Cards from the North, Cards from the South

I've posted six trade packages since the beginning of August alone, yet I still find myself falling further and further behind.  I'm trading more frequently in 2015 than I have in any previous year, by far and away.  Let's kill two birds with one stone today in an attempt to catch up and make some room on my card desk...

First up, one of my most frequent trading partners, Douglas of Sportscards from the Dollar Store, hooked me up with some more additions to my Hartford Whalers collection all the way from the Great White North, aka Canada.  He jammed a ton of these 1991-92 Panini Stickers into the envelope.

In fact, if my information is accurate, I think the envelope contained nearly an entire team set!

The only sticker I'm missing now is the team logo, #161 in the set.  I may even have one floating around that I just need to add to my inventory.  If not, I'll certainly look to pick one up on COMC soon.

Very cool oddball items to say the least, and I for one count these as "cards".  Stickers weren't the only Whalers Douglas sent along though...

How about a tandem of 1990-91 Score cards?  I've already got the complete set, but this pair is from the Canadian release.

Not a whole lot of difference when looking at the card fronts, so you'll just have to trust me that there's French text on the back.

Here's another new one that does technically qualify.  It's weird that I consider this card a Whalers card just because of the little "NOW WITH WHALERS" note, yet I don't count cards that show Whalers sweaters but say "NOW WITH" another team.  Everyone has their own collecting OCD I suppose.

A checklist card for the Springfield Indians, who at the time were the AHL affiliate for Hartford.  I saw numerous Indians games back in the day, probably right around this time period or slightly afterwards.

The package wasn't all hockey though, as Douglas also hit on a pair of needs for my 2015 Opening Day Red Sox team set.

Any new Bogaerts card is a good one, lowly common or otherwise.

My second trade package of the day comes from Jason, who doesn't have a blog that I'm aware of, but goes by OrlandoBolts on Zistle.  In case you couldn't tell by the username OrlandoBolts, Jason's down in Florida, so we're really spanning the North American continent with today's two packages!

Inside this package were more than half a dozen cards I was missing for my 2015 Stadium Club set.

You've all seen these dozens of times by now, so I won't show you all of them, but this Hanley Ramirez is significant in that it completed my Red Sox team set!

Jason had a couple of parallels/inserts from Stadium Club up for grabs as well.  I claimed this Pablo Sandoval Gold Foil parallel for my Red Sox collection...

...as well as this Jose Fernandez Triumvirate insert, just because I like him as a pitcher and have picked up quite a few of his cards over the past few years.

Jason hit on some of my player collections too.  This 1994 Score Gold Rush...

...and this 1991 Score Cooperstown card bring me up to 203 unique Will Clark cards now.  I definitely remember these Cooperstown cards from back in the day.  Score was a little off on their predictions, as Will never made the HOF, but the other two cards Jason sent me from this set are guys who are now enshrined.

Up over 250 unique Nolan Ryan cards now!

In addition to the TSC and player collection cards, Jason provided some new Red Sox material in this package as well!  As a lover of minor league cards, I gladly welcome this 1991 Line Drive AAA card of pitcher Mike Gardiner to my collection.

There was a Bogaerts card in this package as well, of the 2015 Archives variety.  That's two new Xanders in today's post, both of which traveled from hundreds and hundreds of miles away, and they now sit right near each other in a monster box in my card closet.  We've come a long way since a few decades ago when you'd trade cards with your neighborhood friends and stick them in your bike spokes.

Last, but certainly not least, how about an unexpected relic of one of the best basketball players in the history of the game?  I was astounded (and pretty pleased!) when this one came out of the bubble mailer!

Thank you Douglas and Jason for the solid new additions to my ever-growing collection.  All of the new cardboard is greatly appreciated!