The postman always hates twice

I've talked about working from home before. It is a luxury for me, with the money saved from avoiding gas, tolls ($5 a day total), vehicle wear and tear, and lost sleep. Not getting up at 5am, to leave by 6 and get to work by 7:30 each day....that got old. Plus I think the dog likes me being here on a mostly daily basis.

ATT-I-CA! ATT-I-CA! ATT-I-CA!

Being in my computer room, I can see the curb. Today, my postman spent a good two minutes getting the mail into the box. As I am watching him, he's playing one large white or yellow envelope in after another. I hustled out to the mailbox to find 9 pieces of mail: one piece of junk and these eight:

EN-VE-LOPES! EN-VE-LOPES! EN-VE-LOPES!

From Ebay, Just Commons and generosity, let's touch on all of these.

Top left, with the big "F" is a Just Commons order.

Set fillers. Knocked out some insert needs for 2013 Heritage and '14 A&G. Also some high numbers for '08 UD Masterpieces, a bunch of 2013 Cooperstown and all but one card for the 2010 UD ball fields. Man....great photo the the Mariners there, eh?

The manila envelope with the "F" leaning on the Just Commons package, plus the white PWE on the lower left, were Ebay orders of 2010 Turkey Red inserts.

The Cepeda in the middle was the PWE. The outside were part of a 40 card purchase. I decided to chase this insert set, and this order put me about halfway. I have a needs list for the rest if you have any of these lying around you don't want.

The other Ebay purchase in the photo is the manila envelope at the far right, in the middle.

Decided Paulie's farewell card would make for a nice rainbow, with the less parallels out this year. Here's the black I scored. Purple is on the way and I should have the gold secured by the end of the week.

So what about the Priority Box? That was a gift from CommishBob from Five Tool Collector. I hate him for all the amazing Pierces he has that I don't. But I think these cards were less a peace offering and more a "shut up and stop being a damn baby".

Just kidding. Bob would say nothing like that. Bob has some great cards in his collection, and it's nice to know someone has secured some great Pierce white whales. The note from Bob said a guy at his show had cheap-o vintage. Oh man are these beautiful! Just the condition I like for the '64 I am building. 30 cards total. Thanks Bob!

Toppish, to the right (as you look at the envelopes) is a manila package with a yellow box containing my address. Kerry from Cards on Cards dropped that one on me.

Stuffed with White Sox and a couple bunting cards, he also added that super sweet Al Oliver miscut from the Milton Bradley game, and a Sweet Spot Paulie for his player binder. Appreciate the awesome gesture of cards, Kerry.

Two left to talk about. Lower right is the other PWE, this one from the great blog Johnny's Trading Spot run by Johnny himself. In it was 2/3 of a 9 pocket page stuffed with a few collections cards.

DPs, throwbacks (seriously Cleveland - how is that not your everyday uniform) and a nice grouping of Negro League players. I need to dig out those cards and binder them up. All former Negro League players deserve better than being in a stack. Thanks again, John.

It just happens that the package in the middle is last. That's a Zippy Zapping from the man responsible for Cervin' Torren' (insert name heren') Up Cards. Four of Zippy's famous repacks were within. But you are only getting one image - some of the cards are being held for a later post.

There were current Sox in the package too, but here's a couple super sexy vintage cards, plus the mini version of the Clemente puzzle. I wonder if Zippy threw it in as filler, but I will gladly take in and find a spot for it. More from Zippy later, but I'll say ありがとう now. (Google translate don't fail me now!)

What a mail day. I was hit hard, but I think I survived.

Rainbow update

If you have looked at my Want list recently (just look at the list already, would ya?!), or read in the summer, I am looking to complete the rainbow of Gordon Beckham's 2013 Topps flagship release. I have had some help with trades and pickups by Chris/Kyle from Old Foul Cardboard. Ebay has been helpful as well and, in fact, yesterday I received my latest addition:

It's the sapphire foil from Update. Numbered to 25, I jumped at this when it showed up a week back. Think of the mail away foil, only lighter blue (ie - gimmick).

Also, with a little help from Dennis at Too Many Verlanders, the cammo and the mini gold are snagged from COMC at a price I am willing to pay, and by "willing to pay", more like find vintage at my LCS and trade in value. So after that completes, I will be down to 2 "should be able to find" (mini and pink #/50), one "why did I pass up the two chances to snag it of ebay in the past" card (the silver #/10), one "I hope it shows up somewhere (mini black #/5) and then the "gonna be hard to find" 1/1s and plates.

If you see anything I would need, reach out to me, would ya?

A lotta sports

I did it. I finally broke down and did it. I ordered from Sportlots.

Ever so often, a blogger talks about getting this or that from Sportlots, and I would roam over, look at a few things, but never really pull the trigger. But recently, I had reason to make a purchase. More later.

Now, I didn't go big. My cart did have over 100 cards in it at one time, but I had to do this purchase on the cheap - there was one card in my cart that needed to be purchased before it disappeared. I had only seen this card one other time, at 3 times the price it was listed at Sportlots. A price difference like that is a no brainer. I still had to maximize my purchase, shipping-wise, and wish I could have gotten 5 cards instead of 4, but the final card that got voted off is one I can find fairly easily on the site.

Here are the three that made the trip in the envelope.

The final two base cards for the 2012 Panini Cooperstown, so it's nice to mostly have that set complete. And the Aaron at the bottom leaves me just one card (#1 in fact) to mostly finish the first set ever added to the Want list here at 2x3 Heroes. It was the other card (Jackson) that missed the cut. But why did I finally take the plunge at Sportlots?

COMC is the only other place I have seen this parallel. This card set me back a buck. That brings the rainbow total to 8 cards. I have seen the gold, cammo and silver slate on eBay, so I should be able to slowly pull those in.

Rainbow update

I really wish the rainbow was the only update I had (as evident by the stacks of cards on my desk). I have a lot of scanning, a lot of posting, and a lot of honoring sitting around me in stacks from great and small. However, the union says it's too late for a bunch of scans and I am only permitted one, so here it is.

The emerald and the blue came courtesy of Chris over at Old Foul Cardboard, who better get his tail back to his blog or else. Yeah - I know you're reading. Just do it. The orange, which I had no idea existed when I first started the quest, came from eBay. I guess the boxed sets have special orange parallels. Ok - whatever. (cough)Toppsmoneygrab(cough). Just glad I saw it in my searches and could nab is for a couple bucks.

So that fills three slots on the binder page. I updated the rainbow needs on the WANTS page up above. I am hoping one of you have the purple Toys R Us parallel as I can't seem to see any of those on eBay or COMC. And to those that view the videos I post, I apologize in advance for sticking this song in your head. In my defense, I never held a gun to your skull and made you click the play button, so it's all your fault.

LET'S DO THIS!!!

There's been quite a lot of incoming cardboard here at Plaza 2x3 Heroes. Been doing a lot of sorting and organizing. The binders getting the most activity have been the double play and the bunting binders. Not to say that throwbacks have been ignored. When I organize the DP binder, I try to put the players together, as well as the similar cards together. For example, three years of Ian Desmond are all in a row, and on another page, I have the gold of Mike Availes 2012 Topps right next to the orange refrector from Chrome.

Well, in organizing, I noticed I have the base, red and blue of Gordon Beckham's 2013 Topps.

I decided I am going for the rainbow. That's where you all come in - to save me from COMC or eBay. I will need to fill the remaining slots (and a 2nd page) with the following:

gold
purple (Toys R Us)
emerald
black
cammo
pink
silver slate blue (wrapper redemption)

And if possible:
printing plate (just one will do)
platinum

In one sense, I am lucky - Gordon is not in the Opening Day set, so that takes 3 cards off the list (base, blue and purple). If you have any of rest I need, please email me and let's make this happen.