Cards From the Clubhouse

Before I get to the details of another great trade package, I just have to say the following: IT'S CARD SHOW DAY!!! Yes, today I will be making my way to my first show of 2016. I'm a tad bit excited of you couldn't tell. Truth is, all of my fellow Super Traders(and other trade buddies) should be excited too. I'm looking to pick up little gems that are just screaming to be relocated to new homes all across the US/Canada and even France! Of course, I'll be looking to add a few nice things for myself too. I can't wait to get back and post about my findings(and mail some of them out too)! Now, back to your regularly scheduled trade post.

The next stop for the Great Trade Post Catch Up train comes courtesy of Adam over at Cardboard Clubhouse. It was another in a series of packed, padded envelopes that arrived amidst trying to adjust to the new schedule of having a newborn in the house again, and it was the first trade package arrival of 2016.

A little nostalgia to start things off on the right foot! It seems I've been racking up quite a few Yankees buyback cards over the past weeks and this well worn Bobby Murcer continues that trend. Man, I remember Roberto Kelly for two big reasons: he was my 'Bernie Williams' before Bernie actually came into the picture and he was involved in the trade hat brought Paul O'Neill to the Yankees! No offense Roberto, but that trade favored the guys in Pinstripes.

Ugh! Brien Taylor...I'm not even going to elaborate. On a more positive note, who remembered that Brad Ausmus began his respectable career in the Yankees system? Alvaro Espinosa has the distinction of being the best(or at least fan favorite) of the many Yankee shortstops that filled the role until some guy by the name of Jeter came to town.

This is a nice trio of Yankee hurlers. I especially like the angle on the Doc Gooden. Oh wait, that's probably because it's from Collector's Choice. Have I mentioned lately how much I love that brand?

When I flipped to these in the package, I was so happy! They're my first 3D cards from a fairly recent Archives release. These are really nicely done and now that I have two of them, it's got me considering the idea of chasing the rest of that set. The Grandy man has me one more single closer to at least finishing the mini Yankees team set from that year.

These are two that I had inquired about, but knowing that they'd be in here didn't take away from my excitement about receiving them! I'm slowly chipping away at the All-Star Access insert, and the Gallo Update Chrome brings my set completion number to 43/50. I'm almost there!

Adam also included a few Broncos cards. Somehow, I don't think I had the Elway and Simon Fletcher was one of the standouts on the defense back in the '80's. I love that NFL 75th Anniversary patch...oh wait that's Collector's Choice again. Baseball, football, no matter the sport it was a great brand. I'm thrilled to have the Latimer parallel. He's still young, but I'm hoping to see big things from him in the coming years. He's going to have to play a big role if the Broncos are going to challenge for another Suoer Bowl Championship.

Thanks Adam! Great stuff all around. I'm compiling a return package for you that will hopefully bring you as many smiles as these have brought me. Thanks everyone for reading, I'm going off to the show!

A Trip to My Not-So-Local Card Shop

Last week, my family and I were on vacation on Myrtle Beach. It happened to be raining one of the days and we were driving around exploring(read: keeping the kids from going crazy in the hotel room). Just as we were headed back to the room to get lunch and let the girls nap, we passed by a card shop. Once we finished lunch and the girls were sound asleep, I drove back out to the shop. I mean, what better way to spend a rainy day at the beach?

Since it was raining and I had limited time to search the store, I didn't take any pics of my own, but here are a few that give a feel for the shop.

The storefront

The wall behind the main showcases

The boxes on the shelves differed a bit, but this is a pretty decent representation of the shop atmosphere. Given my time constraints, I did a quick lap around the shop to see where my time would be best spent. It turns out that this is one of the rare shops that has dollar and quarter boxes on display. I decided to focus on them for this first visit.

I hit the quarter boxes second and didn't spend much time there, but I'll start with a few I pulled from there.

3-D! A Yankee World Series hero and a former Durham Bull, both decked out in all of their lenticular glory. I'm such a sucker for these kind of cards.

This gem features two great Yankees and makes me aware of another great oddball set to chase after. I had no clue there were cards from Sunoco. Mattingly will make another appearance or two in my purchase stack.

This one bummed out the shop owner while I was paying. He told me he completely forgot that he had put Pineda on the quarter boxes last year. He had two of this one that I found, so I snagged them both. There were a few others that I won't show here, but a few of you out there will be seeing them pop up in your mailboxes in the near future.

Back in my past show going days, the dollar boxes were my thing as much as the dime boxes are Nick's thing so I was interested in checking out what I might find. These dollar boxes were sorted fairly well by sport and into star player sections. I dug right in and picked out a few hidden treasures.

I grabbed this five card sealed pack of Starline/Coca-Cola cards that had Donnie Baseball on the front. I'm certain that I'll open it soon.

I couldn't pass up the chance to pick up one of Nomo's best RC's for just a buck. I don't collect him, but owning this card takes me back to the time of Nomo-Mania.

The action shot

The posed, head shot

I was thrilled to find this 1985 Slurpee Disc from 7-11.

Here's the back

I LOVE these things! I'm sure the actual 'value' isn't much more than a dollar(or even a dollar), but I happily forked that over to be able to take this one home. I thought this would be the best item I found for my collection, but I was wrong.

A few stacks after finding Mattingly, I found this. It's  a bit mis-cut and has some rounded edges, but it's a 1976 Hostess Thurman Munson! Surely, this would be the best find of the day, right? Wrong again!

My jaw nearly dropped when I saw this, a BBM Ichiro from 1995! I don't know anything about these types of cards, so I'm not even sure if it's authentic. Truthfully, I don't care. Check out that young Ichiro!

Here's the back. I don't have many cards with other languages. I've got a handful of O-Pee-Chee, a slightly larger stack of Pacific, and one or two from Topps that have Japanese writing on the back. This one is by far my favorite. If anyone out there is more knowledgeable about BBM cards and can let me know if this is legit, that would be great.

Just as was the case with the quarter boxes, there are some dollar box finds that will shortly be making their way into mailboxes near you.

I didn't have high hopes for this shop away from home, but I was pleasantly surprised. We've already got another trip planned for Myrtle later this summer, so I'll be making at least one more stop into Baseball 17 for some more goodies! Thanks for reading.

The Card Chop Swap

A long while back, Steve from The Card Chop blog commented about the wallet Wool E. Bull card that I had posted asking if I had an extra to send his way. Fortunately, I did have an extra so we began discussing a trade. I ended up sending him the Wool E. and a stadium giveaway UD Braves Team set, you can see his post here. He had sent me some minor league cards and a Carl Crawford issued by the Disabled American Veterans. I was really looking forward to getting his return package. Well, some time went by and I stopped thinking about it, figuring it would arrive whenever it arrived. However, when a month passed and it hadn't arrived, I sent Steve a message just letting him know that I wasn't being a jerk not writing a 'thank you' post showing off the goods, but at I never received anything. He checked his tracking and it had been held up in Greensboro, NC for weeks. He gave me the tracking number and apologized(even though it wasn't his fault) and said he'd put some other cards together to send my way. In the mean time, I contacted the USPS with the tracking info in hopes that maybe he original package would find its way to my mailbox. After a lot of time on the phone trying to figure out what happened, I don't have high hopes on that. 

Steve's (more than generous) second package arrived the other day, taking me by surprise and giving me a good mid-week boost of cardboard fun! Unlike many, I don't bust a lot of A&G so I don't have many minis floating around. I was thrilled to see the three former Durham Bulls above fall out of the stack!

Sticking with the mini theme, Steve sent me these two great 1971 mini Yankees. I really like the various 'vintage' themed mini inserts from Topps, but I haven't gotten ambitious enough to tackle trying to put together any of the sets. The checklists are just too big for this amateur set collector.

Next up, I found a standard sized 1971-style Iron Horse. I like the gold Matt Moore. I'm hoping he can return later this season after rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. I'm actually looking forward to the potential for a rehab assignment with the Bulls! I really dig the Longoria! Though you can't tell from the scan, it's one of those 3-D cards. I didn't even know that Topps did these back in 2010, but I like 'em!

The last group included two Yankee legends and two more former Bulls. The more I see the Peak Performance inserts, the more I like them. It was nice to see the Cobb for a few reasons. He is one of my favorite former Bulls. It also reminded me that there is a chance I'll get to see him in Durham again pretty soon as he returns from the DL and finishes getting ready for the season in Tampa. Lastly, much like the Peak Performance cards, the more I see this year's Donruss, the more it grows on me. I'm not gonna build the set, but I don't think it's the train wreck that a lot of others do. So, it's nice to get singles of some of my favorite players without having to bust packs. Thanks for sending a second bunch of cards over Steve. It was truly above and beyond what I expected!