The Well Traveled Envelope Arrives in Ohio

So there's a thing going around right now amongst the blogs called the "Well Traveled Envelope". The gist of the whole deal is to re-use the same envelope and the supplies contained within as many times as humanly possible. There's also an ongoing log and note to fill out as well. I was lucky enough to have been selected by Chris of "The Collector" blog as the next recipient of the envelope.

When I opened the envelope, this was the first card I saw. After that, I knew things were going to be good because it's not every day that your open a bubble mailer and find a Renata Galasso Warren Spahn card starting back at you. 

Here's some 1984 Topps I can put towards the set build. Frank Robinson was canned by the Giants 106 games into the 1984 season with an awful 42-64 record. 

Some 2019 Diamond Kings and my first Carl Hubbell card. The Al Simmons I think might be a duplicate as I'm pretty sure it came out of a pack that I ripped a few months back. 

The package was also littered with team collections on the baseball side ... Reds and Expos most notably. I've never seen this Gary Carter card and it's got to be definitely one of my favorites now. I think I've mentioned this before but I really like 1992 Pinnacle. It's got to be the black borders though.

More Expos with the bottom row featuring some 1994 Fleer. About a week or so ago as I write this, the 25th anniversary of the 1994-95 baseball strike just passed which many argue effectively doomed baseball in Montreal. I believe that 1994 Expos team would've made it to the World Series had it been played that year as that was possibly the best team they ever had in Montreal.

Some Reds cards now and we've got some super shiny ones to start with. Blandino hasn't played a single game for the club this year after appearing in 69 games last year as a utility infielder. The Suarez card is one of the refractor variety

Nice mix of cards here, including a somewhat early Joey Votto card. I'm admittedly horrible at placing the year on Bowman cards. The most interesting card to me here is Scott Feldman. It falls into both the "short term stops" variety and the "sunset cards" variety. Feldman pitched the 2017 with the Reds going 7-7 over 21 starts including Opening Day of 2017. His last start for the Reds (and final MLB appearance in general) was August 17, 2017.

Another fun batch of cards. I love it when Topps includes manager cards in the Archives sets. I think they're just fun additions to the checklist. The Scooter Gennett card is pretty neat but again, I'm horrible at placing the year on Bowman cards.

Baseball wasn't all that Chris included in the well-traveled envelope. He also hit me with a bunch of new hockey cards. All five of these Marty's are new to my collection. I particularly like the "hockey heroes" and the shiny Leaf card on the left.

Some cool new Devils cards. I can't place the Travis Zajac card but it looks like it's from a throwback set of some kind. Scott Stevens and Patrik Elias were part of the awesome Devils teams of the early 2000s. The Devils this season should be fun to watch with the addition of P.K. Subban and Jack Hughes.

Oooh! Shiny Coyotes including a really neat card of Oliver Ekmann-Larsson. Speaking of fun teams, with the Coyotes dealing for Phil Kessel, and him joining Oli, Clayton Keller, and Derek Stepan on offense, that should be quite the team to keep an eye on.

By far my favorite hockey cards in the batch were these old school O-Pee-Chee cards. I'm not too familiar with John Anderson but Blaine Stoughton I know because he's a former Cincinnati Stingers player. 

I appreciate Chris including me in the Well Traveled Envelope challenge. My next mission is to figure out who I'm sending it to next and to dig out cards for said individual. However, it might be a bit before I get to that as I'm working roughly 65 hours this week between two jobs. Should I not fall over from exhaustion by the end of the week, it'll be on it's way to the next recipient soon.

Surprise Cards from Up North

The other day when I got home from work, there were two packages waiting for me. One was an expected package with some seasonal trinkets from a friend of mine on Twitter, the other was a surprise package from Canada. Now, there's only one person I trade with north of the border and that's Douglas of Sportcards from the Dollar Store.

I always know what a package from Douglas will contain, that being Reds, Bengals, and Blue Jackets. I can also expect a vintage card or two as well, such as this 1971 Gary Nolan card. 

Yay! Mid-90s Reds! I love listening to Jeff Brantley these days on Reds broadcasts. 

Every year, Stadium Club seems to come out and I never really go buy any of it. However, I really need to change that. Every year the photography is better and better so next year, I might grab a blaster or a few packs (provided they're not crazy expensive). Anyway, this is my first 2018 Stadium Club card, and wow, these things are beautiful in person.

More random Reds cards. Nice to see the annual Opening Day Parade get it's own card. My only complaint is that it doesn't show the actual parade, just fans filing into the ballpark.

Some Reds minor league cards. I think the 2018 design works really well for the minor league issue, especially the green of the Dayton Dragons. I should note that the Hunter Greene card is my first of his. Same can be said for Shed Long as well.

Moving to the ice now and as usual, there was a plethora of Blue Jackets cards. This is my first look at 2018-19 MVP and it's really nice. I'll have to grab a fat pack or two if I see one at retail. I'm hoping the Blue Jackets can keep up their winning ways, it's been nice to see people around here actually care about hockey now that they've been winning.

My Martin Brodeur collection grew by one card as well. This card celebrates the 1,200th career game of the newly minted Devils Executive Vice President.

Some Bengals cards from the Panini Classics series. Remember when I opened the blaster and said I didn't get any Bengals cards? Well this solved that problem.

Some more Bengals, this time base cards from 2018 Score which I must say is a really nice design. I'm hoping the Bengals can have a good season this year and at least sniff the playoffs or maybe end up as a wild card.

The star of the package was this ... an awesome dual-patch autograph Boone Jenner card. This immediately takes the top prize as the nicest card in my collection. I can honestly say I've never seen anything quite like this. The little black area above the swatches is a shadowbox but it didn't come out too well in the picture.

A big thanks goes out to Douglas for another amazing package. I'll put you on my list for a return but I don't think I'll be able to live up to the awesomeness that this was.

You've Got Mail #85: The Collector

Over the years I've found one truth about card collecting to be evident ... there is no wrong way to collect. What works for one person will not work for another person. Some may be deeply into team collecting or player collecting. Hey that works. Others, like me, may be more scattered around the map where I collect a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Recently, frequent blog commenter and author of the simply title blog "The Collector" Chris dropped me an email about wanting to do a bit of a swap. I agreed and soon there after a rather large envelope was dropped on my doorstep by the completely unfriendly mailman, who I tend to believe collects nothing but sneers while he's making his rounds. While I won't hit on everything that Chris sent, I'll touch upon the highlights for me.

These Topps Finest cards I've never seen before and they're pretty neat cards. The Reds from 94-97 had a pretty formidable team with a solid line-up and some pretty good pitching. I often think that people forget about Pete Schourek and John Smiley being part of that rotation. Eddie Taubensee was a solid defensive catcher as well. 

I always dug Jose Rijo and I thought it was so cool when he made his comeback in 2001-2002. While he wasn't the same power pitcher he was in the early 90s before he got injured, it was still pretty remarkable to see him comeback from all those injuries and pitch another season and a half. Fun fact, he was the starting pitcher for the last game at Cinergy Field/Riverfront Stadium. Speaking of players who came back from injuries, Devin Mesoraco is healthy this season for the first time is what seems like forever. However, he's been supplanted in the depth chart by Tucker Barnhart, who won a Gold Glove last season. 

Old school Reds cards are always welcomed too. 1981 Topps is one of those sets that most people tend to forget about as is falls right in between two really nice sets, 1980 and 1982, and it's one I don't really see a lot of singles available from. I think that might have a lot to do with the fact there wasn't a very strong rookie class with Tim Raines, Harold Baines, Kirk Gibson, Fernando Valenzuela, and Bob Walk being the top RCs available. This particular card was not one of the top rookie cards in the set as none of these guys would up being ... um, well ... household names. I'll be setting this card aside to do a standalone post on it one of these days.

This is my first experience with 1991 Fleer football and I'm not fully convinced that it's an improvement over it's baseball cousin. Sure, the bright yellow border is replaced by a green border but there is nothing in the background except for a generic sunset color. The name plate on the bottom looks like it was done on a typewriter.

On the flip side, these are some pretty awesome looking cards. The photography on these Fleer Ultra cards is just phenomenal, especially for 1992. The Bengals themselves were not good in 1992, their first season under Dave Shula. Tim Krumrie recorded 4 sacks that season along with 97 tackles and Tim McGee had 35 receptions for total of 408 yards on a Bengals squad that finished 5-11 that year, good enough for dead last in the AFC Central.

One of my side collections is "shiny cards" and do these ever fit the bill. I don't get the chance to buy much O-Pee-Chee Platinum, mainly because singles are impossibly hard to find around my area, but I do love getting them in trades. There's really no good reason I haven't added Mike Smith to my official hockey player collection, I think that might have to change here soon. The card that really takes the cake of these in the Jaromir Jagr team logos die-cut. The picture just really doesn't do it justice.

Chris also hit upon two of my main hockey player collections. First, these two cards of a young Shane Doan. This past season was the first season is as long as I can remember without Doan at the helm of the Coyotes as captain and I think they felt it, finishing with 70 points (29-41-12 overall) and the second worst record in the league. They do have a nice foundation with Clayton Keller, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Max Domi along with Derek Stepan at center and Niklas Hjalmarsson on defense so it'll be interesting to see where they go next year.

Long time readers will know that Martin Brodeur is my top hockey player collection. His cards make up about half of my Devils cards alone and these are some really awesome adds to the collection. While I'm not out to get every card of his ever, I'll keep getting cards of his until I feel I have a decent amount. That's pretty much the way I manage every mini-collection within the collection, once I feel I have a decent amount of a certain thing, then I ease up.

One of the final aspects of my collecting is teams, both old and new. I like collecting defunct teams because it tells the history of the sport through cards. Such as these 1991-92 NHL Pro Set cards of the  long gone Hartford Whalers. While I'm not too familiar with these particular players, I'll be looking them up at some point.

As far as current hockey teams, the Devils are definitely my favorite. They made it into the playoffs this season as the first wild card but got assigned the buzzsaw known as the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round. As much as I would like to see it, I don't think they'll get past that round. Here we've got a few Devils past and present with Cory Schneider, Adam Henrique, and Joe Nieuwendyk to put the bow on this trade package.

While there was a ton of other stuff Chris included that didn't necessarily make the cut to be featured here, I appreciate all that was sent and it afforded me a nice amount of quality quiet time to sort these. Thanks for the trade Chris!

You've Got Mail #84: Sportscards From the Dollar Store

Lately, I've been the recipient of a flurry of packages. So much so that our mail carrier, as unfriendly as he is, is probably thinking "what the heck are these people ordering all the time?" With all the other stuff I've been writing about lately, I'm behind on trade posts thanks to it. I received this package from Douglas of SCFDS (Sports Cards from the Dollar Store for short) quite unexpectedly as my USPS tracking doesn't include international packages. It was quite welcome nonetheless as packages from Douglas always include a nice variety.

I love me some 2017 Topps Heritage, minors or otherwise. I've written before about my aggravation in finding Heritage in friendly big-box retail establishments so I'll gladly take what I can get. I was super excited to see the Dayton Dragons cards as well, mainly because it seems that Topps has an on again, off again approach to the Dragons and doesn't always include them in minor league sets (at least from what I've seen).

Some Reds cards from the 2000s. I think the Casey might be a dupe but I'm not sure. I know for a fact the Adam Dunn Starquest card isn't.

At first, I thought these were just regular 1973 Topps cards but upon closer inspection, they are 1973 O-Pee-Chee! Wow! The fact that these were included was just tremendous. 

Here's the backs to prove it. They seem a bit brighter than the their American brethren and I love how English and French is just crammed on the back of the card.

It's been a while since I've added any new Bengals cards to my collection. I don't keep up enough with Panini's football cards to know if Prizm is still a thing, it is? Or has it been replaced by Optic?

As usual, any package from Douglas is rife with hockey and this was no exception. There were a great many Martin Brodeur cards to add to my collection, these are my three favorites. Side note, it's nice to see the Devils back in the playoffs this year, I just hope they don't get bounced in the first round by Tampa.

More cards to add to my ever growing Blue Jackets collection. 

And probably my favorite Blue Jackets cards of the bunch. I've always been a sucker for these Panini Contenders cards from both hockey and baseball. These particular ones are just super cool to look at with the black and white close up and then the ticket mock-up on the left. I've got to track me down some more of these.

Thanks for the awesome cards Douglas! You certainly outdid yourself this time. I've got a PWE packed up and ready to go for you, I just need to find time to get to the post office.

You've Got Mail #74: Sportscards From the Dollar Store

It's been a long time ... a very long time since I've had cards grace my mailbox so when a random package arrived from Douglas of Sportscards From the Dollar Store recently, I was giddy with excitement that someone actually sent me cards in the mail!

As always, a package from Douglas has a nice variety. As much as I like the Edd Roush card here, I think I have to talk a bit about the Royce Clayton card. Clayton was at the near the end of his career in 2006 when he was acquired by the Reds from the Nationals in a bonkers trade still questioned by some fans to this day. It was a weird trade where the Reds got Clayton, Bill Bray, Gary Majewski, and one other for Austin Kearns, Ryan Wagner, and another player. To this day, I don't think anyone is sure what the Reds were trying to accomplish with that trade. Clayton finished the year as the Reds shortstop then moved on to Toronto as a free agent after the season.

Getting new Blue Jackets cards is always a blast, especially since they may be the lone major league team in Columbus soon (another story for another day) and I'm hoping I can maybe find some decent priced ones at the card show next week. The top three are from last year's Upper Deck Champs set, which is basically their version of A&G. It was a pretty cool product and it's something I hope they bring back this year. Brandon Saad was shipped back to Chicago after two seasons but in return, the Jackets managed to steal Artemi Panarin in return in a shocker of a deal.

This card was definitely one of the best of the batch and is a fantastic addition to my Brodeur collection. It's a thick card, really shiny, and has an amazing picture on it getting Brodeur in mid-catch to save a goal. 

The other thing I can count on for Douglas to send is lots and lots of Bengals cards, and there were a lot. So I'll go through them quickly. First, there were these neat cards of past Bengals QBs, although many try to forget the Jeff Blake era.

Joe Mixon was the Bengals top pick in the draft this past summer and has seen a lot of action recently, especially since the Bengals dropped Ken Zampese as their offensive coordinator and replaced him with Bill Lazor. The offense that had been sleepy in the first two games, woke up once Lazer was installed, and Mixon seemed to get more carries.

There was also this nice batch of Andy Dalton cards. My collection of his is slowly growing with some quality additions like this.

Same can be said for A.J. Green, one of my favorite players to watch on the Bengals. I'm starting to get a decent collection of cards of his as well.

There were also a nice batch of parallels included in the package as well, these were the best of the batch.

Thanks to Douglas for sending all these great cards over, I greatly appreciate it. I'll try to find some stuff to send back to you at some point.