Sort of a First Trade with Ron B

I have sung the praises of trading friend and Trading Bases member Ron B many times on this blog.  Our back and forth trading has last a few years and is still going strong.  We exchange emails with our card show finds we think the other may need, and work out a trade from there.  Both of us are easy going and do not get caught up in the value part of things.  Recently Ron joined TCDB and starting logging some of his trade list.  He added many 1950s and 1960s Cardinals I needed.  In all our trades, I have never asked for any vintage cards.  I usually shy away from doing so because I have no vintage cards to send in return.  After a few messages, we worked out a trade/sale for the ones I needed.  They arrived a few days before Christmas.

These are my first cards from the 1956 Topps set.  Love the second year Boyer card.

I only had 1 1957 Topps card before this trade.  Nice to add a huge chunk at 1 time.

2 from 1958 Topps.  The Larry Jackson card was in the worst condition of all the ones I received.  Other than the top left corner, it is in pretty good shape.

This 1959 Topps card is a little off center, but not as bad as my scanner made it appear.

The second Boyer card of the package comes from 1960 Topps.  The yellow and red work well together in the name bar.  Makes me hungry for McDonalds.

More Ken Boyer cards, this time from 1961 including a sweet League Leaders card with 3 Hall of Famers.

I am a sucker for multiplayer cards.  The wood border does not hurt either.  1962 Topps was the original wood set before 1987 came along.

This 1963 League Leaders card has some great pitchers on it.  Koufax, Drysdale, and Gibson could lead any rotation.

The final card is a 1972 Topps high number short print.  If anyone is on TCDB, Ron's id is Ronsolo1.  

2 EBAY Autos

Yesterday I took the day off work to accompany my wife to a retirement meeting.  She is an elementary school teacher with 26 years of service.  She was a little disappointed to hear it will be 9 more years before she can earn her full retirement.  With the way kids are today, I am not sure that is going to happen.  I envy anyone who is in the classroom these days.  Kids are showing less respect than ever and know little can be done about it.  

To cheer her up, we went on a little shopping trip.  She bought a $180 pair of Hoka shoes for herself for Christmas.  She told me to pick out something for myself.  I explained how much I had spent on EBAY the last few months, so I declined.  2 of those purchases were in the mailbox when we arrived home.

This is my first Burelson auto.  Nice on card auto from 2023 Finest for less than $6 delivered.  He does have some nicer autographs, but with his name coming up in trade rumors, I hate to spend much on a player who may not be a Cardinal for very long.

My scanner did not do a very good job of showing off the green parallel auto.  This looks nice next to the regular, blue , red, and gold versions I already have.  The platinum version numbered to 1 is still out there, but will most likely be out of my price range.      
      

Small Tuesday Trade

Breaking up my 2 for Tuesday posts with just a single trade today.  I wish I had another trade to show off, but some packages are taking longer to arrive.  Tis the season.  Today's trade came from TCDB member  jason@encompassaccou .  

My 2023 Update set is now complete.  Wish Topps would put out more dual cards of these 2.  I remember Leaf had a Cornerstones inserts set that featured Scott Rolen and Albert Pujols that was pretty cool.

I have 15 of the 20 Cardinals in the 2022 Chrome Platinum Anniversary set.  I do like large team sets like this that feature the HOF players along with not so great players.  Yepez signed with the Nationals a while back.  Maybe he will regain his 2022 form with more steady playing time.

The final card is a black border mini from 2022 A&G.  I have 136 Arenado cards in my Cardinals collection.  I would have guessed more with all the sets and inserts Topps puts out.  Still need to add an autograph card one of these days.

  
   

St. Louis Card Show Recap

The weather on Saturday was perfect for a day away.  It rained almost all day long, which was needed.  It made my decision very easy to make the 2.5 hour drive to a card show in St. Louis.  My wife tagged along with my son and me but opted to go shopping while we spent close to 2 hours at the show.  

We arrived about 30 minutes after the doors opened, and the show floor was pretty packed.  We walked the entire floor to get an idea of what was there before making any purchases.  I saw very few value boxes.  Most were $1 and up, which is still a good deal, but I favor the dime or quarter boxes.  Plenty of the cases full of graded cards and a very good selection of ungraded vintage.  We spent $80 with 3 different dealers.  I will spare you the trade bait I bought and just show the keepers.

Our first purchase of $5 was a mix of quarter box cards and some top loaded cards that were 50% off.  

I am not a huge fan of buybacks, but I will still buy them for the right price.  

The 2012 Gold and 2021 T206 Altuve cards were $1 each, while the Heritage insert was a quarter.  

Our second purchase came from a vintage dealer.  He had 3 showcases full of ungraded vintage along with a great shoebox of Cardinals vintage sorted by year.  My type of dealer.  We spent $40 with him.

Some colorful 1960 Topps

1961 Topps

My scanner cut off the top of these 2 1965 Topps cards.  Both are in great shape.

These 2 1969 Topps Gibson cards were in the showcase.  Both have some soft corners but are crease free.  I believe they were $20 combined.  With only 2 cards left, this should be my first 1960s team set completed.  

This 1972 Topps Carlton is in great shape besides a soft upper right corner.  I was thrilled to find it for $6.  4 more high numbered cards left to complete this set.  

My third purchase was also with a vintage dealer.  He had boxes sorted by number from various 1950s and 1960s sets, but told me there were few Cardinals in there.  I pulled some nice 1962 Topps for another trader and 1 Cardinal I needed for a total of $30.

My 1964 Topps team set is also getting close to completion with only 6 left.  Most are high numbers or Hall of Famers like Gibson.  This Flood that is almost mint condition cost $5.  Note how he spelled out his name on the back fingers of his glove.  

Overall it was a fun show and continued my trend of buying vintage more than modern at shows.  I am at the point in my collection where I would rather spend $4-5 on a nice vintage common instead of a modern refractor.  It has also given me an opportunity to educate my son about past Cardinals players who are not Hall of Famers.  He spent part of our drive home researching Flood and discovering his impact on free agency.      
  

    

             

1 of 5

I hope you are not getting bored of seeing new Ray Lankford cards.  It seems like a new one or two arrive every week.  I am sure this is the most I have ever spent on EBAY in one year.  I have added 28 new Lankfords to my collection 2023, most coming from there.  The latest and greatest arrived a few days ago.

This is the green version of the 2023 Chronicles autograph.  Nice to add the first print run of a card to the collection.  
  

Team Trade

A majority of my trades on TCDB are with other team traders.  Occasionally, I work out a deal with a set collector, but those are few and far between.  Most of the trade bait I buy at shows is with team collectors in mind.  Last week, I worked out a trade with Indians/Guardians collector ChicoSportsCards with 9 cards headed in each direction.  My Cardinals lot arrived earlier this week.

I was disappointed to see  Arenado is not attending the Cardinals Winter Warm Up next month.  Hopefully, he will be added to the list of autograph signers.  

I finally finished my 2017 Bowman's Best team set by adding Alex Reyes along with a Bowman Platinum insert.  Maybe he can be healthy in 2024 and contribute to some team's bullpen.  

The only connection DeJong has to McGwire is he once hit a ball into Big Mac Land at Busch Stadium that knocked out the lights in one of the letters.  They get grouped together here because I did not want to make a separate scan.

Other than all being inserts, the only connection for these 3 cards is they are all pitchers.  It is well known 2 of my favorite parallel sets to track down are the Holiday Metallic and Topps Gold.  Chrome Sepia refractors are not bad, just not at the top of my list.  
  

  
  
    

It Has Been 2 Months

It has been a long time since I highlighted a single TCDB trade if you do not count my 2 for Tuesday posts.  Almost 2 months in fact.  My trading has slowed town a bit.  I still propose 4 or 5 trades a week, but since I joined the site 6 years ago, I have never experienced so many declined offers.  I have mainly been looking for some base cards and low end inserts, with each offer being anywhere from 4-10 cards to make it worth the postage cost.  Some counters have occurred with some ridiculous offers, but for the most part, my proposals just get shot down.  At least there are a few collectors like jeffburk who will work with me.

I do not go crazy over the Topps UK singles, but I will not pass up a chance to add another Arenado card to the collection.  

This is my first card from 2023 Select.  It is nice to see Walker getting some hobby love.  He was an outfielder during the 1940s who played for 2 World Series teams and made 2 All-Star teams.  He might have been better known if he had not lost 2 of his prime years due to military service.  

My favorite card in the package was this 2022 Prizm Blue Velocity parallel.  The red and blue really stand out with the glossy finish.    

      

Catching some Zs

Last week, I showed off 2 Ray Lankford autographs from the 2023 Panini Chronicles brand.  I had a couple more come in over the weekend.  Both were Zenith cards and a lot less expensive, coming in at less than $4 combined.

The base card design is the same as the autograph, just missing the sticker.

I won the blue version numbered to 99 before the base card.  There are 5 other numbered versions of this card, 1 being the red that I already have.  The rest will be more challenging to obtain, with them being numbered to 25 , 10, 5, and 1.  I really do have a love/hate relationship with Panini this year.  I love Lankford has new cards, but the completist in me hates all the low numbered cards.  

  

Box Break Results

Last week, I joined my first box break in a long time.  I was involved in quite a few last year, but this year, I have spent my hobby dollars on singles.  Mostly new Ray Lankford cards.  This break was on The Bench website, and it included 1 hobby box of 2023 Topps Archives and 1 box of 2023 Topps Holiday.  I did not come away with anything big, but was able to get a great start on both team sets.

The 1965 design is my favorite from Archives.  Nice to pull the Walker rookie card.

I scored 2 Archives inserts, including a Pujols 3D.  Will have to find a pair of glasses to get the full effect.

Pulled another Walker from the Holiday box.  No inserts on this one.  I usually buy a box every year, but the price increase turned me off this time.  

  

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.