Plenty of Bs To Talk About

 Yes - last day of Jays cards from Ken, with some Leaf content tomorrow, but lots of Bs to bring with the Blue Jays today.

Bowman and Bunt start us off. I've said before, I love the logos, so the bunt cards do good work in oversizing those logos and plastering them in the background. I wouldn't want this in every set, but it does make the set and the cards atand out as being different. Better than using the same design for flagship, Opening Day, Update, etc. Or reusing the same photo in each release too...

Nig League is the other big B. I don't have much Big League, and I am not a fan yet, though it's growing on me a bit.

I do like this 2021 design better than the prior, and I am pretty sure these are my first Jays from the set - yay!

Berrios brings a couple Jays cards of the newest variety here to round out the Jays, and I have to say....wow - great package Ken, and hopefully what I sent you is fair and reasonable in return!

As I say, tomorrow, the Leafs!

Don't Forget The Flagship

 Well, on to the newer flagship cards from the package Ken sent me. Here we cover cards from the Topps flagship sets of the last decade, including my first Blue Jays cards from 2023!

I have been very fortunate in trading to get many of the Blue Jays from the more recent flagship base sets. Not all the snazzy short prints and such, but most of the base cards have come my way in trades, so nothing new for me in the first bunch, though love Kay rockin' those glasses.

Once we get into 2022, we do have some base cards that haven't crossed my collection yet...

Love the Bichette card, but it's the team card that is a need...or was. No surprise Vladdy's dead centre on that one.

We get to end with the first 2023 cards for me (and it gave me the opportunity to add the rest to my want list). Definitely a design I like better than the last few years, but that's in part because I am a sucker for a good logo on the front of the card.

Fantastic bunch, and we still have one more bunch of Jays, and a sprinkling of Leaf cards to go before we are through with the package from Ken!

Checking In Some Heritage

 Most of the rest of the Jays are from the last decade, so I pulled out a couple of the sets where there's a bunch of cards, today being Heritage.

As per usual, Topps does a good job with Heritage and updating but paying good tribute to the original designs. Hard to complain about the card designs, and the card stock is solid and wonderful. A good Rasmus mullet doesn't hurt either.

I will point out a couple minor pet peeves with these though - when it comes to cursive, as long as the font is easy to read, I don't mind, though it's not as easy of course as printed text. If you are going to use printed text - there is no need for names to be missing the capital letters. I really wish they gave that one concession on the design, it bothers me so much - lol.

We have one minor league Heritage card sneak in, but beyond that, we have about 10 new additions from the lot of cards today which is pretty darn sweet!

I love the Bobby Ray smile on the cards from 2022 Heritage. I thinks it's pretty obvious he was going for the massive cheesy smile and it's worse in some cards than others, but great just the same.

Still two more days of Jays to go in the Ken package...yay!

Quick 90s

The package from Ken had some 90s Jays as well, though not as many as there are post-90s, but we will keep to my favourite Jays decade for now. 

Nothing that is new, but much better to have cards I will keep than traders, so I'll take the exchange anytime. Bessides, always good getting 1991 Topps Glowbacks, and Cito who is my Jays preferred manager,

Not a ton for the decade, and yes, the last card is a 2022 one, but there's a large enough gap to the next set of Jays, it made sense to tack on here. I still cringe with the late 90s, early 2000 uniforms - never a fan of the large maple leaf logo design.

A huge fan of Ken's for the amazing package though.

Early Jays

 As promised, today, a start through the Jays Ken was nice enough to send along, and the starting point time wise, is the 1979 Jays...

A bunch of Topps cards, and love getting the dupes, but best of all is Willie Horton who was the last Jay I needed for the team set. This marks the earliest complete Jays team set I now have - yay! Oh, and nice getting a second Bump since he is an error card here as he was with the Rangers, no the Jays....oops!

On into 1981, we have a whole bunch of 1981 Fleer, and I was hopeful I might get the last Jay from that set for my team set, but alas, still looking for Damaso Garcia - however, a whole bunch of great Jay dupes for the collection!

I don't know why, but that faded green and blue stadium background just screams early Jays baseball and gives me the nice nostalgic warm and fuzzies.

1981 Topps, we have the complete team set of already, but these are definitely better quality than the ones I have, so all for nice upgrades, especially on the team card!

I always appreciate getting Dave Stieb cards as he was my early fave Jays player and is still my favourite Jays pitcher of all time. For some reason, I have done better collecting Fleer from the mid 80s, but still a couple new additions here - sweet - but no other team set completion yet.

Yes, I do also collect the checklists like the one here, when the team is listed as a whole. If it's just a checklist that happens to have a Jays player, no, but the team, absolutely.

A fantastic bunch of Jays, and still plenty more to go from Ken tomorrow!

Before T.O.

 So, before spending a few days on the Toronto related content from Ken and the package of goodies he sent, I will highlight some of the "other" cards that were sent.

Some base card keepers from the bilingual 1991-92 Score set. I do have the Canadian English only version done, but a good start on the bilingual as well, so working on that....a few Bruins cards that won't be off to Jeff Scott. Similarly for the 1991 Topps Gardner card.

There were a few inserts as well, which are awesome additions with a few Topps gold parallels, and a couple 1991 Topps glowbacks. Yeah, not sure if I really want to essentially work on a glowback parallel set, but if I come across the cards, I do keep them.

Definitely a nice array of non-Toronto cards, which I wasn't expecting, but tomorrow we start to bulk of the goodies - plenty of Blue Jays, and, fingers crossed, maybe a team set or two I can call completed with the additions!

Kenny!

So, in April, reader Ken from MO, USA reached out for a trade. I let him know I could send back after April (which I did), but I haven't had time to post, share, and log all the goodies he sent. Until now!

As usual with these bigger packages, I'll take a few days to go over depending on what all is here, and this is a pretty nice haul. Ken even had a few cards in that I can send off to other trade partners with some Bruins and Expo cards - those collectors know who they are. I won't share the ones I am sending off, here, as it can stay a surprise for them.

Today, a few shares of items which, more or less, came packaged...

Won't be keeping the Star Trek or Looney Tunes cards, but happy to share them and find a home for them!

Political correctness kills some aspects of these retro shows. I am glad that during my childhood, reruns of the show were on in spades, and I still got to enjoy it. You can still find it around, but not as easily - at least not here,, and I am sure part of it is the aspects that haven't aged well.

Though I will always prefer Picard to Kirk and Stewart to Shatner, the original show was still solid....as long as you were not wearing a red shirt on a mission....

For the Looney Tunes, everything was getting in on the card craze of the early 90s, including these guys. Again, I watched plenty of the cartoons, but luckily didn't know about these cards until the last few years.

The cards are a card front and back really, which I am not a fan of when the point is a comic and if you wanted to lay out the whole thing, you would then need two of each card.

Lastly, the one I am absolutely keeping, the Kraft set...

Other than the design taking up a bit much of the photo, great cards, and love that none of these pop up cards have been popped up - and they will stay that way.

There is a similar 15 card NL set, though, I don't feel any need to get it since I am much more attached to the AL for obvious Blue Jay loving reasons.

Just the tip of the package and will have more to share the next few days - but an amazing start.