Care Packages Part Two

I decided to split off the rest of the Mariners cards because there are so many I want to highlight and even this list is cut down from the original 15 card that I had pulled out to post about.

2001 Stadium Club Rickey Henderson (Rickey in a Mariners uni is always a win)

2009 Topps Heritage Ichiro

2012 Bowman Platinum Ruby Hisashi Iwakuma (I love this card)

2016 Topps Walmart/Marketside Robinson Cano

2017 Topps Holiday Robinson Cano

2017 Topps Chrome Reverse Negative Kyle Seager

This was a fun one that Jon included in his package. A 1992 Topps Mike Jackson with a message from Mike himself telling me to turn over his card. Sure Mike, I’ll oblige.

Flip the card… it’s a 1992 Topps Blank Back woohoo!

Care Packages x3

Since the beginning of March my health problems have worsened which has left me in a terrible state. My arthritis pain is significantly worse, I will be returning to my pain specialist soon to begin treatment on my hip degeneration, multiple seizures and migraines have floored me and some days even walking is a struggle, so my body is very strained and I have been dealing with depression. You probably noticed my posts have been less frequent because it is difficult to focus but I am trying to keep myself engaged.

Over the past few weeks I have received three care packages, which have lifted my spirits. They came from Tom at The Angels In Order, Jon from A Penny Sleeve For Your Thoughts and Angus from Dawg Day Cards. Between the three there were probably 100 cards, this really put a smile on my face.

Unfortunately, I had the cards in three stacks on my computer desk and I moved a blanket off of the end of my bed, hitting the desk and sent most of the cards to the floor in a big jumble so I don’t remember who sent which card. So I am going to present some of the cards that helped lift me up, know that while I am not posting every card I want to thank all three of them for the care packages and each card is now happily in their place in my boxes and binders.

Tomorrow I will post up the rest of the Mariners cards

Starting with the Seahawks

1992 All World Greats of the Game (Straight off my wants list)

1994 Bowman Rick Mirer (One of my favorites)

1997 Totally Certified Red Chris Warren

2015 Panini Intros Richard Sherman (Still upset about the way things went down)

For my Griffey PC

1990 Donruss Best of the AL

1994 Church’s Show Stoppers

1999 Upper Deck Textbook Excellence

A Final 2017 Trade

Near the end of the year I had made one final trade with Chris of The Collector. I had done a couple of custom cards for him and he sent some Griffey and Mariners cards. Here are some of the highlights:

2015 Topps Hot Streak Randy Johnson

2016 Topps Chasing 3K Ichiro

Could you imagine Ichiro as the leadoff hitter in the Mariners batting order since 1992? Ichiro at #1 and then Griffey, Buhner and Edgar at #3, #4 and #5. The Mariners would have won the 1995 World Series not to mention Ichiro would be the current MLB all-time hits leader.

1997 Topps Finest Jay Buhner

2013 Topps Museum Collection Green parallel Ken Griffey Jr.

2007 Ultra Faces of the Game relic Ken Griffey Jr.

Thank you, Chris, you nailed it with your selection of cards that you sent.

Trade Completed V- Boom...Boom...GASP!

A couple weeks back I sent a pair of 1933 Goudey baseball cards to Matt of Bob Walk The Plank. I felt that the two Pirates cards, Ray Kremer and Adam Comorosky, belong in the collection of a true Pittsburgh Pirates fan. I didn’t trade for anything specific, it was a blind trade, but he came strong with what he sent me.

Two cards from my Top 10 Wanted List:

A 2007 Donruss Madden Shaun Alexander game card.

This doesn’t seem like much but this card has been sitting on my Most Wanted List the longest, in fact, it is one of the original Top 10 cards. BOOM!

A 2011 Topps UFC Title Shot Contenders Autograph Ryan Bader.

This card has been on my list the second longest and was actually the first card to replace a card that I picked up. BOOM!

The third card is a 2014 Topps Five Star Silver Signature Edgar Martinez autograph.

In August Jon from A Penny Sleeve For Your Thoughts sent me my first Edgar relic card and now Matt hooked me up with my first Edgar autograph, and a killer card too. I love the black card and silver autograph, it looks amazing. GASP!

Trade Completed IV

I read through 10-15 blogs a day and I will admit I rarely look at people’s want lists unless something is specifically mentioned. I was reading one of my regular blogs and there was a post about a trade with Steve from Collating Cards and how he is a Mariners/Seattle collector so I finally looked at his Most Elusive list and the #2 card that Steve wanted, a 1991 Mariners Country Hearth Scott Bankhead, I had sitting in a set box.

The 1991 Country Hearth SGA set is not a common set and usually it is the two Griffey Jr. (#15 & #28) cards that show up so the Bankhead is really a difficult card to find. Last year I came across a set for around $15 shipped, a bargain when you consider the Griffey Jr, Buhner and Edgar cards that I wanted from the set sell individually in the $5-8 range, so I jumped on it. I pulled out the cards I wanted and the remaining cards went in to my Mariners box so seeing that I could help a fellow collector I was happy to send the card to someone who would appreciate it.

In return Steve sent three Griffey insert cards from 2017 Topps Series 2 release that I needed. The three cards are All-Star Game MVP (#ASM-12), Home Run Derby Champ (#HRD-9) and the one that brings back an amazing memory, Memorable Moments (#MM-28)

Thank you so much Steve, I am glad we were able to work out this trade.  

Trade Completed III

A number of weeks ago Bo from Baseball Cards Come To Life came across a large collection of baseball cards so he offered up a blind trade to his readers. I requested Griffey and Buhner, which he let me know there were not many, so I asked for any Mariners cards. In all he sent 50 Mariners cards plus a sealed 1991 Front Row set, which will remain sealed.

What is cool is that out of the 50 cards that he sent, 49 cards fit right in to a PC or mini PC. A large portion of the cards were my main (can I call a mini-PC main?) mini-PC Edgar Martinez, who will hopefully eventually have his plaque in the Hall of Fame right next to Griffey’s plaque.

My Ichiro and Mike Zunino mini-PCs have some new additions.

There were seven Jay Buhner cards and I was very happy to see three ghost cards reappear, these three cards were trashed in “The Purge” by my ex-wife in 1997 and I am happy to have them back in my collection.

There were three Griffey cards and here are two of the cards right from my dated Griffey Want List.

Thank you so much Bo, I really appreciate the trade and all the time you put in to pulling aside the cards for me. Last trade we made I ended up forgetting to send a return package, I totally screwed up, until a year later so this time I made sure to ship his cards as soon as I got the package ready.

I keep telling myself that I need to work on more trades, this is only my third trade this year. I just worked out another trade yesterday so that puts me at four trades, not a very good average of one every two months. 

A Trade Package From Chris The Collector

Two weeks ago Chris from The Collector put out a call for custom card designers to help him create cards of some of his female athletes who normally would not have a card, or at least a card in the sets he was interested in collecting. When I saw that he included University of Arizona alumni Jennie Finch and Seattle Storm forward Breanna Stewart I was happy to help him out.

I was not able to make all of the cards, not yet, that he is interested in and currently the designs are just digital images he offered to send me some Griffey cards off of my Want List as a thank you for the work.

I got the Griffey cards the other day and I am happy to share them. Thank you, Chris, for your generosity. I will need to set aside some time to create the backs for the cards so the cards can be printed out.

Here are the cards he sent me:

2000 Topps Chrome #400

2005 Fleer National Packtime #13

2000 Topps #85

2013 Topps Cut to the Chase #CTC-2

2013 Topps Tribute #29

A Trade Package From Twitch Part 2 of 2

I decided to split this trade package post up in to two different posts to keep it from becoming a “TL;DR” type post. Today is the Mariners included in the package.

1987 Donruss MVP Alan Davis and 1990 Donruss Harold Davis. Both had a stable career in Seattle but nothing to write home about.

Who doesn't like shiny cards? A 2002 Topps Chrome Mike Cameron Refractor and 2015 Prizm Randy Johnson. Mike Cameron spent three seasons in Seattle but he never flourished and is probably best known for knocking 4 homers in a game in 2002. The Big Unit does not require any commentary, his HoF career speaks for itself.

Nothing special with Endy Chavez and Michael Saunders but these are some Griffey-esque type catches.

2015 Panini Prizm Purple Prizm #63/99. Seager has become a solid piece of the Mariners youth movement.

There were a number of Robinson Cano cards but I kept the scans to these four cards because they are my favorites; 2014 Panini Donruss DK and 2016 Panini Donruss

2014 Topps Finest Refractor #134/199 and 2014 Topps Triple Threads Amber parallel #100/125

There were also a number of Felix Hernandez so I selected just five of them to highlight today. 2012 Bowman Platinum Green parallel, 2013 Topps Archives, 2014 Panini Donruss Dominators #240/999 and 2015 Panini Prizm Red, White and Blue Prizm.

A King Felix relic card, this is form the 2009 SP Legendary Cuts release.

As always, I end with Ken Griffey Jr:

2012 Prizm and 2015 Donruss All-Time DK