Generosity of the Blogosphere

Once in a while I get a package in the mail that is a surprise, and while I love getting surprises no one expects to find these kinds of things all the time. This blog is one of my favorite things to do for many reasons, one of which is meeting new people to trade with.

Last week at some point I got an e-mail from Tim (from Enough Already), and his kids Scott and Caty decided to put together a care package for me and they needed my address. I was a little afraid considering the word "bipping" was in there, and even though he said he didn't have the doubles for it, I was still curious.

I got the package literally like the next day it felt like, and when I picked it up it was pretty heavy. While my mind was going crazy with thoughts of cookies and baseball cards, I waited for the e-mail with the letter that was missing before I opened it. It seemed that Tim's little daughter was in charge of the note and forgot it, but she made up with picking the greatest cards ever.

I saw the e-mail had come, and all I saw was I hope the autographs... I did not read another word and ripped open the envelope. I swear to you all I jumped out of my chair when I saw what was in the envelope, then proceeded to bounce around the house showing anyone who would look. This was what I pulled out of the envelope first:

2007 SP Authentic By the Letter Adam Lind Autographs!!!

Holy freakin' schnikeys!! I am still in shock. Now I am only missing the letter N to complete his last name, however it has to be the letter N with the dark gray/black lower left corner because there is a 2007 SP Authentic Adam Lind Autograph with brown corner that goes with another word from the set and won't complete his last name.

As if that wasn't generous enough, they went ahead and included some Albert Pujols
cards and some Derek Jeter cards for Sooz. I scanned almost all the cards, I left out a few but they were ALL appreciated.

Here are the Albert Pujols cards:

Here are the Derek Jeter cards:
Clearly they read the blog often because they would not have known that when me or Sooz open something we ALWAYS find one of these which was the last card in the package:
Wouldn't be complete without Chipper Jones. (It's a Chipper Jones serial numbered refractor, too!)

I found out after the fact that Tim is an Adam Lind collector himself, yet still sent these to me which is tremendously awesome.

On behalf of Sooz and myself, thank you so much Tim, Scott, and Caty for your generous envelope of goodies.

2009 SP Authentic Packs

The other day I was randomly looking for local card shops online to see if by some chance I missed one somewhere. Apparently I missed one that according to mapquest's directions was 3 minutes and one block from Trader Joe's where I get my groceries. Today I decided to stop in the shop and see what it was about.

The outside of the store would give you no clue that they even sold any kind of sports cards, it was all video games, movies, etc. in their store window. I parked anyway and figured if it was a bust I'd still have a story for all of you to be tortured through. The cards were in the back, in one single case. They had a case full of game used cards and auto stuff, all separated by team and all insanely overpriced. Two that I remember were a Spectrum Pujols jersey for $25 (single white swatch), and a Halladay single blue swatch for $20. I saw a Nolan Ryan auto, which to me was the most reasonably priced card at $120. Packs were varied from years, including 2008 UD Series 1 for $6.99 a pack, 2006 Topps Chrome for $6.99 a pack, 206 $7.99 a pack, and SP Authentic $7.99 a pack. There were others but I don't remember the prices, but they had Bowman Heritage, some Topps, etc.

I decided to spend a little bit of the cash on SP Authentic because I had already seen packs of everything else there. I am not disappointed in my choice, nor am I upset about getting ripped off for two reasons:

1.


2.

I didn't scan anything but the hits because the cards have been done, and they are boring to look at anyway. Yeah, so maybe I'm on a hot streak. If that is the case I sure hope someone in my family picked up a box of something for me to break Christmas morning.

(Note: Markakis card is on hold until I speak to beardy, and Griffey Jr. I am probably keeping unless someone has something super freakin' awesome.)