A Warming Trade for an Annoying Cold

These past couple of days, I’ve been sick with a fun little cold, or flu (never really sure which).  My wife had a friend visit us and I had to tuck away and isolate myself to avoid infecting either of them. That also meant I couldn’t join on the fun stuff they had planned.  I was home resting.  I also couldn’t do much of anything else, and certainly couldn’t play with cards in hand.  I don’t want to spread my germs into that paper stock.  So, when you can’t handle cards, you write about cards (for as long as you can stand looking at a bright computer screen, that is).

One thing that gets me through is thinking about all the great people I’ve met through this blog over the years.  It’s always nice to trade with a friendly face.  Or name.  Just like with just about every blogger out there, I have not met Kerry (aka Madding from Cards on Cards) in person, but perhaps that will happen some day.

For the time being, we’ll continue our cardboard friendship through consistent trades.  It’s easy to find some good Cardinals and Heritage stuff to trade.  I guess the pack gods think I live farther down state than I do.  But even though it’s easy to pad his envelopes doesn’t mean that he won’t still respond to some of my trade bait posts to reserve some of the goods.

I know that it can be tough for people to find things for me.  I collect popular players and a popular team and I’m not actively involved in the hobby enough to be in the forefront of most people’s minds, but I’m happy to take whatever I can get.

I really appreciate thought and effort that goes into Kerry’s packages.  He knows what I like and isn’t afraid to get dirty in my daunting want list spreadsheets.  So, let’s see what came through this time around.

Small sampling of the goods

Kerry has been the only one, so far, that regularly sends me basketball cards.  I haven’t been buying anything basketball related in a while because I don’t have a good focus for that sport, so it’s great to get these packages to see what kind of sets I’ve been missing and to have blasts of nostalgia thrown in.  Horace Grant without his goggles!  Silver Signature Pippen!  Jordans! Unknown parallels for unknown modern sets!

I’ve never seen that orange thing before, but it’s not bad

Check out this cool stuff.  Plenty of color and shine and star players I’m interested in.  And you can’t go wrong with stickers.  Hey, remember when Jimmy Butler was on the Bulls… Those were good times.

Uh, there have been more than 40 years of baseball…

There are a surprising number of junk wax era cards I’m missing for my player collections.  This 1991 rack pack exclusive (I think that’s what it’s from) is no longer one of them.

There’s also a non-signature version I hear

There’s a less surprising amount of modern cards that I still need.  Frank Thomas is still a popular subject in new card sets, post-retirement like this one from the most recent Archives set.

Possibly the only Orioles cards I’ll be chasing

The vast majority of this trade package was a nice starter for my new Cubs collections.  In fact, my Pedro Strop collection was doubled with this batch of two.

Pretty good picture for a relief pitcher

I look forward to going after the far too prevalent parallels.

What do you think they’re talking about

Jason had two cards in 2011 for some reason.  This one is #338 in case you were wondering.

Strop wins the 2012 picture contest

Only one card this year.  And he doesn’t look too thrilled about it.

Strop wins the 2013 battle as well.

Switching teams over to the Orioles to immediately prove my earlier comment wrong.  Now I have at least two.  Okay, just remembered Arrieta as well.

I like the 2014 design less and less

Here he is with his eventual World Championship team.  Part of the reason I’m in this mess.

You open 2011 Update for Trout, I…would do the same

Lastly, is a David Ross card, which may be a difficult challenge (a lot of parallels, minor leagues and random stuff).  After 2011, David didn’t have any cards until 2014.  Crazy.

This is just a small sampling of the trade.  After my trade with reader Bill, this was the second big new World Series collection package I got.  There are still several more scans from this trade alone and Kerry has continued to be a friend and supporter by sending me a couple more packages afterwards, so he will remain a friendly face on this blog for quite some time.

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