2 More EBAY Autos

I made a post last week highlighting 2 recent autographs I bought on EBAY.  Both cards were players I did not have a certified autograph from.  Nice cards to add to my collection, but not the most exciting.  2 more autographs showed up earlier this week that have a little more flare.

I was beginning to have doubts about whether this card would arrive.  It left Ohio on November 13th and finally arrived in Southern Illinois yesterday.  I guess the holiday may have slowed things up.  This Chronicles autograph looks great even with a sticker autograph and lack of logos.  

Another autograph from Chronicles.  This design is not too bad.  I like the use of the flag inside the country outline, just not sure why it had to be crooked.  This card is very thick.  It will have a home inside a top loader and 800 count box instead of my Lankford binders.  

TCDB 2 for Tuesday #61

I had a very relaxing Thanksgiving break.  I spent 4 days eating too much and doing a little online shopping, none of which involved baseball cards.  I did buy 2 tickets to a Cardinals game in April.  Hard to pass up all-you-can-eat seats for less than $60.00  Maybe I will see one of the 3 new pitchers they signed.  I am not sure how well they will do, but it is nice to see the Cardinals making some moves.

I was able to spend some time sorting and filing away cards this weekend.  As of today, I do not have any cards on my desk.  It is a nice feeling, but it will change later this week with a few incoming cards.  Of course, the last cards I filed were from TCDB members.  First was a nice pwe from member SJensen.  

I have a hard enough time completing regular A&G team sets.  The Chrome version looks nice, but is a brand I would not miss if Topps did away with it.

Mini cards are still not my favorite, but I will not turn down a nice Wainwright card.  Hope he is enjoying his first offseason as a retired player.  

Always room in my collection for these 2 Hall of Famers.  Nice to see Topps used a different photo for the 2021 70 Years of Topps Musial insert.

My son needs less than 10 Altuve cards to reach the 700 mark.  Good chance that will happen before 2024.

Second trade came from member Phipott.

Proving my point about A&G sets, I still need 5 base cards and 6 short prints to finish this year's set.  My goal is to finish it before the 2024 set is released.

These are my first cards from the 2023 Topps Pro Debut set.  Glad to see Winn is being included in more sets.  I hope he will have some on card autographs in 2024 instead of the sticker variety.

Another Brock card and a Jim Edmonds from 2023 Prizm.  Edmonds did not have many new cards the last few years.  Panini included him, Vince Coleman, and Ray Lankford in several sets this year.  I am not complaining about that at all.

  

      

2 Autos from EBAY

A couple more EBAY wins arrived at my mailbox yesterday.  Both of these came standard envelope.  So far, I have had good luck with these.  No postage due, nothing lost in the mail.  One did take 3 weeks to arrive.  I was not overly worried being the card cost less than $5.

This excuse for an autograph had a long journey but arrived safe and sound.  Without looking through my collection, it is a safe bet for the laziest autograph I have.  Jon Jay would at last sign both Js so you could read them.  If that is a cursive G, it is a good thing Graceffo does not rely on his handwriting to make a living.  

This card cost about $3.50 delivered.  It is a sticker auto and a Bowman paper.  Paniagua pitched in the Arizona Fall League with little success.  I doubt he will have another certified autograph card, so this one will do.   
    
 

New Lankford from a New Set

Like a few other collectors, I was thrilled to see Ray Lankford included in 2023 Donruss and Panini Immaculate.  It has been a long time since he was in a set.  2012 Topps Archives was the last time he had a card issued that was not a reprint or buyback.  I was satisfied to have over 30 new cards to chase down, but last week Panini Chronicles came out with more new Lankford cards.  Needless to say, I have been searching EBAY a few times a day.   My first auction win arrived yesterday.

   
This Zenith red parallel numbered to 199 set me back about $2.  Panini did a better job with the photo selection on this card than the 2023 Donruss one.  The color match does not hurt either.  Not much to the design, but it works for me.

TCDB 2 for Tuesday #60

This might be my last 2 for Tuesday for a bit.  My trading has slowed down some as my EBAY buying has picked up.  Some of those will be rolling in this week.  Until then, here is the first trade with member jc645. 

This sticker completed my 1984 Topps Sticker set.  I love crossing the older sets off my wantlist.

Funny how Topps starts putting guys into more sets once they get elected into the Hall of Fame.  Simmons is a prime example.  It is nice have more certified autographs of him available.

My 2023 A&G team set is slowly coming along.  I have not added any of the short prints yets, so it will be a slow work in progress.

Second trade envelope came from member gorrister.

2 prospects from 2022.  Crooks is from the Draft set, Mejia from the Chrome set.  

A few more base cards from the past 2 years.  Of course Stan is my favorite.  The other 2 guys are pretty good also.

  

Ron B. Care Package

My latest package from Trading Bases member Ron B. arrived over the weekend.  I cannot even call it a trade package because we both have lost track of who owes who.  I believe we shop more for each other at card shows than ourselves.  It is great to have a trading partner who I consider a close friend even though we have never met.  His latest package contained a wonderful mix of cards.

Ron always seems to find cheap base cards from premium issues.  None of these were over a quarter.

A nice mixture of refractors including a blue Wainwright numbered to 150 and a green Dejong numbered to 99.

Some Topps parallels included a pumped up Nootbaar and a 2007 gold of Cardinals legend Mark Mulder.

Two nice Goldschmidt parallels.  Love the Finest refractors regardless of what year they are from.

A couple of Topps Tek cards.  

The rest of the Topps brand inserts including a Pujols numbered to 299.

Some colorful Prizm parallels.  The 2013 red Molina looks awesome in person.  

A trio of Panini cards to finish the Cardinals portion of the trade.

Ron always makes sure my son adds some Altuve cards to his collection.  Some nice refractors in this lot.

 

    

TCDB 2 for Tuesday #59

Nothing flashy about today.  Just the standard trade recaps from 2 TCDB members.  First up is a pwe trade from member johlamb.

Slowly but surely, my 2023 Ginter team set is coming along.  The bottom Gibson is my first insert from the set.

My son received the 2022 Bowman Platinum base card in a trade last week.  The ice parallel arrives shortly after.

Second trade came from member Jato2018

If you blinked, you may have missed these 2 guys playing for the Cardinals.  Topps thought it was enough time to include them in 2021 Update.  I am always thrilled to add gold parallels to my collection.

I will finish up with a Goldy insert from 2023.  It is embarrassing how few common inserts I do not have from Topps flagship this year.  

  

Bench Trade

Hope everyone had a great weekend.  Mine was so-so.  The weather was wonderful.  I was able to get out and do a few things Saturday morning and yesterday.  Saturday afternoon, my son and I hit up a card show.  To say it was a dud is putting it lightly.  We spent 1.5 hours walking around and spent a total of $2.  I had hopes of knocking off some recent base cards needs from Topps Update, A&G, and Platinum Anniversary.  Not a single dealer had any.  Should have saved my gas money.  At least I had a package waiting for me when I got home from The Bench member jmintz.

A trio of blue parallels from a few years ago.  It will be interesting to see how many sets Topps includes Wainwright in next year.  I am guessing just a few since he does not have a huge following outside of St. Louis.  It would be great if he had some certified autographs. 
 

2024 is Goldschmidt's last year on his current contract.  It will be interesting to see what the Cardinals do with him.  If they have another season like 2023, he will be traded at the deadline.  I hope they rebound to a playoff team and sign him for another 2-3 years.

For some reason, this year's Topps Chrome pink refractors stand out a little more than previous years.  Maybe my eyes are just getting older.  

   

Another Lankford Numbered to 10

For the second day in a row, I had another Ray Lankford card arrive in my mailbox yesterday.  This one is a little more flashy than the first one.

A little story on this one.  The auction also included the red version /35 and the blue version /25.  The seller first posted the auction at a starting price close to $100.  I messaged him asking for a price on just this holo gold version.  He wanted $80.  That was a hard no even for this hardcore player collector.  2 weeks later, he relisted the auction with a $0.99 starting price.  I won the 3 cards for about $30.00.  I have another Lankford collector interested in the other 2, which would result in me getting its card for about $10.  Sometimes it pays to wait.  

#17 is Home

With the release of Panini Immaculate, my focus turned to tracking down all the Ray Lankford autographed cards.  Not an easy task, but it has been fun and expensive.  Immaculate is the second set Lankford is included in this year.  Donruss was the first and offered 24 different versions of his base card.  I went almost 2 months in between adding a new one until a best offer auction popped up over the weekend.  My 17th different version arrived yesterday.

This is the first Artist Proof I have seen pop up.  Hard to see, but this one is numbered 4 of 10.