Acceptance of Dings

 I like having perfectly mint cards, but I am also realistic to know, they won't all be, and the older you go, the less perfect cards are going to be. That said, opening a pack, even if it's an older pack, I'd expect cards in good condition, and the pack of 1991 Studio baseball cards I am opening today, obviously ended up hitting a hard surface with a corner at some point in the last 30 years.

Every single card has a ding in the bottom left corner. The good news - I guess - is I am building this set, so will keep these for the set build and be OK with that. I will not however put the others into my trade pile. I will instead use them for adding as packaging into trades. No points for the cards being packaging, but at least it's not a total loss.

Somehow, the puzzle piece is the FIRST one that I have in my collection for the Rod Carew puzzle. Not sure how that happened, but it is what it is.

Man, those dinged corners are something rough, but only dupes were Harper, Scioscia and Santiago so a successful pack otherwise.

Pastime Stadium Club Pack

 Today, the second of the five packs to come from the Pastime purchase, and we are all about 1992 Stadium Club, Series 2. Unfortunately, the middle series is the one I pretty much have most of, so not likely to be a bunch of base card needs covered here, but let's check!

The paid of Jose and Cris are my base need covers in this pack, and that's it. Interesting to get Cardinals in a row like this, but that's exactly how the pack came out. Opening these packs even today, Stadium Club cards still look fantastic. The logo graphic might appear aged, but that's about it.

No Jays again - boo, but a small salvage with an Expos card I guess. Also, another of the membership inserts - I have about 30 total between the couple variations if anyone needs one!

Pastime Sports Baseball Pack Lot

 One of the purchases I had from a while ago was this lot of unknown baseball packs which were for $6 plus tax - given the packs, not much of a deal...

Even with the rare upside down scanned 1993 O Pee Chee Premier pack, these are a lot of "meh" cards, but maybe I will be pleasantly surprised with something neat as we go through them. Let's do the 1992 O Pee Chee pack today and as I don't collect the set, see if there's a keeper of some sort in the pack anyway.

I like the floating ball in the Wilson photo, and Hrbek was a solid Twin player with not enough vowels in his last name.

No Jays for myself, but at least we get one Expos card to pass along. Not a bad pack, just nothing that really helps with me and my collection so a bit of a bummer on this pack for that reason. Maybe it'll get better tomorrow.

Last Trade To Share - For Now

 We reach, finally, the last of the trades I have backlogged for sharing and this one is with TCDB member acasebol to whom I sent some baseball and basketball, to get back a bunch of Jays and an error card.

As I continue to get the last few variations of the 1989 Donruss Blue Jays - thank you to those dots and asterisk marks - you can guess the error pick up is the non-Jay Felix Jose.

The big winner card from the trade is the 1994 Pinnacle Duane Ward as he is the last of the 18 base cards for the team set so I have all my Jays now for that one - yay!

A nice David Cone to remind us of that short lived time he was in Toronto.

There are a couple newer Jays in the bunch, like Espinal, but most are mid-90s Jays staples like Shawn Green. Although we have many product releases now, with almost all being under the same company, it's just a different feel from the 90s when there were more companies out there in the market making very different products.

Sometimes change isn't always great....though the card quality and design is likely better in some respects, definitely more variety 30 years ago.

Trading For Heritage

 Today's trade recap was a small PWE trade with TCDB member ChicagoPatla. I don't see a bunch of Heritage cards usually in my trades, so nice to get a bunch of Jays this way today.

The 2004 Then & Now insert is a nice way to include past stars, but I like having another Delgado card.

As for the rest, we have a bunch of cards from the 2006 year. I only had 2 of the base Jays before the trade, and now more than half the way there on the team set. The late 2000s Jays teams were definitely not one of my favourite incarnations of the team, but all franchises go through down periods or stagnant ones, so it happens - unfortunately for fans. So, as much as I love the look of the cards and collecting the period - wish it was a better team at the time. They were a just above 500 team in the mid to late 2000s, but that just didn't cut it given their division.

Well, at least this trade is a step above.

wbaker01 Trade

 Here we have one more trade for sharing with another TCDB member - wbaker01 - who sent a bunch of Leaf cards my way...

Here we have the last of the 23 base cards I needed to complete the 1982-83 O Pee Chee Leaf team set. This is one of the earliest team sets I have completed which is fantastic! I am getting closer on the 1983-84 set as well, but still not quite there.

I know I am falling behind on keeping the new cards on TCDB up to date on my want list. With all the releases each year, and the fact I can't group add anymore since I have so much on my wantlist, I have to go in manually and tick off all the Leaf cards in new sets, and with all the inserts/parallels, that takes a lot of time, and isn't the most fun to do, though getting the cards is rewarding.

Right this moment, I am fine not worrying about it since there's so much on the list still as is, and because I have boxes to open still anyway, but maybe over the winter holidays I can catch up. For now, just happy getting new to me cards from even a year or two ago that I didn't have. Do like that MVP set blue though, very nice with the Leaf colours!

Down To One - Twice

 Was able to put together another trade that I initiated, this one with used bobfetta on TCDB which saw me near completion on a couple more sets.

I had a bunch of the 1990 Panini stickers as a kid and probably completed the set, but long ago that went bye bye. I did get a sticker album which was near completion not that long ago, and these are three of the four stickers I was missing. I am down to one - the Crime Dog - which I actually need two copies of, one for the set and one for the Jays team set.

1991-92 Pinnacle is a similar case, I am now down to just missing a single card still for the set - card354, Zelepukin. The rest of the cards are Leaf team set helpers, but nothing more completed. The Hyman overtime card is actually the first Leaf card I have in my collection from that 2018-19 set - very cool!

Another solid trade, and now to try and pin down those final missing pieces for the couple sets...