Tenets of Wilson

2013-05-22

2010 Upper Deck Bonus Pack #5

On to pack #5 of my free gift from Dave and Adam's Card World.

2010 Upper Deck
#333 Johan Santana
#346 Andy Pettitte

This pack, again, had no Cardinals, so here are two New York guys to appeal to the widest possible audience. That's how this works, right?

2010 Upper Deck
Season Biography #SB-116 Josh Beckett

I'm still surprised about the August 2012 trade in which so much talent and salary changed hands. I was actually somewhat away from civilization at the time, though I had my phone, on which I get tweets from some of the people I follow. Without the context available from a quick internet search, the tweets almost seemed like a joke, or a mistake, with all the big names involved. Josh is having a bit of a rough year so far, and is currently on the 15-day DL, but I have a feeling he'll even out before the end of the season. So, I'm glad the Cardinals won't run into him this weekend in LA.

2013-05-20

2010 Upper Deck Bonus Pack #4

After this one, I'm halfway through my bonus packs.

2010 Upper Deck
Season Biography #SB-118 Ichiro/Barack Obama

I have a feeling this card's caption took a bit of liberty. Are there any politics of baseball worth the president's time? Or even Ichiro's time?

2010 Upper Deck
#106 Jonathan Papelbon
#188 Todd Helton

The pack had no Cardinals, current or former, so here are two guys you've probably heard of. Todd Helton has, however, spent many years on my fantasy teams, despite those not being keeper leagues. He seems to always be either underrated by my opponents or overrated by me.

2013-05-18

2010 Upper Deck Bonus Pack #3

I've ripped open another bonus pack from my free bonus stack of packs from Dave and Adam's Card World.

2010 Upper Deck
#460 Colby Rasmus
Season Biography #SB-99 Lance Berkman

Another Berkman! Last time it was the base card. I already had two of the Rasmus cards, from a prize and a trade.

2010 Upper Deck Celebrity Predictors
#CP-11 Anna Kournikova
#CP-12 Enrique Iglesias

Upper Deck took this whole unlicensed thing to the next level, and drew some caricatures of celebrity couples, along with not-so-vague descriptions on the back. I'm not sure how much overlap there is between baseball card collectors and celebrity-romance obsessors, but for the record, the predictor didn't really get resolved, as they've neither broke up nor gotten married, to this day.

2013-05-13

2010 Upper Deck Bonus Pack #2

I'm back with another pack from the 8 bonus packs Dave and Adam's Card World sent along with my order.

2010 Upper Deck #565 St. Louis, Missouri (Busch Stadium)

I've been here a time or two. And just below the right edge of the Upper Deck logo, is an engraved brick with my in-laws names on it. You'll just have to trust me that it's really there.

2010 Upper Deck
Season Biography #SB-158 Michael Cuddyer
Portraits #SE-10 Jon Lester

Why are the Portraits card numbers prefixed with SE? Special Edition? Sepia, since there's also a black version? With this rogue unlicensed set, the world may never know.

2013-05-05

2010 Upper Deck Bonus Pack #1

I recently made a purchase from Dave and Adam's Card World, and spent enough for a free bonus. I chose 8 packs of 2010 Upper Deck Series 1.

2010 Upper Deck
#93 J.D. Drew
#229 Lance Berkman
Supreme Green #S-87 Shane Victorino
Season Biography #SB-59 Freddy Sanchez

The first pack had 2 Cardinals in it, though in different uniforms. Lance Berkman was such a good clubhouse presence, I can forgive the former division-rival Houston Astros uniform.

2013-05-02

eBay Wins #71

I'm normally not much of a gambling man, though this risk was no worse than 2 spins on the penny slots. I bid a penny each on 2 auctions; one was for a "Random Topps baseball card" and one was for a "Random baseball card". Clearly we're not dealing with true randomness here, otherwise you'd have to argue I'd have as much shot at a 1952 Mantle as a 1989 Bip Roberts. But, I'm no lawyer, and I knew what the seller meant. Here's what showed up in the mail, and quite quickly at that.

2013 Topps
#272 NL RBI League Leaders
#277 Brendan Ryan

2 cents and one was a former Cardinal. I always thought Brendan Ryan could shave some time off his first-to-third runs if he'd get rid of the ridiculous chain. I guess I can add ridiculous facial hair to my grumpy old man complaints too...even though he's slightly older than I am.

So far penny commons are all I've purchased from this set, so I've got some stars to track down if I want to build it. I may just go for the factory set at the end of the year, though, then build Update the old fashioned way.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2347
Total Spent	$42.32
Per Card	1.803 cents

2013-04-30

This Break is so 2007, Part V

When CaptKirk42 of the aptly named CaptKirk42's Trading Cards Blog opened up a break of 5 boxes of 2007 baseball cards, I jumped right in to claim the Cardinals and my 2 random teams. It was slow to fill so each slot wound up with 3 random teams, which also caused me to pick up the Dodgers as well in hopes of a Nomar Garciaparra card or two. In all I got the Athletics, Braves, Cardinals, [Devil] Rays, Dodgers, Mariners, Royals, and Twins.
[ I | II | III | IV ]

I might be a sucker, I might be behind the times, I might just dig in my heels when people disagree with me, but so help me, I like both Heritage and Turkey Red.

2007 Heritage
#27 Dan Haren
#41 Anthony Reyes SP
#65 Chris Narveson
#106 Scott Rolen
#199 Ronnie Belliard
#287 Chris Carpenter
#337 Jason Isringhausen
#476 Albert Pujols
#492 Brad Penny SP

I landed 2 SPs among the Cardinals, although one was Brad Penny, who pitched 9 games and hit one Grand Slam for us in 2010.

2007 Heritage
#216 2006 Cardinals
#289 Justin Verlander/Jeff Weaver

World Series winners usually get some bonus cards in the following year's set, such as this Verlander/Weaver card.

2007 Heritage
#103 Carl Crawford SP
#339 Jarrod Washburn SP
#357 Eric Stults SP
#419 Scott Kazmir SP

Here are the other SPs I received. I like having all of the SPs in the highest numbers like 2011-2013 Heritage, because then I feel like 1-425 can be seen as the base set. Also, I know when I flip through the cards by number which ones are SPs. To track these down, I had to go to some shady user-generated contest sites, so hopefully they're correct.

2007 Heritage
Flashbacks #FB7 Eddie Yost
New Age Performers #NP11 Chipper Jones

These inserts don't seem to fit the set as well as other years of Heritage. But a Chipper's always a good thing.

2007 Heritage - A-Rod Road to 500 #71

Finally, my randomly assigned Seattle pays off again. This set was inserted across Topps products, so it'd be a bear to put together through pack buying.

That's it for the break. It was a lot of fun going through my giant box of cards, covering 5 different products and 8 teams. And, of course, I now own 5 more partial team sets of the Cardinals, so my wantlist has only increased.

2013-04-28

This Break is so 2007, Part IV

2007 UD Masterpieces #38 Albert Pujols

2007 UD Masterpieces #49 Albert Pujols

Again, despite being only 90 cards large, the base set also features some non-baseball subjects, such as Bill Clinton and JFK. I won this one in the randomization, since there's no team associated with Mr. Kennedy.

2007 UD Masterpieces #47 John F. Kennedy

Another oddity of the set is that there are 2 green-bordered parallels, neither of which is serial numbered. Thanks to this post at I Am Joe Collector, I was able to determine that this is a Windsor Green, not a Green Linen parallel.

2007 UD Masterpieces - Windsor Green
#89 Reggie Jackson

One can differentiate the 3 blue parallels by the numbering. As this one is numbered to 75, it's a Blue Linen. All these different parallels definitely have their intended effect on me, because I now have the red Ozzie Smith parallel on my wantlist, and I'll probably put the rest of his on too.

2007 UD Masterpieces - Blue Linen
#19 Ozzie Smith #36/75

I believe the box promised 1 autograph and 3 relics, which is pretty cool if you're into that sort of thing, which I am. Glen Perkins, everybody.

2007 UD Masterpieces - Stroke of Genius
#SG-GP Glen Perkins

I also managed to have 2 of the 3 relics fall to my 8 teams, which isn't bad. As a sometimes-fan of the A's, it was nice to get Huston Street AND Tim Hudson here.

2007 UD Masterpieces - Captured on Canvas
#CC-HS Huston Street
#CC-TH Tim Hudson

While this box was a little short on Cardinals, I definitely got my money's worth with the auto and relic cards. There's just one box left to go in my trip back to 2007.

2013-04-26

This Break is so 2007, Part III

When CaptKirk42 of the aptly named CaptKirk42's Trading Cards Blog opened up a break of 5 boxes of 2007 baseball cards, I jumped right in to claim the Cardinals and my 2 random teams. It was slow to fill so each slot wound up with 3 random teams, which also caused me to pick up the Dodgers as well in hopes of a Nomar Garciaparra card or two. In all I got the Athletics, Braves, Cardinals, [Devil] Rays, Dodgers, Mariners, Royals, and Twins.
[ I | II ]

Turkey Red was the biggest reason I got in this break. Ever since I jumped back into collecting with 2010 Update, which had a Turkey Red insert set, I enjoyed the look and feel of the cards. I gather from other card blogs some folks were getting tired of Turkey Red by that point, but I was just getting started. I was quite tempted to try to get some 2013 Turkey Red, but the price, scarcity, and resale shenanigans just put me off.

2007 Turkey Red
#25 Albert Pujols
#37 Edgar Renteria
#72 Chris Carpenter
#87 David Eckstein
#135 Jason Isringhausen
#172 Kelvin Jimenez

Here we have the Cardinals base cards, including an Edgar Renteria as an Atlanta Brave.

2007 Turkey Red
#25b Albert Pujols - Ad Back SP

This is a variation SP, where it appears Albert has held his pose from above long enough for the sun to go down.

2007 Turkey Red
#48 Prince Albert

Here's yet another Albert, this time in Checklist form.

2007 Turkey Red - Chrome
#102 Elijah Dukes #0528/1999

The shininess of this card didn't really come through in the scan, although it doesn't have quite the same finish as the usual Chrome cards.

2007 Turkey Red - Relics
#TRR-AJ1 Andruw Jones

I'm still a sucker for relics, so this is a pretty cool Andruw Jones card, especially since it still shows him in his Braves heyday.

2007 Turkey Red - Cabinet Cards
#DP-DY Delmon Young

I could be fooling you with simply resizing the picture, but I assure you I am not. This is the one-per-box Cabinet card, about twice as wide and tall as a regular card. I wish it had been a Cardinal, but still it's a nice looking card. Now I just have to figure out how to store it. Between this and the Chrome, this was a good box for the Devil Rays.

2013-04-24

This Break is so 2007, Part II

2007 Upper Deck Artifacts
#66 Albert Pujols
#69 David Eckstein

I managed to get 2 of the 4 Cardinals in the set. Now I'm just short Jim Edmonds and Chris Carpenter.

2007 Upper Deck Artifacts #36 Chipper Jones

I suppose I've got some room for a future Hall-of-Famer before the big hit.

2007 Upper Deck Artifacts - Autofacts
#AF-CJ Cesar Jimenez

Cesar signed with the Phillies this offseason, but is still in the minors. Maybe he'll make it back to MLB for good, or maybe I'll offload this to a Mariners fan one day.

That's it for Artifacts. My 8 teams managed to get 14 cards out of the 40 in the box, so I think I did alright.

2013-04-22

This Break is so 2007, Part I

First up, we have the 2007 Bowman cards, confusing subsets, insert sets, and all.

2007 Bowman - Prospects
#BP46 Trey Hearne
#BP68 Jarrett Hoffpauir

I don't think we're going to see either of these guys back in MLB, though Hoffpauir actually played for the big club in 2009, enough that I remembered his name.

2007 Bowman
#56 Dan Haren
#59 Jim Edmonds
#124 Chris Carpenter
#138 John Smoltz
#163 David Eckstein
#175 Albert Pujols
#183 Jeff Weaver
Gold #27 Brian McCann
Gold #105 Eric Chavez

As usual, here are all the base cards of anyone who ever wore the birds on the bat. McCann and Chavez didn't, but I only had 7 for this scan, so why not add some Gold, right?

2007 Bowman - A-Rod Road To 500
#130, 139, 151, 156

This was one of the best parts about landing the Mariners; a whole insert set of one player. As for a fun Cardinals connection, 3 of the 4 pitchers mentioned played for the Cardinals. There was Chris Carpenter, Jeff Suppan, and Arthur Rhodes. Not bad for a career AL player.

2007 Bowman Chrome - Propects
#46 Trey Hearne

Trey Hearne again. Cards like this are what make Bowman a little disappointing when it's a few years old. It's Chrome, and it's my team, but I've never heard of the guy.

2007 Bowman - Blue Parallel
#56 Dan Haren #024/500

It's an eBay 1/1! #024 and he's wearing #24! I'm rich!

2007 Bowman - Prospects Blue
#BP133 Jarrod Saltalamacchia #188/500

Finally, this was the big hit from Bowman, a Jarrod Saltalamacchia autograph. I kind of feel bad for the guy for having to sign such a long name 500 times for this card, although it looks like he's got a bit of a shortened version going here. Salty has been a player I've liked for some time, maybe because of his unique last name, maybe because he's a catcher like I sometimes tried to be. Either way, with many less impressive autograph subjects in the checklist, this is great pull.

2013-04-20

eBay Wins #70

Today is National Record Store Day, and I was a bad consumer and didn't participate. But, here's something from National Baseball Card Day I bought for a whole penny.

2006 Upper Deck National Baseball Card Day
#UD8 Dontrelle Willis

It's hard to believe Dontrelle Willis is only 31, and now playing in the independent Atlantic League. He came on so strong with the Marlins early on, but injuries ultimately took him down after he was traded to the Tigers.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2345
Total Spent	$42.30
Per Card	1.804 cents

2013-04-18

A Real Lineage Blaster, Extreme Value Style

I thought I was clever and "beating the system" when I built my own blaster last time, but then I found this Extreme Value Blaster at Target for $11.99. For the same price (give or take a few pennies) as 56 cards in 4 of those packs, I got 8 packs of 7, so 56 cards, plus a relic card. Foiled again by the discount store sales cycle!

2011 Lineage
#40 Stan Musial
#141 Ozzie Smith

First up are 2 Cardinals Hall of Famers.

2011 Lineage
#9 Matt Holliday
#178 Albert Pujols
#189 Jaime Garcia

And 3 present-day Cardinals (as of 2011 at least). I got Pujols and Garcia in my last grouping, but Holliday is new.

2011 Lineage - Platinum Diamond
#19 Larry Walker
#157 Wandy Rodriguez

Here are some more not-really-that-blue Platinum parallels.The blue scan makes the purple Rockies uniform clash horribly; the real card is slightly less offensive. He is still wearing a purple jersey, after all. But it's former Cardinal Larry Walker, so I'm happy.

2011 Lineage
Diamond Anniversary #184 Josh Hamilton

Sometimes I look back at gimmicks like these Diamond Anniversary parallels and think they were dumb, but in this case, I kinda really want to get all 200 of these.

2011 Lineage
Topps Rookies #TR6 Jake McGee

This guy's listed at 6'3", 190lbs. There's no way that's right unless this is a terribly awkward angle.

2011 Lineage
Topps 3D #T3D15 Evan Longoria

Another Tampa Bay Ray, this time in threeeeee-deeeeee.

2011 Lineage
Stand Ups #TS14 Joey Votto

Here's a card that will never live out its destiny, since I can't bring myself to break the perforations.

2011 Lineage
Cloth Stickers #TCS11 Jackie Robinson

And another, unless I can find an excellent, permanent place to put this sticker.

2011 Lineage
Checklist 1 of 4

Boom, finished the Checklists subset! Ok, I know, that's not really a subset. But whatever, I've got all 4 now.

2011 Lineage - 1975 Minis
#145 Adrian Gonzalez
#161 Luis Aparicio

Minis! Neither variety of Sox is the team I primarily root for, but these look good enough I just might want to grab all 200 of this parallel too.

2011 Lineage
1975 Mini Relics #75-NR Nolan Ryan

Finally, we have the money card: the mini relic. Nolan Ryan has to be one of the biggest stars in this set, at least in my mind. He's also one of the first guys I knew as a storied veteran since I started really watching baseball in 1992. I'm really happy with this card. The jersey swatch even has a little character in it, as it appears that it might be where a button was, due to the 4 holes.

Who am I kidding, the guy who wrong that last post was foolish; this relic was well worth getting the blaster.

2013-04-15

eBay Wins #69

This time around on eBay, I picked up 33 more penny cards. They are decidedly junk wax, with perhaps 1 exception.

1988 Donruss
#5 Danny Tartabull
#110 Wally Joyner

There were 11 1988 Donruss cards. I'm in the camp that loves the Diamond Kings, so that Danny Tartabull is worth the price of the lot. And just for fun, here's Wally Joyner too.

1990 Donruss #222 Lonnie Smith

This was the only former Cardinal in the lot, and the one of 20 1990 Donruss cards in the lot.

1991 Donruss #573 Mike Kingery

This was the only 1991 Donruss card, so I figured, what the heck, let's scan it.

1992 Stadium Club #686 Bryan Hickerson

Finally, inching out of the junk wax era, we have 1992 Stadium Club. Those full-bleed photos felt revolutionary at the time, but somewhere along the way Topps seems to have decided they need distinctive borders again.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2344
Total Spent	$42.29
Per Card	1.804 cents