2019 trade package #32: Sport Card Collectors

Matt of Sport Card Collectors must have decided he'd gone long enough without sending me cards because yesterday I received one of his trademark PWEs, and today marks one month since I last showed off a trade package from anyone--another PWE from the very same guy!  This bit sized bunch of cards is perfect for scanning and posting while I take a short break from showing off my Sportlots loot.  Here's what came my way this time:

While his Griffey collection cull has been a primary motivator for these monthly (or more frequent!) mailings, Matt's been mixing in other stuff as well.  In this case he made me the proud owner of a shiny new 2019 Topps Chrome Refractor of Miguel Cabrera.  I lost the scanning lottery today so it didn't come out nearly as nice as it looks in-person, but my rule stands:  Refractors always look good.  I saw a story the other day about Cabrera dedicating himself to conditioning this off-season, but I'm skeptical since we heard that last year as well.  Regardless, he's still worth collecting and I'm happy to have another Refractor to add to what amounts to almost 300 cards (294 right now).

And then we have the nice familiar pile of Griffey cards.  In this envelope two were new for me, starting with card #3, a 2000 Crown Royale Final Numbers insert.  This doesn't happen often at this point in my collecting career but I don't recall seeing this one before, so that alone makes it a fun add, besides the fact that it's from a Pacific brand and a Griffey I needed.  The back notes that Junior was joining the Reds having won a total of four AL HR titles, and those were 1994 (40) and 1997-99 (56, 56, and 48, respectively).  From 1993-2000 (with a couple strike-shortened seasons, mind you), he socked 351 dingers in 4187 AB, an elite 11.9 AB/HR ratio that was a tick lower than Babe Ruth's career mark.  His 162-game average was 52!  Dude was good.

The other newbie is the fifth card you see in the bunch, a very shiny and colorful base--if you can believe it--out of Upper Deck's 2008 Spectrum product.  This is another one that doesn't come out as true-to-life in a scan as the surface is very reflective with a rainbow effect throughout.  You wouldn't know it by looking above but the bottom and sides are kind of silver/gray while the area behind Griffey is a green/teal kind of thing.  In contrast to modern products, though this has a number of colored parallels, they're all serial-numbered so there's no confusion.  C'mon, Panini and Topps, learn from the past!

The others include a checklist from '98 UD, 2008 Topps Baseball Card History, and 2000 Fleer Dividends.  I own complete sets of the first and third and picked up the second, done up in the style of '66 Topps, at some unknown point.  Interesting fact about the Upper Deck card:  it's a checklist #540 in that year's flagship set, and two years later card #540 was--you guessed it--a Griffey checklist.

Speaking of numbers, Griffey's near a milestone of his own as he sits at 894 items thanks to today's additions.

Matt, thanks again for another fun PWE with some nice new stuff I needed, plus a good excuse to take a quick break from scanning/posting larger bunches of cards from Sportlots.  I'll be hitting you back at least once more before the end of the year, especially after I get a chance to reload at the December show and COMC!

2019 trade package #24: Sport Card Collectors

The latest trade envelope to hit my mailbox this month came courtesy of Matt at Sport Card Collectors Parts of My Past Sport Card Collectors.  Regardless of the name of his blog, he sent another fun PWE that included one card I'd asked for and five others I was happy to get:

If Matt ever sends me a PWE without some Griffeys in it I'll know it's a sign that he's being held prisoner in his basement by an impostor, so I'll call the police immediately.  Gotta keep that Junior pipeline rolling!  This time they include:

• 1999 Ultra checklist:  this came out more than a decade before the Obama "not bad" meme 
• 2007 UD Elements:  not a brand I see very often at all, at least not the base set anyway (the Clear Cut Elements and Elemental Autographs are more familiar)
• 2008 UD First Edition StarQuest:  this insert set never really shook its low-endedness from its humble origins in Collector's Choice, but there's no way you can go wrong when you got a photo of a classic swing like that!
• 2008 Upper Deck Documentary (#1873):  UD's silliest product by far.  "Veteran slugger launches 16th home run in loss" announces the front, but as usual, the player on top doesn't correspond to the game described on the back.  In this case Adam Dunn was the Red that homered.  Not a bad design at all, just a poorly-executed idea
• 2008 SPx Ken Griffey Jr. American Hero (#KG70) (#565/725):  this is just my third from the 100-card set that combines shininess, numbering, and Kenny's sweet swing, straight out of the baseball card pyramid of awesomeness

Besides the Juniors there was this:

Back in late July Matt busted open a hobby factory set of 2019 Topps, and that box included a pack of five Sparkle Foil parallels.  He was lucky enough to find this Rich Hill (#025/162) in that pack, and I immediately claimed it.  These different factory set parallels tend to pop up every year so I was happy to be able to knock this one off my list as just my second Hill from the product after the base card.  It's also Hill #299 that's in-hand, scanned, and posted, so it's almost-milestone time!

Matt, thanks again for another fun PWE.  I'm looking forward to your write-up of the latest goodies I sent your way!

3/2/19 show report: 9 is Barry fine

Well would you look at that?  It's just a day after the latest card show and I'm already posting my pickups.  Maybe I'm getting into better blogging habits again?  Probably not, but I'm still glad to be getting more content out there instead of letting TMV sit idle.

This time my wallet came away $20 lighter so it ended up being another low-key show for me, but you'll see no signs of disappointment here.  The breakdown was:

• Dime boxes:  10 cards = $1
• Quarter boxes:  36 cards = $9
• $0.50 boxes:  2 cards = $1
• $1 boxes:  3 cards = $3
• $2 boxes:  3 cards = $6

If you'd like a complete picture of what I got, please head over to TMM after you're done here.  As for the rest:

We'll start with unassigned trade bait again.  This is something I stopped doing for a while since I was bringing stuff home that nobody was claiming, but between COMC and TCDB that should no longer be a problem.  Beltran is from '04 Diamond Kings and is #069/100, and the USA Whitson jersey came out of '09 UD Signature Stars.  Please claim them via a comment or email if you're interested!

First up from my take-home is Junior Griffey.  I found a nice little handful of his cards in the dime and quarter boxes including this trio for me.  The '93 Score Dream Team subset still looks cool more than 25 years later.  2001 Upper Deck MVP's Super Tools insert shows off my favorite of Griffey's skills:  that trademark swing.  And a Defining Moments insert from 2013 Hometown Heroes recounts 1995 ALDS game 5, which will forever live on in Seattle Mariners lore.

Technically these bumped me up to 800 unique Griffeys but after a bit of consultation on TCDB I've eliminated a card from his PC:  the 1991 UD Griffey Sr. base on which Junior cameos.  So I'll wait to add another item before celebrating.

I could still do without Gypsy Queen but once in a while something grabs my interest like this Framed parallel of Tony Gwynn from 2012.  When I picked it up I thought the brown border went well with San Diego's colors, then found out that's not one of the colors used as a framed parallel that year.  Apparently Topps calls this "Gold".  You do you, Topps....

Of course the day's winner was titular guy Barry Larkin.  I brought home more than 10 cards of the HOF SS and these nine went to his PC.  The first five are definitely my favorites, starting with a pair of '96s:  a Score sample (of the Dugout Collection parallel) and UD Hobby Predictor.  I already have the Exchange Card version of the latter so I'll just need to find the Retail variants at some point.

The next pair come from Pinnacle's multi-product Epix insert from 1998 and here you see Orange parallels of the Game and All-Star Moment versions.  Last up in this group is a 2013 Panini Cooperstown Induction insert that celebrates one of Larkin's career highlights.

After that is a trio of 2017 Topps-produced cards that aren't too exciting, though at least the Bowman insert is Chromed and the GQ Hand-Drawn Art card (the second of two made) looks nice enough.  However, that Salute insert is about as mailed-in as it gets, and I wouldn't have picked it up if not for the low price of a dime.

Finally we go all oddball with a '94 King B Disc.  I've heard of these and I think I have a couple in my collection at this point but didn't realize they were still being made in 1994, so that was a fun surprise.

Larkin's PC is celebrating a mini milestone of its own:  more than 750 cards!

That leaves a fun insert quartet starring mound maestro Greg Maddux.  Fleer's Golden Memories set from 1996 still looks amazing, and I was already a fan of it thanks to a Trammell/Whitaker card before I dug Greg's card out of the box.  I flipped a pair of 2001 Topps chase cards--Ring Masters and Own the Game--because I erroneously thought the former was "Hobby Masters", another Topps insert from around that time.  These remind me of one of my favorite Topps products, one made back when they put a bit of thought into those designs.  And last up is a 2018 Diamond Kings Portraits insert of the HOF pitcher.  You just can't go wrong with DK's artsy design!

That's all for this month's show so stay tuned for COMC loot as soon as I get around to it.