Christmas Cards, a Few Months Late

I seem to always be trying to catch up, so here's some cards that arrived sometime in December, from ATBATT's 3rd Annual Operation PWE. There's something about an envelope of mostly different players and sets that just brings joy to opening the mail.

1991 Topps #343 Jose Oquendo
1992 Pinnacle #381 Andres Galarraga
2015 Topps #220 Shelby Miller
2015 Topps #336 Matt Carpenter
2015 Topps - Archetypes #A-11 Mark McGwire
2016 Topps Heritage #89 Trevor Rosenthal

I'm bad at staying on top of acquiring the Cardinals inserts when new sets come out. That Mark McGwire is a card I definitely should have already had, but didn't. As always, I'm surprised when I don't already have junk-era cards I receive, because it seems like I have so many cards from those years. But both the Oquendo and Galarraga fill holes in my collection.

1988 Topps UK Minis #72 Ozzie Smith
2016 Topps #254 Matt Holliday

I like these UK Minis, and I actually have a couple copies of the Ozzie card now. All the more reason to chase down the Vince Coleman and Willie McGee cards from that set. Then there's Matt Holliday, who just won't seem right in a Yankees uniform this year.

Thanks to Stealing Home for the PWE!

Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part X

College football will be here again before we know it, 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

1986 Fleer Update
#U-29 Tim Conroy
#U-50 Mike Heath
#U-65 Mike LaValliere
#U-85 Rick Ownbey
#U-89 Pat Perry

I sorted out my cards by player, but lots of the stacks were only one card deep. That was the case for each of these cards from 1986 Fleer Update. This makes up 5/6 of the Cardinals from this set, so there's one more card on my want list now. These are also the only cards from the set I have so far.

1982 O-Pee-Chee #348 Darrell Porter
1984 Topps
#389 Ozzie Smith
#561 Whitey Herzog
Glossy All-Stars #12 Whitey Herzog
1987 Topps - Glossy All-Stars #1 Whitey Herzog
2013 Panini Cooperstown - Colgan's Chip Disks # Whitey Herzog

I figured that Whitey Herzog disk was from some obscure food issue from the 80s that I'd never track down, but it turned out to be a well-made insert from 2013 that mimics the 80s style well. The two All-Star cards made me realize there's a 2-year lag from a World Series appearance for a manager to appearing in an all-star set. For example, the Cardinals made the World Series in 1982 and 1985, thus Whitey Herzog managed the All-Star teams in 1983 and 1986, and so these cards are in the 1984 and 1987 sets. It's no huge insight, but I just like to keep those sorts of things in mind. I already have his 1989 card in my want list.

Bowl Pick 'Em Contest Winnings, Part VI

College football will be here again before we know it, 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

2016 Topps
#46 Jhonny Peralta
#106 Jordan Walden
#107 Kevin Siegrist
#134 Yadier Molina
#146 Stephen Piscotty
#217 Lance Lynn
#244 Matt Carpenter
#319 Adam Wainwright

I still haven't bought any 2016 Topps cards. The other was from winning the subcontest within this same contest, picking the Belk Bowl. The only Cardinal in that prize was Pat Neshek, now with the Astros, so these were still all new to my collection.

2016 Topps
Back to Back #B2B-9 Red Schoendienst/Stan Musial
Berger's Best #BB-16 Steve Carlton
Pressed Into Service #PIS-6 Stan Musial
Perspectives #P-25 Ozzie Smith

Here we have more 2016 Topps, all inserts and all Hall of Famers. I'm glad to see Ozzie Smith has been included more and more in sets with older players. And I'm always happy to get Musial and Schoendienst cards.

Zistle Trade #26, Part II

[Part I]

This half of the trade has a lot more Ozzies.

1982 Fleer #582 Ozzie Smith
1983 Topps #24 Steve Mura
1983 Topps #74 Julio Gonzalez
1983 Topps #650 George Hendrick
1990 Donruss #663 Rick Reuschel
1990 Donruss - Bonus MVP's #BC-14 Julio Franco
1990 Score #220A Mike Aldrete
1990 Score #662 Paul Coleman
1992 Donruss #423 Ozzie Smith

I'm continuing to chip away at 1990 Donruss, and I'm down to error variations for the most part. This Rick Reuschel card is the corrected version. Donruss printed a bunch of the all star cards with All Star stats but with a header implying they were regular stats, and the corrected versions say All-Star stats. It's a subtle and mostly meaningless difference, but I figure, the cards aren't rare, so why not track them all down? Mike Aldrete's card is another error card, which says he's #25 on the back. As you can see from the photo, he was #24. Mike was the assistant hitting coach and then bench coach for the Cardinals a few years ago, so I've decided to collect his cards even though he never played for St. Louis.

The big cards from this trade are at the top of that scan, though, a nice 1982 Ozzie Smith, and 3 1983 Topps Cardinals. I collected every Ozzie Topps flagship base card many years ago, but it's good to start filling in the other brands.

Also, I was sure I've posted a Paul Coleman card before, but I don't have any post tagged with his name. He might be one of the Cardinals worst draft decisions. They chose him one pick ahead of Frank Thomas, yet he never made it to the majors.

1993 Leaf #229 Brian Jordan
1993 Leaf #297 Ray Lankford
1993 Leaf #328 Ozzie Smith
2013 Topps - 1972 Topps Mini #TM-99 Ozzie Smith

I really like these 1993 Leaf cards, so I'm not sure why I didn't have them yet. Now, I do. I was also glad to get a one of the modern Ozzie inserts, the 1972-style mini from 2013 Topps.

Zistle Trade #24

I made another smallish trade on Zistle, for some needs from the overproduction era. A few are base cards, but 6 of the 9 are either from traded sets or inserts, so they're a little harder to track down.

1988 Fleer #276 Jose Canseco
1988 Fleer Update #U-68 Todd Stottlemyre
1989 Donruss Bonus MVPs #BC-15 Cal Ripken
1989 Score Young Superstars II #20 Todd Stottlemyre
1989 Upper Deck #674 Ozzie Smith
1989 Upper Deck #754 Todd Zeile
1990 Donruss Bonus MVPs #BC-10 Ryne Sandberg
1991 Topps Traded #83T Phil Nevin
1993 Topps Gold #3 Ryne Sandberg

I've long been working on the 1990 Donruss set, and Ryne Sandberg was one of the two Bonus MVPs I didn't have yet. I've got the other on the way in another trade, too, so that insert set is nearly complete along with the base set, which I think is almost complete except for some errors and variations. I have a lot of 1989 Donruss base cards, but not many bonus MVPs, so the Ripken is a good get for me. The two Todd Stottlemyre cards are just because I collect Todd Stottlemyre, much like the Ozzie, Todd Zeile, and Jose Canseco cards. I put the Team USA cards from 1991 Topps Traded on my list after getting a few of them in the past and liking them, and finally there's a 1993 Topps Gold, also of Ryne Sandberg. I've still got over 780 of those to go to complete that set.

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

April Card Show Purchases

When I got Whitey Herzog's autograph, I had some time to shop while waiting for my number to get called into line. Here's what I found that I felt was worth buying:

1987 Topps #243 Whitey Herzog
1990 Topps #590 Ozzie Smith
2013 Gypsy Queen #144 Red Schoendienst
2016 Heritage #14 Jhonny Peralta

4 base cards? Of course not, that'd be quite the waste of space for the sellers paying for table space. I bought 4 complete sets, but I decided to just post a representative card from each here. The 1987 and 1990 Topps came from a seller who said he just bought a large collection of hand-collated sets. In fact, he had so many junk era sets, he didn't have time to go through each one and verify they were complete, so he instead put them on his 2 for $5 table with a sign disclosing they may or may not be complete. He told me he trusted the guy personally, but he didn't want to upset anyone if they had missing cards. I flipped through them pretty fast, but mine did appear to be complete.

From the same seller, I also bought the 2013 Gypsy Queen base set, after looking up in Zistle and seeing not only was I nowhere close to completing it, I only owned one card from the set. I was kind of surprised by that, but that's just one of the sets that I never got around to buying in 2013. I'm really glad I have Zistle as a resource to look up my collection in cases like that; I would have guessed I already had most of the base set.

Finally, I purchased the 2016 Heritage base set (without short prints), saving myself the cost and time that go with opening retail blasters, which is how I usually buy Heritage. I think I did OK on the price of $35, based on what they're going for on eBay. I certainly saved myself $5 off the cost of the first two blasters I would have bought, and I probably would have bought a few more. I won't get any insert cards, but I rarely chase those anyway. They're just nice bonuses that come with my set building.

I've started to feel like buying full sets is the better way for me to go. I'm not making some huge change to my collecting, except I'll probably purchase full sets a little more often, and slightly fewer packs. I'll still buy packs and boxes for some sets, like the relatively cheap Opening Day, or ones where I really like the inserts.

A Discounted 2015 Gypsy Queen Hanger Box

I found some hanger boxes of 2015 Gypsy Queen, a denomination I didn't know existed for that set, in the 40% bin at Walmart. Ozzie Smith's big smiling face and non-flapped helmet grabbed my attention, and I decided to spend $5.98 for the 24-card box. Here's what was inside.

2015 Gypsy Queen
#24 Joey Votto
#74 Julio Teheran
#103 Taijuan Walker
#131 Zack Wheeler
#193 CC Sabathia
#154 Ryan Howard
#162 Jonathan Lucroy
#163 Willie McCovey

2015 Gypsy Queen
#176 Yasiel Puig
#189 Daniel Norris
#238 Carlos Beltran
#248 Jose Quinana
#259 Mike Foltynewicz
#271 Lance Lynn
#281 Wade Davis
#290 Jay Bruce

I purchased a base set back in July, so these will all go in my duplicates list, hence why I only considered the box on clearance. But now, we get to the new stuff to my collection. I was hoping for a Short Print, but had no such luck.

2015 Gypsy Queen
Mini #122 Ken Griffey, Jr.
Mini #251 Ervin Santana
Mini Red #46 Adrian Beltre #19/50

Part of the reason I really like Gypsy Queen is the casual inclusion of hall of fame players. That Ken Griffey Jr. card is just a regular mini, so just as common to pull as a Steve Cishek.

2015 Gypsy Queen
Walk-Off Winners #GWO-9
Pillars of the Community #PC-RC Robinson Cano

If I had known this Ozzie Smith card existed, I'd have been chasing it since it came out. This is probably the most-played moment in Cardinal highlight reels, when he hit a homerun - already a rare and unexpected event for Ozzie - to win game 5 of the 1985 NLCS. The card doesn't mention it, but that was when Jack Buck's famous call of "Go Crazy, Folks" was made. I heard a story that may have been apocryphal, that he was slightly worried right after he said that, that there might be celebratory rioting in the streets and he'd be run out of town.

2015 Gypsy Queen - Framed Paper White
#7 Yordana Ventura
#43 Josh Hamilton
#79 Andre Dawson

As always, nice-looking parallels are my weakness, and now I want all the Framed Paper white cards. Just 97 more to go!

Junior Junkie's Generosity Part III

Part I II

Today I've got the rest of the Bo Jackson cards, a few Ozzie Smiths, and some other miscellaneous minor leaguers and a logo sticker. There's still a huge stack to go.

1990 Fleer - Action Series Stickers #STL Cardinals Logo
2013 Pinnacle #16 Bo Jackson
2014 Allen and Ginter #61 Bo Jackson
2014 Elite Extra Edition #19 Cole Lankford
2014 Elite Extra Edition #52 Danny Diekroeger
2014 Stadium Club #67 Ozzie Smith

Old players in new sets mean a player collector's job will never be done. These card companies might have something about us figured out.

1994 Upper Deck #117 Bo Jackson
1994 Upper Deck - Diamond Collection #C7 Ozzie Smith
1995 Collector's Choice #200 Ozzie Smith

In retrospect, I should scan 3 horizontal cards side by side instead of verically stacked. Look at all that wasted space on the sides. Oh well. On to Part IV tomorrow!

July Card Show Purchases II

Here's the other half of the Cardinals and other players I collect.

2015 Topps Gypsy Queen
#9 Bo Jackson
#25 Matt Carpenter
#27 John Lackey
#37 Mark McGwire
#44 Steve Carlton
#47 Ozzie Smith

That's a strong bottom row, with two Hall-of-Famers, and one that would have been, probably if he just handled the post-career PR a little better. Bo Jackson is one of the few players who never played for the Cardinals that I nevertheless collect, just because his story was so fascinating. I think the two-sport aspect gets me a little, too, because I considered adding Deion Sanders to my collections as well.

2015 Topps Gypsy Queen
#48 Shelby Miller
#49 Albert Pujols
#59 Adam Wainwright
#72 Carlos Martinez
#84 John Smoltz
#99 Roger Maris

This half netted me 6 uniformed Cardinals and 5 other Cardinals, for a total of 13 uniformed and 8 other. I wanted to say "former", but both Smoltz and Maris are pictured with teams they played on before St. Louis. I wasn't expecting a full 8% of the base set to fall into my personal collection, but here we are. Certainly that's somewhat due to the Cardinals recent success, and at the expense of other teams, so I will enjoy and appreciate this while the winning lasts. 

Zistle Trade #16 Part II

My Zistle trading binge continues, and this time I got enough Cardinals that I had to split into two posts just to tag them all. In return, I sent off some 2011 Topps Lineage cards, several of which were triples and quadruples, because I bought several discounted packs and blasters of that set.

Part I

1983 Fleer #613 Gary Gaetti
1990 Upper Deck
#225 Ozzie Smith
#278 Milt Thompson
1992 Donruss
#116 Kent Mercker
#163 Brian Hunter
#208 Tony Pena
#424 Chris Sabo
1993 Hostess
#18 Andres Galarraga
#25 Ken Griffey, Jr.

Since I made these trades at the same time, I wound up trading for the Chris Sabo card twice. But, I'm not too upset about it. The main draw in this trade was the Hostess cards. I'm not sure how many Hostess Baseballs I ate in the summer of 1993, but I feel like it was on the order of dozens. Before these two, I had 25 unique cards from the set, and 9 duplicates. A quick blog search indicates I've received 4 in trade, and sent off a few, so that probably means I got at least 30 from eating the baseball cakes. Most importantly, I now need only 5 more to finish the set.

I found it surprising that these are the first cards I'm posting of Andres Galarraga, Brian Hunter, and Kent Mercker. I'd especially expect a card of Galarraga to have come up by now.

Another nice card in the trade is the Gary Gaetti rookie card. He first played a few games in the majors in 1981, and in an era before the modern Bowman, he didn't get a rookie card until he completed his first full season in 1982.

Tis The Season Winnings, Part IV

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.
Part I II III

Today I've got some more of the miscellaneous Cardinals, Red Sox, and Yankees from the prize package.

1990 Donruss #82 Milt Thompson
1990 Leaf #499 Greg Harris
1991 Topps - All Stars #16 Ozzie Smith
1992 Fleer #44 Phil Plantier
1992 Donruss #628 Greg Cadaret
1992 Donruss Rookies #34 Mike Draper

The Topps Glossy All Stars are definitely cards I should have in my collection, so this Ozzie along with yesterday's Vince Coleman were good additions. Guys like Phil Plantier are the reason I always look up players before assuming they weren't Cardinals. He apparently played for the Cardinals in the second half of 1997, coming over in the trade for Fernando Valenzuela. He played in the outfield in 32 games, and yet I had no memory of him.

1990 Topps #206 Nick Esasky
1990 Topps #409 Tom Brunansky
1990 Upper Deck #191 Don Mattingly
1990 Upper Deck #782 Billy Jo Robidoux
1992 Fleer Ultra #12 Tom Brunansky
1992 Fleer Ultra #15 Roger Clemens

Not only did I get two different Tom Brunansky cards, but as Red Sox and Yankees go, Clemens and Mattingly are two all time greats. A few years ago, I figured Mattingly would continue climbing up the Hall of Fame balloting and eventually make it in, but he's finally officially off the ballot. I suspect Clemens will eventually make it, once the fervor over PEDs dies down a bit, which may already be starting to happen now that Andy Pettitte is getting his number retired with the Yankees.

Tis The Season Winnings, Part III

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.
Part I II

In addition to some Allen and Ginter cards, the prize included some Cardinals, as well as some Red Sox and Yankees. Today I've got some of those to show.

1986 Donruss Highlights #47 Bruce Hurst
1988 Fleer #350 Steve Crawford
1988 Fleer #353 Rich Gedman
1988 Score #384 Tim Controy
1989 Donruss #37 Carlos Quintana
1989 Donruss #311 Jack Clark
1989 Donruss #516 Larry McWilliams
1989 Donruss #630 Dale Mohorcic
1989 Donruss #633 Dennis Lamp

Besides the obvious Cardinals that I collect, some of the Red Sox and Yankees are players I collect too, since they once played for the Cardinals, like Jack Clark and Rich Gedman. That's not to say I don't like the other cards. One of my long-term, low-priority goals is to complete all of the relatively cheap and abundant sets from about 1987-1993

1989 Topps #402 Mike Greenwell
1989 Topps - All Stars #17 Vince Coleman
1990 Kmart #4 Ozzie Smith
1990 Bowman #427 Don Heinkel

This Vince Coleman card is one I needed, so that's nice to knock off my massive wantlist. Just for fun, I found all three posts of my previous copies of the Ozzie Smith card, since I get a lot of random piles of Cardinals, much like this prize. I really like that set, though, so at the very least, perhaps it will help me eventually trade to complete the 1990 Kmart set.

2013 Allen and Ginter Set, Part II

As I mentioned in my last post of Allen and Ginter cards, I bought an almost-complete Allen and Ginter set (minus Puig), along with a separate purchase of the 50 Short Prints. Before I file it away with my "sorted" cards, here are the rest of the Cardinals from the set.

2013 Allen and Ginter
#108 Bob Gibson
#115 Stan Musial
#139 Red Schoendienst
#161 Enos Slaughter
#254 Lou Brock
#341 Ozzie Smith

6 Hall of Fame cards is a pretty good number out of a single set that mostly features current players. These players all have numbers retired by the Cardinals.

2013 Allen and Ginter
#125 Matt Holliday
#172 Jon Jay
#276 Lance Lynn
#283 Jason Motte
#340 Yadier Molina
#342 Adam Wainwright

There were also 6 Cardinals pictured in uniform in the set that are still on the team, though Motte hasn't been re-signed yet. Everyone else will be back, though.

2013 Allen and Ginter
#96 Jayson Heyward

Finally, here I have the newest Cardinal, Jason Heyward. I'll be interested to see how his 2015 goes, since it's his contract year, and what that ultimately means for his next contract, whether its with St. Louis or elsewhere. His acquisition puts 2 2014 Gold Glovers in the Cardinals' 2015 lineup, and may be the tipping point to make me decide to attend the Cardinals' Winter Warmup this year, to get an in-person autograph before he even plays his first game here.

Play at the Plate Contest Winnings!

Brian from Play at the Plate generously offered up roughly half of his recent contest double win, and the randomizer chose me. He even allowed us to pick whether we wanted the vintage cards shown in the post I linked, or a full set of 2007 Upper Deck Masterpieces. Vintage was the overwhelmingly favorite pick of the many entrants, but I went with the Masterpieces set.

I didn't really want to scan all 90 cards, so here's a sampling of Cardinals from the set.

2007 Upper Deck Masterpieces
#9 Roger Maris
#50 Carlos Beltran
#60 Bruce Sutter

All 3 of these are pre-Cardinals photos. And 2 out of 3 are Cardinals World Series winners (1967 for Maris, 1982 for Sutter), since we couldn't quite pull out a win for Carlos Beltran in 2013.

2007 Upper Deck Masterpieces
#19 Ozzie Smith
#49 Albert Pujols

I love this Ozzie card. Later in his career he'd only do his flip on opening day, and maybe the last game of the year, and for that reason I specifically convinced my Dad to go to the game on those days. Back in the early 90s when they weren't that good, that was an easy ticket to get, not like now when the game sells out in minutes.

2007 Upper Deck Masterpieces
#38 Albert Pujols

As I mentioned in a previous post on 2007 Masterpieces, when I participated in a group break, there are only 90 cards in the checklist, yet Pujols got 2 cards. Babe Ruth has 3, Cal Ripken, Jr. has 4, Reggie Jackson, Sandy Koufax, Jackie Robinson, Ryan Howard, David Ortiz, Ken Griffey, Jr., Chase Utley, and possibly more all have 2 each. It's a little odd, but the look of the set makes it one I really appreciate.

I also appreciate Brian at Play at the Plate for offering up some of his winnings. Thanks to him for all the great contests, and especially this one.

eBay Wins #102

I bought more "filler" cards on eBay, this time from 1992 Studio. I won 5 auctions for lots of 2 cards, for a total of 10 cards. With such a small set, I was bound to find a few stars, or at least recognizable names.

1992 Studio
#73 Darren Daulton
#108 Gary Sheffield
#134 Tim Naehring
#137 Jeff Reardon
#138 Jody Reed
#140 Frank Viola
#141 Jim Abbott
#227 Mike Moore

 Were flat-tops still big in 1992? Both Sheffield and Mike Moore have one here.

1992 Studio
#98 Ozzie Smith
#135 Tony Pena

I'd consider 20% Cardinals (current or former) a good ratio for a stack of mystery cards. Of course, it's also at least 50% Red Sox by that measure. Still, the Ozzie Smith card is worth more to me than I paid for the whole pile. I declare this mystery lot a success.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2555
Total Spent	$44.21
Per Card	1.73 cents

Giant Pile of Prizes from Jaybarkerfan's Junk, Part 2

Sometimes when I win a contest, I set the prize aside until I have time to fully rummage through all of it. In this case I won a contest back in late September, and I think the "Small Flat Rate Box" arrived by early October. I opened it immediately, but it's been sitting on my desk, too daunting of task to sort, since then. I finally felt the need to dive into it, and give jaybarkerfan his proper thank you post.

Part 1

This part of the prize starts off with a huge pile of 1981 Topps. My collection previously only contained 3 cards from 81 Topps, and only 11 cards from 1981 in all brands.

1981 Topps
#11 Jim Wohlford
#12 Mark Clear
#65 Scott McGregor
#74 Mike Hargrove
#75 Reggie Smith
#87 Rick Camp
#108 Bruce Benedict
#127 Rudy Law
#164 Lamarr Hoyt

1981 Topps
#169 John Mayberry
#172 Gary Woods
#176 Mike Krukow
#207 Ozzie Smith
#252 Victor Cruz
#262 Sammy Stewart
#263 Brian Downing
#268 Jerry Royster
#270 Greg Luzinski

1981 Topps
#283 Billy Sample
#333 Sid Monge
#366 Mike Ramsey
#367 Denny Martinez
#371 Charlie Hough
#376 Ron Reed
#388 Andre Thornton
#398 Ross Baumgarten
#407 Ernie Whitt

1981 Topps
#407 Ernie Whitt
#434 Roger Erickson
#458 Randy Jones
#463 Milt May
#466 Bob Molinaro
#469 Jeff Leonard
#487 Dewey Robinson
#484 Max Venable
#494 Bob Walk

1981 Topps
#506 Phil Huffman
#536 Bob Owchinko (x2)
#542 Larry Bradford
#545 Johnny Grubb
#553 Tim Blackwell
#557 Chris Knapp
#561 Dennis Littlejohn
#581 Roy Howell

1981 Topps
#591 John Lowenstein
#594 Preston Hanna
#597 Rafael Landestoy
#599 Dennis Kinney
#609 Lynn McGlothen
#615 Rick Dempsey
#621 Tom Donohue
#624 Bob Welch
#639 Carney Lansford

1981 Topps
#644 Ramon Aviles (x2)
#645 Rick Reuschel
#652 Jon Montague
#657 Mike Cubbage
#694 Bud Harrelson
#702 George Medich
#705 Ted Simmons
#713 Bill North
#721 Toby Harrah

1981 Topps
#192 Terry Harper / Ed Miller / Rafael Ramirez
#664 Chicago White Sox
#685 San Diego Padres

Some of the cards have some fuzzy corners, or are a bit beat up, but I still wouldn't call 'em junk.

1989 Topps #163 Bob Forsch
1995 Collector's Choice - You Make the Play #37 Lee Smith
1996 Leaf Preferred #73 Mark Grudzielanek
2008 Upper Deck Masterpieces #30 Matt Holliday

To finish up for today, here's a collection of Cardinals in other uniforms.

There's still way too much left in the box...

Zistle Trade #4

There are no small trades, only small traders, or something like that. However, I manged to snag these 5 cards for just a Bryce Harper base card in a PWE. This trade came in when Zistle.com first announced their free trial of their enhanced features, which seem to allow for easier matching of want and trade lists, and my trading partner found me.

1993 Upper Deck #428 Dmitri Young
1997 Collector's Choice #471 Matt Morris
2007 Upper Deck Future Stars #87 Scott Rolen

The cards above were nice, and on my want list, but the two below are of players I really collect.

1990 Leaf # Ozzie Smith
1997 Fleer #193 Mark McGwire

Even though these are two base cards of fairly common sets, I didn't have them yet. The McGwire is especially surprising to me given how much wax I was buying in 1997, and how much McGwire stuff I bought from my LCS in 1998-99.