Vive la France

With every box break comes an awesome trade.  I can always count on Kevin to find some great cards for my collection.  He always goes above and beyond which is unnecessary, but greatly appreciated. 

Weird to say former Pirate Gerrit Cole... As a whole Pirate fans are in a really bad spot right now. Losing the face of the franchise and your best pitcher within a few days of each other doesn't endear yourself with the fanbase.

I would never say this on Twitter because I don't want angry Pirate fans calling me a front office apologist, but I totally get the Cole deal.  The perception of Cole is that he is an ace pitcher, but the results tell a different story. The last two years he has been plagued by injury and homers.  While he has a ton of value, expecting teams top prospects wasn't fair.  Rumors were the Yankees offered Clint Frazier and Chance Adams, but not together.  The Astros never offered one of their top prospects.  Do you gamble on one big prospect, or get a collection of flawed players in the hope that they develop.

By all accounts Cole had no desire to take any type of deal that would have bought out his arbitration and early free agent years.  He had two years of control left.  It was time to deal.

This is by no means a knock on Cole.  He was healthy last year so that is a great sign. By losing him the Pirates definitely got worse in the short term. If he can suppress the homers, he could slot right back as a top flight starter. You just can't land a teams top prospects with someone putting up numbers like Cole has in the past two years.

/end rant

Triple Threads relics are awesome!

Nice pic of Marte sporting the shades!

I feel like Kevin opened a box of SP.  Maybe I'm wrong....Either way that set was awesome.

Superstar Clemente and cardboard legend/blog favorite Wally Moon!!!!!

I always end up talking about Burgess quite a bit because he was part of a pretty famous trade that also brought in Don Hoak and Harvey Haddix.

Biebs!

Thanks for the trade Kevin.  What a mix of old and new.  The winner was the Clemente/Wally Moon card in my book.  What a great card.

Thanks for reading!

Round 2

Last night I featured a crazy nice triple auto that Kevin sent directly to me via an eBay auction win.  Today I want to showoff the rest of the cards sent to me from the #1 ranked French citizen.  Seriously, Google it if you must.  Kevin is the worlds greatest Frenchman. 

Let's start off with some Ginter relics

 I love that Topps got their hands on some of the alternate Pirates jersey.  The bright yellow is likely from the throwback 1979 jerseys they wear on Sundays.  Definitely makes a single color relic pop more.

 Cool combo of players here.

 Tony Plush

 I always talk about cataloging my Jason Bay collection.....Probably a close second would be Giles.  I have a pretty extensive collection of Giles. He has so many unique cards being that he played for the Bucs in the late 90s, early 2000's

 This was a pleasant surprise for sure.  Kevin has been sneaking some Steelers an WVU guys lately.  This booklet card features a nice auto and a huge jersey swatch.  It also has kind of a shadowbox feel to it.

 Hard to find nice on card autos than Tribute. 

 I'm always pumped to receive Bell cards.  He has really jumped in price the last couple of months. 

 Mini!

 Some parallels of current Buccos. The top left Bell is /150.  Beautiful card!

 WVU's most famous sports alum. What a cool looking insert.

 A cool Burnett parallel.  Wish Opening Day still numbered these.

Thanks so much Kevin for this awesome package.  So many great cards.  You really know my collection.

Thanks for reading!

Cartes de Baseball Français

Yesterday I showcased my portion of two different box breaks from Kevin.  Let's get to all the fun extras he sent.

I was surprised how thick these relics were.  The picture doesn't really show, but I'm guessing it would take at least 100pt top loader to house one of these bad boys.

While I'm more of a Cole fan than Harrison, it is nice to add a relic of the versatile Bucco. It had been quite sometime since I've added one.

High end base parallels are hard to come by.  Not many in our community bust products like this so they are rarely shared. Pretty pumped to see this purple Cutch.

While the Cummings card is pretty cool that Kendall is on a whole different level.  For about a five year stretch I would put Kendall cards up against anyone in the late 90's early 2000's for shear coolness.

Some various numbered goodness. While Bay is my boy, the Kendall Prizm card is my favorite of this bunch.

Nice bright jersey swatch of the Cobra. Golden Age was a great set.

Canada's number 1 son.

This was a really nice surprise.  This is a numbered to /25 Bowman parallel of Pirate top prospect Austin Meadows. Good chance the Buccos will call up Meadows at some point in the summer.

Thanks so much for the cards Kevin. Your continued generosity ceases to amaze me.  Now I need to go find some cool Blue Jays....

Thanks for reading.

Attention Grabber

1956 Topps Roberto Clemente

Clemente is by far the hardest Pirate to collect.  If you search for his cards on eBay you can see very quickly that demand and prices are high. Before blogging I only had a couple cards of the Pirate legend. 

Thanks to great trade partners I've slowly accumulated a respectable Clemente collection. The beauty pictured above was courtesy of the greatest French baseball card blogger in the world, Kevin aka The Card Papoy.  Talk about a one card bombing! 

The card itself is in fair condition.  The centering is off and the corners are a little rounded, but that just adds character. You really hooked me up big time Kevin! I was blown away when I opened the bubble envelope. Just something about seeing Clemente cards that really makes me excited about collecting cards.  Obviously I love modern cards, but star vintage cards are just on another level.  

Thanks for reading! 

Go Penguins

F is for Fancy...and French

Life is pretty busy for our favorite French dude Kevin of Card Papoy fame. He is currently putting the finishing touches on a book that will catapult him to fame and fortune. I will tell stories to my daughter someday that I traded baseball cards with Kevin. 

In all seriousness it is super cool that Kevin is writing a book. So many people talk about doing something like that, but Kevin did it! That is quite the accomplishment my friend. 

As always, Kevin still finds the time to hook me up with great Pirate cards. The first card I saw really caught my attention

Yesssssssss! Fancy set, fancy patch and fancy player. Museum Collection is something I never opened but love getting as many of the Pirate singles as possible. Thanks for hooking me up with the Cole Train Kevin.

 Barnes has been plagued by injury ever since he was drafted. If I recall correctly the Pirates left him unprotected in the Rule 5 draft but no one bothered claiming him. I'm guessing this is a make or break year for him.

 FANCY BASE CARDS! I don't try to hide my love affair with Gregory Polanco. I'm so happy he is really breaking out this year. He is a true 5 tool talent.

 Marte has been off to one of his better starts as well. I dream that one day all three outfielder make the same All Star team!

 More Museum Collection.

 Now you are just showing off Kevin.

 Many people were worried that Kang's bad leg injury was going to slow him up this year. He hit two homeruns his first game back. I really need to get more Kang cards in my collection.

 Some random Pirate goodness rounds out the trade package.

Why is this card in here Kevin?  Is it some kind of cryptic code? Is that Pirate players arm making a cameo. Does this card hold the worlds greatest secrets? Do you want me to start collecting Darren Daulton? 

The Biebs sings with passion.

Thanks Kevin.  You should be getting a package from me any day.

Thanks for reading!

Walk, Papoy, HSCA Collaboration #12

I'm still licking my wounds from that Topps Supreme box so what better way to move on than open a package from my pal Kevin. This time around it was Kevin's turn to pick a box and he went with the familiar Panini Classics. For the price and distribution of hits and makes a pretty safe pick.  Usually one of us ends up with a good hit.

This time around Kevin pulled a 1/1 Marcus Semien for himself, but we all did fairly well.

Nothing too special about the relic, but getting a Red Sox makes for good trade bait. Extra bonus for being one of the more popular guys. I'm sure it would be hard to find a taker for Panda or Hanley.

Heaney was a busy man last year. He was traded to the Dodgers in the Dee Gordon deal and then the Dodgers flipped him to the Angels for Howie Kendrick.  He pitched pretty well for the Angels in about half a seasons work last year.  He is going to be leaned on heavy this coming year.

 Vazquez probably needs to have a big spring for him to break camp with the Red Sox. Teams seem to like veterans as backups so Ryan Hanigan will probably win the job. Blake Swihart seems to be destined for the starting gig.

The checklist in Classics is one of my favorites in the last couple of years. I just wish Panini would have paid a little more attention to detail. Unfortunately the set was one and done. 

It is not a break without extras! Kevin always finds good stuff.  First a cool Clay Holmers Elite card. Holmes had decent pedigree as the Pirates talked him out of a college commitment, but he still hasn't had a breakout season. 

 I should build a special wing in my Polanco collection featuring cards of his that Kevin sent my way. He knows I have a man crush on the Pirate right fielder. Awesome on card auto!

The always tall 54 Bowman of Max Surkont. I think I may have only one other 54 Bowman card so this is a pretty cool addition to the collection.

As always Kevin thanks for the break and the extra stuff. I really appreciate it.  Brian just finished his break last weekend so a new box break post shouldn't far behind.

Thanks for reading.

CLEMENTE!

It is nothing out of the ordinary for me to receive a package from France these days. My good pal Kevin usually hooks me up with great stuff to go along with our box break loot. This time around he gave me a heads up that a package would be coming from stateside, but that it was from him. He didn't tell me what it would be, but he said I would know it when I see it.

Boy was he right. If you want to get a Pirates fan attention this guy usually does it.......

Not everyday you get Clemente in a trade. 

Kevin is showing off now......

 A Clemente trifecta!!!!!!!!

Holy crap Kevin! You really outdid yourself by sending three Clemente's! I was so pumped seeing these three pop out of the bubble mailer. I think my personal favorite is the close up 65, but that batting leaders card has a nice cameo from Hank Aaron as well. It will be hard to equal the awesomeness of this package, but I will give it the old college try next time I ship out to France.  

Thanks for reading!