The Trading Post #1: Hot Corner Cards

As promised not long ago, it's time for my first-ever trade post! I took advantage of the "Take My Team Sets" offer at Hot Corner Cards, and in exchange for some Tigers, received a shipment primarily containing the Cubs I requested, along with a couple team bags full of Rockies, thanks to Pat's generosity.

Though I am sort of drowning in unfiled cards at the moment, getting a box full of Stuff You Didn't Specifically Pick Out is always interesting. Inevitably, that will result in some duplicates.

1993 Fleer Ultra #352 Darren Holmes

But no matter, as even though I already had that Darren Holmes card, there is always plenty more that I haven't seen before.

2010 Bowman Gold #204 Eric Young, Jr

One interesting aspect of collecting Rockies is that there aren't really any pre-1993 Rockies cards. I've seen a couple of commemorative cards circa-1992 that honor the founding of the franchise, but the bulk of them only started appearing when there was plenty of gold foil to go around. Of course, you won't find any Rockies in legendary vintage sets like 1975 Topps (save for the plethora of retro-themed products like Heritage and Archives), but the flip side of that coin means that there is a conspicuous lack of overproduction-era cards in a stack of Rockies. I guess that's one way to keep 1990 Topps from accumulating like tribbles.

But anyway. I asked for Cubs, and Cubs I did receive.

2014 Bowman #16 Starlin Castro

Starlin Castro looks extremely late on that swing, assuming that whitish blob is actually the baseball and not a Photoshop job or even the rosin bag. Looking at Castro's eyes in this photo, the ball still seems to be far away, not right on his wrists. This doesn't look like a major-league action photo to me, but more like I probably looked the first time I faced the 48-mph pitching machine in little league.

1997 Flair Showcase Row 2 Showpiece #84 Mel Rojas

Here's a nice shiny card from the post-strike 1990s, when all the card companies were trying to out-shiny, out-cursive, and out-fracture the rest. Yes, this is from a fractured set, meaning your brain will hurt if you try to figure out how it's numbered. Beckett lists six varieties of each card number, but they don't take into account the three different possible card backs, nor the one-of-one Masterpiece parallels, so by my count, each card has 27 varieties.

And now my brain hurts.

Incidentally, 1997 Flair Showcase was the set that introduced one-of-one parallels to the hobby, forever giving "supercollectors" a giant headache.

Back to a bit of normalcy, Ernie Banks makes an appearance on this recent mini insert that pays homage to 1989 Topps with a sort-of borderless interpretation.

2014 Topps '89 Topps Die Cut Minis #TM35 Ernie Banks

I like this die-cut design - the extra curves on the corners give it a pleasing appearance but without introducing excessive fragility like other non-rectangular cards.

And last, now-Dodger Darwin Barney with a celebratory action shot on what has to be my favorite parallel set of all time.

2013 Topps Emerald #299 Darwin Barney

I've featured Topps Emerald on this blog already, but there's just something about this green that looks so amazing and eye-catching. This could be a massive and expensive undertaking, but I'm considering chasing the complete parallel set. Perhaps green really is my favorite color. I have quite a few cards from 1994 Finest, which has a similar color scheme. And just take a look at my blog's background, for that matter.

I expect there will be more posts like this to come, as I am finally embracing some real interaction with this blog community. I have a stack of cards picked out for Julie at A Cracked Bat, as well as a few shipments on the way from her and others. After all, these things are called "trading cards", and there are some wonderful people in the blogosphere that help them live up to their name.