The Oh So Rare Trip to a Card Shop

Over a recent weekend I had an opportunity to visit a card shop while out of town. With none located within a few hundred miles of my house, I had to take advantage. It's been probably 10 years since I've visited a card shop in person. With a max of about 20 minutes to spare, I quickly dove into several boxes of random baseball singles and looked for Braves. I enlisted the help of my wife who graciously pulled a stack of Braves aside for me from a different section of the box.

At the end of the 20 minutes I came away with a stack of about thirty Braves from the mid-90s to today. I'd forgotten how fun it is to sort through a box of previously unseen cards.

All these cards are new to me, and I almost didn't pick up the first Smoltz from 'Future Stars' because, well, it's Smoltz in a set called 'Future Stars'. But it reminded me of some Upper Deck sets from the 90s so I added it to my stack. The Fond Farewells card makes me sad that Smoltz didn't finish his career as a Brave, but it's a sharp insert. The Maddux I can appreciate because it's shiny on the back as well as the front, and it's a Maddux.

A trio of Braves from 2009. Can never have enough cards of Bobby Cox. The Braves traded Kelly Johnson to the Mets for the second year in a row and was leading off against the Braves just recently. Glad he may get another playoff run, just not happy about it being with the Mets. I like these Red uniforms.

A few cards of one of my favorite Braves, Tim Hudson, all from sets that I like. Would have preferred an action shot on the O-Pee-Chee, though. The Green is nice on the 2013 Archives.

Couldn't pick up a stack of Braves without a handful of Chipper cards. Nice expression on the 2007 Upper Deck. The design is terrible, but I like the photo.

Next up a pair of guys that I remember watching in person at AAA Richmond. What a solid career for Martin Prado. Gregor Blanco has put together a nice string of solid seasons for the Giants. The Braves traded him to the Royals in 2010 for part of a season of Rick Ankiel and Kyle Farnsworth.

One of my favorite all-time Braves, with an insert from 2008. There are a couple other Braves in this set, Chipper Jones and a current Brave, Nick Markakis.

A couple Jason Heyward cards. Any Heritage card is a good Heritage card. This O-Pee-Chee might be one of my favorite Chipper cards.

Three Frenchies. It's been nice to see Francoeur back in a Braves uniform this year. He's been much better against left-handed pitching, hitting a respectable .288 as of earlier in the week. Seems the Braves might be looking to deal Francoeur if the right deal comes along. 

And three current Braves up-and-comers. Folty in general has been solid. He'll have a string of good quality starts and then a poor start. Hoping to see more of Mallex Smith later this year. Based on latest reports it's looking like September. Wisler has been struggling recently and was just sent down to AAA, but looks to still be a key piece for the future. With the lack of starting options for the Braves and having recently traded away starter Lucas Harrell, these young pitchers, Aaron Blair and Matt Wisler for instance, have been thrust into starting in bad situations. The offense isn't giving any support which puts so much pressure on these young guys to try to carry the load. This is my first Wisler card, though. I'll expect to add many more over the years.

Can't go wrong with a Freeman rookie card. Even Freeman is having a down year by his standards. It's been a tough year for everyone in Atlanta offensively. 

Great card of Markakis beating a throw, sliding into a base. It's been fun watching Markakis in Atlanta this year, and while his power hasn't really returned, he did recently have a streak where he didn't have a swinging strike for 32 plate appearances. Markakis just doesn't strike out that often.

Well that is certainly a record for me as far as number of cards scanned for one post. Those of you who have a card shop within easy driving distance, I envy you. 

Well Designed Inserts- What Have I Missed?

Part of not being engaged in the baseball card part of the hobby for so long is that I don't know where to start.  One of my favorite parts of collecting is finding unique looking inserts that I know I'll enjoy coming back to look at again and again.

That is why I am asking for your help.  What insert sets from the 90s that might include players from my wantlist have I missed, or even ones that don't, particularly from the mid-late 90s?

I am more likely to put together an insert set than a full base set.  The last baseball insert I worked on was 2006 Bazooka Stamps, which obviously isn't from the 90s, but I associate the coolest insert sets with the mid-late 90s.  I have 24 out of 30 cards from this set.  I collected postage stamps when I was younger and so to me this was a unique, interesting insert set to put together.

Here we have some Braves.  The Braves starting pitching for the most part has been solid, but with several guys out for the year (Beachy, Medlen) and another struggling (Minor), how nice it would be to have Hudson back in the rotation.

Looking back on it now I find these cards less appealing than I did at the time.  The backs are essentially blank and the cards have no color.  I would appreciate these more if they had a variety of colors, even if keeping the same design on each card.  Even so, this is a pretty unique idea for an insert set.  Plus since there's nothing of significance on the back, I can put these into pages on the front and back sides.

An example of a set I am likely to acquire a few cards from is 1996 Studio Stained Glass Stars.  The cards up on ebay look awesome and I imagine there aren't any other insert sets that try to mimic the look of stained glass on a card.

This post wouldn't be complete without me showing some of my favorite inserts from my Orioles and Braves collections.

I've always viewed Flair Hot Numbers as an iconic insert set from the 90s, a set that all other insert sets are measured against.  Maybe there's another that fits that category for you?  

This Rawhide insert from Fleer Ultra is my favorite Ripken in my collection.  The texture on the card which is hard to see in the scan is made to look like the surface of a glove.

Send me all your transparent inserts!  I think the Stadium Club Chrome set deserved more years in production and the inserts from SCC are great.  

Shiny inserts from late 90s/early 00s Topps!  Can't get enough of them.  

While I may not be looking to complete all of these types of sets, I do enjoy picking up cards of my favorite players and teams that fall into these sets.  Maybe I'll go back and try to complete the Bazooka Stamps set, especially since I am 5/6 of the way there.