Plaschke, Thy Trade Post is Really Late

It took a while for me to coordinate a trade with Plaschke, Thy Sweater Is Argyle.  Which, of course, is all my fault.  If I remember the story correctly (and I do roughly 78.3% of the time), he contacted me about getting something going while I was in the middle of some group break.  I asked for some time to let things die down, and he kindly obliged.  I’m pretty sure he had to send me a reminder email to get things going, but once we did the trade proceedings moved quickly.

Now, he’s been very patient with me without me asking for it.  I show that this trade was scanned in on May 1st. I’m sure it arrived in April sometime.  I really need to catch up or else I may have to impose a temporary trading ban on myself.  I think I have 2 or 3 trades either in transit or pending in emails still.  Plus another couple that arrived last week.  I’m good on the front end of the process, usually, but the back end…not so much.

After this I only have 15 more to go to be current.  September is now clean-up month here at The Gum.  We don’t have any new products shipping until October anyway (more on that later, I’m sure).

Let’s get crackin’!

If this is your bat, you have the ultimate COA

I love Collector’s Choice.  This is how a budget set should be done.  They got way out of hand with the parallels, but the subsets and inserts were fantastic and it had a nice deep checklist mixed with cheap packs.  We need a set like this again.  This card is the team checklist, but you’d never know it from the full-bleed photo on the front.  I had no idea John Kruk played for the White Sox.

Yes, two checklists for Frank

Despite the hot pink background, I stand by my previous positive comments.  Check out that accomplishment, by the way.  How many times has that happened?  According to the back, only once. Rickey Henderson (really?).  The back gives more fun facts about the Big Hurt.  That leaves precious little room for the actual checklist.  I will also point out that there are no check boxes on the check list.

Exploding foil!

Out of all the brands, I’m least familiar with this one, so I’m not sure if all Pacific cards feature English and Spanish.  I couldn’t find anything on my checklist to indicate a special “Estrellas-like” release.  What I can tell you is that my mind works in such a way that I read the name on the front as “Greg LN Cy Young Maddux NL Cy Young.”  You can call him Greg for short.

Thought it was a StarQuest. I was wrong.

This shiny light blue puppy comes from a set called Future Stars.  Hmmm.  Yes.  This Maddux NL Cy Young kid just may be something some day.  I’d never heard of this set, but apparently, as is almost always the case, I have five or six differently colored parallels of this card to hunt down.  The Future is Now!

You'd think this card was from the same set, but that's where you'd be wrong. Dead wrong. Okay, just regular wrong.

I don’t know how many jersey cards I have of the Professor, but each new one brings me just as much joy as the one before it, regardless or rarity or refracting/reflecting ability or color scheme of the cloth itself.  I happen to think this staple of the trade looks pretty dang nifty, don’t you?  A nice cyber blue background behind Maddux pitching in the middle of a golden record sandwich.  I know the window looks a little jacked, but that’s just the scan.  It can’t handle all the reflections.

Thank you very much Greg for the great trade!  I’m pretty sure he’s made the rounds to just about all of you out there already, but in case he hasn’t, please offer the kid some cards.  Or respond to his offer more timely than I.  He deserves as much.