The Trading Post #38: Wish They Still Came With Bubble Gum

Well, it finally happened.

2009 Upper Deck Signature Stars #97 Troy Tulowitzki

As you've surely heard by now, Troy Tulowitzki has been traded to the Toronto Blue Jays. He's headed up to Canada with LaTroy Hawkins, the oldest player in the Majors. In return, the Rockies will be getting shortstop Jose Reyes, along with a slew of young right-handed pitchers, adding to a promising list of minor-league pitching talent with high prospect ratings.

Tulo's been part of trade rumors for years, and with a new GM in the front office, if they were ever going to trade him, this was the year to do it. He's been healthy and productive, especially in the run-up to his All-Star selection, so as they say, sell high.

He's been the face of the Rockies for a long time, especially following Todd Helton's retirement, so I'm sure that many in Denver will sorely miss him, myself included. Jose Reyes, presumably the new shortstop (assuming they don't flip him, as has been speculated), isn't quite the player he once was, and is definitely a defensive downgrade, meaning the left side of the Rockies infield will have to rely even more on Nolan Arenado's magic.

It would have been nice to get a more immediately viable pitcher rather than three unproven prospects. One of them has already had Tommy John surgery, and the Rockies have don't a great track record developing pitching, but at least the front office recognizes that something had to be done. It'll be a long time before this trade can truly be evaluated, but hopefully at least one of the many pitching prospects in the Rockies system turns into a top-30 pitcher.

Anyway, I'm glad that Jeff from Wish They Still Came with Bubble Gum included a Tulowitzki card in a stuffed PWE I received a while ago, as he's certainly the headline of MLB news today.

2015 Bowman Chrome Prospects #BCP52 Jon Gray

With all this talk of pitching prospects in the Rockies pipeline, Jon Gray's name has come up quite a bit in the last 24 hours. He's the highest-rated pitcher in the Rockies farm system, though he has been slow to develop to a major-league-ready level.

On the card side, which I haven't really mentioned so far, this is my first look at 2015 Bowman. The backs haven't changed all that much, but at least they gave it a relatively distinctive design, for Bowman.

2015 Bowman #48 Justin Morneau

The non-chrome non-prospect version is pretty much the same, except for the team logo and name migrating over to the left, and a healthy amount of Rockies purple both front and back. Morneau is currently on the disabled list, freeing up first base for Ben Paulsen to have lots of playing time. Though Paulsen made a pretty serious blunder last week, he redeemed himself in that same game.

2014 Topps Target Red Border #20 Charlie Blackmon

I went to the game on Friday night, capturing a beautiful sunset that makes Coors Field such a joy to visit.

Best ballpark in baseball. #sunset #mlb #CoorsField

A photo posted by AdamK (@adamk0310) on Jul 24, 2015 at 7:26pm PDT

It happened to be Charlie Blackmon bobblehead day, though I didn't arrive early enough to get one. A coworker did, however, and it even comes with a fuzzy beard. Quite true to life, though you wouldn't know it from that Target parallel above.

1998 Pacific #291 Walt Weiss

I'm sure manager Walt Weiss didn't have such a great evening yesterday. How do you even break that news to your star player when it comes from above? Such a scenario makes turning an awesome double play like this look easy, even against his former team, likely taken during the first year of interleague play.

2003 Upper Deck #494 Charles Johnson

Charles Johnson was nearing the end of his career when he came over to the Rockies, having spent most of his career with the Marlins. He was a good power hitter for a catcher, hitting an even 20 home runs during his first season in Denver.

One thing I particularly like about this Upper Deck base card is the disembodied catcher's arm and mitt in the lower right, a bit of a nod to Johnson's defensive position.

1994 Fleer #457 Eric Young

Fleer gave us a very basic design in 1994, although the photo on this card is pretty blurry and obviously blown-up, something more typical of Fleer a decade or so prior. Still, Eric Young can be seen with that trademark smile while running the bases (or more likely a drill, given the lack of a batting helmet).

1994 Leaf #44 Eric Young

He's a bit more all-business on this Leaf card from the same year, and his pose here is reminiscent of his leadoff home run at the Rockies' inaugural home game in 1993, one of the happier Rockies moments in their relatively short history.

Though Tulowitzki may now be just another powerful right-handed bat in an already stacked Blue Jays lineup, he's still given the Rockies years of wonderful memories, which makes it that much harder to see him go. Maybe he'll follow in Young's footsteps and come back to coach once he's retired. I'm sure Denver would welcome him with open arms.

Road Trip!

Last week, my girlfriend and I took a road trip to visit some of her friends and family in Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas. What better week to do it than the week of July 4th (assuming you have air conditioning in your vehicle, of course)? Though my home state of Colorado is a hotbed for craft beers, we found that the microbrewery craze has infiltrated that region as well, as we came back with several six packs from the Dallas area.

While it was nice to get away and relax for a while, the hobby was still in the back of my mind. I was frequently glancing at the many roadside stores, curious if I might find a card shop nestled in one of those towns. As we were preparing to head out of Arkansas and back toward Oklahoma City, my vigilance was rewarded just outside Fayetteville.

1992 Bowman #611 Bill Swift (FOIL)

I spotted a small white sign as we were about to leave town. A few quick turns later, I walked through a windowless and unassuming white door. Inside, I found Cleve's Baseball Cards and Collectibles to be a well-stocked shop, and after wandering around for a few minutes, I asked for a box of baseball singles to dig through, affording me a #walletcard photo op.

#Walletcard in a card shop I stumbled onto in #Arkansas.

A photo posted by AdamK (@adamk0310) on Jul 7, 2015 at 2:13pm PDT

Bill Swift's card above was the first one I picked out of that box, which more or less ended up being a quarter box, once we settled up. Gold foil from the early '90s draws me in no matter which state I'm in.

1994 Score Gold Rush #118 Willie Blair

I was surprised to find so many Rockies cards in a corner of Arkansas. Almost a quarter of the Score Gold Rush parallels I found were Rockies. The owner even had a flag on display from the 1998 All Star Game, the only year it's been in the Mile High City. Turns out, he is a Rockies fan, and he even owned a chain of record stores in the Denver area back in the '70s. Small world.

1999 Upper Deck 10th Anniversary Team #X5 Cal Ripken

I immediately recognized the 1989 Upper Deck design on this card, but figured it to be a more recent throwback parallel. Sure enough, this is from 1999's 10th Anniversary Team insert set, UD's self-congratulatory set documenting its first decade. The gold foil on the base line is rather tasteful, but there are only so many gold seals you can put on a card before it starts looking cluttered.

There's a tiny photo of Ripken's actual 1989 card on the back, and they picked a pretty similar shot for this anniversary card. I didn't know the specifics of this card when I set it aside, but an iconic design is always worth a second look.

2001 Topps Through The Years Reprints #50 Derek Jeter '93

I knew this was a reprint right off the bat, thanks to the Topps 50th Anniversary logo in the lower right, but I'd know this card anywhere. Other than Griffey's rookie from the aforementioned 1989 Upper Deck set, Jeter's rookie from 1993 Topps is one of very few cards from that era that still holds some value. Last year, I bought the Topps Gold parallel of this card from Christian, my primary card show dealer, for around $15. 

Topps released many reprints in their golden anniversary year, spanning insert sets, a large subset of the Traded set, and even some gold-bordered Factory Set exclusives.

2001 Topps Through The Years Reprints #42 Ken Griffey, Jr. '92

This Griffey is the one of three others I have from this 50-card insert set, and I'm pretty sure it came from one of my first-ever visits to Christian's table, circa 2003.

1994 Leaf Slideshow #6 Barry Bonds

I collected a lot of Leaf cards, even in my childhood days. It was a nice product, and affordable, even on a kid's budget. I thought I knew the 1993 and 1994 sets pretty well, which is why I was surprised when my girlfriend showed me this one out of the dollar box. It's made to look like a slide (remember those?), and might be the first transparent card to hit the market, a few years before 1997 Skybox E-X 2000.

It's full color and everything. And if you could hack a slide projector to fit a baseball card, I'm sure it would project nicely before melting.

And now, how about a few cards with absolutely no gold foil at all?

2005 Finest #162 Reggie Jackson RET

Due to the high price of Topps Finest, I've never actually purchased a box or even a pack of it. I've always relied on scavenging the discount boxes. I find them rather frequently, but there are definitely gaps in my collection. This is my first card from 2005 Finest, and it strongly resembles the ripple/fingerprint element in this year's Topps base set.

I've compared the hexagon-heavy 2003 Finest to 2014 Stadium Club Triumvirates, so if one wants a preview for what Topps has up its sleeve in coming years, Finest seems to be a good place to look.

Speaking of 2014 Stadium Club, this was the first time I found the set in a discount box.

2014 Stadium Club #53 Willie Mays

In addition to Mays and this vintagey-looking photograph (to go along with his Field Access insert), I also found Yasiel Puig's card. Two players that couldn't be more different. 

2014 Stadium Club is only a 200-card set, and I'd love to build the whole thing. I've yet to purchase any 2015, but from what I've seen so far in the blog community, I don't like it as much as this epic 2014 set.

2000 Topps Tek Pattern 5 #9 Andruw Jones

Topps also resurrected the Topps Tek brand last year, and I found a few examples from 2000 in this box. Like all Topps Tek sets, there are numerous background variations, but unlike the nearly 10,000-card master sets of a few years prior, this one is a much more manageable 900.

1996 Leaf Preferred Steel #2 Paul Molitor

I found about a half dozen Leaf Steel cards, which you've seen before on Infield Fly Rule. As you can see, these were all pretty beat up and chipped around the edges, but that doesn't affect their heft or magnetism. It's surprising, though, that pretty much the only metal baseball cards out there are quite fragile.

1992 Kellogg's All-Stars #1 Willie Stargell

I'm not the biggest fan of oddballs, but these Kellogg's cards are starting to grow on me. Unlike the miniature ones we're a bit more familiar with, this is close to normal-sized. It's a standard width card, though it's about a centimeter shorter. It's from 1992, and I had no idea Kellogg's was making these 3-D cards that recently. Whatever they did, they found a way to prevent the cracks that are frequently seen on earlier cards.

2000 Pacific Crown Royale #89 Rickey Henderson

My girlfriend found a few of these "Princess" cards in the same dollar box that yielded Bonds' transparent slide, so I couldn't resist. She also noticed that they had a sealed box of Crown Royale football cards on the shelf, and I had no idea that Panini resurrected this brand in recent years. 

Henderson in a Mets uniform is pretty unfamiliar, but he did play for quite a few teams in his long career, especially toward the end. Unlike, say, John Elway, he didn't quite know when to hang them up, and he kept signing with whatever team would take him.

Just when you thought Pacific cards couldn't get any crazier, they go and do something like this:

1998 Pacific Paramount Special Delivery #20 Jose Cruz, Jr.

From the Special Delivery insert set, they sort of went postal here.

Pun intended.

The back looks like a postcard, with a second photo in the upper right made to look like a postage stamp, echoing the overall outline of this card. The font on the back is script, clearly mimicking handwriting. It's sort of like the Studio credit card idea on steroids. Which is entirely appropriate for 1998.

I guess when you stumble on a card shop a thousand miles from home that's run by a Rockies fan, anything goes.

The Trading Post #37: 2x3 Heroes

As my readers know, the vast majority of my collection consists of baseball cards. That's further reflected in my blog's title and theme, though think of how awesome it would be to hear an NFL ref call "Infield Fly Rule. Automatic First Down."

Anyway, I've made mention of the occasional basketball or football card, and there are countless non-sports cards out there. But few people think of hockey cards. Hockey happens to be my second-favorite sport, and when I saw Jeff at 2x3 Heroes offer some free cards for a variety of NHL teams (some are still available), I requested the Colorado Avalanche, my hometown hockey team.

They haven't done so well in recent years, only making the playoffs once so far this decade. But I've been a fan since they moved here in 1995 from Quebec, and they've brought home two Stanley Cups in that time. In fact, the 1996 Stanley Cup was the first professional sports championship in Denver history.

1998-99 UD Choice StarQuest Blue #SQ20 Peter Forsberg

Peter Forsberg was a huge contributor to both those Cup wins, and he was part of the famed "AMP Line" with Milan Hejduk and Alex Tanguay.

Upper Deck only has so many designs to go around, so this is pretty similar to other StarQuest cards I've shown on this blog. Though it isn't that lovely shade of green, the dark blue might work even better with the Avalanche colors, especially these home jerseys.

2008-09 Ultra #131 Peter Forsberg

Here's another one of Forsberg in a familiar design. This was years after Fleer's bankruptcy, and some time after even Upper Deck killed the brand as far as baseball was concerned. Still, silver-bordered script lettering with a full-bleed design is textbook Fleer Ultra.

2000-01 UD Heroes #30 Alex Tanguay

Not that I'm an expert, but I don't think Topps has made a hockey card in over a decade. Most of what you'll see today is from Upper Deck, or one of their many brands. This one is also UD, though a design that's different from what I've seen before. As mentioned, Tanguay was an integral part of the AMP line when the Avs made their Stanley Cup run in 2000-2001, and here, we get a look at the Avs' road whites.

2014-15 Ultra #45 Gabriel Landeskog

Landeskog (whose first name I didn't really know until this trade package) is the current Captain of the Avalanche, filling the skates of Joe Sakic, who is one of four players with retired numbers hanging in the Pepsi Center.

Even though Fleer Ultra is long gone from the baseball world, it's worth the occasional foray into other sports to be reminded that these brands are still alive and kicking somewhere. And with a design that reminds me more of Bowman than Fleer Ultra.

2013-14 Panini Prizm #134 Ryan O'Reilly

Ryan O'Reilly was traded from the Avalanche to the Buffalo Sabres about a week ago. I never got to know him that well during his time in Denver, but I do have a shiny Panini Prizm card to document his tenure with the Avalanche.

As a baseball collector, it's downright strange to see official logos and an actual team name on a Panini card. I don't share the general dislike of Prizm that seems to be the norm in the blogosphere, but one has to consider whether it would have a different reputation if Panini had an MLB license.

2010-11 Luxury Suite #19 Matt Duchene JSY /599

One-upping that lovely shiny Prizm card is this serial-numbered relic of Matt Duchene. Hockey jerseys have a different weave than baseball uniforms, so you can see through the tiny perforations when the light hits it just right.

This may be minor, but one thing I enjoy about Denver is that our sports teams tend to have unusual colors. This burgundy isn't so common, the Rockies' purple is a rarity in MLB, and of course the Broncos have virtually trademarked the color orange.

Combine that with a serial number on the back, and you have one great PWE of hockey cards!

The Trading Post #36: A Cracked Bat

I'm in the middle of the busiest 30-day period in a very long time. Between early June and early July, I'll have traveled outside the USA for the first time, gone to my company's annual sales conference, taken a road trip to three states I've never seen before, not to mention some very positive developments in my relationship.

That's partially why my only post since May was an Instagram photo from my trip to Austria, but as I am between major events at the moment, I'd like to take the opportunity to keep this blog active.

Returning to my long-running The Trading Post theme, here's a trade package from Julie at A Cracked Bat that I received this spring. Julie has sent me lots of cards this past year, and has been one of my best trading partners. I commented on a long-ago post of hers claiming a Kellogg's 3D mini, which I'll get to later.

2014 Bowman Chrome Dualing Die-Cut Refractors #DDC-SB Eddie Butler / Corey Seager

This isn't the first card from this die-cut set that I've received from Julie. I'm guessing she opened at least some 2014 Bowman, and found another young Rockies pitcher to send my way, as the previous card was of Jonathan Gray. Both Butler and Gray are promising pitchers on the Rockies roster, although Butler's cardmate got a bit more of the write-up on the back.

2005 Topps All-Stars #TAS1 Todd Helton

Topps was going a bit wild with the shiny patterns as recently as 2005, which shows up better on the scan than in person, amazingly. I tell all my trading partners that I love shiny stuff, and though it looks a little juvenile, it will do just fine.

1998 Pacific Omega Online Inserts #28 Larry Walker

This one is even wilder, though it's from Pacific, so that all checks out. Their Pacific Online set from 1998 is fairly well-known, as it's pretty much a Geocities website on a baseball card. However, as I just learned from this trade, they extended that theme to an Omega insert set that same year. They used the same URL, but made the whole thing look a little bit more like a circuit board. Maybe I'm stretching a bit, but I even see some 1994 Finest in this design.

2001 E-X #9 Larry Walker

Here's another one of Walker, although this one is more sparkly than shiny. All these premium Fleer brands may not have sold that well in their day, but they are certainly thicker than recent Topps Archives sets, a topic that's gotten a lot of press in recent weeks. Defgav at Baseball Card Breakdown even did a scientific test of the thickness of various brands with medical-grade equipment.

I don't have any details like that on this E-X card, although I can tell you that Walker's outline is printed with a very subtle outline.

2001 Fleer Premium #101 Todd Hollandsworth

More premium Fleer cards were included, such as this one of Todd Hollandsworth playing the outfield in an unmistakable Wrigley Field. Hollandsworth spent a short time with the Rockies, but is better known as the last of four consecutive Dodgers to win the Rookie of the Year award, his coming in 1996.

1996 Emotion-XL #171 Jason Bates

Jason Bates, on the other hand, spent his entire, though short, career as a Rockie. He got plenty of cards in the post-strike baseball card era, and here's yet another rarely-seen Fleer brand, Emotion-XL. What's so distinctive about it is that it strongly resembles some recent Gypsy Queen parallels, as it has a cloth-like raised paperboard frame.

2014 Topps Gypsy Queen Framed Blue #59 Wilmer Flores /499

Fleer also put a foil seal on theirs, so that Emotion set would feel right at home to any GQ fans.

2011 Topps Allen and Ginter Hometown Heroes #HH70 Troy Tulowitzki

This has been an unusually Fleer-heavy post, but there was plenty of Topps to be found, like this "Hometown Heroes" insert set from Allen & Ginter. I'm not wild about any of the tobacco-era resurrected brands, but A&G is the one I like the most in that space.

On this card, we learn that Tulowitzki is from Sunnyvale, California, right in the heart of Silicon Valley. In fact, one of the companies I work most closely with in my new role is headquartered there, along with countless other tech companies. The back of this card even mentions that he's from a "tech-heavy" region, surrounded by Santa Clara and San Jose.

I don't know whether the A's franchise will move out of Oakland, but they'd have plenty of local business clients and advertisers if that ends up happening.

2013 Topps Update #US226 Michael Cuddyer

I've always felt like the Topps Update brand has gone pretty heavy on All-Star Game and Home Run Derby cards, but this one of Cuddyer is a near-perfect prediction of where he'd be playing two seasons later. The Mets hosted that year, and Cuddyer may have liked the orange color so much that he wanted to wear it full-time.

1994 Select #145 Eric Young

The giant gold stripe down the center of 1994 Score Select cards doesn't place it among my favorite designs, but this card brings back fond memories. My sister and I watched a lot of Rockies games when we were kids, and Eric Young was one of my sister's favorites. I remember her frequently calling him "Mr. Smiley." One look at this card and you know that's appropriate. Young always brought a great energy to the early Rockies teams, and I'm happy that he's still involved with the organization as a coach.

2013 USA Baseball Champions #15 Frank Thomas

Occasionally, a few non-Rockies cards make it into a package. Frank Thomas was one of the biggest names of my early card collecting days, so it's always nice to get a card of him, even if it's not MLB-licensed.

In reading up on Thomas' Team USA days, I was surprised to learn that he didn't participate in the 1988 Olympics. But if he did, then he would have had a card in 1988 Topps Traded, and we all know that set well enough to know that Thomas didn't appear on a Topps card until two years later.

1980 Kellogg's #55 Joaquin Andjuar

As promised, here's the Kellogg's card that triggered this trade package in the first place. This is my very first card from the Kellogg's brand, and I picked it for those great Astros uniforms of the late-1970s. Jose Altuve had a recent throwback card with a better look at this uniform. I dig almost all of it, except for the uniform number on the pant leg.

They've been through quite a few uniforms since then, with varying degrees of how much orange they include. I feel like the Astros have been aimlessly hunting for an identity for quite some time now, going so far as to switch leagues, a move that still isn't intuitive to me. Almost every time I see them on the out-of-town scoreboard or ESPN ticker, my brain screams "interleague game!"

At least Orbit is back.

#WalletCard overseas

For my first-ever trip out of the United States, my girlfriend and I spent several days in Vienna, Austria!

As many of the souvenirs remind you, there are no kangaroos in Austria. There are, however, many centuries-old buildings, like St. Stephen's Cathedral (Stephansdom in German), a central landmark in Vienna's old city, and darn near a thousand years old. I only took one #WalletCard photo while in Vienna, but I thought that would be the best place to do it.

#walletcard at St. Stephen's Cathedral, the primary landmark in Vienna's 1st district.

A photo posted by AdamK (@adamk0310) on Jun 6, 2015 at 3:38pm PDT

It was a really fun trip, and my employer picked up most of the expenses! This was for President's Club, a company-sponsored event held at different location around the world each year. I was fortunate enough to have been voted in by my colleagues, and got to meet about 125 other employees and their guests from around the globe!

We had lots of wine, a tour of the Jewish Quarter, a visit to a Baroque-era cathedral outside the city and a wine tasting in their historic cellar, lots of wandering around on our own seeing the sights, and a stop by the open-air food market (a must for any foodie).

The company events were also fantastic, one of which was a dinner/ball at the Hofburg Imperial Palace. Appropriately for Vienna, we got some amazing musical performances as well, including a 10-year old boy who played Mozart amazingly well and got a well-deserved standing ovation, as well as a short concert from the Vienna Boys' Choir!

It was great to spend the better part of a week in a historic European city with my girlfriend, and we're already thinking about our next overseas trip together, likely to Scotland.

But now that we've returned, I'm getting right back into baseball, as I'll be seeing the Rockies host the Cardinals tonight for my third ballgame of the year. Mr. Girardi might make another appearance in fairly short order.

The Trading Post #35: The Angels, In Order

Earlier this month, I commented on a post at The Angels, In Order, requesting a Larry Walker card he offered for trade from a stack of Pinnacle Mint Condition.

1998 Pinnacle Mint Brass Coin #24 Larry Walker

Like many sets from the late 1990s, I'd neither heard of nor seen this one before, but I was interested enough to add it to my collection. I've been on a little bit of a Pinnacle kick lately, as I recently wrote about the anti-counterfeit rectangle printed on the back of all their cards. This one has it too, reading "PBI '98" when viewed under the Pinnacle Authenticator Lens.

Besides the obviously unusual gold coin embedded in this card, super slugger Larry Walker looks to be laying down a bunt in this photo. It's an odd one, to say the least. There are logos all over that coin, including both the Rockies team logo and cap logo on the front, plus two Pinnacle logos, the MLB logo, and the MLBPA logo on the back. It also has "Limited Edition" lettering on the back, though there is no serial number.

The coins were available in a variety of colors (how original), and I believe this is the base Brass version. There were also Nickel, Gold Plated and even solid silver coins available in packs, and Pinnacle ran a redemption program for a /1 solid gold coin. That would be worth a cool $1200 at today's prices, plus maybe a dime or so for the underlying cardboard.

I bought a sort-of similar Garret Anderson card at a recent card show with The Angels, In Order in mind, which I'll have to get sent out next month once things settle down a bit. I have a lot planned for June and early July, starting off with a trip to Austria next week! I may even have a #WalletCard entry once I get back.

This card came in a simple PWE, along with a few other Rockies cards from the mid 1990s, my favorite of which was this one:

1996 Pinnacle Foil #391 Quinton McCracken

Yep, another Pinnacle card. I actually do miss this brand a little bit. Though it doesn't have a fancy embedded minted object, this foil parallel is still nice and shiny. This year had a vertical back, which mentions that McCracken played football for Duke before he started his pro baseball career.

Still in a road uniform, utility player McCracken made another appearance in this PWE on a Collector's Choice card.

1997 Collector's Choice #101 Quinton McCracken

With only two seasons of stats by then, the reverse has a lengthy writeup on his performance in 1996. It mentions his role in one of the most memorable games in Rockies history, June 30th, 1996. I remember watching that Sunday afternoon game a week or so before I went to Boy Scout camp, and it was an unbelievably wild one, even by pre-humidor Coors Field standards.

After six lead changes and four hours of play (without even reaching extra innings), McCracken delivered the game-winning RBI in the bottom of the 9th to beat the Dodgers 16-15. It's a favorite among longtime fans, and is one of a dozen or so games that is occasionally replayed in a condensed format on Root Sports, the Rockies' cable channel.

Thanks to The Angels, In Order for this coin card, and that trip down memory lane!

The Trading Post #34: Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary

This is already the fourth trading post I've done for cards received from Brian at Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary. He is a great trader and consistently does a fantastic job of finding great cards for me.

2014 Topps Chrome Black Refractors #190 Carlos Gonzalez /100

When I tell people what I collect, I usually say something along the lines of shiny, serial numbered, or Rockies. Brian hit the trifecta with a low-numbered colored parallel from 2014 Topps Chrome. The refractor finish really pops on a black-bordered card, which is thick enough and well-coated enough to probably not chip, unlike the 1992 Pinnacles and 1971 Toppses of the world. The only thing that could make it better is if CarGo were wearing the Rockies black alternate jerseys, like Jeff Baker on my previous post.

In addition to that gorgeous rarity above, Brian sent a little bit of everything, starting with a brand that wouldn't be out of place in one of Nick's horror movies.

2014 Topps Gypsy Queen #9 Nolan Arenado

There's something unnatural about the way they process photos for this brand. It's probably some kind of HDR treatment, perhaps a bit of rotoscoping. But they make the shadows look extremely shadowy, and it just gives the card kind of a creepy feel.

I feel like these tobacco-era reproductions have gotten a bit long in the tooth, although this year's Gypsy Queen is a strong effort.

2001 Topps Heritage #147 Masato Yoshii

But when Topps Heritage first hit the shelves, it was a brilliant idea. Of course, Topps has since applied the usual gimmicks to the product, but when they repurposed the iconic 1952 design to launch the brand, I think we all knew it had staying power.

I usually find facsimile signatures completely distracting and interfering, but in the '52 set, there's a perfect little spot for them. And the first-ever Japanese player to suit up for the Rockies gives us one of the most interesting facsimile signatures of them all.

Brian was sure to include some mid-1990s cards decked out in gold foil. Of course, pretty much every card from that era had gold foil, but Topps Gold arguably kickstarted that trend.

1993 Topps Gold #606 Jayhawk Owens

Then, as now, the gold-on-gold lettering is pretty hard to read, but we can at least see that Topps elected to just use Jayhawk Owens' first initial, rather than his unusual name. I've heard a few explanations for this, ranging from Owens' own embarassment about his name, to Topps simply not believing that he went by Jayhawk.

1997 Pinnacle Inside #147 Neifi Perez

By the time Coors Field had a season or two under its belt, gold foil had taken the hobby by storm. Neifi Perez wasn't my favorite Rockie of the time, as he had a tendency to choke in the clutch, but he was a solid middle infielder.

One fun fact about Pinnacle cards that I learned quite recently is that they have an anti-counterfeit measure. We all know about the Upper Deck hologram, but Pinnacle did something similar starting in 1991. Flip almost any Pinnacle card over (or even Score, if you move a few years forward in your collection), and you'll see a small, gray rectangle with very narrow black lines.

1997 Pinnacle Inside #147 Neifi Perez (Reverse)

Assuming you are armed with an official Pinnacle Authenticator Lens, a card-sized piece of plastic that is ridged on one side, (sort of like a Fresnel lens), you'll be able to ensure that your haul from the dime box is the real deal. Picture a transparent version of a Sportflix or Opening Day Stars card, and you've got the idea. Align the ridges horizontally over the gray rectangle, and you'll see alternating rainbow colors. Do so vertically and you'll get some lettering like "Pinnacle", "Score", or on the card above, "PBI 97", for Pinnacle Brands, Inc.

I'm sure this could easily be defeated with the high-definition imaging tools we have today, but it was a clever and hopeful idea to implement as the baseball card bubble inflated.

Die cut cards may have been a bit less clever. There's really not much you can do with them besides cut a fairly boring curve or two, or just go completely nuts and give it more facets than a cut diamond. There's not a lot of middle ground.

2000 Crown Royale #45 Rolando Arrojo

My girlfriend thumbed through this stack when the envelope came. She seemed to enjoy a few of them (though wasn't so wild about '95 Fleer). When she got to this one, she said, in her best little-kid voice, "Who's the princess?!"

Seriously, Pacific.

Although, if anyone cared enough to send off a card like this for grading, finding a Gem Mint 10 with that many opportunities for flaws seems next to impossible.

2004 Ultra Gold Medallion #179 Rene Reyes

My collection of Fleer Ultra cards is heavily weighted toward the pre-strike era. After 1994, it drops off precipitously. That's why I had no idea that the gold medallion parallels from 2004 were die-cut. Yes, the upper left corner is curved, which reminds me of 1989 Topps and its related die-cut mini insert set from 2014. It's nice, but if all you're going to do is just round off one corner, why cut it at all?

Die cuts are usually interesting to look at, but they're pretty delicate, and are pretty tough to put in a 9-pocket page without dinging at least one of their many edges. Maybe I'll change my tune a bit if I complete one of those hexagonal triumvirates combos from 2014 Stadium Club.

1993 SP #153 Bret Saberhagen

Apparently I have a Bret Saberhagen player collection now.

This (literally) Super Premium set from 1993 gives you that aforementioned Upper Deck hologram in gold, as well as the usual legendary Upper Deck photography, and a bit of color-coding, to boot.

I'm guessing he wasn't pitching that day.

1995 Fleer Lumber Company #7 Fred McGriff

We'll wrap things up here with what might be the tamest card to be found in all of 1995 Fleer. I'd have been totally on board if they made this the base set, then saved the LSD-inspired craziness for an insert set.

What's extra special about this card is that it was from my Eight Men Out list! This particular card of the Crime Dog happens to be the last one I needed to complete this 10-card insert set, and it's the third time Brian spent the time and money to pick up a specific card on my behalf. The Eight Men out list has already been a huge success, and I have bloggers like Brian, as well as my family, to thank.