Return of the JediJeff

January 2018. A lifetime ago! I sent JediJeff a few decent cards in exchange for a Carlos Correa 2017 Panini Diamond Kings dual relic he had recently pulled. And then I waited. And waited. Real world stuff can be a bitch, and I know Jeff is a solid dude, so I tried to have patience and not bug him too much about it.

Woo! 32 months later, the card in question has arrived in my collection. LOL, it probably would have been more appreciated before the cheating scandal made this current Astros team universally hated outside of Houston diehards.

Ha, it's like a time capsule back to a previous wantlist.

Wow, ok now Jeff is getting my attention here in 2020. Awesome assortment of Trout! Those 2016 Topps Heritage 1967 Stand-Ups were tough pulls, I remember thanks to Night Owl collecting them, I think. Oh snap, I just looked up that 2013 Panini Prizm Fearless green parallel.. it's a $100+ card these days! Ok, I'm going to need to put together a strong package for Jeff to say thanks for this, trade "interest" or not!

That Bryce Harper Beckett card is the same as the similar Trout above, but the other side of it. Jeff gave me 2 of them so I can have one for each PC.. very courteous of him!

More cool stuff like a shiny Mookie, numbered Didi, Soto rookie.

Some '64 Topps spicing up the bunch of cards with a little vintage. Tom Haller is a semi high number I needed. Sweet!

Nice looking Star Wars cards here.

I did a little "pack searching" to see who's in these unopened packs of 2018 Archives coins. Would you look at that.. I've got player collections going for all six of these guys! It's times like these that I feel a bit like a player-collecting slut.

Hall of Famers. Much respect.

I need to move my Larry Walker PC from the "retired guys" section into the "hall of famers" section. I probably need a few of these.

And a pretty legit smattering of random Padres.

Thank you, Jeff! This is a trade I'll never forget (partially because it lasted a fair chunk of my life, lol, but also that sweet Trout surprise). Dare I say it was worth the wait!

Now let's start work on another trade that takes nearly 3 years for that orange Tatis. ;)

Remembering that time you bought in a 2016 Bowman case break for $5 and going back to your team sets cuz you recall getting a few Tatis Jr cards...... pic.twitter.com/9uasc35T5G

— Jeff Wilk 🏳️‍🌈 (@jedijeff13) September 26, 2020

Ready for the World Series

I had to splurge on a Juan Soto autograph. I'm pretty happy with this one. Big, on-card signature. Still had a few eBay Bucks left to help take the sting out of the price. He's a terrific young player who's a lot of fun to watch.

It's from 2019 Bowman Sterling. Numbered out of 25.

While I'm at it, I figured I'd show off a few of my best cards of other players I collect who are competing in the Fall Classic this year.

Stephen Strasburg is a guy I collect thanks to his status as a fellow SDSU alum. This is a custom overlay I made a couple years back.

Some of my other decent Stras cards. I hope he does well in the series.

I collect some dudes in the other dugout, too. This Carlos Correa atomic auto is a favorite of mine.

Other highlights in that PC include a prospect auto, a slabbed Pro Debut, and a Members Only parallel from Stadium Club.

A year or two back I kinda-sorta started collecting Max Scherzer. No auto yet, but I've accumulated a few solid cards of his.

I started collecting George Springer after his impressive performance in the 2017 postseason.

Dig these thicc Crystal Ball inserts from 2015 Stadium Club.

Some other Springer highlights.

Trea Turner is another Nat I collect. His success is bittersweet for me, since the Padres gave him up in an ill-advised trade.

Gotta love Jose Altuve (..unless you're a Yankees fan, I suppose). My PC of him is highlighted by an Archives auto, a Heritage action variation, and 3 rookies. Still need a parallel of his Topps rookie for my 2011 frankenset. If anybody has one, I'd love a chance to tempt you into a trade.

Shortly after his ALCS-winning jack, I whipped up this Altuve gif (at the brilliant suggestion of Dennis). The "hand cut" effect is kinda neat. I already had much of this card whipped up thanks to a custom I made a couple years ago...

Nice looking custom.

I think that's it as far as guys I collect who are in the WS. All the early Gerrit Cole cards that came my way ended up going to Matthew Scott. Pretty much any Verlander cards I've had over the years have gone to Dennis. I also collect Alex Bregman, but don't have anything really notable yet. I have an auto each from Adam Eaton and Ryan Zimmerman, though I don't really collect either player.

I think it's gonna be a fun series. Too bad the Astros had to poop in the pool with their continued poor handling of domestic violence issues. I was already lightly rooting for Washington, and now after recent stuff in the news, I'm really hoping they can pull off the upset. Though if I was a betting man, my money would be on Houston. But yeah, regardless, hope we get some exciting biggest-stage baseball.

Postage-Bru

As he suspected, the postage-due bandit from my last trade recap was in fact Bru of Remember the Astrodome. I was able to put some loose change into an envelope paperclipped to the orange slip by my mailbox and it was successfully delivered the next day, so no big deal.

But yeah, as a public service announcement: the USPS has been cracking down on "envelope rate" vs. "package rate" this year. I send out 1000+ packages of DVDs every month at work. I used to be able to get away with sending 1 disc in a cardboard mailer via the cheaper envelope rate (88 cents thru Stamps.com), but now they'll get testy unless you go package rate ($2.61 thru Stamps.com). So unless you're sending a PWE (no more than 1/4 inch thick), you'll probably need to go with package rate.

But anyways, let's check out the great cards Bru sent my way. (And btw, Bru was totally apologetic and cool about the whole thing, even offering to reimburse me via Paypal. Good guy!)

Here's a cool quasi relic type of card with Greg Maddux and Mike Piazza. 2003 Upper Deck Game Face. The real question for me here is which PC to put this in, since I collect both these guys and feel equally about them, both Pads in the Hall. Crap, I guess Maddux since he's pictured first.

But most of the package was Astros, like this glorious lot of Altuve. Bru is a big Astros collector and ends up with plenty of dupes, I'm sure.

Carlos Correa looking good!

Expecting lots of Springer Dingers this year.

Alex Bregman RC parade and a hometown hero of mine, Joe Musgrove.

More Astros I collect.

There were also plenty of Padres cards, the best of which was the Wil Myers Heritage mini #'d 82/100.

Bunch more Padres.

Even a few non-Astros/Padres for the player collections.

Thanks a lot, Bru! I'll be rounding up some good Astros to shoot over to you ASAP.

Nightrain (powerful imports brewed in Milwaukee)

I recently swung a big trade with Matthew Prigge of the Summer of '74 blog. He was the lucky winner of a Twitter contest and had some sweet cards fall in his lap that didn't exactly fit his collection, so I was able to step up and work out a deal for some of them. Among the stuff going his way were the many leftover dupes from my setbuilds of '71 and '73 Topps, plus my '79 Ozzie Smith rookie (which I'm now on a mission to replace) and more. But no remorse, as Matt sent a box that was loaded like a freight train.

This beautiful Bowman's Best 25/25 atomic refractor auto is now the new best card in my decent little Carlos Correa PC. One bad mother, Correa is a great young player who was key in the Astros' championship run last year and looks to have an impressive career ahead of him.

I don't know much about T.Y. Hilton, but Christmas Cards can make my motor hum.

And the 3rd key card in our trade was this Anderson Espinoza Bowman's Best auto. I believe this is my 3rd Espinoza auto, all gotten from trades. Really hoping he comes back like a mean machine from Tommy John and makes his way up to Petco in the next year or two.

So those were the 3 cards I was expecting, but Matt was a generous fella and filled my cup with a bunch more bonus stuff just to be nice...

My first in-hand look at 2018 Topps! While I don't hate the design, I can't quite be arsed to actually purchase any myself, but will hope for trader buddies to fill PC needs here and there like this.

And some 2018 inserts too, featuring a lot of hot players like a Molotov cocktail with a match to go.

Good stuff from Bowman's Best. Several welcomed PC additions here.

Bunch more guys I collect, including a nice Kirby lot and an Action Packed pair.

And lots more! Love the Mike Schmidt "Future Star" quasi reprint.

There was a decent lot of '83 Topps that included a Rickey I need for my setbuild, plus a couple Kaats for the PC. And some '82s, '77s, and '78s for those future setbuilds that I'll get serious about once I knock off a couple other current projects.

And Matt filled up the box with some '90 and '84 Topps... and cards are always better than packing peanuts (I threw in a few CDs to fill up the box I sent him). 1990 Topps is a set that I'd like to own one day, but I'd rather just buy a complete set for $5 rather than go through the effort to type up a wantlist and nickel and dime it to completeness. But between this and the lot from Bru a while ago, I'm probably about halfway there, so who knows. As for '84 Topps, I can see myself working on that at some point once I finish off the sets that I'm focused on at the moment, so this little lot is appreciated. (I'm thinking maybe a Topps run from '71 (skipping '72 and its tough high numbers) through '85 might be in my longterm sights.)

Huge thanks again for the trade, Matt! Great stuff! It had me flyin like an airplane, feelin like a space brain.

2 boxes 4 me: 5 Star and Tier 1

Today we've got more from my holiday haul.

A hobby box of 2016 Topps Five Star Baseball. Only 2 cards per pack, both autos.

A pretty nice Jim Rice auto. The only auto I previously had of him is a logoless stickergraph, so this is definitely an upgrade.

The other card in the pack is Omar Vizquel. Another good-looking card. It's my first auto of his. I'm a little surprised at the lack of HOF support he's been getting so far on this, his first year on the ballot, but he'll probably get in eventually.

So that box was decent, with a couple HOF-caliber guys, though I'm a little bummed both were unnumbered base autos.

Let's keep on crackin'...

2017 Topps Tier One. Three cards in this one.

Sweet. Carlos Correa is a guy I collect.

Steven Matz is a solid young pitcher for the Mets who had some injury issues this past season. Kinda cool, though it's a sticker and plain grey swatch.

Finally, here's a Javier Baez auto #'d 3/10. Not bad! A few days ago I showed off a similar one of these, a Christmas Card of Tyler Austin. Love the silver ink.

That's it for today. Thanks for reading.