St. Louis Card Show Recap: Vintage Buys

Mother Nature was a card show fan last Saturday.  My son was scheduled for baseball practice from 8 until 11, but the cold weather and rain canceled it.  Instead, we hoped in a car for a 2.5 hour drive to St. Louis.  There was a 60 table show on the west side that we had been to before.  I also wanted to visit a card shop to redeem $60 worth of 2022 Chrome Paul Goldschmidt cards.  

We arrived at the show about an hour after the doors opened.  There was a very strong crowd already.  It was crowded, but not to the point where you could not browse tables.  We favored the bargain boxes and some vintage tables that did not have as much traffic as the high-dollar display cases.  We spent $50 in a little over 2 hours from 5 different dealers.  Today I will show off my buys from 2 of them.

The first dealer had an excellent setup of vintage cards.  1 set of boxes contained lower grade cards, while another set was closer to mint.  All boxes were organized by year and number.  His star cards were in display cases.  Everything had a price tag on it.  I wish all dealers were like this.  We pulled $24 dollars worth of Cardinals that he sold to me for $20.

My son and I had a great system of sorting the boxes.  He would read off the year and number from my want list that I printed from TCDB while I sorted through the boxes.  All of my purchases were from the lower-grade area.  Most of the cards have some soft corners or bad centering but no major creases.  That is the perfect condition for my collection.  My scanner cut off the edge of this 1962 lot.  The 2 cards on the right are not cut that bad.

I love how the yellow badge goes with the red lettering on 1966 cards.  

Most of my 1967 needs are Hall of Fame players, but I did cross a common off my list.  Ed and his son Scott are one of the few father-son combinations to win a World Series with the same team.  

I did score a couple of Hall of Famers from the 1968 set.  Both of these were $2.  The Gibson is almost perfect.  

The next dealer had a monster box of Cardinals in top loaders marked 6 for $5.  I settled for 6 cards, 4 of them being more vintage.

A couple more 1968 cards were marked off the list and 2 from 1971.  My scanner decided to cut off the left side this time.  The Simpson looks much better than what is pictured.  My 1971 team set is down to 6 cards for completion.  They will be tough as 5 are high numbers, and the other is Steve Carlton. 

The dealer did not have any more vintage I needed, but I did great with the other 2 cards.  The Rolen numbered to 50 is from 2005 Upper Deck Origins.  I had to do a double-take when I found the Goldschmidt for less than $1.  I added it to the other 2 Chrome cards to be redeemed later in the day.  Next post will show off all the bargain box cards.        

  
  

       

So Many Great Cards

I recently had the pleasure of doing my first trade with Trading Bases member Kyle D.  He joined the group last year and has received great reviews as a trading partner.  I found about 20 base cards and 5 inserts from his large want list.  In return, he found a large stack of Cardinals for me.

I can finally eliminate 1995 Finest from my want list.  I can also cross off 1995 Collector's Choice SE Silver Sig and 1995 Topps Embossed gold.  I already had a copy of the Lankford for my player collection, but needed one for the team set.  The other card is a 1995 Gold Medallion.

This batch of 1996 cards features more Gold Medallions and 2 different versions of 1996 Flair.  I was never a fan of this Gold Medallion design.  I need a background on my cards.

Ultra did a much better job with the 1997 Gold Medallions.  Gotta love the spring training shot of Delino DeShields turning a double play.  

One of the thousands of late 1990s McGwire cards.  This one is from the 1999 Ovation Remarkable subset.

I was really excited to see the 2 2002 Diamond Connection short print rookies.  Neither is very valuable, but it is hard to find these.  Both are numbered to 1500.  The 2002 Leaf Josh Peace is also a short print.  The Topps Chrome Woody Williams is also from 2002.  This is another set that I need a lot of Cardinals from.

The modern cards include a couple of Bowman inserts and a 2018 Panini Chronicles card.  I would usually rank the Herrera or Gorman as the best cards in the trade, but all the Gold Medallion cards get my vote this time.  

  

  

5 From 2022

Another quick trade recap today.  TCDB member cr74 and I completed our second trade this year with 5 cards going in each direction.  

My 2022 Chrome Update set is now complete.  At first glance the Pujols card looks identical to this 2023 Topps card, but a closer look shows the 2023 card is in his road grey uniform.

There are 5 Cardinals in the 2022 Bowman Platinum set.  I still need 2 of them.  

The lone insert is from 2022 Topps Archives.  I remember opening up quite a few Topps Big packs as a kid.  Something about the large colorful photos stood out to me.  Glad Topps brought them pack as an insert though, and not an online exclusive set.

TCDB 2 for Tuesday #36

Today's 2 for Tuesday post will be short ( most of them are).  2 trades with a total of 5 cards.  First up was a 1 for 1 trade with member dirtysock47.

In the past, I would not be very keen on a 1 card trade, but gold parallels are getting tougher to come by the last few years.  This one is from 2020 Topps Update.

The second trade envelope came from member Thunder21.

These are my first cards from 2022 Optic.  The set came out in early December, but I did not add any of the cards to my want list until late last month.  Looking at the set design, you can see how easy it is to forget about it.  The Mosaic set has a little better design, but the dark background does not scan well.

Speaking of cards that do not scan well, you can add 1999 Bowman International to that list.  This card looks much better in person.  I have a good chance of finishing this parallel set, as I only need 2 more cards to finish the 12 card team set.  

  

 

My First 2023 Cards

Back when 2023 Topps hit the shelves last month, my son and I agreed to resist the urge to open any packs and try to trade for the cards we wanted.  Twice we saw blasters at Walmart, but avoided going down the card aisle.  I think we will be able to make it thanks to TCDB and Twitter.  Over the weekend we received a package from each one with some 2023 cards.  The TCDB trade was with member Stevie Jay.

I have a good start to my team set now.  There are 9 other Cardinals in the set, but there are plenty of other traders with these cards.  Nice to see rookie cards of Herrera and Liberatore.

My son added the Altuve base to his collection.  He is not a fan of the jersey.

I also added my first 2023 inserts.  It is a little early for Topps to call Gorman a Star of MLB.  

My Twitter purchase was a single card for $4.

I know relics are not much of a thrill anymore, but $4 for one numbered to 199 is a pretty good deal in my book.

  

5 Refractors for 5 Cardinals

My latest TCDB trade involved a pair of 5s.  I sent member Jato218 5 Topps Chrome refractors in exchange for 5 Cardinals.  I am pretty sure I picked up all the refractors from dime or quarter boxes at recent card shows.  Most of the time I have team collectors in mind for them, but every now and then a set collector comes around.  

I ended up with a couple of shiny cards myself, although these are not refractors.  That is fine though, as I need quite a few of the base cards from 2021 Stadium Club Chrome.  

2 more Molina cards included a 2022 Stadium Club red foil and a 2021 Topps Update black gold.  I now have 675 different Yadi cards.  That should reach 700 in no time.  Topps will most likely go overboard producing his cards this year since he retired.  

I have some common 2022 Topps inserts to track down still.  That is one fewer thanks to adding my 102 different Arenado.  I have seen this card a 1,000 times without realizing I did not have it.    

   

Cheap Box Break Pays Off

While I was waiting for 2023 Topps to hit the shelves, I entered a cheap box break on The Bench 2 weeks ago.  This one consisted of 1 mini box of 2022 Topps Finest, 1 blaster box of 2022 Bowman Platinum, and 1 blaster box of 2022 Topps Chrome.  Finest and Platinum were the big draws for me, as I have 0 Cardinals from either set.  Chrome offered the chance to pull some autographs on a Paul Goldschmidt.  Here is what I received for $11 total.

The seller included a bonus fat pack of 2022 Diamond Kings which yielded this Molina insert I did not have.  I also received a Juan Yepez base card that I have already traded.  

I did not do very well with the Finest and Platinum boxes.  Arenado was the only card I received.  That left the Chrome box.

The second pack of the box produced this prism refractor that I did not have.  Always nice to add a rookie cup card to the collection.  The last 2 packs brought another 2 cards.

The base Goldy was in the second to last pack, while the sepia refractor was the very last card of the box.  I already have a copy of the base, so it will be redeemed at a shop for $20 as part of the Topps buyback program.  The refractor can be redeemed for $40.  I have not made up my mind about it yet.  I do not have it, but after the March 31 deadline, I would think a copy will not be too hard to find.  I do not know what  Topps plans to do with these cards.  Maybe they will receive an MVP stamp and be inserted in future packs.