Happy Housewarming to Me

As most of you know, I moved this summer.  It wasn't a long move - about 90 miles from South Orange County, CA to South Ventura County, CA - but it was a move. It involved selling a house, buying a house, moving all our stuff (although my company picked up the tab for the moving truck and packing), a new job for me, my kids changing schools, my wife leaving her job of 12 years and being too far away from our friends to stop by and say hi.  Despite all the turmoil we are settling in quite nice and enjoying our new home and lifestyle.

I have shared some of the trials and tribulations about the move on this blog and here is some more evidence, if you actually need it, that our hobby and blogging community is filled with wonderful and generous collectors.

Three different bloggers have sent me cards with nice notes wishing me well in our new house - how cool is that.  I thought I would share all of them together in this post.

First up a PWE from Mark at This Way to the Clubhouse...:

A pair of great card with an Archive All Star insert of Rickey Henderson and a cool First Day Parallel of Dave Martinez.  A little old, a little new and a nice note to boot.  Thanks Mark, I really appreciate it!

Next up was a package from Spiegel, the author of Dodgers themed blog Nomo's Sushi Platter.  Check out all these goodies:

 The top line features some mini 2000's cards of legendary Giants, very cool!  Also scored a trio of Giants infielders.  The Will Clark USA card is my first of his from that set.  I remember being bummed out when he wasn't included in the 1985 subset in the Topps release. I don't recall a story on why he wasn't included but if I recall he was one of the team captains.  The Aurilia is a nice thick parallel and my first of that type - it features a somewhat odd photo to include on a card.

 Scored some 2013 cards as well, I suspect I am a regular recipient of many Dodgers collectors extra Giants and I have no problem with that.

 Finally a few more Giants to round out the package.  The two Highlights cards make me a little sad that my team isn't in the playoffs this year.  The two cards from the final UD release make me yearn a little for their base card releases.  As a set collector, I enjoyed it a lot more when there was more than one company producing a licensed base set.

Thanks Spiegel for the package and well wishes.  I am hoping you get back in the swing of things in posting, I always enjoy your stuff.  I totally relate to how that becomes a challenge at times though.  Maybe we will run into each other at the LCS one of these days.

My final package came from frequent trade partner, Greg, of the legendary Night Owl blog.

 First up a nice collection of 2013 cards.  I needed some help on my Series 2 base set and got it in this package.  Also got a couple nice minis from this year's Ginter including a very nice black border Scutaro.  Finally a non-Giant with a Gold holofoil Rickey Henderson insert, a very nice addition to the Rickey collection.

 Some more Giants from Greg's seemingly endless supply of Giants.  I tend to rarely pull Giants when I buy packs and NO has the opposite problem which works out great for me.

 Also got some set help for Series 2 and Opening Day which are both nearing completion.  Over the past couple weeks I have made a few purchases to try and wrap up some of these sets.

Speaking of set help, Greg sent me a very nice conditioned card of HOFer Johnny Bench for my 1973 Topps set.  This is one of my favorite cards of the set and I am so happy to have it now.  I have a 2013 collecting goal of finishing this set up to card #528.  With this addition I am within striking distance only needed 6 cards to finish it up.  Might be time to seek out those last few cards then tackle the rest of the set in 2014.

Thanks Greg for the package of cards, it is greatly appreciated.  The generosity of our blogging community continues to amaze me.