Trade with Topps Cards that Never Were

In mid-September, Jeremy from Topps Cards that Never Were shot me an email about sending over some spare Pirates cards. This is the first time Jeremy and I have traded, and I’m really excited about this partnership. Jeremy sent me some great cards, but the best part about the partnership is that Jeremy collects the Rays. I’m excited to have a home for my unwanted Rays cards in the future.

First up is two pink parallels of formers Pirates, both of whom are participating in the Postseason (of course). One could/should win the Cy Young. You’ve probably heard of him by now.

Jose Guillen is one of very very few notable Pirates from the 90’s, so he shows up often in late 90s cardboard. This insert is awesome. He was 21 when he broke into the majors, hence the “Baby Boomers.”

As for Liriano, he’s one of my favorite recent Pirates. And while he was good for the Pirates, he was really nasty on the Twins. Really cool orange chrome parallel from 2010 Topps Chrome.

My favorite card of the lot. 2008 Topps Heritage High Number #/559. I don’t collect much Heritage, but maybe I should. Heritage refractors are so sweet. Maholm was pretty bad, maybe average at best over his 10 year career. He was a serviceable back-of-the-rotation starting pitcher who probably could of benefitted from some run support. Sadly, “run support” was not in the Pirates vocabulary in the mid 2000s.

And yet, this is still a great card. There’s just something different about the shine on Heritage refractors, which I tried my best to capture in the image above.

Thanks for the trade, Jeremy! Cheers to many more.