eBay Wins #254

Today I continue my never-ending series of cheap eBay purchases with some 1990 Bowman. A bunch of these came in still-sealed packs, with chewing gum that not only soaked into the back card, but through it and onto a second card. None of them were huge stars, so I'll probably just toss the damaged ones.

1990 Bowman
#3 Andy Nezelek
#12 Lonnie Smith
#18 Jim Presley
#39 Andre Dawson
#44 Danny Jackson
#55 Todd Benzinger
#60 Ken Griffey (x2)
#72 Gerald Young
#75 Dave Rohde

I liked that for 1990 Bowman made the names more readable than 1989, though just barely. Lonnie Smith, Danny Jackson, and Gerald Young all played for the Cardinals.

1990 Bowman
#84 Orel Hershiser (x2)
#92 Jose Offerman
#96 Tom Goodwin
#99 Kal Daniels
#111 Dennis Martinez
#122 Frank Viola
#129 Terry Bross
#132 Mike Marshall
#140 Gregg Jefferies

Gregg Jefferies is the only Cardinal in this scan.

1990 Bowman
#146 Roger McDowell
#149 Jeff Parrett
#156 Ricky Jordan
#159 Tom Herr
#180 Gary Redus
#192 Ray Lankford
#198 Vince Coleman
#199 Paul Coleman
#201 Pedro Guerrero

I also enjoy a set that's numbered by team, making it an easy choice how to sort it, and giving me a solid block of Cardinals with Ray Lankord, Vince Coleman, Paul Coleman, and Pedro Guerrero. Tom Herr and Jeff Parrett also played for St. Louis.

1990 Bowman
#219 Mike Pagliarulo
#239 Ernie Riles
#246 Curt Schilling
#247 Pete Harnisch
#264 Mike Rochford
#265 Jeff Reardon
#266 Wes Gardner
#273 Kevin Romine
#278 Greg Blosser

To finish off this post, a scan with no Cardinals, but a nice old Curt Schilling card.


I won't count the 10 gum-damanged cards in my count, but I also don't count their cost since I bought a big box for less than a penny per card. That puts me at a level 38 cents for 38 cards.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	5072
Total Spent	$63.09
Per Card	1.244 cents
Change	-0.002 cents

eBay Wins #242

If you buy a bunch of random cheap cards, you're going to get a fair bit of 1989 Donruss. I've got enough that I'll have to split it across at least 2 posts.

1989 Donruss
#3 Pete Incaviglia
#8 Cory Snyder
#10 Kevin Seitzer
#11 Rick Reuschel
#12 Johnny Ray (x2)
#14 Andres Galarraga
#15 Kirk Gibson
#16 Fred McGriff
#18 Jeff Robinson (x2)

I've always liked Diamond Kings.

1989 Donruss
#19 Vince Coleman
#20 Dave Henderson
#21 Harold Reynolds
#23 Frank Viola
#26 Don Mattingly
#27 Checklist
#30 Cameron Drew
#32 Erik Hanson
#34 Greg Harris

1989 Donruss
#37 Carlos Quintana
#39 Cris Carpenter
#41 Dave West
#42 Randy Johnson
#43 Mike Harkey
#44 Pete Harnisch
#45 Tom Gordon
#47 Alex Sanchez
#57 Greg Brock

There aren't a ton of huge stars past the Diamond Kings, but here's a Randy Johnson card I've wanted for awhile.

1989 Donruss
#59 Craig Lefferts
#61 Danny Tartabull
#65 Mark Davis
#67 Dennis Eckersley
#69 Mike Scott
#71 Tom Browning
#73 Mel Hall
#76 Juan Samuel
#89 Charlie Leibrandt

1989 Donruss
#90 Frank Tanana
#94 Mark McLemore
#99 Kevin McReynolds
#100 Checklist
#102 Dave Martinez
#107 Pete O'Brien
#111 Keith Moreland
#114 Brook Jacoby
#115 Keith Brown

1989 Donruss
#118 Bob Forsch
#120 Willie Wilson (x2)
#121 Tommy Gregg
#122 Jim Rice
#123 Bob Knepper (x2)
#124 Danny Jackson
#125 Eric Plunk (x2)
#126 Brian Fisher (x2)
#127 Mike Pagliarulo

1989 Donruss
#129 Lance McCullers
#133 David Palmer
#135 Greg Walker
#136 Kirk McCaskill (x2)
#138 Andy Allanson
#139 Rob Murphy
#142 Scott Fletcher
#143 Steve Balboni
#145 Ozzie Virgil

This is the first time I've tagged a Rob Murphy card. I don't remember him playing for the Cardinals at all, but apparently he did in 1993 and most of 1994, making 123 appearances in relief. Those weren't the greatest years for the team, including the strike season, so maybe that's why he doesn't stand out in my mind.

1989 Donruss
#149 George Bell
#156 Tim Wallach
#160 Von Hayes
#175 Ted Higuera
#180 Alan Trammell
#181 Vince Coleman
#186 Mike Greenwell
#187 Billy Hatcher (x2)
#191 Cory Snyder

1989 Donruss
#192 John Candelaria
#194 Kevin Gross
#198 Kal Daniels
#200 Checklist
#201 Joe Magrane
#212 Mickey Brantley
#222 Rick Mahler
#225 Mitch Williams
#226 Chuck Finley

1989 Donruss
#227 Mark Langston
#228 Jesse Orosco
#229 Ed Whitson
#230 Terry Pendleton
#231 Lloyd Moseby
#232 Greg Swindell
#233 John Franco
#234 Jack Morris
#235 Howard Johnson

These all came out of the half-cent pile, so the 90 cards plus 8 duplicates were just 49 cents.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	4425
Total Spent	$58.75
Per Card	1.328 cents
Change	-0.018 cents

eBay Wins #241

Today's eBay post covers the first ever Upper Deck set 1989. As you probably know, this set is widely credited with the shift from brown to white cardstock, which seems to be just slightly thinner and stiffer as well. I can definitely attest that these are easier to line up on a flatbed scanner than other cards of this era I've been scanning, as they still mostly lie flat. There were a handful of duplicates, some from a big lot of Oakland A's I bought awhile back.

1989 Upper Deck
31 Kevin Gross
33 Jeff Calhoun
93 Albert Hall
246 Von Hayes
269 Kevin Elster
316 Scott Bankhead
317 Milt Thompson
337 Mike Campbell
338 Mike Maddux

When I was a kid and the web was relatively devoid of the minutiae you can now find on it, I had to make up my own back story for players with interesting names, especially if they were not Cardinals and thus much less likely to be discussed on a broadcast I would watch. I always figured Von Hayes was Dutch or Scandinavian, just based on his first name. Of course, his card lists his birthplace as California, and I still don't know where the name Von came from.

1989 Upper Deck
392 Curt Young (x2)
393 Jeff Treadway
409 Don Carman (x2)
412 Pete Smith
430 Jackie Gutierrez
433 Jerry Royster
443 Glenn Davis
474 Randy Ready
476 Kelly Downs

I think I've said it before, but to me Randy Ready sounds like a professional wrestler or some sort of local TV commercial mascot name. Wait no, last time I went with Superhero in a low budget Syfy movie.

1989 Upper Deck
478 Shawn Hillegas
492 Mark Parent
501 Chuck Crim
510 Kevin Seitzer
531 Greg Mathews
539 Jim Gott
544 Atlee Hammaker
550 Mickey Brantley
583 Mike Gallego (x2)

Finally, a uniformed Cardinal, Greg Matthews. Mike Gallego also finished up his career with the Cardinals, presumably coming here because of Walt Jocketty and Tony La Russa's experience with him in Oakland. Milt Thompson above was also a Cardinal.

1989 Upper Deck
585 Doug Jennings (x2)
623 Bill Swift
637 Charlie Leibrandt
640 Danny Jackson
641 Greg Booker
642 Jim Presley
679 Cory Snyder/Cleveland Checklist
688 Eric Davis/Cincinnati Checklist
758 Mike Moore (x2)

Finally there are two more Cardinals before they were Cardinals, Eric Davis and Danny Jackson. Eric Davis was signed pretty late in his career, but actually played here two seasons, and one more in San Francisco. Danny Jackson was traded away during his final season and finished in San Diego. When I look at that trade, it's not immediately obvious to me who was buying and who was selling, and it wasn't even a deadline deal; it happened June 13. The Cardinals traded Jackson, Rich Batchelor, and Mark Sweeney, and got Scott Livingstone, Phil Plantier, and Fernando Valenzuela. I guess Sweeney was the big piece in that trade, because Jackson, Plantier, Batchelor, and Valenzuela were finished in 1997, and Livingstone in 1998. Sweeney was 27 and played through 2008. At the deadline in 1997 the Cardinals picked up Mark McGwire, so maybe they were trying to clear some salary space. I really have no idea what they were thinking.

I added 41 total cards (the 36 pictured plus the 5 duplicates noted), for 41 cents.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	4327
Total Spent	$58.26
Per Card	1.346 cents
Change	-0.004 cents

Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part XXXIII

College football will be here again before we know it IS HERE IS OVER, 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 XVI XVII XVIII XIX XX
XXI XXII XXIII XXIV XXV XXVI XXVII XXVIII XXIX XXX
XXXI XXXII


With the pro football season winding down, I'll run through these a little faster now. Today's them is "Horizontal cards and others in the same set or with the same player". Catchy, right?

1996 Topps #167 Danny Jackson
1999 Upper Deck Victory #439 Mark McGwire
2000 Skybox Dominion #37 Mark McGwire
2000 Skybox Dominion #102 J.D. Drew

I like the shiny sets from 98-2000, which was really the heyday of collecting for me the first time around. Skybox Dominion just reminds me of when there were so many products I couldn't keep track, and would buy maybe a pack from each product per year.

1996 Topps #431 Jaime Bluma/David Coggin/Steve Montgomery/Brandon Reed
1998 Fleer Sports Illustrated World Series Fever #34 Ron Gant
1999 UD Choice #130 Mark McGwire
2000 Skybox Dominion - New Era #18 Adam Kennedy

Here are the aforementioned horizontal cards. Can you tell 98-99 was the homerun era? Also, for its time, that prospect card had a decent hit rate, with 3 out of 4 players making it to the major leagues. Steve Montgomery is shown as a Cardinal, because they drafted him, but he was traded for Dennis Eckersley before he made it to St. Louis.

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

eBay Wins #211

Today I add cards from another new set to my collection, 1987 Donruss Opening Day. This set was apparently sold as a full factory set, hence why I hadn't yet acquired any random singles.

1987 Donruss Opening Day
#16 Glenn Davis
#19 Craig Reynolds
#48 Glenn Hubbard
#87 Reid Nichols
#110 Tony Bernazard
#144 Marvell Wynne
#149 Eric Show
#152 Von Hayes

I don't really remember if these all came in the same lot or not. The first few seem to be from assorted teams, but then...

1987 Donruss Opening Day
#170 Jerry Browne
#171 Scott Fletcher
#173 Larry Parrish
#177 Oddibe McDowell
#179 Steve Buechele
#201 Ed Hearn

we get to 5 Rangers, and 6 Royals, along with a Giants logo. Maybe the set was broken and Royals and Rangers sent to a fan of both teams, or maybe these were the leftover cards when selling off the big stars. I always wonder about things like that when I have singles that I know came in a boxed set.

1987 Donruss Opening Day
#202 Buddy Biancalana
#203 Danny Jackson
#204 Frank White
#207 Kevin Seitzer
#208 Willie Wilson
#258 San Francisco Giants Logo

Among all 20 of these cards, only Danny Jackson played for the Cardinals, for two and a half seasons, 1995 to mid 1997, when he was traded for Fernando Valenzuela among others.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	3482
Total Spent	$53.29
Per Card	1.53 cents
Change	-0.004 cents

eBay Wins #115

Today I've got cards from 2 of Donruss's more garish 90s sets, which look even worse next to each other. But, these are the cards I grew up with, so they make me happy. It also doesn't hurt that they only cost me a penny each.

1990 Donruss
#82 Milt Thompson
#359 Larry Andersen
1991 Donruss
#461 Ernest Riles
#511 Wally Whitehurst
#525 Kent Anderson
#563 John Shelby
#678 Danny Jackson
#670 Ken Hill
#735 Ken Dayley

That makes 3 Danny Jackson cards in my last 10 eBay posts. That stat sounded like much more of an outlier before I typed it. Nonetheless, he counts as a Cardinal in my book, due to his 2 and a half seasons in St. Louis, so the lot netted 4 Cardinals out of 9 cards.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2837
Total Spent	$46.90
Per Card	1.653 cents

eBay Wins #113

I won 97 auctions for individual 1991 Leaf cards this time around. The seller couldn't find one of them, and asked if he could replace it with another card from the set, and since I was agreeable to that, he sent me two replacement cards. So this bundle is 98 cards for 97 cents. The cards were just curved enough to make them annoying to scan, so I've trimmed this post down to just the 11 Cardinals in the stack.

1991 Leaf
#23 Pat Borders
#45 Chuck Finley
#139 Delino DeShields
#193 Mike Morgan 

1991 Leaf
#226 Bryn Smith
#227 Todd Stottlemyre
#234 Mark Whiten
#268 Danny Jackson

Mark Whiten made me want to be an outfielder, because it was simply amazing to see him throw the ball from to the warning track to home plate on the fly. I'm not sure how many runners he actually threw out, but he certainly made runners think twice about tagging up, much like Molina seems to give would-be base-stealers pause.

1991 Leaf
#350 Danny Cox
#376 Ken Hill
#403 Lance Johnson

These cards really aren't curved that badly when I put them in sleeves, but for some reason it took me way too long to line them up on my scanner.

Before these 98, I had 23 cards from the 1991 Leaf set. There were a few duplicates, but now I have 116 cards from the set.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2821
Total Spent	$46.74
Per Card	1.657 cents

eBay Wins #106

I bid on some more "Lot of 2 cards" auctions, this time winning 10 1992 Leaf auctions for the minimum bid of a penny each. That's 20 cards for a dime. They're not all stars, of course, but 1992's when I started obsessing over baseball, so they're mostly at least familiar to me.

1992 Leaf
#269 Lance Parrish
#280 Brian Hickerson
#283 Ivan Calderon
#285 Mickey Tettleton
#288 Bret Barberie
#290 Frank Castillo
#292 Tommy Greene
#369 Dan Pasqua
#377 Mike Stanton

Fun Fact*: Mickey Tettleton was named for Mickey Mantle, who was named for Mickey Cochrane, who was also a catcher for the Tigers. Which is similar but different from the way Jamie Foxx named himself after Redd Foxx, who named himself after Jimmie Foxx. Anyone know any 3rd-level namesakes other than kings, popes, and George Foremans?

*Fact (noun): a thing I looked up on Wikipedia which may or may not be true.

1992 Leaf
#379 Eric Bell
#380 Walt Weiss
#385 Ryan Bowen
#386 Kevin Ritz
#387 Curtis Wilkerson
#438 Wally Joyner
#444 Chris Jones
#485 Scott Bankhead
#382 Manuel Lee

When I hear Wally Joyner, I always think of the Angels, and I always forget that he played so many years with other teams, especially the Royals and Padres.

1992 Leaf
#272 Royce Clayton
#381 Danny Jackson

As usual, I'll give the 2 Cardinals of the bunch their spotlight. Royce had only played 9 games in the 1991 season when this card was printed, but in just a few more years he'd come to St. Louis and be part of quite the controversy in Ozzie Smith's last season. Danny Jackson was here for that too, actually, in 1996.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2628
Total Spent	$44.84
Per Card	1.706 cents