Zistle Trade #21

This trade was proposed through Zistle, but was with a fellow blogger, Mark Kaz, of This Way to the Clubhouse. Here's his post on my half (or I guess it's now his half) of the trade.

I put a lot of cards on my wantlist. I probably shouldn't do that, because I'll never acquire all of them unless I come into enough money to buy them all, and also enough money to quit my job to focus on tracking them all down full time. But at least it gives traders a wide swath the choose from in order to snag some of my duplicates. This small trade covered some set fillers and some Cardinals-specific wants as well.

1986 Topps Traded #82T Jose Oquendo
1990 K-Mart #12 Joe Magrane
2011 Topps Opening Day - Superstar Celebrations #SC-12 Matt Garza
2012 Topps Update #US185 Donovan Solano
2012 Topps Update #US285 Ian Kinsler
2012 Topps Update #US319 A.J. Pollock RC
2012 Topps Update #US322 Jordan Danks RC
2012 Topps Archives #134 Chris Carpenter
2012 Topps Opening Day - Elite Skills #ES-2 Alex Gordon

The old cards in the trade were a 1986 Topps Traded of Jose Oquendo, the secret weapon, who also played for Mark's New York Mets. The regular 1986 cards seem fairly easy to come by, but the traded sets, as usual, are a bit less common to find. The only other card from that set on my wantlist is Todd Worrell, though a quick look tells me I never went through and exhaustively added all the Cardinals. That would cover the two in uniform, but I collect all Cardinals in any uniform, so I'll be adding Will Clark, Dane Iorg, Joaquin Andujar, and more to my want list. You can see how it balloons so easily.

The full 33-card 1990 K-Mart set is on my want list, and Joe Magrane leaves me with 12 cards to go. I'll bet Nolan Ryan is the last one I'm able to acquire.

Opening Day is a set so cheap that I often decide I'm going to try to acquire every insert among the more common sets, basically everything but autographs/relics/printing plates, and the Alex Gordon and sideways Matt Garza cards are two of those inserts from 2011 and 2012.

I think I completed 2010, 2011, and 2013 Update, but never 2012 for some reason. But, I'm now 4 cards closer on that quest, too.

Finally there's Chris Carpenter from 2012 Archives. I really haven't jumped into Archives with both feet, but I do like getting the Cardinals from the sets. It's a level of restraint rarely seen from me when making my want lists.

Thanks for the trade, Mark! You knocked 9 cards off my want list, but thanks to the attention I paid to 1986 Topps traded, I added 12 more to it.

Junior Junkie's Generosity, Part V

Part I II III IV


I've got a lot of McGwires to go through. I'm nowhere near the St. Louis years yet.

1990 Starline Long John Silvers #9 Mark McGwire
1990 Starline Long John Silvers #11 Mark McGwire (x2)
1990 Kmart #32 Mark McGwire
1991 Donruss - Bonus Cards #BC-9 Mark McGwire
1991 Score 100 Superstars #39 Mark McGwire
1991 Score #324 Mark McGwire (x3)

I think those Green-Bordered cards were some sort of Long John Silvers giveaway, from some searching around the web.

1991 Upper Deck #174 Mark McGwire
1992 Donruss #348 Mark McGwire
1992 Fleer Ultra #115 Mark McGwire (x2)
1992 Pinnacle #217 Mark McGwire
1992 Upper Deck Fanfest #32 Mark McGwire

The 1992 Upper Deck FanFest set is another new one for me. It's increasingly rare for me to get a card from a set I don't already have cards from, but that one and the Starline cards were both new sets to my collection.

Tis The Season Winnings, Part III

Sometimes, I procrastinate posting and sorting some cards. Normally I don't pay too much attention to how long a particular item has been sitting on my desk, but given that this one was the Tis the Season contest from 2013, I've probably had it in my possession for a little over a year now. But, even with the long delay, I still want to throw Jeff at 2 by 3 Heroes some referral traffic while I show off my prize.
Part I II

In addition to some Allen and Ginter cards, the prize included some Cardinals, as well as some Red Sox and Yankees. Today I've got some of those to show.

1986 Donruss Highlights #47 Bruce Hurst
1988 Fleer #350 Steve Crawford
1988 Fleer #353 Rich Gedman
1988 Score #384 Tim Controy
1989 Donruss #37 Carlos Quintana
1989 Donruss #311 Jack Clark
1989 Donruss #516 Larry McWilliams
1989 Donruss #630 Dale Mohorcic
1989 Donruss #633 Dennis Lamp

Besides the obvious Cardinals that I collect, some of the Red Sox and Yankees are players I collect too, since they once played for the Cardinals, like Jack Clark and Rich Gedman. That's not to say I don't like the other cards. One of my long-term, low-priority goals is to complete all of the relatively cheap and abundant sets from about 1987-1993

1989 Topps #402 Mike Greenwell
1989 Topps - All Stars #17 Vince Coleman
1990 Kmart #4 Ozzie Smith
1990 Bowman #427 Don Heinkel

This Vince Coleman card is one I needed, so that's nice to knock off my massive wantlist. Just for fun, I found all three posts of my previous copies of the Ozzie Smith card, since I get a lot of random piles of Cardinals, much like this prize. I really like that set, though, so at the very least, perhaps it will help me eventually trade to complete the 1990 Kmart set.

Zistle Trade #7

1990 Kmart #5 Tony Gwynn #6 Kevin Mitchell #16 Glenn Davis #22 Kirby Pucket

1993 Topps - ToppsGold #176 Darren Lewis #204 Dan Pasqua #238 Chris Daniels #249 Tim Burke

For some reason, we've got Glenn Davis, career Astros player as of 1990, listed as DH/PH. Maybe you young kids don't remember, but way back before 2013, the Astros were a National League team. And before Interleague play was introduced as a novelty in 1997, NL teams didn't play in AL parks. As far as I can tell, he was never a DH in a real MLB game (maybe some spring training or minor league games) until 1991 with Baltimore.

I have many copies (more than 10 in some cases) of a few 1992 Bowman Cardinals cards. A fellow Cardinal fan, in fact, one who doesn't live that far from me, proposed 1 of each of them for these 8 cards from my want list. I think this era of cards makes me happiest, because it's when I first started watching baseball. Also, the 1992 and 1993 ToppsGold sets are on my long-term collecting goals list. So all in all, this was a great trade.

All-Star Winnings, Part 9

Way back in July 2012, I won a contest at Cards On Cards. The premise was to pick the Cardinals player who would have the biggest impact on the game, determined Sabermetrically. I picked the right player, and got a pile of Cardinals for my trouble. They've been sitting in that same pile, haunting me, for quite some time, so now is the time to show them to you.
Part [ I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII ]

1991 Panini Canadian Top 15 #1 Willie McGee
1991 Stadium Club - Charter Member #20 Willie McGee
2005 Topps Rookie Cup #50 Willie McGee

Not only were these 3 Willie McGee cards I didn't have, but they're from 3 sets I had no cards from either. I have some 1991 Stadium Club, but nothing from the Charter Member set. That card commemorates one of the odder moments in baseball history, as Willie was traded away in late August to Oakland - in the AL - but still had enough at bats to qualify for, and win, the NL batting title.

1986 Topps #740 Ozzie Smith
1989 Donruss All-Stars #37 Ozzie Smith
1989 Upper Deck #265 Ozzie Smith
1990 Score #285 Ozzie Smith
1990 Kmart #4 Ozzie Smith
1991 Fleer Ultra #296 Ozzie Smith
1991 Stadium Club #154 Ozzie Smith
1992 Post #8 Ozzie Smith

What more can I say about Ozzie Smith I haven't said since starting this blog? As the long-reigning franchise player when I started watching the team, he was obviously one of my early favorites. I'm rather glad he played in an era of such baseball card variety, aka the overproduction era to some. It means I'll probably never get every card of his, and I'll always be adding new ones to my collection, and discovering new oddball or unlicensed sets, like the Kmart and logo-less Post card above.

eBay Wins #66

Another day, another 22 penny cards. Let's go oldest to youngest this time.

1989 Fleer
#249 Luis Aguayo
#271 Don Slaught
#273 Gary Ward
#468 Dante Bichette

A little '89 Fleer, aka, the prison bars set.

1989 Topps - Rookies #9 Ron Gant

The only Cardinal in the bunch, Ron Gant. To me, 1989 Topps is the definition of junk wax, but the inserts seem to have not been been overproduced nearly as much.

1990 Kmart #14 Mark Davis

Slowly but surely I'll put together this whole Kmart set. If I'm lucky it'll be before Kmart goes bankrupt.

1992 Upper Deck
#250 Billy Ripken
#640 Oakland A's Checklist

Here's Billy Ripken trying to create another quirky card, and two of my favorite players from the 90s (at the time).

2004 Throwback Threads #190 Hank Blalock

Doesn't a set name like Throwback Threads seem like it should include a relic, or at least a throwback uniform?

2007 Topps #269 Fred Lewis

Just a 2007 base card of a career .266 hitter.

2007 Upper Deck
#555 Kelly Johnson
#704 Aaron Boone
#761 Reggie Willits
#765 Justin Speier
#873 Rod Barajas
#926 Ryan Klesko
#993 Jeremy Accardo
#999 Josh Towers

Do you ever scan a bunch of cards, then realize you messed up the orientation? Because I haven't. No sir. Although I don't know how I'd have arranged 7 vertical cards and 1 horizontal card nicely in a single scan, so it's for the best.

2007 Upper Deck Artifacts #1 Miguel Tejada

Again, "Artifacts". Give me a...well...an artifact.

2009 Upper Deck First Edition #352 Francisco Rodriguez

K-Rod looks terrified to be joining the Mets for 2009.

2010 Bowman Platinum - Propects
#PP26 Jose Iglesias
#PP46 Noe Ramirez

And we'll finish off this collection as weakly as possible, with 2 prospect cards. At least it's only 2010, so in 2-3 years I might look back and see these as cards I didn't know would be so great. Although so far in spring training, Noe's got a 20.25 ERA.

That's it for this round, except for the tracker.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2243
Total Spent	$41.28
Per Card	1.84 cents

Baseball Cards from Bo, Part I

Bo from Baseball Cards Come to Life contacted me about a trade, and he even did all the work picking cards from both my wantlist and tradelist to set up the swap. Here's the first part of my haul.

1990 Bowman
#187 Frank DiPino
#189 Howard Hilton
#192 Ray Lankford
#193 Todd Zeile
#196 Milt Thompson
#198 Vince Coleman

So a funny thing happened, I negotiated this trade while madding was putting together a prize package he obviously pulled mostly from my wantlist, so you may have just seen some of these cards.

1990 Kmart
#10 Doc Gooden
#17 Don Mattingly
#20 Cal Ripken
#21 Jose Canseco
#23 Rickey Henderson
#26 Bret Saberhagen
#27 Jeff Ballard
#31  Fred McGriff
#32 Mark McGwire

1990 Kmart
#33 Tony LaRussa and Roger Craig

Bo knocked out 10 of the 28 I still need for the K-mart set. It's a little cheesey, but I like it. This set sort of borders on oddball, but it does have the familiar little Topps logo there. Of course it doesn't hurt that the set is entirely stars.

1998 Score Rookie and Traded
#RT207 Jeff Suppan

Sometimes I browse Zistle.com for random Cardinal players, and tick the wantlist icon on any of their cards I don't have. I'm sure that's the reason this Suppan showed up on my list. I never even knew he was a Diamondback.

That's all for this round; I'm out of tag space!

A Prize For My Prescience, part 3

[Part 1]
[Part 2]

Ryan at The Great Orioles Autograph Project sent me a whole bunch of cards for picking the Cardinals to win the World Series, and it is of course my duty to show you the cards and link to his blog.

Once again, I'll start with some set-completion needs:

2011 Topps Opening Day - Presidential First Pitches #PFP-4 Ronald Reagan

2011 Topps Opening Day - Presidential First Pitches #PFP-6 Woodrow Wilson

2011 Topps Opening Day - Spot the Error #3 Jose Bautista

Clearly, the error is a Canadian team in the American League. Though I guess it'd make even less sense in the National League.

2011 Topps Opening Day - Stadium Lights #UL-6 Chase Utley

2011 Topps Opening Day - Stadium Lights #UL-1 Joe Mauer

2011 Topps Opening Day - Stadium Lights #UL-10 Ryan Braun

2011 Topps Opening Day - Mascots #M-21 Fredbird 

He's missing a bat. This would have been a good Spot the Error card. Oh well.

Here's the full list of 2011 Opening Day Ryan sent:
1 Carlos Gonzalez
24 Andrew Cashner
27 Andrew McCutchen
40 CC Sabathia
45 Desmond Jennings
51 Ben Revere
64 Miguel Tejada
78 Garrett Jones
79 Heath Bell
81 Jay Bruce
103 Jose Bautista
104 Victor Martinez
105 Roy Oswalt
113 Wandy Rodriguez
147 Josh Hamilton
160 Carlos Lee
161 Jose Tabata
168 Tim Lincecum
173 Joakim Soria
176 Jason Heyward
181 Josh Beckett
190 Elvis Andrus

And now, more Ozzies!

1993 Score #562 Ozzie Smith

1994 Topps Stadium Club Team #301 Ozzie Smith

1994 Select #30 Ozzie Smith

1990 Kmart #4 Ozzie Smith

1988 Donruss - Bonus MVPs #BC-22 Ozzie Smith

1992 Donruss #432 Ozzie Smith

1993 Pinnacle - Cooperstown #9 Ozzie Smith

1994 Bowman #424 Ozzie Smith

1993 Upper Deck #146 Ozzie Smith

1994 Topps #320 Ozzie Smith

That's all for this installment. Believe it or not I think there's probably at least 2 posts-worth more cards to go.

A Trade with Cards on Cards, part 2

See part 1 here

As mentioned before, Cards on Cards sent me way too many cards to label in one post.

2010 Topps Heritage Cardinals

9 more Ozzie Smith cards:

1986 Sportflics

1987 Sportflics

1987 Fleer Star Stickers

1988 Topps - Mini

1988 Topps - UK Mini

1989 Donruss

1990 Topps (1989 All Star)

1990 Kmart

1991 O Pee Chee Premier

I must admit I struggled a bit to figure out the two minis with the same number from the same year.  Apparently the second one was from packs released in the UK.  At least according to Wikipedia.