Rich Niessen trade: the larger box

Here are some highlights from the thousands of cards in the larger box sent to be my Rich Niessen.

Lots of 2009 UD Final Edition.

 I just saw this 1/1 over on Bob Walk the Plank. How can that be? These were error cards, mass-produced and weren't supposed to say 1/1.

 Lots of Sports Illustrated cards.

 Lots of the great 1999 Fleer Tradition set. Great photos like this one.

 Here is a beautiful painted checklist card from the Ted Williams set.

 Great photo from a Stadium Club Mickey Mantle set. I love how clearly you can see the fans in the stands, which you don't often see in 1960s photos. Interesting that a lot of them are clearly not cheering for Mantle, a reminder that for many fans, especially older ones, he never was able to adequately replace DiMaggio.

 Great photo from Minnie Minoso's 1980 stint with the White Sox at the age of 57.

 Great shiny Topps insert.

 Lots of A&G minis. A few of them from 2010 and 2011 I had already so if someone is collecting them, let me know.

 I love the UD Holographics set.

 Here's a Woolworth card . . .

 . . . and here's another. Remember the Schmidt I posted yesterday? Almost the same photo. While there were few duplicates in Rich's box there were seven copies of this card, so six are up for trade.

 Here's an oddball - a fan drawing produced for the UD MVP set.

 There were probably 100 cards from the 1992 Fleer Update set. When I got a complete set last year at a garage sale I found out that these are actually pretty rare, particularly for the era. All of these are up for trade.

 Speaking of 1992 Fleer, here's a great oddball from 7-11 and Citgo.

 A beautiful Leaf insert.

 I love these quirky Ultra Pro oddballs.

 My first 1993 Stadium Club Members Only card. What a great way to showcase the unique photography of Stadium Club.

 There was most of the Baseball Wit set. These have some fantastic old photos and I will do a separate post just on these.

 With that I will segue to my favorite cards in the box, 1980s oddballs! I'd never had a Squirt card before.

 The backs are like the 1982 Topps set, but yellow. Love it!

 Topps scratch-offs!

 Rub-Downs!

 Don't know how they work? Fortunately, there's an instructions card.

 Topps stickers! I would love to trade for old Topps and Panini stickerbooks that are empty or only partially-completed.

 Fleer Star Stickers! I'm always psyched to get early-80s Fleer products.

 Like these awesome Fleer Stamps!

 I had seen Fleer World Series stickerbacks before, but never ones for All Star Games.

 More Fleer Stickers!

 A great Mattingly oddball - this is a box bottom card.

 There were several Front Row sets of Negro League stars.

 Finally, this great card - I love seeing a Sportflics design I'd never known about before.

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.

Trade with Dalton

Dalton doesn't have a blog, but he does have a website with an extensive wantlist and tradelist. He is a Yankee fan so he had some really great stuff to trade me. He sent me about 300 cards from my wantlists, and even better, another 300 cards in the form of Yankee team sets from about 70 sets, mostly oddballs from the '80s and '90s. Here are some of my favorites:

Turned out I already have the entire Yankee team from 1976 Topps Traded, so this classic is up for trade.

 I have a card that looks just like this except it says "Ralston Purina", not "Cereal Series".

 This card came out shortly after Desert Storm.

 I had just seen some cards from this set from Street Vendor Al. Buying from him, or from local collections, often means getting everyone but the Yankees (or Mets), one reason I was so glad for this trade.

 Here is an oddball with a parallel - 1994 Church's, regular and gold foil editions.

 I'd never seen a '93 Kraft Singles Superstars before.

 Scoremasters was a beautiful Score subset.

 I love this design with the skyline and street sign.

 Finally, another traded set, this time '74 with the first Yankee card of Sweet Lou Piniella.

Jim Neidlinger on baseball cards

Jim Neidlinger pitched professionally for eleven seasons, mostly in the Pirates and Dodgers organizations, winning 89 minor league games. He was excellent in his only major league season, going 5-3 with a 3.28 ERA in twelve starts. Now the owner of the Bases Loaded Baseball & Softball Academy in Williston, VT, he kindly answered my questions about baseball cards.

"Probably my debut card is my favorite. No, I don't collect cards -- I had to buy one of my own from one of my first years playing so I could have one from every year I played!!"

Thanks!

Trade with MiJohn

MiJohn doesn't have a blog but he has a Zistle. We've had a few trades before and I was happy to trade with him again. He sent me a few hundred great cards. Mostly 2015-2017 Bowmans but quite a few others as well.


Hopefully this becomes a very valuable card someday. Not because I'm in it for the money, but because it would mean Torres recovers from his injury and lives up to the hype.

 Here is Denny McLain in a very awkward pose. Those baggy pants are not doing him any favors.

 For some reason the Allen & Ginter artist drew dots all over Samardzija's face.

 Nothing funny to say about this card. Just a nice photo of a great Yankee.

The parking lot card! The parking lot card!

Al the street vendor had a rare Mets request - some Mookie Wilsons.

I started going through his box to pull out some cards in return, starting with a couple of decent Chrome selections.

 Then I saw a card that has probably been on every blog at one time or another. Even though I don't technically collect early-70s cards I knew I had to have it. Even Al knew it - "Everyone loves that parking lot card. The parking lot card! The parking lot card! Hey, take the Ellis too." Another awesome photo from that set, probably one of the first argue-with-the-ump cards.

Trade with Infield Fly Rule

Got some great cards in a trade with Infield Fly Rule. He's a Rockies fan so he had lots of Rockies doubles. I collect all cards so I was happy to get these - getting a team collectors dupes is a nice way to build my collection. Here are some highlights:

Nice bat barrel card.

 Here's a card of a back room at Coors Field.

 What's growing out of Ubaldo's back?

 Not every card was a Rockies card. What an unflattering drawing. I can see why Triple Play did not last.