Rocks for Cards

It was a welcome site this morning to finally see the sun.  For the past three days it has been raining off and on with overcast skies.  If the weatherman is right, next week should be nice also.  I plan to spend my evenings staying caught up in my card room.  It will be dark by 5:00 soon with the time change coming this weekend.  I will have a few Cardinals to put away from a trade package that arrived yesterday from TCDB member Gapporin.  I sent a stack of Rockies and Cardinals extras his way.

Most of my recent trades have been for new cards.  It was nice to know a few base cards off from older sets.  The Polanco is short print from 1998 Leaf Rookies & Stars.

These are the last 2 McGwires I needed from the 1999 McDonald's Milestones set.  They look much better in person.  

I miss Pacific, but not the countless parallels that were hard to identify.  The Ankiel is a Ruby parallel from 2000 Pacific.  Pags is a gold signature from 1995 Collector's Choice.  

I would not be shocked to see Bader become a former Cardinal just like Pham.  I was floored to see the Cardinals decline Kolten Wong's $12 million option for 2021.  Management said the lost revenue due to the virus and the uncertainty of next year played a big factor.  I would bet there will be quite a few other big names around the league who will suffer the same fate.  

    

EBAY Auto

 Not much to show off today.  Yesterday's mail brought my most recent EBAY win.  

This one set me back about $4.  Shortly after 2020 Topps Chrome came out, I was trying to win Ravelo and Arozarena autos from the same seller to save on shipping.  I recall losing numerous auctions that ended around $10-$15.   If I only knew then what I know now.  The Arozarena cards are selling for $100 plus.  

Keeping Up to Date

I have told myself that I will do a better job of scanning and filing away trades than I did a few months ago.  At one time there must have been a stack of over 200 Cardinals waiting to be put away.  With less daylight and no practices/games to run my kids to, I should have enough spare time each day to stay on top of things.  So far I am doing a good job.  Yesterday a package arrived from TCDB member alan nyc.  All cards have been scanned and should be filed away tonight.

I will always think of October as David Freese month.  I think any Cardinals fan who watched the 2011 World Series will agree with me.  Speaking of the Series, congrats to the Dodgers.  It was great to see a good guy like Kershaw finally get a ring.

This photo may have been from the World Series or some other playoff game.  Yadi is a free agent now.  He is looking for a 2 year contract.  I would bet the Cardinals give that to him, but I hope it is for far less money than his last contract.  It would be great if he goes the Wainwright route and signs a contract for a low base salary with a lot of incentives.

I love the Red Hot Foil cards from 2014.  Only 3 more to track down to complete the 21 card team set.  The Power Players set is not quite as big with only 12 cards.  I need 1 more to finish it.  I have never been a fan of contest cards like Power Players.  The Home Run Challenge cards are ok, but other than that I am not a big fan.

  

I have not added all the Rainbow Foil parallels to my wantlist yet.  I don't like these as well as the Gold parallels, but a Cardinal is a Cardinal.  Glad to knock off quite a few in one trade.

A Trade Full of Firsts and Exclusives

 Now that my outside activities are coming to a close, my trading should see an uptick.  My son has 1 last baseball tournament this weekend if the weather holds out.  My daughter will finish fall practice for softball and volleyball this week.  Unless the state of  Illinois decides to allow basketball to be played, there will be no sports in my household until next February.  That leaves plenty of time to work on trades like the one last week with TCDB member Americana.  He is becoming a go to member for Topps online exclusives.  He also hooked me up with my first cards from some 2020 sets.

These are my first cards from 2020 Heritage Minors and Bowman Chrome.  Both team sets are under 5 cards, so it should not be too difficult to complete.  There is a Nolan Gorman short print in Heritage that might be harder to track down.  

This is also my first 2020 Finest card.  2 left to complete this one, with both the DeJong and Flaherty cards being high number short prints.  I doubt this set will get completed any time soon.  

In a previous trade with Americana, I received the Musial and Ozzie 2020 206 cards.  Now I can add 2 more.  

That same trade brought 2 2020 Topps Total cards.  There are 31 Cardinals in this years set.  I really hope Topps brings this set back to a hobby release next year.  

Edman From EBAY

It was a pretty thrilling weekend to watch baseball.  I admit I usually do not watch a lot of games if the Cardinals are not playing, but I watched games 4 and 5 from start to finish.  Game 4 was a classic back and forth match with an ending almost as exciting as Game 6 in 2011.  

I have been rooting for the Rays to win.  It is not that I dislike the Dodgers, but it would be nice to see a different team win.  I also am pulling for the Rays because of Randy Arozarena.  I doubt the former Cardinal will have this type of success in the future, but it is fun to watch.  Reminds me of Carlos Beltran in the 2004 playoffs.

Enough of my rambling, onto today's card.  Last week I managed to finally win an EBAY auction for a Tommy Edman auto.

When Edman's first autos came out earlier this year, they were going for north of $20.  That is a little much in my eyes for his cards.  Topps has included his autograph in about every product this year, so the price has came down some.  This on card auto set me back about $10.50.  I like his Five Star auto a little better, but this one is pretty nice also.

TCDB Trade

I had a brain fart today trying to come up with a title for this post, so you get a very generic one.  Earlier this week I received a pwe from TCDB member Orry04.  He sent a nice assortment of Cardinals in exchange for some 2020 set fillers.

I have almost forgotten about the 2020 Optic set.  These cards are not hard to track down, I just have been overlooking them.  Hope to track down the last 3 I need in the next few weeks.

Most of the time when you see a Topps card next to a Panini card, the Topps card looks a lot better.  This is no the case here.  I love the old ball park in the background of the Legends card.  Not sure if it is old Sportman's Park where Stan played most of his home games.

My scanner made these 1998 Pacific Online Red parallel cards look bronze.  They look much better in hand as the red goes great with the Cardinals uniform.  

The last card is from the 1999 SP Top Prospects set.  Arkansas was a Cardinals affiliate from 1996-2000 before switching to the Angels.  The Marines took over in 2017.  With MLB taking more control of minor league baseball, it will be interesting to see if teams switch affiliates as often as they used to.

2020 Cardinals Chronicles Box Break

 One night last week I had the itch to surf EBAY for a Cardinals box break.  I was hoping to find a deal for some 2020 Bowman Chrome, but those are still going higher than what I want to pay.  Instead I settled for a 3 box break of 2020 Panini Chronicles for about $15.  With only 48 cards per box, the odds are not the best, but there are 3 autographs and 1 memorabilia card per box.  I was not lucky enough to score any of the hits.  I really was not lucky at all as I received 1 card from each box.  

One of the main reasons I chose Chronicles is the great looking cards from a variety of brands.  I love how the red pops on this Certified card.  

I was hoping to get a Kim autograph, but these 2 cards are not too bad.  The Obsidian is pretty thick card.  The seller also busted a 3 different fat packs that yielded me 2 more cards.

The Illusions card from 2020 Optic is rather bland, but the Hudson Prizm looks great in hand.  So for my $15 I got 5 cards.  Are they really worth $3 each?  Not really, but that is the way box breaks go.  You win some, you lose some.  I may track down more singles from Chronicles, but doubt I get into anymore breaks.    

Better Late Than Never

With all the trading I have done since March, I have not had an issues with packages not arriving or being extremely late.  That is until late September when I worked out a trade with TCDB member jsteved.  We agreed to small pwe trade with both of us mailing on September 22.  He received his end on the 26th.  That seems right for something in Southern Illinois to travel to the Baltimore, MD area.  A week goes by and I did not receive my cards.  Then another week.  Finally the past Saturday after 18 days my cards arrived.  There were 4 different post marks on the envelope.  These cards had a long journey, but did arrive safe and sound.

Stan was not the last card I traded for to complete this years A&G set, but he was the last to arrive.  Nice to see Topps used a different photo.

My quest for gold parallel cards continues with these 2 from 1997 Ultra.  It may take a long time to complete this 19 card team set.  I spent some time yesterday filing away all my latest trade.  I think this is the first time in 2 months I do not have any cards sitting on my desk.  It is a nice feeling being caught up.  Time to start up a few trades to change that.

Lots of Team Hits

 A lot has happened since my last post 1 week ago.  In the span of 2 hours last Friday night, the Cardinals were eliminated by the Padres, my slow pitch softball team lost both games of a double header, and  Cardinals legend Bob Gibson passed away.  Talk about a bad start to a weekend.  This week has been crazy at work with the great weather we are having in Illinois.  

There has been little time for baseball cards other than opening a trade package from TCDB member frankgifford.  I believe I opened this one on Sunday, but did not have a chance to scan it until early this morning.  It was full of various hits to my Cardinals team set needs.

It has been quite a while since I have received any 2001 Topps Archives needs.  I love the classic look of this set.

I have a little over 400 different Edmonds cards, yet I still need quite a few common base cards like these.  He does not look to thrilled to have his picture taken on the 2005 Bowman Heritage.

2005 is one of the few Finest designs that I am not a fan of.  If you look too long at the spiral bullseye you may get a headache.

I have one more 2020 Ginter card incoming to complete my team set.  Always nice to complete the sets that include short prints.

Some various cards from early 2000s sets.  With the passing of Brock and Gibson, Ozzie is soon becoming one of the oldest living Cardinal HOF players.  Whitey Herzog still has him beat.

These 2 cards have nothing in common other than the fact I needed them both.  The Worrell is from 1987 Fleer Hottest Stars.  This is one of those Fleer box sets I have never heard of.  Now I have a Willie  McGee card to track down.

I Spoke Too Soon

In yesterday's post I talked about my lack of faith in the Cardinals ability to score runs.  Then they go out and score 4 runs in the first inning and managed to hang on for a 7-4 victory.  Maybe they took a bunch of batting practice on Monday an Tuesday.  Whatever they did, I hope it carries over to today.  Wainwright will have to be pretty sharp, as the bullpen may be a little depleted after using 5 relievers yesterday.  

While I watched the last few innings last night, I ripped open a trade package from TCDB member CoachBarry.  This one came in the mail on Saturday, but I grabbed it on the way out the door and forgot it was in the back seat of my truck.  

Today could be the last time you see Wainwright and Molina together on the field.  I hope not, but if so it has been a great run.  15 years together is an eternity in baseball.  I like the Opening Day blue shimmer a little better than the gold, but both are great looking cards.

I am like a magnet for minis these days.  I may even complete a team set one of these days.  I doubt it will be the 2014 GQ set these 3 are from.  There are 29 Cardinals in that one.

Wisdom and Gorman are among a handful of third baseman the Cardinals have used a #1 draft pick on the last 10 years.  This year was no exception as they took Jordan Walker.  Sooner or later one of these guys will turn into a starter who lasts more than a year or two.  My hope is for Gorman to be that guy as he has a ton of power.  

I received all sorts of different sized cards in this trade.  Mini, regulars and oversized cards like this Whitey Herzog.  I have a shoe box full of these Donruss All Star cards from the 1980s.  The Eckersley is a hit to my 1997 Topps Gallery set.  You do not see too many high leg kicks like his anymore.