A Trade From the Dime Box

A few weeks ago, well maybe even a month ago at this point, Nick over at the Dime Boxes blog put up a post about how trading seems to have slowed down for him. I was reading it and realized that trading has slowed down for me a lot as well (despite the fact I just featured two trade packages in previous posts). 

At the end of the post, he asked if anyone would be willing to strike up a trade. So of course, since I haven't traded with anyone in a while I said "of course, I'll trade with you Nick." And thus, that's how these cards arrived in my mailbox a few weeks ago. As usual, Nick sent cards that hit everything I collect.

I'll start with vintage as I enjoy nothing more than receiving vintage in trade packages. And boy, am I starting with a doozy. This 1971 Pete Rose card has obviously seen better days but this is a card that even though it wasn't on my "most wanted" list, it's a card that I've had my eye on here and there for a while. 

Defunct teams are another one of my guilty pleasures when it comes to cards. Here's a card from 1964 Topps depicting the Milwaukee Braves. The Braves in 1964 went 88-74 and finished 5th in the National League. They would depart for Atlanta following the 1965 season. Fun fact: The Braves team never had a losing season in Milwaukee.

These are some 1970s O-Pee-Chee cards and I was pretty excited to see these. I might do a write-up on these in a separate post down the road but I'm not sure. Maybe something for the SABR Baseball Cards blog? I'm still looking for a topic to potentially write about there. 

Here's some cards from the 1981 Topps scratch-off game. Aside from scratch-off tickets from the lottery, I've never really played any type of scratch off games. I'm guessing that the way this was played is that you scratch off circle by circle? Not sure. Anyway, these are pretty neat little oddballs.

More modern stuff now and there were these manu-relics included. I'm not down on these as a lot of people are and I think that they definitely have their place in blaster boxes or part of retail packs. I would, however, be disappointed if I bought a hobby box and got one of these as the "guaranteed hit".

I like to collect a little bit of everything, as most can see from my want list, so Nick included a little bit of everything. First we have this very shiny Willie McCovey card.

I can't tell you the last time I received cards of Tony Gwynn in a trade package. These were certainly unexpected and very welcome. 

Good stuff of some misc Hall of Famers here. Always nice to add another Eck to the collection.

The Ozzie card on the left is from the 1990 Baseball Card Magazine set. It's pretty close to the 1969 Topps design so they get credit for that for sure. The other is a from the Score P&G All-Star game set. I received the whole set last year as part of my blogger secret Santa package so this will go in with my Cardinals cards.

Don't have a lot of Topps Kids cards in my collection. I like that these aren't completely crazy like Garbage Pail Kids but are just fun enough that they definitely bring me back to being a kids in the 90s.

A couple new Robin Yount cards. The yellow border one is a box bottom.

In terms of team collections, Nick also hit my Reds and Indians team collections pretty good. It's always a good day when I can add Cy Young cards to my collection.

Some random Indians from then and now including a 2018 Donruss Jay Bruce which was on my most wanted list and a Utz oddball of Jose Ramirez.

Some Edwin Encarnacion cards. Seems like forever ago when he was with Cleveland. I only really look for his cards as a Red or Indian.

And some Francisco Lindor to close out the Indians portion. With all of these cards (plus the ones I didn't show), it'll be a really good time to go through my Indians binder and streamline everything.

Moving on to the Reds section now, these Hal Morris cards are from Baseball Card Magazine as well. I think my favorite of these is the 1970 version.

Yay! Griffey Jr. cards! I'll never tire of Griffey Jr. cards featuring him with the Reds. It's still kind of mind boggling to me that the Reds were able to get him from the Mariners.

More Topps Kids cards.

Some early 2000s action here, including a card of Jose Rijo during his comeback period. For those who don't know, Rijo was out of baseball from 1996-2000 due to numerous elbow problems. Finally, he returned to the bigs in 2001 as a reliever and then managed to even make some starts in 2002 including the final game at Riverfront Stadium. He was going to pitch in 2003 but his arm troubles resurfaced and he retired soon after.

This Adam Dunn card is from a Reds stadium giveaway set. As far as I know, the Reds are one of the few teams, if not the only team, that still produces their own unique card set. I always like the Fleer Greats set as well, if not for the front, just for the backs that have full and complete career stats.

A few random Reds from the 80s

And finally a nice batch of modern day Reds cards. Matt Kemp was dumped from the team in early May, right when Nick Senzel was called up (can't say I really miss Kemp at all) and Scooter Gennett was traded to the Giants during the Reds trade deadline bonanza.

This was a fantastic package from Nick and I appreciate him sending it over. I'm working on a return package and while I can't guarantee it'll be as epic as what he sent, I'm hopeful there will be some stuff in there he can use. Thanks Nick!

You've Got Mail #42: Highly Subjective & Completely Arbitrary

I've been trading with Brian of the Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary blog since last summer. I've sent him a few things, he's sent a few PWEs in return. His latest envelope packed a huge punch.

I'll start with these Tony Perez cards. I was a little confused when I saw them as I thought "wait a minute, why are there two Perez cards from 1977 Topps?" I thought maybe the Expos one was a Traded card but when I flipped them over to verify, it clicked, the Expos card in an O-Pee-Chee! I should have figured, knowing Brian is the master of old school OPC cards. 

1992 Donruss isn't one of my favorite designs but at lot of oddballs used the design that year, from Coca-Cola to McDonalds as is evidenced by the McDonald's MVP logo in the top right. As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm lacking in Larkin cards from his later years but this E-X card definitely fills a nice spot in that void.

I thought this card was perhaps from one of the Archives sets from the past few years but I was wrong. It's a 2014 Topps Chrome 1989 design. I'm not sure if these were inserts but it's pretty interesting. 1989 Topps is one of the most over produced sets ever but the design is much, much better than the bland 1988 and the very neon-y 1990 set.

Unlike the Hamilton card, I knew this was from Archives. Rob Dibble seems to get his fair share of cards from Topps but the other members of the Nasty Boys bullpen, Norm Charlton and Randy Myers, seem to have zero cardboard love from the major card companies. This is a really cool addition to the Reds binder but I have to ask, what is that on the back of Dibble's head? Is that his hair? If so, that has to be one epic mullet.

Micah Owings came over to the Reds as one of the players to be named later in the Adam Dunn trade in 2008. Although he was a pitcher, Dusty Baker used him more as a pinch hitter since he was one of the best hitting pitchers in the league and hung around for a couple years and left after the 2010 season. Until I saw this card, I'd kind of forgotten about his stint as a Red.

Here's a bunch of random Reds cards spanning players from many different times. I personally like the John Franco and the Joey Votto cards from this batch.

Anytime I see vintage in a package or PWE, it makes it that much better. Dave Bristol has that look of an old school manager with the tobacco in the cheek and seems to be a non-nonsense individual.

These old school Expos cards are super cool. The K-Mart Tim Raines is really cool, especially since the closet K-Mart to me is closing at the end of July. Never mind about how the 1985 Fleer card scanned in, my scanner doesn't seem to like that particular set. I find it interesting how Dan Driessen followed Tony Perez at first base with the Reds after Perez was traded to the Expos and then he did the same thing with the Expos after he was traded by the Reds. Speaking of strange players with the Expos, everyone seems to forget that Pete Rose had a brief run with the Expos in 1984. I'm not sure what the Rose card is from but it's a nice Rose Expos card that I didn't know existed. The back is really strange though ...

I'm guessing that this was part of a Pete Rose poster or puzzle. Regardless, it's pretty cool.

I'll end with some always wonderful vintage Expos cards. The 1975 set is growing on me so I'm pretty happy when I see random singles from the set thrown in trade packs. I'm not exactly sure who Chuck Taylor is, but somehow I don't think he's involved with Converse shoes.

With that, another wild PWE comes to an end. Don't forget, check the blog on August 1st at Noon for a big announcement regarding a super cool project I'll be working on this fall.

The Nutter Center Sports Card Show - Part 3: Bargain Bin Finds

It's said that variety is the spice of life ... well, you can't get much more variety that what I found in the bargain bins at the card show a few weeks ago.

My new project, 1981 Donruss. I didn't realize how much I liked these cards until I actually got a few in my collection. There's just something about them to me that screams "hey, these are pretty neat!" Sure, it's not the best Donruss effort ever but it's an affordable debut set that I can definitely get behind and it won't break the bank to build it. I really like the all gold uniform sported by Stargell.

A couple nice cards of Pete Rose as a Philly. The highlight card will go in with my slowing growing 82 Topps set build. I find it fascinating getting cards of former stars of the Big Red Machine teams in their post-Reds years.

A few nice Royals cards. The fountains card is just beautiful. I was surprised the Beltran was hiding in a dime box. Just goes to show you never know what you'll find.

Here's where the variety really starts to kick in. Check out all these random cards that I dug out! Griffey, Sandberg, Andre Dawson, Tony Gwynn, Javy Lopez and Tulo! The red cards of Joe Mauer and A.J. Burnett are serial numbered from Topps Unique, a brand I've never heard of. Tons of cool stuff.

Two guys making an impression in Chicago. Soler is going towards my Stadium Club build and Abreu will get a nice place in my 2015 binder.

Here's a batch of really cool Prizm cards. I know Prizm isn't everyone's bag but for me it's cool looking cards on a budget and that just can't be beat.

Another pair of random cards. Eckersley is one of my favorite non Reds players ever so anytime I can find a nice card of him, I'll gladly pick it up.

If you think all of that was a good variety, now here's where it veers completely off the tracks!

Four really nice Bengals cards. I'm not a big buyers of football packs but this years Panini Prestige is just too nice to pass up.

I could've thumbed through the hockey box for a good 30 minutes but these were the only two I picked out as I have aspirations to get some packs of Series 1 hockey soon. Just in case you're wondering, yes one person had a Connor McDavid rookie card and no, I wasn't about to pay $250 for it.

Vintage hockey is so hard to come by in my area that I'll get just about anything I see when it comes up, even in this case when I have no clue who Ron Schock is.

Kellogg's cards are always pretty cool, especially when they're out of a dime box.

A good variety and sampling of the new Topps WWE Heritage cards. British Bulldog was one of my favorites growing up, Charlotte is the daughter of 16-time world champion Ric Flair and has a big match coming up this weekend at Survivor Series against Paige, and Finn Balor is one of the hottest stars in NXT right now (and has some of the most awesome entrance music ever), plus it's a silver parallel.

The obligatory Reds pickups. Jesse Winker will hopefully be a star for the Reds and he should be ready by the end of the 2016 season. I met Corky Miller at the annual Reds Caravan one year and he's a really cool dude.

Closing out the bargain bin digs with two extremely nice Lou Gehrig cards, one for my Stadium Club set build and the other just because it's a very, very nice card.

Just because some card shows are small doesn't mean that you can't find good stuff. Look what I found after two hours and digging through some bargain boxes. I'd say this is definitely a card show I'll be heading back to soon.