Mailday 04/08

Once again I had a number of packages waiting for me when I got home yesterday.

The first one is from a trade I did on the forums.  I received nine new cards from this trade.  The Jon Lester, Justin Masterson, and Jason Varitek cards are all the perforated parallel to 2009 Ticket to Stardom.  I had most, if not all, of the base cards, but until recently had no idea there was a parallel.  The Mike Lowell is the red parallel from 2009 Topps Unique, a brand that completely passed me by at the time.  The Carl Crawford is the last SP I needed for 2012 Allen & Ginter.  I still need the Andrew Bailey to complete the base team set.  Craig Breslow and Kelly Shoppach are both parallels and are players that had their second stints with the Red Sox in 2012.  The Dustin Pedroia and Adrian Gonzalez cards are each neat inserts.  I am picking up a bunch of cards of Gonzalez and Crawford lately despite the fact that neither are still with the team.

Up next is another trade I did on the forums.  I have no idea how I missed this Rickey Henderson before.  I picked up a ton of Henderson stuff when he played for the Red Sox.  Yet another retail parallel of Breslow is next.  Then another Gonzalez insert.  Finally, we have another Hall of Fame sighting, the immortal Cy Young. 

Yet another trade from the forums yielded this great blue sparkle parallel of rising star Will Middlebrooks from 2013 Opening Day.  I can not decide if I like these or the Emeralds better. 

The last forum trade of the day was a pretty big one.   I got a blue parallel of prospect Keith Couch.  There is not much to say about him.  He is not really a highly ranked prospect.  I got the Retired Numbers patch card of Carlton Fisk, for which I had to give up my last manufactured patch card of a non-Red Sox, not that I am complaining in the least.  The J.D. Drew cards are the base chrome and chrome refractor from 2006 Turkey Red.  I was unaware they did that.  The Daniel Nava is a Wal Mart parallel before they were blue.  The Otis Nixon is one of my favorite cards of the day because it was ranked #6 on my Ten Most Wanted cards list.  That is two from that list that I have gotten now.  Then I got the bottom three gold parallels on this scan.  The next scan shows a Kolbrin Vitek first year card and a Dustin Pedroia chrome parallel.  Vitek is likely going to be a bust.

Finally, I placed a small order on Beckett's Marketplace.  The major reason is that last Hideo Nomo insert.  Yesterday I showed off two Trade redemption cards from 1995 Collector's Choice.  This Nomo was originally sent to me by mistake when those two cards were sent to someone else.  I did not have the Nomo card previously so when I sent it along to its rightful owner, I decided to pick one up for myself.  The rest I added in because I could.  Someday I might compile that 1976 SSPC Red Sox team set.  I added Rick Burleson and Bill Lee yesterday.  The John McNamara is a pop-up card from Donruss All Stars.  Finally, the other Nomo was a short print from 2002 Leaf Rookie & Stars.  I only had one prior SP from that set and it was the Ellis Burks.  There are a few more out there.  Nomo is one of my favorite One Year Wonders for the Red Sox along with Rickey Henderson mentioned above.  So any time I can add some Red Sox cards of Nomo, I am pretty happy.