5 From 22

Opening Day did not go very well for the Cardinals' pitching staff.  Mikolas giving up 3 runs in the first was just a sign of things to come.  8 innings last, Ryan Helsley blew a 1 run lead in the 9th as the Cardinals ended up losing 10-9.  At least the offense had a good day.  My spirits were lifted some after opening my mail day from TCDB member bravefan1.

It sure would be nice to have a pitcher of Gibson's ability on the current team.  I did double take on this card after noticing his mustache.  I cannot recall any other cards where he has one.

Arenado had a good day with 2 hits and 3 RBIs.  Nootbaar managed 1 hit and scored a run.  I am down to 4 more cards to complete my 2022 Mosaic team set after adding these 2.  

Poor Juan Yepez.  After having a solid rookie season, he will open this year in Triple A thanks to Jordan Walker making the team.  I am sure someone will get hurt, and he will be up before the All Star Game.  I am down to the Pujols base card to complete 2022 Bowman Platinum.  Seeing the Rated Rookie logo on this Optic card brings back lots of memories of my early collecting days in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  Have you ever wondered why people do not collect these cards like they do Topps Gold Cup cards?  I know lack of logos have hurt them recently, but Rated Rookie cards are still iconic in my opinion.

   

   

Happy Opening Day!

It is finally here.  In less than an hour the Cardinals kick off the 2023 season at home against the Blue Jays.  Most eyes will be on Jordan Walker as he makes his debut.  He has some high expectations to live up to that I do not think are realistic.  Hopefully, he can contribute and stay in the majors.  

What better way to celebrate opening day than to show off a new Cardinals autograph.  I bought this one off EBAY for about the price of a blaster.

Furcal has very few autographs in a Cardinals uniform.  Always nice to grab an autograph of a World Series champion.  
   

Rare Bench Trade

Before I joined TCDB, my primary online trading site was The Bench.  I have been a member there for 20 years.  For the first few years, I would work out 15-20 trades a month.  Now I am lucky to do 1 a month.  The site has slowly turned from player and team collectors to the majority of members looking for the latest and greatest rookies.  Not my cup of tea, but there are a few collectors I still trade with.  I recently worked out my second trade of 2023 with member Scobes.  He is a Phillie collector who has a nice stash of Cardinals I need.

It is rare for me to add older Heritage short prints.  Nice to knock off 2 from the same set.  Both these are from 2018.

Hard to believe this card is 20 years old.  I have a hard enough time adding recent Topps gold cards.  

      

TCDB 2 for Tuesday #38

It is the last 2 for Tuesday in March, which means baseball season is almost here.  2 more days until Miles Mikolas throws the first pitch of the Cardinals season.  Time to celebrate by showing off a couple of trades.  First up are some cards that arrived yesterday from member Jquirp001.

 
My 2023 Series 1 team set is now complete.  Nice to finish this one before the season starts.

The remaining card is an All Star insert from 2022 Chrome Update.  I hope Goldschmidt comes close to his MVP numbers of last year.  Sooner or later father time will catch up with him.  

Second package was a very generous group of Cardinals from member rustypetty.  I sent him a single Bo Bichette card in exchange for this great Cardinals lot.

Now that my base set is complete, it is time to work on the 2023 inserts.  

I still have plenty of Topps inserts to track down from 2022.  The chase is never over.

You can never go wrong with adding Stadium Club cards of team legends like Stan and Ozzie.  

Arozarena had a great WBC.  I am not a huge fan of his showmanship, but I guess if it brings more fans to the game so be it.  

  

Second Ron B Package of 2023

Last week good trading partner Ron B from the Trading Bases group sent me his second package this year.  Unlike some others, I knew the contents of this one.  That did not take away the excitement of receiving the cards in the mail.  Ron always sends a great mix of cards.

These are the first 2022 Panini Capstone cards I have seen in person.  Not that I was looking very hard for them, but there were none to be found at the recent card show in St. Louis. It is a very simple design on thick and shiny card stock.  The base is on the left, a blue parallel on the right.  The 2022 DK Artist Proof is numbered to 99.

It will be strange not seeing these 2 together on a field this year.  Yesterday brought news of Wainwright starting the season on the DL.  I hope he finds a way to win at least 5 games this year to reach 200 for his career.

3 cards of former first baseman who all won MVP awards.  The Pujols insert is a printing error missing the foil.  I doubt it changes the value, but it is a cool card to have.  The Goldy is a 2022 Archives red parallel numbered to 75, while the Musial is a 2021 Gallery green parallel numbered to 125.

The last 3 cards featured a 2021 Mosaic blue camo parallel, a nice 2021 Chrome pink refractor, and a 2015 GQ gold mini numbered to 99.

  

Shiny Trade

Today's trade recap features a nice group of shiny Cardinals from TCDB member freddybacon.  I sent him a handful of Red Sox in return for these 5 cards.  

Mojo refractors look good regardless of what design is used.  These are my first from 2023 Topps silver packs.  I am happy to add any and all Nolan cards regardless of last name.

Another silver pack card and a rainbow foil parallel of WBC champion Lars Nootbaar.  Congrats to him and the rest of Japan on a great tournament.  I find it comical how some Cardinals fans think he can help bring Ohtani to St. Louis next year.   No way ownership is giving out that kind of money.

I like the Future Stars inserts Topps has used across its brands.  I have gotten a few of the poster sized cards autographed at the Cardinals Winter Warm Up.  

TCDB 2 for Tuesday #37

 Another short 2 for Tuesday post before I head out to my son's high school baseball game.  Yesterday was scheduled for game 1, but rain pushed it back to today. 

First up is a two pack of 1996 Fleer Tiffany cards from member 49ants.

This is the 11th trade we have done together.  All involved Giants for Cardinals.  Since he still has over 100 Cardinals I need, I always try to nab cheap Giants at card shows.

Second trade brought a few more 2023 Topps Cardinals from member pianojazzman.

I am down to 4 more cards to complete my team set, all of which are incoming.  I was happy to see Gorman get a rookie card in Series 1.  He is having a great spring and should be on the opening day roster.  Not sure how much playing time he will get, but there should be enough DH at bats to see him play 2 or 3 times a week.

 

First New Lankford of 2023

Last week I thought I had struck gold when 2 different Lankford cards I needed appeared online.  One was listed for sale on TCDB, the other on EBAY.  My luck was 50% as I was able to buy the card on TCDB from member LakerGMC for $4.50.

This is the first time I have ever seen this 1999 Aurora Red card.  Not sure why these are so hard to find, but I sure am glad to cross it off my want list.  The is so much red on this card it is a little hard to tell that Aurora and Lankford's name is in red.  Still a great looking card.  

I was not as lucky with the EBAY card.  I had hopes of getting the card for $50 or less.  I was not even in the ballpark  .  I always thought I was the craziest Lankford collector.  Not anymore

  

Redeeming my Goldschmidts

After my son and I left Saturday's card show, we made a quick lunch stop at Chick-Fil-A before heading to the west side of St. Louis to visit RBICRU7 card shop .  We now had $80 worth of 2022 Topps Chrome Paul Goldschmidt cards to redeem thanks to finding another base card at the show for $1.  I searched RBI's website earlier last week and found 3 nice Altuve cards my son needed, so it was a no brainer to stop in.    

This Museum Collection patch card was $10.  Really thick card with a great patch numbered to 35.

The 2011 Bowman Draft was $7, while the 2010 Bowman Chrome was $8.  We did see the Draft at the show for $4 but decided just to use our credit.  All three of these cards were in the display case.  These were filled with Cardinals that I flipped through but only decided to buy 1.

This 2004 Bazooka Molina rc was $15.  The batting version was also $15, but I wanted my son to have most of the credit so I left it in the case.  We still had $40 left to spend, so we hit the player and auto boxes.  I pulled 2 $2 autos for trading friend Ron B.

Ron is trying to complete most of the Topps Chrome autograph sets.  These 2 will be shipped out this weekend.  My son hit a small gold mine by finding a 3200 count box with nothing but top loaded cards of Altuve, Bregman, and Verlander.  They ranged in price from $1 to $4.  We spent the last $36 on all of the following cards.

I believe the Heritage short prints were $3, while the bottom 2 photo variations were $1.  

Nice to add Tek cards from 3 different years including a green parallel numbered to 99.

2 2022 Finest cards including a purple refractor numbered to 250.

Some Topps Chrome refractors and an Update Chrome insert.

The last of the Topps brands 

There were more Panini brand cards my son needed, but we opted for these 7.  In total he added 28 new Altuves to his collection.  Not a bad way to exchange 2 base cards I had duplicates of and a sepia refractor.

  

 

    

St. Louis Card Show Recap: Bargain Boxes

The second part of my card show recap from Saturday is my bargain box buys.  I always take a quick lap around the show floor before buying anything.  I like to have an idea of how many bargain boxes are worth my time to go through.  Then I know how much time I can spend looking at showcases.  Even though my son is 14 and enjoys going through boxes, 2-3 hours is his limit at a show.  We did not find any dime boxes, but there were plenty of quarter boxes.  We ended up buying from 3 different dealers.

We discovered the first dealer at the very end of our walk-through.  It was an older gentleman and his 2 daughters.  They had player boxes marked half-price along with the quarter boxes. We spent $19 at their tables.

We paid $7 for this Altuve lot that included 2 refractors, a nice Topps Emerald parallel, and a Topps Heritage short print.  The last $12 were quarter cards.  The dealer only had 1 1600 count box on his table, but shortly after we started through it one of the daughters added a 3200 count box.  We ended up with 49 cards from both boxes.

There were not too many Cardinals in the box as those were in $1 boxes, but I did find a few nice ones.  The Plummer in the top left is numbered to 25, while the Ravelo in the bottom right is a photo variation.

We were surprised to find a few Altuves for a quarter each.  The Bowman's Best is a refractor, and the Topps is a rainbow foil parallel.

Everything else we pulled is trade bait.  Most of these Pirates and Yankees are headed to good friend Ron B.

There were quite a few purple parallels in the box from various brands.

Also a good mix of Topps gold cards.  I pulled cards for a few teams collectors that I know have cards for me.

A few more random cards with team collectors in mind.  

The next dealer had a couple of 1600 count quarter boxes made up of mostly base cards.  We did find $4 worth of cards from him.

Once again all of these are trade bait.  The lone Cardinal I found was a Flaherty Finest refractor that I already had.  He did have quite a few mojo refractors, but I only grabbed cards for team collectors or better know prospects.

The last dealer had a monster box full of mixed sports.  I usually pass these by pretty quick as I cannot stand someone who does not sort their cards, but I knew this dealer from other shows so I went through it pretty quick.  The last $2 I spent brought this lot.

More pirates and a Yankee for Ron B along with a Topps gold and 2 green Giants numbered to 99.  Overall I would give the show a solid A.  The same location has a 3 day show in May that I may try to attend.
  

          

St. Louis Card Show Recap: Vintage Buys

Mother Nature was a card show fan last Saturday.  My son was scheduled for baseball practice from 8 until 11, but the cold weather and rain canceled it.  Instead, we hoped in a car for a 2.5 hour drive to St. Louis.  There was a 60 table show on the west side that we had been to before.  I also wanted to visit a card shop to redeem $60 worth of 2022 Chrome Paul Goldschmidt cards.  

We arrived at the show about an hour after the doors opened.  There was a very strong crowd already.  It was crowded, but not to the point where you could not browse tables.  We favored the bargain boxes and some vintage tables that did not have as much traffic as the high-dollar display cases.  We spent $50 in a little over 2 hours from 5 different dealers.  Today I will show off my buys from 2 of them.

The first dealer had an excellent setup of vintage cards.  1 set of boxes contained lower grade cards, while another set was closer to mint.  All boxes were organized by year and number.  His star cards were in display cases.  Everything had a price tag on it.  I wish all dealers were like this.  We pulled $24 dollars worth of Cardinals that he sold to me for $20.

My son and I had a great system of sorting the boxes.  He would read off the year and number from my want list that I printed from TCDB while I sorted through the boxes.  All of my purchases were from the lower-grade area.  Most of the cards have some soft corners or bad centering but no major creases.  That is the perfect condition for my collection.  My scanner cut off the edge of this 1962 lot.  The 2 cards on the right are not cut that bad.

I love how the yellow badge goes with the red lettering on 1966 cards.  

Most of my 1967 needs are Hall of Fame players, but I did cross a common off my list.  Ed and his son Scott are one of the few father-son combinations to win a World Series with the same team.  

I did score a couple of Hall of Famers from the 1968 set.  Both of these were $2.  The Gibson is almost perfect.  

The next dealer had a monster box of Cardinals in top loaders marked 6 for $5.  I settled for 6 cards, 4 of them being more vintage.

A couple more 1968 cards were marked off the list and 2 from 1971.  My scanner decided to cut off the left side this time.  The Simpson looks much better than what is pictured.  My 1971 team set is down to 6 cards for completion.  They will be tough as 5 are high numbers, and the other is Steve Carlton. 

The dealer did not have any more vintage I needed, but I did great with the other 2 cards.  The Rolen numbered to 50 is from 2005 Upper Deck Origins.  I had to do a double-take when I found the Goldschmidt for less than $1.  I added it to the other 2 Chrome cards to be redeemed later in the day.  Next post will show off all the bargain box cards.