Generous folks

 

I buy cards a lot.

That's how most of the cards arrive in my collection. It's the best way to build a card collection, as painful as it can be for the wallet. I buy from dealers at card shows, from various well-known online sites and periodically from individual sellers on Twitter.

There are a lot of people selling cards now. A LOT. It's grown, and is still growing. There are folks on Twitter who sell nonstop. I sometimes have to mute them because I can't take the relentless shilling, even if they're not annoying about it. Then I've noticed that people who used to just tweet regular stuff, their tweets started being all about selling stuff, and, well ... you only have so much cash. And patience.

I won't turn my Twitter account into that. I won't sell stuff on here either. Not that a blog is an effective -- or even appropriate -- place to sell cards.

The blog world, to me, still is where generosity reigns. It's not as apparent as it once was. I mean the Tribe Cards blog hasn't been active for a long time. But there are still generous people blogging and reading blogs, who will just send cards, for free.

 

 I received an email a couple of days after Ron Cey's birthday last month. "Happy Cey Day!" it said. "What's your address?"

A few days later this super custom made by Gio (@wthballs) arrived in an envelope. It came from a TCDB member, BucCollector.

This card was made so that Cey could have his own 1972 card instead of sharing with two other guys like '72 Topps made him do. A Cey card minus his mustache is a pretty rare thing (although retro cards from 20 years ago managed to unearth those photos).

BucCollector also sent this Gio card, which I have already, so this is up for grabs if anyone wants it.

Johnny has been showing off his generosity for months, running almost daily giveaways. I've won a few times but often forget to comment -- which is how you enter. I remembered this time though!

Johnny guessed I had all these -- he's correct -- but hoped there'd be an upgrade in here. He's correct there, too.

No, not this one. But this '62 Drysdale is fantastic. Miscut and the photo registration completely shot (along with worn corners and creases). I will not hesitate to add another '60s Drysdale card to my collection.

The upgrade in the lot is actually the 1977 Topps Tommy John. I really needed a less-worn copy for the Dodgers collection (nobody needs to know how many '77 Don Suttons I have).

I will also enjoy adding another version of the first card I ever pulled -- the '74 Tommy John -- to my collection.

 

Finally, this card came from TwinKiller, who runs the blog Turning Two. (If you're not clued in that he's a Twins fan from visiting the link, reading his handle and seeing the card he sent me, I can't help you).

He reached out with this need for my 1969 Topps set to spare and it's a nice copy and I especially appreciate that he sent it. It's a great card. Tony Oliva still gets no love even with his Hall nod.

Speaking of the '69 set, I just made a large purchase to add to my '69 set. I'll be super happy to get them, but anytime I buy like that I wonder if I should have used that for something else, that's always in the back of my mind in this hobby.

That's one of the big reasons why I'm glad I found this blog community and online traders. They aren't looking for your money, they're just looking for your cards, or even just looking to give you cards.

That's generosity that's harder and harder to find. Unless you run a card blog.