Hey, where are the blog awards this year? (trade roundup)

Time for the weekly trade round up, which is kind of a thing here on the blog. This week saw 3 trade packages show up at Baseball Card Breakdown HQ. Let's take a look!

First up is Fuji. When you're talking about the best card blogs around, the top 3 names that pop into my head are Night Owl, Dimebox Nick, and Fuji. And hey, that reminds me, where are the 2015 Card Blog Awards? We're deep into February already and still nothing! Last year there was the Bip Awards, and the 2nd Best Blog Award. Somebody should hurry up and take the reigns to get something going. I really thought I brought my A-game in 2015, and was hopeful I could bring home a digital trophy.. perhaps contending for "Post of the Year" with the original Wallet Card post or something. One of you bloggers out there looking for a series of posts to spice up your blog, you might consider setting up some blog award categories that people could nominate for and vote on.

But back to Fuji, I traded with him once or twice before, but it was long ago, back when I was living at my old place. This month marks 2 years in my current house, and so I was overdue to swap cards with him. He was included in my holiday card mailing spree, and seemed to be pretty happy with the customs and stuff I sent him. This was a pretty nice thank you package I got in return.

The meat of the mailing was this trio of hits. Very happy with that Marcus Giles relic. Have I mentioned I went to school with him? Oh, only a hundred times? Ok, sorry. I just think it's really cool that I had gym class with a guy who's on an UD Masterpieces card. I'm basically one degree of separation from being on an UD Masterpieces card. LOL. Dare I say my big Marcus post from last March might also be worthy of a Post of the Year nomination. Gah, sorry for talking about myself so much in this post.
Also included here are a nice Xavier Nady relic from his Team USA days, and an Andrew Cashner purple swatch from his college days. Shiny!

Fuji is a big Tony Gwynn collector, and must have had some dupes to share. I'm happy to take 'em! The Lords of the Diamond card is particularly eye-catching. That pop-out card at the end is kinda funny.. looks like maybe they recycled the body drawing from Griffey. That definitely isn't an accurate late-career Gwynn body representation!

And Fuji was nice enough to include his own updated auto card. That's pretty awesome. Thanks, man!

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Next trade package is from Tony Burbs. Tony's blog Wrigley Roster Jenga is very entertaining and fresh, and I would definitely nominate it for Best New Blog of 2015, sticking with our theme of theoretical/potential blog awards. It's obviously a very Cubs-focused blog, but you can still enjoy it without being a Cubs fan.

Anyways, like with Fuji, I surprised Tony with some cards back around the holidays, and he was compelled to shoot me a friendly return batch of cards.

I'm a sucker for a serial number, so this Gwynn (/799) and Ian Kennedy (/99) definitely stood out for me.

The package was rounded out by this fine assortment of other Padres of the past.
Thanks, Tony!

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Another strong contender for Best New Blog of 2015 would have to be Wish They Still Came With Bubblegum. Jeff burst onto the scene and quickly made a name for himself, trading up a storm. Took me a while, but I finally got in on that action for our first trade.

Here we've got old favorites of mine Hoyt Wilhelm and star of yesterday's post, my close personal friend Vida Blue. Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating about how close we are just a little.

Mr. Gwynn completes the trifecta of being included in all 3 trade packages this week. Good stuff.
The Caminiti cards might be my favorite of the package, rocking the acetate and hologram action.

See? The square photo is translucent and the back features the mirror image, with the logos amusingly removed.

A couple appreciated upgrades for my 1973 set, and a couple from possibly my favorite insert set, 1993 Topps Black Gold. Great looking cards. Still hoping to see these make a reemergence in Archives one of these years.

Active guys were represented in the package by a slick Giancarlo refractor, a couple Goldschmidt cards, and a couple Padres farmhands.

Closing it out with some former Padres. I don't think we ever had any Ames stores on the west coast, but I like the look of those oddballs. We didn't have any Revco drug stores either (see the Gwynn from a few pictures up). Funny how defunct stores live on through their oddball cards.

Thanks for the cards, Jeff! I've got a stack of Braves here with your name on them that I need to pack up and drop in the mail this weekend. (Update: now en route.)

And thanks again to Fuji and Tony Burbs! All three are award-winning caliber traders in my book.