celebrating the spirit of giving

merry christmas!

'tis the season - and it has been the season for a while - for giving and receiving. here in the blogosphere i have been the happy recipient of cards from a number of traders and bloggers. let's take a look at some of the cards i've received....

starting off, of course, with the holiday custom card created by gavin at baseball card breakdown

gavin modified a 1991 fleer update gary carter card and added the artwork overlay showing the hall of fame catcher prepping to add the tree topper to the ol' tannenbaum. very creative and festive and a great addition to my custom card binder. thanks gavin! i'll have to see if i can find something to send your way.

a month or so earlier, i received an envelope from rod at padrographs

that's a 2004 upper deck padres davey lopes card that the former dodger and padre coach signed through the mail. i was happy to see that rod was looking for some help on a 70 years of topps project so i could send something back his way. check it out and see if you can help a blogger out!

i think everyone has noticed that tom from angels, in order has returned to active blogging thanks to a few giveaways. i wound up claiming a couple of cards from one and he included this gem in the envelope

that's a 1982 fleer stamp fernando valenzuela box "card". tom was kind enough to note what it was on the back:

now, i used to cut out "cards" from boxes all the time in the early 80s and even later, so this is definitely something that fits in my collection. thanks tom - i hope the cards i sent are still needs of yours.

nick from dime boxes also held a giveaway recently, and he offered up some dodgers that i needed, like this 1994 upper deck collector's choice orel hershiser silver signature parallel

this 1995 score rafael bournigal gold rush parallel

and this 2005 upper deck flyball eric gagne

the gagne brings me to one card remaining to complete this oddball set, and it's giovanni carrara. i've added it to my nefarious 9 list of most wanted cards, but it is such an oddball of a largely forgotten player that it may be difficult to track down.

it turned out that i already had the bournigal card, so i put the dupe in my lurkers binder thanks to the presence of italian-american superstar slugger mike piazza on the card.

the fourth card i requested was this 1995 upper deck collector's choice special edition fernando valenzuela silver signature parallel

i've recently toyed with the idea of reestablishing my post-dodger fernando pc. he has so many great cards from his time with the orioles, padres, cardinals, and phillies, including this one. for now, this card sits in my dodger stadium binder.

it wouldn't be an envelope from nick without a double play card, and this 1994 select carlos baerga card

was a new one to me.

a couple more dodgers just because - 2021 topps archives mookie betts 1963 peel off

and 2022 topps update hanser alberto gold parallel

once again, i will ask topps to identify the sets that cards come from on the backs of all of their cards like upper deck used to do and like panini does. i spent a lot of time figuring out what set that betts belonged to, thinking it was heritage. thank goodness for comc, and thank goodness for nick and his generosity. i am looking forward to continuing to swap envelopes with nick in 2023!

another thing i am looking forward to in 2023 is the next installment in thorzul's "trade me anything". this year i sent him something and he sent back these cards that i requested, all from 2022 topps update:

will smith silver pack

jose miranda silver pack grey parallel

joe ryan generation now insert

ronald acuna jr all-star game insert

the acuna is part of my near-complete set of the all-star game inserts. i only wanted the ones that used photos from the actual game, and i will show those cards off in another post.

finally, i'll show some cards from cards on cards. kerry/madding has been probably my most frequent trading partner through 2022 and i hope it continues in 2023. these images have been sitting in my scanned folder for varying lengths of time and represent a number of envelopes received.

1986 true value pedro guerrero

actually, this is a sealed "pack" and so also contains cards of steve garvey and eddie murray. i already have the garvey so i left it sealed. a great addition to the dodger collection for sure.

2021 topps allen & ginter tommy lasorda mini

it's been nice to see lasorda in ginter sets recently, but i could really go for some bill russell cards if topps wanted to recognize a different former dodger manager. i know that won't happen as russell is nowhere near as checklist worthy as lasorda, but i would rather see some former players get a shot at the checklist in lasorda's place. i know this year steve garvey finally got a base ginter card (although it's a short print) and you'll see some of those cards in a different post, but how about reggie smith or orel hershiser or in a year or two matt kemp?

i am not going to do the rest of these cards justice, but i will show them nonetheless

if there were one panini product i would like to see more of, it's the obsidian subset of chronicles. those cards, like the mookie above have been pretty sharp looking the last couple of years.

thanks to all who have and continue to trade cards with me - it is appreciated! 

some cards i acquired all of a sodden

i've been pretty steady with ordering cards from sportlots for the last 10 years or so. it is fairly rare that i don't have an order in the works, in fact. just recently, i ordered some cards from a couple of sellers - nothing special, but still cards that i was able to remove from my want list.

cards like this 2021 topps mookie betts 52 redux

and a cody bellinger from the same insert set

i've mentioned before that clayton kershaw is my first go-to when i need to fill out a sportlots order to maximize my shipping value. i did just that when i picked up this 2018 panini donruss green holo parallel

of kershaw's 1984 design card in the set, as well as this blue holo parallel

of kershaw's 2021 panini donruss card.

i also picked up a pink refractor parallel from 2020 topps chrome

and a rainbow foil from 2020 topps update

of the dodger lefty.

i had not added any 2020 topps gallery to my collection (and i'm not complaining), but i did pick up two copies of this card

featuring kershaw and walker buehler - one for the team collection and one for the dodger stadium collection.

the other cards from this particular order were from 1994, such as a score gold rush parallel of darryl strawberry

a topps finest card of jim gott

and a golden rainbow parallel from topps stadium club of rafael bournigal

there was one other card in this haul, and that was this one - the golden rainbow parallel of orel hershiser's stadium club card

i posted a couple of weeks ago about selling my base dupe of this card on ebay. the next day, i followed up on a comment on that post and saw that someone had added this card to sportlots, but at the reasonable and normal 18 cents.  i bought it, along with all of the other cards in this post, with the earnings i made from the regular base version of the hershiser card. in other words, i traded a base card for its parallel version, plus 11 other cards. crazy times.