Fall Back In The Saddle

Alright, here’s the goal: one small post a day in hopes of getting through all (most of?) the stuff that I have in the scan folders from this year before the year’s out. Can I do it? Perhaps. Will I? Almost certainly not. But I may as well try and get a streak started.

The latest post featured a couple cards which came in thanks to a Ginter pull – a rather crazy one to boot. Ginter and Archives are the two products I have happened to luck into while on my store runs, a couple times for each. Since it’s the only retail I’ve found, I of course bought too much of it. Heck, I’m not building either of those, I really just wanted something to rip. So, I’ve been trying to use them as trade fodder, and moved a good bit of it via TCDB.

One thing I can count on when Ginter rolls around is that I’ll likely have some trade fodder for one of my favorite pals at the database, Bill. His handle there is minibbcards, and if you weren’t already aware, he collects minis. So after the ripping and sorting is done, I’ll rifle through the traders for cards to go to regular partners, and then head over to check if any of my new minis match Bill’s wantlist. Thanks to some fortunately timed Target visits, I’ve been able to pull off not one, but three swaps with Bill since Ginter came out.

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Our first swap of this Ginter season brought in some T206 minis from the 2002 and 2009 sets. The Lane and Ryan are from 2002 and are Polar Bear backs. Matsui and Lee are from 2009 and are Piedmont backs. Nolan comes in both an Astros and a Rangers variation, and I believe his Houston card is the more common one.

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The other half of our swap was a quartet of T205 cards from the 2003 set. I had some of these with Sovereign backs already, but all of these were Polar Bear backs. That means that while Jeff and Roy are new additions, not dupes.

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With Bill being a trader of the utmost quality, he even tossed a pair of extras into our swap – that’s how I wound up with these two minis from 2009 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions. I think these polished off a team set, but I can’t quite remember.

Shortly after our initial trade had been agreed to, I chanced upon more Ginter in the wild, and found more cards from Bill’s want list. It’d been just days since I’d dropped that first envelope in the mail, but he happily agreed to another swap. This Wandy Rodriguez mini from 2011 Ginter is of the A&G back variety.

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One thing I’ve discovered is that once my minis reached a critical mass, I fell in love with these little tobacco-card-sized suckers. At first, upon my return to the hobby these were nothing but a nuisance. But get enough of them on a page, and they really start to sing – especially in the 20-pocket BCW pages. But I digress, I’m not mentioning the fact that this 2007 Lidge is not only a black border, but also a no-number card. The print run on those is pretty low, I believe. The Gypsy Queen cards are from 2012 and 2014. I miss GQ minis being a thing, but they had also grown to feel unnecessary. I suppose now I really just want another option to fill Frankenset holes.

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Ah yes, the long-unblogged Mini Frankenset. Perhaps I’ll be able to roll that into my spate of year-ending posts. I’d be pretty happy if I can even get to 40 posts, like the low serial number on this beautiful red Dallas Keuchel mini from 2015 Ginter. This high number SP was the final piece of my second September swap with Bill.

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I got lucky and ran into wild Ginter once more, a couple weeks after we put together those trades. Once again I turned my sights on Bill’s want lists, and once again I was able to come away with a bountiful haul of minis. The six pictured here are all from 2015 Ginter – three A&G backs and three black borders. Beautiful!

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The real whopper in this trade – at least in my opinion – was actually not a mini! This Jon Singleton card from 2015 Stadium Club is not just a black & white parallel, but also an orange foil parallel. Apparently that combo only had a print run of 17 copies. That’s wild! I’ll always have a soft spot for Singleton, too.

Bill also slipped an extra into this envelope, passing a 1993 Upper Deck Ivan Rodriguez card my way to go toward my set build. I added some sets to the want list spreadsheet, you can find them on the first tab before all the Astros stuff starts. Aside from the vintage sets, I’m also working on 1983 Topps, 1993 Upper Deck, and 1995 Leaf, in case you’re sitting on any.

In case you read this, many thanks for the trio of trades, Bill! It’s always a pleasure to swap with you.

Alright, one post down. We’ll see if I can maintain any sort of regular pace here. Fingers crossed.