He's Alive! He's Alive! a/k/a GCRL Sends Me Cards

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I had a lot to be thankful for. My family made a safe drive to my house from Wisconsin and back. My wife let me work in my card room/office for much of the time I was away from work. We even had a fun excursion to the local international market that was featured a couple of years ago in an Anthony Bourdain trip to Atlanta.

Even better, I had a couple of packed envelopes show up in my mailbox. One of them was from now-retired(?) blogger Jim from Garvey Cey Russell Lopes.  Jim's blog used to be one of the blogs I read regularly in the morning each day. I hardly ever commented -- not sure why, to be fair...I could have just said, "Interesting post" or "I didn't know that" about literally every post. 

At any rate, Jim e-mailed me about two weeks ago and told me he had some cards for me. I have put together a return envelope already, though it hasn't made its way to the post office quite yet.  

What did Jim send me?

Lots and lots of Jeromy. 

That's a ton of Burnitz right there.  This big batch of Burnitz brings my burgeoning bundle of Burnitz baseball billets to 131. 

I do enjoy alliteration.

Anyway, being at 131 cards for Burnitz is especially excellent considering that, when I started two years ago back in collecting, I think I had 1. Or 2. But I think it was 1.  And it definitely was not more than two.

Jim also sent some other cards for a few other collections:

I haven't the foggiest idea who those guys are. In fact, I haven't even listened to The Ryan Song.

Maybe I should to honor my first Ryan Braun update card. I've made a lot of additions to the Braun collection this year and not just from 2015 cards.  Yes, there are 55 cards from 2015 that I have of Braun, but total I am now at 517 -- second only to Yount in terms of number of cards/items.

Jim also sent me a lot of cards I needed for my team collection.  

Hey! Wait 'til you're announced! (song reference...)

Man, there is a ton of good stuff in there -- especially the JJ Hardy Relic, the Brad Nelson 2009 Finest Blue Refractor, and the two Leaf Authentic Signature cards. I never realized Mike Fetters had such good penmanship.

Okay, a couple more cards for the player collections:

Jeff Cirillo

This embossed thing on the SPx card was wholly unnecessary, but it is still kinda cool. I will note one thing -- it appears like the late 1990s (when everyone was going out of business) was the end of the time where the card companies sent photographers to get photos individual to the card companies. We start seeing the stock "in action" photos for everyone. If the photo isn't an action shot, it's a posed photo taken one day during spring training. 

Call me old school, but I kind of miss the batting cage shots that predominated in the 1970s and 1980s.

Geoff Jenkins

This card is a platinum parallel serial numbered to just 201!

And finally...the highlight of the package for the oddball Brewer collector that I am...

If you have a box full of letters, you'll probably have some stamps in there too. I doubt you'll have this one though:

That may be the sweetest 30c stamp in my collection. Also the only one, but it's pretty damn cool!

Jim, thank you very much for the great cards. Hopefully you'll need some of the cards I'm sending your way soon.