Trade with Night Owl

Yesterday, I had a post about a trade with Chris at Nachos Grande, who seems to be one of my more frequent trading partner. Today's post is about another blogger I trade with frequently, Night Owl.  Okay, so I suppose that he wouldn't consider it frequent, but since I only complete 1 or 2 trades a month, the fact that I have had multiple trades with him makes him a frequent trader for me.

As you will recall from yesterday's post, I had a box of 2006 Greats of the Game that didn't excite me. I sent a number of inserts to Nachos Grande.  But, Greg had requested the Nickname Greats Jay Johnstone card that included a picture of someone who was not Jay Johnstone. Read Night Owl's take here.  This occurred at the same time as I went to the August card show in OKC, where I found a 1958 Don Newcombe in a dollar box. As it happens, Greg needed the Newcombe. So, off Don and not-Jay went.

His return package arrived yesterday and what a package it was.  It was way too much to exchange for an error card from a mostly forgotten set and a dollar box find.  So, what did he send?

He sent 11 cards from my 2012 Heritage want list, including 4 short prints (!!!) and one of the stickers.

MIIIIIINNNNNNNNIIIIIISSSSS!!!!1!!!11!1!!!

I'm not a huge fan of 1987 Topps. Nor am I real enthralled with 1962 Topps, which '87 riffs off of. But, this Ruth mini is a nice looking card.  I particularly like the old timey NY emblem.

I'm not much of a A&G fan either.  I am not sure why.  It is a quirky little set that fills much the same niche as Tristar Obak, which I love (as you will see soon). I think it is because of Topps tendency to think that if a little of a something is good then a lot of that thing is super.  Like short prints. And inserts. And parallels.I think  I really could get into A&G if Topps scaled it back some.  Okay, if they scaled it back a lot.  This Curtis Granderson mini is a sharp looking card.

As an aside, I like Curtis Granderson as a man, but I am starting to sour some on him as a ballplayer. His power numbers continue to be good, but his batting average is down and his strikeouts are up.  Coupled with suspect defense, he seems to be turning into a latter day Dave Kingman.  I suspect that the Yankees will pick up his option for 2013, but I would rather see the Yankees let him walk (or pick up the option and then trade him) and focus on getting some young talent.  Brett Gardner would be a much better center fielder.  Gold Glove quality.

Anyhoo, what else did NO send?

Card number.......wait for it..........7.  The ubiquitous number 7 in every recent Topps set (or so it seems).  He also sent a full size A&G Bambino, which I didn't scan.  Another card I forgot to scan was a 2012 Archive 1971 style Alex Rodriguez. Nice looking card of the highest (over)paid player in baseball.

He also sent some 2012 Bowman Yankees including this gold Robbie Cano.

The final card? A night card of course!

Overall, a seriously sweet haul.  All for a 6 year old insert and dollar box find.  If I make it to the October OKC show, you can bet I'll be scanning the vintage discount boxes for more Dodgers for Greg because I am in his debt.

Coming up next: something I have been waiting three months for.

Trade with Nachos Grande

I am not a prolific trader.  Last year, my first back in the hobby I made a fair number of trades. A fair number for me, mind you, is a month's worth for other bloggers.  This year, with my decision to limit my collecting scope to vintage, Heritage, and oddball sets like Obak, my trading activity has dropped off to almost nothing.  But, there are a few bloggers I still manage to work out trades with.  Chris, over at Nachos Grande, is one of them.

Some of you may recall that I recently got a killer deal on a box of 2006 Fleer Greats of the Game. I wasn't particularly fond of the set, but was pleased to see a post by Chris a few days later about his quest to finish the insert sets from 2006 GOTG. So, off I flew to his want list and found a few cards in my box that he needed. In exchange, he found some 2012 Heritage that I needed.

I have to admit a love-hate relationship with Heritage.  It is a great set in that it is evocative of vintage sets, which are my first love. Not only the design (obviously), but how it focuses on staged photos and is printed on real cardboard.  On the other side of the ledger is the large number of short prints in the base set and the fact that it comes and goes from the store shelves in a short period of time. I can go to my local Target or Walmart and still find Series 1, but Heritage is gone.

I have entered that dead zone that appears in July after Heritage has been supplanted on store shelves with other products.  There is nothing to buy and little to trade.  These were the first Heritage cards I have scored in a few months, so I was pleased to get them.  It gets me a closer to finishing the 2012 set without having to go to COMC or Sportlots.  So, if you have any Heritage laying around, take a look at my want list. I am working on 4 sets (2001, 2002, 2011, and 2012). If you have some cards I need, let me know. I'll make it worth your while.

Coming up tomorrow (or some day soon) another trade involving GOTG and Heritage with another of my regular trading partners.  I won't say who, but I will give you a clue: he is probably wanting to take a red pen to this post since I have ended at least one sentence with a preposition

Trade with Lifetime Topps

I recently completed a trade with Charlie over at Lifetime Topps.  I setn him some 2012 Heritage and Archives and I got some 2011 Heritage Minors and 2012 Heritage back.  Best of all, the 2011 Heritage Minors were all short prints.

Delino is the son of the former major leaguer of the same name.  From looking at his minor league stats, it looks like he is following in his Pops footprints to be a fair hitting infielder with some speed on the basepaths.  He is only 19 and is currently at A-Ball Lexington in the Astros chain.  With any luck, I'll be seeing him in OKC in a few years.

Sanchez is a catcher in the Pirates system.  So far he appears to be an okay hitter with good on-base skills, but little power.  He just got promoted to AAA Indianapolis.

Yelich is a power hitting outfielder in the Marlins system. He absolutely raked last year at Greensboro with a .312/.388/.484 slash line and 15 taters.  He is at high A Jupiter this year.

These are most welcome, bringing me down to only needing 26 more cards to finish the Minor League set (all SP.)   With 19 cards to go on the MLB Heritage set for 2011 (16 SP and 3 inserts), I am getting nearer to the finish line of completing this set.  I think I'd like to knock it off before the end of the year.

The four 2012 Heritage cards I received are all for good players and took a good chunk out of the non-SP base cards I still need.  Hopefully, I'll continue to make progress on this set during the year, although I don't expect to complete it.  My focus in on vintage and, while I really like Heritage, it does get treated like a red headed stepchild in my collecting.

Anyways, thank you Charlie!

Trade with Potch Wheeler

I've traded a couple of times with Potch Wheeler last year and was able to conclude another trade with him this year. It was intended to be a swap of Heritage needs but, for his part, he included more than that.

Poor Freddy. The Yankees resigned him in the off season after his excellent performance last year. He seemed to have a good spring training too. Then something happened. He stunk. Badly. In all four of his starts.   And in the last two he didn't even make it out of the second inning. With the second coming of Andy Pettite, he got moved to garbage time duty out of the bullpen. He has performed well in his limited appearances out of the bullpen. I wouldn't be surprised to see him make some spot starts down the road. None of the Yankee starting pitchers are on fire right now. Even CC Sabathia has looked decidedly mortal in recent starts.

Funnily enough, the day this package arrived from Potch, my wife and I went to see the Oklahoma City Redhawks take on the Tucson Padres. In that game, which OKC won 6-5, Jimmy Paredes was the starting second baseman for the Redhawks and went 2 for 4 with 2 RBIs.

That wasn't all the Heritage he sent. There were other base cards and a couple of the floating head stickers.  But, I need to move on to the surprise part of the trade.

This is where the trade got lopsided. He was able to send me the last two 1976 Topps Traded cards I needed to finish that subset. Both Yankees, too!

And the Yankees team card, which I have never found, in all my searches, in anything other than well-loved condition. So, getting this nice specimen was a pleasant surprise.

And a nice HOFer, too. I definitely came out ahead on this trade and will need to keep my eye out for cards to reward Potch for his extreme generosity.

Card Show Haul - Heritage

It has been over two week since my first card show in approximately 6 months. It is time to put a bow on it and move on. While I have decided that I am a vintage collector and have eschewed collecting modern sets, I do have a weakness for Topps Heritage. It is, and likely will be, the only contemporary set I build going forward. So, I bought a hobby box of 2012 Heritage at the show. Overall, the box was a bit of a disappointment. Oh, it certainly helped me make progress on the set. But, I was hoping for a killer box hit. I didn't get it. This was my box hit:

I was underwhelmed. I've gotten similar hits out of retail blasters. But, in light of the immense fun I had with this show, I am not going to grumble any. So that is a wrap on the card show. I splurged a little these last couple weeks, what with finally getting my severance from my old job, while concurrently accepting a new job. So, I've got a few things to share. But, I think I'll be settling back down into a steady state mode where I stay within a budget each month.