Trade with Nothing if not Random and a few recent pickups

About 2 months ago, I completed a trade with Nothing if Not Random. I sent Roy some team and player wants, and he sent me a nice stack of Rays and Tigers. 

So many cards! Here are some of my favorites from the Rays stack. The '06 Doug Waechter is one I have in my Player Collection binder, and now I can add this one to my Rays binder. Same thing with the '11 Opening Day Zobrist. I didn't have any of the '17 Bunt Rays, and now I have the complete set. 

The Raymond mascot cards are cool, and I've recently started to take my mascot cards and I've just put them in a box in the hopes that my almost 4-year old will start liking baseball more and I can add them to his collection. I'm sure I'll probably get some Raymond doubles at some point, so I'll hopefully add more to that part of the ox. I was really wanting to get all of the Talent Pipeline Rays cards from the last few years of Bowman, so the one Roy sent is appreciated. 

Roy sent a number of Tigers that are additions to my collection. The '92 Upper Deck got me closer to completing that set, and the '93 Flair ones have put me from like 1 card in the set to only needing a few more to complete it. Like the Rays, Roy also sent me some Bunt Tigers. 

The Orange Bunt parallel of Martinez was a low numbered one (I believe to 100), and the '19 Donruss, '19 Stadium Club, and '19 Archives cards are all cards that put me really close to completing team sets.

The last photo are the last of the '19 Topps cards, and some new '20 Topps cards. I'm pretty close to finishing the '20 Topps Series 1 set, and have knocked out a few from Series 2 (more on that later). 

Thanks, Roy, for the great trade!

Next up are some recent winnings from some giveaways and such. 

Nick from Dime Box fame gave away some cards, and I was able to pick up some great cards that have been on my lists for a while. 

Jacob deGrom has been a favorite of mine since 2014. When he made his debut in 2014, a co-worker was talking about him, so I checked him out. He went to college at Stetson University, which is right across the street from the church I play piano at. Anyways, my coworker has a daughter who is pretty close friends to his wife Stacey. Sometime that year, I pulled deGrom's base Topps Gold card and his rookie debut card. I gave them to my coworker after she was sure she could get an autograph, and haven't seen them since. Nick put the base deGrom card up on one of his giveaways, and I hurriedly claimed it. Along with it, he also sent the Rookie Debut card, giving me the 2 cards I needed to re-complete my Topps deGrom run. I also claimed an 2018 '83 Dee Gordon and '08 Heritage Scherzer rookie, 2 guys I collect. Nick was nice enough to also include some newer Rays cards, 2 Chrome Austin Meadows (one pink refractor), an Utz Jake Bauers, a Gold Label Blake Snell, and some cards from new 2020 products. I've been hoping to get my hands on some 2020 Bowman, but every place has been shut out so far, so I'm happy to get these. Ronaldo Hernandez is a guy I hope will turn out to being a great catcher for the Rays. Shane McClanahan should play for the Rays this year, and we've all heard of Wander Franco. Lastly, is a 2020 Topps Big League Austin Meadows insert. 

Thanks, Nick, for the sweet cards. 

I recently played a Bingo game that John from Johnny's Trading Spot held. I won one of the games, and John sent some TCMA cards, including a Ken Boyer, and some Yankees. 

Thanks, John, for holding the bingo game and for the nice prize. 

Next, Jeff from Wax Pack Wonders had a giveaway where you could pick 3 players. I picked Corey Kluber, Orel Hershiser, and Mickey Cochrane, and Jeff hooked me up with some cool cards. My favorite of the bunch was the Out of the Blue Orel Hershiser. That was a great book that Hershiser wrote in 1989, and I have a beat up copy in my house. I don't remember the book having a card, so I'm happy to pick this one up.
Thanks, Jeff, for the nice cards.

Finally, my wife went by Target the other day and was able to find some packs of 2020 Topps Series 2, and Big League, but not Bowman (maybe one day). I actually got 2 different sets of cards as she had to go back the next day because she forgot something. 

The first time, I got a slew of highlights cards, some key rookies, and 2 sunset (maybe?) cards. I believe Pedroia will retire, and it is up in the air if Zimmerman will come back in 2021.

The first batch had a hit with a Sandy Alomar, Jr. autograph from Big League. I pulled some parallels, and a few favorite players, including DeJong, Gordon, Hicks, Kluber, Simmons, and Weaver. 

The Tigers and Rays were pretty well represented too, with the ones here. The Schoop card is actually in my favorite player collection, as he played on the Dutch National team.

The next batch didn't have as much pop as the first, but did have some guys I collect, like Bauer, Bogaerts, deGrom, DeJong, Dozier, Sale, and Scherzer. The Schoop is the one from the first run.

A few more Rays/Tigers, and rookies/sunset cards. I've been good at pulling Alvarez parallels this year, pulling ones from Topps, Opening Day, and Big League. I also pulled a parallel (maybe) sunset card of Zimmerman.

It looks like from the last post that I will be holding off on putting more music up, and that's ok. I appreciate the kind words, though. I just have one more trade to post, a huge one from Johnny's Trading Spot. The sunset post is done through 1992, and I hope to get it done in the next few weeks.

Thanks for checking out my latest post.

-Jeremy