What a sweet weekend! I've learned not to get my hopes up when looking for new releases at Wal-Mart and Target. When I first heard about the full blasters of the '09 Topps dark parallels, I was super giddy. I never did find any on the shelves. Probably a good thing too since I see them as a gimmick now instead of a must have. I picked up a small lot from eBay though and that got the curiosity craving out of me. Same thing with Obak. Never saw any gravity feeds. Once I saw a blaster but those are HUGE rip-offs. I still own zero Obak. I'll buy a hobby box one day, maybe for my birthday. I just worry about them selling out. I have no idea how many of the limited hobby boxes remain. Anyways, back to my point, I walked into Target today hoping for my first '10 Topps, but not hoping too much. I could see the double wide gravity feed a mile away! I STILL didn't allow myself to celebrate since I've been duped by empty feeders before. Yes! It was almost empty but that was good enough for me!
I'm really excited for '10 Topps. The base design leaves a lot to be desired coming after last year's. But I do love most of the inserts, except for the "when they were young" set. I can't wait to get into the "million card giveaway". I'm hoping I can use it to trade for at least a handful of singles towards my '69 Topps set. We'll see.
I'm also really going to enjoy the NFL Playoff double-header with my Dad today. And the wife has her own agenda today so she doesn't have to sit through two whole torturous games. Hooray!
Ok, I'm sick of your jibba-jabba! This IS a trade post after all, didn't you know? No, I don't have any scans of '10 Topps. It's mostly '09 T.. where are you going?!!
Last month I posted my first trade bait post, which worked out pretty well and I'm happy with the results. I think that post now sets the bar for hits on this blog. I'm not sure but I think that post caught the eye of Ed from
Roll Out the Barrel because of my considerably large set needs, and he needed to unload some extras. Without expecting anything in return, he sent over a much appreciated amount of help towards those sets. I don't like getting something for nothing though. I've never been able to forgive myself for winning a card on eBay for a penny with free shipping, even though the seller was asking for it, right?! Anyways, I was really grateful and sent over some Brewers in return. I scanned 1 card for each set or group that were sent over.
Ed sent several Ichiros, and I don't think I owned any of them yet until now. This is the '09 Turkey Red #TR96. Ichiro is by far my favorite player in the league today. And as of right now, he is the only active player of any sport that I have a player collection of. I plan on picking some more players this year though.
Jeff Weaver '09 Topps Updates & Highlights #UH115. I'm still getting Jeff and Jared constantly mixed up and can't tell one from the other. Cardinals, Angels, Dodgers.. which one is where who whatzit? Red Sox?
#176, this is one of my favorites from the '08 Upper Deck Heroes set. This one might now be much rarer than the rest of the set since I'm sure so many Yankees and Red Sox fans cut it in half the moment they saw it. I like the Sox, but as more of a fan of the game, this card featuring 2 of the greatest hitters of my lifetime is magic.
'09 Topps #40 Carl Crawford. Seeing this card up close helped me understand why this card ranked highly with so many other collectors. It is really a great shot.
Finally, we have an '09 Topps Allen & Ginter Jamie Moyer #68. I had no idea this guy is still on the Phillies roster. I thought he was retired! He should be fun to watch if he plays this year.
That wraps it up. Just the tip of the iceberg of the cards that Ed sent. Check out Ed's blog at
Roll Out the Barrel. Thanks Ed!
Here's the first of hopefully several long overdue trade posts! This one finished up about 2 weeks ago. Chris over at Budget Baseball Cardboarding offered up some cards on my needs lists and some Ichiros for a couple of Longorias he spotted on my blog. 
At the rate I'm going, I think I'll have 2010 Topps Series 1 finished before Series 1 2009. Weird.
Chris surprised me by throwing in a bonus card, and wow! This is sweet!
Thanks so much Chris! These are all great additions!!
I used the Roy card to show just how big these 1976-77 Topps cards really are! I always thought they were a little tall but these are huge! Very cool.
And finally we have the Japanese variation of Ichiro's '07 Topps Chrome. This might be my favorite Ichiro.
Initially, the trade was just for some Strawberrys. But things kindof got out of hand...
Next up are a couple of small trades, but of course hugely appreciated. These came from dogfacedgremlin from The Real DFG. He offered to send these over and didn't even ask for anything in return so I've been trying to find all of my Penguins cards to return the favor. Thanks DFG!
And last but not least, Flywheels from Cardboard Collections sent these over for just one card he spotted from a pack of Topps Platinum Football I opened up. My '09 set is really coming together.. 5 of these 9 cards finished an album page so these were really some thrillers for me! Thanks Flywheels!
And here's my hit. Nice card, but from a player I hardly follow. These are only running $1-2 on eBay right now. I plan on buying hobby as often as I can until I pull my first Hat Logo, Silk, or 1/1. Looking forward to a hobby box.
