Trade with S.Mack Talk and Hot Corner Cards Trade #2

Tornados are nothing to trifle with.  Thankfully, I did not take the photo above.  Hopefully, I will not be seeing a similar sight overnight tonight or tomorrow.  We've had some rough weather here in Georgia -- though nothing like what our brethren in Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee have seen in the past few days.  I'm not looking forward to any kind of hunkering down tonight with storms, and I hope that it does not come to that.  

On a far, far lighter note, I have received a couple of PWEs in the past couple of days that put a smile on my face.  The first one came from an unexpected source -- Jimmy at S.Mack Talk Cards.  Jimmy is a Shane Mack super-collector.  He contacted me by e-mail when I put up my sidebar on the cards I needed to complete the basest of the 2014 Topps base sets (no short prints) and said that he had the cards I needed. The tough part was trying to find cards I had that he needed.  Thankfully, I found a couple of Opening Day mascot cards I could share with him, and we worked it out to where he sent me what I needed:  

 x2

Thank you, Jimmy, for the trade!

The other PWE came from Pat from the Hot Corner.  His note warned me that it was a "Super PWE", and that note was 100% correct!  It was all Heritage Brewers, all the time!

  

All of those are excellent, but the Jean Segura refractor serial numbered to 999 was definitely the best of the bunch.  All that for some purple card from Toys R Us?  Pat, you are truly amazing.

Thank you to both of you for the trades, and thanks to all of you for reading.  

I Know Everyone's Moved on to Opening Day...But I've Just Gotten Heritage

Yeah, all the cool kids already have pored over the Topps Heritage cards and cracked their packs.  I'm a little behind.  I put my eBay money toward getting two unopened Hobby boxes from a vendor there.  The boxes arrived today, so like a kid on Christmas morning, I ripped all the packs open.

Hobby boxes come with a blue package included inside which usually is a three-card strip:

Ugh.  This three-card strip is as exciting as serving as the designated grass-growing watcher.  I mean, Frederick Alfred Porcello is still young and showed some very nice growth in his peripherals -- and he has the distinction of being born on my 17th birthday -- while Prado was an all-star one year and appears to be the reincarnation of the not-dead-yet Placido Polanco.  But Asche -- he's young and, um, he hit .235 and had an OBP of .302 and SLG of .389 last  year...at third base and, um, he hit for a high average in the minor leagues, I guess.  But this is pretty uninspiring.

Just for kicks and comparison, here's the strip I got in my recent 2008 Topps Heritage box:

Much nicer.

Okay, enough complaining about Cody Asche.

In my second box of the 2014 Heritage, I got a nice little surprise -- a 1965 buyback of a guy that Baseball-Reference.com ranks as being between Dmitri Young and Billy Butler all-time among hitters...and with a nickname of "EZ" or "The Poet", I like this guy already:

Ladies and gentlemen, Ed Charles.  

Each box had its own insert, of course, and I received two relics:

Chicago Crime Dog

You again?

Nothing against Troy Tulowitzki, but I seem to get relics from him more often than any non-Rockie-loving human being should.  Also, nothing against Fred McGriff either, but I was kind of hoping for a little "better".  

Okay, on to the other stuff, and I'll be briefer, using my best eBay over-enthusiasm, excessive font highlighting and bolding, and at least two more exclamation points per item than is necessary.

SHORT PRINTS!!

The Wacha Action Variation

The Goldschmidt Logo Variation

 CHROME (numbered to 999)!!!

Carlos Beltran...but they didn't update
 him to be on the Yankees?

Jordan Zimmermann, Wisconsin Native

Stephen Strasburg, who is SOOO 2012.

SILVER REFRACTOR (SN/565)!!!!

You can't tell, but this is silver, not white.

Mini!!! SN/100!!

I left this small to highlight its Mini-ness

And, Finally, BLACK REFRACTOR SN/65!!

Comes complete with a coupon for 20% off your first visit to Dr. James Andrews' office in Birmingham

In all seriousness, the Heritage set this year isn't a bad set.  It sticks to the tried-and-true formula from past Heritage sets.  I never really collected the 1965 set before, so the coolness factor of seeing today's players in a set design from yesteryear that I loved just wasn't there for me.  I guess I should go back to the first few sets of Heritage from the early 2000s through 2009 and perhaps to the 2012 set as well -- I had cards in my collection from those sets as a kid and still do.  I may sit out next year's release and the subsequent releases (assuming Topps sticks with the path of releasing cards with the 39-years-ago design) until about 2018 or so.  

It's not bad, but I'm just going to spend my money elsewhere next year.