You can buy a lot of mini's for $30 A Week

I sent Robert, of $30 A Week Habit fame, a PWE with a couple of cards in it a few weeks back, which he said he was surprised by, so what does Robert do? He goes ahead surprises me with an almost immediate bubble mailer in return, a bubble mailer that contained more than a couple of mini's:

I have been scanning a lot more of the cards for my posts as of late, which some might say is a good thing, gives the blog a more professional look and all, but as you'll soon see, this is one of those times that I really should have went my normal cell phone camera route. Apparently my scanner doesn't like vintage cards, glossy cards, and now... Topps A&G!

Bad scans aside, this was a nice little selection of 2011's (all the other A&G in the package was from 2012). I don't know why, but mini inserts just do something for me, I especially like the mini Antonio Meucci

This group features a couple of interesting cards: King Felix, a Josh Willingham that somehow escaped the clutches of Wes, and a Yoenis Cespedes rookie. Also, is Cespedes is still a big deal? It seems like he was during his first couple of years, but now it feels like I haven't heard anything about him in during over past couple of seasons.

Hey, it's Bryant's older brother! By the by, did you know that in less than two months time, Greg will be turning 72? That seems kind of crazy, but he still looks amazingly good for being 71.

It's kind of tough to see through the terrible scan, but the Cabrera and Jimenez are gold bordered, which as I have just learned, were a parallel only available through retail packs. I had a couple of those already, but didn't know what the deal with them was. I suppose I'll have to create a separate list for those... thanks Topps!

Robert must've taken the time to scroll down my list some, as he included a couple of black borders for my, just in it's infant stages, A&G Black Borders frankenset, which by the way, is an idea that I freely admit to ripping off from Matt. I had few from various years, so I figured why not do something with them... I do wish that Topps would've stuck with the solid black borders though.

The 2011 Topps Kimball Champions set is one that I didn't know about until I found a Juan Marichal at a card show last year, after which I decided that I'd kind of like to work on the set, but had yet to acquire any more since that first Juan (get it?). Thanks to Robert though, I now have four more, which leaves me with only... 145 to go.

Thank you again for all the great mini's, Robert. You really didn't need to send anything in return, but I'm awfully glad you did anyway!


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A change of plans

I recently received a package from Matt (the seemingly tireless owner and operator of the Sport Card Collectors empire), which was a good thing. What wasn't a such a good thing, was me taking over a week to let him know that I got it :(

Matt, being the good dude that he is, didn't seem to take any offense to the slight. Still, I've got a bit of a guilty conscious (especially after reading Julie's post last night), so I'm going to bump today's originally planned card show post (I was struggling to write it anyway) and give my public thanks (I already did so on Twitter, but the blog's more important) to Matt a little sooner than later.

A couple of month's ago when I got those dud boxes of Golden Age, Matt was one of the few people to claim some of the many duplicates that were contained within those boxes, and in exchange, he ended up sending me some Golden Age that I didn't already have... including this wonderful Juan Marichal Newark Evening News.

I'm not a big fan of the Headlines set, but I've still been collecting them Nonetheless. Being able to mark two more off the wantlist is very much appreciated, as I hate the thought actually having to buy any of them.

This Buck Weaver DeLong Gum was by far, my favorite card in the package! As an aside, I recently decided I wanted to own an original DeLong card, after checking the eBay, I found out something kind of surprising (sarcasm)... they're a bit on the pricey side, especially the one's that don't look like they've been through the wringer. Maybe someday...

With the addition of Hack here, I only need three more B for E's to complete the set.

Photo wise, this might be my favorite of the 2013 Headlines set.

Some of you may have noticed a recently added "Mini's" tab at the top of the blog, Matt is partially responsible for said tab being added. I had been procrastinating on going through all my Golden Age mini's and separating them by the different backs for the longest time now, but after Matt mentioned having some available, I decided to finally break down and make the list (not fun by the way). It ended up being worth the time though, as Matt sent some really great stuff.

As you'll see more clearly in a moment, there was quite a mix of backs.

Save for the Ty Cobb back, I think I might have all of Bill Walton's 2012 mini's now.

John Dean is the owner of the Ty Cobb back, which at one per box, were the hardest (not counting 1/1's) back's to get. I really don't think that I will ever be able to complete that set, but it's still fun to get them when I can.

Please forgive the crooked 2013's.

The Nadja back belongs to Al Simmons, for anyone that cares, those were one-per-box backs in 2013.

Tommy Smothers can't believe that he's gotta face two Hitman Hearns'!

A nice mix of back's here.

There were also a couple of 2014's to be had...

... and they too contained a nice mixture of different back's.

And if all the Golden Age above wasn't enough, Matt also sent along a dozen A&G mini's as well.

All the A&G's hail from 2013-15, and all are very welcome additions to my miniscule collection of Ginter miniatures.

Thanks again, Matt! All the cards were really great, and more importantly... they were all set needs. And hopefully I won't take so long to acknowledge the receipt of any potential future packages from you (or anybody else for that matter).

I also wanted to mention that I will be spending a lot of my free time over the next two weeks trying to help my mom out with some projects around her house, so some of the longer posts that I had planned on doing (card show stuff, comic book stuff, etc.) might have to wait a couple of weeks. I've been trying to stick to a regular posting schedule, so if you happen to notice some really short posts popping up, it's just because I probably won't have a lot of energy (mentally or physically) left to work on anything more significant.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at my page.