Christmas in Februrary

Secret Santa stuff from @Fixxxer37 in the @CrackinWax holiday gift exchange. 

 

We've reached the point in the year where I start to wonder why I'm still talking about last year. One of the best things to wrap up 2021 was my participation in the annual Crackin' Wax gift exchange. I waited until Christmas Eve to open up my package as I was flying out of town the next day, and couldn't believe the motherload of cards that awaited me.

I stared at this one for a bit and thought that there had to be something different about it. I finally remembered that 2018 was the year that Allen & Ginter had put some glow-in-the-dark minis into the set (some sort of monsters theme?) If you look closely, there's a slight pattern in the background of the card that becomes more noticeable if you turn off the lights, as one would expect from a glowing thing. I had never seen one of these before, so it was cool to see.

 

I decided it was time to give on the scanner at this point. I tried scanning this card awhile back (for TCDB) but wasn't happy with the way it looked. I don't think I have the type of scanner that can accurately scan anything with some depth to it.

I've been a fan of the Archives Signature Series cards for awhile, but as I'm always at odds with myself over whether or not collecting autographs makes sense, I've never pulled the plug on buying any of them for myself. (The plug, it seems, has been pulled for me.)

Here's a few more "hit" cards. Walmart exclusives are always welcome because I don't really Walmart, and I've always loved Topps Heritage signed cards.

A large, large chunk of the holiday package was dedicated to my Topps Heritage want lists, and not the low-hanging fruit. These are stacks of inserts and short prints, those thorny thorns stuck in the side of everyone who collects these sets.

This was a very considerate lot of cards for my collection. I hope everyone else got something fun for Christmas -- assuming you can still remember what happened two months ago.

A Breakdown Holiday and a Contest Winner

From @breakdowncards come more greetings of the season, plus a Belking winner announcement. 

The last of the holiday posts comes from cards received from Santa Gavin of Baseball Card Breakdown. Along with this very limited ornament that would look fantastic on any Christmas tree, Gavin sent over some wonderful additions to my Cardinals team collection.

This seasonally appropriate card will end up in Erin's binder. Erin was a little more enthusiastic about the card stuff when I started up the blog thing, but she still wants all of your Yadis (and Altuves).

Here's a snazzy (yes, I just used that word) pair of refractors from the 2018 Topps Chrome set. I think I'm in the camp that hopes that Ozuna will end up back with the Birds, warts and all. I just don't see anyone else out there in the market or coming up from the minor league ranks who could immediately replace the offensive production Ozuna is capable of.

You can probably tell by the clarity of this scan (from my budget priced scanner purchased at a Circuit City going-out-of-business sale) that this is also a refractor. Descalso was mostly a utility/bench guy for the Cards, but he has turned out to have a pretty lengthy and productive career overall.

I should start calling these ska cards. They have that checkerboard pattern, although they're not quite black and white.

I didn't get a chance to purchase any Topps Finest this year (do I ever?), so I am always happy to find Cardinal needs from this set.

Shortly after receiving the holiday envelope, Gavin and I also met up for another in-person card exchange, which netted me a few primo serial numbered cards. Junior Fernandez is someone I'm pretty excited about, with this blue "paper" Bowman card coming off of my theoretical needs list.

I think I own entirely too many Michael Swinson cards for a guy who topped out at A ball and left the game six years ago. That being said, I didn't own this blue refractor of his... but now I do!

The last card from Gavin was this fancy Leather & Lumber thing from the adventurous set that Panini put out this year. You only get 10 cards, but I kind of want to break another blaster of this stuff. This die cut Miles Mikolas card is numbered to just 25 copies. Fantastic.

Now, if you've made it this far, you're probably here for a contest update. We didn't have all that many entries for the Belk Bowl mini-contest, and probably not coincidentally, no one was all that close. Only a few folks picked Kentucky (correctly) to win, and The Bucs Stop Here was the closest with a score differential of 29. Congrats!