The Trading Post #6: Catching Up With Collecting

Trade packages continue to fill my mailbox! Jared from Catching Up With Collecting reached out a few weeks ago to say he had "a ton" of Rockies cards, and would be happy to send some over. Jared also included a few cards from Julie at A Cracked Bat, some Rockies that snuck their way into the wrong trade package. I'll save those for a later post, but I appreciate both Julie and Jared working together to correct that error.

His shipment showed up Monday, the very same day I was selected to sit on a jury for a week-long trial, so as you can imagine, I haven't been able to keep up with my hobbies this past week (or even work, for that matter).

But that's all wrapped up, and I've been diving into my many recent pickups and trade packages this weekend. Digging into Jared's shipment, one of the first that caught my eye is this insert from 2013 Topps.

2013 Topps Chase It Down #CD-12 Carlos Gonzalez

When healthy, Carlos Gonzalez is quite the upgrade in left field from Matt Holliday, who hit well enough to make up for some pretty serious defensive blunders during his tenure as a Rockie. Here he's shown "chasing it down" to strand a runner in scoring position, according to the paragraph on the back. It looks like he dug out a small divot in the outfield grass while lunging for this liner.

The other oft-injured Rockie superstar that's rumored to be on the MLB trading block is Troy Tulowitzki, who introduced me to another insert set by appearing on a UD Starquest card.

2008 Upper Deck First Edition Starquest #SQ-58 Troy Tulowitzki

I seem to be a sucker for this lovely shade of green, and am considering chasing this 60-card insert set, along with 2013 Topps Emerald.

Even with Upper Deck out of the hobby, it never ceases to amaze me how many cards are out there. Despite having tens of thousands of cards lying around, it's quite common for me to see a set or parallel for the first time. More on that later.

2010 Topps Attax Silver Foil #28 Ubaldo Jimenez

I've seen plenty of Topps Attax cards that refer to the defunct toppstown.com website, but I never knew there was a "silver foil" parallel to this unnumbered insert set. It's not any thicker than usual, but has a refractor-like finish and still looks pretty despite the broken URL on the back.

In one of my first posts, I wrote about the "Topps Finest Protector" peel-away coating, which I peeled off this card of now-manager Walt Weiss mere seconds ago.

1997 Finest #180 Walt Weiss B

I seem to remember something about any copper-colored card in 1997 Finest being termed a "Common", and sure enough, flipping this card over confirms that my memory is intact. Amazing, since fractured sets like this aren't exactly easy to keep track of.

Carrying on, Jared included one of my favorite bonuses in the hobby, a serial-numbered card!

2013 Topps Gold #427 Chris Nelson /2013

A thought occurs. What if 1991 Donruss cards, for example, were serial numbered? They'd probably look something like those gimmick $100 million bills. I've read that industry-wide, "billions" of cards were printed annually during those years, and that estimate doesn't seem far off the mark.

Nick over at Dime Boxes has been writing about 1995 Fleer quite a bit lately, so this scan is for him!

1995 Fleer #531 Eric Young

It is one crazy-looking set, especially the NL West theme, yet it's somehow distinctive. I have a lot of trouble telling one Fleer Ultra set from another, for example, but love it or hate it, this one really made a mark on the hobby.

Earlier I mentioned that I often run into older sets for the first time. Right around 1997, Fleer had the brilliant idea to actually include the year and set name in the fine print on the back, a feature that makes sorting quite a bit easier. Pacific followed this innovation a couple years later, as did Upper Deck in the mid-2000s. Topps still doesn't do this, and I must admit that having nothing to go on besides the copyright date (which is sometimes a year behind) drives me a little crazy.

But anyway, Pacific made quite a unique insert set in 2000 Crown Royale called "Card-Supials". An obvious play on "marsupial", the mammal variety that raises its young in a pouch, these standard-sized cards also include a removable miniature card (1.25" x 1.75"), slightly larger than Topps Micro.

2000 Pacific Crown Royale Card-Supials #5 Sammy Sosa
2000 Pacific Crown Royale Card-Supials Minis #9 Ben Petrick

Above the pocket is a large gold-foil team logo, in this case Sammy Sosa's Cubs. Research indicates that there are twenty cards of each size, though they are paired randomly. In fact, since minis are a bit difficult to store alone in 9-pocket pages, this "pouch" is a perfect way to display them.

Thanks again to Jerad for all the Rockies, including plenty that were novel to this collector. I still need to send some cards his way, but I have a healthy stack of Red Sox and some of the catchers on his player collection already set aside. I've been receiving quite the wide variety of new cards from my fellow bloggers, and I'm happy to reciprocate.