You've Got Mail #72: Summer of '74

I received a package in the mail the other day from someone I like to call "The Man Who Made Milwaukee Famous."

No, I'm not talking about "The Crusher".

I'm talking about Matt from the somewhat new Summer of '74 blog. He's a Brewers collector and is also building some of the Topps base sets. I shipped a few late 70s extras his way along with a few from 2016 recently. In return, I received some cool stuff back last week.

First were these really cool TTM autographs. I haven't really dabbled into the TTM thing yet but I might give it a try at some point. Since Matt is working on an all-time Brewers signature project, I think it's safe to assume that these are extras. I especially like the Joe Oliver card as he was the Reds primary catcher when I first started getting into baseball.

There were also a decent batch of Indians, both old and new. I know there's a ton of 1991 Donruss out there so if anyone wants to dump their cards from Series 1 on me, let me know.

There were also Reds cards both old and new and even old players (Johnny Bench) on new cards. I swear on every Johnny Bench card Topps puts out, that same picture is on there. The Chris Sabo Upper Deck card I strangely didn't have before somehow.

This was the real star of the package though ... card #599 from the 1974 Topps set and it just happens to be the "Washington" variation of the card. One of my collecting goals is to finish the complete set of the Washington error cards and this definitely puts me one step closer. I only need 10 more cards to complete the set and if you have any of the cards on my want list that I still need, feel free to let me know.

Thanks for the great cards Matt. I've got a more Topps base cards I'm piling up to send to you later this summer in the hopes that you can put them to some good use.

You've Got Mail #40: All Trade Bait, All the Time

There was a contest held a while back over at All Trade Bait All The Time (ATBATT for short) and even though I didn't win, I still got a consolation prize. Sort of like being on Wheel of Fortune and being one of the runners-up. Anyway, in order to get said prize, I had to answer an APB for my address. I responded and a nice bubble mailer arrived from sunny California not long there after.

The envelope was stuffed full of cards from three of the primary baseball teams I collect: Reds, Indians, and Expos. I'll show a few from each team, starting with, of course, the Reds.

I rediscovered 1992 pinnacle last fall when I bought a bunch of cards from the thrift store on a whim. I'd forgotten how simple and nice they were with the black background and such, probably my favorite of the early Pinnacle releases. I'm not too familiar with the Ted Williams cards in the middle but they were unique enough to be included in the scan. I also felt like showing off a new Joe Morgan card.

Some cool Indians cards that help fill in the holes there. There is a gaping hole in my collection with cards from around 1994 up through 2012 and that really needs to be filled up, especially in my Indians binder. Something I find interesting is the difference in uniforms between the Omar Vizquel card and the Sandy Alomar card. I'd forgotten the Indians had their old school uniforms until the mid-90s but ones I fondly remember is the one sported by Vizquel. Regardless of uniforms, the Tribe had one heck of a run during that time period.

The Expos cards ran the gamut from old as you can see with the Valentine and Wallach cards to 90s with Moises Alou to my favorite card of the whole pack, this 2001 Fleer E-X Jose Vidro card. I remember seeing a bunch of these cards when I worked for a card shop and assisted with card shows during my high school years. Back then, they went for a bit of a premium but today, they're all but forgotten about.

Finally, this Jose Theodore card was thrown in because I had mentioned in a comment on the ATBATT blog that I thought it was a cool card. Well, now it's even cooler since it's now a part of my hockey collection. 

Pretty cool to get these as a consolation prize. If consolation prizes are like this, I'll gladly enter contests all the time.