Sox, Rox, and a Box

A couple weeks ago I saw a post on the TCDB forums called Please claim a baseball team. It was posted by Terry, a Dodgers collector who offered to send cards of every (other) team to anyone who wants them. I didn't partake at first. My goal is to reach 100,000 cards but I want to get there organically, not through a large lot purchase. And I definitely didn't want to take on a whole box of cards without sending something in return.

But by this time last week Terry still had a couple of teams available, including the Colorado Rockies. 

I decided to help him out and take this unwanted team off his hands, mostly for the '90s guys who passed through New Haven. Terry sent about 500 Rockies cards, which I've spent the past three days sorting, cataloging, and repackaging as a pay it forward to the only Colorado collector I know. Here are some of the keepers:

We'll see if Cooperstown is calling Larry Walker in just a few days. My fingers are crossed for him.

The cards were almost all from 1992-2006, so there was a handful of Walker but no Nolan Arenado. It didn't bother me any, since I was claiming this lot for former Ravens:

Pitchers and Petrick. Jamey Wright had a nice long career in the bigs.

Q! Gibby! Neifi! The Chrome card at the top left also counts as a Red Sox single. Bonus! :)

Todd Helton was the big draw here. The Finest and 40 Man inserts are awesome. (I snuck Garrett Atkins in at the bottom right to fill space.) Everyone keeps sending me mins; I should probably pick up some protective pages for them.

Some cool Colorado cards here, especially the top three. The Bryn Smith Leaf is missing foil on the front. But you know the rules...

Some short-term stops here (I didn't even know Gant and Relaford were Rockies) along with another Atkins and my second card of Mr. Laura Rutledge. 

We've got Todd Helton and Larry Walker.. now here's Todd Walker. I know nothing of Chris Martin the pitcher but I'm a fan of Chris Martin the singer. 

Some cool parallels/inserts from Donruss and Topps were also included. Many thanks to Terry for all the great Rockies cards!

When I updated my wantlist tabs at the beginning of the year, I was immediately contacted by two readers who offered to send me cards. Nick had some set fillers for me:

The Dime Box king did some serious damage to my 2019 Topps set. These are just the highlights.

I was very pleasantly surprised to see this Fernando Tatis Jr. RC in the stack!

Nick also included a nice stack of Red Sox cards: 

Legendary left fielders and horizontal heroes.

Some Holiday cards featuring Benintendi and Sale. 

 

A new Dustin Pedroia relic, a very cool Mookie Betts Wall Climbers insert, and some chromey cards.

Big Papi was well represented in the mailer from Nick. I now have 254 different David Ortiz cards, more than any other baseball player in my collection.

But that wasn't all the Ortiz. Let's check the back of that Johnny Damon stack...

Ohh! These are neat. They look like 2002 Topps but they are actually a 2003 Japanese release called Kanebo. TCDB lists this as a 54-card set, but Damon is obviously card #55. Shea Hillenbrand is #14.

Perhaps the gem of the group was this Buster Posey bat relic #d/99. It's fitting that Nick sent a pair of Posey cards (in addition to Koufax and Bryant) because he's one guy I often look for when I'm sifting through dime boxes. Nick, thanks again for the great cards! I'll get something out to you soon!

A couple other things came in the mail this week. After I used up most of my eBay bucks on the Warren Spahn auto I decided to spend the remainder on a box of basketball cards:

This sealed box of 1992-93 Fleer Ultra ended up costing me less than a blaster after the eBay bucks were deducted. I'm going to save this for a post about 1992-93 Fleer Ultra sets, since they all look the same. 


Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!



 
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