This Post Has Been On Hiatus...

If I thought I was behind on my last trade post... well, this one takes the cake.  I reached out to Tony of Off Hiatus Baseball Cards in September (or so my Gmail account tells me) to send him some cards.  Those cards got to him sometime in mid-October because he has a post on his blog that says so.  I have no such post.

I also happened to recently win one of Tony's contests regarding card shows.  Since I'm apparently the only collector in the universe that has never been to a card show, I won by default.  I guess I should attempt to get to one of those...

In any case, all the cards you see below are from Tony.  I know this only because up until I scanned them yesterday evening, they have been sitting in a stack on my desk with a sticky note on top of them; "TONY".  Therefore, I have no clue how many packages these came in, or if Tony did anything creative with the packaging and/or card ordering.  Regardless, there are quite a few awesome cards in this post, so I think many will speak for themselves.

First things first.  The tried and true.  If you've ever traded with me (or even read much of this blog), then you'll know that my heart is instantly won over if a package contains any sort of Allen & Ginter items that I need.  These three minis from 2008 were certainly needed.  

The Thurgood Cartwright IV is actually part of a subset called Team Orange which is a set that I don't have much of.  This particular card is quite entertaining, as apparently, the fictional Cartwright family earned a fortune via kumquat farming.

More Ginter that I didn't have.  This time in the form of animals.  Yes, I consider JMW Turner an animal... most crazy artists are.

I thought these were pretty neat.  Tony sent me the Braves versions of Gary Matthews across multiple years of Topps.  I scanned them in the wrong order of course... we've got 1979, 1977, and 1980.  Matthews played for the Braves from 1977-1980 and had his only career all-star year with them in '79.  I'm not exactly sure how Matthews ended up with a Braves card in '77 as opposed to a Giants card, especially because I don't even think the picture is edited, but I'm not complaining.

(yeah, these... not mine yet.)

Now I'm only missing the above two cards to complete the Topps Braves Matthews collection...

...because I have this one already!

Next up, Tony sent me Braves team cards from '78 and '80.  I don't really know how you're expected to make out someone's face from these photos, but I like them for what they represent.

One of the coolest parts of this package was simply the vast assortment of cards I got across sets that I had seen before, but never actually owned.  I don't think I would ever go out and buy these for myself simply because I didn't grow up with these players.  I absolutely love receiving these kinds of things in trade packages, simply because it reflects a different era of baseball.  Sure, I recognize some of these players' names... I'll even go back and look at their stats, but I'll never have the connection to them that I do the Braves (or any player for that matter) of the 90's... the ones I grew up impersonating in my back yard.

This was a bit of an oddball that Tony threw in.  A Fleer sticker card from 1987 featuring the old Braves logo.  I'm not a huge fan of strange/oddball type cards but this one intrigued me, mostly because when you flip the sticker to its backside... you see a Royals logo.  I don't get it.  How are these two things related?  I suppose they're both baseball teams... Anyone have any insight here or is Fleer just being stupid?

By far, the highlight of the package were these two beauties.  This is actually a set that I have never even seen before (other than through some online pictures).  Owning not just one, but two of these beautiful picture cards makes me excited.  

Night Owl Cards recently finished his Topps set countdown or whatever he called it... I don't remember.  I read through it, but I can't say I was overly interested.  I don't own many old cards, and I don't feel justified creating opinions about card sets via pictures and scans of cards.  Throughout the whole thing I felt vastly underwhelmed by much of what Topps has produced over the years.  Perhaps much of that had to do with the fact that the countdown displayed all of the "bad sets" first.  In any case, throughout his entire countdown, this was the only set that enthralled me and made me pause and investigate.

The more I read about 1953 Topps, the more I love it.  I love that all the cards are hand-painted images, I love the sometimes random backgrounds, and I love the close-up, portrait style card (at least in this case).  If I ever decided to complete a vintage set, I would have to go all-out because that's my personality.  I would have to complete this one.

Thanks so much Tony for the glorious package (or packages... I don't remember) that you sent me.  You hit the nail square on the head with this one.  I don't think I could have asked for anything more/better.