More Than One Penny Sleeve

Longtime blogger (and new Twitter Buddy) Jon from A Penny Sleeve For Your Thoughts went on a generosity streak after finding a ton of Topps Buybacks for sale.  He asked me if I wanted some.  Of course I do!

His mailer arrived with these six "REDISCOVER TOPPS" stamped buybacks.  I love the 1987 Topps set anyway, so getting new versions for these are great!  Especially Willie Wilson.  The cards on the top are all silver-stamped, while the three on the bottom are bronze-stamped.  

However, that was not all that was in the package - Jon included two unexpected manu-relics, also!

The Jackie Robinson buyback is beautiful, contrasting the blue in the Royals uniform to the blue in the medallion.  Moose's 1st Home Run is my second one of these relics -- the first was Alex Gordon.

Thank you, Jon!  These are much appreciated and will find a great home!

  

Stadium Club - Luminous Triumvirate

I have two brothers-in-law who also collect cards.  I mentioned one in my last post about Black Friday.  The other one lives a little farther away, but he has a nice collection of graded Cal Ripken, Jr. cards and lower-grade tobacco cards (T206s, etc.).  About a month ago, his mother (my mother-in-law) asked me to help her pick out some small presents for him, so we went on COMC and found some newer serial-numbered Ripkens that I knew he didn't have.  Since she was placing an order anyway, the shipping would be free for me if I snuck a few cards onto her order.

The picture at the top is from 2016 Stadium Club - These are the Luminous Triumvirate cards.  Each of these is Die-Cut, but then when you put them together they become a larger picture.  These are all chromed-out and look great in-person. I've had my eyes on these ever since they came out and felt this was the right time to pull the trigger.  I spent WAY too much on the Salvy, but he's the middle-card in the triptych and was the last one available on COMC.  I don't regret it.  :-)  LoCain, Salvy, and K-Mo were all integral pieces in our 2015 World Series Championship.

The picture below shows the triumvirate from 2015 Stadium Club -- Salvy once again serves as the hub, Hosmer is on the left, and the right is covered by ??  Oh no!  I'm still missing one of these guys! 

The card in question is T-8C - Alex Gordon from 2015 Stadium Club.  It was not for-sale on COMC at the time of my order, but it looks like there is a listing for one now.  If any of you have one for trade, please let me know. 

They didn't make these in 2017, but I think these are a GREAT concept for Topps to continue implementing.  Die cuts are awesome, anyway, but then when you have 3 to chase, it adds that much more of a treasure-hunting aspect to it.  The task is hard, but not impossible.

Bountiful Bonus Booty Bestowed by Benevolent Blogger

Who is the Benevolent Blogger?  Why, Bubba's Bangin' Batch of Baseball Bits, of course!

Matt ran a contest last summer to see who could identify a player that he had selected, based on a series of clues that were increasingly specific.  When all was said and done, I narrowed down the answer to just a few players, then finally down to one - Wilson Ramos!  That qualified me for a prize, and when the randomizer was done spinning, I came out of it with a whole lot of 2017 Ginter cards!  Knowing his affinity for Ginter cards, I figured it would be something good.  It was.  :-)

Here you can see the box that hit my mailbox.

 

To be specific, that box had a full base set of 2017 Ginter (Cards 1-300), and then half of the short-prints (301-350).  1987 Topps (favorite set!) were used as filler.  No respect for the classics!  :-)

Here's the full team set of 2017 Royals (non-SP). 

 

He also included one SP (LoCain), and a mini of Hosmer and black mini of LoCain.  

It didn't seem like the Ginter base set had as many interesting non-baseball cards in it as it has in past years, but there were still a few good ones.  All of the cards in the next two pictures are other cards from the base set that I wanted to keep. 4 Ex-Royals (Kendrys, Manaea, Zobrist, Cueto), guys from my earlier days (Canseco, Smith, Banks, Johnson, Dawson), Random current guys I like (Ichiro, Werth, Wilson Ramos(!), then the miscellaneous ones.  Vashti Cunningham and Laurie Hernandez were Olympians.  I watched a Crossfit documentary on Netflix and Ben Smith was the winner of that (Spoiler!).  There was no "Revolving Door" or "X-Ray" card in this set, so a Panda and a Waterfall will have to fill that gap. 

As I mentioned, there were also half of the Short-Prints from this set.  Those are shown below and are all available (except for Lorenzo) since they don't fit my PC.  If anyone still is working on this set and needs one of these, let me know and I can get that to you.  I have a lot of base to trade/give, too.

I really only need one more full-size base card from this set -
Base SP #313 - Matt Strahm. 

Do any of you have that one for me?

Thanks so much, Matt!  You might be wondering why it took me 3 months to post this.  Well....this package hit my mailbox the same week my wife gave birth to our daughter.  Between her and my two older boys, I've had limited card-blogging time since then.  But these were all much appreciated and will be given a good home!  

I Thank Thee, Spankee

(these aren't from November 2015 or anything...I would never let it get that bad...no never)

I've Been Framed!!

Guys, you've got to help me -- I've been framed!

No, not like that.

And no, not like that, either.

Like THIS.

Robert from $30 a Week Habit offered these to me on Twitter and I jumped at the chance.  They are the blue framed parallels from this year's Gypsy Queen...showing off the majesty of the WORLD CHAMPIONS OF BASEBALL (for now.....).  They arrived at my casa this week and will be inducted into their permanent home.  Thank you so much, Robert!

A Good Pack

How do you know it's going to be a good pack?  Open the back and see this:

Nothing Plain About These

I've got a few more goodies to show off courtesy of Roy-Z at "Plain Gray Swatch."  There's nothing plain about these, though.  It started off with an autograph of David DeJesus signing an autograph.  He is truly a class act -- graciously signed in-person for me once and tossed a BP ball to my wife before a game at Angels Stadium.  Just another reason why he's my favorite Royal.

And a few more that are NOT TOO SHABBY....Topps Chrome Purple!  Hosmer and Herrera.  Boo-yah.  These are very pretty in-person.

What is your Best Listia Card so far?

2012 Topps - Eric Hosmer SP - #35C

Here's mine.

This card is $6-$8 on Ebay.  I essentially traded a juice coupon for it.  :-)

Can you beat it?

Mutual Coincidence of Wants -- Platter Style

When I was taking economics in college, I remember the professor saying that money is important because it does not require you to trade items directly with another person, but allows you to sell something to one person and buy something from another.  Bartering or Trading, however, required a "mutual coincidence of wants."  That is, trading only works when you have something I would prefer to what I have, and I have something you would prefer to what you have. 

Luckily in the card community, the pseudo-random distribution in packs and boxes makes this scenario very likely.  When collectors prefer certain players, this becomes even easier.  Case in point, my recent trade with Spiegel at Nomo's Sushi Platter.  Obviously, his favorite player is Hideo Nomo.  My favorite player is David DeJesus.  When I have a stack of Nomos and he has a DDJ relic -- THAT is a mutual coincidence of wants! :-)

Here's what he sent me as the "meat" of this trade:

2012 Golden Moments Relic - David DeJesus - GMR-DDE

He also looked through my want-lists to see what else I was looking for.  I haven't bought much of anything from 2012, but have been cutting into those  Royals team sets piece-by-piece through trading.  Here's a few Ginters.

2012 Allen and Ginter - Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas

I like coach/manager cards...but I especially love GRUMPY manager cards.  Here are two that definitely fit the bill from Topps Heritage.

Finally, the fine mustachioed gentlemen of the past and present have come to pay us a visit.

Stan Wall is "so 1977" right there.  John Axford is a modern man, but looks like a swashbuckling, Spanish pirate....of which I completely approve.  :-)  He has the style of a true Canadian.

Thanks, Spiegel.  May our wants coincide again in the near future!

Next Stop: Backstop

If you're not making trades with Marcus over at Backstop Cards, you're missing out.  He's making trades fast and furious down there, and if you don't yet have an outlet for your Padres, that would be a good place to send them.

He just sent me another little package with some Royals goodness in it (after perusing my Zistle wantlist).  Here were a few of the highlights:

A couple of  Eric Hosmers to start  your day off right.  The Blue Opening Day parallel is #'d /2012.  The Archives Hosmer is based on the 1984 design, but feels the need to use bright pink on an otherwise great card.  Eric has struggled this season...he's had one of the lowest BABIP of any big leaguers, so hopefully a reversion to the mean on that next year will help him regain that rookie season form.

This is the 2012 Archives George Brett rookie.  The real version is on my Most Wanted list, and I already have a Chrome Reprint version, but this one is a plain reprint with the gold stamp.   It's not nearly as beat-up as Nick's version.  :-)

2012 Topps Archives George Brett

30 Royals a Week Habit

(I wish I could get 30 new Royals every week!!)

A couple weeks ago I sent some cards over to Robert at $30 a Week Habit.  It was some 2009 O-Pee-Chee for the set he is putting together, one serial-numbered card for the Insanity, and a bunch of random Jays.  I've enjoyed his blog over the past few months, and he is always friendly and usually responds to any comments I've posted there.

He was kind enough to send me a great package in return.  Lots of Royals, especially some from recent sets/seasons, which is great because I don't have a ton of recent stuff in my collection.  I don't buy much retail these days, so it was great to get them.

Here's some of the highlights:

Some of the 2011 Heritage:

2011 Heritage Lorenzo Cain #341 and Billy Butler #275

A Couple Topps 60 from this year:

2011 Topps 60 Billy Butler #T60-28 and Danny Duffy #T60-141

Some coolness:

2001 Fleer Futures Mike Sweeney #175 and 2009 O-Pee-Chee (Black) Jose Guillen #303

And my favorites from this pack...a sweet 2-Pack of Hosmers:

2011 Topps Update Eric Hosmer #US188 and #US155

Thanks so much, Robert.  Everything was cool and packaged really nicely.  I hope we can come up with another good trade in the future.