Kerry Cards

Unfortunately covid kinda put the kibosh on in-person card swaps downtown with fellow Portlander Kerry of the blog Cards on Cards, but there's still the handy USPS to help us out (in exchange for a reasonable fee). 

Several terrific highlights in this latest crosstown package, but I gotta give the shiny Juan Soto relic top billing. I've got a respectable little Soto PC, but I think this is the first swatch linked to him in my collection.

The shine continues on this trio of players who were pretty hot a year or two ago but seemed to cool off this year. Still welcomed in my collection!

Some "free card friday" picks here. The last batch of cards I got from Kerry included several of those Tatis inserts, but I still needed this pair (There are 30 total of these things, geez).

Three additions to my Damian Lillard collection, plus a slick Chrome Hammer and a dilemma of which PC the Phillies card goes to.

I called dibs on these Victory cards from another Free Card offering a while back.

The '90 Donruss lot was a pleasant surprise. Now there's a sentence that very few people have ever said! LOL, but no, I mean it.. would love to put this set to bed before the 30th anniversary year ends. Time's running out for that, but as for base cards, I'm now down to just the Chris Bosio DK (#20) and #276 Paul Kilgus. I think I only had a couple of the MVP inserts before Kerry hooked me up with most of them. I've got 7 more of those left on my wantlist, plus one more Yaz puzzle piece (19+20+21), and all dozen of the Grand Slammers. It's funny, I have the Smoltz MVP error picturing Tom Glavine that I pulled myself way back when, but don't think I ever had the corrected version before this.

Another "junk" set that I've been trying to complete for the past couple years after receiving a starter lot. Still a handful of '88 Fleer left on my wants, but the end's in sight. Nice bunch here including a Caminiti rookie.

I finished '79 Topps recently, but these upgrades are appreciated to help sharpen up my set a bit.

My Xander Bogaerts PC got a surprise boost with an oversized box topper and Chrome parallel, both from 2020 Stadium Club. What a shot of him getting loose on the field before game two of the 2019 MLB London Series against the Yankees at West Ham London Stadium.

I happened to have a spare frame handy, so I've framed the big one up for now.

Big thanks, Kerry! Eclectic mix of good stuff. I'll get a return over to you soon.

Post Office Appreciation Post

I send out stuff through the United States Postal Service as a main duty of my job (data DVD archives), so I'm very interested in how the current situation there works out. The USPS says they'll likely go tits-up soon without a bailout type of situation from the government, but the jackasses currently in charge are flipping them the bird and would rather see the private sector take over (which would most likely mean significant increases to the postage rates we pay today).

If the post office goes away, my job could go away, too-- and more importantly (j/k): trading online would likely dry up! Ouch!

Let's hope it doesn't come to that, as trading is a great way to get cards you want, and re-home cards you don't want with someone who does want them.

Buying cards online would become more expensive too. Buying one card at a time would become cost-prohibitive unless maybe we're talking about like a high-dollar card. But for any card under $10 or so, it just wouldn't make sense. We're looking at nearly every physical-good online transaction having the price significantly bumped up.

Anyways.. I'm not trying to get political here.. but if you're a card collector, you've got to be rooting for the postal service in this fight.

I've received 3 trades in the mail over the past week which I'll now show off here.

Always fun finding a brand new trading partner. Jay over at the young Card Hemorrhage blog (great name) posted about ripping some Heritage and pulled this relic card that didn't really fit his collection, so I inquired about a trade. Rhys Hoskins is a young guy I like to collect. He had a bit of a sophmore slump last year, but I was expecting to see his numbers back up in 2020 (or whenever they start playing again). I don't often get too excited over relics, but I thought this card looked sharp, and I love the pinstripe on the swatch. So I sorted my Vlads and McCoveys (a pair of players Jay and I both collect), and sent him over my dupes.

Some bonus Heritage made its way into the envelope too. That Chrome Xander is pretty sweet.

Thanks, Jay! Pleasure trading with you and I hope we end up doing so much trading that I'm eventually able to spell "Hemorrhage" correctly on the first try. :)

-    -   -  - ---o

Then I did a little trade with Chris at Nachos Grande. I claimed the "trade stack" he had going on this blog, mainly because I was interested in the Wee-Pee's Wacky Packages. I'm a big Pee-Wee Herman fan and figured I could use the parody card in the collection. There was another card or two in the stack I could probably use too, but mainly just wanted that one. But then since we were going to exchange cards anyways, we expanded the trade a little. I love the shiny 2011 Topps.. it's a "Hope Diamond" parallel, which is basically a blue version of the cognac parallel, and numbered out of 60 on the back. As you can imagine, I don't have many of them in my parallel frankenset, but happy to score any I can. And I recently added those Pinnacle Cooperstown Card inserts to my Black Gold wantlist. Looks like Chris (a big-time Larkin collector) had a dupe to spare.

Chris also had some Votto and F. Robby cards available for me.

Thanks, Chris! I'm ashamed to admit I haven't mailed your cards out yet but I will do that very soon.

-      -    -   - ---o

And then I was surprised by a PWE from Jeremy at Topps Cards That Never Were. Very cool '85 Topps Ken Caminiti USA custom he made a while back. I had been planning to print off one for my PC but hadn't gotten around to it yet. So Jeremy helped me out there. He said he used an online colorization site with a B&W photo, which explains why Ken's arms and hands might look a bit off. But looks pretty good for the most part. Fun addition to the Cami PC. And the shiny Gwynn is a nice add too.

Thanks, Jeremy! Much appreciated.

And thanks again to Jay and Chris, and all the postal workers out there during this crazy time. Sure is a bright spot of any day when neat stuff like this shows up in the mailbox.

See y'all next time.

Birthday/Christmas Cards

Birthday post! I've got a few 12/24 and 12/25 cards to show off that I've added to my collection over the past few months.

Here's a nice one to kick off with. 2014 Topps Tribute Xander Bogaerts auto. There's no "RC" logo, but it is in fact a rookie-year auto, for what that's worth. Wish the signature was on-card, but beggars for 12/24 cards can't be choosers. Got a good deal on this from eBay a while back. Bogey's a fun player to watch and collect.

I don't know anything about Dakoda Armstrong, but this 12/24 autograph popped up with a low opening bid and I ended up winning it for a few bucks.

Serial-numbered on the back.

I also don't know anything about Mac Guscette, but again, ended up scoring this 12/24 auto for a good price. Looks like he graduates high school in 2020 and has committed to become a Florida Gator. I'll store this one away with my other 12/24 cards and check on him in a few years, hoping he's eventually the next Mike Trout. LOL

Newman! He had a solid 2019, one of the few bright spots for the Pirates last season. Kevin attended Poway High School, same as Tony Gwynn. (Update: Whoops, I mean Tony Gwynn Jr!) The Archives sticker label got a little messed up on this encased card, but I don't mind too much. It was a good price, likely kept down by the wrinkled label.

Topps Archives Signature are good products for finding 12/24 cards since their buybacks are typically numbered out of random quantities, depending on how many Topps has bought back and gotten signed. Sandy Alomar had a very respectable career; happy to add an autograph of his to my collection.

A closer look at the Xmas Eve numbering.

Now we're moving on to the 12/25 cards. I forgot to show off this Gavin Lux when I posted my Lux PC a few months back because it was stored with my Christmas Cards, not my Gavins. That's the problem with "double bullseye" cards like this for me.. sometimes I can't decide which subcollection to store them in, and I'm not consistent about it. But anyways, in addition to the festive numbering, this seems to feature a "g" from "Dodgers" ("g" as in Gavin! eBay 1/1!) and an on-card autograph of baseball's #2 prospect.. Sweet.

Another Gavin Christmas Card. I already had this orange ice parallel in my Gavin LaValley 2014 Bowman Draft rainbow (only missing some 1/1s), but didn't have the 12/25 orange ice parallel. But now I do!

I believe it was a COMC find.

Michael Conforto 12/25 patch card (if this piping counts as a patch). Another card from my latest COMC order.

We're coming to the end now, and here's a girlie card auto that Zippy pointed me too. Honestly I don't really hunt down Benchwarmer Christmas Cards too often because that could get out of hand quickly. There are a lot of /25 parallels, and so, a lot of 12/25 cards out there. I've got a few, but I don't need them all. But I put in a bid on this one and won it. I don't know much about Andrea Lowell. Looks like she's been in Playboy and on VH1's The Surreal Life. Cool.

Hall of Famer Trevor Hoffman takes us home. I was very happy to score this framed 2019 Ginter X mini auto. I've got a couple Hoffman autos from his playing days, but this is my first post-career autograph of his. As a Padres fan, I really love this card. I think it ran me about the price of a blaster on eBay. Not too bad.

That'll do it. Thanks for reading and I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!

A half-priced blaster of 2018 Update

I had another one of those grocery store coupons for "$10 off when you spend $40." This past weekend I bought about $25 of groceries and grabbed a blaster to take me into the savings threshold, effectively giving me half off the blaster. I debated over which box to get for a few minutes. I was hoping to find the new Stranger Things cards, but no dice. On the shelf were a couple Archives, one Heritage High Number, three Ginter, a couple Fire, four Big League Baseball, and three Update blasters. I ultimately decided to grab the only product of the bunch I haven't ripped any of yet this year: ol' "Series Three", also known as Topps Update.

Let's see what it's got for me.

These were probably my best pulls: Mookie Betts gold parallel (/2018) and a Hank Aaron SP. Nice.

A couple Padres and rookies.

Some inserts. Looks like the Xander is a black parallel, and a tough pull despite not being numbered. The Don't Blink Tim Raines is kinda cool.. but makes me wish it was a "3D" lenticular card. The Postseason Preeminence cards are neat enough, though probably more plentiful than anyone needs.

Some more cards. Sorry the photos in this post are a little blurry. I took them at work (it's been a slow work week) and I guess the lighting wasn't great.

A few more PC guys for me.

The cards in the above photo are available for trade.

And finally, my promised hit-like-thing, a manufactured "patch" mentioning Jackie Robinson and featuring Cody Bellinger. Hey, he's a dude I kinda collect, so I'm happy with it. And it works well with the concept since he's a Dodger and plus you can see his 42 jersey number in the photo.

So that was a decent box, especially if you consider it was half price.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend, everybody.

A haul of cards celebrating 10 years of Cards on Cards

Cards on Cards recently reached the milestone of a decade of cardblogging. Kerry generously celebrated with free group break for his readers. I jumped in and and snaked the Red Sox. Yeah, they're not my #1 team (sorry, Padres), but well, I collect a lot of their players, plus I've probably traded with more Red Sox collectors than any other team over the past year or two, so it's always nice to add some trade fodder. Seeing as he's a fellow Portland resident, we met up the other day to save shipping. I scrounged up a handful of Cardinals for him, and he gave me my haul from the break with plenty of bonus cards.

Nice Wade Boggs auto! I was pretty stoked to land one of the highlights of the big group break. Kerry tempered expectations by saying this card came damaged out of the pack, and yeah the upper right corner was dinged a little, but not as bad as I was expecting.

Some great additions to my Mookie Betts collection, highlighted by a 2014 Donruss The Rookies RC. There's only one of these on COMC right now and it's priced at a ridiculous $49.95.. Geez! He's making a strong case for 2018 AL MVP.

Some more nice cards of current Sox standouts.

A couple all-time pitching greats here, with Clemens and Pedro.

More retired legends.

Hitting some non-Boston cards now. Didi rookie! Good stuff here.

A numbered Brian Giles (making a consecutive appearance on my blog after a starring role last post) and fan favorite Rod Beck.

The Cecchini Brothers haven't done much this year; Gavin hanging out in AAA, Garin playing in Mexico. But best of luck to them.

Oh, some more Sox, with a nice trio of Devers. Love that shimmer mini.

Fine Young Bowmans.

Bryce and Stan and Correa. Good stuff!

And Kerry hooked me up with a bunch of basketball cards too.

My Dirk PC got a big boost here. Happy to hear he's coming back for another season.

Hometown hero of mine, TJ Leaf! I only had 2 or 3 cards of his cards prior to this.

B-ball greats Wilt and Dr. J!

And a bunch of other Red Sox that didn't fit my collection to add to my tradeables box. Plantier minor league, Nomar SC insert, #'d Schilling. All up for trade.

Unopened pack of '89 Score to add to my rainy day stockpile. I like this set despite being horribly overproduced and would likely pick up a set if I found it for ~$5 at a card show sometime. So yeah, should be a fun rip.

Finally, a little cloth. Love the Hosmer relic. He's been solid for the Padres this year, though the team has had a lousy 2nd half. (I'm deeply troubled about reports they're looking to give up some of their top prospects in exchange for a starter like Chris Archer or Syndergaard.. NO!! Trust the process. Just have patience for another year or two. Don't do anything stupid and screw up the future.) And Kerry must've remembered my post talking about my love for Rilo Kiley / Jenny Lewis, hooking me up with this cool little patch.

Thanks so much for your generosity, Kerry! Lots of great stuff here. Congrats again on a decade of blogging!