Papa grande and friends

Well, it had to happen sooner or later.

My card show finds are all sorted and organized, and I've already started filing them away. It's a hefty task, but I look forward to it nevertheless.

More importantly, it's time to get back into the normal swing of things on this blog.

Somewhere within all that organizing madness, I received a nice trade package from blog reader Jeremy. Although from what he told me, he won't be just a blog reader for long once he gets some more time to update his brand new blog.

He'd contacted me about some Series 2 inserts and parallels he had for me (of which I still need a bunch). From there, we struck up a trade.

Jose Valverde's 2012 Topps Series 2 base card is among my personal favorites of the year. Once Jeremy said he had the red-bordered parallel of "Papa Grande", I had to have it.

He's certainly one of the more entertaining players to watch in today's game.

As luck would have it, I picked up both of these gold sparkle parallels in that twenty-cent box from Saturday's show.

Trouble was, I completely forgot that they were already part of the trade with Jeremy.

Extras never hurt, I guess.

I have a weakness for reprints, no matter what year, what set, or what player.

You can imagine my excitement for the 2012 Topps Archives reprint set, of which I've barely made a dent.

Thankfully, Jeremy had a few extras set aside for me with the above Morgan and Seaver.

Perhaps even more exciting than getting a new reprint for my collection is getting one of which I already own the real card, as is the case with the '81 Seaver.

They really do look nice next to each other in a binder.

Jeremy was also nice enough to include a couple random oddballs as freebies.

Although I'm not exactly sure what set this Bret Saberhagen is from, it looks to be a neat pop-up type of card.

I remember a few books from my childhood days that had that pop-up quality to them, of which I was absolutely fascinated.

Over a decade later, pop-up baseball cards still manage to have the same effect.

Even with "Papa Grande" and the oddballs, this was the biggest "score" of the trade for me.

I'd heard about these before, but I'd never actually seen one.

These felt-like "blankets" were box-toppers from 2006 Topps Turkey Red, one of my favorite recent sets. Although I don't own that many in the first place, this one is instantly my new favorite issue of the box-topper variety.

I have to believe that it's also the most unique item of my Vladimir Guerrero collection as well.

Thanks for the great cards (and blanket), Jeremy!