The Small Trade Parade, Vol. VIII
In prepping my last post and checking to see where the Small Trade Parade left off, I came across a neglected draft. Oh my goodness, I went back in the drafts! Maybe I really will revive this joint.
Anyway, what once was Vol. VII is now Vol. VIII, and it’s ready to get shown to the world. Looking back in my TCDB trading history, these arrived in November – of 2020! These are hardly the cards most overdue for acknowledgement, but there are some fun swaps in here, so let’s hop to it.
Our first swap was with Larry (ldtaft), and this PWE was potent. Those top three beauties are not Topps, but rather vintage O-Pee-Chee! It’s always fun to come across those. Larry also had a minor leaguer I needed, and a Casey Candaele rookie and Dennis Rasmussen career capper for my little PCs.
Jimmy (torcato) and I pulled off another power-packed swap. This one brought in some ‘Stros sluggers, including a new Bagwell, and two of my three favorite second basemen. Heck yes!
Mark (mkolbe315) had a little stack of Heritage needs for me, including a chromed-out Hunter Pence. My favorite pickup in this bunch, however, is the Little Lions mini from 2014 Allen & Ginter. I’m a cat person – I’ll sleep with one in my arm and one on my chest tonight, as I do almost every night, and I’m working on these – and the Ferocious Felines minis from a few years back.
I pulled in a couple of speedy outfielders from Mike (mjones68), along with some Astros pitching prospects. Fellow Aggie Corbin Martin was dealt away in the Zack Greinke swap, and Cristian Javier has since proved to be a valuable arm for the big league staff. Schroeder was our second-round pick in 2018, and it looks like the lost minor league season of 2020 didn’t do him any favors. His ERA is high, but he’s also striking out 9.2 batters per 9, so we’ll see what he becomes. I actually remember Mounce from the big baseball road trip of my youth – he was with the Jackson Generals at the time.
I mentioned that Scott (bravefan1) has probably become my most frequent TCDB trade partner at this point, mostly due to his penchant for small swaps. This was the bounty of two hauls with him – I know that for one I sent a bunch of Topps Gallery his way. The Martín Maldonado autograph was a lovely pickup here, and currently resides in the Astro-graphs binder. Poor Josh James and Framber Valdez had their images switched in 2019 Gallery, thanks to Topps just outstanding quality control.
Billy (billwill305) is another frequent TCDB trading partner, and I grabbed some new Bagwells from him as well as a Correa which put a pin in my team set from 2020 Fire. Speaking of that quality control: in 2020 Topps reused the same Bagwell photo in Stadium Club despite having used it three years earlier IN STADIUM CLUB. I understand that the image selector changed, but perhaps they ought to be double-checking their legends?
Finally, Gregory (nyygregory) needed a Don Mattingly high number SP from 2020 Topps Gallery. In exchange, he offered to send over a few cards to help with my 1993 Upper Deck and 2018 Diamond Kings builds, as well as these. Topps Attax was a disaster, but the 2011 version at least looks like a nice card. The Altuve is a nice rainbow foil parallel, which a certain Yankees fan was probably happy to be rid of, and I also picked up another Kimball’s Champion card, of Albert Pujols. That’s another set I’m working toward, I should probably add them to the want list.
Well, I don’t know how many of my old drafts I’ll actually convert to posts, but it feels good to acknowledge some old new cardboard. I filed these away long ago, so it was nice to revisit them virtually.
