Expect the Unexpected

One of my favorite things to do is send Cardinals duplicates to other traders.  It helps me reduce clutter while also helping out fellow St. Louis fans.  I have a handful of traders I send to, but I believe Mark Z is my longest such trading partner.  We first traded in the Trading Bases group, then met face to face at a Memphis Redbirds game, and finally continue to trade on TCDB. 

A few weeks ago a sent Mark a small package with a note saying no need to send anything my way.  Of course he did not listen.  Late last week I received an unexpected pwe from him with a nice assortment of Cardinals I needed.

As bad as we knock Panini for the lack of logos, they do make some nice colored Optic parallels.  These 2 2016 Blue cards are #ed to 149.

The Beltran may also appear to be blue, but Topps calls this 2013 Bowman Platinum parallel Sapphire.  No confusion with the 2006 Heritage Encarnacion.  It is a foil parallel.

This is the short print version of Wong's 2016 GQ mini.  Not sure why, but his eyes look weird on this one.  It looks even worse to the naked eye.  Once I scanned it it made him look a little more normal.

I guess you can call this my first fishing card.  This 1992 Legends Sports card shows Herzog doing one of his favorite hobbies.  I had never heard of this set before receiving this card.  Good thing TCDB allows you to search player cards by year to help identify what card you have.