McCutchen Mailday #375, 376, 377, and 378: Some early gifts

Here's some recent early Christmas gifts to myself

All three are low numbered parallels.  The Orange Factory Set cards are extremely tough to find despite being numbered to over 200 copies.  Many collectors don't open their sets to discover who is in their mystery orange pack

I also received this jersey relic for being a good customer to an ebay seller this year

McCutchen Mailday #2: 2013 Black Friday Lava Flow

In my quest for 100 NEW unique Andrew McCutchen cards to add to my collection, I came across this Black Friday LavaFlow dating back to 2013.

There's one thing I HATE ABOUT COLLECTING ANDREW McCUTCHEN!!!!
IT'S WHEN PEOPLE SPELL HIS NAME WRONG (more on this later in the post)

I like cards that feature players in civilian clothes or posed shots.  Donruss Studio used to be one of my favorite sets when I was younger.  This card of Cutch features him looking like a rockstar sporting (most likely) some designer clothes and holding a baseball bat.  The lavaflow is one of my least favorite parallels that Panini puts out each year.  I hate how they scan and in person they don't look very good either.

It's almost ironic that the 2nd McCutchen I added this year is also numbered 2 in the set.

Many of us have complained about the quality control at Topps and how they often use the same player photos or put replacement level players in the same set with two different numbers.  Nothing irritates me more than when a company spells a player's name wrong though.  Almost 3 years ago I showed off a trade post I had with Drew where Upper Deck put Pat Maholm instead of Paul Maholm.  The same post also featured a Jose Tabata card with a Ronny Cedeno image.  I can overlook those because the players involved were not star caliber players.

BUT THIS IS ANDREW McCUTCHEN!!!!
2013 NL MVP
4 x ALL-STAR
2012 GOLD GLOVE WINNER
3 x SILVER SLUGGER

HOW DO YOU MISSPELL HIS NAME!!!?????

IT'S NOT MCCUTCHEON!!!!!!

30 cents well spent

I recently won these two fine cards of Steel City star players, Sidney Crosby and Antonio Brown for a combined price of 30 cents.  To achieve free shipping I combined it with my 2013-14 Hoops Team Set of the Pacers seen below.

The two highlights of this budget friendly team set are the two Pacers All-Stars, Paul George and Roy Hibbert.  The one thing I've started to like about collecting basketball cards over baseball is the action shots.  Very seldomly do you see Panini used photoshoot pictures like what Topps does for baseball.

All together, I received all 12 cards for $2.05.  Money well spent, I say.  Money well spent.