Trade Post - Toddfather and O No Orioles

Time to showcase another 2 awesome trades with fellow bloggers that helped build my Giants collection.  While my roots in card collecting come from set building, I find myself getting more and more joy out of filling in gaps in my Giants collection to the point where the two are close to equal.

The first trade was with the Tim over at Home of the Toddfather. Tim just did his first group break recently and it was a lot of fun and I scored a nice minor league auto from Topps Pro Debut.  In this trade I got a variety of Giants and I will show some of my favorites:

First up are some base cards.  The Aurilia was particularly sweet as it finished off that team set.  It was one of my Baker's dozen cards and I was very happy to get it.  The Bonds 1999 Opening Day card was actually the first time I had seen this set.  Surprisingly I hadn't gotten any of the Giants in past trades.  The foil is a little challenging to read but I still like the design with the photo of the player being the highlight.  Also scored a Skybox card of my favorite closer Robb Nen.  Brian Wilson was inching closer to Nen in my book but Nen still tops the charts for his time with the Giants - just a dominant closer.  Also scored a Russ Ortiz, he is imfamous for being the guy Dusty Baker gave the ball to in the 2002 World Series with Dusty thinking the Series was over - oops.

Also scored some inserts. Yes I am idiotically going after the Bonds Home Run History cards - actually just the ones for his days with the Giants that start at HR number 177. The 194 is my 3rd earlier one and both are welcome additions, 133 down, 454 to go!  I really like the Ultra inserts and this Hitting Machine Bonds does not disappoint.  I have been giving some thought to 2013 collecting goals already and Ultra cards may be a part of my collecting focus.

 Finally some Giants parallels.  Both of these cards are my first Giants parallels from the respective sets.  The Schmidt is the red foil parallel and is serial numbered 0595/2006 - very cool. I am shocked that the Noah Lowry card is my first Giants silver parallel from 2006 Fleer.  I opened quite a bit of this back in 2006 and somehow avoided Giants parallels all together.

Thanks Tim for the great trade, I really appreciate the new Giants!

The other trade I want to highlight today is one with Ryan from "O" No!!! Another Orioles Blog.  Ryan has also started doing group breaks.  His breaks have been filling up fast with some cool products so I haven't been able to get into one yet but I am hoping I can in the future.

The centerpiece of the trade were some Allen and Ginter minis, another favorite of mine and in consideration for the 2013 collecting goals.  I was able to pick up 6 new ones for the collection from the first two years of the release.  I also really like Ryan's business card he included.  I keep hearing these Vista Print ads with cheap business cards and maybe I need to design some as well.  Very cool!

 Ryan also included this very cool Barry Bonds insert from the 2000 Topps release.  What a great design. The Gold pops off the card and shines.  The die cut across the top following the Hands of Gold script is a great touch, I am a fan of die cut cards.  Great picture of Barry with his shades down getting under a fly ball, the shades are a must with a card this bright.  The only nit picking I would do on this card, it would have been nice to have a left handed glove on the card for Barry since he is a lefty but regardless, this is an awesome card.

I typically don't focus much on the card backs but really liked this one and wanted to share it.  Bonds gets a bad rap for his defense that I don't feel is completely earned.  I think much of it stems from the Sid Bream play but I saw a recent interview with Jim Leland who wasn't critical at all of Barry on that play. He was playing deep and the throw, while not perfect, wasn't that far off line and was close enough for a lunge and near out at the plate.

You can see from this card back that Bonds won the Gold Glove 8 out of 9 years and according to the Topps author compares favorably to Willie Mays with regards to his defense.  I wouldn't go that far but do believe Bonds was one of the better fielding outfielders of his era.

Thanks Ryan for the great Giants cards!