TCDB 2 for Tuesday #58

 Happy Halloween everyone.  We do not celebrate this holiday much anymore, as my kids are in high school and college.  We did hand out candy at our church social on Sunday.  Since we live out in the middle of nowhere, we do not get any trick-or-treaters.  It should be a quiet evening spent watching game 4 of the World Series.  I do not really care who wins, just hoping for an entertaining series which it has been so far.  On to the cards.  First package came from member cr74.

These are my first 2023 Allen & Ginter cards.  Nice to add 2 legends to start off my team set.

Another chunk of 2022 Platinum Anniversary cards to cross off my list.  7 more to go to finish this one.

One lonely Altuve card from 2022 Bowman Platinum to add to my son's collection.  He should surpass 700 different ones before the end of this year.

Second trade came from member PIANELLI.  I have traded with him a few times on the Trading Bases site.  He joined TCDB in January and has completed over 200 trades.  Very busy man.

Couple of base cards from the early 2000s.  It is getting very hard to find the short print cards from sets like 2002 Donruss Classics.  The Pearce card is numbered to 1500.  

3 inserts including a 2011 Topps Gold.  It would be great to finish this set from the World Series year, but I still need to find 10 more.  Another slow work in progress project.  I guess it would be no fun if finding them was easy.    

    

Card Show Bargain Buys

 Finishing up my card show recap from a week ago Saturday with my bargain box finds.  I bought from 2 different dealers.  The first had 2 monster quarter boxes that were somewhat sorted by sport.  I would find a stack of baseball, then something else.  I spent about 30 minutes finding 40 cards for $10.

Not too many Cardinals to be found.  I did not check my wantlist, so I ended up with 2 duplicates.  Both have already been traded though.

My son had decent luck finding 3 Altuve cards.  

Found a few refractors for team collectors.

Other trade bait including a nice 1999 Mystique Gold Larkin.  The rest of the cards were Pirates and Yankees for trading friend Ron B.

I managed to find 1 dealer with some dime boxes.  There were a few hidden gems in there.  I settled with 20 cards for $2.00.

We did not find very many cards for our personal collections.  The Baez refractor ended up being a duplicate.

I grabbed a few Mojo refractors from various years.  A lot were pitchers.

There were stacks of former top prospects.  Once again just grabbed some for team collectors.

A few odds and ends including a 2009 Topps photo variation Jackie Robinson.  Hard to pass that up for a dime.  

All in all it was a pretty good show other than the poor lighting.  I will most likely go back if they have another.

Card Show Vintage Buy

My son, wife, and I were able to hit up a new card show on Saturday.  My wife did not want to sit at home alone, plus she wanted to eat at Chick Fil A.  She is not a hobby veteran but also no stranger to cards.  She was very helpful when my son and I split up after our initial walk-through.  The show was close to 150 tables at a national guard armory.  There was plenty of room to get around, but it was hands down the darkest room I have ever been to a show in.  

We spent about 2 hours there.  The first hour or so was looking through value boxes.  A lot of quarter boxes with mixed sports.  We only found 1 dime box, but it had some great buys in it.  I will save the modern cards for another post.  Today I will highlight what I bought from 1 vintage dealer.  He had sets from the 1950s-1970s.  The commons were arranged by number in binders.  The stars and short prints were in 2-row boxes.  Perfect setup for a team collector like myself.  I went the cheaper route and stuck to the binders.  Due to the poor lighting, my wife used her cell phone flashlight so I could see the card numbers and condition better.  I pulled 32 cards totaling $79.50.  The dealer gave me a deal for $70.  

Start things off with some 1963 Topps.  Not a crease to be found on any of these.  Most have 4 good corners.  About the only flaw is the centering on some of them.

I put a huge dent in my 1964 team set with these 15 cards.  The Boyer has a very minor corner crease, and a few have soft corners.   Once again, most are in great shape.  A few bigger names in this group including Boyer, Bill White, Tim McCarver, and a Mike Shannon rookie card.

I cut my 1966 Topps needs in half with these 4 cards.  All in great shape.  

These are the last 2 cheap cards for my 1967 set.  The rest are short prints or Hall of Famers.  

These 3 1971 Topps are in near mint shape despite what my scanner shows.  Not sure why it cut off the top and right edge.  4 more cards left to finish this set.

I was extremely pleased with this find.  For about $2 per card, I put a huge dent in my 1960s wantlist.  I should be able to knock off even more after finding out this dealer only lives 30 minutes from me.  Extremely nice guy who only sets up at a few shows a year like the National and a bigger shows around Nashville.  He gave me his email and phone number.  Great for my collection, not so much for my checkbook.  

      

Solo TCDB Trade

Looking back at my posts, it has been over a month since I posted a TCDB that was not part of a 2 for Tuesday.  2 main reasons for that are my lack of free time for trades, and the trades I did complete were small.  I managed to complete a larger trade 2 weeks ago with member jeffburk that I finally had a chance to scan this week.  

October 14, 1985 was the day Ozzie Smith hit his famous "Go Crazy" home run against the Dodgers.  He still has a ton of new cards produced every year by Topps and Panini.  I enjoy adding them, but love getting his older oddball cards like the 1985 Topps Super.   

A couple more oversized oddball cards include a 1986 Topps 3-D and a 1993 Upper Deck All Time Heroes.  

These 2 Hall of Famers are from the 1984 Galasso Glossy Greats set.  Quite a few great Cardinals in this set like Musial, Dean, and Medwick.

Getting more modern with 3 refractors of 2 former Cardinals and a soon to be former Cardinal in Tyler O'Neill.  I would be really shocked if he was still with St. Louis to start next season.

A handful of Bowman inserts included a 2 sided card featuring Flaherty on the front and Alex  Reyes on the back.  I was one of many fans who just a few years ago thought these 2 would be mainstays in the rotation for a long time.  

2 Topps inserts including a Gibson from 2018 Topps Gallery and 1 of many needed Topps Gold parallels.  

I will finish things up with 2 Topps Now cards from 2016 for my son's collection.  It is fun to look back and see what obscure stat or feat Topps chose to recognize.  

 

TCDB 2 for Tuesday #57

Here it is the third Tuesday of October and this is my first 2 for Tuesday post of the month.  This year is really flying by.  To think in two short months and one week it will be Christmas Eve.  My 2 kids have been dropping hints as to what they want already.  I had to tell them I do not even think about shopping until Thanksgiving.  I better get some heavy trading done before it is shopping season.  Today's first trade package came from member Setshot68.

These are my first cards from 2022 Topps Chrome Platinum Anniversary.  I share the same opinion as a lot of collectors who think it is absurd Topps puts out a set a year late.  It is terrible to think 2023 Stadium Club will not be out until after the new year.  

I am also not a fan of Topps producing online exclusive sets for certain players.  This Carlson card is from the 2022  Topps X Bobby Witt Jr. Crown Collection set.  I believe this year Julio Rodriguez has a set.  It is a nice looking card, but completely unnecessary.

Second trade came from member donttalktorobots.  Bet there is a good story behind that username.

This trade gained me 3 new cards of 3 of my favorite current players.  I have followed Gorman and Carlson since their days with the Peoria Chiefs.  Met both of them are were impressed how well spoken they were at a young age.  Goldschmidt is just an all around pro.  Does not get in trouble and simply shuts up and plays the game hard.  Very old school in my book.

It has been about a month since I showed off a new Altuve card.  Trading has been a little slow, and I have not had a chance to get to a show.  Hope to change both of those in the near future.  

EBAY Auto

Back today with another autograph from an EBAY auction.  Wish it was another new Ray Lankford card, but that will have to wait.   This is my first certified autograph of this player after getting him in person twice this year.

This 2023 Finest Liberatore auto cost a little over $5 delivered.  He has a few other autographs out there with just his M L signature, but this version looks so much better.  It would be great if he found some consistency next year and managed to stick in the rotation as the #4 or 5 starter.  I have heard a lot of rumblings about the Cardinals going after 3 starting pitchers, including names like Aaron Nolan, Sonny Gray, and Tyler Glasnow.  I am not a strong believer in those rumors.  Despite the obvious need, the Cardinals rarely spend big money on a pitcher.  Maybe the last place finish this year will change things.
  

3 of a Kind

Over the weekend, I finally received an EBAY card I won on September 19.  The seller waited over 10 days to ship.  Needless to say, he did not get a 5-star rating from me.  On Monday, I received a similar card in the mail.  That makes 3 different versions.  

This one arrived on Monday.

This is the one that took forever to arrive.

This one came last week.  It was the cheapest of the 3 also.  Thrilled to add 3 new autographs to the Lankford collection for less than $60 total.  

       

New Bobbleheads

Over the course of this baseball season, I was able to add 3 new Cardinals to my bobblehead collection.  I do not have an exact count, but I am guessing I am getting close to 100 different ones.  Wish I could display them all, but my case only holds about 25.  Gives me a reason to rotate them out every now and then.  

This Adam Wainwright was given out on June 11 at Busch Stadium.  I did not attend the game myself.  My brother was headed back to Colorado after my father's funeral and stopped in for a game.  He brought it back with him a few weeks ago.  This one will require a little work to straighten out the head, but nothing a hair dryer and a hot glue gun cannot fix.  

The Peoria Chiefs gave out this Masyn Winn bobblehead on August 26.  I was able to attend the game with my wife and son.  I observed the ugly side of the bobblehead world that night.  The Chiefs allow season ticket holders to get in 15 minutes earlier than the general public.  I watched a family of 4 go through the gates 3 different times to get the bobblehead.  The dad is a member of a Facebook group I belong to.  He was selling them for $45 plus shipping.  He paid no more than $12 for the tickets.  Only 1,000 were given out.  They were gone within 20 minutes of the gates opening to the general public.

Memphis Redbirds gave away this Jordan Walker bobblehead on September 2.  I traded one of my extra Winn bobbleheads for this one.  This one is my favorite of the 3.  
  

Thankful

I went to bed last night feeling very thankful.  First off, it was the last day of a terrible season for the Cardinals.  They finished the season in last place and 20 games under .500.  Cannot say much good happened, but I was thankful to watch Adam Wainwright.  He struck out in his last at-bat, but still received a standing ovation and curtain call.  Great wall to end his career.  

I am most thankful for a package I received on Saturday that I did not have a chance to open until Sunday afternoon.  I have not been this excited about a card in a long time.

This is the 3rd Lankford autograph I have won off EBAY from 2023 Immaculate, but the first to arrive.  Fingers crossed the other 2 arrive this week.   This is the first version of the Signatures card I saw pop up online.  Beckett lists 3 different versions of this card: one numbered to 49, this one numbered to 10, and a 1/1.  Not knowing if another would show up, I thought I overpaid quite a bit.  Another auction ended last night for about $5 less than what I paid, so I did ok.  Still pleased with the card regardless of the price.