TCDB 2 for Tuesday #15

When I was planning today's post, I almost forgot that it is actually Tuesday.  Sometimes the long weekends make you lose track of time.  I was going to write about my trip to the Cardinals game yesterday, but that can wait for another day.  Time to knock out another couple TCDB trade recaps.  First up are 3 cards from member millrat99.  

These may not look like much, but I was thrilled to get these 3 cards.  MLB Showdown cards are a thorn in my side.  I am too stubborn to pick them up from Sportlots, and I never find them at shows.  These 2 from the 2000 set leaves me 3 short of the team set.  I was able to complete the 21 card Cardinals team set from 1994 Score by adding the Gerald Perry card.  It is a great feeling to finish a large parallel set.

The second trade came from member Netdawg. 

The younger collector in me loves Sportflics.  These from the 1986 Decade Greats sets feature 3 players on each card.  You can make out Ted Simmons on the bottom left, but the other 3 do not show the Cardinals player.  Top left is Dizzy Dean, top right is Ducky Medwick, and bottom right is Joe Torre.  

This is my first 1998 Topps Tek card of Brian Jordan.  I was lucky to find all 90 patterns of the Ray Lankford card a while back.  I will not be doing the same for Jordan. 

This card makes me a little sad.  I have always like Paul DeJong.  Nice guy with a great signature.  Problem is he flat out forgot how to hit.  The 2019 all star was demoted to Triple A a couple of weeks ago and is still hitting below .200.  At this point I am not sure he will ever turn things around.

Trio of Smalls

I missed my 2 for Tuesday post this week, so I will make up for it today with a trio of small trades.  The largest of these was only 4 cards.  First up is a single card for The Bench member David K.

This was a simple 2 for 1 trade.  Was it worth the postage?  Maybe not, but David is a very generous member who has given away a ton of great autographed cards.  I will gladly help him anytime I can.  Gorman made his debut over the weekend against the Pirates.  He did great against them, but struck out 3 out of 4 times earlier this week against the Blue Jays.  If he can manage to keep the Ks down, he should be a good second baseman.

Next up are 3 cards from TCDB member Velli88.

I do not have a lot of Topps parallels other than the gold numbered ones.  These 2 from 2021 are welcome additions.  The purple Hicks came from a Meijer pack, the blue Edmonds from a Walmart pack.  Musial is from the 2021 A&G Historical Hits insert set.

The last of the 3 trades came from TCDB Canadian member Shaw Racing.  

This was a 4 for 4 swap that costed me $1.30 postage.  Not bad considering how far these 1989 Panini Stickers came.  If packaged right, you can mail quite a few cards to Canada for less than $2.   

No Big Deal

 Reading this blog you know I love to trade.  I would not have much to post about if I did not.  Lately the size of the deal has not really mattered to me.  As long as I can justify the cost of postage, I am good with about any type of trade.  In recent weeks that cost has been $1 or less.  One such trade was with TCDB member bravefan1.  3 Braves went his way in return for 6 Cardinals that came my way.

Half of the package were my first 2022 Donruss cards.  Panini is going the way of Topps Heritage by reusing old designs.  My dad must have bought my brothers and I 4 boxes of the 1988 product.  Not sure why the original blue and red border was replaced with a little of white added to the corners.  

Staying with the Panini brand, here is another of the many base card designs from 2021 Chronicles.  Seems like Carlson has a card in every one of them.

It never gets old getting Molina inserts or parallels.  If he ever retires, I am sure he will still be included in quite a few sets each year.  A fan favorite and future Hall of Famer is hard to leave out.  This is my first 2021 Mosaic Mosaic parallel.   That sounds very confusing just typing it.

The last card was actually a 2020 Topps sticker.  After being released last fall, Martinez has failed to catch on with the Giants or Red Sox this year.  I bet there is still teams that will take a chance on a former All Star who can throw in the mid 90s regardless of his control or injury issues.  Everyone can always use more pitching.

Latest Ron B Package

It was ironic that I received a package from Trading Bases member Ron B over the weekend.  His Pirates were playing my Cardinals.  Not only did I receive a great batch of cards, but the Bucs managed to get swept by the Birds.  I try not to give Ron a hard time because he has been a Pittsburgh fan for a long time and he always sends me great cards.  One of these days the Pirates will be respectable again.  Until then I will look forward to them playing the Cardinals and any Cardinals Ron sends my way.  His latest package had the usual great assortment.

Upper Deck made a habit of including serial numbered rookies in a lot of sets in the early 2000s.  Completing team sets from this time period can be difficult.  

I received some numbered cards of the Donruss/Panini variety also, but these are all inserts.  It is almost strange to receive a Donruss card like the 2002 Originals Musial that has logos.  

Topps inserts included a nice Molina numbered refractor from 2018 Heritage Molina, a 2022 Rainbow Foil, and a 2018 Big League Blue DeJong.

Topps parallels included a couple of 2020 gold foils and a 2012 gold foil insert.

The last of the non base cards were 3 2021 inserts.  Not hard to pick out the camo blue Mosaic Edman as a favorite.

The lone base card in the package was the last 1996 Topps Chrome I needed for my team set.  Love crossing these older sets off my wantlist.

I guess this is not a base card or an insert.  I would not go out of my way to obtain these buybacks from anything after 1980, but will still find a place in my collection for them.  What really irks me is when a nice vintage card is destroyed with a stamp. 

      

Older Set Hits

When I think of old baseball cards, I think of ones produced before 1980.  1982 is the first year I remember following baseball as a kid.  When I opened up my first pack of baseball cards in 1986,  I recall getting a few of the players from back then.  Skipping forward to a few years and my first card show, I came across some colorful 1975 Topps cards and thought they were very old, even older than I was.  

Today my definition of an old card has changed.  Pre 1980 cards are still old, but so are cards produced 20 years ago.  Those type of cards are getting tougher to find at shows.  I am not talking about the high dollar rookies.  I am after the common base cards or inserts of Cardinals I do not have.  TCDB member torcato helped me out with a few of these older cards.

I graduated high school in 1994, the same year this Leaf Limited card was made.  It only took me 28 years to complete this team set.

These 2 UD 40 Man cards are 20 years old.  That really seems strange to say that.  I only need 1 more card to finish this 44 card team set.  Anyone have #572 Luis Garcia laying around?

This 2010 Topps Debut card is not that old, but it is still from a set I never see cards of.  I am not even half way done with the 11 card team set.  

These 2 cards are not old, but they are the last 2 from the package.  The Hicks is a gold parallel from 2020 Topps, while the Motte orange refractor is from 2012 Topps Chrome.  Both of these former closers threw very hard.  The current closer Giovanny Gallegos throw quite as hard.  Yesterday he gave up 2 runs on the only 2 pitches he threw in the 10th inning to take a loss.  I look for Ryan Helsley to take over the job soon.  His fastball is just a tad slower than Hicks.    

    

Bucs for Cards

One of the card collecting spreadsheets I keep is for team collectors.  I keep track of who collects certain teams, what forum/website they belong to, and whether or not I owe them any cards.  This comes in very handy when I am at card shows.  

You may find this hard to believe, but one of the more popular teams that I trade is the Pirates.  Trading Bases member Ron B gets the bulk of them, but there are 3 or 4 other Bucs collectors that I trade with.  TCDB member mac412 reached out to me about a few Pirates he needed last week.  I sent 13 Pirates his way in return for 20 cards that were delivered to me on Monday.  7 of them are for in person autographs, so I will not show them.

My first 2022 Bowman Cardinals included all 6 of the base cards and 1 prospect card.  It is nice to see players like Yepez and Nootbaar get some hobby love.

Arenado was the NL player of the month in April, but has since hit a slump like most of the other Cardinals starters.  They are not too far behind the Brewers right now, but that gap will get wider if they do not start scoring some runs.  

The many colors of the 2021 Mosaic rainbow is shown off here with this reactive yellow Edman card.  If you look at it too long, it is like staring at the sun.  

 
This is one of those cards I could not believe I did not have.  This Edmonds is from the 2004 Fleer Patchworks set.  I like the photo with the sepia background of  Wrigley Field, but am not a fan of the dark logo on the right side.  Shrink it down, use color, and display more of the photo.

My son added a couple of 2022 Altuve cards to his set.  He thinks this will be the last card of Altuve and Correa together, but I doubt Topps will let that happen.  

    

TCDB 2 for Tuesday #14

 The first 2 for Tuesday of May features 2 pwe trades with a total of 5 cards.  The first came from TCDB member BLWinborn40.

Colorful shiny cards help to offset the lack of logos.  The 2017 pink Carpenter is nice, but the 2021 red, white, and blue Woodford is better.  Patriotic cards are always sharp.

The second trade came from TCDB member jencola71.

This trade actually contained 4 more cards, but those will be used for in person autographs.  2 of the cards are of Winn.  I hope to make it to Peoria before he gets promoted.  Last year I had him sign this same 2020 Bowman Draft Chrome.  Although it looks somewhat purple in the scan, the 2017 Chrome Molina is actually a pink refractor.  The 2019 Finest Altuve continues my son's march to 600 different cards.  I doubt we get there before the end of the year, but you never know.

Found Some Spare Time

Lately I have been forced to be choosy with my spare time.  Work has picked up now that it has stopped raining every other day.  My work hours have been anywhere between 8 and 11 hours a day the last 2 weeks.  My son's baseball season is still in full swing also, so 2 nights a week and the better part of Saturdays are spent with his team.  When I do get a moment of down time at home, it has been hard to motivate myself to get off the couch and do something.  If it was not for some new releases coming out this month, I may not have even touched my cards for a while.

My last post earlier this month showed off some of the new 2022 Bowman cards that I received from a blaster box.  I sent a few of those cards off to TCDB member Americana last week in return for some Cardinals.  

This trader buys quite a few online exclusive packs/sets from Topps.  The Molina is a Topps X Aaron Judge card, the Gibson a Topps X Super 70s card.  I will give Topps some credit for making these overpriced exclusive cards very nice quality.

Like a ton of other collectors, it feels strange to say I just received my first cards from 2021 Big League.  I have always been a fan of the base set.  The Defensive Wizards insert set gives me a Fleer Pro Visions feel.

I also received my first cards from 2021 Panini Contenders.  Unlike Big League, this set has been out for a bit.  Not too much positive to say about the design of the base cards or the Ticket to Stardom insert.

Montero was the best position prospect the Rockies received in the Arenado trade.  He made is debut in early May, but was sent down after 1 game in which he went 2 for 4 with 2 strikeouts.  Kim has went back to the Korean league.  I am sure Topps will produce some 2022 cards of him.  This 2021 Optic card finished my base set.  

2022 Bowman Blaster

There is an old saying that you should not go to the grocery store when you are hungry.  If you put that in baseball card terms, you should not go to Walmart/Target right after a new product is released.  For a collector like myself who watches my hobby budget pretty closely, it does not pay to buy overpriced blasters very often but it is hard to resist the temptation.

After spending most of last Saturday working outside on various projects, my wife, son, and I headed to Walmart to do the weekly shopping.  My son knows exactly where the card isle is and always steers the cart to that checkout lane.  I was a little in shock to see over 20 blasters of 2022 Bowman baseball sitting on the shelf.  I believe it was just released a few days before.  The card inventory at my Walmart has been back to pre covid levels the last few months, but I was still surprised to see so much new product.  Because he helped me most of the afternoon, I gave in and let my son pick out a box that was about $35 after taxes.  That is steep for 7 packs of 12 cards, but that is the world we live in now.  I will let you judge the value of my purchase.

The checklist has 100 veterans and 150 prospects.  Each pack had about 6 veterans, 3 paper prospects, 1 insert and 2 chrome prospects.  I was a little disappointed not getting a single Cardinal in the entire box.  My son did manage to pull the Altuve base card.

My 16 chrome cards had 8 1st year cards and 8 other cards.  I do not remember if each pack had 1 of each.  I did not recognize any big names right away.  After looking at the draft status and prospect rankings on the back, it did not appear like I pulled anything great.

We hit the insert ratio almost dead on.  The 3 different cards on the top were 1:6 packs, the bottom 2 1:3 packs.

My son and I opened 3 packs each.  My wife wanted to open a pack also.  Her pack contained the next 2 cards.

She pulled this Abrams first.  Not a bad card with odds being 1:595 retail packs.

Autograph odd are actually better at 1:129 packs.  I have never heard of Fassnacht.  He was picked in the 8th round of the 2019 draft.  His player page on milb.com says he retired in February 2022.  Maybe there is a Phillie collector out there who can use this.  

 

    

Almost the Same as Last Time

It has been almost 2 weeks since my last trade post.  I hope to pick things up with the new trade bait I purchased at the card show last weekend.  I did manage a small trade with fellow Cardinals fan and TCDB member timriess last week that was very similar to my last trade.

Last trade gained my 3 2022 Heritage base cards.  This one I received the last 2 non short prints along with a nice Carlson insert.  Carlson is one of several Cardinals starters who are hitting below .200 right now.  Maybe there is some truth about the balls being dead this year.

Like last trade, I received 4 total Cardinals in the package.  This time #4 was an insert.  TCDB has a trade matching feature which sends a notification to you when someone lists a card for trade from your wantlist.  It seemed like I received 2 or 3 message daily about this 2022 insert.  Glad I can cross it off my list.

Unlike last time, my son received an Altuve for his collection.  Altuve has 23 home runs in 79 career post season games.  Sign stealing or not , that is quite the accomplishment.

  

It Pays to go to Card Shows

 A week ago Saturday my son and I attended our first card show of 2022.  The timing of the show was perfect, as my son had a baseball tournament about 10 miles from the mall where it was held.  After he won 2 games in the morning, we hit up the show.  

We attended 2 shows at the same mall last year.  The first one was pretty good, the second just ok.  We spent a little over 2 hours at the show going through countless bargain boxes.  We bought cards from 7 different dealers.  I believe it was advertised as 50 tables, but I would guess there were a few more.  Lots of cards to show, so here goes.

First dealer had a few dollar boxes sorted by various sports.  We found 1 Altuve for my son's collection.

The next dealer had various quarter, fifty cent, and dollar boxes.  I spent about 15 minutes going through the quarter boxes.  I could have spent more, the cards were all mixed in with other sports.  

This mall does not have the best phone reception, so I was not able to check my TCDB inventory to see if I needed these Cardinals.  I lucked out and needed all 4.  The Carpenter is numbered to 250.

I love finding cheap trade bait in these boxes.  I try to stick to teams I know I can trade.  Anything colored, premium brands, or parallels are what I look for.  In all I pulled 30 cards and got a small deal for $7.

Dealer #3 had one box of cards marked 6 for $1.

I needed the Woodford for my Cardinals collection, the rest are trade bait.  

Dealer #4 also had a bunch of quarter boxes.  These were sorted by sport thankfully.  

More trade bait with the exception of an Altuve.  I am a sucker for parallels from 2021 Chronicles and Mosaic.  

Dealer #5 had a box of older autographs marked 4 for $5.  I managed to find 4 Cardinals I did not have.

Nothing high dollar here, but 2 numbered autos are hard to pass up.  I did not have an autograph of Williams yet, so Panini will have to do since he is no longer with St. Louis.  

The same dealer also had 2 monster boxes full of dime cards.  I found 30 of them for another $3.

I only needed the Gorman for my Cardinals collection, but the other 2 refractors should not be hard to trade.

The rest of the dime cards were trade bait.  

Dealer #6 was actually packing his stuff up for the day.  I found this a little odd since it was only around 3:00 in the afternoon and the show ran until 8 on Saturday and also Sunday afternoon.  He said things were slow on his end since he only had baseball.  He was wearing an Astros hat, so my son asked if he had any Altuve cards.  The dealer knew of 1 and sold it for $1.

The Topps Holiday short prints are not that hard too find, but still cool to get for a buck.

I wish I had found dealer #7 earlier in the day.  He was at the end of the mall somewhat by himself.  His quarter boxes were sorted by team.  They were full of parallels, inserts, and premium brand base cards.  I pulled 40 cards from him for $10.  

These 8 Altuve cards pushed my son over the 500 mark.  He already has his sights on 600.  The dealer mentioned he has a ton more cards to add to these boxes before the next show at the same mall in July.  I will be sure to find him first.

The rest of my $10 was spent on trade bait.  Just an awesome assortment of cards.  Most of the Pirate and Yankee cards are already in the mail.  

We spent $30 total at the show, but our last pickup was in the parking lot.  It was a very windy day that afternoon.  On the way out to our vehicle, my son spotted something floating in the air that looked like a dollar bill.  With no one around, I told him to go get it.  

I made sure there were nobody close before I allowed him to keep Mr. Jackson.  Not sure if this was lost by a card show attendee, a regular mall shopper, or someone a mile away.  My son's first thought was to go back into the show and spend it, but we decided to call it a day.  Spending a net of $10 on 120 cards is a pretty good day.