Simply Disappointed

As a lifelong Cardinals collector I have been eagerly awaiting the first Aledmys Diaz card.  The rookie shortstop, who was originally called up to be a stop gap for the injured Jhonny Peralta, has turned in a magnificent rookie season.  He's not quite Corey Seager, but he's essentially in the conversation with him for the National League Rookie of the Year.

The big difference between the two as a collector is the fact that Corey Seager has had cards out for several years, while Aledmys Diaz has a few team issued cards from his time in the Cardinals farm system.  Well, a few weeks ago Topps put up the first Diaz rookie card as a part of their Throwback Thursday sets.  The cards are sold in their online store and feature a design from a past Topps product.

Here's a look at the set for sale after it had been pulled down.  The cards are only for sale for one week.

I was honestly a little bit apprehensive about buying these cards.  First, they were $19.99 for 6 cards.  Second, the only other time I have bought something off of the Topps site I was sent two poorly packaged cards.  My post about the two cards is here, or you can check out my scan of the Bryce Harper card that was mailed in a flimsy Ultra Pro top loader with no penny sleeve.

This evening after dinner my son and I walked out to the mailbox to pick up the mail.  He's not really interested in the baseball cards that come in the mail, but he's interested in letters that are addressed to him.  Letters from grandparents, aunts, uncles, and even statements from his bank are reason to celebrate.  Similarly, I get excited when the mailbox opens and there is any sort of padded envelope inside which might be holding some cards.

When the mailbox door opened there were two items in the mail today.  A letter from my son's great grandparents in Michigan and a package from Topps.  He was excited, I was not happy just looking at the package.

It was in a hard cardboard envelope, which isn't terrible, but it just had a big lump in the middle of the package.  I opened the tab on the end of the envelope and my six card set, which cost me $19.99 was jammed into a plastic snap case with a piece of bubble wrap and no other protection for the cards....

Everyone has been mailed cards in a snap container before, but this is not the way to package them and have the cards arrive safely.  Bad things happen.  Here are my cards out of the case....

Which don't look terrible, until you turn them to the side.  This is where the disappointment sets in for a collector who was excited to get their first card of a player they enjoy watching......

or if that's not clear you can try this angle...

I tried, but I should have taken my own advice the first time that I bought cards directly Topps and stopped right then and there.  We will chalk this one up in the loss column and find some other Aledmys Diaz cards to post some other day...