The Trading Post #12: It's Like Having My Own Card Shop

Instead of wrapping up a post with a green-colored card, as I have been known to do, how about I lead off with one this time?

1999 UD Choice StarQuest Green #28 Larry Walker

This was part of a recent trade package from Daniel at the Diamondbacks-focused blog It's like having my own Card Shop. Daniel already put up a post about the cards I sent his way, and I'm glad I was able to fill some needs from his Topps want list.

I had never seen 1999's StarQuest design, but the green theme is one that UD used repeatedly for that insert set. I think it's reached the point where these green-colored cards have become a bona fide "mini-collection".

Many of us bloggers have been waxing poetic about the return of Stadium Club this year, myself included. The below card, however, is from their previous 2008 release, which was a bit of an underwhelming flop.

2008 Stadium Club First Day Issue Unnumbered #122b Jonathan Herrera VAR (Safe at Home)

Unlike this year's set, Topps did resurrect an early '90s parallel set in 2008 by printing "First Day Issue" parallels, but it was done quite strangely. I don't want to bore anyone with the details; suffice to say there was a lot of dividing the card number by 3 to determine whether such a parallel even existed. No wonder the product flopped.

I do have several of those 2008 First Day Issues, and this Herrera variant card is a new addition.

When it comes to Topps base, I typically wait until the factory set is released before I make a purchase. This nets me the full set in one fell swoop, but I don't usually see the inserts and parallels until they start showing up in discount boxes and trades. Thus, this portion of my collection is a bit underrepresented, which is why I appreciate so much getting these via trade.

There is often plenty of shininess to be found in Topps inserts, such as Season's Best from 1997...

1997 Topps Season's Best #SB3 Ellis Burks

...Own The Game from 2008 (and several other years)...

2008 Topps Own The Game #OTG13 Matt Holliday

...and Topps Stars, also from 2008.

2008 Topps Stars #TS25 Matt Holliday

Topps Stars wasn't always an insert set. For several years around the turn of the millennium, it was its own separately-sold base set. Topps made it an insert set from 2006 to 2008, and I'd welcome its return to packs if Topps continued to find value in resurrecting our favorite older brands. In fact, they've already announced next year's Stadium Club set, which I take as a very good sign.

In addition to green, my longtime readers will know that I am also a sucker for serial numbered cards.

1998 Donruss FANtasy Team #13 Larry Walker /4000

Where is it, you ask? Why, on the back, of course!

1998 Donruss FANtasy Team #13 Larry Walker /4000 (Reverse)

The above marks the first card back to appear on this blog! The /4000 serial number is quite prominent, but also notice that this card is from 1998. That was a very early year in the history of the internet as we know it today (also the same year as Pacific Online), and Donruss apparently ran an internet-based survey that year for this FANtasy Team insert set. Walker didn't manage to break a thousand votes, yet still ended up in 13th place. I'd be interested to see what the top ten looks like, and if the #1 vote-getter managed to break 2,000.

Something tells me that if Topps or Panini were to run a similar survey today, the total number of votes cast would be a little higher.

In addition to Daniel, I've established partnerships with quite a few new trading partners this month, so keep an eye out for more trade posts!