Cards on Cards sends cards

I can't be the only guy out there collecting cards that gets the evil eye from the wife when I come back from checking the mail w/ bubble mailers in my hands. Kerry from Cards on Cards (@cardsoncards) got my wife going over the weekend when I pulled out a rather thick bubble mailer out of the mail box. I wasn't expecting anything from him so I was looking forward to seeing what was inside...

There were two large stacks of cards that were neatly stacked and stored insides team bags and a sealed package of NBA TeenyMates. With the exception of a line Braves TeenyMates someone sent me years ago, I haven't had any exposure to these. I'll showcase the contents of that pack later however as I want to get to the meat & potatoes.

For starters I received 82 cards from my 2018 Topps Big League want list! I haven't done much with this set since last fall so it was nice to put a big dent in the list of cards needed.

Off the top of the 2nd stack were two cards of Braves players that represent the future and the past. I have both of these cards, but I don't think I have them for my 2018 Allen & Ginter set. When I'm building sets I always keep the Braves for my team collection first and foremost.

I busted a lot of 2019 Donruss, but somehow the base cards of Ozzie Albies has escaped my grasp. The others were needed for the set and are much welcomed.

Couple more shiney Freddie Freemans for the collection and a Topps Archives RC insert of Ozzie. I believe this card will go in the Archives binder as I pulled one last year for my team collection.

I don't buy a lot of basketball cards and I don't know many who do, but I do know that Kerry is an avoid Portland Trailblazer collector so I can usually bet any package from him will include some basketball cards. Oh boy, he did not disappoint either as he sent me cards for several different collections.

In the heyday of my collecting I pretty bought anything and everything. I had many of these cards, but as the collecting itch faded away a lot of my early collection disappeared. I can't remember what happened to all those cards, but I'm so glad to get some of these back. 

I made a comment on @pennysleeves blog the other day about a Robert Parish card I saw that featured him in a Hornets uni...and then this Hoops card shows up in the stack! I still don't have many cards of Anthony Mason as a Hornet so even though this Hoops card has him in a Knicks uniform, I'll take it. Not sure how many fans remember Darrin Hancock. He was drafted out of Kansas in the 2nd round of the 1994 draft and went on to play 1 1/2 seasons in Charlotte before he was traded to Milwaukee. His career in the NBA only lasted until 1997 (in Atlanta) before he would finish his career in 2005 playing for several different D-League teams. He was however electrifying to watch when he played for Charlotte, executing several fast break plays that usually ended in some kind of dunk.

I love getting cards of Hornets players from that time period where I attended a lot of games. This Kendall Gill and Kenny Gattison cards are so much cooler (to me) than the base cards they are because of the memories I have attached to them.

Considered the "dark period" in Charlotte basketball now, the Bobcats never really caught on with the city of Charlotte or it's fans. I have several ideas why, however I still count them as part of my Hornets collection. There was one lone Bobcats card in the stack and it happened to be a RC of D.J. Augustin. I liked watching him play the short time he played for Charlotte. He's still going strong (for Orlando) and gave the Hornets a fit in the backcourt this season.

I knew of Roy Hibbert from his time spent in Indiana, but I hardly remember him suiting up in the team and purple for the Hornets. However Panini made a card of him for their 2016-17 Complete set. I love getting cards of players that had a brief stint with a team as it makes it more fun when looking back. Do you like getting cards of players like this?

Panini releases a lot of sets and it's hard to keep up with what is out there and what the cards look like. Their Element set has some nice looking cards, such as this base card of Michael Kidd- Gilchrist. I think this makes the 2nd base card from this set I now have. Dwight Howard's time with Charlotte was short so he doesn't have too many cards of him in an actual Hornets uniform, so this insert of him was a welcome addition.

With the exception of the Tony Parker, all of these shiny cards look much better in hand than the pics. I especially love the Optic RC of Devonte Parker RC. I don't know what type of Prizm parallel this is, but it's really sharp. The multi-colored Optic parallels aren't my favorite looking, but anytime I can get new cards of young players like Monk and Bacon...I'll take 'em. I believe both of them are just now starting to scratching the surface of their potential.

If all of the Hornets cards weren't enough, Kerry tossed in not one, but two autographed RCs of P.J. Hairston. I find it ironic that P.J. was yet another former Tarheels player that owner Michael Jordan paraded through Charlotte. I swear the Hornets have had so many Tarheel players that never did anything. Probably the best former UNC player that came through was Raymond Felton in the early Bobcats years...so Jordan can't take credit for him.

In addition to the Hornets cards, I also got a new cards for my NC State Wolfpack Alumni collection. Nate McMillan was born in Raleigh, NC and was drafted by the Seattle Supersonics in the 2nd round of the 1986 draft. He went on to play 19 seasons for the Sonics before he went into coaching. While I believe I originally had all 3 of these cards, I don't have them in my current NC State Alumni collection so these will be nice additions.

My favorite card in the whole package though has to be this Courtside Draft Pix card of former NC State point card, Chris Corchiani. While Chris' NBA career may not have gone as he would have liked, he was magic in the backcourt during his college years. Watching Corchiani interact and play with Rodney Monroe was a thing of beauty. For some reason it kind of reminded me of watching John Stockton and Karl Malone play together. I don't have many cards of Corchiani period, and this card is a beauty. You probably can't tell, but the front of this card features ink that has a slight metallic sheen, something cards from 1991 just didn't feature that often.

Thank you Kerry for all the great cards. While I love getting new baseball cards, I also love getting new basketball cards from time to time and this package was a very nice surprise. I owe you one!!

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!

Does Winning Effect Your Collecting?

This has been a question I've often thought about. Does a particular player's performance on the field/court/ice or a team's performance effect your collecting?

Let's take two of my teams as an example. The Atlanta Braves were supposed to be continuing their rebuild in 2018, yet as of 06/05/18 they find themselves in first place atop the NL East. Granted their lead over the Washington Nationals is a small lead and there is a lot of baseball left to be played, it's been so much more fun watching my team play.

On the collecting front, the Braves success alone as generated more Topps Now cards than any other season since that program began. I find myself finding ways to purchase most of these cards, plus searching out other Braves cards from this year and years past. Last week I was in Atlanta to celebrate my wife's birthday and we saw Mike Foltynewicz pitch himself into the Braves record book. This lead me to checking out some of his RCs online in between innings! The same can be said of utility player, Charlie Culberson after he hit two walk off HRs in the same week. He only has a few cards in a Braves uniform at this time and his on the field performance has put those cards on my radar a little bit more. Needless to say, I've always found entertainment in collecting Braves cards, I just feel that 2018 has been one of the better years.

I'm not the biggest basketball fan out there. I do try and follow ACC college hoops and of course I get excited every March for the NCAA tournament, but I don't actively watch a lot of NBA games. I grew up a Hornets fan and back in the early 90's the team was still new in Charlotte where I lived that there was still excitement over the team. Despite their win/loss record, the team was fun to watch. I saw many games live at the old Charlotte Coliseum and watched them on TV. Then the owner took the team and left town. True the city would get another NBA franchise a few years later (Bobcats), but it just wasn't the same. Even when the Bobcats were re-branded the Hornets, the play on the court left a lot to be desired.

I probably watched more Hornets games this past season than I have in awhile, but man was it hard at times watching my team get clobbered or only to lose the game in the final minutes or seconds. Kemba Walker and Dwight Howard made it fun to watch, but even their performance could only hold my attention for so long. I guess because of the team's play I found myself rarely searching out new Hornets cards. I didn't buy many singles and I can't remember the last time I bought a pack of basketball cards that wasn't marked down. Part of me wants to have more current Hornets cards, it's just hard to get excited to look for them. Perhaps if there were more card shows in the area where I could dive through dime boxes or if the team could actually string together a winning record it would be different. Or would it?

Most of the readers also know that I'm a Carolina Panthers fan as well, but my collecting of the team really hasn't changed since they came into the league.

Overall it just seems to be a little more interesting to collect when your team is winning, or your player is doing well. Note I said interesting and not fun as I can always can find fun in card collecting and fun things with the cards in my own collection. One of the reasons I started this blog was to have another way to "interact" with the cards I have.

Does any of my rambling make any sense? Do you find yourself actively searching out cards of your team/player after a good game or season? I'd love to hear if there are others that think/collect in a similar fashion or if I'm on an island by myself.

Nachos Grande 2018 Topps Heritage Group Break Results

Chris from Nachos Grande has thrown his hat recently into the ring of hosting group breaks. I grabbed the Braves in his recent 2018 Heritage break. I don't usually buy much if any of Heritage, so I figured this would be a good way to get the Braves cards I wanted without having a lot of cards I didn't want.

I feel as if I did pretty good, getting multiples of every non-SP Brave in the set. I did manage to get one SP, Nick Markakis.

The Detroit Tigers ended up being my second team that was randomized to me. I only got 3 cards, but it appears all 3 are SPs. I'm keeping the McCann for my Faith Brothers collection, but the other two will be available for trade.

While Chris was waiting to break the actual boxes of Heritage, he opened a few bonus packs. Nothing too exciting, but I love the junk wax era and even though I may already have these older Braves cards in my collection I'll still gladly take them.

Thanks Chris for hosting the break and getting the cards out to me so quickly!

August 1st, 2017 - Two Atlanta Braves Major League Debuts

I'm not the type of fan to shrug off my team once it's clear the post season isn't in the future, however I was going to take this rare quite evening (the kids at at grandma's) to get caught up on reading my huge backlog of comics. Then I heard that not just one, but two Atlanta Braves players were getting their Major League debuts!

Ozzie Albies started at 2nd base and former #1 draft pick Lucas Sims took the mound this evening against the red hot Los Angeles Dodgers.

On the cardboard side of things I believe I have a Bowman autograph of Lucas Sims from a few years ago, but unfortunately I couldn't put my hands on it to scan for this post. For Ozzie, I don't believe I have any of his cardboard...yet.

While this season may be over (in terms of reaching the post season), the future does look bright with all the young talent the Braves have.