Picking up the pace

After a slight drop, my trading activity has picked up as of late.

For the first time in my blogging career, I'm actually a little behind in my trade posts. I've received so much good stuff over the last week that I haven't been able to keep up.

I'm sure it's happened to most frequent traders in the blogosphere. In that regard, I'm still a "rookie".

The latest trade excursion comes via Chris, author of the great blog "Nachos Grande".

Chris recently opened an entire case of 2012 A&G. While I love ripping packs, I don't know if I'd have the patience to go through an entire case. I'd imagine the packs just blur together after a while.

Nevertheless, he graciously helped me knock out a large chunk of my A&G base needs, and even managed to hit a few inserts for me as well.

I know this is about the 108th time most of you have seen the Hank Aaron base card, but I think it deserves to be shown at least once more.

It's one of the highlights of 2012 thus far.

No doubt about it.

When I received this card in the mail, Ichiro was a Seattle Mariner.

By the time I got around to showing it on this blog, he became a New York Yankee.

While it's going to take some time to get used to seeing Ichiro in a Bronx Bombers jersey, I'm already looking forward to his first card as a Yankee, presumably towards the end of the card collecting year.

Just one of the many reasons to love Topps Update.

Last year, I managed to complete the "Minds That Made the Future" insert set from A&G.

This time around, my main goal is to get all the "Historical Turning Points" inserts. I'm still aways away as of this writing, though.

Although I love anything pertaining to American history, this might be the least exciting issue of the bunch.

But to Topps' credit, I don't know how many "fun" pictures there are of the agricultural revolution.

I'm a big fan of these "What's In A Name?" inserts from this year's A&G.

I just wish there weren't so many of them.

A 100-card insert set is way, way too much. There's a lot of base sets out there that aren't that big. I like chasing inserts I need, but a huge set like that makes the quest seem unattainable.

As a result, I'm happy with whatever I can find. Chris was nice enough to include this great card of Brooks Calbert Robinson, one of the many players I wish I could've seen play in person.

This "piece" of the trade was just as good as many of the cards I received.

I always like these little business card-like plugs that some bloggers include in trade packages. Perhaps I should try and make something like this one of these days.

Thanks for the trade, Chris!