Delivery Time! Back to School Presents from Waiting 'til Next Year!

Now that it's officially mid-August, it's time for me to turn my attention to the upcoming school year.  While I'm definitely always sad when summer is over, this year is extra difficult since I'll also be saying goodbye each day to my little dude (who turns three months old in a day)!  The one bit of bright news with the whole back to school cloud of sadness upon me is that every now and then I get a back to school present.  This year, that present came courtesy of Tom (another fellow teacher) over at Waiting 'til Next Year.

Before I show off what Tom sent my way, I thought I'd highlight an article in my college's school magazine that was all about me.  Sure, it's a shameless plug of sorts - but I don't often go into a lot of detail about my work (teaching math and directing our Math Center) so if that sort of thing is of any interest to you, you can view the digital magazine and article here.

Now, back to baseball cards!

Tom said he raided some dime boxes and found some new Barry Larkin cards for me (or at least he hoped they were new).  Amazingly, of the nine he sent over to me I believe eight were in fact brand new to my collection.  Even better, he sent me a few that I don't think I've ever seen before...let alone own!

I won't show off every Larkin right now in detail, but I had to at least pick a couple of favorites out of the stack.  Don't worry though - each and every Larkin card will (eventually) show up in my ongoing Barry Larkin Collection series of posts.

Let's start with a contest card since I had never seen (or even heard of) this card before.

That's an auction point card (worth 100 points) that you could use to bid on one of ten framed pieces of artwork.  Barry Larkin wasn't one of the ten players featured (so his inclusion on this auction card is a bit puzzling).  Still, I'll take it...and it's a pretty cool "official oddball" card for my player collection!

Whenever someone does send me Larkin cards, I'm always excited when they include parallels since those are extra annoying to track down on their own!  Tom did me a solid by sending along this 1996 Score parallel card of Larkin.

Next, how about a pair of Larkin cards with the same set number...but they are clearly not the same card.

I'm going to have to do some research on this set prior to writing the Larkin card posts about each card.  However, if I had to guess I'd say that one of the two is an image variation.  Interestingly though, the backs of the cards contain a different write-up even though the rest of the backs are the same (save for the small picture). 

What can I say, modern baseball cards are confusing and require a lot of research in order to make heads or tails of things (especially for sets that I don't or didn't collect at the time of their release)!

And finally, I have to end with an awesome Pacific card.

Love that card - gold gaudiness and all! 

Thanks for the great "back to school" present, Tom!  I with you and all other teachers a great year as well!