Wow, it feels like it has been forever since I’ve put up a trade post. I feel like I’m behind on everything now. That’s only because I actually am. I’ve mentioned it before, but I have a couple newer trades that are now in line for appreciation and I’m hoping I can get to doing another round of trade bait posts within a month. My goal is to start to catch up on all kinds of things throughout September.
That might mean that I’ll eventually finish up this trade with Tom over at The Angels, In Order. He sent me a ton of John Lackey and Tony Gwynns. If you want to review the first part, you can do so here. Second part here. Third, here. Fourth here. I’ll have one more, larger, post to go after this one. Today, we’re going back to the Lackey well and focusing on the year 2008.
His legs are an optical illusion
I think Upper Deck was trying to recreate the magic of 1995, but it falls way short.
No illusion here
The highlight of that season for John was a Shutout against the Mariners. 9 innings, no runs. It’s such a rare occurrence in 2008 (and still now) that it becomes a season highlight, I guess.
It looks like he has 1, 2, and 3 legs all at once
Here’s the First Edition version of the same earlier card. The missing foil doesn’t help.
I don’t care what Jeter says
I just realized the drawing in the back doesn’t make much sense. The guy is sliding into first and not head first (which is dumb, but the only way I’ve seen it done), and not to avoid a tag. And the catcher is looking to receive the ball as well for some reason.
This set is rough
Here’s why the season highlights exists. Lackey was the ERA leader, so they wanted to wedge in another card of the then star player.
Not exactly Target Red
Let’s transition over to the Topps cards. This may be one of the last years with a drastically different look to the Opening Day. The red was a strange choice. I’ll go with not good, even.
Here’s another rough set
I’ve been able to get a few of his Co-Signers cards but not the base card. That’s where Tom comes in. I hope he didn’t open a box of the stuff, because it’s much better to pick up the scraps from other people.
Green lawn chair set
I really don’t understand the “New Age” moniker. John was not new to the league at all. I feel this should be reserved for the youngest stars of the time.
It turns the background to nighttime with stars in the background
To end this round, Tom sent me this Chrome card from Heritage. It’s always nice to get any new cards in a trade, but it’s still a surprise when a numbered card appears. It feels like a mistake. I’m sure it wasn’t, but it’s still cool and a nice gesture.
That’s the kind of guy Tom is, he sends nice, varied, robust trades and I look forward to showing the last pieces of it next time to thank him for a sixth time.
I’m back for another year of pack fighting. Last year, I did not fare very well. It can be tough to compete against anyone that might open a full case, or just luck into some case hit cards. I did get a nice numbered autograph, but that was not enough to get me to place. This year the playing field has been reduced, so if I get a decent enough box, then I have a chance.
Here’s a look at the rules on the official contest blog in case you have no idea what this is about or want to see who else is taking part.
So, we have to pick the favorite player and favorite team again and I went with Bryant this time after looking at the checklist, and the Cubs just as last time.
Ready? Fight!
Box Topper
The N43 box topper isn’t all that exciting to me. I’m not wild about the slightly oversized cards to begin with. Having a Yankee is not a great start point-wise either. The cabinet cards from last year looked great. This is a bit bland. Scoring wasn’t announced for the N43s at the start, so all I know is I’m starting with a negative. (NOTE: I’ve now updated it with the official decision)
Pack Total: +6 -1 (Yankee) = +5
Pack 1
Giancarlo Stanton (-1 For moving to the dark side)
Josh Hader (+3 Short Print Mini) Venice Beach (+2 Beach insert)
I don’t mind the rolled up wallpaper look of this year’s set, but the biggest thing working against it is that it’s not very memorable. I scanned the SPs backwards because the scoring system wasn’t up yet while I was prepping my scans, and I wasn’t sure if they would be worth points.
Pack Total: +4 Running Total: +9
Pack 2
Sanchez (-1 for being last year’s news or two years ago)
Bullpen Car (+1 for being a thing) Maddux mini (+2 A&G back) Rivera Fantasy Goldmine (+2 insert -1 Yankee =+1)
Too many Yankees already. However, that disappointment is offset by getting a nice mini parallel of Maddux for my collection. Should be worth a million points!
Pack Total: +3 Running Total: +12
Pack 3
Jeter (-1 for not being listed as a Marlin)
Rizzo (+1 Favorite Team) Pitch Counter (+2 insert) USSR (+3 Flag mini)
Unlike the full sized inserts, the mini inserts are pretty rare and most fall to 1:50 packs. There are reports that some cases and boxes over deliver while some under deliver. This is a good sign that mine will over deliver.
Pack Total: +5 Running Total: +17
Pack 4
Bryant World Talent (+2 insert +4 My Favorite Player =+6)
Oh hi, Kris!
Wow, only one scoring card in the pack and it’s my best pack score so far. This is a good reason why I picked Bryant this year. I’m a little surprised Tommy wasn’t worth some points, but it’s fun to have guys like him and Biz Markie in the set.
Pack Total: +6 Running Total: +23
Pack 5
Denis the Rash Mystery Mini (+4)
Moon (+2 insert)
We have another un-scored card with the MS numbered mini. They were unannounced and don’t have odds. This could make or break me, so we’ll see what the commissioner has to say later. [NOTE: I’ve updated this with the official score as well]
Pack Total: +6 Running Total: +29
Pack 6
Chris Sale Full Size Relic (+5)
Sandberg (+2 insert +1 Favorite Team =+3)
The first of three promised hits in the box is of Chris Sale, a man who’s cards are not as popular as his stats say he should be. I don’t follow the AL, but I know how amazing Sale has been. The Sandberg insert puts me over the edge with the new highest pack total so far.
Pack Total: +8 Running Total: +37
Pack 7
Ohtani mini (+2 A&G Back +3 Favorite Player list mini =+5) Roatan (+2 Beach insert)
I was a little surprised to see that Ohtani was on the favorite player list, but I guess it makes sense considering I picked Bryant based on Checklist. The guy is good, so an A&G is not a bad thing to land. Oh, also an Acuna RC in the same pack.
Pack Total: +7 Running Total: +44
Pack 8
Ohtani mini (+2 insert -1 for taking away a spot in the insert set from a different country =+1)
Alright, so we end the first third of the box with a bit of a sour note. The World Talent cards are fine, but we saw the exact same thing in a vertical format back in 2009 (My first year of buying A&G). There has to be another concept they could try. At least shift the globe to show the country mentioned.
With this post, I am now tied for last year’s series length. I abandoned the 2017 version of this venture back in December. Yup, I didn’t get very far. Life was different back then.
I’ve been able to keep up with a couple of my regular series, for the most part, which is a nice change of pace and mentally encouraging.
So, after 100 games, the Cubs had a winning record of 58-42. I didn’t number the wins last year and don’t feel like looking it up. Last year is over. This year is where it’s at and we’re in the middle of a tight race to the finish, so let’s go!
The Locket year
Win #53 – Rizzo was 3-5, with two doubles and 1 RBI to tie the game on a full count, 2 out 9th inning pitch. He had a huge 0-fer before this game but came through when the team needed it. I could give this game to Baez as he’s always in the mix and creating plays, like a game-winning run by going first to home on a steal of second.
Don’t cut yourself
Win #54 – Speaking of Baez, in the next win, he hit 2-5, and knocked in 5 RBI (2-run double, 3-run homer) giving him 71 RBI on the season at this point. Quite impressive.
His bat doesn’t feel so good
Win #55 – Rizzo again. 2-3 on the day with an intentional walk. Once again, only 1 RBI, which made the score 6-0. There was even production from the whole team, but Rizzo had a slightly better day on the last game of the first half.
Refractor found at the NSCC
Win #56 – Heyward – 3-5, 2 RBI (one to get us on the board, one to tie the game in the middle of a big 5th inning). He also stole his first base of the season, which is a bit of a surprise.
#/500
Win #57 – Tyler Chatwood – His name hasn’t appeared on this page in a while. 5.1 innings pitched, only one hit (on solo home run to Matt Carpenter) gets him the honor. Only 2 Ks and he did give up 6 walks, but it was still an encouraging start to his second half.
I ran out of Contreras cards
Win #58 – Willson Contreras – The All-Star went 2-4 with 2 RBI – one to tie, and one to make it 5-2 in the 8th to start to put the game away.
I have a few newer trades that came through over the past couple weeks, which is great. Pretty soon, I’m hoping to get another round of trade bait out there to see what other stuff I can catch. I have a small trip coming up, but after that I’ll hopefully put things together for both trade and sale.
In the meantime, I’m not hurting for my every third day trade posts, and while I’ve started showing off the newer stuff some, I don’t want to fully put the larger, started trade packages on hold. So, re-enter Bill for the penultimate batch of cards.
As mentioned before, Bill doesn’t have a blog of his own, but he’s known as minibbcards on the Trading Card Database and his want lists are fantastic (and found here). With the new release of Ginter, now is the perfect time to give him a look!
From here on out we’ll be looking at some random stuff. I can’t think of good product themes, so it’s all about the randoms that are leftover for these last two parts.
Tradition of solid color backgrounds
I’m starting with what I believe was the oldest card in the bunch. I think that’s going to happen a lot with John Lackey cards.
eiser
I don’t know my player histories very well. I’m learning that 2010 was when Lackey went from the Angels to the Red Sox, because this is the “after” card from the update set.
Looks over-exposed
Now, Hammel has two cards in the 2011 set, but there was no team switch. Just some weird choice from Topps. It will make parallel hunting doubly fun.
Dust is flying
No double cards this year for Miguel, and that’s fine because they got the picture right the first time.
Kinda looks like catcher’s gear on the border
This one is not as dynamic. Bowman all runs together to me. I always have to look it up. I already looked this up and already forgot it.
Robot dance
There are a lot of kids in this 18U set that do not pan out. Almora is not one of them so far. In my mind, he would have been the Cubs 4th All-Star this year, if they were lucky enough to have that.
Stray hair again
I know this is a completely different year than the Montero, but it also isn’t that different. I know design doesn’t matter as it’s all about the prospect autos.
Wrigley’s not that empty usually
The amount of Carl Edwards Jr. cards being produced has drastically reduced in the past few years. I’m pretty happy about that as I have a ton of catching up to do from his prospect days. I know some people don’t like the 2016 design, but in some cases, like this, it makes for a really cool rookie card.
Figure I’d start with Lackey and end with Lackey
Counterpoint to the above.
Anyway, thanks again to Bill for the great cards. I’ll be thanking him one more time as there is just one more part to go (at least until the next time we work out a trade).
This is part seven of a twenty-five part series chronicling my budding collections of the 2016 World Series champion Cubs. Obviously, I’ve already starting showing off some of those cards, but I wanted to offer a formal introduction to the various players. With my legacy player collections, I’m still going to attempt to show every single card on the blog, but with these new guys I’m taking a different approach as you’ll see here where I lump cards in one scan, and will probably skip many of the more basic cards I get unless I can get a good theme together.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I think the best tactic is to start posting cards for some of the smaller collections now before I run out of cards. Well, this is the definitive time to do that with Willson Contreras. What you see below is all I have left. He’s one of the few players where I started off with nothing of his.
Got this a the National
That makes sense, because I’m not a Bowman buyer and Willson didn’t debut with the Cubs until June 2016 where he homered in his first AB. In the early days, he also played a very short time at first and in the outfield, but he was primarily the second or third tier catcher behind Miguel Montero and David Ross.
That year, he appeared in 76 games, batting .282 with 12 homers and cemented himself as the team’s best offensive catcher, slowly pushing out Montero from the primary catching role. The postseason saw him get 10 hits across the three series, including 2 doubles in the World Series and a home run in the NLCS.
And found his icey brother
Now, Contreras is our main catcher, and at times seems like our only catcher. He’s caught more innings than anyone else so far this year, and has continued to be a solid offensive presence at catcher. He’s dynamic defensively as well, although he does commit quite a lot of errors. Either way, he was one of the Cubs All-Stars in 2018, has a World Series ring from his first Major League Season and is a bit of a rising star.
All that means is that there should be plenty more cards of his for me to get in the future, but for now, I’m fresh out!
This week Topps announced they’re doing an online only 3D version of the 2018 Topps set using lenticular technology. The packout and price are bit too much for my liking (8 cards for $20 for a 100 card set with inserts), but it’s neat nonetheless. That got me wanting to look at a few of the lenticular cards I currently have, as this kind of thing doesn’t pop up much.
You don’t get much more ’90s than this
In essence the new 3D set isn’t really much of a third dimension. It’s like these UC3 cards from a couple decades ago.
Missing the flying toasters
The main image is basically static (the same image you saw in S1 and S2), while the background moves very slightly left and right
I guess this is the AL background
It’s not incredibly exciting these days. I tiny wiggle isn’t enough to warrant a parallel set like this.
I wish the name moved at least
Even when there are actual backgrounds instead of ’90s CG randomness, it’s not as fun as you would like.
Seeing double
It’s fun, but not as fun as I want it to be. These new Topps cards are very likely the same way. I don’t think they are applying a range of motion to the players.
A home run flight card would be cool
So, we’ll see a little wiggle in the crowd. I don’t know how the inserts will look, maybe that will be better. Considering how they handle the Opening Day lenticulars, I would guess no.
I don’t know how you get on the cyclone squad
Speaking of inserts, here’s one from that same UC3 set. Again, the background moves, but not Tony.
I’m not sure what they do when they meet, either
They also don’t scan very well, but at least you know immediately. I love the thicker card stock that has to be a part of the process, too.
This should be the whole product
This one is closer to what I would look for from a lenticular card. This actually has some movement and motion to it. You can sort of see the layers through the blue.
Says 2000, but it’s really from 1994
Now we’re talking. You can see Maddux is going to show off his pitching motion. Even the nameplate moves. That’s the kind of 3D cards we need again.
Watching you
These last two are from a really old Cards on Cards trade. The original (as far as I’m aware) Sportflics brand. This is my idea of 3D. I don’t think you need profile pics and action shots on the same card, because that gets a bit busy, but still cool.
Tony Gwynn’s in there, I promise.
We’re also not going to get multi-player cards like this one either. Maybe if this set takes off, they can play around with it more, or create a nice insert in 2019 Big League or something. However, I will wait and pick this new iteration up in future dollar boxes, because it’s too rich for my blood.
I normally don’t do this, but I’m going to cover two trades in one post. I apologize in advance if either trader is disappointed in sharing the spotlight.
Twitter is becoming a more critical piece of my collecting experience. Most bloggers are on there, and I’m slowly building up the list of people I’m following. I’ve started buying cards on there on occasion and you’ll see some of those sales pretty soon. In general it’s been good for me, because I have a hard time keeping up with other blogs. I wish that wasn’t true, but so far it still is. Tweets are easy, and quick.
And sometimes people will tweet cards I want and I ask for those cards and they’re willing to trade me those cards within a few minutes. Other times, they’ll post a wish list and, if I have time, I might reach out and say I can help and get a trade going that way.
Considering my week of blogging trade bait didn’t go all that well, it’s great to have another avenue. Especially since the message board route scares me.
So, let’s talk about two quick and easy deals. First is with Robby, robbyt86 on twitter, and writer of Detroit Tigers Cards and Stuff (although currently inactive). He was looking for some 92-93 Topps Basketball cards to complete his set and I almost was able to finish the dang thing. That set is awesome, by the way. Possibly my favorite Topps Basketball set.
Speedster
In return, he sent me a random assortment of things, although I only “needed” a couple of them. That’s no problem though, because I wasn’t expecting anything back and I’m happy to help while getting 25 year old cards out the door.
Frank Thomas name sighting
It amazes me that I still need normal base cards from the junk wax era. But I do. And I will happily take those 25 year old cards off your hands as I did with Robby. Thanks a lot!
The second trade is another two card deal. This one came courtesy of Peter, found at PKSteinberg on Twitter and writer of Baseball Every Night. He tweeted this pack as he’s trying to build the 2018 Stadium Club set (if you want to help the guy out). That’s the perfect pack for me and I offered up some Darryl Strawberry cards from my childhood collection along with a couple Kruks.
Still weird to see him in that uniform
Coming back my way was this red foil Arrieta. I know these are kind of common as far as parallels go, but I dig it. It would have been a great candidate for my ROYGBIV post, but trades stay with trades.
Any guesses on who’s in the background?
In that same pack was this Frank Thomas chrome. I think these are less common, maybe one or two per box or so. I’m not sure as I haven’t bought any packs for myself. If I can keep up the twitter trades, I doubt I’ll need to. Thanks a lot, Peter! I think you tapped me out of Strawberry cards, but maybe we can find a way to do another deal in the future.
Baseball cards are wonderful things with a ton of variety. Some of that variety is from different manufacturers that employ techniques intended to set themselves apart from their competition. Some of that variety is from the same company attempting different product lines with themes intended to catch unique sub-sections of the collectors out there. Some, really most, is from forced diversity in the form of parallels. An array of colors and/or printing techniques with assigned rarities designed to entice collectors (I hope).
Each year, it seems like more and more variations are added to the production line, which is odd, because just about every color of the rainbow has been covered. Not all of them work on cardboard, but that doesn’t stop companies from trying.
In “honor” of these attempts, I wanted to create a short series going through that rainbow. A lot of focus in my past blog posts have been on the rarer parallels, or ones that compliment the uniforms, but I have a bunch of cards with all kinds of colors and so why not celebrate the ROYGBIV aspect of collecting, right?
The “I’m Seeing Red” part of this comes from other places, but I’m associating it with what is now an older song, but one that was a big part of my college experience. I’m sure that several of you may want the card companies to take the endless parallels along with the radio in the song. There are certainly times I feel the same.
I know there’s red on the Cubs uniform & logo, but still looks odd
As a Cubs fan, the red seems unnatural. Of course, having Targets in Chicago, these were the more common sight for years. Back when I was selling more regularly, I would buy a few blasters just to try to sell these parallels and anything else I happened to find, and it worked pretty well.
Found on COMC, I think
The solid border color is probably the bigger problem. Here’s the shiny background from 2006 SF/X and I don’t mind that look. This has the added bonus of using red foil for the serial numbering as well.
Close to jersey number
Red works more for Angels cards, which is no surprise. There are not enough crazy background things going on here, but the color still really pops.
The darker red is perfect for D-Backs
Red also has moved its way into the mini realm. The color borders are usually reserved for standard sized cards, but nothing is immune. I dread the day we see color front AND back variants (red regular, red A&G back, red piedmont, etc).
Not a chrome card, if you can believe it
When you add shine to the border, it solves a lot of problems. Here’s another example of where colors are not the limit. We’re already seeing patterns being added to colors to create new options.
Need 7 more Face 2 Face for Kerry, most relics
Honestly, I think the colored foil board is my favorite way to present new colors. This red looks fantastic and all of the colors in this style I’ve seen from Elite have been equally good.
That’s over the warning track
Colored foil is an under-utilized resource. It doesn’t matter what team you’re looking at, this looks good. Also odd that Warning Track hasn’t been used more in cardboard as an insert or subset name.
The Greats
Insert parallels usually bug me. Even in the Ultra Gold Medallion days they were rough. I was lucky enough to grab this shortly after 2013 Topps released. Although I don’t like three different versions, this one is probably my favorite visually.
Not numbered, but a rumored print run of 63.
Even with the retro uniform, the red shiny still kind of works. It certainly stands out. Will other colors fare as well as red has? Will I have enough orange and yellow cards to make a decent post? We shall see as we move to the next rung on the rainbow ladder.
June was a bad month. I don’t really want to talk about June. I was rarely home. Bad things happened. It was a mess and a dark time.
Being overseas, I didn’t want to look at stuff to buy. I didn’t want to expose my paypal to any foreign IPs, etc. So, it was a light month. Only three ebay cards total, but I managed to keep the autograph train going. July, on the other hand, will be massive.
I miss the case busting days. We would have opened a lot of these packs
First, I’ll start of kind of small. Baez wins are still hit and miss. Sometimes, I’m the only bidder and other times they go for a lot more than I would imagine. Guess which one this is.
Only took 8 years to find a decently priced copy of this
Joy of a completed year?
Okay, so unofficial poll time. This is possibly the last 2010 Greg Maddux card I need (only 5 total if you can believe it – this and 4 from Topps Sterling I got a long time ago). However, with the whole Upper Deck fiasco that year, there were two unannounced cards that made it into packs with foil stamped serial numbers, but evidence suggests the number actually packed out is much less (thus putting them below my print run limit). They are an Exquisite Collection “base” card #/75 and an Exquisite Collection Patch card #/50 (both were put into some 2010 UD packs with the intention of them showing up across all UD products in 2010, until the lawsuit forced the company to pull all planned baseball releases).
So, given my criteria, would you consider them as needs?
I wonder who signed first
Here’s the big one. Very big. I love it when stuff like this pops up on my radar at a time I can afford to make a pass at it. If I recall correctly, this went up for auction a few times, the first couple got no bids on a high opening price. Then it fell down to earth and I made my move. I may have bought the card for the Kerry Wood signature, but I’m thrilled to have a Nolan Ryan auto as part of the collection. The craziest thing about this card, is that it’s not even the most expensive Kerry Wood card in my collection. That honor goes to a different multi-autograph card. But that’s a very short story for another time. For now, I have to prepare for what will probably be a three-part July ebay haul adventure.
Twitter is fun place for sports cards. Other things, not so much. I’m not as active on there as I might like to be, but I’m trying to get better. I’m also not very good at following people on there, so if you’re a blogger or reader and I don’t follow you, let me know and I can fix that. I’m slowly adding more people to my following list, and one of those more recent additions is David, also known as Sandman7991 on twitter. Pretty quickly we ended up working out a trade with each other. I honestly don’t remember what I sent over to him anymore, but hopefully it was good.
I know I enjoy what I got back.
I see you Baez, but I’ll need another for my personal collection
First and foremost, I have to show appreciation for the stack of stickers. I’ve been trying to promote my sticker album needs for quite some time, but not enough trades have materialized from that. Still, here’s another shot in the dark. If you too want to trade me stickers, check out my need & trade list HERE.
I’ve just started getting 2018 cards
I know it looks fancy from the scan, but this is the normal base card. Trust me, there’s nothing wrong with that, but I wanted to mention it since it scanned like some weird parallel.
A chrome version would be cool
I don’t think Kyle can really be considered a future star three years into his career, even if one was missed due to injury.
I think he avoided the flood of variations
David sent almost exclusively 2018 cards, and I have to say it’s so nice to not feel like I need to buy as many packs. Especially Donruss as I do not like the design this year.
The retro look is better
Here’s one of the many, many variations that exist in this set. It’s unfortunate that you have to look everything up to see what version of a card you have, but that’s where the hobby is right now.
It’s a boy!
Topps inserts are no longer immune to parallels. This is your standard version, but there are also blue, black and gold ones that I need.
Not a bad insert if you ask me
He also sent along this Baez. I imagine Bryant is also in the set if not another Cub or two I need. A lot of younger guys on this team.
#23 of 30
Here’s a set that I’m really going to rely on trades to complete. Topps decided to create a 30 card Bryant set that is exclusive to Wal-Mart. I bought a blaster (or two, can’t remember), but that didn’t get me very far. And, of course, there are the blue, black and gold versions of each of the 30. So, any and all help, like what David provided, is appreciated.
Mini Mago
Lastly, we go back to Baez for the only non-2018 card in the package. I have no idea how these minis were distributed, but this is the Top 5 team prospects mini chrome. Interestingly enough, all 5, from 2014, are with the Cubs and on the major league roster. Baez may be the biggest surprise of them all with all the trade rumors that were swirling around. I think that discussion is over for a while though.
Thanks so much to David for the great trade. Hopefully we can do it again one of these days.
Recent Comments