Thankfully, trading seems to be picking up this month after an extremely slow December. Understandably, however, as many collectors focus both their time and money on things other than baseball cards during the holiday season.
I received a trade package in the mail today from a member of "The Bench". In exchange for some extra American Pie base/foils I had, I received a nice assortment of 2011 inserts and parallels I still needed.
One of them was the 2011 Topps Update Wal-Mart Blue parallel Ryan Vogelsong you see at the top of the post.
Something about Vogelsong's face in that shot reminds me of a bug splattered on a windshield.
Another 2011 Update Wal-Mart parallel. Looks like Garcia will be spending another year in the Bronx in 2012.
The only time I've ever bought baseball cards from Wal-Mart was when 2011 Topps Heritage was released. (Surprisingly, there aren't many around where I live.) Although the the Target across the street from my house is pretty good about getting new sets in, they still didn't have Heritage yet a couple days after they were released. We needed some soda for the house anyways, so I took a fifteen-minute drive to the nearest Wal-Mart. They had 'em, and I picked up two blasters (along with the soda).
But I've got plenty of the various Wal-Mart parallels from the last few years thanks to the amazing gift of online trading! I don't know where my collection would be today without being able to swap cards through the mail.
It turns out that a couple of the cards in the 2011 American Pie base set I ordered were actually foil parallels. I would've completely missed it had it not been for my dad's keen eye.
I managed to re-complete my American Pie set with these two cards.
I guess I'm just one of the few collectors who didn't fall in love with the 2011 Gypsy Queen set. It was nice, no doubt, but I didn't love it like a lot of others did.
Had they included guys that were around when the actual Gypsy Queen tobacco cards were released in 1887 (Cap Anson, John Ward, King Kelly, etc.), I would've liked it a whole lot better. Something like reprints of those older Gypsy Queens would've been neat. Although I still enjoy getting any cards of Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, etc., I'd like to see Topps change it up a bit. Those same handful of guys are in every set now! Give me cards of guys like King Kelly or "Wahoo" Sam Crawford or Tony Lazzeri. Guys who we don't see all the time.
Lastly, who doesn't love the good ol' Diamond parallels? They were one of the best things I liked about Topps in 2011.
There's just something about the shininess of it that no one can resist.
2 comments:
If you're into players like King Kelly and Anson, in the 2006 Allen & Ginter set they reprinted each one of the baseball subjects from the original 1887 set. It's those three you mentioned plus John Glasscock. They look just like the originals too, as 2006 A&G was closest to what 1887 looked like.
Yup, I've got those ones from 2006 A&G. I wish they did that in the later A&G years.
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