Card Show Finds: Cardinals Edition

I've been making a point of trying to make it to the monthly card show around here, which I almost failed to do this past weekend because of weather concerns. I was never really concerned about my ability to go out and do some shopping, but I figured that there would be a lot of no-shows with the dealers. I've actually started devoting most of my card buying budget to these monthly ventures, which probably makes it more fun but also more challenging since you never know what to expect.

This time around I hit the 5 cent boxes hard, and fortunately there were a lot of them. I've decided to break up some of the stuff I got into several posts, and I thought I'd start off strong with the best of the best - the Cardinals cards, of course.

This 1998 Bowman set has an interesting concept, where the map of the player's home area is in the background of his card. At least, I presume that's what they're going for here.

5 cents for a 1993 Fleer Lee Smith insert card that I've never even seen. Not bad. 1993 was the year that inserts became all the rage if you ask me.

I'm thinking that I'm going to have to start hiding my Yadi cards from Erin.

There are some fairly arbitrary squares in the middle of this card, also an insert, of Rick Ankiel the Pitcher from the 2000 Upper Deck set. I probably would have paid top dollar for this if I collected cards in 2000, assuming I had a job.

I feel like I unearthed a treasure with this card here. This is from the rarely seen 1984 Donruss set.

I picked up no less than 3 Pujols cards in the 5 cent box. They were all multi-player cards like this one, but that seems pretty impressive to me anyway.

And nickel Big Macs? I'll take those, too.

Not everything I bought ended up being 5 cents, although I wish it had. I made some 25 cent purchases at another table before I found the mother lode. Here's one of my first Topps 206 cards (more on this set at another time) and it's a thick bronze parallel. This isn't the best portrait of Ankiel. In fact, though he did have a ridiculous 'stache for a bit, I don't think he ever had facial hair this bad.

I needed this card badly. I actually bought several Turkey Red inserts, but this was the only Cardinal. I still need a second copy of this card for the set (pathetic, I know) in case anyone is wondering.

And here's Johnny Mize again on his base Topps 206 card.

All in all, I think I ended up with at least a couple of dollars worth of 5 cent Cards cards (including at least my 3rd copy of the 2009 Ryan Ludwick A&G short print) and a handful of 25 cent cards.