Lankford in HD

I was very excited last week to find one of my most sought after Ray Lankford cards listed on EBAY.  It was listed as a Buy It Now auction with a Best Offer option.  I rarely used the offer option, but decided to give this one  a shot since the price was quite a bit more than what I wanted to pay.  After a couple of offers we struck a deal.  The card arrived on Monday.

I remember 3 different times bidding on a 2000 Topps HD Platinum Lankford card and losing out.  Don't have to worry about that anymore.  This card was higher than 2 of the auctions, but I was content with the ending price.    

If you look very closely under the jersey number, you can faintly see this card is numbered 83/99.  I tried several different scans but could not get it to show up any better.  It has been years since I added a new serial numbered Lankford to my collection.    

TCDB 2 for Tuesday #20

Back with my second TCDB 2 for Tuesday this month.  Both of these trades arrived in my mailbox yesterday, so I made it a point to get them scanned for today's post.  First up is pwe trade from member halos17.

These 2012 Topps stickers are not technically cards, but they still have a home in my collection.  This set needs a lot of work yet, as I know have 3 of the 10 Cardinals in it.

The Bowman Ice parallels are so much better than the base cards.  I can see Topps making a stand alone set of them, then coming up with some colored parallel for it.  The Dean card completed my 2014 Panini Golden Age team set.

The second pwe trade was from member Scottzoe.  This was a simple team trade.  He received 7  Red Sox, I received 6 Cardinals.

I have countless short print numbered rookies to track down from the early 2000s.  Upper Deck and Donruss seemed to put them in every set.  Thanks to this trade I have 2 less.

I am getting close to completing some colored parallel team sets.  Only need 2 more 2013 Topps Red cards, and 3 2005 Ultra Gold Medallions.

Ozzie completed my 2003 Playoff Portraits team set.  The Felix Jose is an inserts from 1992 Baseball Cards Magazine.  Just the kind of oddball card I love to find.

  

Huge Package from Ron B

I have lost track how many cards Trading Bases member Ron B and I have exchanged over the years.  Ours is an open ended trade that may never end.  He sends Cardinals and Altuve cards my way, I send Pirates and Yankees his way.  There is never a question of value, although after his recent package I know I owe him big time.  Ron went to the National and another show the weekend after and found a ton of great Cardinals for me.  

Great start with some Molina and Musial cards.  

Even though he is not doing so hot with the bat, I am still a big believer in Dylan Carlson.  Happy to add any of his cards.  Also nice to add an older parallel like the 1997 Stadium Club Matrix Eckersley.

More Musial and Molina cards, just in mini form this time.  Both the Piscotty and Bourjos are numbered.  

Refractors are always good.  Ron found a hidden gem when he got the Gorman rookie out of a dollar box.

How about a few different blue parallels.  

Numbered cards are always nice.  The Carlson is a silver parallel numbered to 499.  Both Musial and Gibson are numbered to 1000, while Wainwright is out of 999.

These are all numbered to 250, except the Galante.  For some strange reason 2001 Finest refractors are numbered to 241.

Keeping with the numbered theme, these are all numbered to 99 or less.  The top row is all numbered to 99, Eckersley to 75, and Pujols to 65.

This looked like a regular A&G glossy mini until I turned it over.

That  is a true 1/1.  This is my second non Lankford 1/1 in my Cardinals collection.  The other is a printing plate.

As much as I love the DeJong mini, I like this 1975 Topps mini Gibson more.  Colorful card of a Hall of Famer is hard to beat.

Last but not least is an autograph of 2022 All Star Miles Mikolas.  This is my 3rd different autograph of him.  It is going to take me a bit to get all these logged into my TCDB collection.  So many rare cards that I will have to scan them. 

 

American Cancer Society Day At Busch

It has been 3 years since I last attended an American Cancer Society Day at Busch Stadium.  We all know what happened in 2020.  The games were held last year, but both days I had something else going on.  This year I made it a point to keep the date for the Illinois and the Missouri games open.  

The Illinois game was held this past Sunday.  Gates opened at 9:00.  Anyone 16 years and older received a replica ring from the 1982 World Series.

There were 5 different players you could get.  I received Keith Hernandez, my wife Ozzie Smith.  My 14 year old son was left out.  These are pretty nice, but not really my thing.  I plan on trading them for a bobblehead I need.

The big draw of ACS Day is the autographs.  Last year only former players signed, but this year current players were included.  We managed to get through all the lines in the 1 hour 15 minute time frame.  4 current and 4 former players were signing.  Autographs were 1 per person, although I did see some people going through a line twice.  

All the former players who signed were in town for the 40 year anniversary of the 1982 World Series team.  Lahti was a key member of the bullpen that year.  We were one of the first he signed for, so he was quite talkative.  He told us a long story about how the 1983 Topps card is an airbrushed photo from a spring training game when he played for the Reds.  It is great hearing stories like this.

Donovan was signing at the same table as Lahti.  His line was by far the longest.  Good thing we did it first.  He does not have any licensed cards other than his 2022 Bowman that is already autographed, so I went with a 2019 Topps stadium card and a poster from Peoria.  

Genesis Cabrera was close to Donovan's table, so we jumped in his line.  Nice to get a player I never had a chance to see before.

Doug Bair was another reliever on the 1982 team

Pallante was also at Bair's table.  His line was the second longest after Donovan.  He was very polite and thanked us for coming.

It was Gallegos' birthday on Sunday.  Quite a few people were wishing him well.  

Mark Littell was yet another reliever on the 1982 team.  

We finished with our last autograph with about 5 minutes to spare.  Brummer was a backup catcher for the 1982 team.  He is also from my hometown.  

We had 2 hours from the time autographs ended to game time.  On Sundays the Cardinals handed out free ice cream, so we all enjoyed a popsicle.  We also had a free hot dog and soda that came with the price of our $20 bleacher tickets.  As for the game, we could not have seen a better one.  It only lasted 2 hours and 30 minutes.  The weather was a cool 82 degrees.  All the scoring was by home runs.  The Cardinals hit 4 including 2 by Pujols on the way to a 6-3 win over the Brewers.  About the only down side to the day was sitting in the parking lot for 30 minutes without moving.  

  

Big Package from June

Reading the title you may think the cards I am showing off today are from a package I received in June.  This huge Cardinals lot came in last week from trader June M.  She is not a member of Trading Bases, but has traded with quite a few member there.  She did a lot of homework on our trade.  She searched my want and trade list and had the trade set up before she even contacted me.  Only thing I had to do was dig out the cards.  

I had a hard time trying to scan these 1986 Topps Tattoos  sheets.  There are 8 different players to a sheet, and I tried to fold them so the Cardinal player was showing on each.  These are the type of oddballs from the 1980s that I love to find.

I finished 2 mini sets from 1989 with these Panini Stickers and UK Mini.  

There is always room in my collection for oddball Ozzie Smith and Vince Coleman cards.  I wonder how many stolen bases Coleman would have finished his career with if he had not left as a free agent after the 1990 season.  

I finished another set with the Mabry from 1998 Pacific Invincible Gems of the Diamond.  The Benes leaves me 1 short of finishing the 1997 Donruss Limited team set.

The package was very McGwire heavy.  My favorite of the bunch was the 1999 UD HoloGrfx Future Fame Gold.  

A few base cards from the early 2000s reduced some set needs.  The 2003 EX Edmonds is the best of the bunch.

Unlike most of my trade packages, there were very few modern inserts.  The ones I did receive were colorful.  Love the 2021 Big League Orange Dylan Carlson.

Chrome Anniversary

One of the sets that creeped up on me this year is 2021 Topps Chrome Platinum Anniversary.  I had no idea the set was coming out, let alone being delayed a year.  I knew the problems Topps was having with 2021 Big League, but had no idea about this set.  You would think a 700 card set would get more attention.  Either I am reading the wrong websites, or this one just slipped through the cracks.  Glad there are traders like TCDB member George1369 who have some of the base cards for trade.

The Cardinals have 29 base cards in the set.  Quite a few of them are retired players like these 4 Hall of Famers.  I like how Topps used a different logo for players who played in different eras.  

Nice to have the base Wainwright to go along with the refractor I showed off a few days ago.  

Since the set was a year late, there are quite a few guys who are no longer on the team.  Sad to see that Carpenter has a broken foot now.  Although I am not a Yankee fan, it was good to see him having a bounce back year after a couple of down ones.

The non Topps part of the package include a nice 2022 Musial Diamond Kings inserts, a Holo purple, and a Carlson chrome like Chronicles card.  

  

Two in a Row

The Cardinals win streak came to a streaking halt last night in Colorado.  The 16-5 loss was about as ugly as it gets.  I stopped listening after the 3rd inning and turned my focus to cards.  Just like yesterday, I have a couple of recaps to highlight.  Both of these are from The Bench members.  First up is a pwe package from member 89Giants.  As you can guess, I sent him a couple of Giants for these 2 Cardinals.

The Wainwright is a refractor from the 2021 Topps Chrome Platinum Anniversary set.  DeJong is a base card.  It is great to see DeJong have success since he was called back up from the minors a week ago.  I always root for the nice guys.

The second package was a $2 sale from member roro17.

This 2002 Pristine short print is numbered to 1999.  Not really rare, but you do not see very many of these up for trade.

These are my first cards from 2021 Panini Draft.  The Graceffo is a Green Pulsar Prizm, while the Holgate is a Red Velocity Prizm.  McGreevy is a Crusade insert.  I know these don't look like Cardinals cards, but these guys were all drafted by them.  If anything, they will come in handy for in person autographs.
  
  

     

TCDB 2 for Tuesday #19

My TCDB 2 for Tuesday recaps are becoming less frequent.  I only did 1 in July, and this is my first in August.  I am either not trading enough, or doing too good of a job on the trading recaps that I do not have to combine them.  Either way, I hope to pick them back up with more regularity starting with today's post.  First up are 2 card from member JustinBobo77.

My 2022 Donruss team set is not complete thanks to getting the Nootbaar card.  Noot should see more regular playing time now that Harrison Bader is a Yankee.  So far he has been doing well.  Flaherty is my first 2022 Topps Gold card.  He might be headed out for a rehab assignment soon with a goal of returning in late August or early September.  If he does return, I look for it to be in a bullpen role.

The second trade consisted of 6 Cardinals from member heattreat.

Wish my 2022 Gypsy Queen set was complete like the Donruss set.  I still need to track down the Musial short print.  Topps really jumped the gun by including Anderson Tejeda in the set.  He never saw an at bat as a Cardinal.

It is no coincidence that the Cardinals have not lost a game since Molina returned from the DL.  He has not hit his weight during those games, but his handling of the staff including 2 new starting pitchers has been great.  

I am not very impressed with the 2022 Topps Generation Now design.  If you are not going to use the ballpark as a background, you better have something that stands out.  The silver blocks with red curls does not do anything for this card.  The Stadium Club red parallel on the other had is outstanding.  Topps seems to use the arch as a background for someone's Stadium Club card every year.