More USPS incompetence plus another Dimwitted trade

USPS, where our motto is "You mail, we fail" or "You ship it we rip it" or "You send it we bend it" or "You pay us money to transfer it to another party and we damage it, lose it or poop on it and then damage or lose it, but hey, sometimes we deliver it!":
Some of you might remember that a couple months ago I made a brief mention of an eBay purchase I was awaiting in the mail.  You might also remember that it never arrived.  The seller was one of the better ones I've dealt with and despite the increasing frequency of scammers who pull this stunt after actually receiving the card, he refunded my money.  Good guy.


Flash forward to today, when this gem graced my mailbox:

Captain Picard, help me out here.

WTF indeed.  After being able to see a good-sized chunk of what's inside, I used my years of collecting experience to recognize what had to be the back of an '89 Donruss card.  "It couldn't be," I thought, "could it?"  It could be and it was:

These are the 2001 Donruss Rookie Reprint of Ken Griffey Jr. and its parallel version.  The scan of the parallel front doesn't really do a good job of portraying the "20th Anniversary" logo being as holographic as it is compared to the regular version, but that's the biggest difference aside from the serial numbering being exactly 1000 lower.

I bid on this auction because I'm pursing the Rookie Reprint set--there's a lot to like about it, especially the serial numbering out of the year the cards were produced, and most importantly, the fact that Donruss doesn't/didn't reprint its cards literally every single year for no rhyme or reason.  The fact that the parallel version was included was a nice bonus and it gives me another cool Griffey to add to my collection, but my main focus is on the regular set, and I hope to have it done soon because it would be awesome to show off.


I now need these:  3 5 10 11 14 17 18 20 21 23 25 28 29 32 37 40
so if you have any, please trade them to me, I'll give you something good.  And the good news is, if you mail them to me, I might even receive them!


Trade with Sam = Too Magglio Verlandersons:
Sam of the Daily Dimwit and I had kind of been working on a trade for a month or two recently before he moved, but now I'm glad to say we never finalized a deal until last week.  The reason the procrastination worked out in my favor can be found in this post.  Sam pulled a gorgeous Verlander autograph and gave me first crack at it, which was an awesome thing to do.  I'm sure he'll show off his end of the deal as soon as they arrive since I took so long to ship them while waiting to consolidate a bunch of shipments into one trip, but here's what I ended up with:

Curtis Granderson 2009 Allen & Ginter jersey:  This is my first Granderson relic, embarrassingly enough, but it's a great one.  I have no love for the baseball-phobic A&G base set or the craptastic results of their boxes, but I do like how Topps has done these framed mini relics the last few years.  A card without Granderson smiling is like Jim Leyland winning a division title--you're just not gonna see it in your lifetime.  A great start to the package and the making of a new trifecta.

Magglio Ordonez 2009 UD Piece of History Franchise History jersey:  Oddly enough this is my first Magglio relic too, but that's not as important because his name isn't part of the title of my blog.  I do have this 5x7 autograph of him but I haven't counted it as part of my Tigers hits because he's still with the White Sox there (I may relax that rule eventually).  This makes another trifecta for me since I have a ton of his RCs from 1998.


And the money card,

Justin Verlander 2007 UD Black Prodigious Autographs auto:  My second Verlander auto is this stunning number from UD black, pulled by the mojoriffic hands of the Dimwit himself.  I love that it's #d 50/50 (hurr eBay 1/1 durr!), I love that it's shiny and thick as hell, and most of all I love that it's another autograph of the AL's #1 pitcher this year.  Not only is he putting up ridiculous stats, he's the foundation of a castle that would otherwise sink into the swamp without him (several times).

So needless to say this has been one of my favorite trades this year.  Big thanks to Sam, and I hope you enjoy your haul just as much, whenever it gets to you (and may it arrive timely, unopened and unpooped-upon).

hiflew Likes Ike!

Johnny told me to steal images, which I interpreted as all of his images

If you're reading this you may be one of my regular users, but more likely you were involved in Johnny/hiflew's exciting break over at Cards From the Quarry (and I do sincerely mean exciting considering what was pulled).  Johnny politely asked me if I'd handle a couple randomizations for him since I was otherwise uninvolved and therefore impartial.  I readily agreed, somewhat because we'd traded before and he's a cool guy, and mostly because he's got Ollie Williams doing his weather reporting.

Johnny's instructions were to take the eligible teams for each card and randomize them three times.  I now present to you live footage of said discussion:


With that out of the way, here's what you probably already scrolled down to, or thereabouts considering there's a shiny video right above this.  We've got two cards up for grabs from Johnny's 2004 Topps Chrome II baseball portion of his break.

The first that we'll Holy Hand Grenade into someone's loving hands is a Presedential Pastime Refractor of James Madison:

How many Refractors do YOU have, Marbury?  That's what I thought, so suck it!

Old Jimbo here was US President #4, was dubbed the "Father of the Constitution" and rocked a mean wig, so he's got that goin' for him.  Also he did lots of other stuff.  </public_education>  What I'm going for is that the guy was one of the better presidents to pull, so whoever gets this card is getting something pretty nice.

Here's your timestamped randomization, brought to you by random.org, the sports card blogosphere's official provider of randomizations.  And now a word from Stampy, the random.org timestamp elephant:

I got nothing, just wanted a cheap Simpsons reference

Here's your list of eligible participants:

Four teams vie for the J-Mad.  Who will it be?

And-a one

And-a two

CUBS WIN!  CUBS WIN!

Congratulations to "Jon" whose name I don't recognize but who will now enjoy the Refractor-y goodness of Mr. Constitution Sr.

I saved the big prize for last, which interestingly has even more eligible winners, the Presidential First Pitch seat relic of Dwight D. Eisenhower:

Pictured:  Ike giggling at the suggestion that Washington would throw THAT much money at Jayson Werth

(As opposed to Dwigt)

Johnny reported this as a case hit, and they are indeed 1:15 box-loader packs, so this was definitely a nice pull.  Ike was the 34th President and was a Republican, which means he automatically had it in for the possibly-yet-unborn Thorzul.  He's considered one of the greatest presidents ever, and this is a sweet addition to anyone's collection.  The seat, incidentally, comes from an appropriate place--Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C., home of the now-defunct Senators (the ones that got paid to play baseball, not screw you) and the Redskins.

Ok, that's enough context, on with the button-pushing:

Well that many people will certainly make this more interesting.

Juan

Too

And your winner is the OTHER team from Chicago, the OzzieSox.  Congrats to Darren on the big win!

So there you have it, a couple impartial randomizations.  High fives to both the winners and a tip of the hat to everyone else who participated in another fine break by hiflew.  Now to make you feel more at home during your time away from his site, here's some purple so you don't suffer from withdrawal: