Off Hiatus Tony Knocked My Socks Off

Recently, I was the lucky recipient of two separate packages from Tony L. from Off Hiatus Baseball Cards. The first was a complete(almost complete) set of 1978 Topps Burger King Yankees.

A while back, Tony had posted that the recently acquired set was up for grabs and I pounced. I had a few singles from the set, but nowhere near the complete set. As it turns out, when Tony inspected the 'set' prior to posting it, he found that it came with two Fred Stanley's and was missing Bucky Dent. Soon enough, I'll track down a Dent to complete it.

Shortly after this arrived, I found the first #supertrader package from To y in my mailbox. I was pretty excited for this because Tony had posted some hits pulled from 2015 Panini Contenders and 2012 Topps Mini that were going out to the Super Trader group. I was fortunate enough that he had pulled a Rays  auto and a relic from those products.

Here is the auto from Contenders. Granted, it's not as awesome as the Moncada auto that also came from the box, but I'm psyched to have my first Garrett Whitley auto. He was the Rays' 2015 first round draft pick and is currently the 5th best prospect in their system, as ranked by Baseball America.

Here is the mini relic. It's not my first Longoria relic, but it is the most interesting one I have. You gotta wonder what that writing says, and who wrote it. That wasn't the only good stuff in the Super Traders package from Tony.

More minis from 2012 Topps! Three great pitchers who have moved on to new teams(or multiple teams).

That black bordered parallel of Matt Moore is #/62 and the Bowman Platinum is the purple parallel. Great stuff, but it doesn't stop there.

More relics! I love that Wade Boggs. I dig the Golden Moments inserts anyway, so when you add a relic to one it's even better! Crime Dog in Tampa duds isn't something that you see everyday. We round things out with a David Price jersey relic. It may be a plain white swatch, but it's a relic and it is a season highlight(winning the Cy Young Award and the quest to win it back to back) so it is doubly awesome. Thanks for another great trade package, Tony. I've got some Brew Crew cardboard ready to ship your way really soon. Thanks for reading.

Night Owl Sure is a #supertrader

I've had the good fortune to trade with Night Owl on a few occasions before. Recently, another padded envelope arrived from the nocturnal one. It was stuffed with two filled team bags and a note saying that this was half return package and half #supertraders content. It hit on many aspects of my collecting preferences.

To start, these stacks brought me 7 cards closer to completing the Stadium Club set and 14 cards closer to finally finishing Topps series two.

There was a healthy dose of oddball too. I love those Conlon Collection cards, and the Whitehall Collection Babe Ruth Hologram is pretty nice too! Though I chose not to scan it, this package also contained my first MooTown Snackers card(Kevin Maas).

There were cool horizontals too, some of the parallel variety. I really like those Opening Day cards. This is the second of those that I've picked up. I think the brand should go back to highlighting 'actual' opening day games in some way.

Lastly, there was plenty of shiny to go around. I loved all of these, but especially the gold Kiermaier RC. It was probably my favorite card of the package. He's one of my favorite non-Yankee players right now and my favorite, current former Durham Bull. Of those recent Durham guys that actually have a decent number of cards, I think Richie Shaffer may be my favorite. That purple parallel from Bowman Platinum was probably a close second for favorite card of the package. Thanks NO, I appreciate the great cardboard! I'll be putting together a Super Traders package for you in the near future. Thanks for reading.

I was Hoyle'd #supertraders Style

I've often read about the awesome, vintage filled packages that folks in the cardsphere had received from the great, Mark Hoyle. I hadn't however had the chance to make that connection until now. Thanks to the Super Traders group, I received a bubble mailer from the Boston representative. As I was getting ready to open it, I wondered to myself what could possibly be included since I've got the Rays in the group and nothing produced since their inception could be considered vintage in any way. Heck they don't even have throwback uniforms, they had to design 'fauxbacks'. Granted, I love those things, but I digress. Anyway, back to the contents of this awesome trade package. Instead of continuing to wonder what could be inside, I figured I'd just rip into it and see where flipping through the stack took me.

I needed the Odorizzi RC and perhaps the Kiermaier might look nice if I could get an IP auto across it. It would certainly make up for the lack of logos! There were a few other Rays in the mix, but he majority of the package had a distinct vintage feel. I was thrilled!

I was happy when a handful of '72 Yankees showed up to the party. Shhhh, don't tell TLC. Here's where the awesomeness gets cranked all the way to ten!

I do not own a bunch of vintage anything. I'm late to that party and trying to make up for lost time, but vintage football is really under represented in my collection. I'm loving the Otis Armstrong and Lyle Alzado cards in particular.

Two more Armstrongs and a Floyd Little make me a happy guy!

The more I flipped through the stack, the more I found. They just kept galloping right out of that team bag. Get a load of the pose on the Mike Current!

Another Alzado! Tom Graham was 58 long, long before Von 'Super Bowl MVP' Miller was.

We finally finish up with the defensive backfield. This defense was the precursor to the great 'Orange Crush'. I haven't done the research, but I can't imagine that this isn't a complete 1975 Topps team set. I guess I'll have to look that up and make sure. If it's not, I need to finish it. I'm this close courtesy of a great trade package, how could I not? Thanks Mark, you've set the bar pretty high. I'm going to have to come up with some great BoSox to send back your way. Thanks for reading and 'Goooo Super Traders!