eBay Wins #179

Do checklists count as cards? Generally I'd say they do, and it's my collection, my rules. Thus, today's eBay penny card post has 2 cards for 2 cents.

2004 Flair - Checklist
2004 Skybox LE #84 Esteban Loaiza

While checklists are cards, they'd be a bit of a stretch to be the only card of a post, so I doubled up on this one, and added in the next card up, a 2005 Skybox LE, which stands for Limited Edition. These are both from sets that are yet again new to my collection.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3297
Total Spent	$51.47
Per Card	1.561 cents
Change	0 cents

A Repack Hit From 2010 Topps

I spoiled the end a bit in the title, but let's see a 2010 Topps Series 2 pack I pulled from my pack stash, originally from a repack box.

2010 Topps
#361 Washington Nationals
#372 Phillies Franchise History
#545 Fred Lewis
#558 Ronny Paulino
#652 Chipper Jones

I don't hate horizontal cards. I just don't like how they mess with my scanning groups. Also, even though it's been a few years, it's still weird to think that Chipper Jones is retired.

2010 Topps
#345 Chris Volstad
#355 James Russell
#386 Dan Haren
#413 J.J. Hardy
#424 David Herndon
#440 Willie Harris
#450 Omir Santos
#479 Chris Carpenter

Chris Carpenter represents the lone uniformed Cardinal from the pack, but I also got a Dan Haren, whose cards haunt me and remind me we traded him away for 55 games of Mark Mulder.

2010 Topps
#514 Rafael Soriano
#515 Mariners Franchise History
#520 Randy Wells
#523 Phil Coke
#525 David Huff
#532 Hunter Pence
#561 Ryan Zimmerman
#571 Brandon Lyon

Those Franchise History cards would look good in a binder, if they were all consistently vertical or horizontal.

2010 Topps
#592 Brian Roberts
#595 Mike Lowell
#610 Alex Gordon
#614 Kelly Johnson
#632 Daric Barton
#650 Dustin Pedroia
#654 Collin Balester
#657 Chris Young
#659 Nick Blackburn

Call me an anarchist if you want, but I really hope Alex Gordon and 6 or 7 more Royals start in the All-Star game. Frankly I hope they get all 9 fan-voted slots, and Ned Yost brings in a Royals pitcher before he replaces the first position player.

2010 Topps
Cards Your Mom Threw Out #CMT66 Warren Spahn
History of the World Series #HWS18 Paul Molitor
Topps Attax #JM Justin Morneau
Turkey Red #TR97 Chase Headley
Peak Performance #PP-52 Lance Berkman
Peak Performance Autos #PPA-DS Daniel Stange

I got another Cardinal with Lance Berkman, but the big hit is the last card, of Daniel Stange. Now he's certainly no superstar, but I'm always happy to add another autograph to my collection. Just because I have his card, I looked up his stats, and it appears he's now out of baseball, last playing in the 2014 Venezuelan Winter league. Still, I'm surprised to get this out of a repack, and glad to see that not every rack pack is apparently searched.

eBay Wins #178

Today's eBay post brings me 2 more cards from a set new to me, 2004 Donruss Team Heroes. I had a few cards from the 2005 incarnation of this set, but not 2004.

2004 Donruss Team Heroes
#102 Josh Hall
#409 Doug Waechter

I don't know what happened to Josh Hall, but he only ever played in 6 games in MLB. Here's an odd stat for you: he started 5 and finished 1, and had no complete games. I wonder if anyone else has ever only started and finished games with more appearances. Doug Waechter had a bit more success, playing in 6 out of the 7 seasons from 2003-2009.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3295
Total Spent	$51.45
Per Card	1.561 cents
Change	-0.001 cents

2013 Topps Series 2 Pack

Diving back into my pack stash, I found a pack of 2013 Topps Series 2 that I got in a repack. I know it was from a repack because there's no reason I would have bought one. I already built this set from a Jumbo Box of Series 1 and 2, so all of the base cards will be duplicates that go into my trade list. So, let's hope whatever inserts or SPs are new.

2013 Topps
#333 Santiago Casilla
#342 Matt Dominguez
#354 Casey Janssen
#366 Ervin Santana
#392 Tom Koehler
#499 Billy Butler
#571 Melky Cabrera
#612 Robinson Cano
#628 Martin Maldonado

Ervin Santana and Billy Butler should have stuck it out with the Royals a little longer. They would have found their way onto the AL All-Star team this year. Yes, I know Santana's a pitcher, but I'm sure the KC fans would have found some way to get him on the team.

2013 Topps
#451 Pedro Florimon
#507 Lance Lynn
Making Their Mark #MM-23 Todd Frazier

Here's a strong finish; A Cardinal and an insert. I could have sworn I had this Todd Frazier card, but according to my Zistle collection, and the physical box where I keep these cards, I didn't, so the pack did net me a single new card. The rest will hopefully be traded away to someone trying to complete their base set at some point.

eBay Wins #177

Plowing ahead with my eBay penny cards, today I've got 5 cards that cost me a nickel.

2004 Fleer Tradition
#26 Milwaukee Brewers Team Leaders
#56 John Lackey
#82 Chone Figgins
#306 Brian Lawrence
#391 Dave McCarty

5 cards for 5 cents, and they're all from a new set to my collection. I've got Fleer Tradition cards from many other years, but these are my first from 2004. And, I got one Cardinal in his pre-St. Louis days, John Lackey.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3291
Total Spent	$51.41
Per Card	1.562 cents
Change	-0.001 cents

2014 Bowman Contest at Waiting 'til Next Year

How would you like a nice start on a 2014 Bowman set? P-town Tom won a whole bunch of 2014 Bowman from My Cardboard Habit, and decided to collate it all and regift the 2nd and 3rd partial sets he put together. The prizes are 400 and 358 of the 440 cards, respectively. And who doesn't love some shiny Chrome cards to go along with the sets?

Just go visit Waiting 'til Next Year and leave a comment to enter. You've got a little less than two days

A Jumbo From the Pack Stash

Today I have a Jumbo Pack of 2008 Upper Deck. That's 36 cards, including two Rookie Debut cards visible through the clear wrapper on the back of the pack.

2008 Upper Deck
#54 Francisco Cordero
#93 Livan Hernandez
#131 Felix Hernandez
#132 Jeff Weaver
#154 Billy Wagner
#270 Magglio Ordonez

Jeff Weaver played half a season for the Cardinals in 2006, won a World Series, then promptly priced himself out of St. Louis's range. I'll admit when he left I was wondering if we'd regret it, but he regressed a bit and in the end I think it was in the Cardinals best interest not to pay him as much as he got in Seattle.

2008 Upper Deck
#318 Kevin Hart
#341 Bronson Sardinha
#363 Grady Sizemore
#390 Jake Peavy

A few weeks ago, someone called no-grass cards like Peavy's "Tattooine cards" after the desert planet. Now that's all I can think of when I find one.

#14 Chad Qualls
#36 Gregg Zaun
#37 Aaron Hill
#112 Barry Zito
#114 Brad Hennessey
#115 Jack Taschner
#151 John Maine
#152 Tom Glavine
#153 Orlando Hernandez

Check out that Gigantes jersey on Brad Hennessey. I'm glad when the photographers show up on special uniform days. The three Mets cards show different jerseys, too, and clearly the two Blue Jays cards do as well.

2008 Upper Deck
#191 Jamie Moyer
#193 Kyle Lohse
#209 Ryan Doumit
#231 Bronson Arroyo
#232 Matt Belisle
#248 Kazuo Matsui
#269 Gary Sheffield
#287 Jim Thome

Here I've got two former Cardinals playing for the Phillies, Kyle Lohse and Jamie Moyer.

2008 Upper Deck
#271 Matt Garza
#327 Jonathan Meloan
#359 B.J. Upton
#377 Magglio Ordonez
#386 Frank Thomas
Rookie Debut #7 Ryan Hanigan
Rookie Debut #23 Dave Davidson
Yankee Stadium Legacy #YSL3088 Moose Skowron

Since the Rookie Debut cards are what's immediately visible outside the pack, I'd wager that's the reason this particular pack made it to the repack factory. Ryan Hanigan and Dave Davidson weren't exactly the hottest prospects in a set with Ian Kennedy, Joey Votto, and Clay Buchholz. That Yankee Stadium Legacy set is kind of cool, but I don't think I'll be tracking down the other 6000+ cards for it. It'd be pretty awesome to have something like this for Busch Stadium, but I definitely understand the New-York-centricity of the card collecting world.

A Celebratory Contest at Baseball Card Breakdown

These dogs are clearly ready to party

To celebrate 2 years of posting and 500 posts, there's a giveaway at Baseball Card Breakdown. Just go leave a comment with your favorite of the 500 posts to enter. Do that and you'll be thrown into the randomizer to win some fabulous prizes. So go enter. Now!

eBay Wins #176

I've had a lot of one card eBay posts, so today, we're doubling up, with two penny cards from 2003 Topps.

2003 Topps
#25 Nick Neugebauer
#246 Jose Valentin

I like to consider this a "Final Tribute" card for Nick Neugebauer. After all, he last played in MLB in 2002. He first played in 2001, and was only 22 when he last played, so Topps could be forgiven for thinking he'd be back at some point. On the other side we have Jose Valentin, who didn't even hit the majors (also with Milwaukee) until his age-23 season, but played for 16 seasons. It's gotta be the mustache.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3286
Total Spent	$51.36
Per Card	1.563 cents
Change	0 cents

Last 2013 Triple Play Pack, For Now

2013 Panini Triple Play
#15 Alfonso Soriano
#29 Prince Fielder
#69 Buster Posey
#82 Yu Darvish
#87 Stephen Strasburg
All Stars #11 David Wright
Red Bordered Stickers #26 Brett Lawrie

4 packs have given me 20% of the 90-card base set, but of course future random packs will be likelier and likelier to have duplicates of my current cards. I think I will go ahead and purchase a box or two of these, and show you my progress in completing the set or master set.

eBay Wins #175

Today I've got another first for my collection, a card from 2003 SP Authentic. Considering that hobby boxes are still going for about $1/card, I'd consider the penny for this base card a pretty good deal.

2003 SP Authentic #6 Miguel Tejada

Obviously that $1/card price isn't evenly distributed, but instead people are chasing the high-end inserts. But I'd say I got at least 10-25x my money's worth here. With only 90 cards in the base set, they're all bound to be stars, too, and Miguel Tejada is no exception.


I also brought down my arbitrarily-rounded per-card eBay spending by another .001 cent, so there's that.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3284
Total Spent	$51.34
Per Card	1.563 cents
Change	-0.001 cents

2013 Triple Play #3

Finally, I pulled a Cardinal from one of these. Although, he's already gone from the team, and has been demoted to the minors for about a month. Yes, it's Allen Craig.

2013 Panini Triple Play
#25 Dexter Fowler
#30 Justin Verlander
Blue Bordered Stickers #2 Adam Jones
Eye Blacks #9 Felix Hernandez
#45 Josh Johnson
#77 Allen Craig
Baseball 101 #6 Infield

There's really nothing dictating which Hernandez these Eye Blacks belong to, so I'm going to go with Keith Hernandez. I was doing some online searching and saw full boxes of these going very cheaply, so I just might pick one up for the fun of putting together the set, and trying for a master set of all inserts.

eBay Wins #174

Now that I'm firmly into the mid-2000s, many of my eBay penny cards represent sets I've never seen in person, at least not in my collection. Today is another such example, from 2003 Fleer Tradition Update.

2003 Fleer Tradition Update

I don't even have any cards from Fleer Tradition in 2003, let alone update. I have vague memories of Graves from his time with the Reds due to the division rivalry with the Cardinals. His name is also one letter short of matching that of a guy who was in my high school class at the time, so he caught my attention for that reason. Maybe that makes me odd, but I have this card and you don't. Unless you do, then I guess you got me this time.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3283
Total Spent	$51.33
Per Card	1.564 cents
Change	0 cents

2013 Triple Play #2 from the Pack Stash

2013 Panini Triple Play
#44 Giancarlo Stanton
#83 Adrian Beltre
#84 Brett Lawrie
#85 Jose Bautista
#88 Gio Gonzalez
Red Bordered Stickers #1 Freddie Freeman
Eye Blacks #3 Josh Hamilton

After 2 packs, I'm still without a Cardinal. I haven't really combed the checklist to see how many I should expect, but among the 90 base cards I believe there are 6, counting current and former members of the team. I'm still liking the cards though, other than the awkward scans that result from the mix of horizontal and vertical cards. Maybe I should have bitten off a bigger chunk of the pack stash and put a few packs into a single post.

eBay Wins #173

My eBay randoms are getting into the territory where there are many sets with which I am unfamiliar, since I didn't actively collect from about 2000 to 2010. For example, I figured this was a Donruss insert, when it fact it's a base card of an entirely separate Diamond Kings product from 2003.

2003 Donruss Diamond Kings

You can almost feel the pain my scanner was in when trying to make sense of the shimmery background on this card. "I give up, give it rainbow stripes". These cards don't quite grab me like the near-caricatures of the 80s and early 90s Diamond Kings, but like I always say, for a penny I'm happy to have another sample from a heretofore unseen set in my collection.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3282
Total Spent	$51.32
Per Card	1.564 cents
Change	0 cents