The Trading Post #26: Drew's Cards

As more snow continues to fall in the Denver area, I braved a trip to the mailbox this evening to find a single item inside: a package of cards from Drew's Cards. Drew is a big Yankees fan, and has a pretty extensive autograph collection, with many of those obtained in person.

Earlier this month, one of Drew's posts offered a stack of cards to any team collector who simply left a comment. Most teams have been taken by now, but there are still a few left if you'd like to get in on the action.

2015 Topps #62 Nolan Arenado

2015 Topps was released right around the same time as that post, but cards from that set are already making their way into trade packages.

Drew also included Corey Dickerson's 2015 card, but Gold Glove winner Nolan Arenado is my favorite Rockie these days. I even have a jersey just like the one he's wearing here, and you can bet I'll be sporting it at work on Opening Day, or at least the day of the home opener. Casual Friday, you know.

2008 Upper Deck Heroes #55 Jeff Francis

Jeff Francis was never my favorite Rockie, although he did have a pretty good year in 2007. The guy looked like he was twelve years old for quite a while, but as Rockies pitchers go, he was fairly reliable. I'm not sure that leading the Rockies in Ws and Ks is "heroic" enough to warrant an appearance on a Baseball Heroes card, but 2007 was the year the Rockies went to the World Series, so he was indeed an important contributor during that season.

The Baseball Heroes comes in quite a few colored parallels in addition to this sand color. I've showed the Black and Emerald varieties before, but that's the base card above. Regardless of the color, they're all on a pretty thick card stock, which does a lot to make a card feel important. It's a pretty simple but recognizable design, almost looking like an antique portrait.

Upper Deck Collector's Choice was a staple of the low-end collector's world in the mid- to late-1990s, although the designs started getting a bit uninspired by the end.

1999 UD Choice #81 Todd Helton

This is from the 1999 set, the final year of that brand. I see a bit of 1989 Topps in this design, which had that same curve in the upper left corner. I haven't scanned one from that set yet, but have a look at the mini inserts from last year to see what I mean.

Drew included a few copies of this card, but that's no problem, as it will fit nicely into my Coors Field frankenset, and Brian from Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary is sure to appreciate one due to that commemorative All-Star Game patch from the 1998 season. You spend a few hours on someone else's mini-collection and you start seeing it everywhere!

There were a few of Matt Holliday, including a card from one of the more foil-heavy releases of Opening Day.

2007 Topps Opening Day #19 Matt Holliday

I've blogged about the 2007 Opening Day set before, remarking that I preferred the white border with gold foil over the base set's black borders with silver foil. The facsimile signatures are pretty distracting, and everything seems to be center-aligned, but Holliday watching a long fly ball sail away as Shea Stadium fans look on is a solid photograph.

Another Holliday card was from the unloved Upper Deck SPx set.

2009 SPx #37 Matt Holliday

There are lots of parallelograms and triangles and shapes both front and back, but it is nice and shiny, and I do particularly like that little red hash mark on the left that points to his position. It reminds me of an analog radio tuner needle, and breaks up the explosion of background elements just a little bit.

It wasn't until flipping this one over that I noticed it wasn't actually a Rockies card. Holliday is pictured in his Rockies home uniform, but the back has the yellows and greens of the Oakland A's color scheme, as well as their team logo. Even on the front, you'll notice that Athletics are listed as Holliday's team.

In my binder organization scheme, I'd probably put this with the listed team rather than the pictured team, but as this is partially a Rockies card, I might make an exception and stick it out in front of my other 2009 SPx cards.

Unlike Matt Holliday, a great hitter but a not-so-great left fielder, Troy Tulowitzki is still unambiguously a Rockie.

2008 UD A Piece of History #30 Troy Tulowitzki

This might be my favorite card from the whole stack, although I prefer the 2009 A Piece of History set over this 2008. The inner frame is a bit morbid, as it reminds me of a headstone, even more so than 1972 Topps. It has a vague 3D effect, not in the sense of a Sportflix or Opening Day Stars card, but the way Tulowitzki seems to be "outside" the background frame gives it the illusion of action, which is a clever juxtaposition to the "carved in marble" look of the rest of the design.

I believe this is the first time I've posted about cards I received in the mail the same day. Thanks to all this generosity, packages like this have a tendency to pile up a bit. I have two more trade posts to do, as well as one about the Topps High Tek group break that Nachos Grande hosted earlier this year.

Thanks to Drew for the freebies, and he still has five teams left if you want a shipment like this!