2024 Topps Update Box Break

It has been a while since I joined a box break, so last week, I joined a jumbo break of the 2024 Topps Update on The Bench website. It was an auction-style break, and I won the Cardinals spot for $7. As always, the breaker mailed the cards very quickly.

Update features the usual bevy of rookies not included in Series 1 or 2.  The higher profile players like Scott and Winn also get a rookie debut card.  

I came away with 9 of the 13 Cardinals in the team set and a duplicate of Matt Carpenter.  The box break featured about 20 duplicates, which I thought was pretty bad for a jumbo box.

My lone insert was a nice Pujols card.  It is good to see Topps came up with a new insert design for Update instead of reusing ones from Series 1 or 2.  
  

TCDB 2 for Tuesday #93

Tonight could be the last night of the 2024 season.  The Dodgers have looked unbeatable in every aspect of the game.  I am not a Dodgers fan, but it is great to see Freddie Freeman having an awesome Series after the personal hardship he went through this year.  

Even though the season will soon be over, there are always baseball cards to pass the time until spring training.  I should have plenty of cards to show off in the next few months.  First up is a four pack of Cardinals from member JWSheehan.

My 2024 Topps Chrome team set is now complete.  If I was a betting man, I would guess 3 of these guys will not be on the Cardinals next year.  Fermin will be gone for sure, while the other 3 will have to waive no trade clauses to be dealt.  My guess is Arenado and Contreras will be gone.

The second trade envelope came from member dcoulmanjr.

These are the type of obscure minor league cards I love.  From top to bottom is a 1994 Signature Rookies Draft Pick, a 1993 Stadium Club Murphy, and a 1999 Team Best Player of the Year.  Valuable cards, no, but cool as hell in my opinion.

The Major League portion includes a 1998 Paramount Gold, a 1997 Donruss Team Set, and a 1996 Flair gold background variation.  The Donruss card is my favorite with the nice color match logo and name bar.

      

A Fine PWE Trade

Before I took a break earlier this month from trading, I was getting frustrated with a recent run of pwe trades.  Lately, traders have been getting lazy and/or cheap with their packaging.  I do 90% of my trades with pwe, so I have seen a variety of methods.  As long as the cards arrive safely, I do not care.  One trader was so lazy he stuck 5 cards into a small thank you card.  No protection, not even a penny sleeve.  4 of them had badly bent corners, including a nice refractor numbered to 499.  When I messaged him, he was shocked that the cards did not arrive okay.  Needless to say, I left him negative feedback.

The handful of trades I have received since then has been great, including one from TCDB member alchapman.  He sent 5 Cardinals in sleeves taped to a thin piece of cardboard.  The perfect way to ship that is still not expensive.      

A fine trade should include some Finest cards.  I am not crazy about the 2022 design.  The random lines going every which direction do not have much eye appeal.

I hope the Cardinals give Jordan Walker a long look next year.  Start him every day and see what happens.  

Panini did well with this 2024 Red and Blue parallel.  No need to airbrush Ozzie's uniform on helmet.

The last card was a mini of former Cardinals great Juan Yepez.  My guess is that the Nationals will trade him to a contending team next year, and he will become a playoff star.  Lane Thomas and Tommy Edman are the latest former Cardinals to have playoff success.      

Cardinals EBAY Auto

I had some spare time last night to clean up a few cards that have been on my desk for about a week.  It was not a large stack, but getting a few things filed away still felt good.  One of the cards was a recent EBAY win.

My first Kyle Leahy auto set me back about $3.50.  This one is numbered to 199.  He appeared in 33 games this year as a reliever with an  ERA of just over 4.  Serviceable, I guess, but nothing outstanding.  Leahy will most likely get a shot to be in the bullpen in 2025 since he is a cheap option.    

TCDB 2 for Tuesday #92

This 2 for Tuesday is over a month since the last one.  I need to get busy working on more trades so this does not happen again.  First up is a 4 pack of Cardinals from member BristolBob.

These are my first cards from 2024 Topps Pro Debut.  There are only 5 Cardinals in the set, so this one should be done quickly.

My 2023 Topps Chrome Platinum team set is slowly coming along.  9 more to acquire in order to finish the 24 card set, not counting the short print variations.  

The second trade was with a newer member, victornegroncards.  I received a couple of Cardinals.  Being a trader with less than 5 feedback, I did not want to invest much into the trade in case something did not work out.  I am happy to say all is well and I would gladly trade with him again.

I love me some gold parallels, whether they are Ultra or Topps.

You almost have to do a double-take to ensure this is a Cardinals card and not Boston.  The lime green distorts the red somewhat.    

    

  

Card Show Recap

Saturday was the first time in 2 months that my son did not have a soccer game and/or a band competition.  Both those activities have come to an end for another season.  What better way to waste a Saturday than to hit up a card show.  Luck was on our side as there was a 100-table show about an hour away in my daughter's college town.  While my wife took her clothes shopping, my son and I spent a couple hours looking at cardboard.

Being my first show in 2 months, I was excited to hit some bargain boxes and add some vintage Cardinals to the collection.  We managed to do a little of both.  Dime boxes were nowhere to be found except for some recent Topps base cards.  Dollar boxes were the norm at this show, but we did manage to find a few quarter boxes.  We pulled 8 cards, 3 of which were Cardinals.

Nothing earth-shattering here, but all welcome additions. 

Our next stop was a dealer from whom we had bought a few vintage cards from before.  He remembered us and produced a newly restocked box of $1 cards.  We found 9 Cardinals from my want list.

Hard to pass up 1959 Topps cards for $1 each.  The Grammas has some surface issues, but overall these are in good shape.  At the very least, they are good placeholders until I find better copies.

I doubt I will upgrade any of these 1960 Topps cards.  Slight fuzzy corners, but I do not mind that at all.

The last 3 include a 1962 Topps, 1965 Topps, and  1975 Hostess.  No upgrades needed here either.  

Our final purchase came from a dealer with some numbered cards in a $1 box.  He cut us a deal by charging $5 for these 8 cards.  

I was thrilled to find the short print rookie cards for $1 each before the discount.  I rarely see these types of cards at shows.  With most being over 20 years old, I doubt many are floating around.  

We spent $20, including admission.  I was looking for a nice vintage Musial, Brock, or Gibson to add, but no luck.  I saw a few graded copies, but I prefer raw.  Maybe next time.

    

    
    

    

Sportlots Order

It has been almost 3 weeks since my last post.  I took a break from almost everything card-related for a few weeks.  I checked the blogs and TCDB daily but did not work out any trades.  Having no pile of cards to scan or file away was refreshing, but I missed the excitement of checking the mail to find what new Cardinals arrived.  Last week, I worked out a handful of trades that have yet arrived.  I also placed my first Sportlots order in almost a year.

I hoped to hit up a card show last Saturday, but my son's soccer game and band competition did not allow it.  After I got home that night, I decided to surf Sportlots for a few cards.  I was lucky to find 1 dealer with a large inventory offering $4 shipping for 40 cards.  I ordered 38 Cardinals and 2 Altuve cards that arrived earlier this week.  

Most of this order consisted of cards to complete team sets released over 20 years ago.  These were the last 4 1990 Topps O-PEE-CHEE cards I needed.  I am one of those weird collectors who wants the team checklist card.

1992 and 1993 Topps Gold team sets are now complete.  

The Oliva is a 1996 Fleer Tiffany parallel.  It did not complete a set, but for 20 cents, I will gladly take it.  The other 3 cards completed team sets.  

I did finish 2 parallel sets.  1997 and 1999 Bowman International cards do not scan well.  Glad to add all of these for less than a quarter each.

I knocked out several Topps Chrome cards from my want list from 1998, 2001, and 2002.  Some of them have the typical curling, but for the most part, they are in perfect condition.  I need 2 more cards to finish 1998, 1 for 2001 ( the Pujols RC), and 7 for 2002.  

I hoped to find a few Ultra Gold Medallion parallels, but this Morris from 2002 was the only one.

Carlton finished my 2004 Upper Deck Timeless Teams set, while the Bottomley 2002 Topps Tribute card was my most expensive purchase for $0.75.  

2006 Finest and 2015 Bowman's Best sets are also done.  The 2005 Donruss Team Heroes lacks 1 more card from being complete.  

I needed 2 more cards to get to the 40 card shipping limit and was tired of searching for Cardinals, so I found a couple of Altuve cards for my son.

Including shipping, my total for the 40 cards was $14.28.  That was most likely much less than I would have spent at the show.