2025 trade package #4: Chronicles of Fuji

It's the last day of March so of course I'm still covering trade envelopes I received back in January, but that's what happens when you slack on posting!

Last time you got to the contents of an envelope from a blogger who's also a teacher, and that's the case once again this evening. Tonight's cards arrived from all the way on the west coast courtesy of Mark of the Chronicles of Fuji. Fuji sent me a nice little surprise that was heavy on my favorite MLB team. They may have started the season 0-3 against the defending champs but I still think they'll be decent this year.

On to the cardboard (and more!):

Not only is the theme here "Detroit Tigers," but almost everything's an insert, and oddly enough, none of these guys are active Major Leaguers anymore, with Miggy being the most recent to have retired. Porcello last pitched in 2020 and Jackson hung 'em up after the 2018 campaign, the same sunset season for RP Jacob Turner, who ended his MLB tenure where he started it. Dmitri's bro Delmon Young is next with 2015 being his final MLB year, and Magglio's 15th and last was 2011. 2003 second round P Jay Sborz did make a single appearance with the big club in 2010, giving up five runs while recording a pair of outs, and that was the apparent end of his pro career.

This is a fun mix of inserts and players, with home run heroes Miggy and Magglio ranking above the rest, though AJax remains a favorite of mine.

Oh yeah, and then there's one more fun little bonus: that eBay gift card! Fuji was already generous enough to send me some cards, but then he went way above and beyond by gifting me $50 to spend at the source of some of my bigger pickups! To give you an idea of how seriously I'm taking that, I haven't spent it yet, and as a reminder, this envelope made it to me in January. I'm looking forward to picking up a heavy hitter or two to justify the great expense Fuji went to here, and whenever I do find the perfect fit(s), rest assured you'll see a post right here.

Fuji, once again, thanks so much for the great Tigers cards and the eBay credit, I really appreciate it! I don't have a lot set aside for you right now but I'll keep stocking up until I can hit you back.

 Meanwhile, stop me if you've heard this one before, but stay tuned for more trade recaps soon!

2020 trade package #18: Chronicles of Fuji

I'm back with another same-day trade package post! It helps that it's a PWE but my new scanning process in which I no longer save individual scans for player collections also speeds things up.

When I last got cards from Fuji it was February and the world was very, very different. He sent me an absolutely ridiculous mailer stuffed with hits, many of which I needed and some of which I was able to include in subsequent trades. Flash forward to today's PWE, one that caught me totally by surprise because it didn't even come up on my Informed Delivery. Under the radar!

Fuji did an amazing job of pushing the limits of a PWE by stuffing in a nice number of cards along with some solid backing that gave everything plenty of support, meaning it made it to my mailbox in the same condition in which he sent it.

Here's what the west coast blogging legend sent me this time:

To kick things off, Mark was nice enough to point out that card #1, a Jim Abbott '92 Upper Deck issue, is the dreaded Gold Hologram version. I say "dreaded" in terms of trying to chase them down, otherwise I'm happy to have one!

The one player in today's post still with Detroit is Miggy, who's seen on 2008 UD Timeline and 2015 Topps Highlight of the Year cards. Boy that 2012 triple crown season was crazy!

The Georgia Peach looks terrific on another great vintage UD design, 2001's Hall of Famers. Miggy and Verlander (2008 Upper Deck X) will join him and Pudge (2005 Absolute Memorabilia Retail) in the Hall someday.

Fuji hit both my current and former blog namesakes as the recently retired Granderson pops up on a 2008 UD First Edition Starquest insert. And his former teammate (briefly in 2009) Rick Porcello closes out the scan on a 2009 Topps Ticket to Stardom Perforated parallel. I'm glad that those cards that seem like they should be condition sensitive don't seem to get damaged very easily!

We'll start the other group off with a five spot of 2006-09 Bowman Gold parallels of some former prospects. I don't recall Blue, who seems to have made it as high as AAA in 2007. Dominican pitcher Figaro (awesome name!) appeared in 52 games over two seasons each with Detroit and Milwaukee. Green had even less of a career than Blue (ha!) after being a 2008 third-round pick. Maples also made it to AAA Toledo but never cracked the big league roster. Finally, OF Wilkin Ramirez got cups of coffee with the Tigers, Braves, and Twins in the odd-numbered years between 2009-2013.

And for the dessert portion of this post, Fuji included three 1970s Hostess cards of former Tigers. Hooray for food issue oddballs! LeFlore (1977) is well known among Tigers fans thanks to his six solid seasons in Detroit. Ruhle (1976) did alright for himself as a 17th-round pick for his home-state team, spending four years in Motown before putting in seven more with the team I'd say he's more known for, the Astros. And Thompson (1978) split a surprising number of his stats fairly equally between the Tigers and Pirates. This trio has the textbook hand cut-out Hostess look and I'm happy to be adding them to my small vintage oddball team collection.

Fuji, thanks again for the fun surprise PWE and great new cards! I'm not exactly sure when I'll be returning fire but I do have a good little stack put together for you, and as a teacher I bet you'll appreciate that there's a lot of A's!

2016 trade package #25: Fuji wishes me a Magglio Christmas and a happy Zoom-Zoom year

My final trade package of 2016 arrived courtesy of Mark/Fuji of the Chronicles of Fuji, and what a package it was!  I'm talking 100% hits from the legendary blogger/trader/teacher/flea-marketer (you've got quite the diverse résumé, there, Fuji!).  Check out one of them over on TMM this evening, especially if you like a certain "super" player.

Most of the loot was of the Motown baseball club persuasion, so here's some Tigers to help me ring in the new year:

I may be getting to the point that I need to consider another name change for this blog:  Too Many Magglios!  Besides a ton of base and inserts, I now own 14 different hits of Ordóñez thanks to this excellent pair.  As usual, the "too many" would be tongue-in-cheek because I love collecting the offensive outfielder who put together seven very nice seasons for my Tigers.  Keep sending him my way, folks, and I'll take them off your hands.

Here Fuji sent me a nice pair of jersey relics.  The first is an attractive gray swatch from 2005 Sweet Spot, a Gold parallel of the Majestic Materials set.  I really like the design and colors here, and it doesn't hurt that it's numbered to 75.  The other also hails from a UD product from about the same time, 2007 Masterpieces.  The Captured on Canvas relic set retains Masterpieces' beautiful artistic look with the canvas theme and border.  Well done on both, Upper Deck.

Joining Magglio is my seventh hit of a young pitcher who was fun to watch in Detroit, Rick Porcello.  You may recall that he was sent to Boston in the deal that temporarily brought Yoenis Cespedes to Motown, and though he no longer calls Detroit home, I'm very happy to see him succeed, especially this year when he posted career numbers and won the AL Cy Young in a close race with former teammate Justin Verlander.  This 2010 Topps Peak Performance jersey hinted at his potential (his 2009 season was quite good) but I don't think anybody saw this year's 22-4 record coming!

The 2005 Topps Cracker Jack card housing this Pudge relic (my sixth) may be mini, but the bat chip is anything but, just like Rodriguez's larger-than-life career.  The legendary catcher is known more for his decade-plus with the Rangers, but he did put in four-plus years with the Tigers, helping to bring them back to relevance in the mid-aughts.  I'll be happy to see him elected to the Hall, which should happen this year, and that would make him the first former Tiger to earn that honor since Al Kaline in 1980!  Pudge goes with the Hall like baseball goes with "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and Cracker Jack.

Joel Zumaya.

It's a shame the former fireballer's career was derailed by injuries as he was fun to watch out of the bullpen, a place where the Tigers could certainly use his electric arm right about now.  Here he is on what's surprisingly my seventh hit, a jersey from 2009 Upper Deck Icons.  The action photo is classic Zoom-Zoom about to blow yet another pitch by a hitter.

Fuji, thanks again for ending my 2016 trading year in style with some fun stuff--I look forward to sending more cards flying back and forth across the country in 2017!

2015 trade package #32: ATBATT's Operation PWE hits 48105

My third trade package of the month was a fun surprise PWE from Stealing Home of All Trade Bait, All the Time.  He first sent me cards back in May, and come to think of it I don't think I returned the favor (d'oh!).  That didn't stop him from including my address in his large scale Operation PWE, in which he sent me some nice Christmas cards:

First up is a pair of Miguel Cabreras from 2014 Topps products.  The first is from Heritage while the other is from flagship in the form of a Yellow parallel.  Both cards highlight the AL's RBI leaders in 2013, with the latter leaving off Robinson Cano.  Crush and Miggy paced the league with 138 and 137 ribbies, respectively, while Adam Jones was next with 108, a huge dropoff from the top two!

Meanwhile, former 3B stalwart Travis Fryman looks snazzy on his '91 Studio base card from that product's debut.  Of course I love that it includes the older Detroit uni.

Finally I got a pair of 2015 flagship Series 1 base cards of will-he-ever-cool-off OF J.D. Martinez and Rick "Thanks for landing us Yoenis Cespedes!" Porcello (whom I'm still happy to collect).  As everyone knows by now, J.D.'s 2014 campaign, his first after leaving the Astros as a minor league free agent, was nothing short of remarkable as he hit .315 with 23 HR and was good for 3.1 WAR (Topps includes that now?  Nice.  Although B-R had him at 4.2 and Fangraphs said 4.0.  Topps gonna Topps...)  He followed that up with an All-Star 2015 and has a bright future in Motown!

One of my other PCs didn't get left out, though, thanks to the inclusion of this pair of Griffeys.  The first is from the '94 Topps base set and was part of the "Masters of Greatness" subset.  The other is from the goofy '98 Pacific Online set, one of those fun experimental products that disappeared as quickly as it came.  In this case, not only did the card include (very old) links at the top of the card ("What's the Internet?") collectors could visit, but this Web Cards insert had a code on the back you could enter into a site to see if you won an upgraded "Winners" card.  I guess we'll never know if this one was a winner!  By the way, Junior has a pair of cards in the product with this number as a fielding version exists as well.

Thanks a ton for including me in your holiday card-giving, Stealing Home, and I'm happy to report that this time I did return the favor and you should be getting a small package from me this week!

2015 trade package #6: 50 years of Tigers from $30 a Week Habit

Thanks to Robert of $30 a Week Habit I now have my first trade of February to show off!  In return for a nice stack of cards for his unique SNI project I'll send eastward to Pennsylvania once COMC gets them to me, I got the following bounty:

Rick Porcello 2015 Topps Black (#58/64)

From his 12 hobby pack break of 2015 Topps, Robert sent me this nice Black parallel of former Tigers pitcher Rick Porcello.  I have to say it's nice to get one last card of Rick in a Tigers uniform.  I wish him luck for a great 2015 season that's sure to lead to a nice big payday in his first run at free agency!

I'll save my 2015 Topps ranting for a different post so I can focus on the positives here.  The main one is that I continue to like collecting Topps' Gold and Black parallels; anything beyond that starts to turn into overkill, but those two are the standard for me, and they give you both ends of the scarcity spectrum.  That and they look good to boot.  Cards numbered to something as low as 64 would have blown collectors' minds in the past but now they're fun and reasonable challenges to collect.

By the way, I think this is my first 2015 baseball card of any type, though I could easily be forgetting something.

Jim Delsing 1956 Topps

Billy Hoeft 1956 Topps

Well these certainly came out of nowhere!  I knew he was setting aside the Porcello for me but this pair of '56 Topps cards was a fun surprise to say the least.  I've never really been the type to chase vintage stuff, especially cards from the 50s, since it's often out of my price range if not my wheelhouse.  In that case, I really appreciate it when people send me older stuff, especially Tigers.  As far as the 1956 set goes, the only other card I can claim in my vintage collection is an Elston Howard I picked up at a show.  But I've always considered it to be a cool set whose design lives up to its legacy.

Since I don't know a ton about either guy--though I've at least heard of Hoeft!--it's off to baseball-reference for a history lesson:

Delsing was an outfielder that suited up for the White Sox, Yanks, Browns, Tigers, and K.C. A's over his 10-year career, and he spent five of those in Detroit.  His transactions list is fairly typical of the era's Wild West situation, and he spent time in a few other leagues before debuting with the White Sox, then traveled quite a bit in the bigs as well.  He doesn't look to have had a very potent bat, but I like that the majority of his games were with the Tigers.

Hoeft, a pitcher, also spent more of his career in Detroit than in any other city.  In fact, his first seven-plus seasons took place in Motown, and they would be the best of his career, including an All-Star appearance in 1955 and a 20-win season the following year.  Overall he'd finish with a win percentage south of .500, which is not surprising since he earned double-digit wins just three times over his 15-year career.  After Detroit he would play for Boston, Baltimore, San Francisco, the Milwaukee Braves, the Cubs, and the Giants again, before hanging 'em up.  One interesting note:  Hoeft was buried in a cemetery in my hometown of Livonia, MI, and it's apparently the same one in which 1919 Black Sox pitcher Ed Cicotte is interred.

Thanks again for the terrific Tigers trio, Robert, and I promise I'll get those cards out to you as soon as I have them!  Readers, check on his SNI progress and other collecting news over at $30 a Week Habit.

2014 trade package #16: Bengals Walk the Plank

I'd say it's about time we heard from Matt over at Bob Walk the Plank again, and fortunately he obliged with yet another trade package a week or so ago.  Matt included a note mentioning he was "on a Tigers hot streak" which is kind of like saying Clayton Kershaw isn't allowing very many runs these days.  He's become one of my top trade sources for Tigers hits, and that continued into this package, as you'll see here:

Card #1 is this 2010 Bowman autograph of former prospect Zach Simons.  A 2005 second-round pitcher originally with the Rockies, Simons was in Detroit's system from 2008-2011, making it as high as AAA Toledo before heading to a couple Marlins affiliates, then ultimately back with Colorado.  I haven't decided if I'll hold onto this just yet, so it may be available in a trade, but I do have to say that the guy has a cool signature!

Second is this very thick, high-end base card of starter Rick Porcello from 2009 Topps Sterling.  The border's a bit too exaggerated, but the shiny image is very cool, as is the serial-numbering, and this one has the bonus of being #50/50.  The back notes that Porcello was the first AL pitcher to win at least 14 games in a season before turning 21 since HOFer Bert Blyleven did it way back in '71.  Rick went 14-9 in both his rookie season of 2009 as well as 2011, and 14 wins has remained his career high, although he already sits at 11-4 this year before the All-Star break!  It's fun to see a young guy really start to put it together like this, especially one as talented as Porcello, and I'll happily continue to collect his stuff while I can reasonably afford it.

Alex Avila 2014 Panini Prizm Prizm Signatures auto

My favorite card of today's trio is this Avila autograph from 2014 Panini Prizm.  Sometimes Panini is successful at producing a great looking card that's unaffected by the lack of logos, and this is a great example as you get a beautiful shot of Alex wearing the tools of ignorance excellence.  I don't think the photo needed to be limited to half of the card, but I do like the image used, and Alex's signature looks great.  This is actually my first autograph of the backstop to go along with three jersey relics and now has a place of honor in my Tigers PC.

Thanks as always for a fun blind trade, Matt, and I look forward to more now that you're back on the mend.  Readers, if you're not already doing so, get in contact with Matt if you like working with generous traders, and check out Bob Walk the Plank while you're at it!

2013 trade package #15: TOO MANY JEFFS

So yesterday I learned how a trade package could both make me look like a total dumbass and prove to me how generous online traders could be.

Among the various deals I've been working on is one with Jeff Wilk of 2x3 Heroes.  He has a couple Red Wings cards I want (which you'll be seeing here soon), and in return I picked up a bunch of stuff for him on COMC (and found some nice throw-ins as well).

Around the same time I was getting ready to ship those to him, Jeff Wiltse, a reader with whom I've traded before, let me know he was sending me something, so I asked for his address so I could return the favor.  He promptly did, and then I promptly got him confused with the OTHER Jeff whose last name starts with "Wi."  As it turns out, I hadn't yet swapped addresses with Wilk, and unfortunately I totally brain-farted and sent Wilk's cards to Wiltse.  Therefore, I'm a dumbass, QED.

When I let both guys know about it, though, I got a great reaction from each.  Wiltse was kind enough to let me know he'll pass Wilk's package on to the correct address, meaning they'll have traveled to Illinois via South Dakota.  And Wilk was nice enough to understand how I could have confused both guys, despite the fact that

"They spell and pronounce their names differently."

Rest assured that I'll be making it worth Wiltse's time and money to have gone out of his way to help out a dumbass trader (and I owed him for what he sent me below anyway!), and maybe I can even convince Wilk to trade with me again if I promise to route his cards through somewhere less remote.  Or direct, I guess I could send them directly to him next time.  Whatever.

ANYway, here's the awesome thing that Jeff Wiltse sent me:

If you haven't seen one of these before (I sure hadn't), it's a 2010 Topps Heritage stamps panel.  Like some of the other panel-type cards you may have seen, it's the size of three cards lined up horizontally, and in this case it features three images of Tigers stars on stamps.  I like the player selection here:  Verlander and Cabrera are no-brainers, and I think Porcello could become a staff stalwart very soon, today's performance against Minnesota notwithstanding.  Hey, what's the worst that could happen if the Tigers keep trotting him out on the mound--they've already given up on the season by having Don Kelly on the roster and re-signing Jose Valverde!

The back is very cool and brings to mind some of those old Topps team leader cards.  In this case, you get some team vitals, including stadium info, Pennant and World Series title years (of course it doesn't include 2012, which would have been two years in the future at the time), and all-time single-season batting and pitching leaders.  It's fun to see just a couple players like Cobb and Greenberg dominate most of the categories, and the devastating '68 duo of McLain and Lolich nearly duplicates that feat below.

Thanks again, Jeff Wiltse, for a fantastic and unique piece to add to my collection, and of course for saving my butt because I cain't read good.  I'll get some goodies out to you very soon!

O yeah! A Tigery trade package from Ryan H.

Yeah, sorry for the title--it's a play on his blog name that everybody makes, but I got nothin'.

So now that he's done with his most recent group break, Ryan of "O" No!!! Another Orioles Blog and I came up with another great trade.  Oddly enough, we agreed to get another trade going because I have an Orioles card he didn't manage to pull from that latest break.

Being the great trader he is, I've already received my end of the deal, and I still have to get his sent out this weekend. (which I promise to do!)  Here's what I ended up getting:

A solid group of Tigers.  Most of these (excluding the Guillen and Cobb) hail from his group break.  My favorite is right down the middle--an awesome 1994 Finest Alan Trammell (with David Wells and Tony Phillips flanking him).  I'm also excited to have another Dean Palmer, especially one in a Tigers uni.

O hai, random Ripken insert smack dab in the middle of a bunch of Tigers!  Ryan is as aware as anyone that I do like collecting Cal when I can, so this is perfect.  And if I haven't already said it before, I really prefer cards depicting him fielding because he always looked awesome making a play.  (plus he had a thousand different weird batting stances)  So this'll slide right into that PC and is much appreciated.

Here's a mix of some modern and recent-but-classic Tigers.  The Dirks and Magglio are both numbered, which I love, that's another Granderson I didn't have, and another Sweet Lou while we're at it!

And then there's the card I wanted most since he offered it to me:

a Rick Porcello 2012 Topps Golden Moments jersey.  The card celebrates a nice game he had against Pittsburgh last year in which he pitched eight innings of one-run ball for a Tigers team that was struggling to score.  It's a solid design with a real nice gray jersey swatch, and I'm very happy to add another hit to my Porcello collection.  He's certainly a player of whom I'm happy to get anything, so I'm obviously pumped about a nice relic like this.

Big thanks again for the trade, Ryan, and I'm hoping what I dug up for you will appear to be a fair return!  Everyone else should head on over to Ryan's blog to check out his most recent break and some Orioles-inspired card fun.

I don't always do things by the book...

...but sometimes I do them by the letter.

The other day on TMM I talked about a rare trade I made with a Blowout member.  Generally that's been my fault because sometimes it's just easier to try to buy something from a guy than to see if I have an extremely specific Bryce Harper autograph.  But occasionally things DO work out because lightning struck a second time, as you'll see shortly.  

A particular member listed some nice stuff for sale or for trade.  I really took a liking to one of his cards and sent him a link to my trade bait.  Though it hasn't garnered me a ton of trades yet (despite including a lot of useful stuff!) it proved effective here--he decided he wanted a dual autograph (which I picked up on the cheap in a Blowout lot, incidentally) and one of my Bryce Harper base RCs, which I certainly won't miss (overrated until proven not a punk-ass).  

You would have thought this guy was a blogger/trader just like you guys because just for fun, I figured out the Beckett "value" and noted that I came out ahead.  You know what that means?  We both got exactly what we wanted, and to hell with "book value."  In short, it was an outstanding trade.

Ok, enough excitement over making a trade on a board that primarily involves selling--what did I get that I'm so excited about?  Have a look at THIS:

Rick Porcello 2009 SP Authentic By the Letter auto (#69/85)

It certainly seems like I've been amassing a lot of letter manupatch autos lately, and I hope that trend continues.  This is a very cool card of a guy I hope follows Justin Verlander's career path, because if he can even be 75% of what Verlander offers, Detroit would have a nightmare of a rotation, especially with the potential emergence of Jacob Turner.

Anyway, that explains the reason I went hard after a Porcello card, but there's a lot to like about more than just the player.  Although it's not a team color, the "E" boldly stands out with a nice signature down the largest portion of it, a natural spot for the autograph of just about anyone short of Bo Hart and Mike Olt.  My only real knock on the card is that the nameplate doesn't spell the player's last name or even the team name, but instead "Rookie," which is pretty lame.  That's fine with me, though, because I really don't need ANOTHER nameplate project right now.

For those of you who are interested, this is my fifth Porcello in the Tigers PC, and third autograph overall.  To see all of them, please head right on over here.

So once again, here's to trading!

Catching up on some trade posts and stuff

The Great Trade Post Hall of Fame:

Tim from the Great Sports Name Hall of Fame shot me a message the other day that he was sending me some goodies (his word, not mine, but the guy delivered).  As promised, those showed up, and let me tell you, I bet Tim knew I didn't have anything ready for him at the moment besides a Craphonso Thrope auto and my MCG Dick Pole (I bet he's looking forward to checking his mailbox for a Crappy Dick trade package...) because this one was a killer:

To start with, a few Wolverines and Tigers.  It's easier to remember Jim Harbaugh was an alum thanks to his name being in the news the last couple months.
As for the Tigers, I don't mention him much but Sheridan was one of my favorite Tigers in the 80s for some reason--I couldn't tell you why.  But it's cool getting more cards of him.

Taste the rainbow, baby!  These are all from '08 UD Heroes.  I don't know if Tim had doubles of these or what because I think I remember him talking about taking on this project himself.  Either way, it's great to have all these without having to hunt them down myself.  If you can't tell, starting with the green they're numbered of 499, 399, 299, 249, 199, 149 and 99.  That wasn't all of the Rich Hills in the package though.

Numbered out of 50, it's the red auto/jersey (with a pinstripe--hooray non-boring jersey!).  I'm thrilled to add this to my Hill collection, along with

a 2010 A&G Hill auto!  This is my third mini-style auto ('09 A&G and Topps T-206 Piedmont) and a great card to round out the package.

I'm now left to respond in kind or shame my family and have to commit seppuku (that's right, spell checker, not septum, seppuku).  I'll do my best, but in the meantime I'll remind everyone to make sure to trade with Tim, including sending stuff off his various wantlists.  Thanks, Tim!

The Mojo Hand reaches far:
Jay, aka the Mojo Hand, participated in my first group break, 2010 Donruss EEE baseball last year, going in for Pam Anderson and Pam Anderson alone (hey, those autographs pay for themselves).  Well, all I pulled was three of her base card, but regardless, his cash payment (sent via the not at all greedy and Netflix-hording hands of the USPS) never made it to me.  Fast forward to today and lo and behold, an envelope from him actually reaches me.  It included two cards,

a 2009 Topps Chrome Blue Refractor of Curtis "2Many" Granderson, which he had previously promised to throw in, plus the following to make up for the missing payment (as if that was even necessary--he's the one that got screwed here):

a 2008 Donruss Threads Diamond Kings dual (not duel--I don't see those pieces fighting each other, do you?) jersey.  I'm very happy to get this--I like Porcello cards and don't have nearly enough.

So, long story short, I got some nice stuff and Jay will finally get his Pam Andersons.  What he does with them after that is 100% not my business and I wish him well.  Thanks, Jay!   

What's a post without something I got from Blowout?:
This was a trade, though, which I need to do more of so I don't spend such a ridiculous amount on cards.  A guy wanted an Aaron Hicks (Twins) letter I pulled from the Letterman breaks, and he had a PhotoBucket stocked with some nice Wolverines.  I settled on three cards for the Hicks and another insert:

A 2008 Donruss EEE Zach Putnam autograph.  I've been wanting this guy for a while but hadn't really been able to track it down until now, the perfect time to nab it in a trade.  Nice shot of him in a Michigan uni.

A 2009 Bowman Chrome Prospects Refractor auto, also of Zach Putnam.  If this looks familiar, that's because I've got the XFractor version.  Maybe I'll shoot for the rainbow on this one.

Oops.  Well I probably knew Tim was sending me this and spaced, or I'm just dumb, but whatever, now I've got two!  Anyway, I was happy with how the trade came out, so that's a plus.

There's still more to come--I picked up a handful more cards in various Blowout deals this week so those should be arriving soon.  I should also have something up regarding which Letterman autos are available FS/FT before much longer.

Speaking of Letterman, which I apparently won't shut up about, here's some posts from last break's participants:  BA Benny, Midwest Cardboard and the Daily Dimwit.

While I'm giving a shout out to BA Benny (aka every other post), keep an eye out for his group break to officially begin, although there's a few slots left.

Group break case is here, plus more hot Blowout action

This is not the new case--I'm being e-green and recycling the same picture...again...

Guess what?:
So the group break case arrived today, putting us right on track for the Saturday, 3 pm EST break.  Everybody still needs to pay, and we could definitely use some fresh blood (still plenty of slots open!), but either way, it will be a good time again.  If anything, you should come to see if I come through on my promise to pull an Ike Davis 1/1 for BA Benny (who liked his stuff from the first break, by the way).

A bunch of other people posted breaks on the Blowout forums, and they generally did about as well as we did the first time--dud cases don't seem to be a concern with this product, and I've seen multiple people (besides us the first time) pull multiple Poseys.  Plus, how about a Pete Rose this time?

Hot player-on-card action:
Some of you probably saw my review of 2010 Bowman Draft baseball blasters this weekend.  Well, as I sometimes do, I posted a smaller version of that on the Blowout break message board, and interest came pouring in for the Machado and Valencia Purples, among others (sorry, Beardy!).  I struck up a nice deal with a guy, trading those two, a couple other inserts from the break, and a Chase Utley bat card I didn't want for 70+ BDPP base cards I needed, plus a nice bonus.  I won't bore you with scans of the base cards, but here's my favorite of this haul:

It's the Wolverines' own Ryan LaMarre, a Reds draft pick and target of my collecting this year--not to be confused with

The trade put me up to something like 84 of the base set and 83 of the Prospects (out of 110 each).  I'll post wantlists soon, but in the meantime I'll just say that I'm happy to have nabbed about 3/4 of the base set mostly by trading, plus I got this guy:

a.k.a. the offer I couldn't refuse.  I'm also making it a goal to work on my Porcello collection this year in the event that he blows up (not literally, that would just be crazy).

The moral of this trade is that sometimes it pays to post box breaks on Blowout's forum because it can lead to mutually beneficial deals.  Oh, one other moral--Beardy has dibs on all of my future Orioles cards, so don't even bother asking for that Brady Anderson III blugenta (a popular color in the future) printing plate autograph White Whale Mirror Blue I'm gonna pull in 2025, and don't act like I didn't give you fair warning.