Fantastic package from Dime Boxes

Had a great trade with Nick from Dime Boxes. Hundreds of cards went both ways. He was just going to pull stuff from my want lists, but I like random stuff better and nobody puts together a random trade package like him. In fact I even showed him to a link from another blog from one of his trades and asked to get a package like that, and he went above and beyond. Everything from minor league oddballs to a card from 1959, mixed up in no particular order like these highlights:


I love unlicensed cards. Never seen this design before.

 My first ever card from the 1990 Donruss Learning set.

 There were lots of TCMA/SSPC etc cards of players from the past. This was the oldest, a Dee Miles card from 1975. Miles played for the Washington Senators and Philadelphia A's in the 1930s and 1940s.

 This is an amazing card. Pete Rose checking out the sports section - probably the racing form - in 1969 in a suit sitting on a slide in a playground. Check out the Western Airlines ad on the back of the newspaper.

 Here is an early example of bad airbrushing (or hand-coloring?). Wagner looks like a corpse that has been made up for viewing.

 Great card of Yankees legend Frankie Crosetti in his one year with the Pilots as a coach.

 SPARKLY!

 I don't know if Nick put this card in before or after Halladay's death. The back of the card talks about how influential Halladay's father was for him. Halladay's two small children will grow up without their father because he had to be an idiot and do dangerous stunts with his plane.

 Nice autograph card. Brant Ust was born in Belgium and played nine seasons of pro ball in the US.

 Very fancy graphics for a local minor league card.

 Here's another autograph card. What's funny is that I have this card already, except the one I had already is numbered to 45,000, not 7,750. You can see that card in this 2009 blog post - it had come to me from Great Sports Name Hall of Fame who had gotten it from Padrographs. Looking it up online, it appears that the 45,000 card is not normally autographed - must have been an in-person or TTM signing, as opposed to the 7,750 which were autographed for the set. I'll consider them different cards and keep them both as opposed to putting one up for trade.

 Two 1975 SSPC cards featuring Oakland at the Yankees in Shea Stadium with the big Shea scoreboard in the background.

 Speaking of vintage Nick included some really great stuff. This 1973 Bill Parsons has a great photo, better than most modern cards. Tug McGraw's glove appears to say "HAMMER" on it - anyone know why?

 Two Milwaukee Braves from the early 1960s! I don't care if it's the little brother, any vintage Aaron card is awesome.

 Finally, the oldest card in the set, a 1959 Paul Giel. Giel looks a lot older than his 25 years at the time. He had recently come back from a year in the military. Very different being a 25-year-old professional athlete back then. A college baseball and football star, Giel turned down a contract from the CFL, pitched 102 games in the major leagues, and was a broadcaster for the Minnesota Vikings for several years.