jaybarkerfan's junk sends the blues

it's hard not to be excited when a package from wes at jaybarkerfan's junk shows up at your doorstep.  now, i have not been drawn into one of his trade wars (thankfully, as i know i would not be able to keep up), but we've traded several packages over the last couple of years.  this latest return from wes was certainly no disappointment.

first up is perhaps the bluest card i've seen - it's a 2002 donruss cesar izturis rookie crusade card

good golly miss molly, that's a blue card.

onelki garcia's 2014 topps chrome blue refractor parallel

pales in comparison.

but then there is this 2014 bowman platinum chrome prospects zach lee sapphire parallel card

that is pretty blue.

the blues end there, sort of, as we still have dodger cards, but they aren't of the same hue.  this is an emerald parallel of chris anderson's 2014 bowman platinum chrome prospects card

that brings the green rather than the blue.

there were some regular cards in the package as well, including a 1988 fleer mini kirk gibson card

and a 2005 topps roger craig dem bums insert

craig is fortuitously flashing his bum on the card, by the way.

wes also hit my list of most wanted cards, sending two of the remaining jackie robinson story inserts from 2015 topps that i needed my way

two pretty important milestones there.

i'll finish up with some more hued parallels - these are of the dodger first baseman of the moment, adrian gonzalez.  first is his 2013 bowman chrome purple parallel

and next is his 2013 topps triple threads emerald parallel

both are pretty colorful, bun not as colorful as this 2014 donruss gonzalez elite dominator card

which was not part of the package wes sent, but fits in nicely with this post.

thanks wes, for another great trade!

10-plus years of matt kemp dodger cardboard are coming to an end

it took 11 years, but i finally picked up a 2005 bowman chrome matt kemp autograph card

it's not the refractor version, so it didn't take too much to acquire.  around the same time, i picked up a 2015 topps kemp rainbow foil parallel insert

bookends of a dodger career, to an extent.

it's no secret that matt kemp was my favorite dodger, and so i do wish he were playing better for the padres.  he's played in every game so far, but his home run total (1), average, and on-base percentage are not close to what he would normally have at this point in a season.

i don't own a matt kemp 1/1, so i fall short of the pentafecta in my collection, but i did add a 2013 topps triple threads relic card numbered 7/9 to my collection recently

it was the red patch that compelled me to land this card.

i've avoided 'matt kemp as a padre' cards so far (2015 topps gypsy queen might be the only release to feature him in padre duds to date, now that i think about it), but i am sure that pretty soon i'll have to decide whether to keep collecting his cards or not.  either way, i'll still have the best years of kemp's career on cardboard.

dave stewart through the mail success and hopefully a pending success as well

here's my 1978 topps update/burger king dodgers card that should have been of dave stewart, signed by the former dodger and three-time world series champion himself.

i sent it in to a hall of fame sports signing a couple of years ago.  if you don't recall, stew pitched in one game for the 1978 dodgers and then didn't return to the majors until 1981.

i recently (6 months ago) took a chance on a 2013 topps triple threads redemption card which promised to deliver an auto-relic of stewart.

i reard (that's how topps shows him in other releases this year), but my hopes were buoyed by panini which issued a short print of him as a dodger last year.  of course, his base card (and certified auto) in that set had him affiliated with oakland.

no matter the result, you can wait for the card along with me, as i have updated the redemption watch feature on the upper right side of the blog (web view only) by removing the clayton kershaw redemption (that one took about two months) and adding stewart.  by the way, i redeemed the stewart code last november, and am still waiting.

he's signed for me once; i hope he does so again...

running with rhubarb

it's been a while since i completed my latest trade with the rhubarb runner at e rayhan rayhahn. someday, i would like to have my want lists as complete and organized as rhubarb runner.  until that day, i will accept any smattering of dodger cards.  anyway, for some carefully culled twins cards, i received a very nice load of dodgers.

2013 topps triple threads sandy koufax

oh, so now we're just including triple threads koufax cards in our trade packages?  no big deal, i guess.  and, where there's koufax, there's likely duke snider

yes, of the 2012 topps gypsy queen variety.  but what about pee wee, you ask?  don't worry, he's here too.

2005 upper deck mvp batter up! insert

the package wasn't all brooklyn glory - here's a 2013 topps hanley ramirez emerald parallel

and a 2013 topps chrome matt kemp die cut insert

kemp was also represented by 2006 bowman draft

and a 2006 bowman draft gold parallel

here's a 2005 upper deck pros & prospects yhency brazoban card

yhency filled in for eric gagne as the team's closer for a while.  that was during the time that i was reading and commenting on jon weisman's 'dodger thoughts' blog.  someone over there coined the phrase 'ghame over' when yhency was pitching.  there were even t-shirts made.  good times.

not so much good times with nori nakamura.  he flamed out pretty quickly, but there are still a few cards of his to be had by dodger collectors.  this one is from 2005 leaf certified.

last, and actually probably least, is a 2005 donruss diamond kings paul loduca dual relic

thanks for the trade david!  i'll be checking your want lists again soon!

why not eazy-ethier?

i received my cards from the crackin' wax charity 2013 topps triple threads group break last week.  topher pulled two 'hits' for me - the first of which was this andre ethier triple relic

it looks nice, and at least topps rotated one of the plain white swatches to let me know that there are at least two individual pieces of cloth in there.  but what is 'dr. andre' about?  obviously it is a play on socal's own dr. dre, but i have never heard anyone refer to ethier that way.  the back has a writeup that tries to tie things in to dr. dre, but this is a big miss, even for topps triple threads.  as i said in the title of this post, did topps consider eazy-ethier as well?  shoot, i would have understood 'gay for dre', but dr. andre is just silly.

here's the other hit - a redemption for a clayton kershaw unity auto jumbo relic emerald parallel.  that's a lot going on there.

i redeemed the code yesterday, and put the 'redemption watch' gadget there on the right (if you're looking at the web version of the blog).  i wanted a reverse countdown clock, but couldn't find one of those.  anyway, it's one day and counting for topps...

here are the base cards - kershaw

duke snider

hanley ramirez

yasiel puig

i got three purple parallels (numbered to 650) - puig

jackie robinson

and zack greinke

just one green parallel (numbered to 250) - adrian gonzalez

and the last card was a red parallel (numbered to 125) of matt kemp

this was the third crackin' wax group break i participated in this year, and i encourage you to check out topher's site for future breaks.  i see that i am already too late for the 2014 topps series 1 jumbo case break dodgers.  don't let that happen to you.

thanks topher!