You've Got Mail #32: The Chronicles of Fuji

Moving along in the great trade package catch-up game from the Super Trader group! To show you exactly how far behind I am, this package from Fuji arrived on Opening Day and tomorrow is Memorial Day.

Before diving it, it can't be a package from Fuji either without hit custom card! My wife thought this was really cool, mainly because it's in the style of a South Park character. 

I'm not sure how many Reds are in the Hometown Heroes set but I've got to be approaching the team set. Between this, the mailer from Douglas (which I'll post about soon) and a couple others, I think I've got it covered. That being said, dupes are not a bad thing and and I revamp my player collections, they will be included.

Edinson Volquez, what could have been. I think most Reds fans are still sore about the trade that shipped him and three others off to San Diego for Mat Latos. While we got a few solid years out of Latos, Volquez has turned his career around after bouncing around for a few years and won a ring last year with Kansas City, ironically teaming up in the rotation with Johnny Cueto. That could have been the Reds with Cueto and Volquez as a deadly 1-2 punch!  

I could be wrong but I believe this is my first Topps Gallery card and it appears to be some sort of shiny parallel (ooh, shiny objects!) Regardless, this is a really neat card and a fantastic piece of artwork. I need to decide, does it go with my box of "good stuff" or get placed with the growing mountain of cards that needs to be loaded into a binder.

Panini Cooperstown! These are so cool, especially old Edd Roush on the bottom there. Any old vintage guys on newer products is a-ok in my book.

I'll close this out with a nice variety of stuff. I've really, really tried to forget the horrible experiment that was the reclamation of Jason Marquis last year. However, judging by this years pitching staff, it would probably somewhat welcome. There's also a green parallel of one of my favorite Todd Frazier cards, next to that a simple base card to add to my Bronson Arroyo PC, and finally a something I had no clue that existed, that being a Reds card of wacky relieved extraordinare Kent Tekulve!

Thanks for the great stuff Fuji! I see more cards coming your way this summer.

Hope everyone has a great Memorial Day weekend!

You've Got Mail #23: Cardboard Collection

I have 18 drafts sitting on my blog currently, 10 of which are trade posts including this one. As I mentioned a few posts back, I'm planning on getting through these so I can get my drafts folder down to a manageable level.

This particular trade arrived back in early March (yes, that's how far behind I am on trade posts) from Colbey of Cardboard Collection and had all kinds of neat stuff inside.

I'll start with this. This Joe Morgan manu-relic is really cool (it's also really, really thick). I wasn't expecting this at all.

Here's another nice card, a framed Gypsy Queen parallel of Johnny Bench. I love getting cool Bench cards in trades and this definitely ranks up there with the better Bench cards in my collection.

From one catcher to another, here's a Devin Mesoraco RC that appears to be some sort of burnt orange foil version (or perhaps that's just how the card scanned in). The background just makes Mesoraco pop off the card.

Some inserts cards from Topps sets from earlier this decade of Tom Seaver and George Foster. These two were on the late 70s Reds teams that not many people talk about today. Foster had a monster season in 1977 and Seaver had a number of good seasons with the Reds into the early 80s.

Some more framed parallels, this time Todd Frazier and Jay Bruce. Frazier now belongs to the White Sox and it's still strange to see him in that uniform. Bruce was nearly shipped off to Toronto at the beginning of spring training but is still with the team and is having a nice start to the season.

O-Pee-Chee! You can never go wrong with these! Look how young Johnny Cueto looks too! He looks like a kid fresh off a high school diamond.

Some Heritage. I can always dig Heritage, plus it's a Raisel Iglesias rookie card! He should be one of the best spots of the Reds rotation this year and he pitched a heck of a game as the emergency Opening Day starter.

Wrapping up the Reds portion of with some Panini Cooperstown. I've definitely become a fan of this set. I think it's the best set you can do without the licensing, especially considering a lot of the pre-war players that are included.

Moving on to football, there was a good smattering of Bengals cards. These were the highlights. I like the Geno Atkins card from the Topps Valor set

Finally, I'll cap this trade post off with some wrestling cards. It's rare that I get wrestling cards in a trade as collectors are few and far between so I got really excited when these showed up. The Heritage cards are a throwback to their debut card set but I really, really liked the WWE Platinum set that the top four cards are from. I could have scanned the whole batch, but these were the best.

Thanks for the great trade Colbey! I know you said you didn't want anything in return but I'm setting aside Panthers cards for you as I come across them to eventually send as a token of thanks.