TCBD Trade Completed w/ Too Many Verlanders

While I may not be as active on the blog and the trades via the blog have all but shriveled up, that doesn't mean that I'm not still making trades online. All of my trading now consists with the aid of the awesome resource site of Trading Card Database. Not only can I track my collection there, but also easily facilitate trades. One recently completed trade was with Dennis from Too Many Verlanders.

I've been pretty busy lately and fell behind on my TCDB activity, including pouring over the details of the trade Dennis proposed to me, but I'm pretty sure he tossed in these various Braves cards just because he's a swell guy. I love the 3 MLB Showdown cards, oddball stuff like this is what makes collecting fun. The Ryan Klesko jersey was a nice surprise, as was the Bowman Chrome Xfractor auto...even if I have no idea who the player is!

6 more cards for the Vladimir Guerrero PC. All but 2 of these are super shiny and one of the others is a super cool Topps HD card!

The next PC Dennis filled update is that of Brian Jordan. Being a two sport star, I mainly focus on his baseball playing days so it was nice to receive 9 new cards. This season Brian has taken on more opportunities with Bally Sports' coverage of Atlanta Braves cards, stepping in the booth from time to time to call the game w/ Chip Carey. I've heard some people think he talks about himself too much on the telecasts, but I enjoy what he brings to the table.

Kevin Seitzer is a relatively new PC of mine and I've been overwhelmed by the response after I got my want list updated on TCDB. Seitzer is the current hitting coach of the Atlanta Braves and is a part of the offensive numbers the Braves have been putting up.

For Atlanta Braves' fans Sid Bream's historic slide into home plate during the 1991 NLCS will forever be etched into our hearts and minds, but my PC of Sid isn't because of that play or that he played for the Braves, but that is a fellow believer of the Christian faith. Sid routinely inscribed various Bible verses with his autographs, which I do own a few. Sid has been one of those guys I already had a good many cards of, but recently decided to pump up the PC by adding every card of his that I didn't already own to my TCDB want lists. Yet another player I've received a lot of in recent months via TCDB trades.

When I was first getting into collecting I heard a lot about Darryl Strawberry. As time would pass his name would stay in the news, but usually for the wrong reasons. Darryl will be the first to admit he's made some bad decisions, but it seems that life is behind him now. I may be a little late in starting a collection, but it's been a fun ride thus far since I added more of his cards to my TCDB want lists.

Ray Durham played ball at a local rival high school of mine in my hometown of Charlotte, NC. Like some of the players I collect, I just casually collected him, putting aside cards of his as I'd pull them from packs or find them at shows. I'm grateful for these 5 new cards, especially the Finest. First things first however, that protective peeling on the Finest card has got to go!!

I've got a pretty good size PC of the ageless wonder, Julio Franco, yet Dennis was able to find 4 cards off my want lists for me. Again, that Finest covering will be peeled!

While I'm moving away from building modern sets, there are enough other sets I'm working on and all of these cards above will help fill holes. The Sportflics Double Take is a much welcome addition...I'm such a sucker for lenticular cards.

Speaking of Finest cards, I decided to try and build the 1997 set (for whatever reason) even though I knew it wouldn't be the easiest task. While I've been able to cobble together some cards, I welcome the opportunity to obtain more!

While baseball is my main jam, I am excited to see my Carolina Panthers take the field this Sunday against the Browns. That said I was happy to add 4 new Panthers to the collection, along with a new Mike Glennon to my NC State alumni collection.

I can't say thank you to Dennis enough for proposing a trade to me. It was one of the largest trades I've pulled off in awhile, but I'm glad we each had things the other could use. If you've not taken the time to familiarize yourself w/ the Trading Card Database platform, you really ought to as it's a great site that helps bring collectors together.

Christmas Cards (and not, I don't mean 2019 Topps Holiday)

Maybe a week ago I was tagged in a Tweet by @forgotaboutblay that some Christmas cards were on their way. A few days later a little bubble mailer showed up and inside was a thick brick of cards consisting of my 3 teams - Braves, Panthers & Hornets.

When the stack includes Chipper Jones cards you know you're in for a treat. I think I have this 1994 Bowman's Best, but it's such a great card I don't mind having a duplicate. I don't believe I've seen these 2005 Leaf Gamers cards before. It's printed in reflective silver foil and looks much better in hand. The same cam be said about the 1999 Fleer Ultra Diamond Mine. It's a very shiny card and from an insert set I'm not that familiar with.

Let's not forget about this 1997 Donruss Silver Press Proof parallel of former Braves slugger Ryan Klesko! Probably one of the more bittersweet cards in the stack was this 2011 Topps Chrome Refractor of Brian McCann. He announced his retirement this season after the Braves were eliminated in the NLCS by the Cardinals. This is a great photo of Brian and the Chrome Refractors are just so beautiful.

These two 2012 Panini Prime Signatures cards are think. The design is very minimal, but it works. Both are serially numbered with Jon Beason being 135/499 and Steve Smith being 120/499.

Another thick card in the stack was this 2014 Score Kelvin Benjamin Team Helmets. The helmet is made of rubber (?) and it's also a RC. Kelvin started off his career in Carolina pretty hot, but soon injuries started to plague his on the field performance. There were also issues with his attitude and diet and it wasn't long before Benjamin was on his way out the door to Buffalo and all of the Charlotte media was mocking him for his lack of a diet. It was actually entertaining radio at the time.

I haven't bought any of Panini's Unparalleled product before, but I do like this Perfect Pairs insert from the 2017 set. It shines great in hand and features two of the best defensive players ever to suit up for Carolina - Thomas Davis and Luke Kuechly.

I grew up watching many Hornets games in person at the old Charlotte Coliseum back in the day. I don't have a lot of Hornets cards from the mid to late 90's so these cards from 96-97 Fleer Ultra are great. I especially love the Anthony Mason card. He was so much fun to watch bang around in the paint. Vlade Divac came over from the Lakers in the now infamous Kobe Bryant draft/trade. Kobe was never going to play for Charlotte so I hate it when that topic comes up whether in the national or local media. The Tony Delk card is from an insert set called Rookie Encore. I remember him being an instant fit for the team and helped provide more scoring fairly quickly.

There were also a few 99-00 Fleer Ultra cards as well. Here we have Ricky Davis, Eddie Jones and Elden Campbell. I honestly don't remember much about Ricky or Elden, but Eddie was the one of the few star players the Hornets seemed to have during this period...well maybe outside of Baron Davis.

There were also many other cards in the brick that Dennis sent that I didn't share. I really appreciate being thought of and I appreciate the cards as well. All of them will find a nice home in my various collections. Thanks again Dennis, Merry Christmas!

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.

Surprise Christmas Package...That I'm Just Now Getting to Posting About

Right around Christmas I came home from work and was greeted at the door by my lovely wife...although she didn't have that lovely look on her face. Nope, I walked in the door to her stink eye. She was standing there, holding a rather large USPS Priority box.

You see, I have a lot of hobbies and tend to spend too much money at times. Whenever a package shows up she wants the 411 on it and this was one time that I couldn't tell her what was inside...because even I didn't know! I thought the return address looked familiar, but I wasn't sure so I proceeded to open up the package.

To my surprise I found new, sealed Kenner Starting Lineups of Braves players David Justice and Kevin Millwood. There was an empty Pinnacle Inside can featuring Chipper Jones, a Topps Screen Plan tin again featuring Chipper (and the card inside too!), a large tin of Donruss Preferred featuring Carolina Panthers QB Kerry Collins (and some guy named Aikman) and a 100 count box of cards. Inside the box was a slew of Braves and Panthers players, including some nice older cards of Phil Neikro. Inside the Preferred tin were a few more cards. An autographed card of Bruce Chen (of who I share the same exact birthdate), a Stefan Lefors football/jersey card and a very cool Keary Colbert card featuring cut pieces of his helmet mask. Yeah, those players never really lived up to their expectations and did much in the pros, but the cards none the less are very cool.

So, who sent me all of this loot? It was none other than Dennis from Too Many Verlanders. I'm really embarrased that here it is the 10th of February and I'm just now typing up my thank you post. Dennis' gift absolutely came out of left field and I really, really appreciate it. I know I haven't been as active with my blog, reading and commenting on other blogs or trading as I would like. I'm sure there are plenty of other Braves fans that blog so I'm humbled to receive this loot. Looks like it's time for me to Pay It Forward. Thanks again Dennis!

Surprise Bubble Mailer

The stomach bug has been running rampant throughout my household the last 2 weeks so to say life has been crazy is a huge understatement. We've isolated the sick down stairs, so I've been essentially hiding upstairs. I've tried to make the most of my time being "stuck" upstairs by giving my hobby room a complete overhaul. I'm trying to give myself a better system for my cards and get myself organized so I can once again return to the world of (semi-active) blogging and trading.

Being out of the loop for the better part of 2014, I've been surprised to see that my humble blog remains on many of my fellow bloggers' blog rolls. I haven't had much to insert into the conversation since I my card purchases and trades have been virtually non-existant. So you can imagine my surprise when I received a rather large bubble mailer in my mail box the other day.

Dennis from Too Many Verlanders sent over a nice little selection of Carolina Panthers and Atlanta Braves. I of course wasn't expecting anything and I don't believe I've even communicated with Dennis lately, yet through his generosity he sends me his cast away cards.

One of my main goals is to get my collection lists updated along with my trade lists. My want lists will probably shrink as I'm going to narrow my focus to the annual A&G set. I'll try to finish out a few other sets, but no more trying to collect everything. Once I get this done there are several people, Dennis included, I feel the need to repay.

Here is just a sampling of some of the fun cards Dennis sent my way...

Even though the Panthers relic cards are of players that are pretty much busts (minus Julius Peppers), I still love getting relic cards. I appreciate the kind gesture. Now to get back to work on getting myself more organized!

I interrupt this group break for some football!

I was so excited about the coming 2012 NFL season that I jumped head first into Topps' flapship football release earlier this month.  Dennis from Too Many Verlanders / Too Many Manninghams was equally excited and we decided to help each other out.  We were both building the base set and each of us were tackling different insert sets.  He bought a metric crap load of retail and I bought a hobby box and some retail.  In the end we were able to help each other out quite a bit.  After this trade I now only lack 22 base cards!

What's funny about this trade is that on Wednesday I got a big flat package from him.  I was scratching my head while standing at the mail box because I knew it didn't contain the cards we agreed upon trading for.  I took it inside the house and opened it up in the kitchen while my wife was making dinner (crock pot lasagna!).  Much to my surprise I pulled these out from in between 2 pieces of cardboard:

Wow!  I forgot all about these big 8x10 Donruss Studio cards!  I never bought any of the Studio football cards so I haven't really seen these before.  I like the extra Portrait Proof parallel.  Too bad my scanner cut off the holographic foil boarder around the big card.

Most of the cards I got in return were base cards I needed to fill in some holes, but earlier he had pulled this BCA Pink parallel.  BCA stands for Breast Cancer Awareness if you didn't know...that's why the cards are pink.  Now I know a lot of fans and collectors are already complaining about these in the football set and now they are complaining about them showing up in 2013 Topps baseball.  I may be in the minority here, but I really like these.  I like the flat sparkly pink border and the pink foil.  It helps they are #d to 399 as well.  Charles Johnson here is 284/399.

In addition to the Kerry Collins extras Dennis also sent some extra Carolina Panthers and some Atlanta Braves.  I mistakenly mixed them into my "to catalog" box before I had a chance to scan them.  I am continually blown away by certain bloggers generosity when it comes to trading.  A huge thanks to Dennis for such a fun trade!

Mail day surprise

Last weekend while I was away attending the big annual comic book convention in my home town of Charlotte I came home to a nice surprise waiting for me in the mailbox.  I haven't been able to devote much time in the last month to trades or anything of that sort so I was a little perplexed over this fat bubble mailer.

I'm pretty good w/ names and addresses so I looked in the upper left corner and saw a name that I haven't seen in awhile.  It was Dennis from Too Many Verlanders.  Did he know it was my birthday last week I thought?  Doubt it.  Upon opening the mailer there was a sticky note inside that basically said "Here, found you some cool cards at a recent show.  Enjoy!"

Man.  I've been doing this blog now for a little over 2 years and I'm still floored by the generosity of others.  There were 2 team bags and a few top loaders inside.  The first team bag had an assortment of young Braves players - most of which I didn't have.  The 2nd team bag had an assortment of older Carolina Panthers football cards - always a nice treat.  I didn't scan the card, but there was a cool Fleer Tradition "team" card and you could see QB Steve Beuerlein in the middle of the huddle.  Awesome.  Two cards that caught my eye in the stack were RCs of RB Jonathan Stewart.

   

The top loaders however held the real jewels.  Keeping w/ the Panthers I pulled out another Stewart...

I love these UD Masterpieces Captured on Canvas jersey cards.  The only card from this set I had was Matt Ryan (which I'd love someone to take off my hands) so I was thrilled w/ this card.

Next up were 3 more top loaders...this time baseball.  Who could it be?  What was in top loaders?

2003 UD Sweet Spot Patches Gary Sheffield

2003 UD SPx Winning Materials Andruw Jones #077/375

2003 Leaf Certified Mirror Blue patch Javy Lopez #008/100

Who wouldn't be impressed w/ these cards?  Especially that sweet Javy Lopez.  I may have to keep Morgan from Silver Slugger at bay over this Javy card!

A huge thanks goes out to Dennis for thinking of this Braves and Panthers collector.  If you're reading this Dennis I owe you one.