eBay Wins #105

I won 34 cards from 2006 Upper Deck, and they were all inserts from the Player Highlights set. There were some doubles since I bid on multiple auctions, but here are the 22 unique cards.

2006 Upper Deck - Player Highlights
#PH-2 Manny Ramirez
#PH-4 Johnny Damon
#PH-6 Chris Carpenter (x3)
#PH-7 Derrek Lee (x2)
#PH-8 Jason Bay
#PH-9 Jason Varitek
#PH-10 Ryan Howard (x2)
#PH-11 Mark Teixeira

2006 Upper Deck - Player Highlights
#PH-12 Carlos Delgado (x4)
#PH-13 Bartolo Colon
#PH-14 David Wright
#PH-15 Miguel Tejada (x2)
#PH-17 Paul Konerko
#PH-18 Jermaine Dye (x3)
#PH-19 Ichiro
#PH-20 Brad Wilkerson

2006 Upper Deck - Player Highlights
#PH-21 Hideki Matsui
#PH-23 Chris Burke
#PH-25 Brian Roberts
#PH-26 David Ortiz
#PH-28 Ken Griffey, Jr. (x3)
#PH-34 Scott Podsednik

At a penny each, that's 34 cards for 34 cents. Not bad for some big stars.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2608
Total Spent	$44.74
Per Card	1.715 cents

Superbowl Winnings, Part 2

Part 1

Here's the rest of what I won for nailing the Superbowl result at the beginning of the playoffs.

2005 eTopps
#198 David Eckstein

This is my first eTopps card, since I wasn't collecting while it was going on. It's in a thick plastic holder with a holographic seal. And it's World Series MVP David Eckstein, so that's a nice addition to my collection.

2006 SPX -
#186 Matt Leinert #113/399
#190 Laurence Maroney #0188/1650

And now we have the football hits. It was a Super Bowl contest, after all. Laurence Maroney is from St. Louis, so he always gets a little bonus coverage on the local news' sports segment when he makes a particularly good play, so that was a nice card to get.

1996 Laser View - Inscriptions #8 Jim Everett #0248/3100
2006 SP Authentic - Rookie Authentics Signature #255 Tarvaris Jackson
2013 Panini Limited - Monikers Silver #187 Nick Kasa #051/299

Here we have 3 more autographs, one of which is also a relic: Jim "Don't call me Chris" Everett, formerly of the LA Rams, Nick Kasa, and Tarvaris Jackson. The Jackson card was the one promised in the original contest post, and he actually made it into the game. He's one of the few backup QBs to ever play in a Super Bowl, and I think the first since Tony Banks in an almost-as-lopsided Super Bowl XXXV, for the Ravens against the Giants.

That was a pretty great prize pack, full of nothing but Cardinals and autographs (and autographed relics). Thanks to the one and only cynicalbuddha of Collector's Crack!

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.

eBay Wins #104

I bought this card by itself, so I figured I'd post it by itself, rather than aggregating it together with some of the rest of the eBay wins still sitting on my desk. It cost me one whole penny.

1988 Donruss #592 Curt Wilkerson

Curt Wilkerson was part of the big trade that brought Rafael Palmeiro - and Jamie Moyer -  to Texas from Chicago. The best thing the Cubs got in that deal was Mitch Williams, who they only kept for 2 seasons.

On another note, fans who consider themselves baseball "purists" tell me there's no sacrifice bunting in the AL due to the DH. So what's going on here? He could be trying for a sneaky infield hit I suppose, but that seems like a stretch for a guy who only stole 44 bases in 5 seasons before 1988.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2574
Total Spent	$44.40
Per Card	1.725 cents

2013 Topps Jumbo Pack #1

When I started collecting in 1992, I immediately decided factory sets were the way to go. I bought or received as a gift the Topps factory set from each year, even when I started losing interest a bit, through 1999. In 2010 I started buying factory sets again, but decided for 2013 to try something different. I bought a jumbo box of Series 1, Series 2, and Update. Now, this is considerably pricier than a factory set. But, I'll get a sampling of the insert cards, and a 500-card box should give me most of each 330-card series if there's good collation. Let's see how it starts off.

2013 Topps
#54 Jaime Garcia
#130 Jason Motte
#235 Jake Westbrook

2013 Topps
#205 Ryan Theriot
#266 Albert Pujols

 First, as always, we have the current and former Cardinals base cards.

2013 Topps
Calling Cards #CC-15 Albert Pujols
Emereld Parallel #237 Brandon Lyon
Chasing The Dream #CD-17 Addison Reed
Chasing History #CH-5 Yogi Berra

Some of the more common inserts, including a nice Pujols card, where he's turned just far enough I can almost pretend he's in a Cardinals uniform.

2013 Topps
1972 Mini #TM-7 Craig Kimbrel
Cut To The Chase #CTC-14 David Price

 I like to call these two the "Awkward-to-Scan" sets, so I threw them together.

2013 Topps
Silk Collection #SC-97 Josh Johnson #22/50

And here's the prize of the pack, a Silk Collection card of Josh Johnson.

Before opening this pack, I actually already had 111 unique cards from Series 1, thanks to some cheap eBay finds and some contest winnings. Hopefully that means this box will easily complete Series 1 for me. Series 2 will be more challenging, since I currently have zero base cards. Another difficulty will come from the extra thick inserts, which can reduce the pack size by 1 to 9 cards, according to the disclaimer. This pack had 39 base cards and 7 inserts.

Series 1 Completion: 136/330 (41.2%)

eBay Wins #103

When I look for cheap cards on eBay, I don't often find any that are 30 or more years old. This seller had a bunch of auctions for 1982 Fleer, and I won 18 of them for the minimum bid of a penny each.

1982 Fleer
#384 Vida Blue
#389 Tom Griffin
#390 Larry Herndon
#410 Larry Gura
#412 Mike Jones
#452 Juan Beniquez
#453 Rick Burleson
#459 Ken Forsch
#463 John Harris

1982 Fleer
#472 Steve Renko
#473 Mike Witt
#53\26 Tom Hausman
#527 Rod Hodges
#528 Randy Jones
#529 Mike Jorgensen
#532 Mike Marshall
#533 Lee Mazzilli
#587 Tim Blackwell

Mike Jorgensen was probably the reason I learned what the word Interim meant, when he took over for the fired Joe Torre to finish out 1995 as Cardinals manager, before Tony La Russa arrived in 1996.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	2573
Total Spent	$44.39
Per Card	1.725 cents

Trading for McGwires

Alex at Chavez Ravining was kind enough to scour my Zistle list for McGwires I didn't have, and in return I sent him some Dodgers for his Topps Team Set project.

1988 Mother's Cookies Mark McGwire Set #2/4
1988 Mother's Cookies Mark McGwire Set #3/4
1988 Mother's Cookies Mark McGwire Set #4/4
1989 Mother's Cookies Mark McGwire Set #3/4

I always see Mother's Cookies cards, but I haven't owned any until now. These arrived still in the plastic wrapper that protected them from the cookies, so I figured I'd leave the 25-26 year old plastic intact...for now.

1991 Upper Deck #656 "The Bashing Years"
1995 SP #185 Mark McGwire
1995 SP - Platinum Power #PP13 Mark McGwire
1996 Metal Universe #101 Mark McGwire
1996 Topps #145 Mark McGwire
1997 Topps #62 Mark McGwire

It's kind of funny to me that a 1991 card referred retrospectively to the late 80s as "The Bashing Years", since McGwire's 97-99 total was 193 Home Runs. In his 4+ seasons before 1991, he "only" hit 156. I know it's a reference to the Bash Brothers, but he had plenty of power left for his later years.

1996 Leaf Preferred - Steel #14 Mark McGwire

This card is actually printed on steel. These were inserted 1 per pack in 1996 Leaf preferred, so I'm surprised I didn't own any. That seems like exactly the type of gimmick that would have convince me to buy quite a few packs in 1996. I even only have 2 cards from the main set, both of which came in contest prizes. Maybe my LCS never had any for some reason. The printing is surprisingly high-quality for being on a metal substrate, and I've added a few Cardinals from the set to my want list.

That's all. Thanks to Alex for adding to my McGwire collection!

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, Bonus Round!

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, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

I honestly had no intention of opening these packs, but they sat in a nice pile on my desk, taunting me. I started by opening 1, and in a few minutes had opened the rest. So, why not, here's the content of the packs from part 7.

1988 Donruss
#654 Ron Gant
#626 Pat Perry
#602 Don August
#523 Al Nipper
#432 Rick Schu
#421 Jon Marzano
#411 Shane Mack
#375 Calvin Schiraldi

1988 Donruss
#320 Kent Hrbek
#243 Phil Bradley
#209 Craig Reynolds
#131 Brook Jacoby
#130 Ken Howell
#97 Curt Young
#42 John Farrell
Puzzle Pieces 13, 14, and 15

1988 Donruss
#60 Danny Cox
#65 R.J. Reynolds
#182 Ivan Calderon
#187 Stan Jefferson
#305 Bob Boone
#310 Tracy Jones
#314 Glenn Hubbard
#427 Greg Harris

1988 Donruss
#432 Rick Schu
#436 Mike LaCoss
#437 Gerald Perry
#550 Mike Loynd
#554 Rocky Childress
#558 Jeff Robinson
#559 Jose Uribe
Puzzle Pieces #43, 44, and 45

2 packs of 1988 Donruss yielded just 2 Cardinals, and only one actually in the St. Louis uniform, Danny Cox. Ron Gant is the other. 

1989 Topps
#9 Tim Teufel
#186 Pat Perry
#195 Ozzie Guillen
#275 Danny Tartabull
#346 Rex Hudler
#388 Bobby Bonilla
#450 Roger Clemens
#457 Mackey Sasser

1989 Topps
#565 Jeff Russell
#584 Randy Velarde
#616 Steve Rosenberg
#635 Willie Randolph
#677 Dave Schmidt
#702 Jamie Quirk
#706 Pete Incaviglia
Contest Card

The 89 Topps pack also had 2 Cardinals, but this time neither was in uniform. They're Rex Hudler and Bobby Bonilla.

1985 Fleer Stickers
#52 Kevin Bass
#77 Mike Schmidt
#87 Dwight Gooden
#97 Rick Rhoden
#110 Dave Steib
#114 Fernando Valenzuela

1985 Fleer Stickers
Logos - Orioles

I didn't have any 1985 stickers, so the size of these surprised me. The long edge is just about as long as the short edge of a full-sized baseball card.

1986 Fleer Stickers
#4 Juan Beniquez
#10 Phil Bradley
#14 Tom Browning
#21 Steve Carlton
#76 Paul Molitor
Logos - Cardinals

The 86 stickers are back to full card size. I got a nice Cardinals "hipster bird" logo (that's what the Busch Stadium tour guide called it), and Steve Carlton, who is probably more famous for playing in Philadelphia, but started out as a Cardinal, and even got his personal catcher Tim McCarver traded to the Phillies with him.

Ok, that's really it now. There won't be anything else out of the box. Thanks again, jaybarkerfan.

Giant Pile of Prizes from Jaybarkerfan's Junk, Part 7

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, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

I'm finally at the end of the box. It's been quite fun digging through all the cards from different sets.

1979 Topps #666 Rich Dauer
1980 Topps #224 Willie Montanez
1986 Donruss #240 Mike Moore
1989 Donruss All Stars #3 Paul Molitor
1991 Topps #339 Larry Walker
1993 Stadium Club #299 Larry Walker

My collection doesn't include very many cards from before the mid-80s, so those top 3 cards are definitely in the first box (I sort them chronologically). At the bottom, we have Hall of Famer Paul Molitor - his second card in the box - and 2 cards of former Cardinal Larry Walker.

1980 Topps #244 Cardinals Team Checklist

No, this isn't a giant card, I just thought I'd zoom in a bit. I'm assuming this photo was taken in Spring Training, because that stadium overhang doesn't look like anything I know in St. Louis. 1979-1980 wasn't the strongest time in Cardinals history, and in fact the best player on this card is probably Keith Hernandez, possibly after Ken Boyer.

2008 Heritage (High Numbers)
#502 Jamey Wright
#517 Brian Burres
Black Back #549 Jeremy Sower

I don't know how rare the black-back cards are, or what the print run of the high number set is, but the Jeremy Sowers card is both, so presumably rarer than a run of the mill 2008 Heritage card.

2008 Heritage (High Numbers)
#537 Toronto Blue Jays (Checklist)

Unlike the 1980 card above, this checklist isn't only for Toronto Blue Jays. If it was, there'd only be a few cards on it, or Topps would have had to mix regular and high number cards onto the checklist.

1988 Donruss Pack (x2)
1989 Topps Pack
1985 Fleer Stickers Pack
1986 Fleer Stickers Pack
1989 Baseball's Greatest Grossouts Pack

To top the prize off, it even included a few unopened packs. For now I'm going to wait to open these, though this is the 25th anniversary of 1989 Topps, and everyone loves arbitrary milestones. But no, I'll wait. That's gotta be some stale gum by now.

That's it! That's the whole box. A big Thank You again to jaybarkerfan (Jay Barker Fan? I never know the right spacing and capitalization in the blogging world) for the awesome prize.

Giant Pile of Prizes from Jaybarkerfan's Junk, Part 6

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, 2, 3, 4, 5

Today I've got 10 singles and a pair of 1992 Score to show you.

1989 Upper Deck #373 Mike Henneman
1993 Conlon TSN #801 Sad Sam Jones
1991 Fleer #281 Joe Bitker
1991 ProCards #2225 Kenny Lofton
1991 Score 100 Superstars #44 Dave Parker
1992 Score #47 Travis Fryman

1991 Fleer is starting to appeal to me. Maybe it'll be the next classically ugly set I collect after 1990 Donruss. Also, that Dave Parker is from the same set with misplaced players I mentioned back in part 1, but this time I think Superstar is a fair label.

1992 Score #83 Jose Rijo
1993 Classic Best #136 Rick Gorecki
1993 Select Rookie/Traded #89T Kevin Roberson
1994 Donruss - MVPs #3 Jose Rijo
1994 Topps - Topps Gold #705 Jose Rijo
1995 Bowman #259 Marc Newfield

This stack was heavy on Jose Rijo. For those of you trivia buffs, he's in the elite club of players who returned to the game after receiving at least one hall of fame vote. Injuries kept him out of the game for 5 full seasons, enough for him to qualify for the ballot, but he returned for parts of 2 more seasons afterward.

There's just a little bit left in the box...

Giant Pile of Prizes from Jaybarkerfan's Junk, Part 5

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, 2, 3, 4

1999 Pacific
#100 Wil Cordero
#102 Jaime Navarro
#337 Lou Collier
#141 Dante Bichette
#159 Frank Catalanotto
#165 Seth Greisinger

1999 Pacific
#309 Ryan Christenson
#343 Abraham Nunez
#365 Ken Caminiti
#377 Rich Aurilia
#438 Jose Cruz Jr.
#446 Pat Hentgen

Back in the mid-to-late 90s, I used to buy a different pack of cards each week, which is about all I could afford. Typically it'd be whatever new release Sportscards Magazine convinced me I should get. If multiple new sets came out in a week, sometimes I'd buy two, and sometimes I'd just have to wait and get caught up. That buying started tailing off in 1999, which I can tell because while I have a few cards from many different sets in 1999, I don't have any Pacific. I'm sure these weren't a high-priced set, which is the only other reason I would have skipped them. But now, I've got a pack or more, with the 12 above and one in the next scan.

1999 Pacific #450 Woody Williams
1997 Fleer - Million Dollar Moments #31 Bob Gibson
1996 Pinnacle #305.3 Paul Molitor
1995 Topps - Cyberstats #140 Darrin Fletcher
1994 Collector's Choice #649 Terrell Wade
1993 Fleer - All-Stars #AL4 Pat Listach

I figured I'd throw the remaining horizontal cards into this scan with the Woody Williams. I've got so many of the Million Dollar Moments cards that it's frustrating that I'll never be able to complete the set. At best I can hope for the 45 commons out of the 50 that were needed to collect the grand prize. With regard to that Paul Molitor card, I like the decimal number. Maybe Topps could implement this for their silly SP variations. The reason here is that he hit .3053 for the season, and Jeff Bagwell hit .3056. Other players who hit from .300 to .308 were featured on cards 300-308, but I guess Pinnacle couldn't decide on which .305 guy to leave out.

1995 Bazooka #87 Chili Davis
1995 Stadium Club #166 Brent Gates
1996 Upper Deck #232 Alex Ochoa

Finally we have a few more random singles out of the box. I want to love the Bazooka set, but the design is almost too simplistic. Sometimes less is less. Also, this is my second Alex Ochoa card from this prize pack.

We're finally starting to empty the box...

Giant Pile of Prizes from Jaybarkerfan's Junk, Part 4

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, 2, 3

First up today is pile of 2010 Allen & Ginter.

2010 Allen & Ginter
#70 Joey Votto
#72 Erick Aybar
#77 Ricky Romero
#82 Justin Upton
#84 Elvis Andrus
#87 Alexei Ramirez
#90 Kevin Kouzmanoff
#182 Chris Carpenter
#183 Tommy Manzella

2010 Allen & Ginter
#185 X-Rays
#187 Jair Jurrjens
#191 Justin Morneau
#197 Johnny Damon (x2)
#198 A.J. Pierzynski
#200 Lance Berkman
#204 Russell Martin
#219 Adam Wainwright

2010 Allen & Ginter
#188 Jason Bartlett
#189 Howie Kendrick

I used to lament small sets that only had the star players, vs the 800ish-card sets of early 90s Topps. But it sure is nice to get a pile of "random junk" cards and have them all be recognizable stars.

2011 Allen & Ginter #40 John McEnroe
2013 Allen & Ginter - Martial Mastery #MM-AP Apache

There were also 2 Allen & Ginter singles from other years, but neither one featuring baseball players. I wonder if Jimmy Connors will ever make it to an A&G card.

1996 Fleer Update
#U61 Dwight Gooden
#U78 Russ Davis
#U146 Israel Alcantara
#U154 Juan Acevedo
#U161 Kevin Roberson
#U190 Aaron Holbert

I didn't recognize the guy in the Cardinals uniform, Aaron Holbert, and looking him up online, that's no surprise. Aaron Holbert played 1 game for us in 1996, then 22 games in 2005 for the Reds. The back of his card says he was set to be our SS of the future after Ozzie Smith retired, but then he got hurt in 1994 and 1995. The look on his face on the card makes me thing we might have caught the very moment of the aforementioned injury.

#16 Stand Up Double (Checklist)
#38 Tim Hudson

2007 Turkey Red
#122 Roy Oswalt
#154 Travis Buck

Finally - for today - here are some Turkey Reds from 2007, which is one of my favorite sets I missed from the years I wasn't collecting (2000-2010). That still hasn't convinced me to buy the super-expensive online exclusive versions of the last few years though. As for 2007, I now have 39 of the approximately 199 cards in the set including short prints, thanks mostly to a group break last year. Perhaps it's time to add the rest to my want list.


We're nowhere near finished with this box...