One of those "Better late than never" posts...

I've been meaning to get some real organization in place for my cards and various cardboard collections (no pun intended) and after a trip to my local LCS to pick up some supplies, I can finally start cataloging all of these stacks of cards on the corner of my desk.

It didn't take too long into one of the stacks before I came across two team bags with a index card from Dennis of Too Many Verlanders / Too Many Manninghams. This gift has been sitting here for at least 6 months. Perhaps you can better imagine the mess I have on my hands that I'm now trying to work through! In these stacks were lots of great cards for several different themes I have in my collection.

Of course there were plenty of Braves cards, including several Tom Glavines and a Johnny Estrada Topps Pristine relic.

Remember when Topps made football cards? I know you're super jealous of the super hot Dwayne Jarrett RC you see peeking out from underneath Steve Smith.

My favorite Carolina Panthers card in the stacks was this dufex infused Zenith team card. Jake Delhomme may not be well known outside of Charlotte (or Louisiana), but he is a "legend" in this area. Same goes for Julius Pepper, though this is from his first tour with the team. DeShaun Foster may not be the best well known Panthers RB in the history of the team, but they needed a third player so there you go.

I saw that there was a smaller card in one of the stacks, but never in my wildest imagination would I think it was a printing plate. Combine the fact that this is a Jonathan Stewart printing plate and I was/am over the moon! JStew is one of my favorite players of all time and I've got a nice little PC of his, but nothing this cool. Thank you so much Dennis!

Also included were cards of two players for what I call my "Faith Brothers" collection...Albert Pujols and Mariano Rivera. It's not that often I acquire cards of either of these players unless I'm at a show digging through nickle and dime boxes, so this was a nice surprise. As I sat down to catalog these cards it turned out that I didn't have about 95% of them. I guess this Braves guy just had a hard time keeping cards of a guy that killed our pitching or of a stinking Yankee!

Thanks again Dennis for your kind generosity and I apologize it took so long to share these...but as the post title says "better late than never".

Christmas Cards

2018 has been another year for me. My blogging activity has taken a hit, although I have tried to be active on Twitter (@flywheels) with other card bloggers. The number of trades or care packages I've sent out compared to past years has also been down. However that didn't stop Dennis of Too Many Manninghams and Too Many Verlanders from sending me the best kind of Christmas card(s)!

Even though I haven't been as active, I instantly recognized Dennis' name from the return address on the bubble mailer. Funny how I made the connection so quickly. I honestly didn't know what to expect inside so I quickly opened the package that just happened to arrive on Christmas Adam!

There were two card bricks in the package carefully sealed w/ painters tape. A large portion of the first brick I opened was a stack of Mariano Rivera cards. I was happy to see these because when he was active, I just couldn't collect a Yankee player!! Even though I respected his baseball ability and what he accomplished on the field, I couldn't find it inside myself to collect his cards. I know that may sound silly, but it's true. I'm sure I had many cards of his at one time too that passed through my hands. Later on after he retired from the game I started to learn more about the man that wore the jersey. Learning of his faith and the things he did for others made him more appealing and eventually he found himself as apart of my Faith Brothers collection. Problem was, I didn't have many cards of his. Well Dennis took care of that and gave me a nice start.

The other part of the first brick was full of Braves cards, particularly of Tom Glavine. Always love getting Glavine cards I don't own, or in this case of this Skybox EX Century card of Glavine, a duplicate. This card will go in my Batting Pitchers sub-collection. By the way, just in case you weren't aware these were printed on clear acetate, so the wood grain you see isn't some undiscovered parallel, but my kitchen table instead!

Also buried in those Braves cards was this jersey relic of former Braves catcher, Johnny Estrada from Topps Pristine. I don't have many cards of Estrada in a Braves uniform period, much less a relic!

The second brick of cards started off w/ a Score RC of former NC State QB, Jacoby Brissett. I thought that would be the beginning of an NC State trend, but then it went to cards of my Carolina Panthers. It's been a tough year for the Panthers, especially after yesterday's 7 consecutive loss of the season. However a smile was on my face as I continued to thumb through the cards and this Jonathan Stewart Printing Plate was looking back at me. Seriously Dennis?! You shouldn't have! A printing plate?! This is really cool for a couple of reasons. 1) Because he's a former Panthers player and 2) He also is a member of my football Faith Brothers collection and a guy I still actively seek out to collect.

I read over the weekend that someone said card blogging was dead. Even though the amount of active blogs may have dwindled a bit over recent years, this is a great example of the awesome people still going at it in the blog-o-sphere of card collecting. I can't think you Dennis enough for your generosity and for these awesome cards. This helped set the tone for what I think will be an awesome Christmas this year.