He Waves Goodbye to Symmetry

'15 Topps Jason Heyward #181 "Waving" Variation.

Acquiring this card caused me to have page order angst.  Until now I had avoided putting the "sparkle" variation into the binder.  But I figured with this card it was time.  I have a thing about base and parallel pages being identically arranged.  I don't consider the variations to be inserts so I've decided to keep them with the base team set.  That throws off the aforementioned symmetry that I keeps me sane. Also, should this card come before or after the "sparkle" variation?  (I still don't understand the hidden gem thing)  These are the things I think about at night.

At any rate I'm happy to have all three Heyward cards in my possession.  I still have a few more flagship variations to track down.  Then I can turn to more pressing matters, like figuring out all the Update variations.

Throwback Gold

As promised, here are the most interesting cards pulled from my first packs of Update.  I'm feeling too lazy to scan so these are borrowed from Ebay.

Noah Syndergaard US157 Gold 0765/2015

 US406 Jon Lester "Throwback" Variation

To my untrained eye this originally looked like another gold card.  But no, there are apparently throwback logos thrown in for good measure.  I also got a stack of inserts but see above laziness.  These are of course up for trade.  Drop me a line if interested.

Early Update

'15 Update arrived a couple of days early at my local big box store.  I don't think I ever bought packs of update as a kid so this is a new experience.  I'm only looking for Braves so everything else will be up for trade.  I'll prob end up buying a few more packs at Target, next week.  I've already updated my wantlist accordingly.  I'll do a separate post if I get anything interesting.

Sparkle Sparkle!

I told myself I wouldn't, but here we are:

2015 Topps #181, "Sparkle" variation.  I won't say how much I paid but it was probably too much for this:

You got me Topps.

Two Quick Trades

I recently received two trade packages in the mail.  Here's what I got:

From Tom at Waiting 'til Next Year, I got a sweet 2013 Gypsy Queen Justin Upton mini.  You can see my end of the deal here.

#77

(My scanner gave me fits with this one, so I borrowed this image from the interwebz).  I didn't buy any GQ this year, so this card is much appreciated!

Ryan over at "O" No!!! Another Orioles Blog sent a stack of '13 Topps Series 2 parallels and inserts for these.

Thank you Ryan and Tom, for the trades!!

More 80s Goodness

In exchange for a stack of '13 Series 2, Bert over at Swing and a Pop-up sent a ton of cards off my wantlist.  If you aren't trading with him, you should be!!  There's way too much to show everything but here are the highlights of all the awesomeness. 

The above Murph is the last card I needed for the '86 Topps set.  Glad to have that one in the books!!

This '87 Kmart #29 wasn't on my list, but it totally brought back childhood memories.  I'm sure I have another one of these in a box somewhere in my parent's attic.

'81 Topps #675

The scan doesn't do this one justice.  Just look at that young Bobby Cox!!

Lastly, the Baseball Heroes insert set from '91 Upper Deck.  Somehow it went right over my head that Aaron was featured in this set.   I didn't have any of these and I think there are a few more out there to complete the set.  

Bert, thanks again for the awesome trade!!

Trade with $30 a Week Habit

CH-79

I've been bad about writing up trade posts.  With Series 2 I'm going to try to stay up to date.  I saw the above card posted on on the great blog $30 a week habit and of course threw it out there that I would be interested in trading for it.  Robert obliged.  Here's what else he sent.

TM-96

#540 Walmart Blue

357 & 614

And last, but not least, a surprise!

2008 SP Legendary Cuts DH-AJ

I had to look this one up because I'm not familiar with the set.  I was in highschool when Andruw made is debut and was a pretty big fan.  It was really disappointing to see his career taper off.  And then of course there was this.  At any rate, this is actually my very first Braves relic card.  I'll ignore that he's listed with the Dodgers.  Thanks for the trade Robert!!

In other news, I've made some significant updates to my wantlist.  I've added a few vintage (for me) sets that I would like to finish up and a few others from my past collecting days.  Please check it out!