzie Gore was the Padres first pick in last year's draft, and he's their #1 prospect right now. This 2017 Bowman's Best green refractor is #'d /99 and makes a great addition to my collection of upcoming Padres. I had recently picked up a Leaf Metal auto of his, but again, licensed cards are always more desirable. Here's hoping this kid is the real deal and makes his way up to Petco in the next couple years.

Thanks again for the trade, SCC! Your return package went out yesterday.. hope you like!

I also just recently mailed out cards to Angels In Order, Jedi Jeff, Tim B., and ARPSmith.

Note for people pulling cards from my wantlists: Adam is kindly supplying many cards from my 1980 Topps needs, as well as big lots from 1978 Topps, 1984 Fleer, 1984 Donruss, 1985 Donruss, 1987 Fleer, 1986 Fleer, 1982 Topps, and 1983 Topps. So you should probably hold off gathering up cards for me from those particular sets until I'm able to update/create my wantlists for them.

Thanks as always for stopping by!