I'm Still Getting Presents

Who doesn't love getting presents after Christmas?  That is what I received on Thursday when the mailman delivered a great package from Kerry, author of Cards On Cards.  His post on Monday showed cards from a recent 2019 Bowman Draft team break.  I commented about needing any doubles he may have.  Kerry was way ahead of me and had already packaged them up for me.  What a great guy!

There are 8 Cardinals in the set.  Kerry set all 8 from the paper set and chrome sets.  Locey was a 3rd round draft pick in 2019 who made in to Low A Peoria.  Fletcher was a 2nd round pick as a 18 year old.  I am guessing both will be in Peoria some time this year.  Baker should get bumped up to Double A Springfield, while Capel might bounce back and forth between Double and Triple A if he is not traded.  The Cardinals have a ton of outfielders.

Gorman is the Cardinals #2 prospect.  He should spent the bulk of 2020 at Springfield.  In a hitter's park like Hammonds Field, I would guess he will hit 20+ home runs.  Gil and Pallante should both end up in Peoria sometime.  I am not sure where 2019 first rounder Thompson will end up. The Cardinals tend to be aggresive with the placement of pitchers.  He could skip Peoria and go to High A Palm Beach.  That is more of a pitcher's league.  I should have a chance to get some of these autographed next summer.

I also received 3 refractors and a Draft Progression insert.  Kerry mentioned on his post about Zack Kirtley being an unknown.  He was a 5th round pick in 2017.  He is hands down one of the nicest guys you will ever meet. 

I mentioned in yesterday's post about having very few Team Best cards.  Kerry sent along 3 more.  I did not have these on my wantlist.  Kerry checked out my TCDB have list and found some Cardinals I needed.  I LOVE traders who take the extra time to do things like this. 

The 1985 Topps Glossy Ozzie was another card not on my list.  The Sanders was a needed from 2004 Topps Chrome Traded. 

Rounding out the package were some inserts of Cardinals pitchers.  Poor Jason Marquis was not quite as good as the other 3 guys. 

Thanks again Kerry for the great package.  Return fire will be headed your way. 

One More From Christmas Eve

While Christmas day was pretty quiet, Christmas eve day was pretty busy at my house.  We hosted my father in law's side of the family for a noon meal.  I believe there were 36 people here counting the little ones.  I have a pretty big basement, so space was not an issue.  Guests started to arrive around 11, and the last bunch left around 5:30.  After a light dinner, we watched Lampoons Christmas and Elf before headed out to Midnight Mass.  There is not a better feeling than sitting in a candle lit church with your family celebrating Christmas at midnight.   

With all the hustle and bustle, I managed to misplace some mail.  I highlighted 2 pwes in yesterday's post, but I manged to forget about a bubble mailed that was buried on the counter until yesterday.  This package was courtesy of TCDB member mherzog.

 

I love minor league cards, but have few from Team Best.  I will have do start paying more attention to the brand.  The Ankiel is from the 1999 set.  The Bader was the last Cardinal base card I needed from 2018 Bowman's Best.  Not really a big feat since there were only 2 of them.

Some of the early Panini Donruss sets were just not that great, like these 2014 The Rookies.  The extreme close up photos makes the lack of logos stand out big time.

I love the Topps Silver Pack cards.  The chrome finish makes them pop.  The regular 1983 insert is not too bad either.  I hope Topps uses the 1985 design in 2020.  That is the first year I collected cards and it brings back great memories.

It was ironic getting a snow parallel when it was almost 60 degrees the last few days.  Far cry from our usual holiday weather.  The Adams did not scan well, but it is a Xfractor from 2012 Bowman Platinum.  Big City is still one of my favorite Cardinals.  It was great to see him win a ring with the Nationals.

2 PWEs from The Bench

I hope everyone had a joyous Christmas.  My family spent most of the day at home enjoying our new gifts.  Lots of Legos being put together, new games to play, and a new bat that got some swings in thanks to the wonderful weather. 

My son scored 2 boxes of 2019 Topps Fire that we are still going through.  He has decided to put the base set together.  Since this is his third box, he has a pretty good start with about half of the 200 card set already.  I did not receive any cards as gifts, but did receive a couple of PWEs on Christmas eve from 2 members of The Bench . 

The first pwe came from member neemann.  He was giving away some recent inserts and I claim a nice Cardinal.

I love the Flame parallels from the 2018 Fire set.  This year's version is not quite as sharp. 

The second pwe was a trade from member jaxbraves.

These are my first cards from 2019 Bowman's Best.  The DeJong is one of 2 base cards in the set.  Gorman is a Top Prospects insert, while the Montero is a sweet die cut from the Future Foundations set. 


On a related note about The Bench, the members have been trying to complete the Yankee Stadium Legacy set for years now.  Once completed, the set will be auctioned off with the proceeds going to the Jimmy V Foundation.  We are just 2 cards away from completion.  We are needed #2105 Yogi Berra and #4767 Ron Guidry.  If you have either of these 2 or know of someone who does, please let me know.  We would be willing to buy, or have a ton of doubles to trade for them. 

2 Christmas Cards

I always love a nice little pwe with cards.  Yesterday I had a couple of pwe arrive in the form of Christmas cards.  I have never received any like this.  One was a trade I knew was coming, the other a nice small surprise.

The pwe that I knew was coming was from a trade with TCDB member alchapman.

He complete my 1997 Pacific team set.  I am not a huge fan of this set.  The photo is too close, and I prefer the name plate across the bottom.  Still great to finish a set though, even if it is 22 years later.

The second card came from Trading Bases member Kevin M.  He is the founder of the group who has slowed down a bit from trading due to various reasons.

 
Although Perez is not a huge name, I will gladly take a Cardinals autograph any day. 

I hope everyone has a safe and Merry Christmas and that  Santa brings you many card related goodies tonight.

Finished Another One

With only a couple of weeks left in 2019, I will not be able to finish all current team sets that I want to.  Spare time will be non existent after the 26th due to family staying at my house.  From now until Christmas there are parties to go to, packages to wrap, and a handful of ball games to attend. 

I will have a few trade packages incoming that should tide me over until things calm down.  A PWE from TCDB member CoachBarry arrived over the weekend that did finish 1 2019 team set.

I no longer have to look for 2019 Topps Archives Cardinals.  The Big Cat was the last one needed to file this set away. 

The Coach also sent a couple of needs from the 2013 Heritage Minors set.  Still need 4 more to finish this one.  I do not need any big names, but you rarely see these for trade.  I may have to go the Sportlots route to finish it up.  Maybe Santa will bring some extra cash this year to make it happen.

Two PWE Tuesday

Last night's mail brought 2 more PWE from TCDB members.  The first came from bigslick445.

He included 5 2019 Topps inserts.  2 are being traded, so I just scanned the Cardinals.  The Ponce is the best of the bunch.  I hope he gets a chance in 2020 to stick in the bullpen.  I have always liked the fight in him.  It must take a lot of courage to almost die from a line drive and come back a year later with out missing much of a beat.

The second trade came from Tmac7.

The O'Neill card completed a team set.  My son received a nice Altuve to push his total to 236 different cards.  I doubt he will hit 250 before 2020, but you never know.  I added another copy of the 2019 Topps Busch Stadium card for autograph purposes.  I think I have 4 or 5 now that I can use next month at the Cardinals Caravan or Winter Warm Up.

Silver PWE

Most of my recent trades will be coming in PWEs.  I am trying to complete a few team sets before the end of the year.  Sometimes I may only need 1 or 2 cards from a trader, so PWE is the way to go.  Over the weekend I received one from TCDB member 49ants.  He was interested in one of the quarter cards from my card show trip.  In return, he sent 6 Collector's Choice Silver Signature parallels.

This Ozzie checklist from the 1994 set just leaves his base card to finish the set.  Nice full color photo, but I hate that the runner was cropped out. 

These 5 completed my 1995 team set.  The Sutcliffe is my favorite.  I have never started a theme collection, but if I did it would be of players signing autographs.  Sutcliffe finished his career with the Cardinals in 1994 appearing in 16 games.  He won 6 games but had an ERA north of 6.50.  His best days were well behind him.

The Rest of My Card Show Haul

Finishing up my card show recap from this past Sunday, today's post features all the cards I bought from a dealer's quarter boxes along with 1 other purchase.  I loved this dealer's set up.  He had 3 monster boxes full of nothing but Cardinals.  He also had 3 monster boxes of assorted singles from the last 5 years that were grouped by brand.  Best of all it was all baseball, no other sports mixed in.  That saved a ton of time.

One box was full of nothing but Donruss Optic cards.  My eyes were have a hard time telling the holo parallel cards apart from the regular cards.  I played it safe and just grabbed the 2 Altuves I knew my son needed.

I was hoping to find more cool Pirate cards for a good trading friend, but the pickings were slim.  Worst part I already had the Polanco refractor in another pile for him.  At least it way only a quarter wasted.  That is all the non Cardinals I bought as my son was getting hungry at this point and I wanted to go through the Cardinals boxes.

The 3 boxes had some base cards that I might have needed, but lacking time I decided to stick with Cardinals I thought I needed.  For the most part I did a good job.  There was a great selection of inserts like this 1997 New Pinnacle Artist Proof and a 1996 Bowman's Best Atomic Refractor.

There were also a ton of numbered cards.  Some from base sets, others parallels.  Included here is a 2001 UD Gold Glove sp #ed to 1000, a 2003 Sweet Spot sp #ed to 2003, a 2004 Fleer  Inscribed sp #ed to 750, and a 2002 Gold Label Titanium parallel #ed to 100.  Hard to pass any of these up for a quarter.

I grabbed these Topps Gold not knowing if I needed them for sure.  I got lucky and did not have them.

I love finding premium brand base cards like Topps Tribute.  I was in such a good mood that I even bought a mini from the 2012 Panini Golden Age set.

One box was full of nothing but pitchers.  Some numbered, some sps, and some minor league cards.  The 2018 Gallery Ankiel short print is my favorite of the bunch, although the 2004 Leaf Limited Morris is a close second.  It is hard to find cards from that set since the base were numbered to 749.

I completed the 1992 Upper Deck McDonalds 50 card set years ago, but I have a TCDB friend who is looking for these.  

Out of the 28 cards I picked out for $7, the Polanco Chrome refractor and these 3 Cardinals were the only duplicates I pulled.  These should not be too hard to find a good home for.  Kerry if you need any of these, lmk.

That was all my card purchases for the day, but I was not finished.  Admission to the show is $5 per person, but each person is given a coupon for $5 off a $25 purchase from any dealer.  I did not have enough time or money left to spend both coupons, but I did find a dealer with some bobbleheads for a good price.  

I paid $11 each for these after using the coupon.  The dual Clemente/Molina is one of my favorites in my collection. 

 



   

Annual December Card Show Report

For the past 3 years I have made it a point to make the trip to St. Louis for the St. Louis Sports Collectors December show.  It is usually the first or second Sunday, which works out well so my wife and daughter can shop while my son and I spend a couple of hours at the show.  The females chose to stay home this time, so my son and I got an early start and arrived at the show about 9:30.

In the past I have found some greats deals at this show.  You can see my 2018 findings here and my 2017 loot here.  This year was not quite as good, but I still came away with some nice cards.  As always, my son and I were on the looking for bargain boxes.  The dime boxes were not as plentiful this year.  More dealers were going to the quarter or dollar boxes.  Our first purchase was from a dime box.

This monster box was sorted by team with a few 2019 cards mixed in with various cards from the 1990.  My son found 1 Altuve and I came away with a 1999 Pacific need.

I always try to make it an even $1, so I grabbed some trade bait.  Most are base cards from 2019 except the Banks and Gomez.

Our next purchase was also the dime box variety.

We did better with this box, as we each found 2 cards.  The Altuve on the left has a pretty good ding in the upper right corner, but that did not bother my son. 

Rounding out this $1 was more trade bait, but this time it include some numbered Topps Gold and a nice Blue Chrome Refractor #ed to 150.

Our next stop was a dealer with various $1, $2, and $5 boxes.

I found my son 3 Altuves for $1 each.  The Chrome is a refractor.  This is more than I usually like to pay, but it is the Christmas season.

I picked out a couple of cards from the $2 box.  The Kelly autograph completed my 2017 Optic team set.  The Scwarber is trade bait.  I have not entered the code yet to see what game the jersey piece is from. 

The next purchase was from a dealer with 2 monster boxes of cards marked 5 for $1.  Most were junk era cards, but I did find 5 cards of interest.

The Cepeda knocks my 2019 Archives needs down to 1 more card.  I already had the Larussa and Yadi, but it is hard to pass up a Yadi RC and a regional issue for 20 cents each.

I bought the last 2 cards for different reasons.  I am not sure if Tucker will be in Pittsburgh or Indianapolis next year, but I will have something for him to sign if he return to Triple A.  The Fernando is trade bait.  The 1983 Kellogs are not too rare, but I could not pass it up for less than a quarter.    

I will finish the recap in the next day or two.  There will be a lot more Cardinals in that post.

Just 1 For This Week

After a flurry of trades 2 weeks ago, I only completed 1 last weekend.  This one was with TCDB member chadslagter.

One of these days I will have to try to complete a Topps Gold team set.  I have a handful from every year, but doubt if I am close in any.  These 2 are from 2016.

I doubt I am close on any of the Foil team sets either.  I imagine these will be easier to complete, just have to make it a point to do so.

I will never try to complete a mini set, but it may happen by accident.  It won't be the 2016 GQ set though, as these 2 put me at 6 out of 18.

Glad we are not getting any snow where I live.  My 2 brothers who live in Colorado have over 2 feet as of noon today.  I will just stick with the snow flake parallel from 2019 Topps Holiday.

I added to my son's Altuve stash with a sweet looking 2018 Topps Purple.  I was always taught to keep your head down and see the bat hit the ball.  Guess Jose learned a different way.  His results are obviously better than mine though.   

Wrapping Up Saturday's Mail

Only 1 more package left to go from last weekend's mail.  Wish I could say I will get 7 more packages this weekend, but I am only expecting 1.  The last one came from TCDB member jcouvy.  My first trade with him finish off a 2019 set.

I can file away the 2019 Fire Cardinals set.  It was a small one with only 6 cards, but one of my favorites. 

Red parallels always look good with the Cardinals uniform.  This 2019 Stadium Club parallel shows off Yadi's massive neck tattoo.  That just looks too painful to me.

I added 2 more Altuves to my son's collection.  There are still a ton of base cards like these to track down.  Good thing because some of his inserts and game used can go for big money.

 

4 of 5

Today I will show the 4th trade package out of 5 that arrived Saturday.  This one came from  new TCDB member tkicker182.  He joined the site at the end of October and has jumped right into the thick of trading. 

I need 2 more cards to finish this years Archives team set.  I was never the biggest fan of the 1993 design, but it has grown on me the more I see it.  Or maybe it is just the better player selection.  To say the Cardinals were not a very good team in the early 1990s would be an understatement.  An old Ozzie Smith and a young Ray Lankford was about the only standouts.

It was nice to get all the Cardinals from the Chrome Update set in one trade.  The insert was icing on the cake.

Optic parallels are pretty sharp.  The catcher cards are right up there with any Topps parallels.  The shock parallels look a lot better in hand.

I also received a couple of new Altuves for my son's collection.  I am thinking I will save these and any others I get in the next few weeks to make 1 big Christmas package.  I am not for sure how many he started the year with, but he has 227 different cards now.  Tons more to go.