Trade with Shane from Massachusetts

Thank goodness there was a Red Sox fan reading when I posted this,

Anyone want some Red Sox?.

The package Shane sent just grew and grew. What started as a few from my wants list developed into a monster. There are at least 600 Red Sox here, all off my wants list, but Shane didn't stop there. He felt that that wasn't quite enough, so he included some in person autographs, not 1, but 8 in-person autographs.

The autos included were;
1986 Topps Jim Rice
1987 Topps Rob Woodward
1996 Donruss Mike Stanton
1997 Best Wilton Veras
1997 Bowman Chris Reitsma (who include the personal Phil 4:13 with the auto)
1998 Score Brian Rose
1998 Team Best Dernell Stensen
1999 Fleer Ultra Darren Lewis

A very humble Thank you to Shane for the excellent trade.

Trade with Chris from Stale Gum

All the blogging comes down to just one moment, the day you receive an official 1/1 Stale Gum autograph isn't doesn't get better than this.

Chris of Stale Gum, the home of the acclaimed 'On location box-break', whether it be in a cemetery, a stadium, an industrial site, a windy corner or even in his car, they are well worth a watch.

But for me this is what blogging about collecting is about - making contact with other collectors and trading. The exchange of 'I have something that you would like and I am willing to part with it'. I tried trading on forums and didn't have a great deal of success, a made a few trades but none to the extend I have made while blogging. Bloggers are generous, consistent and you end up trading again and again.

I sent Chris some Panini World Cup sticker packets and an assortment of any football related product that my local store carried.

Chris sent back a large stack of Red Sox cards and,

A relic and an autograph,

A sampling of Upper Deck 'soccer' cards, including a relative unknown named David Beckham,

and something that you don't see very often in this country- a girl on a football card.

Thanks for the cards Chris, a much appreciated and enjoyable selection. Rest assured the Thierry Henry card you returned inscribed 'cheating bastard' has gone to a landfill somewhere.

Trade with Steve from Brooklyn

Steve, a New York fan collecting both Yankees and Mets, contacted to say he had some cards from my wants list, including some Goodwin Champions, I jumped. Both the Mets and Yankees hadn't been traded for a while and a nice pile had built up for both. When Steve sent his address it was in Brooklyn and I thought that was pretty cool. Here I was trading cards with a collector who lived in Brooklyn.
So good to his word Steve sent some Goodwin Champions cards and this pile of Red Sox cards from my wants list.

Thank you Steve for bringing me closer to goal.

Topps Million card giveaway

I had completely forgotten about some packs of Topps 2010 Series 1 and opened them at Pursuit of Red Sox. Two of the packs contained Million card giveaways. This appeared like a pretty good idea at the time, but when I obtained a giveaway card way back in April the results was pretty poor, to say he least. So I wasn't filled with optimism.

Here's one I opened earlier- 1987 Topps Don Sutton.

I wasn't hopeful that these cards would lead to anything of any note but the

#TMC-4 Ichiro became...

1972 Topps #110 Ron Hunt Expos.

The #TMC-6 Mickey Mantle became...

1969 Topps #176 Joe Azcue Indians

Wow that was a big surprise and improvement. What are my chances of getting these sent to the UK?

1951 Bowman baseball cards

In 1950 the Bowman Gum Company of Philadelphia were the only company to release a national baseball card set. The 1950 Bowman set included 252 cards and the cards measured 5.2cm x 6.4cm (2-1/16in by 2-1/2in). The front of the cards featured hand-painted color reproductions of actual black and white photographs.
In 1951 a similar style was used, hand-painted colour reproductions of black and white photographs, some of the 1950 images were reused on the 1951 card set. But Bowman increased the size of the cards to 5.2cm x 7.9cm ( 2-1/16in by 3-1/8in) and increased the number of cards to 324. This was the biggest set of baseball cards at the time.
In 1950 Bowman had a monopoly, but in 1951 Topps entered the baseball card market with their 52 card blue back, 52 card red back playing card game.
The two most desired cards from the 1951 Bowman set are the rookie cards of Mickey Mantle #253 and Willie Mays #305, both of which are horizontal cards. Mantle wasn't included in the 1951 Topps set, he had to wait until the following year for his Topps debut. Some notable omissions from the 1951 set were Joe DiMaggio, Stan Musial and Jackie Robinson.
I really like the Bowman sets from the 1950's. With some fear of being shunned by the baseball collecting fraternity, I prefer the Bowman cards over the Topps from this era. That is until 1955 when Bowman ceased to produced baseball cards.

The three cards I obtained from e-bayUK were:

#20 Del Crandell (Crandall) Boston Braves

#27 Jim Konstanty Phillies

#125 Bill Rigney New York Giants

As an added bonus the seller added these two 1957 Topps 'football' cards, not in any great condition but the design is lovely. I am not a collector of football, so if someone can give them a good home it would be appreciated.

What baseball cards are these?

Although I haven't written for a few weeks, I have still been purchasing baseball cards and the draft posts are now starting to pile up.

I bid on what I thought was Dover Reprints of Goudey, Playball and Diamond Stars. Included in this eclectic mix were three cards that I presumed were European origin but searching has left me a little more confused.


This little card comes from a Dutch company, no not a card company, but a foodstore Hema, which started in the 1920's in the Netherlands. I know that the Lucifer Brand was matches and these little labels (as it measures 2cm x 3cm) were include in a matchbox. I have been able to find an odd assortment of flowers, cards, trains, picturesque scenes and discovered that this particular label was from a sports series. The other sports included soccer, boxing and athletics but not any 'American' sports. But that is about it. No date of issue or collectablity.

Next is this card from series called 'This Modern World' produced by a German company called Milkana. It's still around and a search reveals more cheeses than I am comfortably able to comprehend. What is confusing is the London address and the suggestion that an album is obtainable from your grocer. The Houston Astrodome must have been an engineering marvel when it was finished in 1964, so I am guessing a date around then but what other cards were in the set remains another mystery.

The third and fourth cards are my favourite. At first I thought of the European market because of the dual French/English. Big B might be able to help with these, as they are actually Canadian and were released in 1945. I found this picture while searching, which shows that the cards came in strips of 4, in the Kellogg's cereal.

This particular strip shows an interesting combination of aircraft, fencing, yachting and baseball. The two cards I have, come from the 2nd Series of 30 cards both have a perforated edge on the left side, so that fits with this set above.

Any information or pointing in the right direction will be greatly appreciated.

Swapping cards with Waxaholic

Firstly, very impressed with the 'calling card'. I feel as if I'm dealing with a real professional. Waxaholic has now become my most prolific trading partner. We have been trading packages across the Atlanic for almost 2 years. Sorry it has taken so long to get this posted as well.

Brian sent along some, dare I say 'vintage' 1974 Topps

and some equally sweet 1976 Topps.

Thanks again Big B. I search in earnest to clear you 'soccer' wants list.