Prelude

I recently completed my first ever trade with Brian from the Cutch-centric blog Collecting Cutch. It was a BIG trade.  He has already discussed the five cards I sent his way. 

You probably remember Brian's old blog, Pirates Treasure Room.    Around the beginning of the year he decided to refocus his collection to where the majority of his effort would be devoted to Cutch. This opened to door for Brian and I to do some trading.  

While obviously I like to collect the Pirate star myself, I'm by no means a super collector.  My Cutch collection is relatively large, but it has been dormant in terms of high end autos/relics since he became a bona fide superstar.  I enjoy variety too much to spend big dollars on one player.  I'm sure I can speak for Brian and that we miss the days a Cutch auto would cost  in the $5-10 range.  

A few weeks back Brian sent an email with a list of Cutch cards I owned that he would be interested in trading for. He had six cards in mind and I ended up trading 5.  Because I knew Brian had an awesome Pirates collection I gave him free reign to build the return package.  I was not disappointed.

This post is only showing the Gerrit Cole portion of the trade package.  Brian sent a priority mail box full of great cards that I will showoff over time. He wasn't joking when he said he could give me a years worth of blogging material for the Cutch cards I sent his way. 

If you read my drivel on a somewhat regular basis you know that I love the framed Topps parallels. I found a decent amount of them when they were numbered to /20 and /16.  For some reason Topps decided to make them 1/1's which ultimately stopped my hunt.  Thanks to Brian I now can finally add a 1/1 silver frame to my collection.

This was the WOW card of the return package.  Nice patch, high end set.....this card has it all. 

A very nice /25 auto!

Last but not least is a dual auto from Platinum featuring another very good pitcher in Sonny Gray.  Lots of cool combos from this Bowman Platinum set.

This was such a fun trade Brian.  I'm glad we were able to break the ice.  In the coming months I'll continue to show off some of the cards you sent my way, but I wanted to make sure to show these Cole's right away.

Thanks for reading.

I'm Glad the Giants Won

Don't get me wrong I want them to lose eventually,  The Mets were just way too banged up to give the Cubs a competitive series. I can't stand Madison Bumgarner, but you have to tip your cap. Syndergaard was more dominant, but Bumgarner was more efficient.

I'm not even sure what I want to happen in the Cubs/Giants series.  My personal preference is that I would love to see the Nats or Dodgers make the World Series. I have man crushes on Kershaw, Scherzer and Harper. My fear is that my preseason pick of the Cubs/Red Sox will come true.  It would be a great matchup but the media coverage would be insufferable.

Seriously, can you imagine all the gooey promos and hot takes about a Cubs/Red Sox World Series. Ratings would be through the roof, but you would have the skip all the pregame and watch it on mute. Might be worth to check out the Spanish broadcast.  Although I could probably recall enough of my high school Spanish to know that they are talking about the curse of the goat, Grandpa David Ross and Big Papi.

I bet the commissioner would cry if the Indians/Nats made the World Series.  I think a rugby match on Fox Sports 1 would get better ratings.

How about a card!

2016 Topps Series 2 Sean Rodriguez Clear Acetate /10

It has been a few months since I've added a clear parallel.  I'm always on the hunt, but the Ebay well has gone dry.  Thankfully this one came to auction a few weeks back and didn't get much attention. The winning bid was a shade under $10.  That is very cheap for the clear parallels.  I'm sure this selling price makes Sean Rodriguez unhappy.

Thanks for reading! Enjoy all the games. 

A Small Taste of Series 2

I really didn't have much of a desire to buy packs of Series 2, but from a Pirates perspective I really liked the checklist. I'm really hoping to find a clear acetate parallel of Pirate backup catcher Chris Stewart at some point.

My one and only auction success for Series 2 was won last week.

 Jared Hughes Topps Series 2 Clear Acetate

Something always satisfying when middle relievers get cardboard love. They are some of my favorite cards to chase.  The price tag on this card was ~$11 if I remember correctly. A little on the high side, but the acetates tend to carry a premium around release time. 

Hughes has been a mainstay in the Pirates pen during the "good" years, but is really struggling this year. I'm guessing he'll probably have until the trade deadline to get things worked out or they may have to let him walk.  He is known as a groundball specialist and when things were going right would be placed in games when a double play was needed.  This year he has had trouble getting the sinker down and hitters have been teeing off.  

With all that being said that doesn't make me any less happy to own this card. Here's to maybe finding a few more of the lesser know Pirates in the coming weeks. 

Thanks for reading. Hope everyone enjoys their 4th of July celebrations.