Starting Nine Turns PWE into Manila Envelope

It's getting to be the time of year when Jacob Marley characters appear on stage nationwide and worldwide in theatrical presentations of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. As a kid, our school made it a yearly tradition to take one of the school grades -- I think it was 6th graders -- to Downtown Milwaukee to the Pabst Theater to see the Milwaukee Repertory Theater's adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Watching that morality play unfold on stage was a true pleasure.

These days, I equate Jacob Marley -- or, rather, jacobmrley -- with the excellent Starting Nine. blog. We have exchanged envelopes a couple of times, and Max always sends me far more card and items than he ever asks for in return. 

For this trade, he asked for a couple of Goodwin Champions cards that I got a recent card show. In return, he said he'd send me some Carter items that I might be able to use.

He was right -- I can use this Dunkin Donuts disc from 2006 celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the New York Mets winning the World Series.

He didn't need to do it, but he added a few more cards that I needed as well either for team sets or for player collections:

The Ben Sheets Donruss The Rookies card and the Paul Molitor Memorable Moments cards both go into the respective player collections, while these other cards all go into my team collection.

Some day -- hopefully soon -- I will get a complete list of what I have and what I need put together. That day isn't here yet. But hopefully soon it will be.

In the meantime, many thanks go to New Jersey and to jacobmrley.  

You won't hear a "Bah Humbug" coming from me!

Hot Weekend, Hot PWE: Starting Nine

I mentioned in my last post -- well, I complained in my last post -- that we are having to replace one of our HVAC units. The guys came yesterday to do the work. The problem was that it was so hot here in Atlanta yesterday -- mid-90s and with humidity that made it feel like it was over 100 degrees.

The real problem is that the unit being replaced is our upstairs unit in the attic/crawl space above our upstairs bedrooms. That meant that the work was attempted to be carried out in temperatures probably reaching into the 135 to 145 degree range.  In other words, even with two guys, some of the work could not be completed for fear of them passing out from heat exhaustion.  So, that means a short post today while it's still cool in my card room/office -- which is on that upstairs level -- and hopefully, tomorrow, the AC will be fixed early enough so that I might be able to keep trying to catch up with all the mail I've gotten lately.

A short post today, though, to thank Max at Starting Nine for a small trade we made. A few weeks ago, I posted the contents of the hobby box of Topps Archives that I bought. In that box, one of my inserts was a deckle-edge John Olerud.  Max and I worked out a trade for him to get the Metropolitan-attired Olerud and for me to get a Robin Yount card in return.  As it turned out, Max actually sent me two Younts, both of which I needed for my Yount collection:

1992 Mr. Turkey Superstar

2003 Topps Tribute

With these two cards, my Robin Yount collection has now reached 600 items.  If you would have told me 6 months ago that I would hit that number before September, I might have laughed or cried.  I would have laughed for its implausibility, but I might have cried for the amount of money I probably spent getting there!

In any case, these two cards are great additions to the Yount collection.  Many thanks, Max, for the quick and easy trade. You'll be getting that Olerud soon!

Completed Trade with Jacobmrley of the Starting Nine blog

I have had good luck with getting some great trades put together thanks to my recent trade bait posts -- particularly the Heritage stuff.  Indeed, I had a race to the finish line when I offered up the Matt Harvey black refractor serial numbered to 65.  Perhaps I should not be surprised by that -- those black refractors are getting pretty good prices on eBay -- but I am very glad I traded it rather than sold it off.

When Jacobmrley of the Starting Nine blog contacted me, he asked me what I wanted in return for the Harvey refractor, and said he had a Ryan Braun 2014 Rookie Cup Relic that might interest me.  I told him, sure, that would be cool.  I had no idea how cool it really would be:

I feel the need to make this scan extra large for a reason: this card is ridiculous.  I tried to count, and I think it is at least 12 times as thick as a regular card.  Seriously.  Two dimensions cannot do this card full justice.  I set the card on its end and scanned, and this is what it looks like:

I was blown away by it.

If he stopped there, it would have been an awesome trade in my book.  But he kept giving.  In his email, JM also mentioned that he was a "Gary Carter supercollector."  My response was basically that he should send whatever he felt appropriate.  He exceeded all expectations.  Here is what he sent to me:

So, he sent me my first Gary Carter autograph that I have gotten since the Mets postcard I got from Mr. Carter in about 1985 and, in addition, my first Carter relic.

Then there were the Younts and other Brewers.  You can see the Prizm above along with the Upper Deck 2010 checklist with Braun and Gallardo on it (now I need just two more of that one -- one for the Gallardo collection and one for the Brewers team collection!).  That's just the tips of the iceberg:

Of all of these and despite my not having a Rollie Fingers player collection, I love this last one the most. I mean, the 1972 Topps team photo is awesome too, but this Fingers takes the cake.  At age 10, I had to choose between the 1981 and 1982 Topps Traded sets, and really, I didn't have a choice.  

By the time I was looking, the 1981 set was selling for $40 or $50 because it had two of the hottest rookies around -- Fernando Valenzuela and Tim Raines.  So, I got "stuck" with the 1982 Topps Traded.  Now, today that's a great deal because of the Cal Ripken card, but in 1982, it meant I never had this awesome Rollie Fingers card.

The closest I had come before opening the trade from JM was this K-Mart MVP Card:

Thanks to the world of blog trades, I now have the real thing.  Thanks JM!