At the Trade Deadline 39: An Astros Trio from Jaybarkerfan's Junk (Including a Historic First in My Collection!)

1970 Kellogg's Jim Wynn, 1976 Topps Wilbur Howard, 2015 Bowman Prospects Blue Andrew Thurman # 245 / 500

I recently got some cards in the mail from Jaybarkerfan, owner of the Jaybarkerfan's Junk blog. He announced that he was in a giving mood for the holidays, and anyone who sent him a message would receive something in the mail. Nothing brings readers in like a card giveaway, and I fired off a message as quickly as I could. He sent me some Astros from before I was born, as well as an Astro / Braves prospect from just last year.

The Jim Wynn Kellogg's card is the historic first mentioned in the title, as it is the first Kellogg's card in my collection. I have seen plenty of them on the blogs, but until now I have never held one in person. Now I can say that I've joined the Kellogg's club! It's not quite as exclusive as the T206 club, but I've always thought those guys were a bit stuffy anyway.

That 1976 Topps Wilbur Howard card in the center features one of the greatest baseball uniforms ever, as well as a beautiful pink / orange border combo. It's like a big glass of tropical fruit juice in cardboard form. It's like opening a 2-pack of Starburst candies to find Pink and Orange which is the second-best combination, only losing out to the king Pink - Red combo. I am disqualifying the Red - Red and Pink - Pink packages for being too homogeneous, although they would still be preferable to any combination involving Yellow. Yellow - Yellow and Orange - Yellow are the packages you give to your kids because they don't know any better.

Closing things out is a relative newcomer, and the first card that was produced after my birth. It's a 2014 Bowman Prospects Blue parallel of former Astros prospect Andrew Thurman, who was sent to the Braves in the Evan Gattis deal. This past May he was injured when the Carolina Mudcats team bus rolled over. He was back on the mound in July, but his numbers suffered  for the rest of the season. I am not sure if the effects of the wreck contributed to that.

This was a fun batch of cards, and I was happy to join the Kellogg's club as well as to get some baseball-themed cardboard in the mail. My focus has been elsewhere lately, so I haven't been picking up as many baseball cards recently as I have in the past. Thanks, jaybarkerfan!

Rainbow in the Dark 21: A Couple of 2014 Bowman Derek Holland Parallels

I picked up a couple more parallels for my Derek Holland 2014 Bowman rainbow. This one is the green-bordered version and is numbered # 037 / 150. There is not much to say about it. At this point I am pretty close to having everything outside of the various # 1 / 1 cards and maybe some of the # / 10 cards as well. It will be interesting to see how many parallel versions Bowman Chrome adds to the rainbow.

I also got this Red Ice parallel, which is numbered # 09 / 25. There's not much to say about it, except that I think the different Ice parallels are pretty good-looking cards. I think I still need Holland's Purple Ice card, but I am not sure. I'll have to look at my checklist.

Topps Series 2 supposedly hits the shops today. I will probably grab a box of it and see what I get. My next big project will have to be gathering all of the Series 2 Power Players code cards so I can complete the set and theoretically be in the running for the big end-of-season prizes. Topps hasn't been supporting the weekly portion of the program at all, which seems fairly typical of them, being the bunch of goofballs that they are. I should just up and quit and forget about the Series 2 Power Players. But now that I went out and chased down all of Series 1 I am committed to Series 2. It's one of those unwritten rules, like the one about not throwing your bat at third base or being careful not to hurt someone's feelings by tagging them too hard.