A mail day to end all mail days, Pt. 1

Over the years, I've completed a good deal of trades.

I've been a part of the online trading community since I was about thirteen. In that time span, I've made nearly three thousand trades. Everything from MLB Showdown cards, hockey cards, and, of course, baseball cards. (Although I don't like thinking about how much I've paid in postage.)

I'm up to about 35 trades in the blogosphere thus far, although that's not counting the tactic of unexpected packages I receive from fellow bloggers from time to time.

Seven years of online trading, and I don't think I've had a more plentiful mail day than the one I had this afternoon. Five packages, all jam-packed with cardboard goodness. It was like going to another card show, as you might be able to tell from the above photo.

One of them was just another trade I made on a trading forum. The big stack of cards on the left of that photo is the giant 15/$1 lot I alluded to in a recent post. The other three packages were from great members of the blogosphere.

I'll definitely be showcasing my fantastic finds from those 15/$1 list in due time, but I'd like to note the sheer generosity of a few fellow bloggers before that.

In order to give each blogger their share of recognition, I'll be splitting this trade post into three different posts, which I'll write over the course of the next few days.

It was way too much to fit into just one blog post, anyways.

Two of the packages were complete surprises, but one was from an actual, agreed upon trade with Michael Spiegel over at "Nomo's Sushi Platter".

This was our second trade, although I had no idea what he was sending. He contacted me and said he had some of my "set needs" to send my way. (Although most of them are just my player needs in disguise as set needs.)

It came at a perfect time, because I had just replenished my stock of Dodgers cards at the card show from a few weeks back.

I'm glad I did, because Mr. Spiegel sure had some great cards for me.

The regular version of this 2012 GQ insert is definitely one of my favorite cards of 2012 thus far.

While the mini-sized one might take away from the overall look a bit, it's still one of the best minis in my collection.

Now that I think of it, this is probably my first Willie Mays mini of any kind.

Topps has been going absolutely crazy with the "floating heads" this year.

Although they might be overdoing it a bit, I can't help but love them. Archives had some of my favorite insert sets in recent memory, this one being no exception.

I hope Topps brings it back next year.

Mr. Spiegel was nice enough to send me a few of my 2012 A&G needs as well.

As a whole, I'm not a big fan of horizontal A&G cards. However, I think Topps has done a better job with them in 2012 than in any other year of the set's history.

I'm still in awe of the Carlos Lee I pulled, and this Pence is nearly Lee's equal on the "A&G horizontal scale".

Although I would've preferred that his legs not be chopped off in the photo.

Michael also said he wanted to find some "cards for my player collections and cool-looking dime box style cards" for me.

He managed to do both, with resounding success.

The Sweet Spot Ichiro is a welcome new addition to my 400+ card collection of his. Although he doesn't do it too often, it looks like he might've been trying to hit a homer in that shot.

While I'm not a huge Dale Murphy collector, that specially-issued McDonald's insert will fit nicely within my binders.

If McDonald's ever held some sort of baseball card promotion nowadays, I'd probably gain ten pounds in a week because I'd eat there so often.

I've been lucky with Heritage short-prints this week.

A few days ago, I finally managed to track down a copy of the coveted Casey Kotchman SP for my player collection of his, and then Mr. Spiegel sends me two more, right out of the blue.

Heritage SPs are probably the most aggravating out of all the dreaded short-prints in today's hobby. They're almost impossible to find.

I'm a couple steps closer to my impossible goal of actually getting all the ones I need, thanks to this trade package.

Let's close this post out with a few cards of the "Ooh...shiny!" realm.

I've already mentioned how big of a Brandon McCarthy fan I am. Although the injury bug has hit him a few times this year, he's still having a great season. As it stands right now, he's 6-3 with a 2.54 ERA with the surging A's.

For me, it doesn't get much better than a shiny Hall of Famer. I haven't been able to track down many of the Lineage refractors, so the Mize was a great surprise. The "Mize Surprise".

That almost sounds like something you'd find on a menu at Denny's.

That package was only the beginning of this afternoon's "trade spoils".

Mr. Spiegel really went above and beyond anything I was expecting. A Mays mini, a floating head, a couple Heritage SPs, and more.

Sounds like a pretty good trade to me.