Tradin' 'til next year

Tom from Waiting 'Til Next Year sent along a package last week. I've been sending over the occaisional PWE and package to P-Town, and we've established a regular trade route. 

Check out these awesome Jumbo Heritage cards! They feature the Twins' two All-Stars from last year, who formed the battery for the game's final out. Perkins is a local guy, as they mentioned about 50 times during the All-Star Game, growing up about 15 miles from Target Field/The Metrodome

These Post/Jell-o Cards are great - they refer to the Twins as "Minneapolis" - it must have been released at a very specific time as the team switched over to the "Minnesota Twins" pretty much instantly.

Killer.

Four future Twins (well, I think Gonsalves is pretty much a lock, Baxendale has a good shot, and Navarreto has an outside chance given the organizational depth at catcher- Ryan Walker...? He's got a long way to go)

Some Hometown Heroes! I just busted a box of these (post coming later on that), the insert in the top left was not in the box, so it's cool to get that one. The Ozzie Arcia is new to me, too.

Awesome! Thanks Tom!

¡Viva Los Vargas!

Still working on that Kennys Vargas rainbow, now down to just one! (Clear Acetate /10)

There's the Snow Camo numbered to 99, and the Team set card - The variation here shows his position as DH.

While going after the Snow parallel, I saw several Vargas certified Autograph cards pop up - I found these two at a very reasonable price!

There are a few fancier patches floating around out there- but I picked up this one for a song, it's still a great looking card!

I just missed out on a 1/1 Vargas from the new Gypsy Queen set, it's ok though; I would have ruined my budget for the next card show if I had won the auction...

So, still looking for the /10 parallel from Series One. Hope one turns up soon!

2x3x100% awesome

Jeff from 2 by 3 Heroes got in on the group trade game, and I sent him some White Sox as well as a White Whale Elephant gift of a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle (reprint).

Jeff sent back quite the package of Twins in return, lots of great stuff!

 The Harmon Throwback Threads is new to me, even though I recently went through a big stack of the set.

 A pretty fantastic Stadium Club card, and Mauer's version of an iconic Killebrew card

 Stuart Turner is one of a trio of young catching prospects that are climbing the organizational ladder. Turner, Brian Navaretto, and Mitch Garver all were promoted a level this year, and really impressed last season.

 That's a new Kirby to me!

 A couple cool chips / pogs / discs from the recent past.

This was just a taste of all the great stuff that Jeff sent over. Thanks very much!

Un coup de pot (A Stroke of Luck)

Kevin from The Card Papoy has been a great trade partner from the very beginning of my blog. We hit a little snag with the old postal services (or perhaps with Customs) on the last delivery. Was it lost? Stuck in some kind of time warp? And then, a stroke of luck!

The latest package from Kevin took exactly one month to make its way to me from France, but it was worth the wait!

 Hoping for Molitor to turn out to be a fine addition to the Managerial ranks, too!

 I wonder if LaTroy Hawkins is the last active player from this Leaf Signature Series Set. This was when he was a promising starting pitching prospect.

 Shiny and Sign-y!

 The Twins' used to do this promotion called the "knothole club" and kids under 14 could get super cheap upper deck General Admission tickets - I saw a ton of games the two summers I was 13 and 14 - my parents let me go without an adult to day games starting that summer.

 The best Free Agent signing in Twins' History?

 Shiny and Sign-y 2!

And the mandatory Biebs.

Merci!

Crackin' Wax - 2002 Donruss Originals

In an ongoing effort to fill in the gaps in my collection, every now and then I will buy up some boxes of packs and bust them.

This time I went with a box of 2002 Donruss Originals. This was the Donruss answer to Topps Heritage, and similar to the Tampa Bay Rays, with no real vintage to draw upon, Donruss decided to take a page from Stanislavsky and introduced the magical "if" as in What if? - an insert that showed players as rookies in years before they first appeared in Donruss sets, as well as some faux-retro sets from 1978, 1979, and 1980.

The sealed box

The "box topper" was a checklist with base cards on the front and a very large number of inserts that basically doubles the size of the set

Here are the 4 base card designs - the fonts on the '86 and '88 cards would vary pretty wild from card to card in this set... I think they did a good job remaining faithful to the original designs, and the card stock is much better.

The backs are pretty fun too - the copy on the Vlad Guerrero card was priceless.

The inserts - hey, a new Kirby Puckett card! The Maddux is one of just two "What if?" cards I pulled, the other was an '88 Craig Biggio.

Now, for the hit . . .

How . Freaking . Sweet . Is . That!?!

I'm not even that much of a Schilling fan, but that is a very cool relic. You can see where the stitches were on the chunk of the ball they used for this card! I think the only Schilling relic card that could top something from the 2001 World Series would be a piece of his bloody sock...

Anyway, these were a lot fun to open - I think I'm going to get another box!