Monster Packages, Round #1: Swing & A Pop-Up

I've been back into collecting for about 8 months now, and I've been blogging about it for a little over 6 months. At first, I was reticent to trade, in part because I had the normal hesitations about whether trades were "fair," whether I had any cards anyone would want, and whether I could trust people I had never met and who did not know me.

Once I got past those concerns, I started taking a far more laissez-faire approach to trading. All I care about now is getting cards I needed for my Brewers team and player collections. In many respects, though, I really have not been "trading" with people lately. Really, it's been people sending me cards without me having sent anything to them and vice versa.

Today's post -- and the next several -- are packages from fellow bloggers. For a couple of them, I'm 100% sure that I have not sent anything to them. For others, I don't know if the package I received was in return for something I sent or not.

I guess another improvement I need is better record keeping.

At any rate, while watching a very disappointing start to the Premier League season for Manchester United, I thought I had better start getting some posts put up to catch up on all these large packages I've received lately.

This first one came from Bert from Swing & Pop Up Boston.  The package was accompanied by a note saying that Bert had gone through my want lists (and, yes, there's another thing I need to keep plowing through...I mean, I'm only about 27 years away from getting to the present date at this point) and found a number of cards from the late 1970s and early 1980s that I needed and he had.

So, here's what Bert sent:

Mike Caldwell

Don Money

Cecil Cooper

Gorman Thomas

Jim Gantner

Jim Slaton

Charlie Moore

Ted Simmons

Moose Haas

Bob McClure

Ben Oglivie

Robin Yount

Gary Carter

Non-player-collection Brewers

As I broke down the cards into the various player collections I have, I came to the realization that I collect a bunch of players.  I mean, nearly half of the members of the 1982 Brewers are "player collections" -- and I don't even include the two Cy Young Award winners and one MVP in Pete Vuckovich and Rollie Fingers as player collections.  

But, those guys -- Thomas, Cooper, Oglivie, Simmons, Yount, Molitor -- were my favorite players. Okay, maybe Jerry Augustine wasn't a favorite player but he made some many appearances and spent so many years with his hometown team that I really felt like I wanted to "honor" that.

Thanks again to Bert for the great package of early 1980s cards. It surprised me how many cards from the 1980s I actually need -- and this package put a nice dent in that hole.