I've participated in various Secret Santa exchanges over the years on the blogs. For the most part, I can't complain. I've received plenty of great goodies from some of the most generous people in the hobby.
I haven't participated the last two or three years, though, partly because it's gotten way too hectic at this time of the year to add one more thing, but mostly because I'm just much too blessed by the cards coming my way already. It makes me a little uncomfortable to add another reason to get cards.
It's a few days before Christmas and already I know I won't have enough time to show off the cards people have sent me recently that have come with Seasons Greetings or just the intention to send out something during the gift-giving season.
So far, I've received five different packages in the last few days, a few unannounced beforehand, and I have a suspicion this won't be the end of it.
I'm going to show three here, so I won't get completely behind.
The first group of cards is from Billy of Cardboard History. These were contest goodies from his blog anniversary celebration, but I'm calling them holiday goodies because of their arrival time.
Billy's been itching to send me some cards recently anyway. We haven't traded yet, mostly because we don't collect the same stuff. I'm 90 percent baseball and I think he's 0 percent baseball, which is why I was surprised to see the excellent Masterpieces Sandy Koufax card fall out of the envelope.
That's a card I own already, but it's so good that I'm tempted to fill a nine-pocket page with them as I have for a couple of cards already.
He sent me one other baseball card, which I'm forwarding to someone who I think will like it a lot more. The rest was hockey, specifically Soo-Brays! Yay!
As I've mentioned before I collect Sabres cards casually and it's difficult for me to follow the team while football is happening (one casual sport at a time). I've gotten the gist of Buffalo's season, which is basically "lose one, win one, repeat to infinity." But I'll get more familiar somewhere in mid-January.
Anyway, Billy sent me some current Sabres cards. I was surprised to learn I already owned a handful of them. I guess Sportscards From The Dollar Store has turned me into a real, live hockey card collector. But the above two were new.
Here is another one, from the Buffa-Slug era, of a really great goalie that I still miss. This appears to be numbered on the front so I guess I have something super fancy!
Here are three new-to-me cards from the era when I was following the Sabres closely. There was really no finer era for Fun-To-Pronounce Sabres Names in a Fun-To-Pronounce Names Sport. Hawerchuk. Snuggerud. Who needs to yell out movie quotes when you have hockey names?
Also, I won't say early '90s card backs were the best, because I've seen card backs from the 1950s, but, wow, they certainly forced you to turn over your cards, didn't they?
Billy even threw in a card from the period when my wife was a little kid in Buffalo rooting on her Sabres. Check out that gash on Don Luce's mug. That's what hockey cards were then. Rough-looking guys on rough-looking cards and some card company with the audacity to put colored borders on everything. Makes me want to get into a hockey fight.
Speaking of the '50s, I'm moving on to a card package from Jeff of Cardboard Catastrophes.
This card was a throw-in. Yup. A 1956 Topps card I needed was an unannounced traveler with the rest of the cards. Pretty cool.
These were the known cards and the last three that I needed to finish off the 1994 Ted Williams Card Company set! I've finished off the '93 and '94 TWC sets within a couple of weeks of each other!
You probably know these guys already but for those who don't, I'll help you out since the '94 set made things difficult with gold writing on a brown background.
That's Michael Jack Schmidt, Rodney Kline Carew and Theodore Bernard Kluszewski.
Together they're awesome.
Jeff added these O-Pee-Chee Dodgers cards, too. I have these already and I'm now convinced that I need to alter my want lists so they indicate what sets I've finished. I don't mind getting cards I have already. It's part of the deal and you'll never see me altering my trade techniques because I get a few dupes. But I don't think people want to send me dupes, so I owe it to folks to clue them in to what I've got.
Now we've arrived at a specific Christmas giveaway. It's Nachos Grande's Season of Giving!
Chris found a number of special treats for my collection. The above card is from one of the Senior League sets from the late '80s. Rafael Landestoy is one of those guys who played for both the Dodgers and the Reds, my favorite team and Chris' favorite team. So is he a Dodger or a Red? Neither! He's a Gold Coast Sun! Argument averted.
Bazooka mini stickers, featuring one Dodger and players who aren't Dodgers and therefore pointless to include on a Dodger sticker-card.
I recently went over 700 different Kershaw cards in my collection, which means I'm on my way to 800 now. The above two rather weird Kershaw cards get me moving in the right direction.
More unlicensed "fun."
I'm not sure what this is but I'm guessing it's from Panini Chronicles, that bizarre set that still has my interest. I keep seeing blaster-type boxes of this set and then I pick them up and they're incredibly light and I read the box and it says "20 cards inside." Twenty cards for $19.99? With no MLB license? What is going on here? Panini's gotten into the medicine cabinet again.
I requested each of these cards from Chris over the last few months. Yes, even the Dwight Evans cards. Fleer Greats of the Game is cool and so are Red Sox from my childhood.
I have some specific set-completion goals lined up for the new year and I'm pretty focused. But there is always the chance that I will give it up for 12 months of trying to accumulate as many 2008 Baseball Heroes colors that I can. And I wouldn't be ashamed in the least. Now, somebody please make sure that doesn't happen.
O-Pee-Chee Dodgers from the '70s and '80s, man. Just solid.
Finally, this ... uh ... card.
Chris calls this a quad/patch auto, which I guess is the proper terminology even though it sure looks like a single patch to me. High-end collectors sure have weird names for their cards. Chris landed it in a random team break because he pulled the Dodgers and because Dodgers cards are drawn to him, which explains why we keep trading cards.
It's pretty close to the thickest card I have in my collection. It's definitely the thickest "quad/patch auto" card of a guy not wearing logos in my collection. It's also my fourth autograph card of Dennis Santana, which is the exact number of Dodgers games Santana has pitched in his career. Card companies sure like making cards of him.
I'm not sure exactly what to do with this item, so that's why I'm posing it randomly against squirrel nick-nacks in the house.
I bet it cracks walnuts as well as a squirrel.
So those are three Christmas packages -- or at least three that arrived around that time.
I am humbled as always by the stuff that comes my way at this time of year. You haven't even seen the other stuff waiting on my desk. It's pretty great.
But you do need something to look at after the holiday, too.
(P.S.: The spacing on this post is all wacked out because Blogger is goofy with multiple images lately and I've run out time to fix it. It's only me that notices anyway).
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