Box o' Sox from Billy - Round Two!

A few weeks ago I posted about an awesome plastic cube full of Red Sox cards that I received as a generous gift from my hobby friend Billy Kingsley of Cardboard History.  It was such a blast to sort through those cards, and in the end I scored a few dozen new Red Sox cards for my ever-expanding team collection.

Well, as I alluded to at the conclusion of that post, there was a second plastic cube of Sox included in Billy's package.  Today we'll look at the new-to-me cards from that particular cube, starting with this Dustin Pedroia Finest.  This isn't just any Dustin Pedroia Finest card, it's a refractor!

Buckle up and get ready for a serious number of images, as I believe this cube resulted in more new Red Sox cards for my collection than even the last one did...

How about some high end product?  I stay away from busting products like this but will happily accept any singles that come my way.

Love the 3-D effect on this Gypsy Queen Jim Rice.  Looks like it was a chilly day for a ballgame when this photograph was snapped.

It's amazing to me that I'm still missing Topps flagship Red Sox from this past decade, but that is indeed the case.  One fewer of those at least with this 2011 Pedroia in hand.

I miss you, Upper Deck (well, sort of).

Possibly the least flattering scan in today's post, my flatbed does not like all that foil at all.

File this 1989 Mike Greenwell under "how the hell did I not have a copy of this card already?"...

I remember this guy was traded just a day or two after criticizing the front office for moving him to the bullpen back in 2014.  Looks like he was out of MLB just a year or two after that, and has since been playing abroad, most recently in Mexico.

Always nice to welcome a new Topps Archives card to my collection.  This is currently the closest I am to owning a '73 Topps Evans RC.

I was bummed when the Red Sox traded this guy in the swap that netted them Craig Kimbrel, but after three-plus seasons in San Diego his career batting average is on the wrong side of .250.

Big Papi, flexing the pythons.

Another flagship Red Sox card that I was missing, though this one is from the Traded/Update set.

Easily one of my favorite cards in the cube.  I really dig the 2006 Topps Heritage set, but have precious few Red Sox from the release.  In fact, this card inspired me to pick up one or two more during the recent Black Friday/Cyber Monday promotions on COMC.

First year Jed Lowrie, and a gold parallel to boot.  Score!

As much as I dislike Topps having a monopoly in the baseball card market, I certainly don't miss sets like this one.  Yuck!  Only a team or player collector could appreciate this I'm pretty sure.  I'll take it though.

This is a "Trading Card History" insert from the 2008 Topps flagship release.  The insert set featured modern players on designs of the past, with Josh Beckett here done up in the style of 1964 Topps baseball.

I'll never tire of obtaining new Daisuke Matsuzaka cards.  There was a time more than a decade ago now when this would have been a pretty hot card for sure.

If you blinked, you could easily have missed HOFer John Smoltz appearing in a Red Sox uniform.  His stint in Boston lasted only 8 games (with an ERA greater than 8.00), but that obscurity is exactly what makes this particular card such a gem!

More Dice-K!

I'll never turn down a Bartolo Colon card, and I certainly won't turn down a Bartolo Colon Red Sox card.  I had one or two parallels of this previously, but never the ordinary base card until now.

This card was a reminder to me that I'm painfully close on a team set of Sepia parallels from this 2015 Topps Chrome release.  Snagged a couple more on COMC as I was writing up this post because they were available for cheap coin.

The second card in today's post where a player is admiring their own guns.

This photograph does not appear to have the makings of a successful catch.

Very classy-looking Tris Speaker here.  Although this particular image has appeared on quite a few cards over time, I like the design used on this one.

One of my favorite obscure relievers from the 21st century is Byung-Hyun Kim.  That wind-up and delivery was pretty unforgettable.

Another favorite of mine, if only for the fact that he epitomized the "you don't have to have an athletic build to be successful" pitcher physique.

Was really happy to discover this one.  I've been painstakingly assembling the 2001 Fleer Red Sox 100th Anniversary set for some time now.  I have at least half of the base cards at this point, so I was pleasantly surprised to confirm that Bernie Carbo here was a need.

I adored the first couple of Flair releases back in the '90s.  I've knocked off the '93 set, but have very few '94s.  In fact, I think this is only my second base card from the release in my adult collection now.

Big Papi...

...and Dustin Pedroia seemed to be the leaders in terms of most cardboard in this particular cube.  No big surprise there I guess.

I collected the hell out of the inaugural Gypsy Queen set back in 2011, but never managed to pull or trade for this Great Ones insert.  Was very surprised (and grateful) to find this one in the stack.

Beautiful Splendid Splinter here from SP Legendary Cuts.

Always liked the under-stated design of this Fleer Greats of the Game set.  Surprised I didn't have this one already, but there it is.

Is it odd that I have virtually no memory of this guy?  Not really I suppose, given that he played under 100 games in his lone season in Boston.  It was also a season where I happened to be living away at college, so was paying very little attention to baseball or sports in general.

Love me some Action Packed, and I really liked Trot Nixon as a player too.  This is a top-ten card in the package for sure.

Pretty cool late-career Eck here.

This is not your standard 2008 Topps Ortiz, as you can see by the logo in the upper right corner it was part of the National Baseball Card Day promotion that year.

This Pedro is so busy that it just about screams '90s, but it's actually from 2000.  As busy as it is, I actually kinda like the way this one looks for reasons I can't quite put my finger on.

2005's sepia-toned set made for one of the classier SP Legendary Cuts releases, in my humble opinion.

We'll close it out with a new card from a very early Allen & Ginter release.  This one caused me to see how many cards I was short of a 2006 team set, which then led me to realize how scarce these are compared to their successors.

If my quick count is correct this cube resulted in over 50 new cards for my team collection!  After processing through this cube, I'm now sitting at 4,509 Red Sox cards and counting in my overall collection on The Trading Card Database.  That's good for 35th largest Sox collection on the site.

Billy, thanks for this fantastic injection for my team collection!  To everyone else, if you thought this was interesting wait until you see the vintage single that Billy included along with the two cubes.  Should have that up later this week.  In the meantime, thanks as always for stopping by!