eBay Wins #229

Today I have the rest of the 1988 Topps that I started in my last eBay post, with plenty more Cardinals.

1988 Topps
#534 John Wathan
#536 John Morris
#544 Jim Traber
#546 John Candelaria
#549 Albert Hall/Dale Murphy/Ken Griffey/Gerald Perry
#557 Craig Reynolds (x2)
#600 Mike Schmidt
#613 Bobby Thigpen
#616 Jay Aldrich

John Morris is obviously a Cardinal, but so is Gerald Perry, in that Braves Leaders card I sort of forgot was horizontal until I started writing this post. Whoops. Just turn your head a little, it's good for your neck after hours at the computer.

1988 Topps
#617 Oddibe McDowell
#618 Cecil Fielder
#619 Mike Dunne
#621 Gene Nelson (x8)
#629 Kelly Downs
#632 Steve Shields
#642 Bob Dernier
#643 Rocky Childress
#658 Tim Conroy

I know Cecil Fielder played for the Blue Jays, but it still hits me oddly every time I see it. He's supposed to be a Tiger. Every player "belongs" on their 1992 or 1993 team in my mind, because that's when I started watching baseball. And yes, Gene Nelson was another multicard player from that A's lot I bought. That Bob Dernier card is a prime example of why I need to get through all these eBay cards and put them in my collection. I traded for it pretty recently, even though I've had these cards sitting in my "to post" box for who knows how long.

1988 Topps
#662 Jim Rice
#667 Luis Quinones
#697 Steve Lombardozzi
#700 George Brett
#702 Mike Gallego (x2)
#718 Mike Felder
#720 Tim Raines
#724 Danny Tartabull
#729 George Bell/Fred McGriff

Mike Gallego was one of Tony La Russa's favorites he eventually brought over to the Cardinals. He didn't put up fantastic numbers, but I remember him being a solid bench player.

1988 Topps
#740 Rick Sutcliffe
#752 Mark Grant
#754 Mike LaCoss
#761 Tony Armas
#768 Dickie Noles
#769 Cecil Cooper
#779 Tom Glavine
#784 Joe Sambito
#785 Alvin Davis

Rick Sutcliffe was probably best known as a Cub, but he finished his career in St. Louis, making 14 starts in 1994.

1988 Topps
#791 Ted Simmons

I could claim I left Ted here alone since he was a Cardinal, but really it was just poor planning on my part. When I get a giant stack to scan, sometimes I lose track, and don't count how many cards are left until too close to the end to even it out nicely with some scans of 8 instead of 9. I believe there were 10 left when I realized my blunder.

Once again these were from the half-cent box, knocking my per-card average down by almost one hundredth of a penny, which sounds like a ridiculous thing to track when you say it like that!

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	4173
Total Spent	$56.79
Per Card	1.361 cents
Change	-0.009 cents

eBay Wins #228

After all that hockey prognosticating, I'm back with some eBay bargains. This time it's another classic junk wax set, 1988 Topps. I actually bought a factory set of this awhile ago, so these will all go in my trade list, where I'm sure they'll stay practically forever. I really need to start paying attention to the sets I've already completed when searching for cheap cards.

1988 Topps
#2 Don Mattingly
#8 Kevin Elster
#67 Ken Oberkfell
#77 Tom O'Malley
#82 Darrel Akerfelds
#87 Mike Mason
#102 Barry Larkin
#103 Curt Young (x9)
#117 Jim Steels

That's no typo, I actually have nine copies of the Curt Young card. Several (or maybe all, it's hard to keep track) came in a large lot of A's cards I purchased. Some of  the cards in this post came from 3 unopened packs that were used to fulfill "random cards" purchases, including the Barry Larkin.

1988 Topps
#124 Ray Knight
#131 Don Schulze
#132 Donnie Hill (x2)
#149 Ken Howell
#158 Tim Hulett
#175 Kevin Bass
#176 Jeff Reed
#177 Frank Tanana (x2)
#180 Terry Kennedy

According to my blogger tags, this is the first Terry Kennedy card I've posted, which I find hard to believe. He played for the Cardinals at the beginning of his career in the late 1970s.

1988 Topps
#181 David Cone
#186 Rafael Palmeiro
#189 Wes Gardner
#193 Brian Fisher
#214 Dave Schmidt
#230 Pat Tabler
#232 Bob James
#241 Damaso Garcia
#245 Rich Gedman

Dave Cone? When was he Dave Cone?

1988 Topps
#259 Ron Kittle
#260 Vince Coleman
#268 Bruce Ruffin
#271 Ken Gerhart (x2)
#282 Pat Perry
#284 Larry Bowa
#286 Chuck Crim
#324 Danny Jackson (x2)
#329 Chris Speier

If this were a tic-tac-toe board, I've won with three Cardinals right down the middle column, and a bonus Chris Speier to boot.

1988 Topps
#337 Jim Gantner
#338 Brian Holton
#339 Kurt Stillwell
#349 Bob Walk
#360 Tony Gwynn
#361 Greg Maddux
#366 Chet Lemon
#373 Checklist 265-396
#379 Rafael Ramirez

Tony Gwynn was another card that came in one of the unopened packs. That's not a card, even in a junk wax set, that any seller would let go for a bargain price.

1988 Topps
#382 Keith Miller
#393 Matt Nokes
#400 Ozzie Smith
#405 Dwight Gooden
#428 John Shelby (x2)
#430 Glenn Davis
#445 Mike Krukow
#448 Mike Davison
#452 Willie Wilson

I'm always glad to get another Ozzie, especially when it's cheap.

1988 Topps
#454 Marvell Wynne
#458 Ron Hassey
#461 Danny Darwin
#463 Fred McGriff
#475 Pete Rose
#490 Larry Parrish
#496 Guy Hoffman
#524 Gary Lucas
#526 Juan Berenguer

Fred McGriff is one of those borderline hall of famers, and his vote totals have reflected that so far. I don't think he'll make it in, unless there's some overhaul to the process very soon. While were overhauling, let's put in Pete Rose, too.

I've got some more 88s, but too many to tag all the Cardinals in one post. This one covered 76 total cards including the duplicates, and came out of my half-cent box, adding 38 cents to my Total Spent, and knocking down my average to 1.37 cents. We'll take it down a little more with the rest of the 88s next time.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	4127
Total Spent	$56.56
Per Card	1.37 cents
Change	-0.017 cents

Zistle Trade #23

This Zistle trade was mostly from the junk wax era, but I haven't quite filled all those gaps in my collection, so there's a smattering of them on my want list. Oddly enough, my trading partner wanted some "junk" in return, so I figured, why not. I'm too lazy to look it up now, but I think it was mostly 89 or 91 Donruss.

1988 Topps #642 Bob Dernier
1990 Score #233 Ken Hill
1991 Fleer #633 Bernard Gilkey
1991 Fleer #636 Felix Jose
1991 Fleer #640 Jose Oquendo
1991 Fleer #645 Lee Smith
1991 Topps #112 Frank DiPino
1992 Fleer #589 Gerald Perry
1992 Score #544 Bernard Gilkey

One of these things is not like the others, and that is Bobby Dernier. The others are all Cardinals, and actually mostly guys I remember playing for the team during my childhood, except for Frank DiPino. As for Bobby, I added that to my list awhile back because he was the favorite player of a good friend of mine when he was growing up. I was looking through my collection for a card of his to perhaps try to get autographed through the mail, but I didn't have any, and thus I added a few I should be able to get cheaply to my want list. Now I just need to track down an address for Mr. Dernier, or figure out who he's working for.

1992 Donruss #427 Bobby Bonilla
1992 Donruss #442 John Smoltz
1992 Donruss #564 Deion Sanders
1992 Donruss #610 Bobby Bonilla

I recently purchased a 1992 Donruss Series 1 set, which actually quashed the first trade this particular trader proposed to me. He did it the day after I bought the set, before I thought to remove the series 1 cards from my want list. Luckily my oversight didn't frustrate him, and we worked out a deal removing those cards. Here are the series 2 cards I still needed. If you're not a Cardinals fan, you may have forgotten that Smoltz and Bonilla both finished their careers in St. Louis. It wasn't very long for either one, but I still consider them players I collect. I've waffled about whether I should start collecting Deion Sanders cards. He'd go well with my other two-sport-star collection target, Bo Jackson. He was also a part of the very first baseball game I ever attended. I'll probably complete this base set eventually anyway, so I went ahead and added it to my wantlist, and now I have it.

Junior Junkie's Generosity, Part IV

Part I II III

The cards from the giant box continue. I've got mostly McGwires left. And this is going to take me awhile.

1988 Donruss #1 Mark McGwire (x5)
1988 Donruss #256 Mark McGwire
1988 Donruss - Bonus Cards #BC-23 Mark McGwire
1988 Topps #759 Athletics Leaders (x2)

Yes, there's a few duplicates, but with cards like Diamond Kings, who cares?

1988 Score #5 Mark McGwire
1988 Score #659 Mark McGwire
1989 Classic Travel Purple #190 Mark McGwire
1989 Topps #70 Mark McGwire
1989 Upper Deck #300 Mark McGwire
1990 Classic Update #T33 Mark McGwire
1990 Donruss #185 Mark McGwire
1990 Donruss #697 Mark McGwire

I was glad to see a few of the slightly harder-to-find cards, like the 89 and 90 Classic cards. Not that those are impossible, but there are certainly more 1990 Donruss or 1989 Topps around.

1989 Fleer #634 Jose Canseco/Terry Steinbach/Mark McGwire (X3)
1988 Score #648 Mark McGwire/Matt Nokes
1990 Fleer #638 Don Mattingly/Mark McGwire
1990 Upper Deck #36 Oakland A's Checklist
1989 Topps Big #34 Mark McGwire

I wonder how many cards featuring both McGwire and Canseco are out there. I got two different examples in this bunch, counting the one with Terry Steinbach. Don Mattingly and Matt Nokes also made appearances. I think my favorite cards of this post is the Topps Big, although now I've got even more of a need to figure out how exactly to store cards from that set. I'd be glad to hear any good ideas anyone has.

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.

Zistle Trade #9

These cards cost me some Thomes, some Cabreras, some Ortizes, and a couple of Ichiros. But I got a few Cardinal managers, and closer to completing 2012 Update. It's win/win, like any trade should be.

1987 Topps #68 Tony La Russa
1988 Topps #344 Tony La Russa
1988 Topps #744 Whitey Herzog
2012 Topps Update #US3 Adam Kennedy
2012 Topps Update #US26 Santiago Casilla
2012 Topps Update #US27 Cesar Izturis

Several of the Update cards happened to be Cardinals too, including Adam Kennedy and Cesar Izturis.

2012 Topps Update
#US58 Manny Acosta
#US69 Brett Jackson
#US80 Jered Weaver
#US92 Chone Figgins
#US102 Brandon League
#US115 Jason Grilli
#US121 Johnny Damon
#US141 R.A. Dickey

2012 Topps Update
#US162 Yu Darvish
#US169 Steve Cishek
#US205 Travis Ishikawa
#US219 Brian Fuentes
#US235 Marc Rzepczynski
#US279 Ryan Cook
#US289 Prince Fielder
#US302 Lucas Harrell

The sportscasters here liked to call Rzepczynski "Scrabble". I don't know if that nickname predated his time here, or just reflects our relatively low Polish population.

2012 Topps Update
#US17 Joe Smith
#US170 Jerry Hairston
#US238 Shawn Camp
#US294 Sergio Santos
#US316 Ryan Theriot

Finally I got one more Cardinal middle infielder, short-timer Ryan Theriot.

If my Zistle want list is to be believed - and it usually is - I still need over 70 cards to finish the Update set. But, this knocked out about a quarter of the list.

eBay Wins #127

Today's lot is 3 penny cards from 1988 Topps. None of them were former Cardinals.

1988 Topps
#124 Ray Knight
#685 Ron Darling
#711 Bill Gullickson

I really don't remember Ray Knight as a player, but I do remember him managing the division rival Reds in the mid 1990s. I knew Ron Darling played for the Mets, but in my mind he's still a member of the Oakland A's, since that's where he was when, as a kid, I started paying attention to even the opposing teams.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2946
Total Spent	$47.99
Per Card	1.629 cents

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

March Radness Win, Part V

[Part I]
[Part II]
[Part III]
[Part IV]

I "won" a prize, in that I managed to have the worst bracket of all in Cards on Cards March Radness contest. I legitimately tried to win, in fact I didn't even realize there was this consolation prize until the contest was over, because I stopped scoreboard watching about 2 rounds into the tournament because I did so poorly to start off. The good thing about winning cards from a fellow Cardinals fan is that he can't resist dumping a whole bunch of his Cardinal duplicates on me, which I'm more than happy to take.

How much more can there be? In this post, I'll show a good mix of late 1980s Cardinals.

1987 Topps
#7 Todd Worrell
#440 Willie McGee

It's weird for me to see Todd Worrell as the closer, since he was the setup man by the time I started paying attention. And doesn't the 1987 set just scream wood paneled station wagon?

1988 Topps #380 Joe Magrane

The younger people in town learned the Cardinals used to have a pitcher named Joe Magrane earlier this year, when his daughter was briefly on American Idol.

1989 Topps
#259 Larry McWilliams
#578 John Morris
#640 Willie McGee

Two guys I've honestly never heard of, and St. Louis's favorite standing ovation target, Willie McGee.

1990 Score #68 Jose Oquendo

The Secret Weapon! He's played every position for us, including Manager (fill in), 3B Coach, and I think even 1B Coach (fill in again).

1990 Bowman
#183 Joe Magrane
#185 Todd Worrell
#186 Jose DeLeon
#194 Willie McGee
#200 Jose Oquendo

Some nice 1990 Bowman here, with a lot of repeated players from above, and Jose DeLeon.

1990 Donruss
#516 John Morris
#536 Jose DeLeon

Finally, here's two more 1990 Donruss for my longest project ever, completing this set. I think it's been about 18 years since I bought a bunch of these and started trying for the set.

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

2006 Topps Value Pack

By now you've seen some other blogs about the old packs of 2006 Topps showing up at Target for $1.59 each. I went to all 3 of them near my home and work, and came away with a total of 1 pack. Nothing blogworthy, right? Wrong! There are 3 mystery Vintage cards within. I can tell the suspense is killing you.

No, I can't wait to open until after I scan

First up, a base card just to remind you what 2006 looked like:

2006 Topps #511 Dmitri Young

And now the obligatory Gold Parallel, which is actually somewhat rare at 1:6 packs.

2006 Topps - Gold Parallel #564 Yorvit Torrealba #0873/2006

Now, the mystery cards

1988 Topps #271 Ken Gerhart

Ooooh, 1988...

1989 Topps #695 Carlton Fisk

It's a 1989, but at least it's a Hall of Famer

1990 Topps #480 Sid Fernandez

And an uninspiring finish.

Those 3 cards actually showed up in that order. Seeing an '88 common on top I felt sure a '79 to '83 or so would be lurking somewhere beneath. Oh well, I bought the pack without expectations, and at least now I have a few 2006s, since those fell during my lull in collecting.

Here's the full list of 2006 base for completeness
338 Livan Hernandez
383 Russ Ortiz
391 Casey Blake
423 David Ortiz
468 Johan Santana
483 Jose Guillen
495 Adrian Beltre
506 Michael Cuddyer
511 Dmitri Young
527 Jose Vidro
580 Frank Thomas
582 Francisco Rodriguez
584 Jorge Sosa
604 Washington Nationals
630 Ronny Paulino
645 Paul Maholm
653 Prince Fielder/Rickie Weeks
Series Two Checklist 2 of 3

It's nice to get the advertised number in real cards, without cheaper filler couting against the pack total (ahem, 2010 Topps). In total there were 23 pieces of cardboard: the promised 18 2006 cards, 3 vintage cards, plus a checklist and a Topps of the Class ad.

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.