Contest Winnings, Part I

A good friend of mine likes to say - jokingly, I think - that second place is the first loser. When Daniel of It's like having my own Card Shop, opened up a contest to help Pack War reach 100 followers, I joined in, and the Randomizer put me in 6th for 4 prizes. But, since 2 people won the top 4 prizes, he was kind enough to throw some cards to the 5th and 6th position to still have 4 people as winners. Consequently, I got some cool stuff for being the 5th loser.

Here's the first batch of cards, since I like to split them up to tag every set and Cardinals player.

1992 Donruss Cracker Jack II
#4 Lee Smith

Here we have the minis from before minis were cool, Cracker Jack. This set looks just like 1992 Donruss, but about 1/2 the width and height. I'm certain I've seen these cards before, and even held them in my hands, but according to Zistle, this Lee Smith is the only one I have.

1996 Upper Deck
Retail Predictor - #R33 Ron Gant

I'm kind of curious if this Ron Gant card would have been a winner. He hit 8 home runs in August 1996, and 7 in July. Does anybody have a link to home run totals by month? Even baseball-reference has failed me on this one.

1997 Topps
Season's Best #SB20 Andy Benes

This card's shiny, though not quite chrome-shiny, so it scans well. It's kind of hard to believe Andy Benes got a place in a 25-man insert set, but this was after his career-high 18-win 1996 season.

2000 Fleer Focus
Future Vision #FV8 Adam Kennedy

By the start of the 2000 season, Adam Kennedy had been traded to the Angels, though he'd be back for the 2007 season.

2000 Skybox Dominion - New Era
#16 Rick Ankiel
#18 Adam Kennedy

And finally - for this post - a Rick Ankiel and another Adam Kennedy. I hope Rick can catch on somewhere and get another year or two of playing time, but I suspect he may be finished after being released in May and June by 2 different teams last year. He's definitely a natural athlete, making major league rosters as both a pitcher and later an outfielder. He's also one of the first players to make me start feeling old, as I remember going to a game he pitched when I was 17, and realizing he was only about 3 years older than me.

eBay Wins #99

I came across a seller with an interesting listing. He had a bunch of individual auctions for Lots of 2 1992 Studio "common filler" cards, starting at a penny. Not one to pass up some cheap cards, I bid the minimum on a bunch of them, and won 9. So these 18 cards cost me half of a cent each.

1992 Studio
#11 Doug Dascenzo
#16 Chuck McElroy
#19 Gary Scott
#36 Pete Harnisch
#101 Andy Benes
#102 Jerald Clark
#105 Greg Harris
#109 Kurt Stillwell
#110 Tim Teufel

1992 Studio
#117 Darren Lewis
#118 Bill Swift
#119 Robby Thompson
#145 Chuck Finley
#171 Milt Cuyler
#172 Rob Deer
#227 Mike Moore
#228 Randy Ready
#241 Julio Franco

These are mostly commons, though Pete Harnisch and Julio Franco are definitely better-known names. In fact, Julio Franco was a 10 year veteran at this point, but wouldn't retire for another 15 years. I also got 2 Cardinals in other uniforms, Andy Benes and Chuck Finley, which were both on my want list.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2539
Total Spent	$44.13
Per Card	1.738 cents

182 Packs Giveaway, Part II

When I claimed the Cardinals - and Mark McGwire and Todd Stottlemyre - in the pack-per-day giveaway held at TribeCards, I had no idea just how many cards I'd wind up with, and how many different players. So that I can tag all of the sets and Cardinal players, I've broken this up into a series of who knows how many posts. Thanks for all the cards, David.
[Part I]

1994 Fleer Ultra
#565 Bernard Gilkey
#570 Allen Watson

1994 Fleer Ultra
#564 Clint Davis
#566 Ray Lankford
#569 Rick Sutcliffe

Fleer Ultra is one of the sets for which I'd like to complete the full run (1991-2007), someday, but man, is 1994 the ugliest of the bunch or what?

1997 New Pinnacle #103 Royce Clayton

Horizontal cards just mess up all my scanning plans.

1997 New Pinnacle
#67 Ray Lankford
#77 Andy Benes
#177 Dmitri Young
#188 Mark McGwire

Here's a good bunch from New Pinnacle, which is a weird name for a set when there was also a 1997 Pinnacle. Claiming Mark McGwire specifically also paid off here, since he's pictured on the A's. Card companies don't do many real subsets anymore, which made it take me awhile to track down that the "Aura" card was really just a base card.

2005 Topps #124 Mike Matheny

To finish off these sets, here's a nice action shot of current Cardinals manager Mike Matheny. It's hard to believe he'd be managing the team just 7 years later.

Zistle Trade #2

I got this trade proposal within a day or two of my last Zistle trade. They seemed to come out of nowhere, although I had added a lot of cards to both my have list and want list in the preceding weeks. I didn't recognize the name, so I don't think this person is a blogger, but if you are, and you sent me these cards, please let me know.

1990 Fleer #151 Andy Benes

The pride of Evansville, Indiana, Andy Benes. He was born there and went to college there, something I learned when browsing college brochures back in high school. I wonder if they know he's on a SLU Billboard in town.

1992 Score #223 Ray Lankford

1993 Upper Deck #461 Ray Lankford

Ray Lankford should have been even more of a fan favorite than he was. After all, he refused to sign with the Cubs the first time he was drafted, and signed with us the following year. And we love giving the Cubs a hard time.

1992 Fleer #592 Ozzie Smith

1992 Score #590 Ozzie Smith

1994 Pacific #604 Ozzie Smith

I'm surprised there were 3 Ozzie commons I didn't have, but here they are. Pacific is a little more believable, but surely I would have had an opportunity to pick up the Fleer and Score cards sometime in the past.

1996 Topps #211 Nomar Garciaparra

1998 Score Rookie and Traded #RT35 Nomar Garciaparra

And we finish with one of my favorite non-Cardinals, Nomar Garciaparra.

This wasn't a big trade, neither in number of cards nor total "book value", but it fell right in the wheelhouse of my collecting habits. Those are the most satisfying trades. Now I just need to finish entering all of my collection in Zistle, and of course, add more cards to my want list.

March Radness Win, Part VII

[Part I]
[Part II]
[Part III]
[Part IV]
[Part V]
[Part VI]

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.

I've reached the end of this prize, but this post has the most cards of all. Lucky for you, they're not all scanned. You'll see what I mean at the end.

As I flipped through the 1990 Donruss from the package, I set aside anyone who was a Cardinal. This wasn't based on research, just memory, so I may have missed a few. And I actually had to look up Chris Sabo because I thought I knew he was a Cardinal, but I don't really remember it, if that makes sense. As it turns out, he played 5 games for us after the White Sox released him in 1995, but was again released during September.

1990 Donruss
#41 Andy Benes
#42 Delino Deshields
#210 Dennis Eckersley
#230 Will Clark
#242 Chris Sabo
#349 Tom Henke
#378 Jamie Moyer
#578 Larry Walker
#674  Pedro Guerrero

1990 Donruss
#695 Eric Davis
#697 Mark McGwire
Bonus MVPs #BC-12 John Smoltz
#BC12A John Smoltz (Erorr)

I've bid on this Tom Glavine/John Smoltz error card on eBay a few times, but it always seems to go a bit high because of its perceived value.

So, how many non-Cardinals were there from 1990 Donruss? Oh, about this many:

1990 Donruss, sleeved and ready to be sorted

I haven't gone through them completely yet, but it looks like if this doesn't complete my 1990 Donruss set, it brings me very close. What an awesome prize for a blog contest. Now of course, I realize if my want list consisted of refractor parallels and cards numbered to 25, instead of lots of cards widely considered junk wax, I'd probably have gotten a much lighter envelope, but I love these cards. That's the cool thing about collecting instead of investing in cards; show me a bunch of ugly 1990 Donruss card and I can get as excited as one fancy relic "from no particular event". To sum up, thanks again to madding, and go follow Cards on Cards.

eBay Wins #12

A random lot of Arizona Diamondbacks? For 12 cents, why not?

1999 Skybox Premium #108 Andy Benes

2000 Bowman #274 Jack Cust

2000 Bowman #306 Jackie Rexrode

2000 Fleer Focus #150 Erubiel Durazo

2000 Fleer Focus #88 Tony Womack

2000 Fleer Focus #27 Steve Finley

2000 Pacific Omega #10 Matt Williams

2000 Pacific Omega #6 Jay Bell

2001 Fleer Futures #183 Alex Cabrera

I miss the old Purple and Teal Diamondbacks. I actually bought a hat in 1998 or so when they first came into being which is white with a purple bill. It's ugly as sin (see it here), so it's not surprising that look didn't last long.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	926
Total Spent	$9.61
Per Card	1.04 cents