A Great Cardboard Trade

This is why trading is so great, I bought some 2018 Update, didn't get anything I really wanted, but was able to start a trade with Cardboard Greats and turn some Red Sox into some keepers, including the above, about 75 Gypsy Queen needs from a set that I total myself I wasn't collecting, but probably lied.

A Trade from P-Town

It seems like most of my trades have come from TCDB, but a few recent ones have come from the blogs, the first being from P-Town Tom from Waiting 'til Next Year. Starting with a real beauty of a Larry Walker card from 1997 Bowman. My collection of cards with the old Maple Leaf is embarrassingly small so this a welcome addition.

Check Out My Rockies (Summer 2018)

You knew it was coming after the NBA post, my COMC Rockies package with a mix of the mailbox service cards, Spring cleaning sale, a random stuff I have bought over the last few months. Starting off with 3 different (I assure you they are different) Jonathan Lucroy cards from 2018 Heritage. We have the 100th Anniversary, the Flip Stock and the Red Back. I just need the Black border and the base for the rainbow. Despite playing in 46 games with the Rockies in 2017, this as a photoshop from his Rangers days. The beard is a dead giveaway.Also Despite being in Oakland all year, Lucroy is listed on the Series 2 checklist with the Rockies.

Check out my (Mosty) Shiny Rockies

My collecting goes in phases, sometimes with the season, sometimes it's not. Most of the time I don't realize it's happening, but when a COMC package come that has around 4 months worth of purchases, including stuff from the mailbox program, I tend to see a trend. The trend here seems to be shiny. See above, 1998 Flair Showcase, beautiful cards that actually scanned well. I love the looks of these and will have to pick up more

TCDB Trade #7

It is always nice when a trade doesn't have to cross international borders or go through customs as was the case with a small recent trade from tcdb. It even has a little Canadian theme, starting with what was probably a big deal when it came out. Eric Lindros was going to be the next great player and Score pumped out cards of him like crazy, even including him in their 1990 Score Rookie & traded set. 

To Peel or not to Peel (aka Golden Mailday)

I fought the urge to call this post "From now on, we'll all be taking golden showers" but couldn't resist mentioning it. A couple recent acquisitions in my current parallel madness phase I am going though. Really nice looking cards, but I am not thrilled with now they scan, this was the best one with the scanner lid open, any tips on scanning refractors?

Another Small Zistle trade

The vultures may be circling, but there are still a few stubborn traders left, and I managed to find one. Highlight card is this Seth Smith 2009 OPC Black parallel. These just look so sharp, simple design, nice black borders and for some reason the light blue goes with the Rockies purple.

Black Friday Rockies

Plowing through my backlog here with some cards I needed to scan, so why to post them. First off Ryan McMahon, a Rockies third base prospect from the absolutely beautiful Bowman Inception Origins autographs. Nice thick card, silver ink auto, this ranks up there with any of the Bowman Black Collection cards I have. The best part might be the sweet spring training Mountain Logo hat.

Trading for some Canadian "Junk"

After opening a pretty fun box in 2014 Upper Deck CFL, I dug into the old football box and pulled out probably the junkiest of all junk wax, 1991 All World CFL. 1991 was the year the CFL gained some press with Bruce McNall, John Candy and Wayne Gretzky buying the Toronto Argonauts and signing Rocket Ismail away from the NFL. All-World jumped on this releasing a 110 cards CFL set, including 9 Ismail base cards, 1 promo and a Autographed card.

After entering my cards into zistle I checked with what I didn't have and found a trade partner in fellow Canadian olerud363. He managed to knock 7 cards off my want list, including the lone Ismail I was missing, leaving me 19 cards short.

Goodies From Across the Pond

Winnings from a recent contest at everyone's favorite Dutch Card Blogger, arrived, with an Inception Auto Relic of prospect Slade Heathcott, I love the Inception line and even though I don't collect Yankees this card is a welcome addition. Some random Rockies also came along for the ride.

Acetate Appreciation: 1998 Circa Thunder - Thunder Boomers

One of my favorite acetate cards comes from one of my least favorite sets, 1998 Circa Thunder. While the 1998 Thunder set has some of the ugliest base cards, the Thunder Boomers insert makes up for it. I am a sucker for wooden borders, so the broken wooden fence theme rates pretty high in my books, and the clouds fill the negative space nicely. The cartoony font fits with the design and makes for a really nice card. The 12 card checklist is pretty solid with the usual late 90's home run hitters such as Bonds, Piazza and McGwire.


Zistle Checklist Here

Things From Denver III: Rockies Repack

Wrapping up the stuff brought back from Colorado by my parents is a stack of Rockies cards bought at Coors Field. They were selling 50 packs of cards at the park and I ended up with two of them, and surprisingly I needed most of them. My favorite has to be the 1998 Metal Universe Larry Walker. It didn't scan worth a crap, but is really a thing of beauty with the comic book style drawing on shiny foilly stock with a flaming baseball and Walker's mullet flowing, mid 90's at its best. There was also some 1994 Flair, I collected some Flair hockey and was amazed at the cards coming in cardboard box packs, early attempts at high-end. Another set I collected hockey cards of was 1994 SP, a set I really like, but never had any Rockies until now. Overall a pretty nice repack with a nice mix of brands and years with very few cards I already had, nice addition to the collection.

Things From Denver: Part 1

My parents just got back from a trip to Denver and brought me a few things worth showing off that I will break up into a few posts. They were at the July 1st game honoring Larry Walker and each got a Rockies 20th Anniversary Bobble-Head, one for them and one for my collection. It was pretty fitting that the Walker Bobble-head was giving away on Canada Day.

Acetate Appreciation: 2000 Stadium Club Chrome Eyes of the Game

A 10 card insert set from 2000 Stadium Club Chrome with cards inserted at a rate of 1:16, and paralleled with a Refactor set found at a rate of 1:80 packs.These are actually pretty nice looking cards, as with a lot of acetate the scans don't do them justice. The card is mostly clear including most of the player close-up.

The 1999-2000 hockey, 1999-2000 basketball and 1999 Football Stadium Chrome set also had acetate insert called "Eyes of the Game" but featured different designs.

Acetate Appreciation: 2003 Studio Stars

Stars was a 50 card insert set from the 2003 Donruss Studio product, with the regular Stars cards inserted at a rate of 1:5 packs, the Gold parallels numbered to 100 and the Platinum parallel numbered to 25. The card is mostly clear and is design to look like credit card with the rounded corners and the strip at the top. With the card being almost all clear there is little room for information and only one stat is listed on each card. The card number is tucked away at the top of the S on the back and is easy to miss. A very simple design and while the credit card look might be a little cheezy, it makes for something different.

Acetate Appreciation: 1998 E-X2001

A Fleer/Skybox line that would be renamed to E-X Century in 1999 and then just E-X from 2000-2004. 1998 E-X2001 was a 100 card set comprised mostly of veterans, with not a single rookie card in it. To me, this one of the better looking acetate designs and find it kind of disappointing the set is only 100 cards. The same design was also used for 1998 NFL and 1997-98 NBA products. The "Essential Credentials Now" parallel set is serial numbered to the card number, meaning card number 1 is the set is numbered to 1 and card number 100 is number out of 100 and has a greenish yellow tint to the clear section. The "Essential Credentials Future" is the reverse with card number 100 numbered to 1 and card number 1 numbered out of 100 and has a reddish tint. Larry Walker is card number 79, so there are 79 "Essential Credentials Now" and 22 (101-79) "Essential Credentials Future"

Colorado Rockies and the Hall of Fame

The names on the 2013 Hall of Fame ballot are out and the big story is going to be the "steroid era" superstars like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens on their first ballots and guys like Mike Piazza who were thought to be "clean" but who really knows. Though for this Rockies fan, the story is if this will be the year a Colorado Rockie gets into the Hall of Fame. Colorado remains the only active franchise to never have a Hall of Famer suit up for them, the expansion cousin Marlins had Andre Dawson in 1995 and 1996 and the younger Diamondbacks had Roberto Alomar for 38 games in 2004 and Tampa Bay had Wade Boggs in 1998 and 1999. The Nationals have only had manager Frank Robinson as Hall of Famer, but I am counting the Expos with Gary Carter, Andre Dawson and Tony Perez. There are eight former Rockies on the ballot this year with 6 new players and Larry Walker probably having the best chance, but only getting 22.9% of the vote last year.

Custom Card: 2012 Gypsy Queen Larry Walker

Something I have been working on for a while is to try and match the filters Topps uses for Gypsy Queen. After some messing around I am getting closer so I decided to share the first version I feel ok with. So here it is, Larry Walker in the "so terrible they are awesome" 1999 Turn Ahead The Clock jerseys. The Rockies have been fairly conservative with their jerseys since 1993, but this one is way out there. The photo might be a little over-processed, but the jersey looks pretty close. I am not totally satisfied with it so there might be new versions in the coming months.

Trade With All The Way To The Backstop

What could be better than turning cards from a division rival into cards of your team. A recently completed trade with All The Way To The Backstop, a kindred spirit in that we both collect catchers and 1992 Pinnacle, and being that he is a Padres fan we probably share a dislike of all things Dodgers and Giants, turned some old Padres cards into Rockies with a few other goodies mixed in. For the Rockies cards everything from 1993's to 2012's. I completely skipped out on this years Bowman so this group is a nice sample with a Pacheco gold and a Tyler Gagnon numbered to 199. Also a few Expos yet to become Rockies in Larry Walker and Andres Galarraga. Finishing it off with some 1992 Pinnacle bringing me to within 46 cards of finishing the set.

Rockies from JABO

Not much going on for me card related right now, so far Topps Series 2 is getting a "meh" response from me other than Rafael Betancourt finally getting a Rockies card, so in the interest of keeping up to my at least 3 posts a week goal I have a chance to show off some Rockies from Jabo's Blogarage Team Lot Clearance. He sent about 80 cards with only around 15 I already had. I am pretty high on Jordan Pacheco so his cards are always appreciated, and a couple more guys I collect in Chris Iannetta, Kaz Matsui and Larry Walker. He still has some teams available if you are looking for some cheap cards. Also if anyone knows why mt thumbnails would not be showing up in the reading list please let me know how to fix this.

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