Purple Topps of the 2016 Variety

Topps is running their hobby shop Spring Fever promo again this season and I had every intention of making it out to my most local shop that was participating. However, the period to make purchases and receive the redemption cards for the packs ended today. A number of factors contributed to my inability to get to the shop in time. So, once it became obvious that I wasn't going to be able to participate in that promo, I decided to seek out some Toys R Us exclusive purple parallels to help dull the pain and fill the void. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the packaging was the same as series one of last year: one pack and three purple parallels for $2.99. I grabbed a few and got to ripping. Since the base cards have been scanned excessively at this point, I'm just going to share the best of the exclusives.

Woohoo, pulled a Refsnyder. Now I only need the Severino and Bird to round out the Yankee RCs. I was pretty happy to get a copy of the Mookie Betts too. Man, Tim from a few years back wouldn't have been able to appreciate any BoSox cards...I'm glad that guy is gone!

That Sal Perez World Series card is one of my favorite base cards in series one. I like how it seems the purple works with the Royals for some reason. Maybe that's just me. It's a great addition to my season highlights/World Series collection. Only grabbed a few packs and I was lucky enough to pull two Yankees. I've got a few others, but they weren't very scan worthy and I wanted this to be a relatively short post. I can say with certainty that I'll be picking up at least a few more of these packs before I call it quits on series one. I'll be sure to share if I pull anything good. Thanks for reading.

Trading with an Underdog

A little while back, Zach, from the great blog The Underdog Card Collector posted some 2015 GQ that were up for grabs. There were three cards that struck my interest so I sent him a message. Though we hadn't traded previously, our interaction was welcomed readily. I'm a touch behind on the trade posts so this envelope actually reached my mailbox a few weeks ago and I must say that I was impressed. A small package that was put together quickly sure did pack a good punch. Let's dig into it.

The Jeter Walk-Off Winners insert was one of the ones that started this ball rolling. It features the well known picture of the Captain celebrating after his final Yankee Stadium at bat which resulted in a walk-off single. The other Jeter GQ insert was a pleasant surprise. With the addition of another DiMaggio streak insert, I'm almost at the point where I should probably create a want list to finish that insert set off. It's incredible to me that when I started trading with my fellow bloggers, I didn't have a single one of these and now I am getting close to halfway done! Yankees Rookie Stars from '69 round out the first scan in vintage style!

A little more vintage finds a new home as a well loved Nate Oliver joins the collection. A trip of Yankee legends was also a welcome addition! I hadn't seen these GQ No-Hitters inserts before, but seeing the Jim Abbott fall out of this stack was a pretty darn good way for me to discover a new insert set, and it's always nice to get a new(to me) card of The Warrior.

Next, we have the second card that I had requested. The Souza Glove Stories immortalizes the incredible catch that he made to preserve Jordan Zimmermann's no hitter last season. Zach is one of the few trading partners that has reached beyond my affinity for new Yankees and hit on my love of baseball history. The Nolan Ryan and Joe Carter 'highlight' cards are prime examples of this part of my collection.

In the end, my collection always comes back to the Yankees. We round out the highlights of this package with two Topps '72 minis and the final GQ card that I had wanted. The Rizzuto is the silver parallel mini and it is serial numbered /199.

Overall, this trade package left quite the first impression. Zach had told me to hold off on sending anything back his way until I received this. In the weeks that have passed since opening it, I have been putting together your return package, Zach. I can only hope that when I am done, you dig what I send your way as much as I have enjoyed the cards in this post. Thanks for a great first trade, I look forward to another one soon!