Trade with Jeffrey from Card Junkie

Received a nice little pile of cards from Jeff on Friday. Jeff is close to completing the 2009 Goudey set amongst others. I just happened to have some he needed so a trade was organised.
Here are the Red Sox Jeff sent from State College, Pennsylvania:
1992 Fleer #45 Carlos Quintana
1992 Fleer #46 Jeff Reardon
1993 Leaf #21 Frank Viola
1993 Leaf #85 Bob Zupcic
1993 Leaf #87 John Valentin
2009 Goudey #19 Jed Lowrie
2009 Goudey #27 Dustin Pedroia
2009 Goudey #29 Jason Varitek
2009 Goudey #30 Jonathan Papelbon
2009 Goudey #31 David Ortiz
2009 Topps Heritage #310 Mike Lowell
2009 Upper Deck #465 Manny Ramirez
2009 Upper Deck #SQ-13 Josh Beckett purple common

Thank you Jeff. As always, it's great to trade.

1997 Upper Deck SPx holoview cards

In a recent trade with John from Old School Breaks he sent along these three 1997 SPx 'holoview' technology cards. The hologram may have been the gimmick of the late 90's, I am however very impressed with these cards. When it comes to cards which are slightly off the mainstream I am a complete sucker and fall for them hook, line, sinker and copy of angling times.
There are according to my research a number of parallel cards, Bronze, Sliver, Gold and steel. Also these cards would have set you back an amazing $5.99 for a pack of 3 cards. I am not sure which BIG Mo and Nomar Garciaparra cards I have here, my guess being the Steel variety with the enhanced silver foil and your bog standard base cards. Whatever they may be I wish they would bring them back.

Trade with John from Old School Breaks

There are quite a few of us in 'The John' club on the baseball blogsphere.
If you haven't stumbled across the blog John's Old School Breaks as of yet, make sure you pay a visit. For the fans of all things shiny and bright it is a must. John opens boxes of the cards like Fleer Flair, Flair Showcase, Bowman Best and a set that I have contemplated collecting myself 2001 UD Decade 1970's Baseball. So it was great to finally trade with him. I sent over a lot of Yankees and he replied with this brilliant lot of Red Sox cards from Kingman Arizona.

1982 Fleer #301 Bob Ojeda
1998 Topps Finest #134 Troy O'Leary
2001 Fleer Genuine #122 Juan Diaz #1119/1500
2001 Fleer Genuine #128 Sun-Woo Kim #062/1500
2001 Fleer Genuine High Interest #14 Pedro Matinez
2001 Fleer Genuine Pennant Aggression #10 Pedro Martinez
2006 Upper Deck #543 Julian Tavarez #44/50
2006 Upper Deck #PH-9 Jason Varitek
2006 Upper Deck Special F/X CP-1 Daisuke Matsuzaka
2007 Topps #GN498 Jonathan Papelbon
2007 Topps #WM27 Daisuke Datsuzaka
2008 Spectrum #12 David Ortiz
2008 Spectrum #16 Josh Beckett
2009 UD Team leaders #431 Pedroia, Matsuzaka, Beckett
2009 UD #SQ-13 Josh Beckett gold rare
2009 UD #SQ-13 Josh Beckett blue uncommon

Thank you John. There are some amazing numbered, shiny and die-cut cards here.

Trade with Adam from Thoughts and Sox Part 2

Following close on the heals of a package from Adam was a second package from the man of Thoughts and Sox. Containing another large pile of Red Sox from my wants lists.
The highlights being:
1974 Topps #61 Luis Aparicio
1975 Topps #601 Juan Beniquez
1976 Topps #278 Bernie Carbo
1978 Topps #202 Jim Rice
1982 Topps #225 Mike Torrez
1982 Topps #490 Dennis Eckersley
2000 Fleer Tradition #159 Pedro Martinez
2003 Topps Heritage #77 Rolando Viera
2003 Topps Heritage #88 Trot Nixon
2006 Topps Heritage #187 Tror Nixon
2006 Topps Heritage #369 Keith Foulke
2006 Topps Heritage #399 Mike Lowell
2006 Topps Heritage #402 Matt Clement
2008 Topps Heritage #400 Manny Ramirez
Plus about 40 more cards from the wants list.

Wow. Thanks Adam for taking the time to scoure my wants list and fill quite a few of the gaps.
Whatever happened to Trot Nixon by the way?

Trade with Greg from Nightowl.

I am really glad to have Greg from Nightowl as a trade buddy. I actively seek out Red Sox cards and I am happy when I pull one out of a pack or obtain a card in trade, but I am always pulling Dodgers and recently when I purchased some random, description less cards from e-bayUK, yes you guessed it Dodgers, 90% of the cards. I refer to it as a Dodgers magnet. Thankfully Greg is a collector and offers them a good home.
So the return trade a little while back filled with Red Sox 'awesomeness' and a brilliant 1980 Topps card of Ozzie Smith.
Greg also sent these Red Sox cards:

1989 Topps mini #4 Wade Boggs
1996 Pinnacle Summit #125 Wil Cordero
2001 Royal Rookies #23 Luis Garcia
2007 UD Triple Play TP-DM Daisuke Matsuzaka
2008 Documentary #3464 Dustin Pedroia
2008 UD SP Authentic #100 Curt Schilling
2008 UD SP Authentic MM-4 Daisuke Matsuzaka
2008 UD Timelines #222 Jacoby Ellsbury
2009 Bowman #20 Josh Beckett
2009 Goudey #19 Jed Lowrie
2009 Goudey #28 Jacoby Ellsbury mini
2009 Goudey #35-75 4 in 1 Curt Schilling
2009 Topps #350 Dustin Pedroia
2009 Topps #355 John Smoltz
2009 Topps #619 Chris Carter
2009 Topps Attax Josh Beckett Hot Streak
2009 Topps Attax Jonathan Papelbon
2009 Topps Attax J.D.Drew
2009 Topps Heritage #54 Jonathan Papelbon
2009 Topps Heritage #249 Jon Lester
2009 Tristar #111 Mark Wagner
2009 Tristar #112 Mike Lee
2009 UD #45 Daisuke Matsuzaka
2009 UD #58 Jason Bay
2009 UD #417 George Kottaras
2009 UD #546 Josh Bard
2009 UD #547 Takashi Saito
2009 UD #462 Jon Lester
2009 UD #SQ-38 Dustin Pedroia silver common
2009 UD #SQ-45 Jonathan Papelbon blue uncommon

Thanks again Greg. As always it is great to trade. I'm saving the two oddball for another post.

Jacoby Ellsbury

As I get closer to collecting the 1980's Topps set I decided to try and concentrate on one of my other pursuits Jacoby Ellsbury. I have received some cards in trade recently so I hit e-bay to try and knock off some of the 'older' cards but as luck would have it I won some 2009 cards as well. Rod from Padographs asked 'Why would a guy in the UK collect a college player from Oregon State?' Why? Well...
One of the TV stations in the UK called Channel 4 had a baseball program that ran for a few years, it was cancelled in 2007 but we were lucky enough to have the 2007 World Series televised live. I spent a few late nights and early mornings dozing on the couch watching as much as I could. In between quick eye lid checks Jacoby Ellsbury took an amazing catch, which, if memory serves me correctly was in Game 4. I have been unable to find it on you tube but that catch stayed with me. Shortly after my wife bought me a Red Sox shirt for my birthday and it had Ellsbury 46 on the back and the rest as they say 'was history'. As I picked up one or two of his cards a pursuit was born. There are a number of pricey cards but I decided to stick to cards with no print run. Most of the cards I receive are in trades and from e-bay, only one Ellsbury card has ever arrived on e-bayUK a 2008 Green Co-Signers and it became mine.

1980 Topps Ozzie Smith

I have been contacted a few times by people offering cards for trade. Sometimes these trades never happen, either the cards never show up or I send off my side of the deal and nothing returns. Maybe this happens to you as well. I am not too concerned as I know the cards will go to a good home.
So when Matt of A Giants Blog and Project Baseball 1976 contacted to say he had 4 cards from my 1980 Topps wants list, I tried to keep my excitement in check. But, boy did Matt come through! The four cards arrived, from the wonderfully named Snowflake Arizona, today including #393 Ozzie Smith, one of the harder cards to obtain. He also included #384 Joey McLaughlin, #431 Mike Krukow and #650 Joe Morgan . Just for good measure Matt also included 8 cards form the 1981 Fleer set.
That takes the total of my Topps 1980 to 699 , just 27 cards short of the full set. So close I can taste it.