30 to go

Just last Tuesday, I did a post titled "40 to go." That was my start of the countdown until I hit 1,000 unique Tino Martinez cards.

Here were are, just eight days later, and I've already cut that number by 10. All due to some TCDB trades. Pretty great site, if you're into that kind of thing.

One trader had six Tinos I needed! That never happens. I traded him 10 random cards on his list for these six. It's entirely possible I already have the 1991 Topps with the dark logo, but I don't have record of it. The 1992 O-Pee-Chee is pretty sweet. Never seen it in the wild. Plus, three of these cards were Pacific?! I love Pacific.

In this trade, I was only supposed to get the SI card, but the trader told me he didn't like the edge (it looked fine to me), so he threw in a Yankee Stadium Legacy. Yes, I do count those ones as unique Tinos. They are different cards.

The last card that came in was courtesy of Paul of Scribbled Ink, also by way of TCDB. Nice one for one swap. Tino as a Cardinal. Meh. But I needed it, darn it!

So there we are. Just a handful left. It's getting harder and harder to find the ones I don't have, but I'm going to keep trying like heck to get there. I've got nothing else to do!

Catching up with A Cracked Bat

I am close to finally cleaning out my scanned folder, and here's a post I've been meaning to get to. Over the summer, Julie from A Cracked Bat was kind enough to send me a great bubble mailer full of Yankees. Julie's packages are always great and are always full of cards I didn't have - new and old!

I was most surprised by the 1994 O-Pee-Chee cards in there. I honestly have never seen this set! I'm not surprised at all they exist, just for whatever reason I never came across them. Probably because Tino wasn't included in 1994 for some reason?

Gary Sanchez cards were plentiful too. I really like this Museum Collection card, as Julie is known to include cards from some of the higher end products. The Refractor looks great as well! For whatever reason, I feel like 2018 Refractors looked a lot better than years past.

Another card I really enjoyed was Yankees Old Timers Day insert. I mean, just look at Matsui's flow in the picture! It's amazing!

I think I've gotten some Tips Fire in about three or four of the last packages I've received. Since I found zero Fire this year, I'm very cool with this development.

Stadium Club was pretty nice this year, and these were two great Yankees to snag from the set.

Lastly, this was a fun card: a Jose Campos ONYX autograph. I actually couldn't tell if the silver was a real or pre-printed autograph, but I found a few copies of the card online and the signature differed in each one, so indeed, it'a an autograph! Neat looking card!

Julie, thanks for always keeping me on your list of trading partners!

1975 OPC from Adam E

AdamE from Thoughts and Sox and I did a quick trade recently. I sent him a few oddball Clemens, as well as a couple of cards off his want list. He sent me these sweet 1975 OPC cards. I had no idea these existed. Thanks, Adam!

Tino Tuesday #30: 1993 O-Pee-Chee #212

Here is a card from a set you don't see too much of. I remember the early '90s O-Pee-Chee cards quite well. However, I hadn't seen the 1993 set until recently, when I received a few Tino's from Johngy.

I think the front of the cards look a little JV. The "Mariners" in text is kind of cheesy. I don't know why, it just looks like something I'd make in PowerPoint or something. The diamond in the lower right is a little odd. I know it represents a baseball diamond, but it's an awkward design. The photo is good though. That's Tino's signature pose on a card, and they do capture it well.

 

I think that the layout of the back is great.It has all the info you'd want - a headshot, personal info, full stats, and a short-write up. They even fit the team logo in there, which is cool because it was the first year the Mariners were using that logo.

Anyhow, it's a so-so card, but one of the rarer early Tino's and I'm happy to have it in my collection!