A couple of months ago, I showcased a trade with CubsFanStan where I sent him a few Sammy Sosa cards I had up on Sportlots and he gave me an assortment of good stuff.
Fast forward a little bit and Stan was opening packs on twitter, and a couple things peaked my interest. Not too long after that, I had a package in the mail with those cards and some other extras. It caught me a little off-guard as I didn’t know the envelope was coming, but I did eventually dig out some other Sosa cards to send back his way.
Normally I pick up at least a blaster of the new year’s stuff, but I never did that with 2018. Part of the reason is that trades have covered me well enough and I currently don’t need the extra trade bait (instead I need to sort the trade bait I do have and post it on the blog). Getting the Cubs are more common, but seeing the guys no longer with the team come through are great because it really helps me avoid buying packs.
I also got a few from 2017. I love that Coghlan picture. Sorry it’s not horizontal, but I’m trying to lump more cards together to make things easier on myself. It’s a little strange that it took this long to get that Arrieta card as I have a few of the parallels already.
How about my first look at 2018 Heritage? Another one where I usually buy a blaster, but in this case I just never made it out to the store. Maybe I’ll pick up a box if they’re cheap enough around black friday.
A lot of firsts in this trade package. Rizzo is my first 2018 Bowman card. I’ve been enjoying the direction of Bowman the past couple years. I’m not sure I can tell the years apart yet, but it’s a start.
It’s not all new stuff. I also got this 1985 Gwynn glossy. I forget how these were distributed, but I want to say rack packs. It would be cool to see rack packs as we knew them again, but I know it’s a pipe dream.
According to the back, this 495 ft blast was the longest in his career. Of course, that’s assuming you A) trust the distance measuring process in general and B) most likely ignore the fact that different ballparks will measure using different methods.
So these next two cards are the ones that I was interested in on twitter. I hate the look of the negative images – too creepy – but that doesn’t mean I don’t need it. And when talking about a pitcher that isn’t all that likely to show up in any card shop/show boxes, I’m pretty happy to snag this.
The last card is another first. This is the Toys R Us purple parallel. The first one of these from any year that I’ve ever added to my collection as far as I remember. Now that the company is out of business, it will be interesting to see if the purples show up anywhere in 2019.
Thanks again to Stan for another great trade! I don’t know if have more Sosa’s that you don’t have at this point, but maybe we’ll find a way to make a deal again sometime in the future!
Yes, those All-Star cards were definitely in rack-packs. One per rack-pack. Maybe when Heritage hits the 80s, they’ll make those again?
Awesome. Thanks for confirming my bad memory sometimes gets things right! We can hope they’ll bring them back, but I’m sure pack searchers will find a way to ruin it