Santa Cutch

Right before I took off on my holiday excursion, I came home to a mailing from Collecting Cutch himself. It was a holidays "just because" package, and was filled with some solid additions to round out 2018.

First, a hand painted and what I can only assume is a 1 of 1 Santa Cutch from Gypsy Queen. These are rare! I got a good chuckle when I saw this.

Now, on to the less rare cards. The biggest ticket item outside of the artwork is this sweet Michael Pineda Triple Threads. I've cooled with my Big Mike collection since he signed with the Twins, but hard not to like a card like this. On-card autograph plus awesome jersey swatch showing two pinstripes is really cool!

My next favorite card was a Bowman Chrome Gleyber Torres. I still get giddy when Gleyber finds a way into inbound packages. His cards still feel a bit rare.

Here are a couple of others I enjoyed.

Thanks to Collecting Cutch for thinking of me and being a good friend of the blog!

Who you callin' a Squirt?

Matt from Doc Holoday is one of the best blogging dudes out there.

First off, his customs are true works of art...even when they have Red Sox players on them.

Some of my best blogging buddies are Red Sox fans, so it just goes to show what a great group of collectors we've got around these parts. Matt is no exception, and this trade package meant a lot because I know he's been dealing with a lot since late summer when Hurricane Harvey affected him and millions others in Texas and the southeastern US.

Matt sent me a message that I had 2 lbs of Yankees headed by way, and right away I was greeted with a card I had always wanted:

Squirt! I love this card. And I love squirt. Full disclosure - on New Year's Eve this past year I was shopping for food to make that night, and wandered down the soda aisle and my eyes immediately went to Squirt. The colors are so catchy! I bought a 2 liter and drank the whole thing that day. It's delicious! And I'm really happy to have this card.

He wasn't joking about the 2 lbs of cards either. Holy moly was their great stuff, including this Dellin Betances holiday relic.

And some really, really shiny Yankees. I don't know much about Topps Finest these days other than knowing the Refractors still look awesome.

Roger Clemens was represented well in this box. I really like the Double Play insert with Greg Maddux on the flip side.

Derek Jeter cards are always welcome in my collection:

At the time, this was probably a stretch. Now, even more so! Ruben Rivera sharing a card with The Big Hurt? Not a great look.

Oddballs besides the Squirt Reggie were found too. Sweet Woolworth card of Mattingly!

I keep saying it, but Severino is criminally under-priced right now.

Some nice cards of Yankees legends from some newer products - Reggie, Gehrig, and The Mick finding his way into Donruss.

I had no idea that Steve Sax's brother, Dave Sax, played in the majors!

Two trippy ARods. The old Fleer Ultra inserts really hold up today. This was a Diamond Mine insert.

Big Mike /499! Good luck in Minnesota, my friend.

Look how young Jorge looks! I collected a ton of Collector's Choice growing up, but I don't think I have this card. The base card designs were always pretty tastefully done.

Trust me, there were many, many more great cards. Matt, I really appreciate you thinking of me. Keep up the amazing work with the customs!

Hertiage breakin'

I was fortunate enough to buy a lot in Nachos Grande's three-box Heritage break. I'm glad I did too, since my Target has been bone dry when it comes to Heritage.

Gavin mentioned it, but the collation on the three boxes didn't seem great. Although not SPs, I was unable to land base cards of Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Gary Sanchez, Chad Green, or Clint Frazier. Not quite what you'd expect. I was still really happy with my haul below, but I definitely expected at least one of those guys.

I got on the board early with a Chrome Refractor of Didi Gregorius #'d to 569. These fall 1:61, so that was a good start for me. It's a great looking card too.

In the very last pack, there was a black border card. Although not serially numbered, it looks like these are limited to 50 cards of each and fall 1:51. Chris did a great reveal where we knew it was a Yankee, and I was praying for Judge, Stanton, or Sanchez as he slowly showed the card. It ended up being this guy. Not bad!

While I didn't get a Sanchez base, I still did pretty well with him, including two inserts and a couple of The Topps News All-Star cards.

I wasn't completely shut out on Judge!

I found the back of this card interesting, as it mentions that Cooper is no longer on the Yankees.

And there's Big Mike's (likely) last Yankees card. Good luck, sir.

As part of the break, we also got a random team. I was assigned the D-Backs, so I was hoping for a cool Goldy. And I got one!

Chris, you ran a great break - from the organization to the live stream to the shipping. Thank you!

Oops, sorry Gavin

I knew it was going to happen.

A few weeks ago, I posted that I was officially calling itquits on my Michael Pineda collection. The problem with publicly doing something like that is that we have all these amazing people in our collecting community who are always picking up cards for each other to hold to for future trades.

In this instance, Gavin of Baseball Card Breakdown proves the point. He commented the following on my post:

I've been sitting on a Pineda 1/1 (just a "blank back" gimmick), waiting for an excuse to send it to you. I guess I was waiting for him to turn things around first, but looks like I waited too long. Lol

Shut up, Lost Collector. I definitely felt a bit guilty. I’m sure Gavin was pumped to snag this card to send my way at some point, and then I ended up raining on the parade a bit.

But of course I still wanted to the card! It’s a 1/1 of Yankee, and I will never get tired of such things. Even the gimmicky ones! And I will never turn down a Pineda card in a Yankees uniform. I have an excellent collection of his that ranges from autographs to printing plates to other 1 of 1s. I’m just going to turn away my focus, that’s all. But I will never say no. 

As luck would have it, just a few days later I pulled a Rhys Hoskins manu-relic from 2018 Topps, a card that piqued Gavin’s interest, and a very fair trade was made for the Pineda. That made me feel good and a bit redeemed.

And as he has been known to do, Gavin sent a few of his dominant custom cards. He really creates some of the best out there that I’ve seen, so much so that I’ve actually flipped past them in trade packages only to later realize they were customs.

Respect for taking the time on the card backs too. In the few times I've made cards on the Rookies app (which is total cheating compared to Gavin's originals), I was too lazy to do card backs and just used the generic logo one they have.

Gavin also sent a Tino insert. I love this card! I think it looks great, and commemorates Tino's 3-HR day in 1997, which I actually remember very well. That set the stage for his 44-HR season.

Lastly, a surfer dude! And one named AJ!

Thanks, Gavin!