Tis The Season Winnings, Part I

Sometimes, I procrastinate posting and sorting some cards. Normally I don't pay too much attention to how long a particular item has been sitting on my desk, but given that this one was the Tis the Season contest from 2013, I've probably had it in my possession for a little over a year now. But, even with the long delay, I still want to throw Jeff at 2 by 3 Heroes some referral traffic while I show off my prize.

2008 Allen and Ginter #276 Oscar Wilde
2009 Allen and Ginter #311 Gavin Floyd
2010 Allen and Ginter
#14 Shane Victorino
#15 Carlos Quentin
#42 Mark DeRosa
#46 Chad Billingsley
#67 Carl Crawford
#91 Carlos Zambrano

This really has nothing to do with anything, but Oscar Wilde always brings a missed comedic opportunity to my mind. In college, my friend and I went to a video rental store, and his roommate asked him to pick up a DVD of The Importance of Being Earnest (written by Oscar Wilde) so that he could avoid doing his assigned reading. I told him we should bring him Ernest Goes to Jail, then play dumb when he inevitably blew up about it being the wrong movie. Either he didn't think it was that funny, or we didn't want to spend the extra few bucks to rent a second DVD, so we didn't wind up doing it. Learn from my mistakes: never miss a chance to make a joke.

I believe the Gavin Floyd card is a short print, though I'm unclear on the numbering of SPs over the last few years. Also, Mark DeRosa represents the only former Cardinal in this post.

2010 Allen and Ginter
#100 Matt LaPorta
#103 Niccolo Machiavelli
#128 Hans Florine
#133 Nelson Cruz
#146 Carlos Lee
#184 Jake Peavy
#186 Jose Reyes
#187 Jair Jurrjens

I always find myself drawn to the non-baseball subjects in Allen and Ginter, possibly because the players have become mundane by comparison. Only in Allen and Ginter can you pull a Niccolò Machiavelli.

2010 Allen and Ginter
#211 Johnny Strange
#226 Brian McCann
#271 King Tut
#280 Koji Uehara
#294 Buster Posey
#197 Johnny Damon

I always forget Johnny Damon played for Detroit, but this card is here to remind me. I tend to think of him as a member of the Red Sox, then the Yankees, then the A's, then Kansas City, then Tampa. Another of his teams that doesn't come to mind until I look it up is Cleveland. He's got to be one of the best players ever to play for 7 different teams.

2008 Allen and Ginter #75 Travis Hafner
2010 Allen and Ginter
#140 Brandon Allen
# The Parthenon
2010 Allen and Ginter This Day in History
#TDH16 Carlos Gonzalez
#TDH18 Felix Hernandez
#TDH25 Ryan Zimmerman

Mostly to avoid weird unbalance scans, here are the horizontal cards from 2008-2010 Ginter in the package. There was just one 2008 base card, and the rest were from 2010, including the 3 This Day In History inserts.

Superbowl Winnings, Part 1

Remember that awful, lopsided game back in February? It won a contest for me at Collector's Crack, properly know as Almost the Easiest Superbowl Contest on the Web IV. Going into the game, I knew I had a decent chance of winning since I had chosen Seattle to win and Denver as their opponent, which no one else did. However, even if it had come to the 2nd and 3rd tiebreaker, I'd have done alright. I forecasted 50 total points in the game - which wound up 43-8 if you don't remember - missing the total by just 1. Or, as I prefer to think of it, I predicted everything except the fact that Denver would go for 2 on their TD when down by 30. I also went with 4 turnovers as the final tiebreaker, and hit that dead on.

It sounds a little like I'm bragging, so to be completely clear, I did use my projections to pick the the teams, but the points and turnovers were pretty much just guesses, and I got lucky. Better lucky than good, some say.

Let's see the prizes!

1998 Finest - Refractors
#127 John Mabry

Look at that shimmering Refractor, still protected - and blurred - by Topps Finest protective coating. I've said it before, one day I'm going on a peeling rampage, and freeing most of my Topps Finest cards for the first time.

2004 Donruss Classics
National Trading Card Day
#DP-1 Albert Pujols

Here's the second card in a row I thought was a base card at first, but turned out to be a parallel. The Donruss Classics set included a parallel with the National Trading Card Day logo.

2011 Topps Chrome
#32 Yadier Molina
#141 Lance Berkman
#150 Albert Pujols

Shiny shiny Chrome. I'm surprised I didn't have any Cardinals from the set yet. I'll be adding the others to my want list now.

2008 Allen & Ginter - Mini A&G Backs
#44 Adam Wainwright
#88 Troy Glaus
2010 Allen & Ginter - Mini Black Border
#51 Matt Holliday

And I'll close it with some Allen and Ginter minis. That's a lot of white space on the horizontal Adam Wainwright card. He's in a very vertical pose for a horizontal card, so I kind of wonder why Topps did that. Also, both of the 2008s are Allen and Ginter backs.


I'd keep going, but I like to tag my posts with all the sets and Cardinal players pictured, and I'm at the limit. There's more good stuff left for tomorrow, though.

Zistle Trade #5

The Baseball season may be over, but my card collecting season doesn't stop. Here I've got another small trade made through Zistle, acquired for some of my 2012 Gypsy Queen duplicates

1986 Topps Mini League Leaders #59 Jack Clark

I was surprised to find I didn't have any cards from this set, yet, but now all of the Cardinals are on my want list.

2008 Allen and Ginter #263 Yadier Molina
2007 Upper Deck Future Stars #87 Scott Rolen
2009 O-Pee-Chee #493 Yadier Molina
2011 Topps Finest #100 Daniel Descalso

Offering a Molina or two is a good way to get your trade accepted by a Cardinal fan. Descalso and Rolen are good 3B pickups too, but I actually had this trade in progress the same time as the last one, and I didn't realize both traders had offered me the Future Stars Rolen. It's a nice enough card, but I don't really need 2, so it's now back on my trade list unless/until a Rolen autograph opportunity comes up and I need a duplicate to get signed.

Everyone Loves Talking About Themselves

Well, maybe not everyone. But what if I said there was a prize at stake? I'll cut to the chase, go to It's like having my own Card Shop and explain your blog name for a chance to win some Allen and Ginter and Topps 206 minis.

All this can be yours if the price is right

I see at least 2008 and 2010 Ginter in there. I'm pretty sure Peter Gammons is from 2011. And the Topps 206 cards appear to all be 2010. If nothing else, the Bram Stoker will go well with my Mary Shelley.

College Bowl Game Contest Win, Part 12

For the 2012-2013 College Football season, I entered the College Football Pick 'Em contest hosted by madding of Cards on Cards. I've won several of his contests over the years, and he always dumps a ton of Cardinals on me when I do. Yet, I think this time he may have outdone himself. I may have to work hard to get them all posted before the 2013-14 College Football season starts August 29, and I start posting my Power Rankings again.
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2008 Allen and Ginter
#287 Chris Carpenter
#326 Adam Kennedy

2008 Allen and Ginter
#44 Adam Wainwright
United States #US29 Chris Carpenter

Has anyone heard if 2013 Allen and Ginter is out yet? That United States insert is needlessly thick. At first I thought maybe it was a relic, but no, it's just a very thick slide of cardboard. I'm guessing this set contained each state's most famous native ballplayer.

2008 Topps
#244 Adam Wainwright
#272 Anthony Reyes
#285 Tony La Russa
#353 Brendan Ryan

2008 Topps is a set I have a decent chunk of, by virtue of finding a lot of cheap packs at one point. Consequently, I'm chasing its completion in my mind, though I haven't gone so far as to put the missing cards on my want list yet.

2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces
#83 Ozzie Smith
#85 Chris Carpenter

I could come up with any number of excuses for putting the Ozzie in the wrong orientation, but you know the real reason. I wasn't paying attention. And I'm not going to go de-sleeve and re-scan it. Carpenter knocked a card off my want list, so I just have a few Cardinals to go in this set.

2007 Topps Co-Signers #67 Anthony Reyes

I feel like I've heard of Co-Signers many times, but this is the first card of it I own. That's probably because I'm not a huge autograph seeker, except those I acquire from an in-person meeting, and autographed inserts were the big gimmick of this set.

eBay Wins #25

Sometimes you see a card for a penny, and think, I don't have this card, and it would have been about 50 cents in a pack, how can I go wrong.

2008 Allen & Ginter #158 Mary Shelley

Then you wonder why you bought a "baseball card" of an author. It's not terribly exciting, but it's one more 08 Ginter that I have if I ever decide to try to complete the set, or, more likely, trade away to someone else trying to complete the set. So far it's the only base card I have from the set, though I do have 4 minis from various parallel sets.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	1888
Total Spent	$35.04
Per Card	1.86 cents

Spring Training Giveaway, part 1

I won another contest at Number 5 Type Collection. After ranking the 5 teams I wanted from what he had to offer, I tied another reader and so wound up with half the Tigers and Red Sox. Here's part 1 of what he sent me (because of my previously mentioned obsession with tagging the sets).

1993 Stadium Club #5 Tony Phillips

2000 Topps #60 Pedro Martinez

2001 Topps Chrome - Before There Was Topps #BT5 Ty Cobb

2004 Upper Deck #107 A.J. Hinch

2005 Topps Total #395 Jeremy Bonderman

2005 Topps Update #UH33 Placido Polanco

2007 Upper Deck Future Stars #14 Curt Schilling

2007 Upper Deck Future Stars #11 David Ortiz

2008 Allen and Ginter - Mini Black Border #204 Julio Lugo

2008 Allen and Ginter - Mini #338 Placido Polanco

2008 Allen and Ginter - Mini A&G Back #333 Coco Crisp

2008 Upper Deck #494 Joel Zumaya

Number 5 Type Collection's Cardinals Giveaway, Part 2

[Part 1]
Matt at Number 5 Type Collection gave me way too many Cardinals in a recent contest.  Here's part 2:

1986 Fleer Box Bottoms #C-5

I bet this set would be pretty hard to complete, even though there are only 8 cards total.

1985 Topps Collectors' Series #5 Lou Brock

Lou Brock, good guy.

2005 Fleer Tradition #293 Larry Walker

The cardinals like to pick up aging stars, but it always seems to work out OK. Will Clark, Larry Walker, and hopefully now Carlos Beltran.

2008 Topps Allen and Ginter Mini Baseball Icons #BI11 Johnny Mize

2008 Topps Updates and Highlights #UH246 Kelvin Jimenez

2008 Topps Updates and Highlights #UH243 Joe Mather

2008 Topps Updates and Highlights #UH164 Jason LaRue

My favorite Jason LaRue quote went something like this, regarding a Yadier Molina injury. "I ain't no doctor or nothin', but that looked like it hurt".

2008 Topps Updates and Highlights #UH273 Chris Perez

I really wish we'd held on to this guy, he was showing great potential, and we gave him up for Mark DeRosa.

Once again, more to see tomorrow