Golden Quartet

 Another group of gold, and another few Jays sepcific additions - each time makes me happier as it means there is likely less and less chance that a bunch of Jays were scooped out of the collection.

These also get me to start looking at just how much of the Jays cards for certain players, do I have.

For example, I know from TCDB, I have 127 different Dave Stieb cards now (this gold one is new). Although Dave has about 400 cards listed in the database, if I sort by team to get rid of his non-Jays cards, there are 357 Jays cards in total, so I am over 33% of all his cards which is pretty cool.

Timlin - 36 of 112

Crabtree - 4 of 17

Hentgen - 58 of 491

Interesting because, if players weren't around when parallels started becoming excessive, and didn't get picked up for much in retro printing (Stieb has had a couple, but not many), the figures seem pretty attainable.

No surprise that Cal Ripkin is one of the missing in action cards in this run.

Some nice solid Expos content here as well, including this Cliff Floyd guy I have seen on cards now and then.

I think Rickey Henderson can be a bit of a polarizing character, so I could see him have being either way - pulled by a player collector, or left because that collector wasn't a fan of his. Guess he wasn't a fan.

We end with Kevin Ritz stuck out in the forest looking for the baseball diamonf I guess. Hope the photographer helped him back....well, given he was "injured" for the entire 1993 season...maybe it took longer to find the ballpark than we realize...

Returning Cards

 So I found something unexpected in the lot of cards (I have cut out the last name as explained below):

These were obviously home made cards for a couple kids in little league. The backs had a small type up and stats, but also had a home city. I won't get into specifics, but it's not far from here, so I figure - why not try to touch base with the people pictured if I could find them, in case they wanted to cards.

I really have no interest in keeping such made cards, especially when you don't know the circumstances in them being "given away".

So, I did a little sleuthing based on the names on the cards, location, and found Robert who had a cousin with a name which was on the other card (thank you facebook, and other social media sites for making such work fairly easy). I was able to then tie the facebook profile to a business website and get a contact e-mail for Rob's work, and sent him a message - knowing how odd it probably sounded, and giving him my contact info so he could reach out to ensure it is legit, but I also sent him pics of the cards as well so he could confirm if it was him).

A couple days later, I heard back from Rob (my message had gone to his junk mail - not a surprise there really), and it was him, and he confirmed the other pic was his cousin.

Apparently, the two cards were ones that his father had. Rob's father passed away in November 2019, and the card collection as a whole was sold to a friend (I think what I have is in part, that collection and others, but I think it made a couple "hops" since being sold that first time). I had offered to mail the cards to Rob if he wanted them back, to which he whole heartedly asked I do and that he would surprise his cousin with his card as well.

Rob also asked if I find anything else like that, just to let him know as he would greatly appreciate such items - which is not a problem on my end.

Awesome to be able to return the cards, and glad I reached out because they obviously did mean something to Rob and are a good memory for him (it was his first year in little league and his dad was his coach that year as well).

With those couple cards taken care of, let's look at some others which were odds and loose with some over the oversized cards. Not sure exactly why these ones ended up here, but let's see what we got.

"Base" keepers. Not sure what I have really considered the One on One card game cards before, but they are a bit oddball type to me so I keep the few I have picked up. Still not sure about it, but one baseball 1995 Score set slow build need with Piazza as well.

Some solid Jays contents including a few Vernon Wells cards. I needed a few of these, or at least they were new cards to my collection, like the Mel Bowman and the Wells Stadium Club. Either way, a great start and it looks like baseball will be well ahead from that of the Santa Lot I got a few years ago.

So we have a Hostess baseball checklist cut out - a couple Kraft Peanut Butter Discs, and a couple mid-90s Sample cards (which is why I am showing the backs on those). I hope these sample card things keep up as I love them. They may not be overly special, but getting something you can't just get in a pack for a set is really cool.

As for the rest...

Nice to see a mid-80s card already. I assume I won't see much from anything earlier than 1989 in the boxes, but that's fine if I get lots of 1995-2005 since there is plenty missing there for me anyway,

Also, where I know these cards will get interest...

A 1995 SkyBox Toy Story Promo card and...

A 1991 Impel Terminator 2 set base card as well. I can't even remember seeing Terminator 2...I think I did...maybe...

A Couple More Golden Jays

 So more 1993 Topps Gold parallels for today.

Two more Jay additions to lead the pack, but two very different players.

Eddie Zosky played in 26 games for the Jays between 1992 and 1993, yet he is a name I know clearly for the team for some reason. It probably goes with that being the height of the team, and my fandom with them being to know very player and everything I could because you tell me someone who was a Jay for 26 games in the early 2000s, I probably would have no recollection of them.

Eddie did go on to play another 18 games in the majors in 1995, 1999 and 2000 with Florida, Milwaukee and Houston respectively.

David Conde, many forget, had two different stints with the Jays - one in 1992 and again in 1995. In 1992, he was an important piece to the World Series puzzle.

A golden nugget....er....Rock is a nice pick up.

Sweet in getting the Nolan Ryan as I figured he may be a guy that I don't see a bunch as I could see him being cherry picked out. I think Griffey is one that will be along with Jeter - at least those are the two names I noticed really so far in these gold parallels.

Kenny Felder here on his 1992 Draft Pick card, never quite made it to the bigs, though he did progress up to triple A ball, but that was the highest point of his career.

Another sold (gold) bunch here. Plenty more to dabble through too!

Let's end today with an eventful PWE trade with first time trade partner ssabreman at TCDB. This PWE actually knocks out two different sets I have been working on...give or take...have to pull and check them...

1990-91 O Pee Chee and the 528 card set which I have been working on (kinda) for 30 years, and 1991-92 O Pee Chee Premier which I haven't been working on nearly as long.

Throw in some other Leafs that are new adds, and this is a powerful PWE. I think I need one dupe Leaf for the 1991-92 O Pee Chee Premier set in order to be really done with it, but that's not too shabby!

Sticker To The Plan

 Today, we look at some stickers. There may be more through the boxes, but these stood out in the extra stuff floating around the bins.

Billy at Cardboard History will be seeing those here that he doesn't yet have. He was happy to see the last ones I got a while ago as they are a European release of stickers. Wish I had more, but this is all that there appears to be in this one.

Speaking of not much, here we have 1990 Panini Stickers. This was one of the sets I lived on as a kid. Back then, I had hundreds of these stickers, if not thousands. I gave plenty away as a kid and complete the set a couple times over I believe, but didn't end up hanging on to those sticker albums unfortunately.

We also have almost a dozen 1996 X-Men stickers which show shots from the awesome 90s cartoon. I was never a big X-Men person, but loved watching the cartoon.

Last up...

There were some pocket schedules for the Raptors. I'd like to say there was a variety but...

there was a number from the one season at least. Still cool to look at. They open up of course and have the schedule, prices, map for seating, etc. Very nice, but not anything I collect.

Continued Gold

 Today's bunch, another round of gold parallels...

I know the 1992 Draft Pick background is well known because of the Derek Jeter rookie - but I really am not a fan of it. Just too fake "insert generic baseball background". I'd rather it be a photoshoot shot if needed where they didn't have a game action shot.

Oh - and "Denny"? Always El Presidente, El Perfecto!

I really like the ALbert Belle photo - not sure if it looks more like he is outracing a thrown ball, or if it looks to be about to pound him in the back.

I like the Studio-esque pose by Rick in the middle, very nicely posed.

I must be in the Marlins and Rockies heavy area of the set - a lot of them in this bunch, though I know they were also "new", so it was a big deal, as was pushing them on fans.

As for Jays..

We get a great shot of Gruber in deep thought before getting up to bat. and Ed "I would always say your last name to rhyme with Ragu as in the pasta sauce" Sprague.

Let's take a last look through the rest of the sweet box of cards from www.baseballcardstore.ca ...

We start where we left off, in the middle of the 00s. Names for sets like "UD Patch Collection" lose a lot of the appeal when the base set isn't just a bunch of patch cards. I mean, it's in the name. Are we just naming sets after the chase cards then?

I do have a soft spot for Upper Deck Vintage sets. Not sure if it is because it tries to be Heritage without being Heritage (or Archives for that matter), but I dig those 00s releases.

Sweet Overbay-by sighting!

Remember when there was flagship Upper Deck baseball card sets? Remember when they were huge sets of over 1,000 cards. I know, then 2008 Documentary comes along and says "hold my beer"...

Late 2000s means we start to get overboard Topps everywhere! The refractor Vernon Wells is great looking but curved like a beast! Legitimately, staring at it under 100 or so cards and it is still fighting to hold them up!

I am usually not one for alternative uniforms, but the red Jays Canada Day related unis are great and the Stroman card shows well why. Not to mention, the blue glove should be mandatory for all Jays players.

Josh Donaldson and the nice blue opening day insert. I know it is because of being a Jays fan, but that blue background works beautifully for the team.

Then we get to Bow(man) show. Not looking too promising on Kevin Smith breaking the bigs while Nate was able to in 2020.

As for Big League - I still don't really know how I feel about these cards. There are alright I guess, but don't stand out to me. At least there's a nice Pillar photo.

We take it right up to some Chrome and an excellent Biggio Bowman. As it turns out, there were a few dupes...

But I don't mind one bit. Well, a few were dupes in the box (which is just fine, I keep them all), and a few were recent trades that Steven wouldn't have seen or known about when doing such a great job pulling cards.

An amazing box, and a big thanks. I look forward to returning the favour and dumping....I mean, gracing...you with a ton of cards when this COVID thing lifts enough to let you travel out my way!