Kin Claus delivers

Last week, I got a surprise package from Kin over at I Feel Like a Collector Again slash Bean's Ballcard Blog.

At first, I thought he might of been my Secret Santa. But nope! He just is a very generous dude who sent out a bunch of holiday packages. What a guy!

The card that popped the most were a few inserts from the '90s. I showed a picture of these on Twitter with a message about how I missed cards from the '90s. It was one of best performing Tweets ever, which isn't say much. But I always enjoy when others appreciate my love for '90s inserts. It's a generational thing.

The Paul O'Neill acetate film strip is extra cool!

Speaking of O'Neill, I was pumped to get this relic. Framed relics always look cool.

There was a whole bunch of Stadium Club from this past year that I needed.

And I didn't realize it until I scanned it, but this Aaron Judge is a SP! Woohoo!

There were some very shiny Tinos too, including a Mystery Finest with Gary Sheffield on the back. Very cool card, and would have been an exciting pull at the time.

One thing I found enjoyable was to flip over the backs of these two cards and check out the nice, clean stats. I don't ever appreciate the stats of guys like Gehrig and DiMaggio enough. They were absolute beasts.

There were a whole bunch more goodies too. Thanks, Kin!

Happy Trails, Wes

I feel bad.

My epic packages from Wes always seem to take too long to post. It's not that I don't want to. They are always just so daunting.

They usually sit in the mailer for longer than they should because I know I have to scan them and that's going to take awhile.

Then the scanning is done, but then they sit in my scanned folder because again, I scanned a lot of awesome cards.

Well, the time is here. I am going to power through. A while back, Wes aka JBF sent out his retirement packages. I was a lucky recipient. I've always been a lucky recipient of his, and I'll always be grateful for that. Here we go...

My favorite card of the group was this Derek Jeter relic. I have very few Jeter memorabilia cards, and while I don't know if I'll ever have an autograph of his, any jersey swatch will always be special.

There were a few other fun jersey cards too, including a Tino and a great-looking Paul O'Neill pinstripe!

There were a couple of autographs too! I didn't know Spring Fever cards (what happened to those?!) had auto versions, so the Boone Logan is neat. JR Murphy was forgotten for awhile but seems to have found a home in Arizona. A refractor autograph?! Sure, why not!

Judge Chrome RC! I didn't have this one.

Here's a card to making Zippy Zappy swoon:

And here's a card to make me swoon because I needed this Tino, which is limited to just 100 copies!

There were a TON of other serially numbered cards too:

As well as some oddballs. A .999 silver Babe Ruth?! How cool is that. When my kid asks me for a Babe Ruth card, he'd definitely not getting this one.

Anyone have a hunkering for Cracker Jacks?

And of course, Wes had to throw in some vintage.

Vintage is a fitting way to end this post, because these cards were just vintage Wes. The guy has done more for my collection than anyone out there, and I'll always appreciate it. Happy trails (for now), Wes!

Sometimes red ink is ok

I remember being a student and getting a paper or test returned. A lack of red ink usually meant I did pretty well. The more red ink, the worse it was going to be. I remember a biology test once where it looked like my teacher cleaned up a murder scene with my paper.

But there are times when red ink can be ok. In fact, it can signify an A+. In this instance, this is my first red ink autograph of anytime, and it comes to me courtesy of Collecting Cutch:

Look at that beaut! That is a card I've wanted for a long time. The red ink as part of a Team USA card makes it even cooler in my opinion.

Equally as cool for me is a card I never thought I'd find, let alone own. This is when relics were still pretty new, and having three star members of the Yankees on one? Good luck. It's still a hard card to locate, and I'm not sure how Mr. Cutch tracked one down and sent it my way.

Part of me thinks Brian (the mastermind behind Collecting Cutch) looks out for me because I'm a fellow player collector, but I know he's helped my collection far more than I've helped his.

He also sent me a few cool Yankee cards. This card stuck out to me. Is Clemens about to throw the bat at Piazza here, only to be blocked out by the Upper Deck Vintage logo???

Also, the back tells me Tino had three hits! Cool. I don't remember that.

A Stanton base card! This are still new and rare and exciting to me. It's my second after Heritage.

A few more from 2018, including a rookie of Miguel Andujar. He has 9 hits this year, and 6 have gone for extra bases. Once he settles in, he's going to be a good one.

Oh, and this guy is really good too. Just gets better by the game, it seems.

Brian, this was a beyond generous card package, with two big old whales I never thought I'd get. Thank you!

Unofficial Blog Bat Around: Cards from A Cracked Bat

I think equally as popular as the current blog bat around are collectors showing off cards from Julie over at A Cracked Bat. She must’ve really held up the line at the post office. I guess I should get in on the fun and show the spoils of a great package she sent me as well.

First off, Julie’s filler cards to protect the actual intended cards were 2017 Donruss Optic cards. Those might be the most high-end fillers I’ve seen. 

The reason for the package, as Julie said in an email, was that she had some leftover Yankees from 2018 Heritage. I was really happy to get my first Giancarlo Stanton card depicting him as a Yankee.

While I enjoyed the three-box break from Nachos Grande, the collation wasn’t great. In three boxes, I didn’t get either of these guys. And I’m still looking for the Judge base.

The purple Chrome refractors look incredible!

In all, there were four other team bags filled with Yankees. I LOVED this ARod from the National Convention. Definitely wasn’t expecting anything like this.

A few other cards that caught my eye were from 1995 Score Summit edition. They are striking in person. Cards like this make me feel like we haven’t progressed that much with card technology from 1995-2018, at least when you think about the progression we would’ve seen in the previous 23 year period.

Although I guess that’s not completely fair since we now have cards that have freakin’ jerseys baked into them.

And autographs galore!

The “oddest” card was more of a promotional paper, but I hadn’t see it. Very cool!

Although unrelated to the above, there were some cool discs.

Lastly, a few others that caught my eye.

Julie, this was a fantastic trade package. Thank you! I’ll be sure to send some cards your way soon!