Bubble Gum Bomb

In keeping with the trade package catch-up, let's take a look at the most recent(though I've had this for several months at this point) package from Jeff at Wish They Still Came With Bubble Gum. As usual, he loaded it up with awesome cardboard goodness, but he sent an additional surprise my way this go 'round.

Starting off are two shiny NJ Devils. I've always loved the Black Diamond brand(across all sports) probably because they remind me of the early days of the SP brand. In those first few years, the RCs were done in varying styles of foil and I was always so excited to pull one of those.

I can't help but still collect Robbie Cano. He was one of my favorite Yankees during his time in NY. I was especially happy to find this Heritage purple refractor, even if he is sporting the M's jersey. That is my first card of Mo the Third. If he can develop into a half the player his dad was, he should have a long and successful career.

Ahhh, old Topps Tek! These young Hamiltons were especially welcome additions since I always like to be reminded of his time in the Rays system. When I think about that, it does make me wish that I had gotten the chance to see him in Durham Bulls colors, but it wasn't meant to be.

As much as I liked finding the Josh Hamilton Tek cards, you know I loved finding these new-to-me Bernie cards!

More Bernies and a Jorge that I've had my eyes on for a while were also very welcome additions.

I had completely forgotten about the Topps Laser set from back in the day until I found some in a quarter box at the last show I went to. There weren't any players I wanted in that quarter box, so it was cool to see this Wade Boggs fall out of the package. These look really intricate, but they are extremely fragile.

Since I'm not a huge fan of the GQ line, I always appreciate when I find GQ minis or mini parallels in trade packages. I scanned this Whitey Ford a while back, but I'm pretty sure the black parallel was #/50.

From one great Yankee hurler to another. These two David Cones pay tribute to the perfect game he threw back in July 1999. I've had the MVP card for a long time, but the Dominion was new to me and I couldn't help but show them both off side by side since the pics were snapped a few moments apart and from slightly different angles.

Nearing the end of this great stack of cards, but there are still these gems to highlight. Both of these are photo variation SPs from last year's Topps sets. I've shown the Jeter before. It shows The Captain celebrating(with his teammates) his walk off hit in his final Yankee Stadium AB. The Andrew Miller is a great shot of him presumably in the bullpen awaiting the call to start warming up for another save. 

That was some great, great cardboard. However, the real treat of this package was what followed.

I thought it was strange that when the envelope arrived, it was one of the letter sized ones. When I opened it, I saw the cards in full 9 pocket pages which I thought explained the envelope, but once I pulled the pages out, this remained. When I was younger, I made every attempt to collect programs like these. That's a habit I had to reconsider as I got older because I began to realize that space limitations and moving stuff like this from house to house can be tricky. Seeing this brought back fond memories and I really enjoyed reading through it. Jeff, I'm not sure where you found this, but thanks for thinking of me and sending it my way! I've got a stack of Braves, Falcons, and a few Lightning cards ready to pack and send to you.

Thanks for reading.