What a Package from Alaska!

When I posted my final mini box of 2014 Topps Stadium Club, I received a comment from a gentleman with the screen name "David in the North" indicating that he'd be interested in trading for the autograph (a James Jones #'d /50).  "David in the North" sounded more like a Game of Thrones character than a baseball card collector, but I emailed him back nonetheless, a trade was born, and boy was it a big one! 

I would have gladly sent David the autograph just because, but in return he mailed me what has to be one of the greatest bubble mailers of Red Sox cards I have ever received in the 8 years I've been writing this blog.  They came all the way from Alaska (screen name makes sense now).  We'll start off with the Clay Buchholz card above.  That's no ordinary 2013 Topps card...

...it's my very first Topps mini (well, since they revived these in recent years anyway).  Very cool to finally add some of these to my Red Sox collection.  There were a handful from the 2013 release.

 Felix is no longer with the team.  He had some disagreements with coaching/management on his way out, and seemed like a bit of a baby about the whole thing.  What do I know though.

The whole retro look of this card would be a lot better sans those obnoxious sunglasses.

I didn't recognize this image at all.  Turns out I don't have the full-size counterpart to this card yet.  David included a ton of 2014 minis as well, I can't show you every one individually but here are some of them:

 I think there were something like 15 from this set in total, has to be close to a complete team set.  Wow!

Here's where the package really starts to get crazy.  This card and the next I'm going to show were back-to-back in a penny sleeve.  Not being a Topps mini guy, I figured these gold inserts were numbered like the larger, flagship set, which would be /2013 for 2013 Topps.  When I took this card out to put it on the scanner bed, I found it was serial numbered to just /62 copies!  This instantly becomes one of my best Uehara cards, although David sent an even better one in this same package.

Same deal here, this one was numbered to /63 copies!  I was in amazement at David's generosity at this point, but there's still much more to come...

Somehow I did not have a copy of this '92 Leaf Luis Rivera yet.  What a photograph.

David is building an impressive 2014 Topps Chrome collection, and I was the beneficiary of a duplicate Shane Victorino Orange Refractor.  I'm a total sucker for all of the colored Chrome refractor parallels.  There was also a 2012 Orange David Ortiz in the package, which I mailed off to Mark Hoyle since I already had one.

So many firsts in this package, I'd never seen this insert set from 2014 Opening Day before.

How about some shiny?  2013 Topps Finest Refractors of Allen Webster...

...and Jacoby Ellsbury.  These represent my very first 2013 Finest cards, period.

I had the '88 Donruss Clemens, but not the Leaf version.

There were even oddballs to be found.  Really love this 1988 Toys 'R' Us Rookies John Marzano.  Best of all, it has one of the loudest card backs I've ever seen:

This one is even nicer than the Toys 'R' Us card!  Mostly because I can remember opening individual Bazooka gum pieces wrapped just like the one used in this design when I was a kid.

I love that they used the logo as a watermark behind the stats as well.  I'd love to pick up some more of these, Red Sox or otherwise.

More shiny.  Grady Sizemore has probably my favorite photograph of any player in the 2014 Topps Red Sox team set.  I'd picked up the Gold Refractor version of this card, now I have the standard Refractor as well.

And a David Ortiz to go with it.

These next two cards are the glossy, non-matte 2007 Masterpieces that were included in the 2008 Upper Deck Red Sox fan packs.  David sent five of these, I needed two of them and shipped the others off.

 Another first for me, 2014 Panini Classics.  Very pleased to add yet another Xander Bogaerts RC to my collection.

Here's another numbered parallel, a Mike Napoli Blue from last year's Opening Day set, numbered to /2014 copies.

I have a bunch of the Red Hot Foil parallels from last year's update set, but did not have this one.  It's amazing how well David did in terms of percentage of new cards.  There weren't more than a handful of doubles in the entire stack.

Another new insert from 2014 Opening Day.

This Ted Williams The Greats insert was from the 2013 Topps set.  I missed out on these completely, maybe they were hobby only?  Either way, this is a classy looking card of the Splendid Splinter.

This is actually a box bottom card.  I'm a huge fan of these, in fact I've been meaning to do a post on my favorite baseball and hockey box bottom cards, but who knows if/when I'll get around to that.

This Sam Travis is extremely shiny.  It's serial numbered to /75 copies, which was enough for me to learn that it's a "Blue Mojo" refractor.  Alrighty then!  Interesting card regardless.

For today, I'll end it here with this killer Dustin Pedroia Green parallel from 2014 Topps.  I'm a total sucker for these, in fact I grabbed 3-4 of them from the dollar box recently at the local shop.  Dustin was not one of them though, so this was a great new addition.

I say that I'll end it here because amazingly this is only a fraction of what David was kind enough to send along.  I've got at least one or two more posts to go, plus this coming Sunday's Signature Sundays post will also be sponsored by David!  Thanks for an amazing package, David.  What I sent back pales in comparison, I only hope you enjoy at least a couple of the cards.  I truly appreciate your kindness and generosity!