Over the last number of weeks, I've taken time to explore Twitter for baseball cards, something I've stated numerous times I never thought I'd be doing.
I was always satisfied with eBay, COMC, and Sportlots for my online baseball card purchases. I never thought I would need more than that.
Alas, I was quickly disproven as soon as my first ever package of baseball cards bought on Twitter arrived in the mail a few weeks ago. Then came a 2nd package, next it was a 3rd, and finally, my 4th package of Twitter cards arrived at my front door this week.
Another example of a Twitter user I've seen other bloggers buy from, @mrbkscards had a massive sports card sale that took place over multiple days towards the beginning of October. Due to the number of cards available as well as a lot of them being of guys I collect, this haul ended up being, by far, my largest purchase of cards from the site so far.
Back when this sale was taking place, 2018 Panini Chronicles was still fresh in my mind having recently opened a couple blasters of the product. Unfortunately for me, I was unable to rekindle my love for the set at Target a number of days ago when I stopped by for cards around my birthday.
Because the set was still very fresh in my mind when this sale occurred, I claimed as many Panini Chronicles cards as I could, though some had already been requested by other users. I ended up with a decent selection, including a handful of Orioles players like Austin Hays and Chance Sisco.
Due to the premise that the first person to claim a card receives it, I must admit that there were a couple of times in which I didn't necessarily know what I was claiming. All I knew was I really liked the design and the cards featured players I collect. I suppose it's somewhat like a card show given that you don't always know what you're buying, but you find the card for the right price which ultimately proves to be enough.
Some under-appreciated 90's cards were among the many cards I decided to claim as part of this massive Twitter sports card sale. From late 90's Stadium Club with a stunning photo of Manny Ramirez to Metal Universe with the ever-abstract backgrounds. From planets to waterfalls, that set sure is weird, and I love it.
Perhaps one of the better parts of this particular Twitter cards purchase is that I was able to discover some cards of players I don't necessarily see every day in the dimes bins at the card show. While there's never a shortage of Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez cards, players like Derrek Lee and Darrell Evans don't show up all that often.
Even though I collect both of them and have no intentions of stopping, I can't say it's every day I'm able to add to their respective player collections along with Ryan Howard and Cliff Lee as well.
Even with an extensive variety of cards, I definitely found myself leaning towards certain sets in particular or at least certain cards from those sets. Specifically, a decent portion of what arrived in the mail from this sale were Topps Gypsy Queen framed parallels, one of the things I miss most from the old Gypsy Queen products.
Starting off, we have the bronze frame parallels from the 2012 GQ set. Although these were fairly pricey, it makes sense given the caliber of the players featured on these cards. To be specific, all Hall of Famers who remains legends in the respective cities.
Flash forward one year in Gypsy Queen and we have the white framed parallels from the 2013 set, another group of framed parallels that I deemed were worth it and scooped up during this sale. However, this group differs quite a bit from the first group due to the 2013 white parallels consisting of all current players, in 2013 anyways, with the exception of Bob Gibson.
Although the serial numbering is not shown on the cards, some of the framed parallels I picked up are slightly rarer than the others and cost me around the same price if I remember correctly. The Steve Carlton is another bronze parallel which Topps decided to serial number out of 499 in 2015 while the Juan Marichal is a blue from 2012 number out of 599 copies.
Among everything that I claimed via this mega card sale, I was most pleased when I found new cards for some of my top-tier player collections. Out of my hundreds of player collections, there are around 30 that are at the top of my list of priorities, including the 4 players shown above. 3 players (Nolan Ryan, Manny Ramirez, and Greg Maddux) have passed the 200 card mark while an additional 25+ players have PCs with over 100 cards in them.
It's adding to these player collections, finding oddball cards, numbered cards for the right price, and a few others included is part of what has helped make Twitter one of my favorite new places to buy cards. As the title suggests, buying cards on Twitter is a lot like my own online card show.
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