France and Italy friends again !

Things have been complicated between France and Italy because of sports...soccer, to be precise. We beat them in the World Cup in 98, then in the European Cup finals in 2 000, they beat us in the World Cup Finals in 2006...lots of bad blood ! (aaaah, the joys of sports having an impact on people in the real world. You're supposed to root for a team, not hate the people who root for the others)

Riccardo, from Italian Completist, reached out because we hadn't traded in a while, and because fellow Europeans should stick together when it comes to card collecting ! His approach to collecting is very similar to mine : we just like accumulating cards, maybe because they're so difficult to get here at a decent price, which makes even the slightest 88 Donruss pack enjoyable to rip.

He already sent me a bunch of cards I needed for my collection, but he decided to take it one step further by sending a huge 550 count box my way with a little bit of everything. And I absolutely love a little bit of everything. I told him the sets and years I was looking for, and he complied.

Needless to say, it's always a treat for me to be able to sort that kind of thoughtful box. It cost him $15 to send it accross the border. It would've been 4 times that for an American. That of course is part of the problem for us, but I've been rambling long enough about that for the past 5 years.

The photos don't really do this lot justice, but I simply couldn't scan everything ! Plenty of PC here, with a healthy stack of Blue Jays. That SI Griffey is one of my favorite base cards of his.

My collection really revolves around Upper Deck. Those are the base sets I've been pursuing the most. So it's nice to add some other brands from my beloved 90s . Most early Bowman and Topps Heritage for example are completely absent from my collection, except for some Blue Jays cards. SO it's always nice to see some new ones. 2007 A&G for example was pretty cool. Riccardo must've scored a lot of Ultra Gold medaillions, as he sent me a nice stack of doubles.

More Ultra, some Flair, some Leaf (I've always had a soft spot for Leaf) and even a dozen awesome oddballs !

Thanks a lot Riccardo, it's a great idea you had getting that European connexion going full swing. It helps remind us that even though it's not that simple (well it is, but you just need to overpay) to collect from overseas, the blogging community knows no boundaries and there's generosity everywhere.

Another card in the wall

For those who have sporadically followed me the past five years (I'm pretty sure my 5 year anniversary is coming up this summer, I'll have to check), you know I have my obsessions : Blue jays of course, 90s cards and inserts (93-97 especially), random vintage, Griffey, Gold glovers and Knicks cards. I've been watching hockey again and enjoying it, so I'm wondering if I won't start looking at vintage hockey !

Anyway, my latest COMC haul reflects some of that

I wanted a 49 Bowman so I got the cheapest one there was. It's horrifically beat up (and completely ripped on half of the back), but it was $1, and I figured if I'd found it at a card show, I'd probably have rescued it at that price. The seller is certainly still celebrating that sale to this day. And there's also my very first 53 Bowman Color ! Hopefully it won't be my last, but I need to get my hands on a starter's lot.

It took me a while to pull the trigger on that Bo Football Rookie because of the price tag. I like my cards to cost .10 cts. This one is around $8 (yeah I know, not exactly a steep price tag, but I prefer to keep that kind of cash for beat up vintage). But it's iconic and I needed it.

I got the Tim Salmon because I was curious to see that insert in person, as I'm a huge fan of Leaf's Slideshow series. And it didn't disappoint ! It's all acetate and transparent and screams IM FROM THE 90s PLEASE LOVE ME. I also love those Mozaics inserts and the Finest is a refractor. I wonder if there are cheap 93 refractors out there (just went to check, and nothing under $15 on Comc)

Andruw ! And of course all those crazy 90s cards with parallels and die cut and whatnot. I was happy to see he had a second Diamond Kings card available in that Rookie set. Yay.

93 and 94 were great years to collect (then World Champions) Blue jays cards. Olerud, Carter, Alomar, Molitor, Delgado...all were amazing players and regularly present in insert sets. And quite cheap despite HOF status for some of them. I've always loved Fleer inserts from that period, for some reason. Weird that I was missing those, actually.

The Rookie Surge is something...and Team Pinnacle (on the back there's Javy Lopez) is always elegant.

And then there were the weird years...logo changes and the arrival of Jose Cruz Jr. He hit home runs (at first) so he was a huge sensation. Before he wasn't anymore...But that means he was in every conceivable insert set in 98, and I'm not sure my mind has quite understood to this day what happened in card collecting that year...I just know that 20 years ago, when I got the internet, the first thing I did was to trade for cards on AOL and that I'd get Cruz cards aplenty, whom I hadn't heard of because I was still stuck in 94.

 94 Leaf Gold stars is one of my favorite sets of all time. I didn't scan that Get a grip right, but I'm too lazy to start over. There's Bagwell on the front.

 I don't like Clemens. Not just because of...Well, you know...(and I think he should be in the HOF)...but just because he's a jerk. So sometimes I add some of his cards. A little reluctantly, especially considering they're never cheap.

Him I've always loved. A true fan favorite. I actually just printed out a Carter only checklist to focus my Blue Jays collection on him and see what I'm missing.

That's it for now, thanks for reading, I now have the French Open final to tend to !