A Brew Crew Rainbow

 I finished a rainbow today with the addition of the 2020 Bowman's Best blue refractor card.  You probably can guess who the subject is, so there's no point in stating the obvious. Let's just show you the picture in all of its gloriousness. 

Queue the chorus of angels!

Man, I love the color of those last six cards AND look how happy he is after obliterating that baseball! 

Stating the obvious alert: VOGELMONSTER!  WOO-HOO!

Here's a quick rundown of what is pictured above: 

Row 1 (left to right) = base, refractor, and atomic refractor

Row 2 = purple (/250), blue (/150), and green (/99) refractors 

Row 3 = gold (/50), orange (/25), and red (/10) refractors

I'm only missing the superfractor (1/1) and I don't expect to ever see it cross my path. This was a very affordable rainbow to piece together and I'm glad I took the time to see it through. 

Sometimes it's the simple things. Am I right?

Have a great week

Mail in, Mail out

I spent the day prepping return packages for eleven different bloggers. It feels good to get the "I owe cards to" list down to just a couple. 

Peter, the author of Baseball Every Night, sent me a sweet little package with a Sandberg refractor from 2015 Prizm. 

Also inside were five Kerry Wood cards from the Upper Deck 20th Retrospective set. I thought it was five copies of the same card until I inspected the numbers on the back and saw they were sequentially numbered. Then I realize the text at the bottom of the front of the card was also different. Upper Deck has me SMH. The same photo on five different cards? Ugh. 

Trevor, from the Bump and Run Football Card Blog, gifted me an orange parallel of the VOGELMONSTER from Topps 2020 Big League. 

This card is a beauty and I will take all the Big League parallels (orange and blue) that I can get my hands on. 

Lastly, Fuji's generosity makes another appearance on my blog.  This time around he sent a "Happy New Year" package with some rarer cards. 

I once did a box break featuring this set. I absolutely love products with a checklist full of notable retired players. I have a team set in my Cubs box, but now I can put Santo and Kessinger in a binder, too. 

Rizzo was the primary reason Vogelbach was shipped from the Cubs to the Mariners. Here the two of them are in the same PWE. Rizzo, for what it's worth, is one of my favorite current Cubs. (But, Chicago would have fallen in love with the Vogelmonster if Rizzo wasn't around.)

I have never seen a pack of these before. Very, very cool. 

Fuji must have busted a box because he sent me all kinds of tri-fold Cubs!

Rick Monday, Ken Holtzman and Bill Buckner are picture above. 

Fergie, Don Kessinger and Glenn Beckert. 

And, the storied Cubs infield from the early 20th century. Most Excellent!

A big thank you to Peter, Trevor and Fuji for putting a smile on my face when checking the mailbox in back-to-back-to-back days. 

I hope everyone's 2021 is off to good start. Thanks for stopping by!

Catching Up

 I've been struck with some motivation the last couple of weeks to get things done in my cardroom. The last package from a seller just arrived in my Sportlots box yesterday and I'm excited to get my hands on those cards so I can ship them out to some of my fellow bloggers. The USPS has been struggling lately, but I'm hopeful the cards make it to me by next weekend. We'll see!

I've also been sorting through my Dad's collection, which is mostly from 1989-1994. Throughout the process I've been adding cards to his large stack of boxes in an effort to downsize my collection. I'm thinking about selling these on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist. There's some unopened wax, many sets, and plenty of singles... probably 20,000+ cards in all?  Anyone have experience doing this?

I've got a pair of packages to share today. The first one comes from Jeremy, the author of Topps Cards That Never Were. Jeremy took the time to create a couple of cards of two of my favorite professional baseballers. 

Vogelbach was drafted in 2011, so he never would have been given a 2011 Topps card, but I love it. The 2011 set is my favorite Topps flagship design since I returned to the hobby in 2009. The Roberto Batista cards will find their way to work with me and I'll pass them on to Roberto. He's such a great person and he'll be touched someone thought enough to make him some customs. Thanks, Jeremy!

Jeff, my "local" White Sox guy, sent me some cards a month or so ago. His blog, 2 by 3 Heroes, and mine used to play a larger role in the cardboard blogging community, but both of our lights have dimmed recently. I still have dreams of meeting up with him, Dimebox Nick and Tony Burbs at a post Covid card show in the Chicago suburbs.

Jeff and I used to swap packages on a semi-regular basis back in the 2010's. .

I'd sent a padded mailer up I-55 full of Sox and he'd retaliate with some boys in blue. 

It had been since the spring 2018 since I last sent him a package and then out of the blue there was a mailer waiting for me one day after work. 

I honestly don't know where we stand now? Are we even? Maybe. Maybe not. Perhaps I should gather some cards together to sent back up north? Truly, first world baseball card blogging problems. LOL 

I actually needed the Fire Voeglbach for my collection! Thanks for the cards, Jeff!