Delivery Time! Hot Corner Cards Sends Me Shiny Reds!

For most bloggers, it's always a race to drive to your local big box store and purchase a blaster of the newest product and get it up on the blog for all to gawk at.  Luckily (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view), I'm rarely like that.  For one, my local big box store (Wal*Mart) is just the worst.  Second, other than Allen & Ginter I rarely get that excited for a new release.  Third, I'm often too busy busting boxes of old and forgotten sets (or group break boxes like right now)!

Happily, other bloggers are generous souls and help me acquire at least a few of the newest set by sending me some of their Reds cards.  Pat, from the Hot Corner Cards blog is one such generous blogger!  Last week, Pat sent me a PWE containing four brand spankin' new Reds cards from this year's edition of Topps' flagship offering.  In fact, these represent the first four 2014 Topps cards in my collection!

First, a pair of base Reds - Arroyo and Hannahan.  

I'll miss Arroyo as he was a pretty good, fairly consistent pitcher for the Reds (though he did have one terrible year in which he posted a -1.0 WAR).  He made up for it by posting above a 2.0 WAR every other year he was a Red except one - and in one year he posted a 6.8 WAR!  Hannahan, on the other hand, let's just say the less we say about his WAR as a Red, the better!

The other two cards that Pat sent me were this year's version of the diamond sparkles from a few years ago.  

I really liked the diamond sparkles when they were released by Topps because they were different...now?  I'm kind of sick of 'em...plus I'm sick of all the other color variations (like last year's green sparkles).  I will admit that the red sparkles look EXCELLENT on Reds card though - maybe Topps should release a sparkle set where the border color is actually determined by the team on the card.  That could be kind of cool in a psychedelic sort of way!

Thanks for the cards Pat (especially since they were my first 2014 cards of the year)!  As always, if anyone else wants to trade - check out my want list and make an offer!