Putting French-Italian feuds aside

The Italian Completist reached out to me, saying he had some cards from my want list that he wanted to send out to me, and that hey, we're European brothers, we should be tight anyway.

And yeah, of course this makes sense ! 

It took me awhile to understand what Riccardo collects (basically : everything), but I was still able to send out some cards to him in a nice, fraternal matter. As European collectors, we should always look out for each other. When all was said and done, close to 100 cards were in my mailbox, and here are some of the highlights :

Base needs from various years and brands (aaaah, Pinnacle Inside....)

Great oddballs (where can you get those oddballs in Italy ?)

Vernon !

Plenty of different brands represented, and always great to add new Delgados. I should really try to track down every single Frank Thomas card in a Blue Jay uniform.

 Two future Hall of famers...ok, scratch that.

 My quest for parallels continues !

And finally, I really love that card. Technically, it's a Pirate card, but sorry Matt, this one stays here !

Thanks a lot Riccardo, I really enjoyed that trade ! I hope I'll be able to help you collect...hmmm...Well, everything ! And that's a lot of cards.

French flag

I've received so many great trade packages those last few days, I don't even know where to begin...The Italian completist sent me some great cards a couple of weeks ago, and Richard (Collecting Blue Jays) sent me a 550 count box filled with Blue Jays oddballs and regional sets that I still need to sort (they will be a blast to show off, considering how God ugly they are). But right now, I'll focus on a few ebay purchases and yet another awesome batch of cards sent by Brian.

First : EBAY !

I got this card at first for Julie. But it seems that she really, REALLY hates him now, so I'd rather not aggravate her. I'll keep the card in my collection !

 PCP (Personal Collection Players)

Nobody collects Rays players. But it's Archer. And it was $1. So hey.

I showed off the autographed Baerga the other day, and those are the base cards. They still look nice, and it's not everyday I say this of Bowman chrome.

Speaking of which, I really thought that those inserts would look better in-person. They just did too much with the concept, it doesn't really work well.

Ok, let's see what amazing cards Brian sent this time (in case you haven't noticed, he's one of the best traders out there, and not just because he thinks I'm pretty cool (though that helps))

Swatches ! Brian sent a note saying that the Delgado looks like the French flag. And it definitely does ! I feel so patriotic right now. Very low numbered Burnett !

Dickie Joe Thon. Such a wonderful name. Dickie Joe itself sounds very, very cool (in a rednecky kind of way), but when you add Thon, you have a definite winner. Mainly because in French, thon means tuna. And nothing beats Tuna.
Dickie Joe Tuna.

one of the thousands of Lind autos available.

Shiny ! I wouldn't think of getting those USA cards myself, so it's great that some people think of them for me.

No, Brian didn't send me two copies of the Woody Williams auto. But I already had it. Except that as you can see from the copy on the right, it definitely needed an upgrade (I've had it for 18 years, and it was up on my wall at some point)

Griffeys I needed !

That one too, I needed, and the more I look at it, the cooler it gets

And finally, a very, very sweet 1963 Topps sticker.

thanks a lot Brian, it's always a lot of fun discovering what you've put together for me !

Collecting goal : being lazy

I am a very lazy man.
Really.
Oh, of course, I accomplish great things (after all, I am French), but all in all, I'm pretty lazy.

And despite this, I've decided to set a goal. A collecting goal. Yeah, one more. We've all been there.

I've said it many times (matter of fact, it was the object of my very first post), but my favorite set (and my first pack of cards) is 93 Upper Deck. I bought a box of series one a few weeks ago (series 2 can't be had for cheap because of the Jeter rookie...) and because of very poor collation, I know it's no use accumulating said boxes. So I might as well try and trade for the cards that I'm missing.

To tell the truth, I thought they'd have every possible card from the 800-something set on justcommons, but it turns out that not at all. Maybe a ton of people simply have the same lazy dreams and set-goals I do, who knows.

I'm also not very patient, so I picked up a bunch of the inserts on Comc. Because yes, I'm not just planning on trying to complete the base set (it's 75% complete so far), I'm going for the whole master set (minus gold holograms, because who cares about those ?). That's something like 180 more cards. Yay.

And I'm absolutely, irrationally in love with those inserts :

They sure love doing anniversary insert sets, at Upper Deck HQ. If I remember correctly, they'd even do pre-anniversary preview sets...crazy kids.

Flawless designs, full bleed photography, great themes...nothing overly impressive or over the top like we'd later see during the crazy 90s. Just simplicity itself, with the right odds to make them desirable enough. And I'm not even showing the best inserts of all : Then & Now, as I've already completed it.

I'm still missing about half of the inserts, but I'm much, much closer to completing the set now after my Comc splurge !

I put my complete want list on the top of the page, so if you have several shoe boxes filled with 93 Ud...

Look at me look at me look at me

I don't know if you can tell, but I've changed the design of the blog. In a big way. It's more childish that way (I guess), but it makes me laugh, which is about the only thing that matters to me. Plus, that way, you know where Papoy comes from, just in case.

In honor of this new layout ad to celebrate the end of my contest, I'll just be showing off a few cards I got today. Just like that. To show that the more things change, the more things stay the same.

I like those. I was looking for the Olerud from that set, and found the Baerga instead. I already have an in-person auto of his, so this seems a little silly but hey, it's my collection, my choices. Plus, it's about time we realized what a great player he was.

This one I got because it's a batting glove relic. I was really curious as to how it'd feel. It simply cannot be described. I just might sleep with it (in a cuddly way, I mean (well, cuddly, but not THAT cuddly)).

And those are simply two very good looking cards that carried a good looking price-tag.

So there, this was my first post under my new colors. Just to see how that Gary Carter orange would do against my very pretty purple.
And I like it just fine.

Griffeys from the Griffey-man (oh, and a contest result)

First of all, thanks to all of those who took the time to (try and win free cards) participate and to those who pimped the contest. As expected (and hoped, of course), I got 3 times more readers than usual and 4 all new followers. I'm probably the most popular French baseball cards collector in the world. That's something. It's also from lack of competition, but STILL.

I'll give the results right away so that those who aren't really interested in the rest can go smell daffodils or chase butterflies instead of just scrolling to the bottom of the page. The correct answer to the number of Griffeys that The Junior Junkie sent me was....94 !

Two contestants were very close to the correct number : John Miller (101) and Jupiterhill (88). So congrats to Jupiterhill, you win a free entry to Matt's and my trans-Atlantic mutual box breaks ! Simply send me an email with your address and the team of your choice and I'll hook you up. Fyi, the bottom card was Bowman.

Of course, this contest wouldn't have been possible without the participation of one of my favorite bloggers out there : TJ. I'm always overwhelmed by his generosity, as he once again delivered and handpicked most of the cards I was missing for my Griffey base card collection, even though he collects as many Griffeys as is humanly possible to accumulate. And naturally, he didn't stop there.

Those are cards from his Randomactofcardness project. An awesome idea (he leaves random cards in public places, with the # on the cards, all numbered to...Well, to infinity. And that's a lot. People will then tweet using the given # and start collecting junk wax era cards just like that. Not sure how well I'll do in France, considering how Twitter isn't a huge thing here but hey, I got hooked thanks to a card I found on the ground, so why not !)

Those are some bad ass New Orleans beads. I could claim back the throne of France with those, but I like my head just where it is.

A Bautista variation SP I claimed a few weeks ago (yeah, I'm very greedy) with a custom top loader. Awww.

Anyway, back to the bulk of the package : Griffeys !!

A&G !

I'm not a big Bowman fan, but those 94 & 95s look really nice.

Let the boredom begin. They really all look the same to me, even though 12 years separate the first from the last.

I absolutely love that 1990 Leaf.

Great job on the 2014 SC.

That leaping one is really cool, I just might try to grab more from that set (and stay away from that grey bordered one).

Maybe they thought the 2009 would be his sunset card ?

And finally, my favorites : UD !

There were also 20-something other non-base cards that I needed for my collection. As it turns out, TJ has sent me about 140 Griffeys in just two packages. And I've accumulated 220 in a year. So that show how important he is to my own Griffey collection. I am now only missing 23 different Griffey base cards (from main brands, of course, I'm not counting the 36 000 different sets from the 2000s). I'll probably just pick some up from time to time on Comc or justcommons.

Thanks a million times, TJ. Let me know what you'd like me to send you in return !