Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part XVI

College football will be here again before we know it IS HERE, so I've got to get my prize from last season's Bowl Pick 'Em contest at Cards on Cards posted! My prize for a second place tie was a very generously sized box of cards, so I felt a bit overwhelmed even sorting through them. I finally sorted them out by player, and, as usual, I'll plan to post them all eventually, but I might quit halfway through, we'll see.

Part I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV

I had a decent number of Vince Coleman cards in the prize package, along with a few more from the same sets to round out this post.

1985 Fleer Update #U-28 Vince Coleman
1986 Topps #66 Cardinals Leaders
1986 Topps #370 Vince Coleman
1987 Donruss Highlights #36 Vince Coleman
1987 Fleer Limited Edition #10 Vince Coleman
1987 Sportflics #65 Vince Coleman
1991 Post #5 Vince Coleman
2013 Topps Archives #233 Vince Coleman

I'm very conflicted about that 2013 Archives card. On one hand, I like the card, and you can't have it! On the other hand, I first assumed it was 1986 Topps or Topps Traded from looking at the front, especially because it's a picture from somewhere around that time, not like the other Archives cards with modern pictures on card designs from 20-60 years ago. The actual 1986 card above tipped me off to double check the back, and I saw the 2012 copyright. I don't like getting confused by my cards, since I want to keep them all categorized and cataloged as correctly as possible. But, we can't really have modern cards with classic designs without running into this problem, I guess.

Donruss Highlights and Fleer Limited Edition were both sets I didn't have any of in my collection before these Vince Colemans.

1990 Topps Mini League Leaders
#73 Vince Coleman
#74 Jose DeLeon

I like these minis, like most minis, and I only had 2 of this set so far. There are two more Cardinals in the set, although since I collect Cardinals in any uniform, there are several more I'd like to get, too.

eBay Wins #208

Today's eBay lot is 23 cards from 1986 Topps. They're not as miscut as they look; I used a different scanner than usual, and it doesn't like to go quite to the edges like my normal one. These cards were a penny each.

1986 Topps
#57 Bill Doran
#96 Blue Jays Leaders
#149 Brett Butler
#161 Lee Tunnell
#216 A's Leaders
#219 Dennis Lamp
#244 Craig Lefferts
#312 Tom Filer
#338 Jorge Bell

Lee Tunnell is the only Cardinal in this group. Lee actually didn't play in 1986, and came to the Cardinals for 1987. I've only shown him on my blog one other time, and it was the same card.

1986 Topps
#364 Reid Nichols
#367 Aurelio Lopez
#388 Dickie Noles
#393 Chris Pittaro
#396 Red Sox Leaders
#488 Lou Thornton
#525 Marvell Wynne
#548 Mike Young

Aurelio Lopez played for the Cardinals in 1978 before moving on to Detroit, but his was not a name I could remember hearing before.

1986 Topps
#628 Kirk McCaskill
#647 Mel Hall
#668 Cecilio Guante
#718 Jorge Bell
#768 Vern Ruhle
#784 Alan Bannister

My second Jorge Bell card of this lot is his All Star card. I always think these are inserts when I first see them, but back in 1986 they were part of the base set.

6 of these are duplicates, so I added 17 cards to my 1986 Topps set. It's quite the inefficient way to build a set, as I'm only up to 146 unique cards.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3440
Total Spent	$52.87
Per Card	1.537 cents
Change	-0.004 cents

eBay Wins #191

I've looped back around to old cards with this eBay post. Perhaps a quick explanation is in order.

I won many eBay auctions for penny cards, which I was detailing one lot at a time. Eventually, I was having trouble keeping track, so I threw every penny card into the same box, and sorted it by year and set. The ones that cost different amounts were kept separate so they could be accounted for properly. Then, rather that posting an auction win at a time, I just went through the penny cards one set at a time. I started with the oldest cards, and added new wins to the box as they came in, if they were newer than my most recent eBay post. So now, I'm back to the ones that came in just a bit too late to make the last post of the set, such as these 1986s that came in some time after eBay Wins #123. The stack is much shorter now, so it shouldn't take me over a year to get back to present day.

1986 Topps
#127 Jack Howell
#197 Enos Cabell

Neither of these guys were ever Cardinals, but the cards are both new to my collection, which is a high enough bar to make any penny card worth it. These cards bring my 1986 set up to 129 unique cards.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3364
Total Spent	$52.14
Per Card	1.55 cents
Change	0 cents

Donuts from Johnny's Trading Spot, Part V

Several weeks ago, I read a post at Johnny's Trading Spot titled Instant mini collections up for grabs. "Up for Grabs" always gets my attention, so I threw my name into the mix. They were supposed to be randomly assigned, but through a lucky draw and one trade, each of the winners wound up with exactly what they originally wanted most. For me, that was cards with batting donuts.

Part I II III IV

Sunday's a good Donut Day, too.

1986 Topps
#25 Willie Wilson
#62 Bob Boone
#128 John Wathan
#271 Dave Collins
#407 Sal Butera
#740 Lance Parrish

With just a bit more cropping, Lance Parrish's card would never have been in this donut collection.

1988 Fleer League Leaders #8 Eric Davis
1988 Topps
#67 Ken Oberkfell
#466 Jerry Mumphrey
1989 Topps
#19 Greg Gagne
#53 Ruben Sierra
#356 Kevin Elster
#553 Luis Salazar
#577 Randy Bush

1989 Upper Deck
#53 Steve Sax
#329 Danny Tartabull
#485 Brian Downing
#522 Juan Castillo
#527 Donnie Hill
#750 Ray Quinones

1989 Upper Deck feels like one of those historic sets that I should complete. These will put me a little closer, but I still only have about 30 unique cards from the set.

eBay Wins #123

Today I have 30 cards from 1986 Topps, the big black banner set.

1986 Topps
#82 Tippy Martinez
#89 Randy St. Claire
#161 Lee Tunnell
#198 Ken Dixon
#209 Randy Ready
#226 Lee Lacy
#240 Tommy John
#302 Greg Gross
#317 Ed Romero

How have I never heard of Tippy Martinez before? That's gotta be one of the great names in sports. In the first bunch, only Lee Tunnell was a Cardinal, in 1987.

1986 Topps
#324 Dan Schatzeder
#382 Ivan Calderon
#393 Chris Pittaro
#440 Alvin Davis
#466 Tom Foley
#472 Joe Hesketh
#503 Mike Fitzgerald
#526 Charlie Lea
#562 Joe Beckwith

These 9 are decidedly common cards. At least Alvin Davis and Ivan Calderon were All-Stars once each.

1986 Topps
#598 Jim Presley
#623 Floyd Rayford
#626 Roy Thomas
#633 Jackie Gutierrez
#644 Mark Gubicza
#648 Steve Bedrosian
#703 Tim Wallach
#739 Dave Rozema
#775 Al Oliver

Floyd Rayford and Roy Thomas were both Cardinals I didn't know before looking it up for this post. One guy I really knew well was Steve Bedrosian, who was my go-to closer in RBI Baseball for NES.

1986 Topps
#321 Earl Weaver
#390 Tom Seaver
#780 Robin Yount

And, because the 30 cards didn't fit evenly into scanning groups of 9, here are my 3 favorite cards of the bunch. These guys, or at least their names, would also make a great law firm: Weaver, Seaver, and Yount. Just try to tell me you wouldn't trust that name.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2933
Total Spent	$47.86
Per Card	1.632 cents

eBay Wins #110

I won 6 auctions for cards, each stating they were random cards from a given set. The first two were 1986 Topps, and the last 4 were 1994 Topps. That wasn't exactly what I got, but I'm not complaining.

1986 Topps #241 Tony Fernandez
1986 Topps #252 Bobby Castillo
1994 Topps #67 Alex Gonzalez
1994 Topps #555 Chuck knoblauch
1994 Topps - Black Gold #7 Juan Gonzalez
1994 Finest #1 Mike Piazza

The Juan Gonzalez is from 1994 Topps, but it's a Black Gold insert. The Gold and Black Gold from 1992-1994 are some of my favorites, so this was a definite upgrade from some of the possibilities of a "random" card, like, say, Bip Roberts. That last card is from Finest, and I can't imagine why the seller would lump that into a random auction instead of selling it alone. I'd think it'd fetch better than the 1 cent gamble I placed on it. It is missing the protective covering, so maybe it was perceived to be in bad condition. Whatever the reason, I now have a nice shiny Piazza.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2719
Total Spent	$45.73
Per Card	1.682 cents

eBay Wins #96

Someone must have been cleaning out some sorted 1986 Topps cards. I won these 4 almost-sequential cards for a penny each. Either the seller didn't have #295 Kirk Gibson, or figured he could do better with that one elsewhere.

1986 Topps
#294 Danny Cox
#296 Geno Petralli
#297 Tim Lollar
#298 Craig Reynolds

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2517
Total Spent	$44.00
Per Card	1.748 cents

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 #54

I picked up these half-dozen cards on eBay for a penny each. Neither my record-keeping nor memory is good enough to tell you whether that was one rather random auction, or 6 different ones, though.

1986 Topps #209 Randy Ready
1986 Topps #314 Frank Pastore
1986 Topps #388 Dickie Noles
1986 Topps #433 Chris Codiroli
1990 Topps #638 Jeff Montgomery
1992 Score #626 Mark Leiter

I hope to put together the full 1986 Topps set one day, though it's not at the top of my list. Over the years it's gone from ugly to classic or even iconic in my eyes. I'm definitely no graphic design expert, of course.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2076
Total Spent	$39.23
Per Card	1.89 cents

eBay Wins #35

Sometimes I do a search on eBay and come up with dozens and dozens of cheap cards, and sometimes hundreds. Rather than examine each auction individually, I just go into zombie/robot mode and bid on them all, since it takes at least a few seconds each and otherwise it'd take me all day. This time I won 20 individual auctions for 1986 Topps cards, and for 20 cents got them all shipped. Here's the closest to highlights in the bunch.

1986 Topps #561 Bob Lillis

1986 Topps #666 Rangers Leaders (Charlie Hough)

They were all Rangers and Astros, and I literally did not recognize a player on any card except Charlie Hough. Here's the full list.

22 Duane Walker
79 Dave Schmidt
105 Gary Ward
142 Bob Jones
169 George Wright
189 Mike Mason
238 Larry Parrish
328 Pete O'Brien
371 Bill Stein
434 Curt Wilkerson
504 Denny Walling
559 Tommy Dunbar
561 Bob Lillis
586 Greg Harris
590 Bob Knepper
616 Glenn Brummer
618 Jim Pankovits
666 Texas Rangers Team Leaders
691 Mike Madden
784 Alan Bannister

I'm sure some of my Texas- and Houston-fan bloggers know some of these names, especially if they were older than the toddler I was in 1986, but for me, these are squarely in the commons pile.

But all was not lost, because prior to this purchase I had 69/792 for 8.7% of the 1986 Topps set, and now I have 88/792, 11.1%, or a full 1/9 of the set.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	1950
Total Spent	$37.76
Per Card	1.936 cents

2006 Topps Value Pack #3

[Pack 1]
[Pack 2]

Oddly enough, on another trip to Kansas City, I found yet another 2006 Topps pack at Target in the $1.59 bin. Here's the good stuff:

2006 Topps #461 Placido Polanco

 Wait a minute, this looks familiar.

2006 Topps #452 Jake Westbrook

So does this one.

2006 Topps #449 Jason LaRue

There we go, one that wasn't in that last pack. I was starting to worry. 

2006 Topps - Mantle Homerun History #MHR2

 This is a decent looking card, but it appears all of them in the set look the same on the front except the number in the upper left.

2006 Topps - Opening Day Team vs Team #OD-BP Brewers vs Pirates

When I saw this I thought  maybe there wasn't an Opening Day set for 2006, but there is. 

If you recall, these packs had 3 Vintage cards in them, so far all from 1985-90 for me

1989 Topps #253 Jose Alvarez

I've got the 1989 set, so this will go in the trade list.

1986 Topps #266 Keith Moreland

 1986 is just old enough to not be part of the overproduction era, I think. At least, I don't have a ton of these sitting around.

1986 Topps #205 Tony Perez

There we go, a Hall-of-Famer. I'm glad to see one guy I recognize among the 80s cards. 

Here is the full base card listing:
344 Doug Davis
354 Grady Sizemore
356 Luis Matos
363 Jermaine Dye
429 Francisco Cordero
432 Brett Myers
436 Keith Foulke
449 Jason LaRue
452 Jake Westbrook
454 Bobby Jenks
461 Placido Polanco
469 Josh Willingham
569 Mike Jacobs
580 Frank Thomas
610 Cincinnati Reds
651 Jose Reyes/Kaz Matsui
Series 2 Checklist 2 of 3

I really wonder how much longer I'll keep finding single packs of the product at Target. I like what I've been getting, so I'll keep picking them up.

eBay Wins #23

I was feeling random, so I bid on and won 62 "Random 1990s" cards, most of which were from the 1980s, so all the better. Most of the cards are commons of course, but there were a few Cardinals and stars as well.

1983 Fleer #596Charlie Leibrandt

The lone 83 Fleer in the bunch.

1986 Topps #422 Mike Jorgensen

9 years later Mike would take over for a fired Joe Torre as Cardinals manager long enough for us to bring in Tony LaRussa for the next season.

1986 Topps
24 Len Barker
66 Cardinals Leaders (2)
112 Bill Campbell
114 Mike Brown
134 Carney Lansford
140 John Candelaria
150 Joaquin Andujar
161 Lee Tunnell
167 Zane Smith
216 A's Leaders
252 Bobby Castillo
304 Mike Gallego
404 Frank Robinson
422 Mike Jorgensen
433 Chris Codiroli
437 Rick Mahler
439 Rick Honeycutt
543 Jerry Narron
549 Bob Welch
566 Alfredo Griffin
583 Al Bumbry
602 Mariano Duncan (2)
731 Don Robinson
758 Dave Anderson
766 Rick Langford

1988 Topps #170 Rich Gossage

Hey look, a Hall-of-Famer. Junk wax or not, that's cool.

1988 Topps
170 Rich Gossage
564 Frank Lucchesi

1989 Donruss #119 Bert Blyleven

Another (recent) Hall-of-Famer.

1989 Donruss
47 Alex Sanchez
85 Frank White
102 Dave Martinez
109 Henry Cotto
110 Mike Marshall
114 Brook Jacoby
115 Keith Brown
119 Bert Blyleven
121 Tommy Gregg
125 Eric Plunk
131 Jose Uribe
318 Greg Gagne
336 Randy Myers
430 Bob Dernier
447 Glenn Wilson
492 Willie Upshaw
499 Zane Smith
568 Glenn Hubbard
575 Juan Nieves
578 Luis Rivera

1991 Fleer Joe Oliver

The streak had to end sometime. Here's the lone bright yellow 91 Fleer.

1991 Score #164 Jeff Reardon

1991 Score
151 Roy Smith
162 Brook Jacoby
164 Jeff Reardon
167 Gary Mielke

1992 Donruss #376 Bernard Gilkey

I don't remember much of Bernard Gilkey as a Cardinals player, as he never seemed to stand out much. He was a local guy though, and a consistent starter.

1992 Donruss
164 Alan Trammell
347 Dante Bichette
353 Mitch Williams
359 Scott Leius
365 Vicente Palacios
370 Pat Kelly
376 Bernard Gilkey

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	1885
Total Spent	$34.91
Per Card	1.85 cents