Trade with Sports Cards from the Dollar Store

I’ve gradually grown more interested in the NHL and the game of hockey in the past year, and I’ve become a big fan of the Columbus Blue Jackets and thus have started up a Blue Jackets PC.

As I get more into hockey, I’ve started to pay more attention to hockey cards on the blogosphere. If you’re into hockey cards, there’s no better place to check out than Sports Cards from the Dollar Store. Doug runs a great blog that covers all sports cards, and it’s great change of pace from the baseball-only card world. A few weeks ago I was browsing his blog reading through a post of his and came across this Pierre-Luc Dubois Card:

I shot Doug a note about trading for the card. I was thinking something simple, maybe a PWE swap. Doug replied with some additional Blue Jackets cards he had, as well as some Syracuse basketball and Knicks cards. With the exchange of a few emails, our potential PWE swap grew into a larger conversation. Doug was super generous with what he sent, spanning three professional sports:

We’ll start out by showcasing the Jackets cards. Lots of awesome stuff here. Top left is a really O-Pee-Chee Sergei Bobrovsky many patch. The Boone Jenner patch/auto is a beauty, especially because it’s multi-colored. It’s always great to see a patch that isn’t plain white. We’ve also got a sweet Oliver Bjorkstrand. He’s been a great piece of the Jackets offense this year. Doug was also gracious enough to throw in an auto from now-Predators alternate captain Ryan Johansen, who is one of the more talented players to ever wear a Blue Jackets Jersey.

Moving on to basketball, Doug threw in lots of Knicks cards from recent Panini releases. Two Mitchell Robinson Rookies, and the rest from Kevin Knox. Knox is one of my favorite players on the Knicks. I honestly expected much more out of him by this point in his Sophomore year but he’s still super young. One-and-done’s from Kentucky often take some time to develop – because, ya know, playing in the NBA at age 19 can be tough. I’m hoping that’s the case with the Knox and there are better days ahead. 

A pair of Pirates cards for good measure.

Back to basketball with some awesome Syracuse Orange cards. Oshae Brissett entered the draft this year after his Sophomore season and was chosen on draft night. His dreams came true soon after when he was signed by his hometown Toronto Raptors. He was lucky enough to earn himself a two-way contract out of camp. He made his debut on 11/18 and saw very limited action in four games before being heading back to the G-League. I absolutely loved watching him at Syracuse the past two years and I hope he can make a nice career for himself in the league. 

As for the MCW, that’s a bit of a different story. He was another two-and-done at Syracuse and another guy that I loved watching. It looked like his good fortune would continue when he was drafted #11 overall in 2013 and went on to win Rookie of the Year (in a very diluted rookie class) with the Sixers. 

Nowadays, when you Google “Michael Carter Williams,” the top two results under “People also ask” are:

• Did Michael Carter Williams win Rookie of the Year? (as if so many people google it because they don’t believe it when they hear it)
• What happened to Michael Carter Williams? (as if he was kidnapped or disappeared from planet earth)

Either way, another great additional to my Orange PC. But that’s not all. I saved the best for last…

My first ever booklet, in the form of a Nike Swoosh! 

This card is awesome, with two different pieces of memorabilia AND an autograph. Wow.

Malachi Richardson was also a first round bust – taken back in 2016 – and now he’s playing professionally in Israel. He only played one year at Syracuse, but it was super memorable. In 2016 he helped a #10 seed ‘Cuse team make it to the final four by dropping a career high on #1 seed Viriginia in the Elite Eight. I’ll never forget that game, and I’ll be forever grateful to Malachi for that magic.

Doug, I can’t thank you enough for the trade. Looking forward to many more in the future.

2019 Topps Chrome Hobby Box Break

A few months back, I placed a pre-order for one 2019 Topps Chrome Hobby Box and one 2019 Bowman Chrome Hobby Box. This has become somewhat of tradition for me. I always place the order a few months in advance, I forget about it, and I'm usually pleasantly surprised when I get a UPS notification about a package shipping.

The Topps Chrome box just showed up yesterday and I was able to dive right in. 

My card collecting peak was 2013-2015 and for that reason, I really miss full borders on Topps Baseball cards. Starting in 2016 they moved away from borders and now they take the images right to the edge of the card. Minor complaint, just a matter of preference.

In the spirit of being picky, the Last Name-First Name format is an interesting call. I can't recall the last time that Topps went this direction. Not something I really care about, merely an observation. 

Overall I'm a fan of the base card design. It's clean, and there's half of a border. We'll take it!

Kicking us off is one of the most promising young pitchers in the game. Man, I hope this kid pans out and recovers well from Tommy John. There's no reason to believe he won't. I've found myself pulling for the White Sox because I really want all of these prospects to pan out. They committed to the rebuild 110% and it would be nice to see that pay off.

I was lucky enough to pull three Pirates - and they're all over the map. This is only my second Colin Moran card, the other is his rookie auto from 2013 Bowman Chrome when he was donning a Marlins jersey and a clean shave. Kevin Kramer is still in the wings as one of the next-up AAA prospects and will likely be up next year. 

My two autos, both Rookies. Certainly nothing that will blow me away - but this box wasn't a total loss. Ryan Borucki is a new name to me. As a Pirates fan I very rarely catch any AL baseball unless they're on national TV... hence why I haven't seen a Jays game all year. Brad Keller is more familiar to me because I've streamed him a few times on my fantasy baseball team. He's been acceptable or better for KC and seems to have a future in the MLB. I'll hold onto these two and hope for the best.

These two are arguably bigger "hits" than the two autos. Full transparency, I actually had no idea that the card on the right was a refactor until I took this picture. Nailed it!

Really happy to see the Polar Bear show up twice. I'm pulling for this guy and hoping he's here to stay - I'd hate to see a sophomore slump. The Mets are starving for a bonafide slugger like him. 

Anddd this is officially a Mets box and that's quite alright because this a sweet card. You have to love when a parallel color blends perfectly with the team colors. Nothing like black or gold parallels for the Pirates, blue parallels for Dodgers/Rangers, red parallels for the Cards, etc. etc.

This card is the perfect example. It's numbered to 25, and according to my research, this is a photo variation.

Overall, a nice little break. Thanks for reading!