Alright, time to get back on that blog train. I will get this place caught up by the end of April. That means you can expect about a post a day. Stuff has continued to roll in through trades, which is fantastic.
First, however, I need to post about a discovery. You see, the beach is about 45 minutes down the road from us here, and my parents have a condo. It’s more of a small apartment – not much to it, but it works as an excellent landing pad. It allows us to take the kiddo down for an extended day or even over the weekend if we’ve got the time, and we did just that a week ago.
Of course, it’s not stocked with much, which led to me running out to the nearest big box store for some supplies. Wally World is 5 minutes down the road, and after gathering the necessities, I thought I’d just check and see if there so happened to be a card aisle in this store. I haven’t found one in the Houston area that stocks cards, so I didn’t have high hopes. But lo and behold, there were cards! And lots of them!
I snapped up a couple packs of Topps Gallery, which being a Walmart exclusive I haven’t had the opportunity to buy, and a repack of the likes that I hadn’t seen before. Shohei Ohtani was plastered all over it on some unlicensed Leaf cards, one of which was inside. And speaking of unlicensed cards, there were a few packs of Honus Bonus inside! If you get a couple in your next trade package from me, don’t be surprised. I like this Judge, because not only is it a rookie, but also I don’t have to see that terrible Yankees branding.
I did find a pair of Astros in the HBP packs as well, so it worked out in my favor. There were a couple recent Topps flagship packs, and a “Bonus 5 Packs of Triple Play” which didn’t count toward the advertised 10 packs. But rounding out the bunch were a few packs of a set I particularly enjoyed when it came out
Panini Golden Age! Oh, if these are in those repacks, I may just have to buy a couple more. The ballplayers are of course my favorite entries from the set, and I was quite happy to land a Harvey Haddix for my PC. The Eddie Waitkus is a fun card as well – his story was the inspiration for Bernard Malamud’s “The Natural.”
There were a few fun non-ballplayers in the bunch as well. The Hall of Fame card is nice, although I wish the void wasn’t eating up the photo. I sort of feel like I need to send one of these to get signed by Jeff Katz – anybody got a spare? The Willie is a great non-sport card, and I may try to send it to a venue on his touring list in hopes of getting a signature.
But the best thing about Golden Age is, of course, the MINIS! I pulled three of them, and they were all baseball related! They also all slid into my mini Frankenset, which I still need to blog about. So, I’ll have a post up later this month.
Here are the backs. I dig that they did some back variations. Nick will probably find it interesting that Panini made no effort to eliminate the tobacco aspect.
In the interest of trying to knock out posts as fast as possible, I wanted to share a quick trade that showed up this week as well. This came from Billy, who is a TCDB member. His handle is billwill305 if you’d like to swap with him.
Billy sent over a PWE filled with some recent Astros I needed, including these two Team Set Killers from 2018. It feels really good to knock out these team sets, and I’ve already far exceeded my stretch goal on the year thanks to the bevy of trades.
Among the cards were a trio of 2018 Gypsy Queen Astros I still needed – I only pulled 5 of the base and one “missing blackplate” (also Josh Reddick), so I still need several of these. My favorite card in the package was this Opening Day Edition of rookie Cionel Pérez. He didn’t crack the Opening Day roster, but he’s certain to be on the staff at some point this year. Plus, those shiny blue parallels look pretty spectacular playing off the team colors.
Last among the cards I got from Billy were a pair of 2018 inserts for some sets I decided to build. I haven’t put too much effort into chasing these down, so it’s nice to pick them up in swaps once in a while. That’s my preferred method for these anyhow.
Thanks for the trade Billy!
I just busted 9 boxes of Panini Golden Age (3 of each year: 2012, 2013, and 2014). It was so much fun. My only complaint was that collation was terrible. I failed to complete a single base set. One of my favorite cards was the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Golden Age in repacks????? I really wish you wouldn't have mentioned that 🙂
Darn tootin' I find it interesting that Panini included cigarette advertising. That's almost SABR post worthy.
Also how much does the Waitkus talk about his shooting on the back? I just picked up the 1955 Bowman for the back text.
Oooh, nice. If you have an extra HOF card or any of the Haddix minis, let me know. I'd be interested.
Lol, but you'll have to take on a bunch of Triple Play in order to get it, so ¯_(ツ)_/¯
It does indeed mention it. I didn't scan it, but you can see it here: https://www.tradingcarddb.com/ViewCard.cfm/sid/93828/cid/6710628/2014-Panini-Golden-Age-67-Eddie-Waitkus