3 more trades

About a week ago I recieved an envelope in the mail from Jay of Card Hemorrhage.  I had sent him some Topps Heritage Giants for his project, and he sent me back some nice Rays, Tigers, and Giants cards. 

The Cairo and Beckham cards are both needs, as are the Lolich and 2020 Bowmans. I haven't actually seen a pack of 2020 Bowman in the wild. The Martinez jersey card is nice. I love adding relic cards of my favorite teams, but I'll really take any relic. Jay must've read that in my Want List, as he sent me a nice Archives jersey card of Pablo Sandoval. I got to see him play live in 2009 when everyone was all hyped up about him. It was a heck of a game. My future brother-in-law JT organized a baseball road trip, and I flew into St. Louis, saw a Chiefs/Rams pre-season game, saw the Gateway Arch, drove to Chicago and saw a White Sox/Red Sox game (US Cellular Field is the worst looking stadium out of the 8 or so I have been to), drove to Milwaukee and saw the Brewers play the Giants. Everyone was watching Sandoval take BP, and I went over to the Giants dugout to try to get autographs, and wound up getting one of Tim Lincecum on an '08 Topps Heritage card. We went to our seats by the right field bullpen, and saw a cather in the bullpen with the name of Posey warming up pitchers. Wish I would've tried harder to get his autograph. Miller Park is amazing, and I loved the look of the retractable roof. The last stop of our trip was to Kansas City, and we saw a Royals/Angels game. I got up to get some food, and about 5 minutes later, Vladimir Guerrero hit a Home Run right near where I was sitting. Thinking about the trip makes me antsy for a nice long family vacation. We might go in March or April, but I'm ready to start planning now. Especially if the stadiums will let fans in again. 

Back to the cards, Jay threw in some nice vintage Giants, which even though I don't actively collect Giants like the Rays or Tigers, but I am always happy to add older cards, no matter what team. The Chris Arnold is a nice addition to his player collection. Thanks for the trade, Jay.

A few days ago, a box that I was surprised to see was waiting for me at my front door. I had sent a few customs over to Tom at Waiting 'Til Next Year, not really expecting to get anything back. Well, lo and behold, Tom sent over a huge box of 1992 Topps Gold Winners cards. 

Although it is near the bottom area of my want list, Tom found it, and said in his note that it was easier than finding random Rays & Tigers from my want list. I totally agree. I have all of the Topps Rays base cards, and while I am missing a lot more with the Tigers, there are 4-5 other Tigers collectors out there, most more well-known that myself, and it's a lot harder to pull Rays from packs than most other teams in the leagues. I really don't mind if someone finds it easier to add cards to a lesser-known collection of mine like the 1992 Topps Gold Winners set. I actually am thinking about going after a 'true master set' of 1992 Topps. I already have the 1992 Topps main set, but there are 2-3 other sets that might be a tad harder to track down. I need almost 100% of the Topps Traded set, there are the previously mentioned Topps Gold Winners set, the Topps Gold set without the 'Winner' stamp on it, as well as a hard to find Topps Traded Gold set (with a 2nd year Giambi, and rookies of Nomar Garciaparra and Jason Varitek making that one a little price, and also a Topps Micro set with really small versions of the 1992 regular set and a 10 or so Micro Gold cards insert set. Throw in a 1992 Topps Preview sheet and the Topps Gold preview sheet, and I think that would complete it, but I don't know if I'm up for trying to come up with want lists for all that and keeping track of everything. Maybe in the future. 

For now, I have probably a little over 1/2 of a Topps Gold Winner set that included a number of stars like Rickey Henderson & Nolan Ryan's Record Breaker cards, a few All-Stars, and some bigger name stars like Kirby Puckett, Tom Glavine, and Mark Grace. Thanks for the surprise starter set, Tom!

The last envelope of cards I got recently was more of less of a trade, and more of a 'thanks for your work', but it was something I was eager to open. A little over a  week ago, CJ from Braniac Baseball. I mentioned in my previous post about Simulation Baseball that CJ is replaying the 1980 baseball season right now using the Detroit Tigers. He needed some 1981 Topps cards showing new additions to the Tigers in Tiger uniforms, and the best part was that he wanted to pay in baseball cards, since he has a card shop and does a lot of breaks. I contacted him, and immediately got to work on about 10 guys. He sent me off a package of some Rays, and they arrived yesterday. 

First up are some Rays from 2018 Topps Inception, a higher-end looking product that I vaguely recall hearing about. I believe the Christian Arroyo card is a Green Parallel. Next up are 2020 Bowman Chrome cards of Randy Arozarena and Wander Franco. The 2nd Chrome Franco is a Megabox Chrome Refractor. On the bottom row is a 2020 Topps Update Gold Arozarena, and 2020 Topps Holiday cards of Arozarena and Brandon Lowe. Thanks for the cards, CJ. Look forward to doing some more cards for you! If you are interested in his card shop, it is located in El Paso, TX (the info is on the business card in the picture), and he has a Mercari page. He also has a YouTube page where he does each Tigers game in the simulation. 

As I have been doing lately anytime I get a new Arozarena card, I like to get them all together and take a photo. These newest 3 bring me to 20, a nice total given that he has been so hot and also given the fact that I've only pulled 4 from packs. While finding a 10 at my LCS has helped, and purchasing the 2020 regular and Update set netted me 2 others, I still find it heartwarming that I acquired 4 from trades from either bloggers or baseball fans. Really, the only thing I'm missing from somewhat easy to obtain cards are his '20 Topps Heritage and '20 Topps Archives cards, so thanks to generous traders and a little luck from my LCS, I have just about all of his 2020 cards that aren't super-premium. 

I also wanted to show my Wander Franco cards. To date, I now have 8, and I have only pulled 1 from a pack, with 2 coming from trades with Rod of Padrographs, 3 coming in trades from Nick of Dime Boxes, and the newest 2 coming from CJ. 

Thanks to everyone who has traded with me and help me grow my Rays, Tigers, and baseball card collection in general. I look forward to doing more trades this year. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post.

-Jeremy