Keeping the Mailman Busy

The other day I happened to be out on my front lawn with my dog when the mailman stopped by on his run.  He had a package for me that required a signature, and when I walked over to sign the first thing he said to me was "man, you must have one hell of a baseball card collection".  Sign #1 that you may have a "cardboard problem"?  When your postal carrier knows your residence as the baseball card house.

Since I keep good track of my cardboard purchases, I figured I'd take a look back at some of the packages delivered by my trusty mailman this past year.  So here are some cards that arrived in my mailbox in 2013...

In January, the mailman delivered two of the final cards I needed for the beast of a set that is 2008-09 O-Pee-Chee retro.  This set is absolutely maddening to collect just because of how infrequently the cards appear on the secondary market.  I snagged these for just a penny each plus a couple bucks shipping, but I had a saved eBay search up for nearly two years on them before I got a hit, if you can believe that.  If you have or can track down #368 Gilbert Brule or #393 Milan Jurcina I will pay handsomely!

In Febraury, this Black Diamond Ron Francis lay behind the little plastic door at the end of my driveway.  As you can see, my sports card purchases tend to fall in line with the seasons of the actual sports I enjoy watching.  In the winter, most of my purchases are hockey cards, in the summer baseball cards.

This awesome Junior Whalers team-issue of Francis came the very same month!

In March, things were much the same.  In fact I was grabbing so many Whalers cards I started a separate blog for them.  Things have slowed down a bit over there but I'm still happy with having featured over 100 cards in my first year and am hoping to pick the pace back up in 2014...

By April, the snow had all melted away, Spring Training was over, summer was just around the corner and the 2013 baseball season was officially underway.  My lawn was green for the first time in months, so it's no surprise that April saw some Red Sox rolling in, including a lot of these crazy blue Opening Day parallels.  I had no idea back then just what 2013 had in store for the Sox...

In May, the baseball purchases continued.  I snagged what I would say was one of my cheap bargains of the year on eBay in the form of this 1954 Bowman Hoot Evers.  This is actually my very first '54 Bowman, and what a great looking piece of cardboard it is.  If you can believe it, this card set me back just $3.84 plus an even $2 for shipping.

In June, the Bruins were marching towards the Stanley Cup Finals.

A lot of these O-Pee-Chee retros was delivered...

...just a few days before the Bruins lost in the finals.

In July it was back to baseball, and one of the bubble mailers that arrived contained this '56 Topps Grady Hatton, which lightened my virtual wallet by just a buck.

In August I purchased a lot of 200+ Red Sox cards on the cheap that actually came in a 400ct box.  Maybe this is what tipped him off as to the contents of all those bubble mailers.

The highlight for me were these 2001 Topps Heritage short prints.  I would have paid the same for just these two SPs (if I could even find them) as what the entire lot set me back...

..and there were 200 other great cards included, like this awesome Boomer Bowman Heritage mini.

We all know how things were starting to shape up for the Red Sox in October, and it was reflected in my online purchases.  One of the highlights of this month for me was something like 11 or 12 of these silver slate blue foil parallels...

In October, the Red Sox made history, and I celebrated by adding another awesome pre-'50s Red Sox card to my collection.  Sam Mele's 1949 Bowman card in really great shape was had for less than the cost of a blaster, including shipping.

In November, the World Series hangover continued, and my mailman delivered this nice pair of '59 Topps Red Sox cards.

Finally, December, and here's a card that was in the stack of mail the very same day my mailman made his comment.  Yup, I've certainly kept him busy.

Fitting that I should end this post with a 2012-13 Panini Classics Signatures autograph, as he's probably left more of these in my mailbox than anything else this past year!