Back to the Future

The calendar may have rolled over to 2014, but my blogging is still stuck in 2013.  I have a pile of thank you's, new additions, and holiday cheer that is going to keep me busy through this week.  Hope you guys don't mind - I certainly don't, since I'm one of those people who are perfectly comfortable leaving the tree and lights up until February.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't give a shout out for some of the awesome year end packages that came my way.  Today's goodies came courtesy of Nick and his glorious Dime Boxes.  Nick's posts are hands down my favorite to read if purely for the sheer variety of his collection, but his writeups are fantastic as well.  He and I have pretty similar collecting tastes (well, aside from his misguided Cubs fandom :-) ) so it's pretty easy to come across cards for his many wonderful mini-collections.  And I'll be damned if I don't dump enough Cubbie cards on him to turn him into a true team collector sooner or later.

Nick hit a real home run with his package, knocking off some great cards.  The Clemente above if a spin on the 1958 Hires Root Beer set.  I love the wood look to the card, and it's a great pairing to the 1955 Bowman color tv design.  This card has been one of my most wanted since its release in 2003, but Clemente cards aren't exactly common dime box finds around these parts.

 Nick also included a couple autos of cautionary tale former super prospect Chad Hermansen.  And no, I didn't plan on scanning the card at an angle.  Nick may not be a big fan of autographs, but I love 'em!  He mentioned picking up a few autos on the cheap a while back - something tells me this may have been one of them.  The late 90's minor league issue autos don't get much love these days, but I'm always glad to add them to my collection.

Nick is a pro at finding oddball and uncommon releases.  One of my favorite things to do in elementary was check out SI for Kids from our school library and pull out the perforated cards.  This was probably my lone act of mischief as a kid, but I still have the cards to this day.  This Barry Bonds card is a real beauty - as I've mentioned countless times, growing up through the depths of the Pirates suckery wasn't too fun.

I need to find a way to get my hands on more of these Hometown Heroes cards.  This may be my set of the year, but box prices are still way, way, way too high.

But it wasn't entirely retro themed.  I think Bowman changes the shade of their colored parallels every single year, but I'm really liking this more pronounced blue over the light blue shade of previous years.

I...can't find anything to say about this Pedro Alvarez card.  Anything nice that is.  Pretty sure this could have been the design for a new Chucky doll.

Derrek Lee: the man who would rather retire than get paid millions of dollars to play for the Pirates.