2015 Blowout and eBay purchases: many more Minis

While I'm continuing to put off posting the great trade packages I received until I can devote enough time to giving them the credit they deserve, here's a few more pickups from elsewhere.

Because of the boom in cheap 2014 Topps Mini breaks available to folks on Blowout and through Topps I didn't have too much trouble finding a seller with some of the parallels I needed for my three PC guys in the set:  Chris Getz, J.J. Putz, and Clayton Richard.  One Blowout seller cut me a deal on four of the nine (three each of Gold, Pink, and Black) I needed and then I landed another on eBay not long after.  Here's what I got:

Chris Getz 2014 Topps Mini Gold (#51/63)

This high-flyin' Getz turning two card is the first of the four-card Blowout purchase.  It's my 75th non-1/1 card of his (out of 106) and 76th overall.

J.J. Putz 2014 Topps Mini Black (#4/5)

This black Putz is the rarest of everything today by far and arrived via eBay today.  $10 even delivered was enough to win me the card numbered to just five, and if I was to find the other two's cards at that price I'd pounce on them immediately.

J.J. Putz 2014 Topps Mini Gold (#17/63)

I suppose Putz's image in Topps' 2014 products would count as an "ugly pitcher face" photo, no?  Here he is on the most common parallel, the Gold version numbered to 63.

J.J. Putz 2014 Topps Mini Pink (#20/25)

On Blowout I landed all of the Golds you see today plus this Pink Putz parallel (yay alliteration!) for $12 delivered, and that amounted to $2 each for the former and $3 for this one (plus $3 shipping), which was by far the most reasonable pricing available to me.  The three J.J.s you see above give me his four-card rainbow in this set, which is nice, plus a new total of 184 (of his 326) non-1/1s and 188 overall.  Maybe I'll hit that 200-card mark soon!

Clayton Richard 2014 Topps Mini Gold (#39/63)

Pirates minor league signee Clayton Richard is our last subject, and though he's showing a good amount of effort in his photo, he doesn't meet the "ugly pitching face" criteria in my mind, but the ugly Padres camo uniform makes up for that.  Minus the now infamous Topps XTREME ZOOM effect, this is a nice shot of a lefty's pitching motion.  The card is my 109th of Clayton's 150-card run and 113th overall.

I don't necessarily expect to have the same amount of luck with Getz's and Richard's Pink and Black cards, but you never know!

2014 trade package #20: a Mini Razzing

Tonight on TMV I'm showing off a cool trade package from Chris over at the Raz Card Blog.  The cards in this post were the impetus for this deal, but I'm happy to say that the "mini" theme carried over to those cards as well.

The minis I'm referring to specifically hail from 2014 Topps Mini, which is of course the slightly smaller but otherwise identical to flagship product that the company created last year and continued into 2014.  Three of my baseball PC guys appeared in the main set and therefore were included in Mini as well, and as luck would have it Chris busted some boxes and was nice enough to send me each player's base card:

Chris Getz 2014 Topps Mini

Getz still gets to appear with one of my favorite 2014 card photos.  Also, as a reminder, he retired this past season, so I don't expect to have any new cards of his to chase in the future.

Card #73/106, 74th overall

J.J. Putz 2014 Topps Mini

Like Getz, Putz retired this year after a reasonably lengthy career, and now he's got a job with the D-Backs' front office, so I wish him well in his post-playing career too.

Card #181/326, 185th overall

Clayton Richard 2014 Topps Mini

Richard's still hanging in there despite recent injury woes, though it looks like 2015 will see him suit up for his third Major League team (if he makes it) as he signed on with the Pirates.  As they've been pretty successful as of late I think it could be a good landing spot for the former QB, depending on how the Pirates' offseason and rotation's arms shake out.

Card #108/150, 112th overall

Chris, thanks very much for surprising me with the cards I showed off on both blogs tonight!  I couldn't ask for more than baseball PC help and my favorite Tiger, and I look forward to dealing with you again soon, but meanwhile you have a nice little haul to look forward to from me in the next couple days.  Readers, please head over to the Raz Card Blog!