No direction

 

Just a few minor things to mention today, nothing that will appeal much on its own. Readers seem to be catching up on outside time anyway.

I took a look at my two stacks of 2024 Topps flagship sitting on my card desk and they looked pretty high. That inspired me to add my wants to TCDB and, in a flash, I'm down to the final 40 cards to finish the set. I barely had to lift a finger, except to search for the cards requested in exchange, which always can be fraught with peril.

My remaining wants are on TCDB but I'll put them here as well. Per usual, guys like Elly De La Cruz and Aaron Judge aren't popping up in trades. Topps couldn't possibly double-print those guys now could it?

So here's the list (List edited as of 9/8):

141 - Elly De La Cruz, 375 - Matt Vierling, 442- Shota Imanaga, 593 - Carlos Rodon, Wilyer Abreu, 695 - Kyle Gibson

Also I haven't accounted for needing a second Dodger card for Series 2 on TCDB so add 492 - J.D. Martinez, 500 - Shohei Ohtani, 619 - Teoscar Hernandez, 622 - Will Smith to the list.

I just added the Gavin Williams card to my baseballcardstore cart and if I want to do a two-card TCDB swap (🙄), I can get the Drew Waters card. As usual with current flagship, this list should change rapidly (It sure did).

 

I received just a few cards from the last Time Travel Trade at Diamond Jesters (he's got another one up I see). I'm really into minimal effort these days, so it was two pairs of '80s cards and that was it.

I don't even like any kind of 1986 Donruss but I need those 1980s guys. This gold spin-off of the main 1986 Donruss set is something Donruss did a lot in the late 1980s with its various extra sets. It caused me to wonder whether Donruss should have used a different color for the main set.

Let's start with 1986 first.

Donruss used dark blue (midnight blue?) for its main set. Anything with those skinny black lines is going to make me hate the set, I don't know what Donruss was doing for most of the '80s as far as design. But blue is the best of the three here. Maybe if it was a brighter blue I'd like it more?

Donruss used black for the border for its main set in 1987, then chose green, blue (a better blue) and magenta (I think) for its other sets. I don't think any of the other colors would work better than the black, although it's one of my least favorite black-bordered sets. 

Blue was the right pick for the main 1988 Donruss set, too. Wouldn't it have been wild if Donruss went with orange for the main set? I don't think we'd be talking quite as much about the hazard yellow used with 1991 Fleer in that case.

This is the Donruss set that I would have changed. The 1990 red menace set is too overwhelming, and blue would have been more pleasing. 

 

The other two cards I received from Matt were also from the late 1980s, a couple of 1987 O-Pee-Chees. Not as fun as the ones with two teams represented, but I'll add any OPC from the '80s.

Finally, I received this surprise in the mail yesterday.

It arrived from my sister-in-law. She saw it in the post office, I guess, and thought of me. 

 

I've seen the stamp on various card envelopes recently, including this one from Phungo:

It's a 1974-themed postcard tribute to Hank Aaron's greatest baseball feat. The front is the same for the versions Phungo sent out but the back drawing is different. I got Al Downing, of course.

Anyway, the stamp sheet is so cool that I want to keep it. But those stamps are also money and money is the scarcest at this time of year, has been for decades. So you may see Hank on incoming packages from me in the near future.

So, that was a housekeeping post, which I've written many times. But I haven't done one in over two years.