Closing the Books on 2020

A #CrackinWaxMailDay in triplicate from @CrackinWax includes extra extras. 

 

With the global pandemic raging in our country, and the holiday season officially underway, I've decided I'm not going to the post office anymore this year. It's a scary time to be in a small building with a bunch of strangers even when everyone has masks on. This makes it a good time to wrap up just about everything I've received but haven't yet posted about before the calendar flips to 2021. I'm promising myself to also reevaluate my collecting practices and priorities as the sports card world has changed dramatically over the past year, and not in a way that suits me at all.

I'm not shutting down trades or anything, though. I'm just going to try to stick to using stamps as much as possible for the rest of the year as they are still plentiful and relatively easy to come by.

I'm actually not all that backlogged, at least by my standards, but I fell behind enough in my group break postings that I'm combining three weeks' worth of shipped cards from Crackin' Wax into one solid blog post. Let's check stuff out.

Bowman Chrome is as expensive as ever, so those cards are mostly a bit out of my reach. This year's set looks extra nice, though, with the extra design elements added to the chrome borders. This break was part of a mega box, which I didn't know was a thing for this typically hobby-only release.

I don't know why I keep coming back to this set. I do not like the design at all. I did get this purple parallel of Johan Mieses for my troubles, though. 

There's a new Panini Contenders release for 2020 and it does include MLB players with the usual Photoshop treatment from Panini. It always tends to look the same, no matter the year or sport.

I mean, seriously, does the design really always have to take up more than half of the real estate? With all of the different directions the text is heading, it's pretty tough to read anything on these cards anyway.

Here's one of the inserts. It's a different design, at least.

Crackin' Wax frequently includes extras in your package. This is probably the most practical of these that I've been sent so far. It's a microfiber cloth that is handy for cleaning dust and lint off of your cards, especially from those shinier surfaces. With everything in the hobby now being put under a powerful microscope, both figuratively and literally, these should really come in handy for people.

I also ended up with two more "RAK" packs, which are much like this one that I posted about a few months back. Depending on how well I do with the rest of the backlog, I may show off the contents of these in future posts before too long.

My second week was a bit smaller in focus, but I still picked up a couple of new-to-me Cardinals needs.

The Portraits inserts from 2019 Panini Diamond Kings look pretty nice, aside from the blank batting helmet here.

Finally, the third and most recent package included cards from a 2013 Panini Hometown Heroes set. I have all of the base Cardinals cards several times over from this set, aside from one pesky short print, so there wasn't much new for me here. However, I did get this needed Shelby Miller state stamp parallel.

I also struck out on a box/pack of 2017 Topps Mini, aside from this low numbered Rajai Davis parallel. This will probably sit in my trade box for awhile.

To top things off, I was also randomly gifted this Project 2020 card! It's the first time I've ever seen one of these in person, and it's chunkier than I expected. This would make a really nice stocking stuffer for a Dodgers/Koufax fan. In fact, I nearly reached out to a couple of different Dodgers fans that I've been sending cards to for a long time, but I'm not sure it's the type of thing either of those two would be into. I'm sure I can find a good home for it in any case.