Good cards from good people

 

Wow, if there's an early theme for 2024 for me, it might be that I don't have the time to be blogging here any longer.

That's a pretty jarring realization because my blog rep is built partly on my unspoken guarantee: "I'll blog when no one else can." But it's been one thing out of my control after another this year. For example, did you know that USA Today yesterday named the city in which I live the most ideal spot to view the eclipse next week?" Good gosh, what now?

You wouldn't think something like that would take time away from blogging, but with the expected influx of people, I've got to run around and get errands done in advance.

So other responsibilities have been piling up, including cards -- good cards from good people. 

Let's get to it.

I'll start first with some great retro stuff from Bru of Remember the Astrodome. He wailed on my Swell wants, specifically the 1991 set, which I like the most. That's a whole bunch of old-timey guys right there. Thank goodness for the color borders.

 

Here's some color photos right now. I still get a little uncomfortable when I see 1970s players in 1970s uniforms in legends sets, but I need to get over that. That radio station that used to play 1940s standards when I went to college is now playing Cornelius Bros. and Sister Rose and "Disco Lady". Face the music.

 

Even more! Wonderful stuff. Thanks to all of this I'm now at 62 percent of the set finished. I still haven't done anything about finding those two 1990 Swell cards that eluded me when I thought the set was finished, and let's not mention how distant that 1989 Swell finish line is, but look at the yellow and red borders!!!!

 

Bru added a couple of 1990 cards from the Pacific Legends set, too, which is the set with the most heavy-lifting left for me.

 

 

And, yeah, I guess I said I'm trying to finish the 2005 Topps Traded set, too. That's a bit of folly but one card closer!

 

Bru also filtered out some Dodgers from his collection and each of these met a need. Fans of other teams like to whine about the Dodgers' embarrassment of riches, meanwhile all I see is Corey Seager could've still been playing for them.

 

These aren't Dodger cards, but they're fun and I throw them into the Dodger binders until I'm over them (a.k.a: Miller gets traded or is injured for a year-and-a-half. See: Buehler). These have typically weird Panini parallel names. Mossy Swamp Green and Don't Burn Your Fingers Orange. OK, I made those up.

A lot of the cards I've shown so far have been about getting closer to finishing a set, but here I'm showing a card that finishes a set! The Ohtani-Betts was the last card I needed to finish the 2024 Series 1 Dodgers team set. 

The others are the usual inserts and parallels. The Betts Easter Egg card is no more appealing than the "base" Easter parallel cards. Both ugly and weird and where are Topps' One-Day-Only eclipse parallels?

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OWL INTERMISSION!

 

Taking a break from the baseball player viewing to show off a couple of owl cards sent to me recently.

This one is from Nick and I've lost the note he sent that likely identified this. I believe it's from the 1933 "World of Nature" set. That Coca-Cola theme really makes the card and would go nicely in our downstairs bathroom that has an old-time Coca-Cola motif.

 

Zooming exactly 80 years into the future, how about an "owl patch card" that I received from Sportscards From the Dollar Store?

"What in the world?" is the appropriate reaction. This is from 2013 Topps Pro Debut. "Hootz" was the mascot of the Pioneer League's Orem Owlz in Utah. Hootz's team was contracted in the great 2021 minor league team purge and new form of the team is located in Northern Colorado now. There's still an owl mascot. I don't know if it's still Hootz. I kind of lost interest.

 

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And back to baseball. I have a few more cards that I received from Bill K.

 

He was going through another collection whittling and found some more Dodgers for me. Many I had already but these four are key cards I got to scratch off the ol' list:

 

That's a pretty eclectic bunch.

 

These are all cards that are already in the Dodgers binders but I know I can find other uses for the majority of them. Thank goodness I collect oddball sets! And you can never have enough gold Kershaws.

 

The 2002 Post Shawn Green is also already in the collection but a sealed package is a neat item. The second card in the package, Cliff Floyd from the Marlins, doesn't exactly inspire me to break out the scissors.

 

This 1993 Pacific Ramon Martinez comes in a couple different versions and Bill sent me a version I didn't have.

 

You'll note that Martinez's head is closer to the top of the photo frame in one of the cards. I never would have caught that in 1993.

Card or no card? These are both Heritage Auction ad cards. The Koufax jersey is kind of cool, I'd probably throw that in a binder before the other one.

That was nice of Bill to send that box of cards out. His collection interests are my Kryptonite, 1990s cards. But by chance I think I have a smattering of ones he needs! Cool.

Once eclipse frenzy hits high pitch on Monday I'll have a little time to tend to packaging up cards and such because I sure won't be going anywhere that day (I'll be working from home).