My hit of the year so far came from ... Japan?

 

A pretty crappy month-plus-one-more-week turned around for me in the last couple days, fortunately.

 

This is all relative, of course, with the state of things lately, but it was nice to be bubbly for a day. To briefly recap, in the last couple of days I learned that my retirement is not a pipe dream, my daughter who was laid off by AI last month landed a job with a salary significantly larger than her last position, and someone at work agreed to write a story instead of me writing it on top of my too many job responsibilities. Happy dance!

 

In there somewhere -- Friday, I think -- I received three card packages in the mail. This never happens like it used to on the blogs. Where once I could get three mailings from other bloggers around 4-5 times a week, if I want that kind of incoming now, I have to buy the things myself.

 

So that was nice. And probably the nicest surprise came from Kenny of Torren' Up Cards, who sent me a single pack all the way from his place of residence, which is Tokyo.

 

This is a pack of 2024 Topps Japan, which is a "companion set" to 2024 Topps flagship/Update. I don't know if this set is only available in Japan. I tried to get some info on it from TCDB but I don't think it's on there yet.

 

I left the pack unopened until I came home for my dinner break on Friday. I was pretty surprised when I opened the cards. Let's take a look:

 

 

126 - Bryce Harper, Phillies

 

Not much different from the 2024 Topps flagship Harper here, same neon effect. You'll notice that there is no Japanese flag icon on the front as in previous sets, it just reads "Topps Japan" in foil.

 

 

There's a back sample. Looks mostly the same as Topps' regular Harper back.

 

 

 

140 - Alexander Canairo, Cubs

 

Canairo is now a Pittsburgh Pirate. Good to know Topps is supplying outdated cards in Japan, too.

 

 

133 - AJ Smith-Shawver, Braves

 

This card is designated for Johnny, where it will sit gathering dust for five months as it takes me that long to find four other Braves cards that he doesn't have.

 

OK, here comes the good part of the pack:

 

61 - Walker Buehler, Dodgers

 

Wooo! A (former) Dodger Japan card! Kenny has had the ability to produce Walker Buehler cards for me for years so this shouldn't be a surprise. But I can't add this to my TCDB Dodger total yet.

 

 

SZH-22 - Gerrit Cole, Yankees, Strike Zone Heroes

 

This is a nifty-looking insert. I bet this is the attraction of this set, inserts that aren't available in the regular 2024 Topps sets.

 

 

 

! 94 - Paul Skenes, Pirates, baby blue parallel, 20/150 !

 

Uh-oh. ... I very nearly didn't go back to work after pulling this card. Suddenly there was way too much to do at home. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to sell it. Then I checked on ebay and there wasn't much like it on there, but one was selling for $249 and another for $333. OK!! Things to do!

 

 

This is easily the biggest card I've pulled so far this year, especially since I can't think of pulling anything else notable at all. It's up on ebay right now, which still makes me feel uncomfortable since I don't sell much at all and even in that limited amount I've encountered two jerky buyers. But maybe, maybe this time it will be smooth. Maybe some fellow blogger will buy it (because we're all made out of money).

 

I don't expect to get what those other sellers are asking for it, but who knows.

 

 

There's the rest of the pack because it wasn't that exciting. But the Jonny Deluca is actually a parallel of the 2024 Chrome card because he's a Dodger in flagship. And the Jose Tena is new because he's with Cleveland in both flagship and Chrome. So that's fun.

 

And overall a little bit of positive excitement after all the garbage excitement of the last month. 

It was real nice of Kenny to send that pack all the way to his former home state. Maybe if he knew the Skenes was in there he would've kept it, but maybe not. We card bloggers that are still around are kind of nice that way. We try to be anyway