Trade with Hiflew

Johnny a/k/a Hiflew from Cards from the Quarry has been very quiet lately on his blog, but I know he is reading blogs and commenting.  That is a good thing -- don't give up on writing, though!

Anyway, I got a nice little PWE in the mail from him a couple of weeks ago, and I'm just now getting around to posting on it.  I owe Johnny a return envelope (trust me, I'm getting to those.  Really, I am.) of Rockies in their natural, Purple Toys R Us environment (along with some other stuff to surprise him), but I wanted to post these cards now.

I make fun of Prince Fielder for being a big dude who is a vegan, but that's only because he left Milwaukee. I have to admit that I have loved this card in its natural, un-refractored/chromed state since I first saw it.  It is just a celebration of pure joy of a team having fun and winning.  This is a refractor, so it scanned weirdly, but it was a nice addition to the PF player collection.

A couple of nice Goudey cards to add to the Weeks player collection and the stack of Bill Hall cards that I'm wondering whether I should have them morph into a player collection.  Probably not, but I have gotten a lot of his cards.

Finally:

It's sort of sad to see how injuries have sapped so much of Rickie's power from his wrists.

Now that he's on the wrong side of a platoon with Scooter Gennett, I'm starting to feel like he's become a 2014 version of Cecil Cooper.  Cooper was a great player in his prime -- a fixture in the lineup at first base with one of the most mimicked batting stances and pre-pitch preparations in all of Milwaukee by the kids in my circles and me.  By the time 1987 came, though, he had a contract only through the end of that year and frankly didn't have the ability he used to have.  In fact, during Paul Molitor's 39-game hitting streak, Cooper had a streak of his own:  he did not play -- not even as a pinch hitter -- after the All-Star break.  Not even as a late inning substitute.  It was a sad end to his time in the majors, because a guy who did so much for so long for Milwaukee deserved better.  I fear the same is happening to Weeks -- he'll be gone after this year, certainly, and I can envision a point where he is frozen out completely in Milwaukee.  Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Okay, I digress, but sometimes, Rickie Weeks deserves more than just a "hey, nice card."  Sort of like how Hiflew deserves more than simply, "thanks!"  But, all I can say right now is, "Hiflew -- thanks!"

Catching up on Trades

I have gotten buried this week by stuff going on in life and by having gone a little overboard on buying on eBay and buying unopened stuff.  The buying stuff this week is what led me to my reflectiveness in my last post, while the poker with the neighborhood guys is what led me to get behind on posting.  I'll get to the unopened stuff in another post, but I want and need to get caught up on some trades that came in for me this week.

First, Pat from Hot Corner Cards sent me a fantastic box of 2013 update and 2014 Topps cards to help me fill in gaps in my collection of those sets.  I am still sorting through all of them, but I wanted to say a hearty "Thank YOU!" to Pat.  In his honor, I'm posting something I got through the mail back in about 1987:

Pat, I agree with you -- Alan Trammell belongs in the Hall of Fame.  He had the misfortune of having a career at the same time as several all-time greats -- everyone from Robin Yount (who had a 4-year head start and started in the majors as a teen just a bit earlier) to Cal Ripken Jr. (on whom Trammell had a 4-year head start) to Ozzie Smith (almost a direct contemporary) to Barry Larkin (10 years later) and Derek Jeter, whom Trammell overlapped by a year.  He also had six injury filled years at the end of his career that cost him any chance at 3000 hits.  Trammell was a great player and one I thought at the time did not get enough credit.

I also grabbed a nice serial numbered card (325/499) from the Quarry and some other fine Brewers cards to help continue filling that gaping hole in my collecting years called 1991 through 2007.  Here's the cool Prince Fielder I snagged:

In the mail today I was the recipient of a bubble mailer from The Card Chop.  I still owe The Chop a return package, which I'm putting together this weekend along with a couple of other envelopes I'm about ready to send.  But I always appreciate getting a great oddball Robin Yount to add to my collection -- especially one with a note saying that Yount was going to a good home.

A Canadian General Mills sticker from MSA in the 1980s is heading to the Hiatus Yount binder to replace the yellow piece of paper placeholder.

Also making the trip from Idaho was a card from my childhood non-Brewer favorite, Gary Carter, from the Topps Archives set in 2012:

All in all, it was a good week for trades here.  Now, over the rest of this weekend, I have to figure out what I got in the other stuff I got this week.  It includes everything from one of the earliest Brewers sets ever printed to cracking three boxes of 2012 Topps Series 2 to two wonderful Hostess Panels from the 1970s.

Stay tuned!

Quarrying

I swapped some cards with Cards from the Quarry over the past week, and my package from the Quarry was waiting for me when I got home from work today.  And was it just packed with great stuff!

First and foremost to me, I got to add a couple of great cards/items to my Robin Yount collection.  One of them was very much a surprise -- a 1985 Topps "Scratch off" that, when going through my collection this past weekend, I thought to myself, "what in the h*ll is that?  I don't even remember that being mentioned in hobby magazines in 1985."

The "scratch off"

The Quarry-pack also filled my need for the awesome looking 1972 mini of Robin Yount from last year.  If I haven't mentioned this before, I'm going to mention this now -- I want to put this set together.  It is just a great looking card.

If the package had included only those two card, then it would have been a great envelope.  But there were nearly FIFTY more cards in the envelope -- including some Milwaukee Braves guys like Eddie Mathews and Warren Spahn along with Milwaukee legend Hank Aaron.

Here's a sampling -- Brewers old and new.

 
 

A special mention needs to be made about one of the cards.  It's a little "old Gold", so to speak:

This is a great 1994 Topps Gold insert of Jesse Orosco.  At the time, Orosco had just finished up his 2nd year with the Brewers, his 14th season in the majors, and would turn 37 on April 21 of 1994.  He had made 714 appearances as well.  By all indications, a great career.

Orosco pitched another 10 seasons after this card was made and appeared in 541 more games after that, finally finishing his career with the Minnesota Twins at age 46 in 2003.  To be fair, he was crap in 2003 -- he pitched for three different teams (San Diego, the Yankees, and the Twins) and racked up a 2-2 record, a 7.68 ERA, and a 1.824 WHIP.  But, dear Lord, Jesse struck out 7.7 batters per nine innings at the age of 46!

Thank you very much, Cards from the Quarry -- I owe you big time after this trade, because you sent me a lot more cooler stuff than I could ever have sent to you!