PWE Time!

Stealing Home, from All Trade Bait, All The Time recently sent me a PWE. If you're sick of seeing Cardinals on my blog, well I'd suggest you don't read it? But this one has more than just Cardinals, have a look.

1991 Studio #235 Joe Magrane
2013 Topps - Chasing History Gold Foil #CH-87 Lance Lynn
2014 Topps - #157 Lance Lynn

OK, I tricked you. the first 3 were Cardinals, including a nice shiny Gold foil parallel I wasn't really aware existed. If not for the rainbow shininess of the card, I probably would have just filed the Lance Lynn away with my other Chasing History cards.

1998 Topps #268 Nomar Garciaparra
2000 Upper Deck MVP - Pure Grit #G9 Nomar Garciaparra
2002 Donruss #12 Nomar Garciaparra
2003 Leaf #23 Nomar Garciaparra
2003 Leaf - Certified Samples #LC-14 Nomar Garciaparra
2004 Topps #200 Nomar Garciaparra

I get lots of Cardinals in various ways, but I don't get as many Nomars, mostly because among players I collect, he's the only one that never played for St. Louis. 5 of the 6 were new cards to my collection. I inexplicably already have 3 copies of that 1998 base card, and a search of my blog doesn't show any of them arriving in the last few years, which means I probably had them all in 1998. I thought I had the 2004 card, but it turns out I have the Opening Day version. My Nomar collection isn't all that big, so these are a nice addition and gives it a relatively large boost.

Thanks for the PWE, Stealing Home!

2015 College World Series Contest

It's May 28, which means it's time to get into the College World Series contest at Autographed Cards. Seriously, all my promotion posts have been May 28, in 2012, 2013, and 2014. I suspect the calendar will conspire against me to force me to do it earlier next year.

But enough numerology. Go pick the teams that advance from each pool of 8 before the games start tomorrow. Then you can wait until the final 8 team bracket is set before making your further picks. I've got no Billikens again this year, so I suppose I'll be rooting for Missouri State for starters.

eBay Wins #172

My last eBay post was of a 1997, and this one is a 2002 card. I sorted out all the penny cards by year a long time ago, yet somehow there are 4 consecutive missing years. This is only my second 2002 Fleer Ultra card. The other is a Bud Smith I received as part of contest win early last year.

2002 Fleer Ultra #193 J.T. Snow

J.T. Snow never played for St. Louis, but he has a very tangential connection to the city. His dad, Jack Snow, was a broadcaster for the Los Angeles Rams, and actually came along to St. Louis with them in 1995. I don't know if that normally happens when teams move, or if there have been enough moves to really say what's "normal", but I think it worked out nicely for the Rams. Rather than having a local broadcaster take over, we had a radio broadcaster who really knew the team, because he had been watching most of the players for multiple seasons by that point.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3281
Total Spent	$51.31
Per Card	1.564 cents
Change	0 cents

Zistle Trade #16 Part II

My Zistle trading binge continues, and this time I got enough Cardinals that I had to split into two posts just to tag them all. In return, I sent off some 2011 Topps Lineage cards, several of which were triples and quadruples, because I bought several discounted packs and blasters of that set.

Part I

1983 Fleer #613 Gary Gaetti
1990 Upper Deck
#225 Ozzie Smith
#278 Milt Thompson
1992 Donruss
#116 Kent Mercker
#163 Brian Hunter
#208 Tony Pena
#424 Chris Sabo
1993 Hostess
#18 Andres Galarraga
#25 Ken Griffey, Jr.

Since I made these trades at the same time, I wound up trading for the Chris Sabo card twice. But, I'm not too upset about it. The main draw in this trade was the Hostess cards. I'm not sure how many Hostess Baseballs I ate in the summer of 1993, but I feel like it was on the order of dozens. Before these two, I had 25 unique cards from the set, and 9 duplicates. A quick blog search indicates I've received 4 in trade, and sent off a few, so that probably means I got at least 30 from eating the baseball cakes. Most importantly, I now need only 5 more to finish the set.

I found it surprising that these are the first cards I'm posting of Andres Galarraga, Brian Hunter, and Kent Mercker. I'd especially expect a card of Galarraga to have come up by now.

Another nice card in the trade is the Gary Gaetti rookie card. He first played a few games in the majors in 1981, and in an era before the modern Bowman, he didn't get a rookie card until he completed his first full season in 1982.

Zistle Trade #16 Part I

My Zistle trading binge continues, and this time I got enough Cardinals that I had to split into two posts just to tag them all. In return, I sent off some 2011 Topps Lineage cards, several of which were triples and quadruples, because I bought several discounted packs and blasters of that set.

1989 Bowman
#242 Todd Stottlemyre
#429 Todd Worrell
#437 Terry Pendleton
#440 Pedro Guerrero
#444 Tom Brunansky

Ah 1989 Bowman, the cards that don't quite fit in standard sleeves and boxes, and often get bent up when mailed in a stack of standard cards. Luckily with 5 of them they stayed pretty safe in the envelope. I didn't have very many of these, so I've still got 12 Cardinals on my want list.

1990 Fleer
#250 Pedro Guerrero
#262 Milt Thompson
1990 Topps
#82 Scott Terry
#688 Milt Thompson
#788 Frank DiPino

I still need 7 more Fleer cards, and 17 more Topps cards (including some Tony La Russa and a Derek Lilliquist) to complete my current Cardinals wantlists for these two sets. If I ever get ridiculously flush with free time, a PC I would start would be guys wearing #37, so that Scott Terry card has great things ahead of it in my theoretical future.

eBay Wins #171

Today's eBay penny card isn't in fantastic shape. It appears to have some sort of bubble-effect over the foil. I'm not really sure what caused that, but I suspect moisture, or maybe another glossy card stacked on top of it for too long.

1997 Pinnacle #31 Chan Ho Park

Quick, guess what year Chan Ho Park finished playing.  If you're not a Pirates or Yankees fan, I bet you guessed way too early.

The answer is 2010. I would have probably said 2004, and I could have only listed the Dodgers and Rangers as his teams. I knew he started young, and had some great years, but I had no idea he lasted through 17 seasons.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3280
Total Spent	$51.30
Per Card	1.564 cents
Change	0 cents

Zistle Trade #15

This was another trade where I only had to send one card to my trading partner, but at least it was a 2011 Heritage SP this time. I'd say it balanced these well enough.

2012 Opening Day - Fantasy Squad #FS-13 Victor Martinez
1992 Topps - Gold #151 Jeff Hamilton
2011 Topps - Kimball Champions #KC-24 Josh Johnson
2011 Opening Day - Superstar Celebrations #SC-10 Carlos Pena

1992 was when I first started collecting cards, so the first current-year packs I bought were 1992 Topps. The Gold parallel set has been one of my biggest wants ever since then. I felt like I had a lot of them many years ago, but my collection currently only has 12, now 13 with the addition of Jeff Hamilton. It's possible I believed 10 or so was a lot back then, and it's possible I'll unearth a box of cards somewhere with more Golds in it when helping my parents clean out their basement one of these days.

This trade was full of inserts, with a card from the 2011 Kimball Champions set I've been so enamored with, and two Opening Day inserts. Opening Day always seems like it'd be an easy set to complete a bunch of insert sets from, but so far I haven't bought any full boxes to try to do so the easy way. Instead I'll let them trickle in through the years in trades like this.

eBay Wins #170

Today, I break free from my need for neat, orderly scans with a 2-card horizontal-vertical combo, which provides no way to avoid whitespace, apart from doing two separate scans. Maybe that would have been the move.

1997 Upper Deck Collector's Choice
#322 Mark Thompson
#323 Walt Weiss

I always do a cursory search of players I don't recognize, and even some I do, to see if they played for the Cardinals. Generally, I find nothing, as I remember most Cardinals, especially those who played for the team after 1992 when I started watching, or even after the junk wax era began, let's say 1985. But here's Mark Thompson, heretofore unknown to me as a Cardinal, who actually played the last year and a half of his career with St. Louis. He made 5 starts in 1999, and 20 relief appearances in 2000. Clearly there's a bit of a gap in my baseball memory, from right around the time there's a gap in my baseball card collection, starting in 1999 or 2000.

I bet you thought this post would be mostly about Walt Weiss.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3279
Total Spent	$51.29
Per Card	1.564 cents
Change	-0.001 cents

Zistle Trade #14

My trading partner today wanted just one card, a 2011 Opening Day Mike Stanton base card. He's doing quite well right now, so I sold high (I think) for a collection of 1992 Donruss Cardinals.

1992 Donruss
#397 Royce Clayton
#424 Chris Sabo
#428 Will Clark
#481 Omar Olivares
#533 Geronimo Pena
#553 Rich Gedman
#570 Scott Cooper

I've still got 44 cards on my wantlist for this set, of which 43 are Cardinals and one is Deion Sanders, just because. Of course many are like these Chris Sabo and Will Clark cards, playing in other uniforms. There are a good number of them among the 188 cards of this base set I have, too. Free Agency keeps my collecting net wide enough that I'll probably never finish my want list.

eBay Wins #169

Today's eBay penny cards come from one of the most 90s sets of the 90s, Circa '97.

1997 Circa
#323 Jeff Fassero
#345 Jeff D'Amico

I already detailed Jeff Fassero's stints with the Cardinals 3 eBay posts ago with #166, and Jeff D'Amico has no connection to the Cardinals, so here's something I was inspired to embed due to this post having too many Jeffs. Put the kids to bed before the halfway point for sure.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3277
Total Spent	$51.27
Per Card	1.565 cents
Change	0 cents

Zistle Trade #13

I recently received a flurry of trade proposals on Zistle, so I'll have a few of these to post in the next few days. This small batch of cards cost me a JFK, a Harry Truman, and a Nate McLouth. In return I got 3 Cardinals I didn't have yet.

1991 Studio #231 Bernard Gilkey
1992 Pinnacle #304 Allen Watson
2011 Topps - Kimball Champions #KC-65 Bob Gibson

I have no way of proving this, but I think I very recently added the Gilkey and Watson cards to my wantlist. When I'm adding cards to my collection, if I'm not in a hurry I'll go through the rest of the set and add any missing Cardinals to my want list, since I'd like one of every Cardinal, even from the junk wax sets. I think I did that recently for 1992 Pinnacle and 1991 Studio.

I've had the entire Kimball Champions insert set on my wantlist for several years now, but I haven't made any great efforts to complete it. It's just out there as a reminder that I like the ones I have and I want more. Luckily for me, my trading partner had one of my top wants from that set, Bob Gibson.

eBay Wins #168

I'm progressing rapidly through my eBay wins, with the last post representing all of 1996, and this one starting 1997. However, I've got more on the way from the junk wax era, so I'll just have to start this process all over again. Eventually the cycles will get shorter, I think.

1997 Donruss #127 George Arias

Here we've got George Arias in uniform during the last year of the California Angels, before they became the Anaheim Angels. That move was around the time I was collecting caps from each MLB team, and I was thoroughly frustrated by their logo change. Now I just embrace changes, as they just make my current hat a throwback.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3275
Total Spent	$51.25
Per Card	1.565 cents
Change	0 cents

Another Pack Stash Pack, from 2013 Triple Play

I believe this packs was a free bonus in a Dave and Adam's order, though I could be wrong. These are my first cards of 2013 Triple Play.

2013 Panini Triple Play
#8 Manny Machado
#16 Kevin Youkilis
#56 Derek Jeter
Tattoos #9 Derek Jeter
#90 Jayson Werth
#93 Buster Posey
Red Bordered Stickers #6 Aroldis Chapman

I got a bit of a Derek Jeter hot pack here, with his base card and the tattoo insert. These cards look a bit more cartoonish than 2012, based on my small sample. The pictures appear more like caricatures, as opposed the post-processed photo look the previous year. I've got a few more of these in the pack stash, and I'm kind of eager to get them open now, at least to see if I can pull a Cardinal or two.

eBay Wins #167

You know the drill by now. Here's one set's worth of cards I got for the lowest possible single-card price on eBay, a penny each.

1996 Topps Stadium Club
#362 Kevin Appier
#413 Chris Bosio

Before these two cards, I only had 15 base cards from 1996 Stadium Club. Now I'm up to 17. If only I could find the rest for a penny each, I could build the rest of the set for a mere $4.33.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3274
Total Spent	$51.24
Per Card	1.565 cents
Change	0 cents

Pack Stash, Super Mega Jumbo Ultra

...which is the full name of Fleer Ultra before they changed it for showbiz purposes.

I reached back into the pack stash and found a pack of 1994 Fleer Ultra, Series 2. It's a huge pack by today's standards - 15 cards! (Edit: clearly a math degree doesn't prevent counting errors. There are 17 cards.) I got one Cardinal, which is probably a decent ratio, but 2 players I collect.

1994 Fleer Ultra
#310 Chris Sabo
#314 Mike Greenwell
#330 Bo Jackson
#337 Ozzie Guillen
#340 Jack McDowell
#343 Carlos Baerga
#347 Eddie Murray
#367 Brent Mayne

The non-Cardinal I collect is Bo Jackson. He played his last year for the Angels, something I probably won't have gotten right if asked as trivia. I also got former Cardinal Chris Sabo, Hall of Famer Eddie Murray, and future manager Ozzie Guillen.

1994 Fleer Ultra
#374 Pat Listach
#382 Wes Weger
#384 Rick Aguilera
#390 Shane Mack
#399 Xavier Hernandez
#412 Terry Steinbach

No Cardinals here, but the A's were my favorite AL team back when there was no interleague play. Now it seems odd to like any team my favorite team plays against every few years. As a kid, I think the real reason I was drawn to the A's was the uniqueness of a team wearing green, and Terry Steinbach's wearing plenty of it here.

1994 Fleer Ultra
#364 Tom Gordon
#401 Terry Mulholland
Phillies Finest #11 Darren Daulton

I almost didn't catch that the Darren Daulton card was an insert, until I sorted out the cards by number and saw there was no way it could be in Series 2. I'm always learning things I didn't know - or didn't remember - about older sets. That Phillies Finest set, to celebrate their world series appearance I guess, just has 10 cards of John Kruk, and 10 of Darren Daulton. I would have figured there would be a matching insert set for the actual champions, the Toronto Blue Jays, but none seems to exist.

eBay Wins #166

Among my many eBay penny cards, I had 5 from 1995 Topps. I can't recall whether these all came in one transaction, every since my great reshuffling of my eBay wins pile.

1995 Topps
#415 Mike Magnante
#488 Scott Ruffcorn
#493 Jorge Fabregas
#603 Jeff Fassero
#634 Rod Bolton/Olmedo Saenz

The only Cardinal in these cards is Jeff Fassero, who was sort of on the team twice. He was drafted by the Cardinals in 1984, but stayed in the minors for them, as well as the Chicago White Sox and Cleveland before signing with Montreal and making it to the big leagues. He went to a few more teams before the Chicago Cubs traded him back to the Cardinals just before the nonwaiver deadline in 2002, then he actually picked up 2 wins in relief against Arizona in the NLDS.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3272
Total Spent	$51.22
Per Card	1.565 cents
Change	-0.001 cents