Cards on Cards on Cards on Cards

Whenever I start considering myself as having a big-time collection, that notion gets destroyed in some way. Sometimes that humility comes in the form of Collecting Cutch showing off insane amounts of 1/1 Cutch cards or Daniel, from It's Like Having My Own Card Shop magnificent specimens in his favorite card countdown. Seriously, I see guys show off their collections on their blogs and they have multiple cards that fall into the "I will never own that" category for me. Despite the way I phrased that, I'm not complaining about this; I'm very secure in my low-end tendencies. It just blows my mind sometimes the about of "Whoa!" that some people have in their possession.

The other way I am astonished by other people's collections is in the sheer number of cards they must have. This was demonstrated to me just last week when I received a stack of cards upon cards from Cards on Cards. This was an out of the blue package, probably another instance of Kerry not being able to rid his house of Cubs fast enough. He sent me a bubble mailer of 88 cards in total. The amazing thing to me was that of those 88 cards, there were only four cards I didn't need. That's a 95% success rate with 84 cards I didn't have before--not bad for an unexpected mailer. This clues me in to the staggering number of cards some people have at their fingertips. If I were to send every single St. Louis Cardinal card I have in my trade box, I wouldn't even match the number that Kerry sent to me. And then to have nearly all of them be new to Kerry--well, that's just not going to happen. So I wonder: just how many cards does one have to have to pull off a feat like that, to have the ability to pick and choose 80+ cards for a person that they don't have already? It must be more than I have, I'd guess.

So let's have a look-see at the highlights of Kerry's bubble mailer.

Kerry first caught my eye with a shiny Brett Favre on the top of one of the team bags. The gold border and embossed Green Bay logo in the middle made me think it was another cool 90s insert, but this is just a subset in the 1997 Donruss Preferred base set. Very cool card, insert or no.

Aside from those two football cards, the rest of the package was entirely Cubbies.

There were parallels. 1997 Topps is generally icky, but that Brian McRae Chrome refractor quickly jumped into my list of favorite cards. You have a runner starting down the third baseline (is he stealing home?), the batter in the batter's box in the frame, and you make a refractor of it?! Beautiful. 2009 Topps is represented by a couple of retail store-exclusive parallels: the black border Fukudome is Wal-Mart, the throwback Topps logo Soto is Target.

Why stop at parallels when you can have inserts? My favorite card here is, of course, the Javy Baez. I would like to know how that same group of people behind Clark on his 2018 Opening Day card managed to gather together again for the picture on Clark's 2019 Opening Day card. Must have taken a great deal of planning.

TCMA and Conlon are good for some old-timers that are hard to find on cardboard. From left to right, top then bottom, we have Walker Cooper, Riggs Stephenson, Chuck Tanner, Dick Drott, Pat Malone, and Hank Sauer. Of these players, only Sauer was already represented in my collection. I want to know what Cooper is doing with his right hand in the picture. It seems like an awkward position for a catcher.

These cards all caught my eye as some of the first cards of big names after they joined the Cubs. Ramirez appeared on updated cards in 2003--the year before this card--but the rest are all from the same year as their Cubs debut.

There were so many cards that I was able to construct a starting lineup of my favorite Cubs in the package using cards that I haven't shown yet. The roster of My-Favorite-Players-from-This-Package-Whose-Cards-Have-Not-Already-Been-Used-in-This-Post consists of:

• Greg Maddux, pitcher
• Jody Davis, catcher
• Anthony Rizzo, 1st base
• Ryne Sandberg, 2nd base
• Aramis Ramirez, 3rd base
• Javier Baez, shortstop
• Andre Dawson, outfield
• Doug Dascenzo, outfield
• Jason Heyward, outfield

Apologies to Ernie Banks, but Javy is my current favorite and since I have never actually seen Ernie play, Javy goes into the shortstop slot. Mark Grace, my favorite all-time Cub, was not in the package so Rizzo was an easy second choice. The outfield goes in order of safest on the roster to last one in.

Thanks for the great surprise, Kerry!

Aaah, rosin bags and Wrigley ivy. Is it baseball season yet?