Last week I acquired 3,025 more Chicago Cubs cards in a bulk trade with Merle from Highland Park, Illinois. The trade was six weeks in the Making after discussing the trade on Facebook.
Merle is a set collector with many needs from 1997-2018. Unfortunately, a bulk of my near two million cards are not sorted by set (most not really sorted at all). So, it took some time to gather up 3,000 cards and it came during an extremely busy time for me.
The trade was finally completed on my end and I gained quite a few new Cubs items, not just cards, for my collection.
One of the trade chips I was most excited about was a stack of ticket stubs. I’m not a ticket stub collector, but if I can pick up a few here or there in a trade I’m game (Cubs stubs of course).
Thirty-five Cubs stubs came in my box ranging from 1987 into the 2000’s. I haven’t looked to see if any milestones occurred on these dates. One of the 35 was my birthday! And yes, I did look at the Wrigley Field prices from 1987, and it makes me a bit depressed.
Some other oddball game day giveaways were included, such as bookmarks of Kevin Tapani, Ron Coomer, Joe Girardi, and Eric Young.
Postcards too!
And some commemorative milestone cards of Greg Maddux (300th win) and Sammy Sosa (500th home run).
And a really cool baseball card Oddball item. Reprints of Cubs cards that were given away in 2002 sponsored by CLTV. There are 11 cards in the set. I have 10 Lee Smith and one Dave Kingman.
Now I’ll have to search for the other nine cards in the set. They produced 20,000 of each card and they are numbered.
Now to the cards. Most of the 3,000 cards are 1988, 1989, and 1990 Topps. But, these 1999 Upper Deck Victory bring back good memories. I was buying these up in the quarter box at my local card shop.
This marked my second foray into Cubs team collecting that began in 1998. My first was 1989-1991. There were several other stints until now, but this is certainly my biggest Cubs collecting adventure yet.
Speaking of 1989-1991, a couple Oddball items. Mark Grace unlicensed card from 1989.
And a couple Derrick May 1991 Classic issues. He was a hot rookie and did stick with the Cubs for a few years unlike many other hot Cubs rookies of the 90’s.
Finally, the holy grail. Ty Griffin! I think all collectors have two favorite cards in their collections. One may be the white whale they searched and searched and searched to obtain. Or maybe a rare card. The other favorite is due to personal ties. Maybe it’s the first card they owned. Or the first “hit” pulled out of a pack as a kid. My latter favorite card is the 1989 Topps Ty Griffin #1 Draft Pick. I’ve discussed many times in this blog why. So, behold, a stack of 174 Ty Griffin 1989 Topps cards.
Great trade made with Merle that added some Oddball items to the Cubs collection, a few new cards, and a lot more Griffin!