Oswald Peraza, 1989 Topps #297

Do you want to know how cool my younger sister is? She's getting married this Friday, and I'm in the wedding party. I came home last night after having dinner with an old friend, and there was a smallish box sitting on the kitchen table. She told me that it was my gift for being in the wedding, and insisted that I open it right then and there. She's always been impatient when it comes to both giving and receiving gifts. I lifted the flap, and what to my wondering eyes should appear but 50 - that's fifty - packs of junk wax, courtesy of an Amazon.com offer!

These old, unopened packs of cards spanned the years 1986-1994, so I was a bit anxious as I sifted through the box. After all, it could've been like those Fairfield repacks, where they load you up with tons of 1986-1991 Topps, which is at the absolute bottom of my needs list. (More on that later.) But, saints be praised, each and every one of those packs was from a different set and series! There were even a few packs from my recently-mentioned half-completed sets, like 1994 Score and 1994 Collector's Choice. Sure, there were a few packs from sets I've already completed (1993 Upper Deck, 1989 Topps), but that's a near-inevitability at this point. I'm still going to have a lot of fun ripping open all of those forgotten, unloved bundles of cardboard! In case you're wondering what this concoction looks like, here's an image pulled from the item page on Amazon.

As I mentioned, I've got much more junk Topps than I know what to do with, which includes Mr. Oswald Peraza, who combined with Jose Mesa as the "fruits" of the trade that sent Mike Flanagan to Toronto. Anyway, it's probable that I will be moving into a new house (new to me, anyway) in about a month. I have boxes full of duplicate cards from the 1988 through 1991 Topps sets that I'd rather not lug with me to the new digs, so I'm giving you readers and fellow bloggers and collectors the first crack at it all. If by some crazy chance you still haven't completed any of those four sets, send me a want list and I'll pull together a package for trade. Because I don't expect you to trade treasure for trash, the wants I'll be looking to fill in my own collection will be of a similar vintage: 1986, 1990, and 1992 Topps and 1989 Upper Deck will come first. Some of the want lists are already posted in the left sidebar of my other blog. If you don't have what I need, we'll work something else out. After all, I'll always take any Orioles, and there are a few other sets from the past few decades that I keep meaning to complete one of these days. As always, email your requests to brotz13 AT gmail DOT com.

The deadline to propose a trade is Monday, November 2. What happens after that? I take the excess dupes to Goodwill, where they'll find their way to a kid who doesn't know any better or an adult who's feeling nostalgic.

So get to emailing while I try to tackle four dozen packs of pre-wild-card-era whimsy!