Thanksgiving Surprise

The week of Thanksgiving I was receiving a few bubble mailers each day as I've been grabbing cheap autos and RCs of various players lately, however one of the mailers was noticeably thicker than the others which I wasn't expecting. Then I saw the return address and I instantly knew who it was from...Cards on Cards.

2018 hasn't been an overly great year for me in terms of blogging. My activity across all my blogs is down and as a result so is my trading activity with fellow collectors and bloggers. I blame this on wanting to spend more time doing other things and of course work...gotta blame work. For some reason Kerry at Cards on Cards had been putting aside cards of Atlanta Braves, Carolina Panthers and Charlotte Hornets for me. I always love to see what people send me and I always appreciate what I'm sent, regardless of what era it's from. Let's take a look at a small sampling of what he sent me.

One of my favorite cards is this shiny Freddie Freeman from 2018 Topps Chrome. I sat Chrome out this year so I have very little Braves from the set. This International Affair card has a simple design, but looks beautiful. This is one of those inserts that works better for Chrome than flagship in my opinion. 

Next up is a small sampling of players from what I call my "Faith Brothers" collection. Fitting that all of these are from Cardinals players, but hey, that's OK. Personally I love the Jaime Garcia Bowman and Bowman Chrome cards.

Following up on the baseball edition of "Faith Brothers", I got a few more cards for the football version of this sub-collection. Of these 5 cards, my favorite hands down is the 1992 Score Sam Mills Dream Team. I've never seen this card before, so cool. I don't have many Sam Mills cards either so I love finding new things. For those of you outside the Carolinas, Sam Mill is the basis of the team's "Keep Pounding" mantra/slogan thanks to his battle with cancer he fought as a member of the Carolina Panthers. 

I also really appreciate the other cards too, especially the cool Domino's Pizza issue of Rodney Peete and the silver parallel of the Minister of Defense, Reggie White.

I never collected a lot of basketball cards, but I absolutely loved Upper Deck's inaugural NBA set. However I never had a chance to pick up packs of the sophomore release and I still only have a few random cards. Upper Deck had some great photography as shown in the Kendall Gill card. One day I'd love to pick up a box or two and sit down and try to build the set. The early to mid 90's NBA was a lot of fun in my opinion.

With all of the off season moves the Charlotte Hornets made, combined with some early success has me watching more NBA than I have in a very long time. It's been really fun watching the Hornets and their young players play. I've been wanting to pick up RCs and other cards of some of these younger players, but I typically don't buy packs of basketball cards. Kerry came to the rescue with RCs of Malik Monk from Elements and Dwayne Bacon from Donruss Optic. These were the Hornets first and second round draft picks from a year ago. Neither got much of a chance to play last year under coach Steve Clifford, but with the staff changes both young guns are finally getting a chance to show their skill. Even though the team moved on from Dwight Howard, I still find it cool to have a few cards of his in a Hornets uniform.

Lastly we have a few cards of Kemba Walker. If you haven't had a chance to watch him play you are missing out. He's one of the best point guards in the NBA that nobody talks about. He is consistent night in and night out and is the face of the Hornets. He is already quickly becoming one of the best Hornets players statistically as his play has improved year over year. There have been a lot of trade rumors surrounding him, but it appears he wants to remain a Charlotte Hornet and bring the city their first NBA title. How can you not root for a guy like that? The NBA All-Star weekend is being held in Charlotte, NC this upcoming February and I fully expect to see Kemba representing "Buzz City".

Huge shout out to Kerry at Cards on Cards for the surprise package...I owe you one buddy!