RTP #22 - Special Guest Julie from Things are Funner Here

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of The Rockie Trading Post.  Tonight is Ladies' Night here at the Quarry with our special guest Julie from Things are Funner Here.  If you haven't met Julie yet, she collects Ryan Zimmerman, the Philadelphia Phantasic Phour (yes I am hoping it catches on) along with other Phillies and Nationals cards.  Julie and I had been stuck on a trade for a while until I got into Spastikmooss' trade bait draft and picked up the Roy Halladay card that sent it over the top.  You can see her review of the trade here.  She sent me a nice stack of Rockies in exchange.  Here are the highlights.

The big swag of this trade was these two beauts above.  The Jason Jennings is a 2004 Donruss Leather and Lumber dual relic.  The relics are interesting, especially for a pitcher.  One being a bat, fairly uncommon but still seen.  The other is a game used SHOE, that's right I now own a piece of Jason Jennings' shoe.  The 2005 Donruss auto of Joe Kennedy is the first I own of a deceased player.  For those of you that don't remember Kennedy passed away from heart disease during the 2007 offseason after finishing out the season with the Blue Jays.

I didn't collect a whole lot during the last several months of 2010 due to a slight employment problem, so I missed out on the last two series of 2010 Topps.  I had never seen one of the 2020 inserts until I received this Ubaldo Jimenez from Julie.  I had always assumed they were like old Sportflics cards, but in person they looks amazing.  Julie also sent me my very first 2011 Topps Opening Day card of Troy Tulowitzki (yes that's how far behind I am on trade posts). 

The Barmes is my first Rockies from the 2006 A&G set.  While I do want the Rockies from A&G, I have already mentioned too many times how much I dislike the sets as a whole.  I knew of a couple of the older sets (Goudey, T-206) before the recent retro craze, but I had never seen an A&G card (or even a picture of one) growing up.  Maybe that's why they don't really interest me at all.  The Ryan Shealy is the first non-Todd Helton card I had seen from 2006 Fleer Tradition.  I had gotten the Helton probably four times in trades before, but never any other Rox.  I really like the cap logo at the bottom.

Our Todd Helton card of the day is this 2001 Topps Fusion.  I don't know a whole lot about Fusion because that was in the middle of my extended hiatus from collecting.  From what I understand, Topps took several cards from each of their 2001 sets and stamped a new logo on them and BAM new set.  Not surprisingly, this concept didn't last long.  This Garrett Atkins is from 2008 Upper Deck Baseball Heroes.  A minor goal of mine this year is to get a rainbow of one of the Rockies from this set.  They look outstanding as a rainbow from the few I have seen online.

A pair of Rockies from 2009 Upper Deck.  After seeing the Opening Day set from this year and this First Edition set, I have decided that I don't like foil names.  There really isn't a good point to them (other than to drive up the price of course) and they make reading the names sometimes difficult in the wrong light.  Quick pick up a card from the 80s (you know you have at least one lying around).  Now try to hold the card in different directions and read the name.  Easy, right?  Now do it with a 2011 Topps foil name card...not as easy.

Julie also sent me my first Target parallel from 2011 Topps, Melvin Mora.  Once again, Targets are my favorite of all the Topps parallels and of course there is no Target within 50 miles of my house.  She also sent me about half of the 2004 Donruss Team Heroes Rockies team set.  The set is kind of blah, not horrible, but nothing really great about it either.


Thanks again Julie for the trade and we already have a second trade brewing.  Check out her fun blog here and make sure you trade with her.  Hopefully it won't take another 22 episodes to have another female guest here.  Well that just about wraps things up here on The Rockie Trading Post.  Tune in next time for a return visit from one of my favorite player collectors that is currently downsizing a bit.  Until then, we are officially signed off.