The Small Trade Parade, Vol. IX
I am in my final week of my two months of parental leave. I figured during that time that I’d get a bunch of things done, including around these parts. Let me just say that I (a) had forgotten how much work a little baby is, and (b) was severely off in my estimation of our schedule. Did we get out on a lot of walks? Heck no! Our wake windows are too short and it’s already too dang hot here. Did I unleash a torrent of TTM requests? Nope! Did I manage to get caught up – or even make regular posts here? Not a chance.
I have been fairly active in the cardboard universe, though. There have been some fun purchases, sweet trades, nice TTM returns – I was better about filling the hopper earlier in the year, ironically prior to starting leave. I told myself I was determined to get a post up today, and after looking around my scans I figured I’d start with another installment of The Small Trade Parade. These are all TCDB trades which have arrived during May.
Bill (braveheart) is new to the site, and he needed a stack of 2022 Heritage. I sent a couple dozen base cards his way to score two of my remaining Astro needs, as well as this intriguing black border Wandy from 2011 Heritage. I’m a bit curious why they didn’t go full black and use all white text. I haven’t seen these around before, but there are two other Astros I need: Chris Johnson and Hunter Pence. I’m always happy to send a lopsided trade to score something like this.
Mike (M_) had a pair of O-Pee-Chee scores for two of my small PCs: Casey Candaele (a personal favorite) and Dennis Rasmussen (a distant relative). Topping off the trade is a Dwight Gooden diamond king card from 1992 Donruss. I’m working (slowly) on the glossy DK and Gallery of Stars inserts from the early 90s.
Thanks to the Recent Matches tool, I noticed that Dwayne (powelldu) needed some non-baseball stuff. That box happens to be at the house for a bit, so I was happy to thin its ranks. He had nothing from my want list, but I tracked down these two sweet cards of some of my favorite players outside of baseball in his trade list.
Aaron (Shoremuad) offered up a few Astros in a little swap. This put to bed my 2017 Chrome Update base needs as well as my Salute inserts from 2018 Series 1. I still need another Bregman from the Series 2 inserts. The Correa leaves me with one remaining Superstar Sensations card before I can put that to rest as well, so if you have a spare Justin Verlander let me know. The Chris Salamida is from a 2007 set called Just Autographs – which surprised me as it is not autographed. Like, why not just call it 2007 Just and make the Autographs the inserts? Who knows – that brand had a weird little run, although I’m enamored with it.
Rick (Ricky_Bobby) had some more sweet ‘Stros for me in an insert/parallel-laden swap. That’s a base McCullers mini from 2017 Ginter, as well as an A&G back. The 2021 Correa is an A&G back as well. I love it when I can add another Lima Time card (there aren’t too many left from his Astros tenure that I’m missing), and that’s surfer dude Brad Ausmus making a cameo on a 2006 Turkey Red card.
These two parallels finished out the trade: our dearly departed Garret Stubbs and Carlos Correa. I think Stubbs fits that Tony Kemp mold: blocked in Houston and just needs the steady reps somewhere so that he can blossom into a full-time player. Correa had a rocky start to the season but has been playing pretty well for Minnesota (and my fantasy team) of late.
Last, but certainly not least (yes, I know – I can be prone to cliches here) is a lovely little swap from fellow Astros collector Max (mfreeman), who lives out near Austin. He proposed a sweet four-for-four swap, including a few serially numbered cards on each side. In my instance, that’s the 2015 Archives Springer – this Silver parallel is numbered 17/199, the 2020 Donruss Career Statline parallel (211/426, his RBI total at that time), and the Castro gold parallel. When the Pink Refractors debuted in Chrome several years ago, I despised them. I can’t quite put my finger on why, either – it wasn’t some dumb “pink ain’t manly” nonsense either, they just felt weird. Now, I rather enjoy them. I have a few years where the pink parallels are pretty close to finished – I should probably put that list together!
Alright, here’s where I insert the usual proclamation that the blog is no longer dead, and that I have lots to blog about, so stay tuned. We’ll see if that actually turns out to be true this time around! I hope so.
Hey belated congrats on the new baby!