I got an e-mail not too long ago from a reader offering an A's for Yankees card trade. Being an A's fan, and not too fond of the Yankees myself, I jumped at the chance to purge my collection of the Yankees that have been accumulating. Eric doesn't have his own blog, but he's made a name for himself by trading among fellow bloggers, and has pretty much cornered the market on any Yankees cards that may surface.
I sent Eric a small box of Yankees, and about a week later, received a similarly sized box full of A's, all of which were welcome, and many of which I still needed.
I have opened two blasters of Allen & Ginter this year, as well as a handful of individual packs, and aside from two minis, I didn't pull any of the A's base cards in the set. Eric sent over five of the seven base cards I needed, as well as two minis. The only base card that I still need is #68 Frank Thomas. The sweet Jimmie Foxx mini might be my favorite card of the entire trade.
Eric must open anything he can get his hands on, as I didn't have any cards from the above 2008 sets. The Chavez and Thomas are actually the only A's in the Upper Deck X set, and the Harden is one of only three A's in the Masterpieces release. He also included a bright green Upper Deck Heroes parallel of Daric Barton numbered out of 499.
The above cards are from the 2008 Upper Deck First Edition and First Edition Update sets. For some reason, the "First Edition" text was excluded from the Update release. It's sets like this that I don't really understand, considering the design is exactly the same as the Upper Deck base set. But, at least the photos are different.
Along with the wide variety of base cards and parallels, Eric also included this Joe Blanton game-used from the base Upper Deck set. These cards were based on the first game-used parallels that Upper Deck ever released. I still would like it if the jersey swatch used (a gray one) actually matched the jersey in the picture. You wouldn't think that it would be that difficult.
Along with the large stack of 2008 cards, he also sent a good variety of earlier releases, with these being some of my favorites. With the way that the A's team has been changing so drastically lately, I'm amazed that guys like Chavez and Crosby are still around. A majority of the other players on even the 2008 releases are no longer on the team.
We'll end this post with an "error" that I noticed when sorting out the cards. This final picture compares two versions of the Huston Street A's checklist card from 2008 Upper Deck Series 2. While sorting through the stack of 2008 Upper Deck, I noticed that the Street card on the top was missing the gray coloring behind the card number, the only card that was like that. I already had a version of the Street card, and when comparing the two, you can definitely see the difference. Has anyone else noticed any other variations like these in the Upper Deck set?
1 comment:
If I had any computer sense at all, I would start a blog to highlight trades I've made with other bloggers, and to whore myself for Andy Pettitte stuff. Maybe someday... til then, I'll just keep bugging people via email.
I have more A's set aside for you already, so once they build up, I'll have another package enroute to you.
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