Trade Post - Another Ton of Trades

Boy has trading been active on the blogs.  I have been trying to track the trades I have done this year, both packages sent out and received and I believe both are over 30 right now.  Couple that with the remaining backlog of scanning and organizing from the time around the birth of our baby and the holidays and I have quite a few traders to thank.  I thought I would share a few more in this post and show off the great cards I have been able to add to my collection.

First up is a batch of cards sent to me by a reader of the blog Steve.  Steve won one of my contests late last year (I believe he claimed a Manny Ramirez Relic card) and was kind enough to send some cards back.

It doesn't come through great in the scan but that Flair card is Gold and Shiny!  I enjoy the shine and dual photo design.  Looks like Willie is getting tagged out in a nice Collector's Choice photo, could you imagine having a card showing you getting out?  At least Willie has hundreds of cards out there to make up for it.  In 1997 Vizcaino was joining his 5th team in the Giants in 9 seasons and Score was able to get a picture of him in his new Giants uniform.  The same can't be said for UD in the Relaford card, definitely a card for my Giants binder but he is shown in the Mets uni.  In 2002, the Giants were also Relaford's 5th team but he made the rounds in 6 years.

Steve also included these great looking cards, I am a fan of both sets.  The Leaf card has a geometric designs with nice team matching colors and solid photography.  The Circa has a wild design but it works for me. I like the wild color and the action photos seem to pop out of the cards.  In all Steve knocked 10 cards off my Giants want lists, thanks Steve!

Next up is a big batch of cards from Josh over at Royals and Randoms. 

 I think the 91 Classic purple border cards were the ones that started the trade but I ended up with a bunch of other great looking cards.  The blue border Donruss cards from the Best in the NL set look wrong upon first glance.  They have the same design as the base Donruss set of 1990 but have a much different border.  I actually think the blue looks a little better but both are quite bright. I couldn't have asked for a better trio of cards with Will and Matty being my two favorite players from that era and HOFer Gary Carter being captured in his Giants uni in one of the handful of cards during his time on the Giants.

 I have very few MLB Showdown cards in my collection and was happy to see these from an All Star set.  I remember those jerseys, they have etched a painful memory in my brain but at least the players got to wear the Black and Orange on their caps. One of these days I will have to figure out how that game was played.  I still need quite a few UD 40-man Giants cards so any new ones are a good addition.  The Bonds card on the bottom middle is a Twizzlers licorice card, love the odd ball.  The History of the Game card was not even on my checklist but definitely belongs - I love acquiring new cards to add to the checklist!

 The top row has cards from a couple of the many Fleer releases from the middle part of the last decade.  I have thought about setting a goal of getting all the 2000s Fleer base cards for the Giants, maybe next year, as most of them are fairly new to me.  I didn't buy much more that Topps and UD during that time frame.  We have our second Mets uniform on a Giants card in the post flanked by 2 chrome shiny cards.  The Lofton has the characteristic chrome bend but not as bad as those 2010 train wrecks.  I actually like blue of the 2003 design in chrome even though as a Giants fan I should be revolted at the color blue.

Josh included a couple 1977 Topps cards and while I have both, these will are condition upgrade and while I am not usually seeking these out I always enjoy upgrading the binder cards. The Sportflics releases just fell short of making my 2013 collection goals list of sets but will always be sought out.  And I love getting Giants stickers in trade packs. Thanks for the well wished in your note Josh and the great group of cards.

Next up are some cards from Stealing Home owner of the All Trade Bait All the Time. 

 These two cards were the origin of the trade.  I, of course, am a huge fan of the celebration photo from the Giants winning the 2012 World Series and was glad to add the Walmart blue border parallel to my collection. I had a Lincecum Calling Card insert for my set and now have one for the Giants binder.

Stealing home is one of the many Dodger fan bloggers out there and I am sure he was happy to rid himself of some extra Giants cards. I am always happy to oblige and take excess Giants cards. Here are a few of my favorites.  I really enjoy the Baseball Heroes cards and all the color parallels, I have thought about picking up boxes several different times but never pulled the trigger.  The Diamond King series seems to have lovers and haters, I tend to lean towards the former and enjoy this Williams card.  Great photography on the Bonds card  chasing down a fly ball in Wrigley and a great in action bunting photo of expert bunter Brett Butler.

Thanks for the cards and extras Stealing!

This next group of cards also started with some 2013 Giants.  Brian from over at Play at the Plate contacted me wanting some Rangers from my 2013 Topps Trade Bait post.  He had a couple of Giants inserts and parallels from a blaster he had cracked. Over the next few days I kept getting emails with more Giants cards he had pulled and was including in our trade. In the end, check out all the Giants I received.

 Check out all those awesome Giants pictures in the Walmart blue border.   I really like all the playoff and World Series cards with my favorite in this group the Scutaro rain celebration.  The Posey and Crawford base cards highlight the Giants team set.

 Brian also helped me out on some insert sets with half being Giants and half being stars from other teams.  I am still working on the Cut to the Chase insert set (in addition to the difficult to pull The Greats cards).

Finally a couple more parallels.  I am a big fan of the Emerald parallels and I am slowly closing in on the Giants team set.  The Purple Panik, one of the Giants top prospects, was a nice surprise as well.  Thanks for the great trade Brian, I appreciate you thinking of me when you pulled all those Giants.

Well I am not fully caught up on trade posts but this put a dent into it.  I probably have 1 or 2 more Ton of Trades posts to do and a couple individuals for larger trades.  A big shout out and thanks to all the great traders in the blogging community!