Some firsts

I thought cutting back to two posts a week would help me with posting more consistently. If the first two weeks of the year are any sort of an indicator though, my plan seems to be having the opposite effect, as I've only managed to finish two posts up to this point.

For what it's worth, I did start three posts last week, with every intention of finishing them, but I guess it just wasn't in the cards (pun intended) for me to do so. Some of it was my fault for allowing myself to be distracted by other non-blog things, namely reading (I finished my fourth book of the year already), TCDB stuff, and doing challenges on COMC (my credit is low, and lots of good things are being added to the site again). Then there was the stuff that I didn't much control over, migraine on Tuesday, and not quite migraine-level headaches on Wednesday and Thursday (it was just one of those weeks), all three of which made computering difficult, and not very desirable. There was also the snow that came at the beginning of the week, and now the snow that has arrived in time to close out the week, which doesn't physically prevent me from blogging, but does have a profoundly adverse affect on my mood, thus making me not want to write anything, or at least not anything that someone would want to read.

There were some high spots though, I worked out a couple of more trades on the TCDB, including a slightly bigger one. I made up the $15 in credit that I spent on COMC last weekend (really good sale on newly added vintage non-sport cards) by doing the challenges. With things starting to move on the site again, I'm thinking we might get a Spring Cleaning sale, and if so, I want to have some play money in place before it starts. The best thing to occur though came on Thursday, that being the arrival of a very unexpected package from, Dennis, he of Too Many Verlanders fame. Not only was the gesture itself a wonderful surprise, but the cards were pretty good too, a few of which were firsts for me.

Jamie Moyer has relic cards? This was news to me! Not that I'm overly surprised mind you, I mean anybody who's played in the last twenty years or so, probably has a dozen plus relics out there, I just hadn't ever looked to see what he had available. Now that I have, I can say that I'm a bit surprised that he doesn't have more. 2004 Upper Deck Awesome Honors Jersey is not a set that I had heard of/seen before. There appears to be two different versions, Gold and Silver, as well as an Update set that has a completely different checklist. As far as Jamie goes, the silver version has white fabric, and the gold contains a dark blue swatch. The gold are not serial numbered, but are supposedly limited to 165 copies of each. I don't usually seek out the relics, but this one is pretty neat, and was a first for me. It's probably silly, but now I kind of want the silver, if only because I could then say that I was able to complete my first relic rainbow.

Moving onto another first, my first Pro Magnet. I've seen these plenty of times online (always scanned as poorly as this one), but had never encountered one in person before. They're much shinier than I had imagined, and just better looking in general than I would've thought. I need more!

I haven't acquired any new Tim Brown cards for quite awhile now (at least a year), Dennis didn't know this (nor did anyone else), but thanks to him I can no longer say that. Oh, and for the record, this is the first card from 1999's Collector's Edge 1st Place that I've ever owned.

Colbey did a Litho-Cel break a few months back that I kind of regret not getting in on, as I can't really afford to get a box anymore, and had always kind of wanted to open one. Participating in that break might've helped with that some. I know that Dennis took a chance on it, but don't know if this card came from that opening or not. I do own one other card from this set, one of the Cels, but it's just a random one that I found in a dime box a few years back, and isn't of someone that I collect, so... I guess I could say that this my first Litho-Cel of someone that I collect, eh?

Coming out of college, I guess it wasn't too much of stretch to think that Ricky Williams might be a "Future Legend", but things don't always go according to plan, they certainly didn't with Ricky's NFL career. Still a fun insert though, my first from this set.

Upon first sight, I thought this was my first football Triumvirate, but once I loaded the scan into the post I remembered that I already had one of Herman Moore, which after a brief search I found sitting in a scan folder waiting to be posted about, so while this Terrell isn't my first football Triumvirate, it is the first one that I've ever shown here on the blog. I don't care who's featured on the card, I absolutely adore these. A lot of 90's stuff has really gone up since the Rona got going, but a lot of great football inserts from that era, like these, are still quite affordable. Some day I'd like to complete one of these trifectas, I have 2 out of 3 on a couple of basketball ones, but have been too forgetful to remember to look up who I need to complete them. In case anyone's curious, John Elway and Shannon Sharpe make up the rest of this particular trio.

Many thanks to Dennis for this wonderful surprise, it brought some joy to an overall not-so-great week. And even though he said that these were belated Christmas cards, last Christmas already feels like it was months ago, so I'm gonna choose to go ahead and just think of these as early 2021 Christmas cards :)

Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.