Ten years: The aftermath

Recently Nick of Dime Boxes celebrated the tenth anniversary of his blog with one of the biggest giveaways the blogosphere has seen. Dime Boxes is one of my favorite blogs - his collecting interests are very similar to mine - vintage, fun photos, oddballs. I am constantly seeing cards on his blog that I've never seen before and I put on my wantlist for fun or unusual photos. For the same reason, I couldn't help but pick out several cards per round - 52 total over ten rounds. I had to restrain myself from picking a lot more! I do have a thank you package en route to him, I imagine many others of you do as well.

The cards I picked fell under a few broad categories.

Vintage Topps. Mostly oddball sets but a new '59 was nice to get. A rookie card of Al Downing was fun to get. Nick described the Thurman Munson card as "well loved" - it continues to be! I've wanted that card for a long time.

Vintage oddballs! As great as the McCovey is, my favorite is Tony Lazzeri sitting backwards on a wooden chair. When Night Owl sent me that '76 Kellogg's Pete Rose this week, I'd forgotten I'd claimed one way back in the first round of this giveaway. (So in the spirit of the giveaway, I'll send this Rose out to the first person who wants it, US only.)

Speaking of Rose, I couldn't resist some modern cards of him too. I started following baseball right after he broke the all-time hit record, so he's always had a special fascination to me as an elite player, his personal issues aside.

Lots of Yankees from past and present! This may be the only way I get a Jasson Dominguez card. Hopefully he lives up to the hype. The DJ LeMahieu is a Stadium Club refractor; I did not realize that when I claimed it, I didn't know there was such a thing as a Stadium Club refractor.

Oddballs! I love the two "privilege sign" Coke cards even if they're Red Sox. I'd seen those Bohemian Hearth cards on blogs for years but never owned one. And is Tom Prince the most obscure player to get a Broder card? Probably not, though it might be a fun experiment to try to figure out who is.

Some fantastic photography of vintage players on modern cards. I'm fascinated by the Frank Robinson card, looks like the ballpark is in front of a high school.

I couldn't resist these minor league cards, like one with "Robbie Dibble" or that Gators jersey.

These would fall under "miscellaneous", I guess. There's a story for each of them for me, like the '88 Fleer Star Stickers, which is one of the few sets left that I bought a few packs of as a kid but still haven't completed.

There are all fantastic cards. This one just might be the best. I've wanted this card with Jose Lima playing bat guitar for a long time.

To my surprise, the back photo was just as unique! I haven't seen a card of a player kissing his hat before.

This giveaway was extraordinarily generous, but Nick outdid that by adding ten bonus cards! Seven were modern cards, mostly Yankees.

Three were vintage. Post cards are always a fun treat.

This was my favorite, though. As I said earlier, Pete Rose and his cards held a special fascination for me, and so by proxy did the '63 Rookie Parade cards, of which his is the most famous. I'd never owned one - until now! Jack Cullen had the best career of the four by WAR, mostly on the strength of his solid 1965 season in the Yankees' starting rotation. However, this is best known as Dave DeBusschere's rookie card, as he became an NBA Hall of Famer after his unsuccessful baseball career.