A Grande Trade Package

A little while back, I had sent Chris from Nachos Grande a few cards. I was excited to see that he found so many cards that he enjoyed in that padded mailer. Well, a few days back, a small flat rate box showed up in my mailbox. Here are the contents prior to busting the team bags. I was quite surprised at the volume that Chris sent over and couldn't wait to see what was inside.

I'll start with the DiMaggio insert highlighting 'The Streak'. This is the first of these that I've gotten my hands on. I had actually kinda ignored this insert because I have two examples of a similar insert that Topps did that focuses on 'The Streak Before the Streak'. While still in the minors, Joe D actually had a 61 game hitting streak. I stumbled on that set and picked up number 1 and 61. There is not much difference between those cards since there is no information on the specific game(s) in which he got each respective hit. The above DiMaggio is much different. It has pretty detailed info about game 24 in The Streak. I May need to hunt down the entire set... I will not however be chasing the Mantle career home run set, but it is nice to have a few of these hanging around. A new Jeter showed up next to the first of four new cards of Bernie. The Strawberry made me a bit nostalgic, both about his career and about Collector's Choice.

Here are the other three new Bernie cards. I think my favorite of them is the Collector's Choice. Hope you guys don't mind the repetition, but we're not quite done with that sentiment in this post.

Jorge hails from an Opening Day set that is easily differentiated from the corresponding flagship design of the same year. Granted, the big difference besides the huge Opening Day logo is the fact that the border is blue instead of green, but at this point, I'd welcome even as subtle a change as that back to the brand. Shane Spencer is one of my favorite unsung heroes. His time with the Yankees was short, but he played a big role in their 2000 World Series championship. There was a time when Adrian Hernandez was touted as the next 'El Duque' Orlando Hernandez(no relation). He was even nicknamed 'El Duquecito'. In late season 2001 products, I actively hunted his cards. As we all know, his career didn't quite pan out that way, but the combo of Hernandez and Spencer showing up in this package made me think about good times hunting autographs at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park(but that's a story for another post). Hey look at that Joe Girardi! Wait, that's another card from a Collector's Choice set!

I've had that Stadium Club Don Mattingly on my eBay watch list for a while now. The perspective of that photo might well be from the best seat in the house as the name of the subset implies. Hey, that Cecil Fielder comes from Collector's Choice too!

In this group, good things come in pairs. Two former Yankee Captains, two former Yankees that hailed from the Land of the Rising Sun, and two awesome Yankee season highlights cards.

Chris also included a mysterious, Upper Deck Yankees Fan Pack(still sealed). He told me he had no idea what to expect from the pack. I just had to find out.

It turns out that the pack contained a rehash of multiple 2007-08 UD product lines.

All of these were on the same type of card stock and were not easy to differentiate from the original issues.

These Masterpieces reworkings were the only ones that were easy to tell apart from the originals. These three were all on standard thickness, glossy stock instead of the canvas-like stock of the actual set.

It wasn't quite what I expected from the pack, but it still provided a bunch of new Yankees for the collection.

In the middle of one of those team bags fell this awesome manu-patch of Wade Boggs. This is my third different Yankee patch from this set. It also happens to commemorate the first Yankees World Series win of my life that I can remember.

These two bits of greatness fell from two other separate team bags. The Noesi auto reminds me of a time when he was a highly touted prospect and I was anxiously awaiting his MLB debut. Then he got traded in the deal that brought Pineda to New York. It certainly looks like NY got the better end of that deal! Finally, we come to the incredible Hideki Matsui bat card. I really liked the design of the Timeline relic cards and I love that the photo shows the prominent Yankee Stadium final season patch on his left arm. Add to that the fact that this is my first Matsui relic, and it easily takes the cake as my favorite card of the package. 

Thanks for your generosity Chris. I truly enjoyed sorting through this flat rate box-o-goodies. I'm looking forward to our next exchange!