Trades, pick ups and something cool...

So I had several packages waiting for me in the mail today... first of all I've got some mad props to hand out to my buddy Josh over at Dodger Bobble. I won a contest over there, which would have netted me a couple of bobble head dolls, a signed Preacher Roe card and some other goodies which would have probably mostly ended up in Greg Z's mailbox some day. I was really excited about the Preacher Roe card, I wanted it really bad. But then my neighborhood miscreants struck again and stole the package off the front porch. Josh went ahead and sent me another package with an alternate prize... two "Nolan Ryan" beanie babies. Now, I'm not a beanie baby collector at all, but since these are Nolan Ryan themed, I figured what the heck, why not... the scans don't do justice to the coolness of a unique prize:

 Mets Nolan with "New York" on the front...

And Rangers Nolan... sorry, a bit of a crotch shot, I blame the scanner/cropper... Thanks Josh, great prizes and great blog! Keep it up buddy...

Next we have a package from across the pond, England that is... Jack from The Pursuit of 80's(ness). He sent over 7 cards from my Upper Deck 20th Anniversary complete set goal (this is not going well, but I'm going to keep trudging along in hopes that some day someone with about 4000 of them wants to unload them cheap... haha)... thanks Jack, I'll be pulling some cards and shooting you a package soon!

Also, we have Jason C. Now, for the life of me, I cannot remember his blog... I read so many and if I don't put a blog name in one of the e-mails, I tend to lose trade. Jason, if you read this, let me know you're blog and I'll fix this so that it plugs your blog. He posted about some Gypsy Queen that he was looking to unload and I needed bronze bordered cards and wanted some trade bait. As it turns out, after making the deal, I pulled one of the autos he sent and so I now have two copies of the Neftali Feliz auto if anyone is looking for one or two! He also sent along 5 bronze borders and a short print Utley. So he'll snag 5 entries into my Bronze Border contest! If you want to unload bronze borders, please let me know, you'll get entries into a SWEET contest, not to mention I'll also trade you cards for them! Alright, back to the cards:

Next up, we have David over at TribeCards. He sent over my cards from the "Buck a Box" Group Break he held where I claimed the Astros. I got some more of the 2011 Bowman base cards (as I am not buying any packs of this set, I enjoyed getting a stab at some Astros base!) Thanks for the affordable and fun break, which also included some SportsFlics and Heads Up! sets. Thanks David!

Great action shot of Hunter Pence... Jonathan Villar might be in the big leagues in a year or two if he keeps hitting like he has as well. I sent a TTM to Mike Scott a few weeks ago, hopefully he will return it signed soon!

Finally, while out and about yesterday with the wife, we came across a blaster of 2009 UD A Piece of History and since I'm still trying to put that set together, I snagged it up. Didn't get any set needs but I got a GU jersey:

Well, have a great one everyone! Hope this week treats you all well!