Solid Gold!

A group break with some surprising luck. 

Longtime blog and box breaking aficionado Nachos Grande put together a recent group break that ticked a lot of boxes for me. This was a good mix of affordable old stuff that I missed during my non-collecting years with a dash of shiny new things that I would probably never normally buy for myself. I selected a few of the cards that knocked off some team collection needs to show here.

Mostly through trades, I have accumulated quite a few Sports Illustrated Cardinals cards over the years, but for some reason this 1997 set had mostly escaped me. Kind of like how Brian Jordan appears to be trying to escape some sort of rundown or other baserunning conundrum.

I am really starting to enjoy the term "inside baseball" and it's proliferation in everyday language, generally used to explain when things are getting a little too nerdy and overly detailed for most folks. I think I just really like baseball.

This slightly askew DK card was, surprisingly, not already in my collection. I was able to knock off a good chunk of the 2002 Fleer Triple Crown team set through this break.

I'm never not going to notice the lack of jersey numbers on the fronts of the unis in cards from the McGwire era. It just looks so wrong.

I wish this was a real Albert Pujols rookie card! Maybe someday.

Here is my big coup. Somehow, I was able to pull off an on card autograph from the exciting young member of the Cardinals pitching rotation. This is actually a huge chunk of gold metal with stickers glued on. It's not the autograph that's on a piece of sticker tape, mind you - the whole card face seems to be a sticker. I don't want to pick at it to find out for real. In any case, this is one of the coolest and most unique cards I've seen in quite some time, and has a good chance to be my number one "hit" of 2018. After a stretch of shoulder shrugging group breaks lately, it was nice to pull this off, even if I had absolutely no hand in it.