12 Days of Christmas 2022 Countdown: Day 8 - The Best of a Pair of Sportlots Purchases!

Happy 12 Days of Christmas - my official countdown to the holiday for the second year running.  Each day, leading up to Christmas (for a total of 12 days) I plan to have a themed post based on the number of the day.  

For today, we are looking at the Top 8 Cards from a pair of recent purchases from Sportlots seller Berk0523.  

#8:  2000 Pacific - #222.  Chan Ho Park

#7:  2000 Pacific - #25.  Travis Lee

We start the countdown with a pair of set needs from the 2000 Pacific set.  I've been working on this particular Pacific base set for quite some time but the end is getting closer and closer!  Here's what I am still looking for:

2000 Pacific:

Base:  15, 31b, 56, 64, 78, 104, 114, 143, 161, 175, 181, 195, 206, 233, 281, 284b, 289, 294, 298, 305, 311, 322, 343, 349, 359, 365, 371, 373b, 377, 383, 396, 403, 432, 436, 440

Note:  All base wants listed above are the regular base cards unless denoted with a "b", the cards with a "b" are the image variations. 

Now, continuing with our countdown...

#6:  1997 Score - Hobby Reserve - #HR538

For the most part, parallels that are differentiated only by a foil stamp don't interest me much.  I do feel compelled to track them down for my ongoing Barry Larkin Collection, but I'm not exactly happy about doing so!  This particular card is perfectly fine but the best part about it is that I no longer need to buy one since I now own it.

#5:  1992 Investor's Journal - #61

The first (but not the last) oddball Barry Larkin card on this countdown.  I kind of like the photo used on this card - humorous and yet you can still tell who the player is.  The back of the card is rather boring (you'll see that in a future Barry Larkin Collection series post) but I think the card's front makes up for any inadequacies on the backside.

#4:  1998 Topps Gold Label - #70.  Vladimir Guerrero (Class 1)

#3:  1998 Topps Gold Label - #25.  Alex Rodriguez (Class 1)

A pair of 1998 Topps Gold Label - Class 1 base cards for my set build.  I love the '98 Gold Label set a lot so getting two cards closer to finishing the set certainly excites me!  

#2:  2020 Topps Allen & Ginter X - #92.  Barry Larkin

I've never bought a box of Allen & Ginter X for myself despite often going "whole hog" on the regular Ginter base set.  I guess the black background isn't enough to excite me into collecting essentially the exact same set a second time around.  I will, however, go after any Barry Larkin cards in both sets which is why I nabbed this particular card.

#1:  1992 Cartwrights Players Choice MVP  - #3.  Barry Larkin

My second oddball Larkin on the list and this is also one of the shiniest cards on today's countdown!  The card stock is rather thin for the card but otherwise this is a solid oddball design - and it's certainly a great feeling to pick up a couple of tough-to-find cards for my Larkin collection!

That does it for today's list.  Join me again tomorrow for the next day in our Countdown to Christmas!