I try to limit my use of the word "epic" to describe anything, lest I feel like I'm part of a Bill and Ted's Excellent movie. But I'm not sure how else to describe a trade I went through with awhile back with reader Chris from OH. Chris has a robust want list and trade list set up at
his website, which I literally spent nearly a week's worth of after-work time poring over until I figured out what I wanted and what I could send him. I seem to get rather intimidated by these large packages when I receive them, but then I have to realize that the posts that are primarily about Cardinals cards are some of the easiest (least time consuming, anyway) for me to write. Of course, to keep things relatively brief, I hand-picked some favorites to show here.
I'm not sure where you get "Jeff" when you mean "Terry". It's not like this is a typo. This is Pendleton's rookie card, and there's also a corrected version. I'm not certain that either card is significantly more difficult to find than the other. I did not own either (I'm very lacking on a lot of key Cardinals '80s rookies for whatever reason) so I'm very happy to see this one.
This is an absolutely perfect card of Yadi laying down a bunt. The ball looks like it's glued to the bat.
Here's Willie McGee in late career mode. The photo is a perfectly framed close-up shot. You don't see this a lot anymore.
I scanned this Ken Hill Topps Finest card mostly just to see how it would scan. I love getting gaudy high-end cards like this, knowing that it probably came out of a really expensive pack at one time but is now worth no more than a nickel or so because it's just Ken Hill.
I'm starting to go through my collection to pull out the non-Cardinals Darryl Kile cards so that I can add them to my binders for actual keeping. I need a lot more of his cards.
HoloGRFX is apparently the actual name of a real baseball card set. This card looks like a cut scene from a video game.
I really like the dark black & gold look of this set. This is one of 3 cards I got from 2007 SP Legendary Cuts. Very classy. It's like the fine wine of baseball card sets that many make a huge fuss about but I tend to just smile and nod and look at from afar.
I only chose to show this Yadi card because it's from 2007 and he's wearing #74 like he is a AA fringe prospect playing spring ball. Molina has worn #4 since 2006 when Braden Looper came back to the team and took Yadi's old #41. I would guess that this photo is from 2004 or earlier, which is rather moronic. You can even look back to a card from an earlier Upper Deck produced set that captured Yadi in his current uniform.
This is an Albert Pujols card from 2009 "A Piece of History". I'm not sure why anyone would bother with a set like this. The photo only barely takes up about half of the card space.
Here's a candidate for most boring Pujols card of all-time. This is from 2005 Upper Deck, which is not a design I can get behind. However, I didn't have the card previously, so it's a good one nonetheless.
Brendan Ryan has been playing some exemplary baseball of late as he's finally getting regular playing time at the major league level. This was a nice card to get as it's supposedly a first year "rookie" card.
It turns out that I already own this Ozzie Sportflics card, but I felt like I needed to scan it anyway just to see how the image turned out. I need more Sportflics.
In the waning days of Fleer, before Upper Deck tookover and killed it, it seems that they used to like to recycle designs of their '80s glory days. These cards are pretty faithful to the '87 design, but the glossy coating on the cards ruins it a bit for me.
This shows why Stadium Club cards are awesome. Lankford is nowhere near hitting the baseball, which is funny.
I'm not sure what this set is ("E-XL"?) but it's a pretty cool looking framed card. I wouldn't mind more of these.
This isn't the best looking design, but it's "Chrome" and it's Skip Schumaker's "first year" so that counts for something.
I also got a stack of 2008 Topps Heritage cards from Chris. I have a feeling that I'll be working on that set long after computers and "the internet" are deemed completely useless and obsolete. There were also several other Jim Edmonds, Darryl Kile and Chris Carpenter cards that I picked out for the trade even though they were pictured in previous team's uniforms. That's perfectly okay, though, because I've decided that I want to collect DK and Carp no matter what team they're pictured with. I had already decided long ago to do this with Edmonds. If anyone out there has any cards of these guys that you want to part with, please let me know. In the meantime, I picked out my favorite non-Cardinal photo of the lot. I definitely need to update my Edmonds Zistle collection.
I'm going to just go ahead and blatantly show off some of the Cardinals I picked up at the monthly card show a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, the card show seems to be taking the rest of the summer off, but that's probably a good thing as far as my wallet is concerned.
There was the usual array of cheapie cards, and I picked up a variety of 10 cent Cardinals from a few different tables. I didn't go as wild on these as I have in the past because there were tons of other things to buy (packs, boxes, etc.) and, unfortunately, the 1 cent cards guy wasn't there this time. Someday I'll probably find that guy at a card show again, spend the entire day at a terrible mall and pass out from an eye strain induced headache.
I got a few 2009 Bowman Cardinals. I need to figure out what I'm missing and put it up on my want list. I thought I might buy a few Bowman packs this year after I was reasonably pleased with the first one, but I should probably save my money.
Ditto for Goudey. I think I've kicked the habit. Of course, I have a ton of last year's Goudey, but that's coming at a later time.
Actual 1986 Donruss card. I got a few of these, although I probably owned them all already. I'm hoping some of them will be condition upgrades.
Fake 1986 Donruss card. This is from some silly Donruss Originals set. I also got a Rolen card that looked like 1982 Donruss. One guy had a ton of Rolen cards... I think people are trying to dump him thinking that his career is almost over even though he's playing really well for the Jays right now.
The guy with the biggest selection of 10 cent cards also had an unpriced box of shiny baseball stuff. I didn't dare ask how much the cards were until I had already picked out some that I wanted, and it turned out his price scale was extremely reasonable (for the buyer, that is.) This Yadi card is numbered 200/250 and is going to my girlfriend for sure.
All of the refractors and most of the serial numbered cards ended up being 50 cents. He charged me a buck for the Pujols refractor, though, because it's Pujols. Not bad, though! Of course, no scanner seems to be able to capture the shiny rainbow effect of these cards.
This is my first Danny Haren card in Cardinals uniform, and it happens to be his Bowman Chrome Refractor rookie card... for 50 cents!
I picked up a couple of jersey cards, which he decided would cost $1.50. The t-shirt window for Bryan Anderson's jersey piece is really silly. I have a feeling Anderson will eventually be traded, as I don't think he hits well enough to move to another position and Yadi will be a Cardinal for life. The other jersey card was snagged for a blogger, and is a much bigger name than a Cardinal catching prospect.
At another table, a guy had a box full of 1993 Topps Finest cards that apparently were taken from a set he broke up. I now own all of the Cardinals from this pricey set but Lee Smith. He went on about how 1993 Finest produced the first refractor cards and how to this day they sell for a ton of money, but I was more interested in how much he was going to charge me for the cards I picked out. The Ozzie was price tagged at $5, and I also scooped up a handful of 1983 Topps cards, a few of the aforementioned 1986 Donruss as well as a few glossy 1987 Fleers.
The total price for that lot? $5.00 - and that included a Willie McGee rookie card. I am actually lacking in the '80s Cardinals rookies department, especially with McGee because my best friend from the neighborhood collected McGee cards and I was always trying to help him out. His Topps rookie is one of my favorite all-time '80s cards, because the photos are just a great balance of amazing and ridiculous. I hope someday the Cardinals forego their policy of only retiring numbers of Hall of Famers and just go ahead and retire #51. I don't think anyone has worn it since, anyway.
