I have barely acquired any cards this year. Adding the grand total of my three 2022 purchases it comes to around 36 bucks and $16 of that was that stupid 2021 Optic rack pack I bought that I should return because of false advertising that there were actual baseball cards inside.
Money just isn't there right now for cards, which is why I'm grateful for every envelope that comes to my door, from bloggers or just plain readers. I'm lucky in that I seldom have to trade to generate card flow. I do need to do that sometimes, but not often enough where I need to depend on something like TCDB's trading function.
Today I received a whale of a gift mail day -- from four different people. I'll show that off some other time, but right now I have a couple envelopes from two different readers. ... Well, it's actually four envelopes from two different readers. You see, each of them sent an envelope and then after a few days, each of them sent another one!
Am I seeing double? Didn't I just get an envelope from this person? No! It's a whole separate envelope! Yay for me!
The first envelope was from reader Dana. He always sends a nice card with the smattering of cards and a note, too. This contained his thoughts on 2021 Archives and there were a couple of Archives Dodgers inside.
He also sent this Archives Peel-Off insert of Ryan Mountcastle because he said he pulled THREE of them, which is typical Topps collation and why I'd never trust my hard-earned money with a Topps box anymore.
This card I may send to my nephew, who is an O's fan, although I need to check whether he's still collecting cards. He's getting to that age.
The overriding theme of the envelope though was Mookie cards. I love getting Mookie cards.
So, that was the first envelope from Dana and then -- Boom -- another envelope from him. With a different card and a different note. Apparently he forgot to include two cards in the original sending.
There you go. My 2019 Stadium Club Dodgers team set is finally finished.
I don't know what happened here (I don't know what happened to the scan either as my scanning app went all weird with the foil on the cards). Somewhere along the way I dropped my pursuit of finishing the '19 Stadium Club Dodgers and didn't even realize it wasn't complete.
It's stuff like this that makes me question my status as a team collector. But they're all home now so everything is fine.
The other reader who sent two consecutive envelopes, several days apart, was, I believe, Grant. He never puts his name on his envelopes, but I recognize the address -- I think.
He included a double theme in the first of his two envelopes with a pair of 2021 Tony Gonsolin A&G minis. I appreciate this glum pitcher foursome as one of the few things I miss about cutting down on retail card purchasing are A&G minis.
My second of these 70th anniversary diecuts featuring someone who looks very unnatural on a diecut design. I think diecuts should be reserved exclusively for '90s players -- not that I need yet another Mike Piazza diecut.
Perhaps you've heard that the All-Star cards traditionally in Update were inserts for 2021. I don't like that. I don't have any real good reason against it, but it's just one of those things that I used to be able to pull from packs and now we're making these exclusive, too?
My first "Japan Edition" cards for 2021.
I am torn by these because:
1) I really like the little Japanese flag, just as I like the little UK flag on the UK edition cards.
2) It is the only thing that tells you that it is different from the regular American 2021 Topps card. (Except it does say "Japan Edition" above the card number on the back).
3) This is a really lazy way to create a whole new card set.
So that was a neat little envelope from Grant, but he wasn't done. A few days later in rolled another no-name PWE.
Shiny pitchers of recent yore!
And before you say, "you already have all these night owl," no I don't! These are all refractors!!
Good stuff.
All totally unexepected, all appreciated. Both times!
Takes my mind off not having the cash to buy cards.
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