A Quick Swap with Paul (The Hazards of the Mail)

I have a giant stack of mail next to my desk that is simply waiting to be opened, scanned, and sorted.  Grabbing one at random, I chose a small envelope from blog reader Paul.  Paul and I recently completed a quick little trade which helped me knock a few cards off of my want list.  While that's the good news, there is one piece of bad news that I'll start with (I hate ending a post on a sour note after all).

This is a white paper parallel of Adrian Beltre from the 2013 Gypsy Queen set.  

Unfortunately, this card arrived creased in half.  That's despite the fact that Paul had carefully placed each of the cards in the trade envelope inside of a penny sleeve and toploader.  Moral of the story?  Sometimes mysterious things happen during transit that are of no fault of the original sender.  I know I've been on the other end of that once or twice as well.  

Now if only I could find a collector of creased cards!

Moving on to happier additions to my collection, Paul helped me a bit with the Gypsy Queen base set...

...as well as with the sliding stars insert set.

Finally, Paul threw in a couple of Reds inserts that I needed from the 2013 Topps set.  

I've had amazingly luck thus far tracking down the Reds from the base set - which is awesome since I didn't buy a single pack of 2013 Topps flagship.

Thanks for the trade Paul!  And, as always, if anyone else would like to trade, check out my want list and make an offer!