Nick Sends Quality Over Quantity: a Trade Post

If you read his blog (and if you read baseball card bloggery, it's more than likely you've read his) you probably know Dime Box Nick has a lot of collections.  It tends to be very easy to find cards for him.  I am always building stacks for various trading partners, and Nick's always tends to grow the fastest.  In that sense I tend to send Nick large quanities of cards that meet his collecting criteria.

In fact, everybody sends the guy so many cards I often think they are more of a hindrance, impeding his ability to collect efficiently.  Then I remember that this guy has more love for cardboard than pretty much anyone else I've ever come across and I'm like "Psh.  Whatever.  He loves it."

Anyway, Nick sent me a mix of cards recently that, while they wouldn't completely fill a Priority Mail box, are all quality additions to several of my own varying collections.  I'll start with my favorite card of the lot:





This was personal.

Nick called this a "cameo" card.  That is a much better word for it as I have been calling a "surprise" card.  Cameo makes a lot more sense. 

This card and I have a history.  When I was in high school I was in the baseball card club, and everyone seemed to know I was the Griffey guy (probably because I would trade at a loss to get Griffeys).  Kids would all bring their Juniors to me for trading, and one day a guy brought me this Jody Reed Stadium Club card featuring Griffey going down at second in the midst of a double-play.  He also had a few other Griffeys I ended up trading for (I remember one was a '94 Stadium Club Electric Parallel). 

I immediately dismissed the Jody Reed.  Little did I know that several times over the next many years (and more fequently over the past few months) I would think back to this card and wish I'd snagged it when I had the chance.  I could no longer remember the player or even the set it had come from.  That is, until Nick included it in this trade package.  When i saw it I knew immediately that this is the one I had passed on over 15 years ago.  Hence, this is definitely my favorite card in the bunch.

A close second is this guy:

No, I did not have a stroke.  This was in a penny sleeve that read "turn over" in Sharpie.  Lo and behold:

A totally amazing error card!  The error back is printed upside-down, so that's not a blogger error you're seeing.  It's like a double error and a parallel to boot.  Great surprise.

This one is from the Barry Colla Photography collection which you may have come across if you've collected modern-age cards for long enough.  From what I can tell this is a sports photographer who formed his own company and started making individual player sets.  This particular card is touted as a bookmark. 

I used to consider Colla cards oddballs, but over the last few months I've seen enough of them pop up that they could be more legit than I thought.

Nick hit every baseball player collection I have - even the oft-overlooked Rusty Staub.  That Staub, the Chuck Silver Sig.  That '88 Score Kittle is a great picture, but it also kinda looks like he's giving birth to the on-deck guy.

I've never officially designated The Big Unit as a player collection of mine.  Then again, I am always excited to pull his cards, I keep nearly every single one of of them I get, and I seem to have more of his cards than all but five or six other players; so I'm starting to think that maybe he is a player collection of mine.  That '94 Stadium Club is awesome.

This Biggio ellicited an audible "wow" when I saw it just because the subject matter is so bizarre - what a wacky record to hold and make a card to commemorate.  That Fernando card ellicited another "wow" because they tried to rhyme Schwarzenegger.  Skybox, I frickin' LOVE/HATE/LOVE you so much.

Buhner is definitely another unsung PC of mine, as well as Chipper Jones who makes a cameo in this great Brian Jordan card.

I've always held on to Vlad cards, too, though I still don't really consider him a PC as much as some of the other guys mentioned in this post.  This one here is a card I've seen on Nick's blog in the past that I've drooled over: colorful, perfectly balanced, fun and full of character, a well-put-together card in every way.  Maybe lose the gold border, but everything else is solid.

Here we have pitcher at the plate Jim Abbott who for some reason turns up on Griffey cards all the time - don't ask me why.  Tekulve's glasses are legendary among those of us who collect bad pictures, and Warren Spahn is apparently super flexible.

Players blowing bubbles, another small collection of mine.

And finally a nice bunch of Griffeys.  That Royal Rookies checklist is new to me, and I've always been a big fan of '93 Stadium Club.

Nick has one of the best blogs out there and a love for the hobby that borders the unhealthy.  Plus it's a great read - check it out......

Mr. Postman, Look and See - Is There a Griffey in That Bag for Me?

The fruits of blogging, hours of organizing thousands of old cards by team, then mailing all those cards are being felt over at the Junior Junkie today!

Jeff from 2x3 Heroes bombarded me with a 200-megaton hydrogen Griffey-bomb.

This WMG (weapon of mass Griffeyness) has irradiated the entire region with incomparable baseball skill, goatee-moustaches and general awesomeness.

Some of these I have never even seen before.  Lots of excellent additions to the collection.....

The Griffeys have landed

When I saw the card on the bottom right, I gasped aloud.  It's hard for any Griffey fan to look at this image.

I love that shot of Griffey giving daps....

Griffey played for the White Sox one time for like 45 minutes.  Still strange to me seeing him in a black cap and baggy jersey.

Both versions!  Woo-hoo!

Nick, this is the card I was telling you about on your cartoon card post....

Thanks so much for the giant stack of Griffeys, Jeff!  I could hardly wait to upload them to the blog.

Also, I got a PWE (my first ever!) from Dime Box Nick that contained the refracty version of this:

Regular banner + refractiness = Nick must have pulled this from a rack pack.

Everyone knows how awesome Nick is, so I don't have to tell you.  Thanks for thinking of me, man!  I've been chomping at the bit waiting to pull this card.  Looks great!

In closing, I'd like to share with you a little saying we have over here at the Junior Junkie:

Griffeys for me,

Griffeys for you.

I like Griffeys

in a big, brown shoe.

This saying has never rung truer than it does today. 

Now, my wife and I are going to strategically park a car filled with chairs and ice chests just off the Endymion parade route as it rolls tomorrow afternoon.  You Mardi Gras long enough, you learn a few tricks.....  I'll be reading tomorrow's baseball card blog posts from the neutral ground on Canal St., beer in hand.

Have a great weekend!

Trade with Dime Box Nick

I have a ton of cards to mail out on Saturday.  This is part of the reason why:

When my wife and I got home from Vegas, two things were waiting for us in the mail: a credit card offer from Citi and a package from Nick over at Dime Boxes. 

I had e-mailed Nick a few weeks ago, notifying him of the stack of cards I plan on sending him (which is still growing).  He told me it would take a while to ship me anything back, so I figured I had some time to root through the many many boxes I have for only the Nick-worthiest of cards.  Lo and behold he beat me to it. 

I think the 80's and early 90's may have had the funniest baseball card pictures.  There are some good ones from the 50's and 60s, and quite a few from the 70s, but everything that came out after those Iranian hostages were released is pure gold.

Case in point: Jim Palmer.  It's 3 years later and his hair is still extremely happy....

Nick loves '95 Fleer, and he catches Hell for it.  Well you know what?  I like it too - I'll admit it.  I think it's the predator-vision.  I can look at that all day like Geordi Laforge.

Whoa....save it for the rally there, Rolf.  There's a cameraman in jorts around here somewh.....oh, crap.

Some excellent silly names here.  Plus I've always wanted a non-Big Unit Randy Johnson!

We need to bring Pozo into the gangsta lexicon.  As in "Damn, you just got Pozo'd, son!" or "Check yaself before you Pozo yaself." or "I'ma bust a Pozo all up in yo Pozo fo sho-sho.  Pozo!"


Thrilling!

Ladies and gentlemen, New Orleans native and all-around awesome guy, Will "The Thrill" Clark!  Out of the six WC cards Nick sent me I only had one, so this was a great treat!  That shot of him with Bonds and Matt Williams is excellent, and those fleer cards have a great matte-glossy hybrid front that exudes class.

Chuck is also a great player and a great guy from down the bayou, Louisiana.  I'd like to see him in the Hall of Fame someday.

Big Unit rookie - it seems he always looked pissed off in his rookie days, probably because he was stuck in Montreal.  Those Ultra Stars cards are cool, and that Fun Stuff I'd never seen before.  That is how a caricature is supposed to look (are you paying attention, Score?).

And finally, Kenny Lofton, scourge of parachutes everywhere.  Kenny was a solid hitter who could run like a beast, much like Willy Mays Hays in the Charlie Sheen/Tom Berenger classic Major League.


Don't steal home without it.....

Kenny was not only a really fast runner, he was also an amazing bunter.  Those two combined for an exciting player with solid numbers.  He played for 11 different teams before retiring in 2007.

Thanks a bunch, DBN!  I'm shipping you (and lots of other people) a bunch of stuff on Saturday - hope you like it!