It's No Secret, Billy Is A Killer!

When Billy Kingsley of Cardboard History showed his Secret Santa package on the way out, it looked familiar to me because I had just taken a photo of it myself after pulling it out of my mailbox!

Now you get to see what was inside!

Two nicely wrapped stacks, complete with the proper tape job.  Note says "I am your Secret Santa this year.  Sorry it took so long to arrive. I had to wait for COMC!  Hope you enjoy!"

"Took so long"?  Dude, don't be sorry, it arrived before the 20th!  It's all good!  :)

So let's unwrap 'em and see what "Santa" brought...

The Strasburg that you can see in the package photo.  Cool card of the WS MVP for sure.

Some more recent World Champions from Washington!  Spanning the ages from the current guys (and some recently departed), back to the old school guys from the early 90's.

First set killer!  The final Topps AAF card for the base set and one of my top wants.  Not sure why this dude was so elusive, but so glad to have it.  AAF cards have been surprisingly scarce at shows.  Now just have to find the inserts!

Bam! Bam!  Two more shots to the top wants list!  A couple New York fellows from 1998 Donruss (actually a base card), and the blue version of Mr. All Rise.  Both also set killers.  Sweet!  I've got a whole mess of Jeter singles on my lists, but they're so hard to find, even in a batch of nothing but Jeters.

And rounding out the most wanteds, the last box topper from 2016 A&G, Big Papi.  Wonder if he found another job yet?

And finally, probably the coolest cards in the package, but not unexpected considering the source.  These World Of Wheels are really fascinating.  I especially like the '53 Chrysler.  That era is my favorite right now.  I look at listings for early '50s Pontiacs, DeSotos, and Cadillacs all the time.  Might have to peruse the listings on this set to see if I should go after a bunch (or the whole set?).

Thanks a lot, Billy!  Couldn't have asked for better selections, and the cars were a nice signature touch!

Wait For The Reindeer

Happens every year.  I get to Thanksgiving and Black Friday and think "I should get a jump on Christmas shopping before November ends."  And every year it ends up being December 12th when I'm still saying that to myself.

Worst part is, I only shop for a handful of people.  Finally started last week and I'm still not close to done.  Though I did ship out my Secret Santa a while ago and wrapped a couple more stacks for another couple guys I'm trying to recruit into the hobby.  The card stuff is easy, but the rest of this Christmas thing is hard.  And I don't even decorate the house either.

And between Christmas prep, Fantasy Football playoffs (which I messed up), and some side work that happened, blogging has come to a screeching halt. 

I've got my Secret Santa loot and the second SportLots purchase to post about, and still haven't started my series on trade batches.  I just can't seem to keep it all in my mind long enough to sit down and hammer it out.  But it will come eventually.  Probably the last couple days before the 25th.  So as I always say, Stay Tuned!

Blame It On The Tryptophan

Went away for the Thanksgiving holiday until last Saturday, and then have just been bogged down in the everyday stuff since.  The blog has gone dark for over a week, which wasn't intentional, but is typical this time of year. 

There is still progress being made, though.  I've been pulling trade fodder for a blogger or two, and have cleared out some of my incoming stacks into their proper places.

Look!  Desk space!

Of course, I just put in a SportLots order for about 125 cards to fill it back up.  Stay tuned for that....

Have also pulled the majority of my Secret Santa stack that I'll ship out in the next week or so. 

Don't want to give too much away, but fortunately for us both, I didn't have to go shopping for the stuff I'm sending.  It all came from extra stock I had on hand.  Makes it easy when their want lists are very detailed and wide-ranging, especially team collectors.

I'm hoping to get the blog motor running back on normal RPMs by the weekend.  Then of course, there's Christmas (or insert your seasonal holiday celebration here), so consistency is going to be a problem.

Santa's Elves Working Overtime

Got my blogger Secret Santa package late last week.

An expertly wrapped foil packet came with the return address of Secret Santa in Sutton, MA.

Inside was an envelope with a note and the gift wrapped package.

The note says the gift is brought to (me) by Jon at Penny Sleeve, and is signed by Shane from Off The Wall.  I'm not sure who contributed what, so there's still some secret to it.

Then I tore into the package.

A second bubble mailer layer!

Inside that...

Three subcontainers including a Topps Now! packet and two team bagged bundles.

Inside those?  The Now! packet had my last card for 2000 Traded - the big gun - Miguel Cabrera.

The rest of the package was a ton of knockoffs to my Heritage wants.  The 2007 ('58) were mostly the yellow name or team variations, and most of the others were rife with short prints!

Awesome selection of singles guys!  I was even able to put names on the remaining short lists of some of these sets.

Merry Christmas to Shane, Jon, and all the other collectors and bloggers out there!