Postage Due?!?! More Cards from The National!

Just yesterday I received a PWE in the mail from my good buddy Mark Kaz of This Way to the Clubhouse, containing some cards that he picked up for me at this year's National show.  I noticed something on the outside of the envelope that is new to me, and doesn't exactly give me the warm fuzzies:

Postage due!  This is very odd to me, as there was nothing out of the ordinary about Mark's PWE this time around.  Same amount of cards as usual, stuffed into a three-pocket strip cut from a nine-pocket sheet, with one "forever" stamp.  Pretty much your standard fare, I've sent dozens if not hundreds of PWEs out over the years this way and this is the first time I've seen a 'postage due' stamp.

Hopefully this was just a one-off case of an over-zealous postal worker and not a case of foreshadowing, because I'd be pretty disappointed if the USPS started cracking down on the PWE.  I guess the mailman (or mailwoman) is actually supposed to ask the recipient for the missing postage before they deliver it, but I found this in my mailbox with everything else when I got home from work.  My mail carrier is a really cool guy anyway, and has made comments to me numerous times that I must have "one hell of a sports card collection".

Fingers crossed going forward here.  You didn't come here to read about my mail drama though, you came to see cards!  Let's see what Mark added to my collection this time around...

In the lead-off spot we've got a fantastic oddball, my very first 1986 Dorman's Cheese panel.  Not only had I never seen one of these before, but I'd never even heard of them.  I wasn't able to find much online about which cheese products these came with or how they were packaged, but I did confirm in looking at the checklist that I've got one more of these to track down (Dave Winfield/Jim Rice).  Very cool start to this particular PWE!

From there, we move to some sets that I had a much easier time identifying, starting with Rick Asadoorian's rookie card from 2000 Stadium Club Chrome.  My scanner hates these for some reason, but even still you can easily see what a great photo Topps went with for this card.

This Reggie Jefferson is a 1998 Donruss Collections card.  I have no idea whether this was an entirely separate set, or a parallel from the standard Donruss release (the photo and card number are indeed the same as in '98 Donruss flagship).  Wasn't collecting at the time, so I'm honestly not sure.  Anyone know?

These next two are much appreciated, from the online-only 2014 Turkey Red release.  Clay Buchholz, who is still with the team...

...and Jake Peavy, who's now doing his thing in San Francisco.  These are the first two cards from this release that I've held in hand, and I have to say that Topps did a decent job with this one.  I really like the colorized effect, and something about the backgrounds just works for me.  I'll have to make it a priority at some point to track down the other two Red Sox from this set.

If you like a little bit of sparkle on your baseball cards, then 2011 was the year for you.  I've got a ton of these Diamond Anniversary parallels from the flagship and update sets that year, but this is just my third of the Topps Lineage variety.

Here's another one that's totally new to me, the Studio Stars inserts from 2005 Donruss Studio.  It may be difficult to tell from the scan, but these have rounded corners and are printed on a clear acetate card stock.  If you've followed along for a decent length of time here then you're well aware that I'm a total sucker for anything acetate.  This might actually be my favorite card of the PWE, though it's tough to choose just one.

Here's another great oddball, courtesy of National Trading Card Day back in 2004.  Of course Nomar was traded in '04 and that team went on to win it all.

I received one non-Red Sox card in this package, and what an impressive one it was!  Mark knows that the '94 Pinnacle Museum Collection parallels are some of my absolute favorite cards of the '90s, and this is certainly one of the more interesting photos from that set.  Just awesome.  I actually have some big news related to this set coming in a future blog post.

Last card for today.  If you were a child of the late '80s/early '90s who loved sports like I was, then I'm willing to bet you had at least a few Starting Lineups kicking around.  I can still remember hitting local retail stores seeking out my favorite players.  The cards that accompanied them aren't exactly the easiest oddballs to come by, especially in good condition like this one is.  Great stuff.

I think this might be the fastest that a trade package made it from my mailbox to the blog.  This whole "staying caught up" thing is kind of nice I have to say.  Thanks as always for the great cards Mark!  Maybe I should leave an extra 21 cents in the mailbox with the flag up when I shoot the next PWE your way!