MKZ PWE

A couple weeks back I was the recipient of a very nice PWE from my good buddy Mark Kaz, who writes over at This Way to the Clubhouse.  Mark and I only started trading fairly recently in the grand scheme of things, but he's quickly become probably my most frequent trading partner.  Let's see a few examples from this latest plain white envelope...

Sweet!  I've said many times I'm not much of a Clemens fan, but I want basically any Red Sox card I don't have even if Roger happens to grace the front.  That's especially true for brand-spanking-new product that I've purchased almost none of, as is the case with 2014 Allen & Ginter.

Mark seems to somehow attract the Topps Gold parallels from recent years.  I feel like nearly every package he sends me contains at least one of these beauties.  Hailing from 2012, this one is of course numbered to 2,012.  The A's are barely clinging on to a Wild Card spot at this point, so Jon could have some really big starts for Oakland over the next few weeks.

This Shane Victorino is actually a 2013 Panini Prizm 'Prizm'.  While I hate the name (think of Topps releasing a parallel in its flagship set dubbed 'Topps'), I love the cards.  Like many collectors I'm attracted to shiny, and this parallel of my namesake fits the bill!

While we're at it, here's a 2014 Prizm Victorino!  I think I like the 2013 design slightly more, but this card is appreciated as it's my very first 2014 Prizm card of any kind.

One of my favorite shots from 2012, period, is the Jacoby Ellsbury collision-at-the-plate card from Topps.  I've got quite a few different versions of this one by now, but until this package I did not have the Opening Day card.

Going back almost 20 years now (man, I'm getting old), here's a '96 Upper Deck Mike Stanley.  The backdrop appears similar to the ones used in the mandatory school photos I'd be forced to take every year as a kid.  At least it's just a fairly muted blue and not streaming lasers or something of that sort.

Closing things out is probably my favorite card of the bunch.  The 2008 Opening Day set probably looks atrocious for many teams; you don't see bright red used too often for a base set.  As far as the Red Sox go these look amazing, and I've decided to try to complete the team set, which shouldn't be too difficult.  Believe it or not, I had already purchased a copy of this card and it was sitting in my inventory on COMC.  That guy has been placed up for sale on the site!

As always, thanks for the fantastic cards Mark.  I enjoyed them so much I filled the 3 pocket sheet you used with a few Mets and sent it right back to ya!