Christmas Loot

I bought myself a Christmas @thelootlocker present. 

Incredibly, I've had something close to a 90% success rate with boxes from The Loot Locker. (My definition of success is certainly subjective, but whatever.) December's featured hobby packs in the lowest price tier for baseball were 2017 Topps Heritage High Numbers, 2017 Donruss Optic, and 2017 Topps Chrome (x2).

With the Heritage pack, I must have hit some sort of Bradley Zimmer superpack. Along with the purple Chrome refractor (which I believe you only find in so-called "hot boxes", though hobby boxes are a different sort of animal...) I found my first Heritage photo variation SP in quite awhile. I think it's been years since I've pulled something like this from a Heritage pack. While the purple Zimmer will be headed out in a trade package at some point, this one is a keeper.

I also managed to pull three (!) base cards that I actually needed for my set. Again, this was a hugely successful pack, probably the pack of the year for me in 2017 (that I actually opened in 2018.)

The shiny card from my Optic pack ended up being this David Paulino Prizm parallel, which complements the pink Prizm of this very card I pulled earlier in the year. Paulino hasn't spent a ton of time on the big league roster. Are Astros fans excited about him?

In the first Topps Chrome pack came this insert of young Pirates hurler Tyler Glasnow. I jumped all over Glasnow as someone who might help out my fantasy team, but his numbers were rather eye-popping, in the not good sort of way.

Finally, earlier this week I mentioned that I'm becoming a Ryon Healy collector whether I like it or not. This is now my second autograph from the former Oregon Ducks star. (By the way, is this how younger people sign their names now? He could fit that thing on a postage stamp.)

Catching Up with All The Sports

A multi-sport trade package from up Canada way. 

The various stacks of cards around my home are starting to get dangerously high. They tend to wobble a bit whenever I am near them. This means that I'm overdue for some organization and some trades, which means we're going to be looking at another trade posts here at Cards on Cards. This package came from buckstorecards and covers all of the sports, which is a good thing!

Jordan Bell and Dillon Brooks are the Ducks stars that have been getting most of the attention (and playing time) from last year's Final Four team, but young Tyler Dorsey has gotten some action of late with the Atlanta Hawks. The Hawks have been dreadful this season as they are going through a rebuild, which leaves them plenty of leeway to be patient with someone like Dorsey.

I was super excited (and surprised) to get a certified auto of Elgin Cook, son of former NBA player Alvin Robertson. Cook starred for the 2015-16 Ducks team, but went undrafted. He's playing professionally in Germany currently. It's always great to get cards of players in Ducks uniforms.

Speaking of Ducks, while I don't officially collect UO baseball players, I am starting to put together a nice grouping of Ryon Healy cards. I am thinking I will probably stash these somewhere, not that there are any A's collectors out there that would be beating down for more A's cards. Healy was recently dealt to Seattle, which means that I'll be seeing more of him on TV as I live in Mariners broadcast territory.

I couldn't not scan a Marcus Mariota card after the playoff game that he had. He can really do it all!

I swear I will watch an NHL game at some point this season before the playoffs start. I started to watch the Winter Classic the other day, which unfortunately didn't involve the Blues.

Noah Vonleh's playing time has disappeared like any threat of winter weather here in Portland, but I am still excited about this 25/25 Artist's Proof parallel from the new Hoops set.

Finally, here's a throwback to an Eagles star from a few years back, Shady McCoy. The Eagles head into this weekend's meeting with Atlanta as the first #1 seed in league history to be an underdog in the divisional round. Losing Carson Wentz was painful. Yikes.