An unexpected mail day

A couple of weeks ago while I was busting some 2019 Donruss I hit a Mother's Day parallel of Mitch Haniger of the Mariners. I knew as soon as the card was pulled who I needed to send it to so off it went the next day to Steve of Tridents and Trading Cards.

The great thing about the blogging community (and Twitter too!) is how fellow collectors take care of one another. When I sent off the card to Steve I wasn't expecting anything, but I knew he'd appreciate the low numbered parallel more than myself. However this weekend I received a piece of mail from Steve with careful instructions on how to open it. I thought why the special instruction...then once I carefully cut the tape of the large piece of cardboard halves I knew why...

One of the things inside the two cardboard halves taped together was this oversized card of Tom Glavine from 1993. I'll be honest, I've never heard of Topps Full Shot before, but I've got to say these are pretty cool. I'll have to find a way to protect the card before I add it to my Glavine collection, however I'm happy to have this "oddball".

On that same token, Steve also sent over these Lykes food issue cards of John Smoltz from 1992 and 1993. Granted I don't know much about the Lykes brand or these cards, but I don't have them and now I do!

The Braves have had a lot of great pitchers come through in my lifetime, but Smoltz (and Tim Hudson) are my two favorites. Smoltz accomplished so much...both as a starting pitcher and coming out of the bullpen later in his career. He's great on the mic and an awesome guy away from the sport as well.

I really wasn't expecting anything in return when I sent off the card to Steve, but this is one of the reasons that makes collecting in this day and age so much fun. Thank you for the cards Steve!

Trade with the Collector's Crack

Mark from the Collector's Crack had a stack of Braves and Carolina Panthers building for me for some time and recently sent over some good stuff. I had shipped him earlier some Brewers and Packers stuff I had been sitting on for him as well.

I received four team set bags full of cards plus a few others. The bulk of the cards of course were Atlanta Braves, many that I'm pretty sure I didn't have already.

A few of the highlights include some HOF players like Dale Murphy, John Smoltz (which by the way this TSC card features a great picture!) and this numbered Chipper.

Always nice getting cards of players that wore the Braves jersey for only a brief time, or just don't have cards made very often. I think this makes maybe the 2nd or 3rd card I have of Robert Fick in a Braves uni and the first of Shane Reynolds and Horacio Ramirez.

I don't have a lot of Braves minor league cards in my collection, but this shiny foil Pro Debut card of Jason Heyward is a welcome addition.

Last of the Braves highlights is this 2018 National Baseball Card Day of Ozzie Albies. The only LCS close to me didn't participate in the program, but thankfully Mark's awesome local shop did and he tossed this Albies card in my stack.

I don't feature too much football on my blog, but Mark is one of the few baseball card collectors that I know also dabbles in football. Here we have a look at the original rookie Panthers QB and the current Panthers QB. Love those older Pacific football cards.

Rounding out the Panthers were two jersey card, one of draft pick bust Joe Adams (though still a beautiful card) and fan favorite RB DeAngelo Williams.

The perfect ending to the trade is a healthy addition of new Ben Sheets cards for my PC of his. Shy of hitting up COMC or SportsLots I don't often get too many new cards of Ben so I'm very grateful to this Brewers fan to these. I'm hoping the Brewers can stave off elimination in tonight's NLCS game against the Dodgers. Thanks again for the trade Mark!

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge - Day 14

30 DAY BASEBALL CARD CHALLENGE

DAY 14

One of your favorite cards from the 2000s

In addition to all the player collections I have, I also have a smaller side collection of cards that depict pitchers batting, or at least wearing a batting helmet. In 2001 Topps had a set called Fusion and two of the game used bat cards not only featured two players I already collected, John Smoltz and Tom Glavine, but they were depicted batting AND featured a sliver of bat embedded in the card! If the single cards weren't cool enough, they were meshed together into one card as shown above. Truly an epic card for myself to own.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge - Day 13

30 DAY BASEBALL CARD CHALLENGE

DAY 13

One of your favorite cards from the 1990s

I know the 90's in terms of baseball cards are widely considered the era of junk wax, but man I loved the cards back then. Granted I was knew to the hobby and I didn't care, it was cards like this 1993 Upper Deck of Steve Avery, Greg Maddux, John Smoltz and Tom Glavine that made me love baseball cards. 

While I still love cards today, I miss some of the gimmicks and things the companies did with their cards in the 1990s. I often wonder if we'll ever see a return to this time in cards. Lets face it though, I ain't holding my breath!

Goodbye 2016

Looking over my post history for 2016 is a quick reminder of just how busy I was...or was it that blogging about cards lost some of it's appeal. Or was it a little of both?

I'm still not able to put a finger on it, but regardless a new year is upon on so why not take a few moments to look back at the past year...and share some images of cards I've picked up, but never posted about.

2000 Upper Deck

2005 Fleer Showcase #035/183

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like my player collections keep changing. I tend to pick players that don't always get a lot of cards or the players just drop out of the limelight all together, but one guy that I've stayed with is Tim Hudson. I have a good many of his cards already, but I'm amazed I keep finding cards of his that I don't own...especially cards of his pre-Braves days. Tim isn't going anywhere and I look forward to resuming my search for his cards in 2017.

2016 Topps Update Black parallel #60/65

The 2016 Braves may not have been the best team the club has assembled nor did they have the success I'm sure they were wanting, but one good thing did become of the season. Frenchy. When he signed the minor league deal during spring training I was beside myself. However I really didn't think he had a snowball chance in Hell to make the team. I was glad I was wrong. Early in the 2016 baseball card season I had to settle for cards of Francoeur in an ugly Phillies uniform, but towards the middle of the season Topps finally corrected this and issued a few proper cards of him in a Braves uniform. I was glad to have more cards of his to chase, especially trying to complete the rainbow of his 2016 Topps Update card seen above. I believe I'm still lacking the pink parallel to finish off the "set".

2015 Topps Heart of the Order

Freddie was back to his normal form in 2016. He was just as much fun to watch as ever, especially now that his eye sight issues that plagued him in 2015 seem to have been corrected. It was also fun following his journey becoming a dad for the first time during the season. After the Braves shipped Hector Olivera off to San Diego in exchange for Matt Kemp, Freddie was finally given a good power bat in the line up to compliment his game. The Braves may have not had the success they wanted, but they seem to be heading in the right direction and I'm glad that Freeman continues to be leading the way.

2016 Topps Gold Label

It seems as if you can always find new cards of your favorite players, even if they aren't playing the game any longer. I recently picked up this metal gold framed auto of Andruw Jones for about $5. These cards are much more beautiful in hand than they appear when scanned.

 2016 Topps Gypsy Queen Relic

I don't actively seek out Chipper cards, but I pulled this GQ relic from a blaster while working on completing my 2016 GQ set (which I still need to do).

 2016 Topps Gypsy Queen Relic

 2016 Topps Triple Threads Legends Relic #13/27

2016 Topps Gypsy Queen Framed Mini Relic

 I will seek out new cards of Smoltz however and I was glad to pick up these relics. I don't normally bother with Triple Threads, but this particular one caught my eye and the price was right.

Do you like the fact that Topps (and even Panini) are still mixing in retired players into current product checklists?

 2016 Topps Heritage

2016 Topps Gold Label

How can you talk about the 2016 baseball season and not bring up the Cubs. While I'm not a fan of the team, I was glad to see David Ross pick up a World Series ring. In the aftermath of the Cubs win I did manage to pick up a few Cubs cards of his before he rode off into the (retirement) sunset.

During the said Cubs World Series win aftermath, I found out that the Cubs reliever, Carl Edwards, Jr. was from my hometown of Charlotte, NC. I don't always actively collect cards of players from my hometown or from NC, but I found myself with yet another beautiful Gold Label auto. I'm not sure if he'll gain a spot in my PC, but it's still a nice card to own none the less.

 2016 Panini Instant

After the Braves season ended I was all ready to shift my focus to the NFL and my Carolina Panthers. The 2015 season fell just one win short of being magical, so I and many other fans thought we may be able to recreate that same magic in 2016. Wrong.

I guess one of the things that bothered me for much of the season was Cam Newton's play and the media. Cam had a bad year. The team had a bad year. Judging from the media though a player can't have a bad year. According to the media the MVP season Cam had a year a go was a fluke. According to the media Cam is the only QB in the NFL that is a sore loser. 

2016 Panini Prizm Intros

Why does everyone love to hate this guy? I've seen countless number of videos of Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees and others throwing tablets, cussing up a storm on the sidelines and throwing their own versions of temper tantrums...yet the media acts as if Cam is the only one that is so emotional playing this game. While I won't and don't defend Cam 100% of the time, I do get sick and tired of the double standard.

Does Cam need to work on his mechanics in the off season to improve? Definitely. Is he a bad QB? Heavens no! Some fans say the Panthers should cut him. I wonder how many other fanbases would love to have Cam as their QB. The 49ers? Rams? Vikings? Eagles? Jets? Whatever the problem was for the team and for Cam, I hope they are able to work on it in the off season. I hope that the team management is able to take some of that cap money they didn't use in 2016 and go and sign some good veteran free agents to help solidify the offense line. Go draft some much needed young guys to fill in the holes on this team. 

2016 Panini Playbook Yellow Printing Plate 1/1

Regardless of the teams performance, I still sought out new cards at different times throughout the season. When your team isn't playing hard it's a little harder to get excited to hunt for new cards, but this printing plate of Greg Olsen is one of the best cards I picked up all year. You couldn't tell from that guy's play that the team had a 6-10 record. BTW, congrats to Greg for becoming the first TE in the NFL to record 3 consecutive seasons with 1,000 or more receiving yards.

I let a lot of things slide in 2016 and I plan on fixing those things in 2017. I have a lot of sets that I've never finished collating, yet along made lists for. I slacked off of trading and I'd like to get back to helping fulfill other collector's lists. My organization has been horrible. I've got some many stacks of cards all over my office and in my man cave down stairs that I can't remember what's going on. Thankfully that should be addressed really soon as just today a huge order I placed with BCW arrived. Too bad I had to leave to go out of town today, otherwise I would have dropped what I was doing to start to get organized again. Look for a post on this process in the near future.

I'm excited for the new year and what it will bring. The release of 2017 Topps Series 1 is just around the corner, the changes made to '17 GQ have me excited and before I know it I'll be busting a box of my annual favorite, Allen & Ginter. Let's just hope I don't lose this renewed energy and I can't keep it going for another year. Thanks to everyone out there in blogger world for the continued support. Here's to a great new year.

More Surprises from 2x3 Heroes

During my break from baseball, I took the time to get some of the sets I'm still actively building organized, want lists updated and cards finally put in a binder. It was also during this time that I made a few small trades, which was fun. I really would like to do more of that again as I love helping others with their collection needs. I've got some ideas, but I'll save those for another post.

One of the trades I made was with Jeff of 2x3 Heroes. Surprisingly enough I didn't have his great blog on my blogroll originally. I believe he found my blog through someone else's, anyhow after the trade was completed I've come home to two small packages from Jeff!

I've been able to knock off several base cards from my 2015 Topps Gypsy Queen want list and a few off my 2015 Topps Allen & Ginter want list as well. Good thing too as the 2016 baseball card season is finally underway. In addition to a few cards from my want lists, Jeff also slid in a few Braves cards I didn't have!

Any day I get a new John Smoltz card is a good day in my book! I can't think Jeff from 2x3 Heroes enough for his generosity and for helping fill in a few holes in those sets. I owe you one big time!

More Gypsy Queen - Braves and Trade Goods

The local Walmart near my work restocked their Gypsy Queen hanger boxes so I grabbed two more. Still haven't landed a auto or anything good like that, but at least the first box I opened up had several Braves!

Two base cards of two Hall of Frame Braves pitchers, Smoltz and Glavine. Even scored the Pearl Framed Paper parallel of Smoltz! One of the 6 minis between the two boxes was of new outfielder, Nick Markakis!

Knocked off 4 more inserts from the want list as well - two for Glove Stories and two for Walk-Off Winners.

Here are the cards (minus the base) that went up earlier on my trade list. Still plenty I need so hopefully someone will come along and need something above.

2015 Atlanta Braves...new faces a plenty!

It's been no secret that the Atlanta Braves under went a big shake up of the team's roster this past winter. Heck, on the eve of Opening Day the club even traded away the best closer in baseball. So the 2015 roster has a lot of new faces.

Without cheating, how many of these guys can you name? I have to admit that I did pretty poorly. Yes, I've watched most of the games in this young season, but I too am still learning who these guys are that after last night's win over the Marlins have helped improve the NL's best team to a 6-1 record.

Thankfully one of the players left that I do know is 1st baseman, Freddie Freeman. I also just happen to have a few "new" cards of his that I haven't shared yet on the blog so I'm using this post as an excuse to scan and share them.

2014 Topps All-Star Stitches relic

2014 Topps..uh, what's this insert called?

2014 Topps World Series Heroes

Wait a minute...you're not Freddie!