eBay Wins #67

Who loves junk wax?! I do, apparently. At least enough to bid on eBay auctions for "random" cards. I'm under no illusion that this is like buying a lottery ticket. I know full well there will be no "random" 89 Griffey, or 85 McGwire, or any other high-value card. However, as a collector starting in 1992 who didn't have the funds to buy a ton of stuff from previous years, these sets were once my missed opportunities. So there's at least a little nostalgia in these cards.

1990 Donruss #23 Ellis Burks

There were 15 1990 Donruss cards in the lot, but this was the only one that screamed out to be scanned. Something about Diamond Kings just seems premium in some way.

1988 Topps
#292 Carney Lansford

I'm going to give Al Nipper the win in this battle of the mustaches.

1988 Donruss
#469 Paul Kilgus
#470 Dale Mohorcic
#472 Dave Stewart
#473 Dave Clark

Those Texas T's used to be huge. Dave Stewart's the only guy I remember from these 4, unless Dave Clark happens to be guy from the Dave Clark Five.

In total, I picked up 21 more cards for 21 cents.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2264
Total Spent	$41.49
Per Card	1.833 cents

2012 Gypsy Queen Extreme Value Blaster #2

As 2013 Gypsy Queen is hitting stores, I'd like to take you into the past. Allllll the way to the year 2012. I picked up another discounted 2012 Gypsy Queen blaster from Target for $11.99, after the previous one from November looked pretty good. And, I just can't resist a deal.

2012 Gypsy Queen
Mini Parallel #78 Sergio Santos
Mini Parallel #84 Freddie Freeman
Mini Parallel #123 Geovany Soto
Mini Parallel #134 Juan Nicasio
Mini Green #45 Madison Baumgarner
Mini Gypsy Queen Back #29 Ryan Roberts
Mini Gypsy Queen Back #126 Brett Myers
Mini Straight Cut Back #240 Tim Lincecum

Why do I love parallel sets so much? I've got half a mind to try to complete at least the regular mini set.

2012 Gypsy Queen
#143 Dustin Pedroia SP Variation
#250 Ken Griffey, Jr. SP Variation

I only spotted these variations when I noticed 2 of the packs appeared to have 5 standard cards and 1 mini. All of the other packs had 2 or 3 insert cards, so I dug around for the SP Variation checklist.

2012 Gypsy Queen Hallmark Heroes
#HH-FR Frank Robinson
#HH-NR Nolan Ryan

I start feeling old when I see a guy I remember playing, Nolan Ryan, featured as an old-timer with the likes of Frank Robinson.

2012 Gypsy Queen Future Stars
#FS-DH Derek Holland
#FS-DJ Desmond Jennings

Also making me feel old: These guys are both about 4 years younger than me; both are 26.

2012 Gypsy Queen - Sliding Stars #SS-DG Dee Gordon

2012 Gypsy Queen
#208 Adron Chambers
#249 Stan Musial

I already got this Adron Chambers card in the last blaster. He appears to be running from a giant lizard bent on destroying Tokyo. Oh, and there's a Musial, which is good because those are hard to pry away from another Cardinals fan these days.

2012 Gypsy Queen - Glove Stories #GS-BR Ben Revere

Imagine Chariots of Fire playing over this catch in slow motion. It'll be the next big thing: music cards.

2012 Gypsy Queen - Moonshots #MS-FT Frank Thomas

It's even weirder that Frank Thomas is an old-timer now. I've still got a poster of him in my pool room, which I bought as a kid. What can I say, the Cardinals just weren't that good in the early 90s, so I went with the Chicago guy.

2012 Gypsy Queen - Relics #GWR-RK Ralph Kiner

And here's the crown jewel of the box, a Ralph Kiner relic. It was actually in the last pack I opened, which added to the suspense of opening. I don't know much about Ralph Kiner, so I went and read his Wikipedia page. I thought it was interesting that despite playing in only the minimum required 10 seasons, he's in the Hall of Fame. And not only did he barely qualify, he gained entry on his final ballot, and with just 1 vote over what he needed. I bet this guy slams on the gas to zip through yellow lights.

All in all, I was pretty happy with this box, which means I'll keep checking the bottom shelf at Target for discounted year-old blasters.

Let's Get Prognosticating

It's time for the 2nd Annual MLB Prediction Contest!! Yes, both exclamation points are necessary. If you've read my blog for long, you know I love taking a shot at predicting the NFL each week, so if I goes my way I can claim I have a system.

Go visit the Common (Card) Man's blog at the above link and put in your picks. You get one mulligan at midseason, two if you promote it like I am shamelessly doing right now.

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

Christmas 2012

Do you ever get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the holidays, and forget to do things? There's Christmas, then New Year's Day, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Valentine's Day, Washington's Birthday (aka Presidents Day), St. Patrick's, uh, probably a few national <insert carnival food> days...anyway, my point is, surely I have a good excuse for showing you my sports-related Christmas gifts in March. Ok, I don't, but here we go anyway.

First up, some Cardinals stuff.

A long-sleeve t-shirt, since I refuse to wear anything but t-shirts when I'm not dressed up, and both my wife and mom say I make them feel cold when the see me in short sleeves.

A new Cardinals cap. But not just any cap, this one is trimmed in gold to celebrate the 2011 World Series win.

Even the back has some unnecessary sparkle

Here we have a nice print of Busch Stadium, about 11" x 14". Don't tell my sister-in-law I haven't framed or hung it yet though.

Next up, the Rams:

These two items actually have an interesting story. My wife and I were doing some last minute shopping; I think it was Saturday night before Christmas, which was a Tuesday in 2012. Anyway, I saw this jersey, as well as a Billikens hooded sweatshirt, both pretty cheap. Even at Christmas time the writing was on the wall that Steven Jackson was probably leaving, but I still wanted the throwback jersey. I mentioned to my wife that I wish I had known both of those items were there and they would have been on my wish list. Apparently she managed to text her mom on the way to the next store without me noticing. As it turns out, by the time she got there the last SLU hoodie in my size was gone, so she decided to get the Rams sweatshirt you see above instead, which is awesome. So my wife and mother-in-law will have to split the credit on that one.

Last, but not least, we have a 2012 Topps Value Box, consisting of 2 packs of Heritage, 5 packs of Series 1, a Golden Giveaway code, and one of three Chrome cards of Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, or Ken Griffey, Jr. I'm clearly a busy man, taking 3 months to post these, so here's just the good stuff.

2012 Heritage #484 Todd Helton SP

Heritage has a hold on me, so yes, this SP counts as the good stuff.

2012 Heritage
#22 Edwin Jackson
#357 Allen Craig
#382 Joe Girardi

I'm going to miss the blue road cap - seen here on Edwin Jackson - this year, although I like the red with the road grays too.

2012 Heritage - New Age Performers #NAP-JW Jered Weaver

Every time I see Jered Weaver I think, "He was a Cardinal, right?" Wrong. That was Jeff Weaver, but it confuses me even moreso because then they both pitched for the Angels.

2012 Topps
#108 Albert Pujols
#291 David Freese

Speaking of Angels...no no, let's not get that started. Instead I'll revel in the 2011 World Series once more with these cards from games 3 and 6.

2012 Topps
#28 Placido Polanco
#154 Ty Wigginton

Here's former Cardinal Placido Polanco, and soon-to-be - at least in the regular season - Cardinal Ty Wigginton.

2012 Topps - Golden Moments #GM-29 Albert Pujols

Another Albert. I don't think I could ever stop collecting his cards.

2012 Topps - Value Box Chrome #MBC2 Willie Mays

Here's the shiny card promised on the box. It's very orange. And shiny. And the Hall of Famer on it isn't bad either.

Well, that's it for my Christmas gifts. Normally this is where I'd wish you a Happy New Year, but that ship has sailed. How about a Happy Passover, Easter, and/or April Fool's, whatever you're into? And, if the Easter Bunny brings me any cards, I'll try to get them posted before July.

eBay Wins #65

This lot of penny cards was a bit random, though I suppose most of them are.

1993 Bowman #27 Shawn Green

I never realized Shawn Green didn't come up with the Dodgers. I can forgive myself for not knowing him in 1993-1994, but there were 5 more years after that with the Blue Jays. Maybe the blue uniform is what got me.

1994 Collector's Choice #81 David Cone

Remember fans dressed as Coneheads, especially when David was having a great season with the Yankees? That's enough to get me to root for a guy.

1996 Collector's Choice #13 Angel Martinez

1996 Collector's Choice
#652 Joe Randa
#656 David Bell
#657 Joe Nunnally
#659 LaTroy Hawkins
#660 Jamie Brewington
#664 Todd Greene

These cards are pretty cool, picturing the players in their AFL uniforms on the front, but their MLB uniforms on the back.

2003 Bazooka - Minis
#103 Nobuaki Yoshida
#181 Mike O'Keefe

With the recent mini craze, how could I turn down these Bazooka minis?

2004 Bowman Chrome
#201 Tim Hutting
#252 Kevin Richardson
#276 Matt Lemanczyk

Finally, some shiny prospect cards, which scan very oddly. None of these guys, including the Cardinals Matt Lemanczyk, ever made the big club.

With another 14 cards for 14 cents, my average dips again to 1.849 cents per card.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2221
Total Spent	$41.06
Per Card	1.849 cents

My Second Jaybarkerfan PWE

As I mentioned before, Jaybarkerfan of Jaybarkerfan's Junk has been dropping PWE bombs on anyone who gave him their address and a favorite team. I just got another one, with more great Cardinals.

2004 KC Life #29 Chris Carpenter

I'm not 100% sure, but based on the Kansas City Life Insurance Company logo on the back and the weird size, I think this is from a set given away free to kids at a Cardinals game. I have some similar sets with the same sponsor from 1993-1996 or so.

1993 Hostess #5 Ray Lankford

I love this 1993 Hostess set, so I'm happy to get this card even though I already had it. I can always find good reasons for spare Cardinals.

1990 Upper Deck #68 Vince Coleman (Team Checklist)

Checklists should always have players on them. That is all.

2011 Bowman - Prospects #BP66 Matt Carpenter

I just posted my first Matt Carpenter card, and now here's my second.

2009 Upper Deck Icons #92 Ryan Ludwick

This card showed up in the first PWE too. All the easier to trade with my fellow Cardinals fans.

2008 Upper Deck Baseball Heroes - Charcoal #124 Ozzie Smith

Of course, any package with an Ozzie is a great one to me, even if the rest were Bip Roberts and Mario Mendoza. This card was tricky to figure out since I don't have a lot of the 2008 Baseball Heroes set. At first I thought it was a Black parallel, but those are numbered to 250. It turns out, it's a Charcoal.

Thanks to Jaybarkerfan for all the Cardinals. And go follow Jaybarkerfan's Junk; I'd do it even without the bribe.

eBay Wins #64

I won 90 auctions for individual 2013 Topps cards at a penny apiece. For some reason the seller sent me 92, so I'm going to count it as 92 for $.90 in my tracker. Now, let's see all 90!


...


Ok, how about just the Cardinals (current and former).

2013 Topps #24 Dan Haren

Come back, Dan.

2013 Topps #68 Colby Rasmus

You can stay in Canada, Colby.

2013 Topps #96 Edward Mujica

We picked up Mujica at the trading deadline, thanks to the emergence of David Freese, which allowed us to dump off a previously touted 3B prospect in Zack Cox. He was a pleasant surprise with a low ERA for the remainder of the year.

2013 Topps #54 Jaime Garcia

I'm hoping Jaime can come back strong this year...

2013 Topps #50 Adam Wainwright

...because once again, Adam Wainwright is going to be our ace. Chris Carpenter's continued injury moves everyone up a spot in the rotation, and Waino has been tabbed for Opening Day.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2207
Total Spent	$40.92
Per Card	1.854 cents