Trade With The Daily Dimwit, plus, Papa's got a brand new Banks

I met up with Sam, who writes at the Daily Dimwit, this weekend to put a pretty massive trade together. While we both live in the Houston area, we live pretty much on the opposite side of town, but he was nice enough to make the long drive over to the apartment to swap a few cards, talk about the hobby, and catch up in person. I parted with a few cards he needed for some sets and some Astros, as well as a few movie-related relic cards for his wife, and I was able to take away a HUGE number of singles.

I was able to knock a significant portion of my needs from 2010 Update, 2009 Allen & Ginter and 2009 A Piece of History, and I grabbed all of his extras from 2009 Goodwin Champions. I hadn't gotten any of the Goodwin cards previously, besides a single pack at Target, but seeing so many of them together, I came to the conclusion that the set would look phenomenal in a binder. I figured, I'll grab what I can and see what I can do with it.

I am also a huge Chicago Cubs fan, and seeing as how Sam despises that team, it works out pretty well for me. He posted on his blog a few weeks ago about his trip to the Houston Tri Star show and I was finally able to pick up the card he found for me: A Ron Santo from the 1968 Topps Game set. While the Cubs legend is on a "pop out" card, it looks really nice, is in pretty good condition and is my first vintage Santo. Not bad for a card he got from a dealer's "dollar bin." I also picked up two relics: a 2009 Kosuke Fukudome Allen and Ginter and a 2008 Upper Deck X Mark Prior. The Fukudome looks great, as do all of the Allen & Ginter hit cards and while the Prior is a pinstripe swatch, it suffers from the infamoud Upper Deck move of putting the new team name on the card, while keeping everything else in the old team. It looks like a Cubs card, apart from the "San Diego Padres" team label.

I also grabbed what I could from his Cubs extras, which gave me TWO Ryne Sandberg CYMTO cards: one with the CYMTO backing and one with the original back, as well as his Turkey Red insert. I also picked up an Ernie Banks Turkey Red card, which I had not been able to find up until this point. The Josh Hamilton is from the 2007 SP Rookie Edition set and is an example of one thing I actually like about the "Toppsopoly." Upper Deck plastered "Rookie Card" on the front of this card, as it was his first year in the majors and (I think) his first year on an Upper Deck card. However, Topps came out with a card of his, I think, in 2001, when he was with the Devil Rays. With only one game in town, that company can put a rookie label on a card and you know what it is. You don't have to worry about another company negating that because it released an issue of 200 random minor leaguers a few years back and just happened to get one right. Everything else about the Toppsopoly might suck, but that's at least one good thing. I also found a bunch of Brooklyn Dodgers cards, and it dawned on me just how many Brooklyn cards there are in Topps this year, which is good for me. More of them to collect.

In other news, I received in the mail today, MUCH earlier than expected, an ebay auction I had won for a 1962 Ernie Banks card. Considering 48 years has passed, the card is in phenomenal shape, and puts me one step closer to getting every regular issue card of Mr. Cub.