Mailday Monday - Trades & eBay

I'm going to thank Sam over at The Daily Dimwit once again for a fantastic mail week. I didn't recieve anything from him directly this time but he did send quite a few new readers my way after our trade, who in turn scoured my Want List and filled my mailbox.

The first to make an offer was Jeff from over at 2 by 3 Heroes. We helped each other out with our Gypsy Queen set needs (he sent almost 3 dozen my way!). He also sent a 2010 Topps Tim Lincecum which completes that set for me. I cheated when I found a factory set on clearance but noticed the Lincecum was kind of dinged up when I transferred them from the box to the binder.

 

Jeff even topped the package off with a  couple of Cubs from the Heritage set that I needed, some Starlin Castro inserts and a few cool looking Cubs cards from years I was MIA from the hobby. Thanks Jeff!

  

Next up is Adam from over at ARPSmith's Sportscard Obsession. I'm not sure how he found my blog, but I'm glad he did! He was interested in a bunch of the Archives inserts I had posted as trade bait and he sent over more than a blaster's worth of cards from 3 different sets I'm trying to kock out from this year. Some of you may know that my local minor league team is the Potomac Nationals so I go to quite a few Carolina League games each summer. As you'll see below, a bunch of the guys I've seen are rising through the ranks and getting Major League cards! Most of my favorite non-Cubs are these former Carolina Leaguers:

Current National Ryan Zimmerman and Royal Eric Hosmer from Gypsy Queen. I got to see both of them play in the Carolina League with Zim making a rehab start for Potomac and Hosmer making his way up with the Wilmington Blue Rocks.

 

      

After the case break last weekend, it's hard to imagine needing any Archives but from that set we have former Nationals Nyjer Morgan and current international sensation Yu Darvish. Two more Carolina League veterans Drew Pomeranz (Kinston Indians) and Brad Peacock (Potomac)

And finally from Bowman, we have current Cub Matt Garza, future Cub hopeful Paul Hoilman and former Nat Tom Milone. Milone also played for Potomac and he and Peacock were both part of the trade with the A's that brought Gio Gonzalez over to the Nats. Thanks Adam, great trade!

   

I've been trying to stay away from Ebay because while you can get a pretty good deal on cards, the shipping is usually an equalizer or worse, makes it more expensive than a shop or show. But one of my collecting goals for this year was to make my way through the 1991 Topps Desert Shield Cubs team set. I'm not rushing even though at least half the team is available on eBay at any given time. I'm hoping this is a slow and steady wins the race kind of goal because the thought of paying upwards of $150-200 for a team set is kind of scary. I picked up this Paul Assenmacher for a couple bucks and free shipping, which marks my 4th card in the set.

Also some of you may know that in my trade requests, I'm looking to fill in a bunch of huge holes in my Cubs collection with large and small lots of Cubs cards from previous years. Occasionally when I'm bored, I'll do a search for these kinds of lots on Ebay. And a few weeks ago a lot came up filled with relics, autographs and rookies. I put it in my Watch List along with a couple of other Cubs cards he had listed individually. I ended up winning the lot and with a pretty decent combined shipping rate, picked up a couple of the single cards too. Totaled up, the cards below (along with a couple of base card rookies) was just a shade over $20. Not too bad.

2008 Upper Deck Ballpark Collection Aramis Ramirez Jersey and Autograph.

2012 Topps Golden Moments Matt Garza Autograph

2011 Topps 60 Autographs of Starlin Castro, Marlon Byrd and Randy Wells

2011 Topps 60 Relics of Geovany Soto, Starlin Castro, Carlos Zambrano,Aramis Ramirez, Marlon Byrd, Carlos Marmol and Tyler Colvin. 

A 2010 Bowman Sterling Autograph of Hayden Simpson and a 2008 Topps Chrome Rookie Autograph of Randy Wells.

I also have two more trades that I'll be featuring tomorrow so all in all, a pretty successful week at the mail box. 

Wantlist Wednesday - Now with more Wants!

With all the readers Dimwit sent my way this past weekend, a few new trading partners emerged as well. The initial burst was a little overwhelming with making sure I still had what I said I did and needing what I still said I needed but I think I have responded to everyone. I have piles of cards that I'll package up tonight and mail out Thursday morning. Thanks for your patience.

As promised yesterday, I have added my Bowman needs to my Want List. Also looking for any extra Cubs from the set, parallels and all. I made a strikethrough notation for any cards I have made arrangements for and deleted any cards that have arrived from trades. After posting my Kerry Wood McFarlane figure last Saturday, I decided I'd like to add the rest of the Cubs McFarlanes (unsigned) to the collection. If you have any, loose or packaged, let me know. I would prefer loose but in good condition to reduce shipping costs since I'm going to open them anyway. I do have all three variations of the Ryne Sandberg as well as the regular Kerry Wood.

I also scanned in a couple of the Tony Campana cards and posted them in the TCPC tab. Nothing you haven't seen before, just the base, diamond anniversary and cognac from the 2011 Topps Update set. More scans to follow as I continue my quest to be organized. Since I don't have any other photos today, and to save you a click, here they are:

Today's ATCRCS card of the day over on Facebook:

Doug Dascenzo

Mailday Monday - Dimwit & Kelleher

First of all I want to thank Sam over at The Daily Dimwit. We completed a trade this week in a Gypsy Queen exchange so when he received my package he plugged this here blog to send a bunch of new readers my way. So welcome to everybody who discovered my little slice of the interwebs over the weekend! Updated daily at Noon, EST.

So the mail this week brought Dimwit's package. There were a few Cubs for me and a couple of Nats card for my sons. So many different parallels in GQ but knocked out a few for each team set. Always excited to add some new Ryne Sandberg cards. The first card is numbered to 599 and the second is a mini Straight Cut parallel. Now that I have one for the Sandberg collection, still need one of each for the team set.

Couple more Cubs inserts. Ernie Banks regular mini. Starlin Castro Sliding Stars mini.

I don't see a defensive player but Castro doesn't look very confident in his slide.

I normally wouldn't include Nats cards on the blog but since they came as part of this great trade, I'll show them. First, a trio of Ryan Zimmerman minis. A regular mini, a Straight Cut mini and a photo variation:

Three more minis, a Gypsy Queen back Ian Desmond, black Ian Desmond and a black Michael Morse:

Thanks again Sam!

Also in the mail this week was my return package I had sent out to ethannoah over at SCN. He had offered some help with getting Yankee autographs when they visited his hometown Royals. Probably because of their popularity, but Yankees are notoriously tough signers. Don't panic, I didn't want any actual current Yankee players, but rather some former Cubs players and current Yankees coaches. I sent ATCRCS cards for Joe Giradi (manager), Mike Harkey (bullpen coach) and Mick Kelleher (1st base coach) as well as a couple of Topps issues for Harkey and Kelleher.

True to reputation, Ethan didn't have much luck with the Yankees but he did manage to get two Topps cards signed by Kelleher. He wouldn't sign the ATCRCS card, presumably because it is unlicensed. I had run into this excuse myself with a minor leaguer but I won't give up!

He signed a 1980 and 1981 Topps cards and added his #20, which he wore during his time with the Cubs, to the signature.

Thanks Ethan!

Today's ATCRCS card of the day: George Altman