Pseudo-Surprise from 2 by 3 Heroes

Jeff from 2 by 3 Heroes sent me an email about a month ago dangling a fantastic bit of trade bait in front of me. Unfortunately, I had nothing in return at the time but was going to look at that card show that I never made it to earlier this month. I have something cooking but nothing just yet.

Fast forward to this past weekend and I pulled out a yellow padded envelope that I assumed was an eBay pickup I had forgotten about. Nope, it was even better. While I was expecting it to come eventually, I didn't know it was already on the way, hence the pseudo-surprise.

 I'll start oldest to newest, since the newest card in the package was the original piece of bait offered. The rest is all bonus!



1989 Cap'n Crunch Andre Dawson



If you had asked me if I had this, I would have said yes. But I couldn't find it and this one is in incredible shape. Not even for its age. Incredible shape. Period.

 

1994 Collector's Choice Ryne Sandberg (Team Checklist)

I had this card in my Ryne Sandberg PC but it's nice to have one for my Cubs team sets I'm putting together too. Great horizontal card.

A pair of young aces in the form of 2002 Donruss Originals. Oh what could have been. I didn't have either of these, nice!

2010 Bowman Chrome Prospects Green X-Fractors Justin Bour

Jeff probably didn't think twice about this "throw in" card but I'm pretty excited to have it. Justin Bour is a local guy (along with current Cub Shawn Camp) so it has a little bit of sentimental value to it. Justin is currently in Double-A with the Tennessee Smokies.

2012 Opening Day Geovany Soto (Walmart Blue Parallel)

This Geovany Soto card is serial numbered out of 2012. I've got to get a master list of all these parallels together so I can figure out which ones I still need/want.

2012 Topps Archives Keystone Connection Ryne Sandberg & Starlin Castro

To be honest, when I saw this card I thought it was a bit of a stretch. Ryno would have been better paired with Darwin Barney (although to be fair, nobody could have predicted Barney's Gold Glove season) and Castro probably would have been better paired with another Shortstop like Ernie Banks. But after reading the back, I guess I can kind of, sort of, see the "connection" that Topps made:

And last, but definitely not least:

2013 Heritage Clubhouse Collection Starlin Castro

The prices on Castro items have cooled a little now that Anthony Rizzo is the hot commodity but are still not always quite to where I'd be comfortable picking them up. So to be able to trade for one is a no-brainer. I believe Matt Garza is the only other Cub in this set so aside from that and maybe picking up some of the autographs, 201 Heritage is pretty much in the books for me!

Thanks for the cards, Jeff!

Signature Saturday - Geovany Soto

Was going to write a congratulatory post directed towards Darwin Barney's record breaking errorless streak. That fell through so then I wrote a rant about the error and how it was just like the rest of the Cubs season. But, when I came back to it to publish it, I decided against it. 

So this is what you get a quick write-up on some Geovany Soto autographs. Vinnie from over on sportcollectors.net was offering to take cards for Rangers players when they were in his neck of the woods to play his hometown Mariners. His handling fee was acceptable to me so I reached out asking for help and he came through with this card for my 2012 custom team set. This brings the total count of different players signing their card in my set to 24.

2012 Custom Geovany Soto

This next 8x10 photo was sent in to a private signing Soto did, I think, before the 2011 season. It's a made-from-scratch-in-Photoshop photo made to look like the back of a jersey. You probably can't tell from the size of the photo but its incredibly detailed with a fabric texture background and stitching around the letters and numbers. Much cheaper than an actual jersey. I've also gotten one signed by Ernie Banks, Fergie Jenkins and Billy Williams. Eventually, I'll be getting them framed up and put up around the room.

Geovany Soto Jersey Back 8x10 (Original photo courtesy of Baseball Backs)

One last plug and a small rant...

Ok, I'm gonna shut down this break at midnight EST. As you can see below I have the three hobby boxes in my possession. As of this posting, half of the teams are still available so check it out and see if yours is one of them.

This will probably be my final group break for a while. Not because of lack of participation, I'm just not real interested in anything that's left. I haven't gotten into Allen & Ginter like most people so I'll probably just pick up the Cubs. I've always been a flagship set kind of collector which is how I ended up with so many holes in my Cubs collection. It was always nice building 25+ card team sets and while my wallet is happy I'm not a Yankees fan with their billions of base and insert cards, it is getting a little tiring seeing the same players for the Cubs. Here are the full base sets for Cubs in the 2012 Opening Day, Archives and Bowman sets:

Yep, three cards in each set and all three the same players. No offense to Castro, Garza and Soto, but c'mon! I know the Cubs are one of the worst teams in baseball record wise but Topps didn't necessarily know the full extent of that when making these sets. Sure Marlon Byrd got traded and I'm pretty sure nobody needs anymore Alfonso Soriano cards but what about Darwin Barney? Jeff Samardzija? Brian LaHair? Tony Campana? Ryan Dempster? Maybe I'm biased, but these guys are putting up decent numbers for as bad as the Cubs record is. These 200+ card sets should average about 6-7 players per team and the Cubs get half that? At least Series 2 has a bunch of these guys that should have been making appearances elsewhere.

This break from new releases will allow me to focus on some more ATCRCS cards. I'll probably also spend the rest of the summer working on my checklists as well as selling and trading excess cards to fund a trip to the National which is being held in Baltimore this year. I hope to knock out some big chunks of different brands and years while I'm there. 

Don't forget to pick up your team in my Topps Series 2 break. I'm sure your team will have more cards than the Cubs!