It Pays to Give

I have been a blood donor for over 30 years.  Most of my immediate family are, too, so it was natural for me to also give.  I have given over 18 gallons of blood in my lifetime.  Depending on your type of donation, it only takes about an hour every three months.  That small amount of time can make a big difference in someone else's life.  I highly encourage anyone to donate, or at least try to donate when possible.

So, what does donating blood have to do with baseball cards.  A few years ago, the American Red Cross started rewarding donors for giving blood by sending them an e-gift card for $10.  If you donate every time you are eligible, that is $60 per year.  I usually redeem mine for restaurant cards, but last month I chose to redeem $20 on an EBAY gift card.  After much surfing, I settled on three cards.

This is the last card I needed to finish the 1999 Fleer Tradition Musial ten-card set.  I am glad to finally finish this one.

This shortprint finishes my 1971 Topps team set. It is off-center from left to right, but not quite as bad as my scanner made it appear to be.  I have been looking for this one at card shows for a couple of years with no luck.  

Last but not least is this 2000 Paramount Holo Green Lankford card numbered to 99.  Usually, I save Lankford cards for their own post.  My want list showed I needed this card, but when I put the card away in my binders, I discovered I made a mistake.  I mistook this card for the Paramount Platinum Blue, numbered 67.  Now I have two Holo Green cards and need the Platinum Blue.  This one will have a new home quickly.      
   
  
             

TCDB 2 for Tuesday #108

The two trade recaps today feature 11 cards, five of which belong to my son.  I did not have much luck finding Altuve cards he needed at the recent card shows, so it was nice TCDB member Calyanksfan had a handful he needed.

This is a nice assortment of premium cards, inserts, and parallels.  My son liked the Iconic insert the best.

I added a couple of base cards and a nice pink refractor.  I guess I may have another year of Arenado Cardinals cards to chase.  He reported to spring training on Sunday and is ready to go. Maybe if he has a good first half some team will want him at the deadline.

The second trade came from member robglessner.

I finally finished the 2023 Topps Chrome Platinum Anniversary team set.  After adding the Brian Jordan card, I need the Ozzie Smith to finish the 1995 Upper Deck Special Edition.    

  
 

3 Weeks in a Row

Saturday, I did something I had never been able to do since I started collecting baseball cards about 40 years ago.  I attended a card show for the third straight week.  I did not plan on this happening.  For the first show, I traveled about 40 minutes.  It was the only one I planned to attend.  The second show happened to take place on parent's weekend in the city where my daughter attends college.  That was about a 1.5 hour drive.  Perfect timing.  The third show was about 2 hours away in Champaign, IL.  My wife and I had tickets to the Illini basketball game Saturday night.  As luck would have it, there was a small 50-table show in town.  

I spent a combined $30 at the first two shows, so I still had plenty of money left in my monthly card budget for show number three.  I only had about 45 minutes of free time to take a quick lap around the show.  I bought cards from two different dealers.  The first one had a couple of boxes of recent cards that were not marked.  Usually, I do not like to buy from dealers who do not price cards, but he made two sales while I was looking through the boxes, which seemed fair, so I pulled out a small stack of Cardinals.

He had a lot of 2024 Prizm cards, which included many parallels.  The top row are base cards, while the bottom Chase Davis cards include a silver prism and a pulsar prizm numbered to 499.

I found some 2023 Select Cardinals I needed.

The boxes were loaded with 2024 Panini inserts.  As much as I love Ozzie, the Cho Crusade is the best card in this bunch.

The dealer did not have very many Topps brands.  I did manage to find these purple refractors from the 2022 Chrome Update.  I also pulled four refractors from 2024 Bowman's Best for trade bait that included Judge, Soto, and Freeman.  My total was $10.

The second dealer was an older husband and wife team that had two display cases of cards from the 1950s and 1960s.  Most were in near-mint shape and ungraded.  It is getting harder to find nice vintage that is not graded.  This gentleman collected Cardinal vintage sets and was selling off his duplicates.  He had quite a few I needed, but I settled on four for $67.

1958 was the first year Musial had a Topps card.  Besides being off-center from top to bottom, this one is in perfect condition.

I also added 1962 and 1959 Musial highlight cards.  Both in great shape.

Finishing up with a 1965 Topps Bob Gibson highlights card.  This one would easily grade an 8 or higher.  I exchanged contact information with this dealer and hope to work more deals out with him in the future.  Show number three was by far the best.    

  

      

3rd New Lankford of 2025

Things have been slow on the Ray Lankford card front this year.  I have most of his Panini cards released in the last 2 years, other than a few of them numbered to five or less.  My daily EBAY search has not produced any new cards, so I have added a few different searches in hopes of getting a match.  Last week, I found a card I needed for less than $3 delivered.

    

I will add buyback cards like this one from 2017 Bowman when they are cheap.  I did find 1991 Topps buyback, but I am not paying close to $20 for it.  I had seen this card listed on TCDB before but never got around to searching for it.  It now sits in my binder next to the other four Bowman buybacks.  

2024 Hits

Yesterday was the official release day for 2025 Topps.  I did not bother checking my local Walmart to see if any blaster boxes arrived.  I have weaned myself off of opening packs.  I occasionally miss the thrill, but the value is not there for a budget-minded collector like myself.  I will wait a few weeks until the inflated prices go down, then work out a trade or hit up value boxes at shows to find the Cardinals I need.  Until then, I still have plenty of 2024 cards to chase after.  TCDB member Trouttrader sent a nice package full of team set needs.

My 2024 Archives team set is complete, minus the four variations.  I do not consider those part of the set.  

This is my first 2024 Finest card.  Plenty of work left to do on this set.  I am not a big fan of the design.  It is too dark and has too much going on.  

I have always been a fan of Topps Holiday.  It is a simple set that offers some nice elements like the Metallic Snowflake parallels and affordable photo variations.

Like the Christmas lights necklace on Winn's card.  This one did complete my team set.  The New Breed insert is a nice salute to 1999.  That was back when I was opening a few boxes of cards every year.  Getting married and having kids put a stop to that pretty quickly.    

    

Card Show Recap

Saturday was the second consecutive week I attended a card show.  The first one I did recap.  I was only there for about 45 minutes and found only some trade bait in dime boxes.  Some nice cards, but you come here to see Cardinals.  For the second show, my son and I spent nearly two hours walking the aisles of a 200-table floor.  If the show had been arranged better, we could have seen everything of interest in half the time.  We had no interest in the nearly 35-40 tables of Pokemon cards.  It would be great if they had their own area.  

We spent $19 at the show with three different dealers.  There were not a lot of value boxes to be found for less than $2.  Some of the ones we saw were a mix of sports, which we did not waste our time on.  It amazes me that dealers can not take the time to sort their cards by sport.

These were from the first dealer who had dime boxes.  We spent $2 there, most of which was for trade bait.  A majority of those cards are already off to other collectors.  His box was full of 2024 cards, inserts and base.    

We spent another $2 at the second dealer's dime boxes.  His boxes were full of 1990s and early 2000s cards.  This 2004 Topps Total Pujols insert is the only keeper.  The other cards I pulled were of Griffey Jr, Ripken Jr,  and other Hall of Famers.  

My big purchase of the day was this 1961 Topps Bob Gibson for $15.  It has a couple of fuzzy corners but is in great shape otherwise. 

I saw several vintage Cardinals I needed at another dealer's table, but they were in screwdown holders without prices.  I am not one to really negotiate.  I prefer to see a starting price on cards I am interested in.   

  

          

TCDB 2 for Tuesday #107

Now that the Super Bowl is over, it is baseball season. The Cardinals first day of spring training is tomorrow, when pitchers and catchers are due to report to Jupiter, Florida.  A lot of other players are already in camp getting early work done.  It will be interesting to see what happens between now and Monday when everyone is expected to be in camp.  Will Nolan Arenado be there, will he be traded, or will he be at home waiting things out?  Time will tell.

Until games get in full swing, I will have plenty of cardboard to keep me busy.  First trade today came from member smitha1.

A few years ago this 2021 Finest Carlson rookie card would have been hard to trade for.  Now, it can be bought for cheap on most online sites.   

Two more shiny cards to mark off my wantlist.  I was not a fan of short prints in Finest.  Topps should leave that to just the Heritage set.

The second trade package came from member dcoulmanjr.

1979 Hostess cards are hard to find in nice shape.  This one is not bad, just cut a little close.

I did not know there was a 1980 Topps Burger King set until this trade.  These came in 4 card packs with the purchase of a large fries.  I would be eating a lot of fries if they still had that deal today.

The non food part of the trade are these 1984 Milton Bradley cards.  These were included in the Championship Baseball game.