Round-trip on the Night Train: A trade with Gavin

So I have evidently moved in the “posting whenever I damn feel like it” phase of my blog. I’ve let some trades fall by the way, but I’m pretty sure I’ve thanked anyone who send me something or at least shouted out at them on twitter.

But one trade I certainly wanted to talk about here at the mothership was a recent swap I made with Gavin of Baseball Card Breakdown. You can see what I send to him here, (with an excellent reference to Night Train bum wine) the jewel of the package was that 25/25 Carlos Correa autograph I won a few weeks back.

Gavin and I agreed to some base items for the swap and agreed to each throw in some other fun stuff as well. He sent a whole priority box my way. It was full to the tabs… but full of what?

Well, half full of CDs. Yes, in our digital and enviro-friendly age, Gavin made the wise choice and substituted used CDs for backing peanuts. I’m more of classic rock guy and have to admit that I had only head of a few of the discs he sent along. My wife, however, having been an alt-rock girl and JNCO jeans wearer, knew most of them and actually had cassettes of more than one. So they’ve found a good home, Gavin.

As for (cardboard) singles, I was most taken with this smooth-looking fellow here…

…yes! One of the most prized Topps RCs of the single-series era. Behind the Yount and Brett duo from 1975 and the 1980 Rickey Henderson, this was always king of the mid-90s price book for that era. And it’s a hell of a nice-looking card. It’ll go with my growing 1979 set.

My other single request (TLR joke? I dunno, I’m tired), was this dork…

…Rob Dork!!! Before blocking me on Twitter, this guy threw 12 lousy innings for a lousy Brewers team in 1995. He never had a real Brewers card, so this one counts for my all-time Brewers collection. My total, as of this writing, now stands at 361 different Brewers signed cards. Not bad.

First, he needed to be freed some his plastic prison.

There we go! Fit for the binder!

I also asked for a few stacks of cards that Gavin had posted about a while back in a trade bait post. I got a couple of nice stacks of Stadium Club.

Which included these two ridiculous beauties. Once I get my stuff together, I’m gonna try and build me some TSC.

He also included some vintage fun. Look at this whopping stack of 1971s!

I have put this set into full build-mode since I got this package (more on that in my next post).

And my god, I love these cards.

We’ve got a flying Cookie…

A twisted Brooksie…

And a perplexed Hodges.

And one of my favorite early Brewers cards, Danny Walton looking mean in what appears to be a metal helmet. Yikes.

But Gavin, being Gavin, did not stop there.

Hey, it’s Heritage season, so here’s a Ryan Braun from ’08, back before everyone hated his guts. Did you know Braun didn’t have a base card in 2009 Heritage, only an All-Star? Yeah, weird.

Here’s a shiny Lucroy, who still needs a team for next season. He sent along a whole stack of Brewers.

And hey, here’s a Carlos Go… or wait, a Kris Davis? You know how people say their on-purpose errors look stupid? Well, their accidental ones don’t look much better.

A stack of Brewers minor leaguers to go into my small minor league collection.

And what would a Gavin package be without customs? This one is a great take on 1958 Topps, commemorating the Braves triumph over the Yanks in 1957.

Whoa! A 1-of-1 sketch card! And of Don Money, a Brewers great who gets almost no attention in sets these days. A very nice addition and a hell of good likeness of the Moneyman.

And more custom fun… a BBCB magnet featuring a fun Griffey RC mash-up.

It has a place on the rat cage in my office!

And that rat cage, our old cage, is in the office because (the music swells) we have new rats!

Meet Penguin (with the brown) and Pinecone. They’re gonna live in the office for a few weeks until we can introduce them to our older pair (the Grans, we call them). I’ve already given them a few cards and they’ve enjoyed chomping them and dragging them around the cage. It stays in the family, I tell ya.

Anyway, thanks for the swap, Gavin… and check back soon for the start of my very Mod 1971 Topps adventure.