Rich Niessen trade: the smaller box

One of the non-bloggers who I traded with in the trade-a-thon was Rich Niessen. You can find his wantlists here, hosted on oldbaseball.com. Most of the traders on that site focus on vintage cards, but Rich has an extensive modern collection as well. Because he mostly trades with other vintage traders, he has a huge backlog of modern cards he doesn't need. I sent him a medium flat-rate box of his needs; he sent back two medium flat-rates full of cards from the 1980s to today - the theme was anything but base cards, so there were things as common as Topps Update, to some real oddballs. Here are some highlights from the lighter of the two boxes - still probably a thousand cards or so.

Lots of '94 Pacific. Here on the Atlantic they are always a somewhat rare commodity.

 Plenty of shiny cards like Donruss Elite!

 No need for '93 Select (except the Jeter rookie). But lots of need for the fancier traded set!

 There were near complete sets for the Topps mini-league-leader cards from the mid-1980s. I already had most of these so most are up for trade. Pay attention to this photo because you will set it again when we get to the larger box.

 Reggie! This was an unlicensed card produced by baseball card legend Renata Galasso.

 Another card set you rarely see here in the east is Mothers Cookies. There were several cards from the 1983 Giants set - a marvelous oddball.

 There were a few from later years as well, like this pitcher-with-a-bat.

 '79 O-Pee-Chee! Don't come across these very often.

 An autographed card of Rich Thompson, who pitched five seasons in the major leagues.

 Finally, these incredible vintage oddballs - 1964 Topps oversized cards of Ron Santo, Juan Pizarro, Harmon Killebrew and Joe Torre. I believe the Torre is my first card of a Milwaukee Brave. These cards are beautifully-photographed and look great in person.