A Package from My Favorite Yankees Fan

Recently I received another great batch of cards from my favorite Yankees fan, Tim B. of I Love the Smell of Cardboard in the Morning.  I sent him a small batch of Yankees I had rounded up, but I have no idea what I did to deserve a group of cards like the one Tim sent me in return.  I mean check out this awesome Grady Sizemore Orange Refractor from last year's Topps Chrome set for starters.  This was perhaps my favorite baseball card of 2014, and I'm happy to add another variant of it to my ever-growing collection.

In this bubble mailer were over 50 new hand-selected Red Sox for my collection.  I think Tim knows to check my collection on Zistle before sending cards, as there was just a single dupe in this entire package, and it was one I had only added to my collection a day or two before receiving these.

How about some new Nomars?

As you'll see, nearly all of the 50 plus cards from this package were inserts, refractors, parallels, serial-numbered or otherwise special in some way.

A good percentage of them came from my collecting "dead era" as well (1996 - 2006).

Of all of the Garciaparra cards that were included, I think this Fleer Tradition Grass Roots insert might be my favorite.

This MVP card is the Silver Script parallel.  I love a good parallel, and this package was chock full of 'em.  More Nomar to come later in the post.

Here's a nice Brian Daubach refractor.  My penchant for shiny was satisfied big time with this delivery.

This Cream of the Crop Trot Nixon insert from Classic scanned pretty poorly, but it looks nice in hand.

I can't believe I didn't have Jed Lowrie's Topps rookie card until now.  One of my favorite (and in my opinion under-rated) players during his time in Boston.

This Daisuke rookie threw me off for a minute, as it features a different photo than his standard 2007 Topps rookie, and is number 11 of 20.  I found out this is a bonus card included in factory sets.  Something I probably never would have stumbled upon myself, just awesome.

How about some serial-numbered?  This Trot Nixon is a "Star Ruby" parallel, limited to 125 copies.

Topps Gold, numbered to 2001.

Numbered to 1500.  Anyone with the last name Diaz is alright in my book.

Some new Red Sox cards from one of my favorite sets of 2015 so far, Bowman.  I had never heard of Jantzen Witte before receiving this card.  Looks like he's slugging the ball very well with AA Portland so far this season.

I am considering just going for the entire 200-card Bowman short set.  I really like the look of these cards for reasons I can't explain.

If I were to rank all of the cards from the package this one would be in my top 5.  This is from the 2003 Traded set, and really brings back some memories of Kim's days with Boston (not all of them good!).

Couple of new Manny cards...

This Johnny Damon is my very first 2002 Topps Finest card, and I'm a big fan of this design.  This seems like it would be a really fun product to open a box of.

Another of my favorites from the package.  I've always liked the T205 design, and just landed my first original at the last card show I made it to.

A pair from the brand new Donruss release.

If these had logos and team names I'd probably pick some up, I don't think the design is half bad.

This package really did have a little of everything, as this 2002 Donruss Diamond Kings Bobby Doerr is a sample card (noted on the back).  As someone who was a kid collecting in the early to mid '90s, samples and promos are still cool and unique to me.

Here's another sample (again noted on the back), from 2002 Leaf.

One of the most rewarding things that can happen when you receive a trade package is getting a card that's already in your cart on COMC waiting to be purchased at some point in the future.  Tim really seems to know me as a collector if he's sending me cards I'm hand-selecting for myself.  This would also be in my top 5 from this entire package, I love these shiny inserts from last year.

You might recognize this one from the Pedro above that's from the same set.

This package has me just one or two cards away from 100 unique Garciaparra Red Sox cards.  Not bad!

Mookie Betts has cooled off a bit since his great start to 2015, but I still get excited for each at-bat.  A ton of potential for Betts, hopefully he'll continue to develop and improve.

Tim went all the way back to the '70s with this delivery.  This Mel Parnell is from the '79 TCMA History Series.  Great photograph.

Some more brand new releases, including a couple of cards from Gypsy Queen.

One of the Framed Paper White parallels.  The framed parallels have been one of the best things about the Gypsy Queen set year in and year out.

Back to Bowman...

Alright this one is fantastic!  I commented on this when Tim pulled it a while ago, and I'm still in shock that he was kind enough to send it off to me just because.  Castillo's finally with the club, hopefully he can get hot and make this card even cooler.

You wouldn't know it from the front, but this is an O-Pee-Chee card.  My first from 1991.

I got my first Freddie Money card just a few weeks ago from Mark Kaz, and now I have another.  This one's an X-Fractor serial numbered to 250 copies!

I think this is the fourth or fifth version of this card that I have now.  This Gold parallel is of course numbered to 2011 copies.

Here's the oldest card in the package, and what a great card it is!  This one is in amazing shape for the very tough '71 set, better than many of mine.  Wow!

Sticking with the black borders, a black border insert/parallel from 2012 Heritage.  Adrian's putting together another nice season for himself so far in 2015.

Not one...

...not two...

...but three Wal-Mart Blue parallels from 2011 Topps Update.  I can never have too many of these.  Blue, Red, Yellow, Green, Purple, I'll take them all!

A nice looking refractor from 2010 Topps Chrome...

...and an even nicer X-Fractor to accompany it!

Finally, I started with a 2014 Topps Chrome card and will end with one as well, a Dustin Pedroia Refractor.

Tim, in just 50 cards you managed to pack quite a punch!  I really appreciate your generosity, and you've certainly improved the strength of my Red Sox collection quite a bit with this lot.  I will definitely be on the lookout for some Yankees to even the score here...