Thursday, January 23, 2025

Bad Mail

I haven't been having the best luck with the mail lately.  Incoming mail has been wonky for a few reasons.  First, my address has changed, and a few friends have sent me cards to the old address.  Unfortunately, they never made it to me.  I don't feel good about that, sorry to anyone who has gone to the trouble of sending me stuff that didn't make it.

But then, I got a couple of my giveaway mailings sent back to me.  One was to Elliptical Man, using the same address I had always used.  It came back as undeliverable.  Oh well, I am reaching out to Brendan to verify that address.

But the one that confuses me was a PWE I sent to The Angels in Order over a month ago.  That one showed up in my mailbox yesterday looking like this:



The stamp is perfectly good, and I have never had an issue with insufficient postage on even larger PWEs in the past.  But evidently this can happen sometimes.  Annoying!


So Tom, I didn't forget about you.  I will resend tomorrow, and hopefully the cards make it this time!


And since I don't want a post without a card in it, here is a quick Ichiro from my collection:


Hall Bound indeed!

Saturday, January 4, 2025

Skenes and a puppy

 Another pick 'em for my loyal readers.  If you want one, claim in the comments!  One per commenter, PWE delivery....

Row 1 card 1 - taken, card 2 taken, card 3 taken
Row 2 card 1 - taken, card 2 takencard 3 taken
Row 3 card 1 - taken


Thursday, January 2, 2025

Last show of the year

 Happy New Year!  I'm a bit late, but that's not unusual for me.

The last card show of the year brought me mostly new stuff, meaning almost all stuff from the last couple of years.  Shiny stuff and die cut stuff, both of which I love, but not much outside the 2020s.  Here's a sampling...

2024 Topps Pristine Bo Bichette #/75.  This Pristine design isn't great.
2017 Chrome Freddie Freeman refractor.  I love refractors of stars that are a little older.
2023 Pristine 'Gold Pristine Pulsar Refractor' Lou Gehrig #/50.  Both this card and the Pristine Judge appear to me to have been liberated from those 'uncirculated' slabs.  Fine by me!
2024 Finest Blue Checkerboard refractor Vlad Jr.
2023 Pristine 'Pristine Pulsar Refractor' Aaron Judge.  Nice card.
1999 Topps Power Brokers Mike Piazza.  The oldest of the bunch, love old die-cuts.
2024 Topps Cosmic Chrome Launched into Orbit Julio Rodriguez.  Shiny!
2024 Pristine 'Oh Snap' Juan Soto.  Weird card.  I guess I love newer die-cuts too!
2024 Pristine 'Squeaky Clean' Bobby Witt Jr.  Another kind of strange concept.  Go Pristine!


I also lucked into a huge Puka Nacua thing.  I guess it is a box topper or something.  The graded Kemp was a gift from a buddy at the show, and shows just how huge the Nacua is.



Perhaps the most interesting card I picked up was this 'case hit' from 2018 Donruss.  I guess they are pretty rare.


I'm not a huge Bellinger fan, so I guess I'd be up for trading this if anyone is interested.