The Zappening

I've gotten plenty of nice cards from Zippy Zappy over the years, but this latest package, sent from Japan no less, might top them all. Let's check out some highlights.

Sweet! Big rookie cards I needed for my McCutchen and Altuve PCs, respectively.

Early cards of a pair of today's best third basemen, Arenado and Castellanos.

More big-name minor league cards.

And notable Bowman RCs up the wazoo.

More Bowman highlights.

Additions for the Arod and Jeter PCs.

One random basketball card, and a nice one at that, with this sparkly, diecut Kyrie Irving.

At first glance, this would seem to be regular ol' 2002 Topps Pudge, but no...

2002 Topps Kanebo Gum Japanese card! HOFer import! Very cool.
And this begins the Japanese-cards portion of the post.

Ohtani! Wowee!

More special Nippon Professional Baseball cards featuring Sadaharu Oh (home run king), Kazuhisa Makita (he's on the Padres now), Tetsuto Yamada (sparkly), and Wladimir Balentien (didn't do much in the majors, but has since had a fine career in Tokyo).

Here are a couple fun ones, including a lenticular card from 1996 and what seems to be a vintage (Calbee?) card on the right, though I couldn't say what's the story with them.

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Somewhat "NSFW" picture warning. Proceed with caution.
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Oh man! These might have been the most exciting cards of the package for me. I'm an admitted horndog female form enthusiast with a decent "girlie card" collection. I've got cards autographed by lovely ladies, and I've got cards with naked women on them, but I believe these are the first cards in my collection of autographed naked ladies. I try to keep my blog more-or-less "family friendly" so I've covered up the naughty bits. (The back photos are even better!) These are all numbered /200. Cool signatures.. especially the little drawing. Love these!

I think this is called an Icon box or something, right? Features a couple mini boxes of cards. Mariya Nagao here keeps clothed, though scantily clad.

Gonna end this post here rather than stretch it out too long, but man, still plenty of other good stuff in the package.. a bunch more rookie cards, minor league Topps cards, numbered parallels, etc.

Thanks so much, Zippy! This was a zippy zapping to remember. I'll round up a return for you soon.

a buzzed blaster of 2016 Donruss

At the grocery store this afternoon, I was looking for some celebratory cards (got the taxes mailed out earlier in the day.. hurray! finally!). Probably would've gone for 2016 Gypsy Queen, tbh, but they didn't have any, so I settled for Matthew Scott's favorite, 2016 Donruss.

Seems David Ortiz and Tony Gwynn take turns being the Donruss coverboy.

My first hit of the box. A checklist. SSP? Prolly. I'm entertaining offers on this card. SERIOUS INQUIRIES ONLY. And no, there's no highlight photo on the reverse, just more names and checkboxes. Didn't think they made these things anymore. But there you go. Ultra rare.

I like these guys. The retro cards are just "off" enough to bother me, with the upper right sitch being too big/busy, and the team name (er, city) too tiny. But I'm happy with these dudes nonetheless.

Here are some guys I enthusiastically collect.

Here are some guys I indifferently collect.

I will say the base design of 2016 Donruss is a big improvement to my eyes over the past couple years, though the photos are still very boring and generic. At least Mattingly is fielding.. that's something.

Chris Sale is sailing along pretty well so far this season.. nice to land his DK. And always cool to pick up a new Brett insert, I suppose.

A pair of Pucketts. The HOF one of the right is apparently an SP. Pretty dumb variation, with just the bottom text different, plus the back is upside down. Whatever. I'm probably due for another trade with Brian one of these days.

Here we have Cal Ripken reenacting the JFK assassination. Too soon, Cal. Too soon. :/

Trade bait!!!!
They clearly save their interesting photos for the '82 inserts. The pink parallel is cool.. but really, any color besides white would be an improvement. You think Panini is kicking themselves for choosing nobody Richie Shaffer as a Rated Rookie while had they given Trevor Story a card, they would've sold twice as many boxes of this stuff?

Base trade bait!!!

And my promised hit... (drum roll)

Well, it's a guy I (indifferently) collect, at least, so I'm not complaining. A-rod cards are worthless these days unless an auto, but still, I'm reasonably happy with this unnumbered bat chip. Pretty blue. The photo makes it looks like Alex ate some bad fish that's catching up to him.

According to baseball-reference his name is "Álex Rodríguez". Really? Seems like too many accents. He's off to a slow start so far this year, so Barry Bonds is getting cocky about his tainted home run record being safe, and he's probably right. Maybe if Bryce or Trout stays healthy and plays into their 40s, but otherwise safe.. and Barry would long be dead from a steroid-related heart-attack by then anyways, so it's fine.

That's it. A fine li'l box. Not the best $20 I ever spent, but not too bad, and again, I was celebrating the end of a stressful week.
Hope you're all having a nice weekend. Get your taxes in!