From Cardinal Fan to Cardinal Fan

Another Christmas surprise came from a fellow Cardinals fan. 

Often times, a team collector will end up trading with the enemy, gathering up piles of cards representing a hated rival team, feeling a sense of relief when said cards are out of the house. Other times, like this one, it's a friendly exchange of ideas, er, ballplayers from the team you root for. Some of these friendlies arrived shortly before Christmas from Ray of All Cardinals All the Time, knocking some more Cards cards off the want lists.

No, this isn't a '64 Gibby with oddly sharp corners, coloring and lettering. Surprisingly, I needed this 2011 Topps 60 Years of Topps insert. My want list gets a little bit suspect around the 2011-2012 years, but I'm starting to clean things up a bit. Still, I was surprised to learn I needed this card.

Much of 2012 Topps is an undocumented mess, so look for me to be adding some parallel and insert needs to my list in the coming weeks. Jon Jay's blue Walmart parallel won't be among those, thanks to Ray. Jay was a very solid player in his time in St. Louis, someone who was often asked to make up for lack of productivity in other outfield spots or just cover for injured players.

Finally, here's a couple of Motte's. If you're sensing a theme here, these are all former Cardinals who were part of the Cardinals 2011 World Series run.

My scanner ate part of this 2012 Bowman Platinum insert, but you can at least see that this is a die cut of the former Cardinal closer. I didn't even know that these die cuts existed, but I feel like I never fully jumped on board the Bowman Platinum train.