At least someone has time

Today, I sent three card packages into the mail. My gosh, what an achievement. I felt so proud of myself, shipping those packages.

All three of them were in response to cards I received before Christmas, possibly even from November. Meanwhile, there are still plenty of pre-Christmas transactions left on my "to send" section of the card desk, reminding me of exactly how long I'm taking to be a neighborly trader through the mail.

I don't really feel shame about my delayed responses. Life has been so relentless in the last six months that there's no time to feel guilt, let alone do something about it. But I can't help but admire those collectors who are so on top of things.

For example, Marc from Remember the Astrodome. He's sent me three packages in a relatively short period of time. I finally sent out a card package in response to maybe his first mailing and -- boom -- a third package showed up. I hadn't even featured his second mailing on the blog yet!

How does he do it?

Those are some cards that I needed from his previous mailing. That Cardinal-Dodger Scott Radinsky card is another one of those you-could-have-eluded-me-for-50-years-and-I'd-never-know-it-existed cards.

I've never paid mind to Panini stickers, but getting this many at once makes me consider:

1. Do I have the whole team set?
2. How can I get the whole team set?
3. Do I have pages for these things?

That about does it for Remember the Astrodome package 2.

The third package that just arrived contained a bit more variety. Some of it were homemade cards from Marc. He's one of the bloggers who created a card for each game of his favorite team's entire season. Again, this is something that I have absolutely NO TIME to do. But fortunately someone does.

And then that someone sends you some samples.

These are mini-sized versions of the cards Marc created for his set. Apparently there was some sort of printing error and he made a few of his cards mini. He thought of me, because why else would I want cards of Astros?

The Colt 45s card at the top of the post was also created by Marc and is mini-sized, too. I dig that one because history.

Here is another mini-sized custom experiment from Marc of Astro-Dodger Jimmy Wynn. I would much prefer a custom card of Wynn as a Dodger because there are far too few of those. But I respect this.

Here is the Wynn card next to a regulation-sized card that Marc also sent.

This '68-style custom of Joe Morgan is regular-sized. The backs of Wynn and Morgan are blank, but those fronts are awesome and will go in the binder I reserve for custom cards sent my way.

By now, though, the blog is far too Astro friendly. Fortunately there were cards in the package to counter that.

Some very welcome 2019 Topps Dodgers. I haven't purchased any 2019 flagship since my initial Target trip at the start of the month and that was almost devoid of Dodgers.

Also included, the most beautiful stadium in baseball.

Marc also did a good job of finding some retro cards that I needed:

The last two cards, of Duke Snider and Pee Wee Reese, come from the 1986 Sportflics "Decade Greats" set. Those are cards that have taken a long time for me to discover. I've had the Campanella card for awhile and I kind of assumed that was it.

There was also one of those three-in-one Sportflics that showed Gil Hodges with Mickey Vernon and Ted Kluszewski. But the card scanned with the Vernon image on the front and that just reminds me of how annoying I find those Sportflics that force three players from different teams to share one card.

Finally, one last custom card from Marc that contained both an Astro and a Dodger:

This is mini-sized, too, and is a take on the 1967 Topps league leader cards. The '67 set did not feature stolen base leaders so Marc took care of that!

Good thing someone has time to visualize stuff like this.

I'm just happy to get three envelopes out of the house every month.