Labor of Love

Happy Labor Day, gang!

I know I've mentioned on more than one occasion my new 'labor of love' as it pertains to the hobby: Zistle.  I'm still in the process of scanning and adding cards to my Zistle library.  It's definitely become the most time-consuming aspect of my card-collecting life these days.  Pretty much any free time I have to dedicate to my collection is essentially hogged up by Zistle.  Not that I'm complaining or anything, just stating a fact.  After all, it's pretty addicting and I enjoy being able to electronically flip through my collection of Mets cards via the website.

The person I can thank for getting me hooked into the Zistle coma is my buddy Shane of Shoebox Legends. The first time I traded with Shane I was able to figure out which Red Sox cards he lacked by going through his meticulous custom collection on Zistle.  And the rest, as they say, is history.

Since then, Shane and I have been swapping padded mailers back and forth.  Recently, I was the recipient of a pretty awesome package that included, among other things, the sweet Strawberry uncirculated refractor you see above.  A most excellent and generous gesture!

Shane mentioned he picked up the Strawberry card from one of his favorite eBay sellers, along with this David Wright 'Future Reflections' beauty...

A couple of great cards of perhaps the two best position players the Mets ever produced through their own scouting and farm system development.

Elsewhere on the Mets front:

These are the first two Hostess cards in my collection.  Both are in near-perfect shape, too.  Not exactly a given for cards that were once the part of a box of snack cakes from nearly 40 years ago!

On the other hand...

A couple of well-loved vintage cards of the Franchise.  The '72 probably had been through some pretty intense flipping wars back in the day, while somebody felt the '73 needed to feature Tom's uniform number.

Oh well, beat-up, written-on or wrinkled-up, any and all Seavers cards are welcome in the Clubhouse!

Keeping in the vintage vain...

A pair off my '77 want list!  Always a nice surprise to receive some help for my ongoing quest to complete this 37-year-old set.

Zistle is such a valuable tool because it allows other collectors to see what you've got and what you don't got when it comes to a certain player.  Well, I was able to log all my Pedro Martinez cards a few weeks back and Shane was good enough to go through the list and check out what I was missing.  The result was a batch of awesome, career-spanning cards of the future HOFer.

A pretty big deal to get Pedro's first Topps card plus the gold version!  Can't believe I didn't have his Topps rookie already.

I really like '94 Fleer, and this one is from the '94 Update set.

Finest is the craze of the present-day collecting world, and for good reason.  This year's product features one of the best base card designs in recent memory.  Plus it's loaded with cool inserts that have a throwback vibe to them.  But, you still can't beat the originals, right?

Just when you thought you had finally seen every type of card that Pacific ever produced.  Who am I kidding; I'll probably depart this earth before I reach the bottom of the well that is Pacific's late '90s early '00s baseball card output.

And the capper on the package sent over by Shane was a prolific offering of Gabe Kapler cards for my 'Gabriel' collection in honor of my little son, who will be turning 8 months tomorrow!

Great assortment here.  Everything from his rookie year in Detroit through his time as a Rockie later in his career.

Thanks for putting so much thought into this latest installment of cards, Shane!  And, FYI, the Stadium Club hockey pack you included had a Super Mario card plus a Hull, MacTavish, Coffey and even a Trottier!  Talk about a hot pack!  You may hook me into hockey collecting yet.

But, that's a labor of love for another day.

MK