2 Pair and a Bird

I have had a steady flow of pwe trades coming in the last few days.  Nothing major, but it is always nice to receive cards in the mail.  Even though my informed delivery lets me know what I am getting (or should be getting),  I still get a little thrill of coming home from work and seeing what cards I got.  TCDB member B Goguen sent me a pwe with 5 cards that included 2 cards each of 2 players and 1 card of another type of cardinal.

It is great to see Dylan Carlson having a good month.  After his slow start and injury, he has turned things around in June.  He is the only outfielder from opening day who is healthy right now.  Not sure what the Cardinals will do once everyone returns.  Rookies like Nolan Gorman, Juan Yepez, and Brendan Donovan have filled in nicely.  

Speaking of injuries, Flaherty landed back on the DL this week after 3 pretty bad starts.  There has been some reports that the Cardinals wanted him to take a longer rehab assignment, but Jack said he was ready.  Seems like there is always tension between him.  I would hate to see him traded, but it would not shock me if he is not a Cardinal next year.

This guy never has to worry about being traded.  Fredbird has been a mainstay in St. Louis for a long time.  Glad mascots get some hobby love in sets like 2022 Opening Day.  

TCDB 2 for Tuesday #17

Today's recap will be short and sweet with just 1 scan each from the 2 trades.   First up are 4 cards from member Mjprigge.

My 20 card team set from 1994-95 Fleer Excel is now complete.  Fleer did not do a great job of picking the prospects in this set.  Alan Benes, Eli Marrero, and Joe McEwing were the only 3 players who had much of a career.  

The second 4 pack of Cardinals came from member gator32608.  

This was not a high dollar trade at all, but I was still happy with it.  The Arenado finish my 2021 Stadium Club team set minus the variations.  Any Goldschmidt card is a welcome addition, especially with the great season he is having.  Even though Sanchez is no longer with the Cardinals, I am still a sucker for the green GQ parallels.  Finally the Brock card is one of those dreaded minis, but it is hard to turn down a Cardinals Hall of Famer.

Phillies for Cardinals

Happy Friday everyone.  This week I had to show up for work instead of hitting up a card show like last week.  Not nearly as fun, but it pays the bills.  If you have not heard, the bills for card traders will be a little more come early July due to a postage increase.  It is not much, but every little bit adds up.  Time to knock out a few trades before that happens.  Late last week I worked out a team trade with TCDB member johlamb.  9 Phillies went his way in return for 9 Cardinals I added to my collection.

I thought about buying a blaster of 2002 Gypsy Queen, but it has not showed up at my local Walmart yet.  Now I do not have to fight the urge.  With only a handful more base to complete my team set, the money will be saved for something else.  

Cards of pitchers are not highly sought after by most collectors, especially of ones not with the Cardinals anymore or of relievers.  They will have a home in my collection.  The Ponce gold parallel is from 2021 Update, while the Gallegos blue parallel is from 2020 Update.  

 
2022 Heritage black border cards have a print run of 50.  You would think the low print run would make this card serial numbered, but it is not.  Still a great looking card.

I do not recall the last time I added a Molina relic to my collection.  This 2021 Diamond Kings jersey card would have looked great with the photo from the 2021 Big League insert.  

    

Midwest Monster Card Show Part 2

Continuing my recap of last week's Midwest Monster card show with the last of my purchases.  Most of these came from quarter boxes. 

This was our first purchase of the day for $15.  The Altuve game used was $5, the autograph was $3, and the rest were a quarter or 50 cents.  My son was excited to find some nice Altuve cards right off the bat.  I was pleased to find a handful of Cardinals, although the Liberatore mojo refractor is a duplicate.  The 2 Pirates in the bottom scan have been traded, while the Hoskins is trade bait.

These were all quarter cards.  I did better this round on the Cardinals and made sure not to get duplicates.  

The second round of quarter cards was heavy on trade bait.  I even made the mistake of pulling 2 of the same card, but at least 1 is already gone.  Mojo refractors and chrome sapphire cards make great trade bait.

The last of the quarter lots was 12 cards just like the other 2.  The Goldschmidt was by far my favorite of them.  Lots of refractors and red parallels in this lot.

This dealer had a few boxes mark 6 for $1.  I pulled these 24 cards out and he charged me $3.  Pretty good deal for less than 15 cents each.  

Wrapping things up, I will say it was $80 well spent.  There is another show coming in October at the same location.  If it is as big, we may have to skip school on a Friday.  Some life lessons are more important than what can be learned in a classroom.

 

  

Midwest Monster Card Show Part 1

Last Friday I had a rare day off from work.  I scheduled a vacation day a couple of months ago so my son and I could attend the Midwest Monster card show near Indianapolis.  The day started off a little bleak as there was a bad thunderstorm that passed through my area.  It delayed us a little bit, but we managed to arrive at the show about 15 minutes after the doors opened.

The largest show we had been to before this one was 100 tables.  We were a little in awe to see 350 tables under 1 roof.  It was very well laid out, so it made getting around and remembering which tables we had hit up very easy.  We spent about 3.5 hours looking through display cases and countless bargain boxes.  We took a few breaks in between to check wantlists or just catch a breather, but the majority of the time we were hard at it.  We spent a total of $80 at the show, $20 of which was the entry fee.  We bought from 10 different dealers.  Today I will just show off the singles and smaller lots we bought.

I am a sucker for colored quarter cards even if they are from Panini.  Wish I could have found more Cardinals, but at least I came away with a nice Flaherty I needed.  

This dealer had an assortment of card prices ranging from 50 cents up to $25.  I snagged these 3 for $2.  I have quite a few Edmonds game used cards, but for $1 I will not pass up a card with a lot of red on it.  My son already had the Altuve, but it has since been traded.   The Kendall 2003 Flair is a Row 1 parallel numbered to 150 that had also been traded.

I bought this Walker card for $3 from the same dealer.  Hopefully in a few years he will have a game used card in a Cardinals uniform.

One of the last tables we visited had a small box of 5 for $1 cards.  There might have been 200 cards to flip through, but we had great luck finding 2 Cardinals I needed included a short print Goldschmidt and an Altuve my son did not have.  

Our last purchase of the day was this 2019 Heritage High Numbers Altuve autograph.  We saw it earlier in the day, but waited to see if we found another nice Altuve card that my son liked better.  He settled for this one.  Sticker price was $30, but the dealer sold it for $25.  

    

TCDB 2 for Tuesday #16

My first TCDB 2 for Tuesday in June features 8 total cards.  The first 2 came in a pwe from member Luckyday.  

Both these 2022 Bowman inserts look like refractors, but are not.  One of my favorite inserts every year is the Top 100.  The Cardinals have 4 players in this year's set.  Walker is one of them.  Nice to see him getting more hobby love this year.

The second pwe trade included 2 Cardinals from user heattreat.  I found out he is also a member of  Trading Bases.  Small world.

I am still not sold on this year's Diamond Kings.  The black and white Musial does not help matters.  

This Goldschmidt from 2021 Gypsy Queen is much better.  Goldy hit another home run against the Pirates today in the first game of a double header.  Hope this is the start of another long hit streak.

My 2021 Big League team sets is coming along nicely without much effort.  I need 1 more base card to finish it.  The orange parallels will take a little more time, but do not appear to be very difficult to find either.

I will finish up with another blah card from Panini.  I cannot think of anything positive to say about this 2022 Donruss card other than it is a Cardinals and it leaves me 1 short of the team set.  

2021 Topps Big League Box Break

2 weekends ago my son had a baseball tournament which included a 3 hour gap in between games.  We used that down time to eat and hit up a card shop.  I bought a few supplies for myself, and a 2021 Big League hobby box that my son opened with 3 of his teammates.  It was fun watching the 4 of them work out a few trades and being excited to pull a simple base card from their favorite team.  Once the dust settled, here is what I was left with.

Other than my son, none of the other players liked the Cardinals.  We had a Cubs, Mariners, and Dodgers fan also.  That worked out well for my team set.

Each of the 18 packs had an orange border parallel.  There were a few big names included like Robert and Tatis.

The 4 Art of the Game inserts had some big names.  I was a little surprised none of the boys wanted the Vlad or Trout cards.  

The most popular insert among the boys was the Wanted cards.  I believe they pulled 4 of them.  Soto is the only 1 that came home with us.  They liked the looks of the Defensive Wizards insert, but the players were not too exciting.  I already have a copy of the Goldschmidt, so this one will go in the trade box.

Our 1 per box rainbow foil was Ryan Jeffers.  Only 1 of the players had heard of them, but had zero interest in the card.  More trade bait for me.  It was a blast watching the boys open the box.  They sat their and sorted the base cards after they finished trading.  A big thank you to the store owners who featured them on their Facebook page and gave each one of them a snap case for their cards.  

  

Finally Friday

No catchy title today.  Just happy to see it is Friday.  Work has been hectic the last 2 weeks and I am looking forward to a Saturday at home to get some odd jobs finished.  I should also have some spare time to file away a few cards like the ones from a trade with TCDB member Ymmat.

I love cards of the retired greats, even ones that lack logos.  I will give some credit to Panini for at least using the Cardinals team colors on the 2021 Diamond King Musial insert.  

Speaking of Diamond Kings, these are my first from the 2022 set.  Nothing too exciting about them.  

I have a few more 2021 Big League cards to track down before I cross that set off my wantlist.  I need 1 more each of the base cards and Defensive Wizards insert.  Still have not decided if I want to do the orange parallels like I did in previous years.

I also need 1 more card to finish the 2022 Donruss base set.  I should have scanned the Goldschmidt with the DK cards because it is just as boring looking.  The blue border on the 2021 Topps O'Neill card goes well with the grass background. O'Neill returned from the DL earlier this week and hopefully will provide a lift to the Cardinals offense.  Fellow starting outfield Dylan Carlson should return to the lineup in tonight's game.  Not sure where the Cardinals will find playing time for youngsters like Juan Yepez, Brendan Donovan, and Nolan Gorman now that everyone is healthy.  I guess that is a good problem to have.

  

2022 Lot

It has been tough resisting the urge to open packs for the last couple of months.  My Walmart has been well stocked every time.  Plenty of Bowman, Heritage, Donruss, Diamond Kings can be had.  I did break down for a  Bowman blaster last month , but have done well since.  It helps when I can find trade partners like fellow Cardinals fan and TCDB member timriess who have plenty of 2022 cards to trade.  We worked out another swap of duplicates that helped each other's pc out.

Tim put a big dent in my 2022 Donruss base needs.  I am not a huge fan of the base design, but the 1988 knock off is not bad.  A little color never hurts anything.

Is there anyone hotter than Goldschmidt right now?  The NL Player of the Month for May just hit a 3 run home run this afternoon to extend his hitting streak to 25 games.  This is a holo blue parallel from this year's Donruss.  

I need 1 more Chrome prospect card to finish 2022 Bowman.  There are only 3 Cardinals in the prospect set, so it should not be too tough to finish.  

Walker is the Cardinals #1 prospect and in the top 20 overall.  Any of his cards are welcome additions to my collection.  This is my first card from 2022 Bowman 1st Edition.  The Bowman insert is pretty sweet also.