Adam Lind appears in the mail

I can read this, so clearly Adam needs to work on the signature.

I should trade more.  It’s not that I don’t like trading or that I’m naturally antisocial (well, not excessively antisocial, anyway), I just never get around to it.  There are currently four trade packages I have sitting around, waiting to be mailed.  Two are almost a year old.  Fortunately, the intended recipients have no idea they’re out there (which makes them more presents than trades, I guess), or I might be in trouble.

Another part of the problem is that I tend to like old stuff and most trading involves new stuff.  While there are clearly other people trying to finish, say, 1969 OPC baseball (I can tell because I keep losing on eBay), nobody writes about it.  Doubles accumulate in the basement and I have no idea what to do with them.

So when somebody casually mentions, “Gee, it might be nice to find old OPC baseball cards of my team,” alarm bells go off and I get all excited.  Over at  ARPSmith’s Sportscard Obsession, this mistake was made: “If you know a reasonable (cheap) source for mid-grade OPC cards from the 60s and 70s please let me know,” he said.

“I DO!! I DO!! IT’S MY BASEMENT!!!” I cried, though not too loud because the baby was finally sleeping.  In about 15 minutes I had maybe 25-odd Giants and a trade was proposed.

“What would you like in return?”

“Umm (realizing I know jack about modern releases), I dunno.  Jays?”

And that was enough.  I’d already forgotten about the whole thing when the package arrived.  There were a boatload of this year’s Heritage, which I liked, a bunch of shiny things, which I liked, a Gypsy Queen insert of R.A. Dickey, which I liked and most remarkably, not a single cringe-worthy player.  A lot of the past 20 years haven’t been that much fun.  I don’t want Esteban Loaiza’s autograph.  It wasn’t here.

What I liked best, though, was this card.  Scanner time has been limited, so I have only a lousy ill-lit picture, but this is simply neat.  If I’d been asked, “do you want an Adam Lind autograph,” I’d probably have said, “not particularly,” but I find this fascinating.  It helps that with all the new additions that have somehow added up to very little, it’s Adam Lind who has come right out of the woodwork and had a tremendous season.  The card-within-a-card aspect is something to which I’d raised a Spockian eyebrow when I’d seen them online, but in person, it works rather well.

The signature is even legible, which makes it all the better.

Thanks for a great trade!  I’ve since found 6 more that are going into the next pile.  I have no idea when I will send it.  🙂

The inner card will slop around a bit in the outer one, as if to prove that yes indeed, this was made in two pieces – sort of like the early toonies were reputed to do.