Affordable Rays Hits

Catching up on a @flywheels group break from March. 

Cardboard Collections hosted an interesting Affordable Group Break this past spring, breaking a box of hit-packed 2004 Topps Clubhouse Collection and a box of 2002 Topps Gallery. These breaks are usually fun, contain not frequently seen products, and most importantly, are cheap! I snagged the Cardinals as usual and was assigned Tampa Bay as my random second team. I did a lot better with the Devil Rays, netting me a nice looking Tino Martinez jersey card. The actual memorabilia piece is oddly small, but it doesn't distract from the look of the card. I checked out our resident Tino collector's PC, but he already has it.

This Dan Wheeler auto from the 2001 Royal Rookies set was an added bonus. I remember Wheeler primarily from his days with the Astros at the height of the rivalry between them (think mid-'00s.)

There were a couple of Cardinals cards to add to my collection, including this painted looking Bud Smith card.

In contrast, Panini kinda-sorta tries to do what Topps did with Gallery in a previous decade, but their Diamond Kings sets end up being a totally different product in the end. Martinez's legs just sort of disappear into the background, giving these a dream-like look.

KO Rob Levels Up My Blazers Collection

NIB: New In Box 

Reader of the blog and regular contest-participant KO Rob sent me a bunch of Blazers this spring. Like a whole bunch. He literally increased my collection by a percentage well into the double digits. (Note: I did not actually calculate this.) Of course, the pièce de résistance was this wonderful Clyde Drexler Starting Lineup figure. It's from 1992 (I love the authentic Kay-Bee Toys price sticker) and shows Drexler in a uniform for the partial season where the Blazers switched to the all caps BLAZERS font in black for their home uniform. The unis were deemed too illegible, and the design was tweaked before the season was over with larger letters in red. The result ended up being their uniform design for the next decade, before they changed the font and committed once again to black lettering.

The figure makes a nice companion to my card show purchase from a couple years ago, which features rookie style Drexler and two (!) trading cards. I can't guarantee that I won't free these Clydes from their plastic prisons, but for now they stay up on the wall like this.

As previously mentioned, there were a lot cards to sort through. I just picked a small handful to show here. Andre Miller is here on a serial numbered (to 499) early Panini Prestige card. These throwback unis were great, and I wish they would bring them back.

Brian Grant was a warrior on the court and has been a warrior in the field of Parkinson's awareness and knowledge. This is a good read on his journey.

The Finest!

Fred Jones of the Ducks slips in here. This fits into my Oregon collection, of course, but Jones is also from the Portland area and played for the Blazers for a spell.

I always liked these oddball sized cards (think Fleer Extra Bases and NFL Gameday). I need to finish off this (team) set.

Kenny Anderson has all kinds of weird feelings about these '90s cards.

This card is translucent but is not entirely clear. It's the rare card that scans a lot better than it actually looks.

 

We head into vintage territory with stylish LaRue Martin. "Vintage territory" just means the '70s, by the way, for a franchise that was born in 1970.

Caption contest?

The legend.

Mark Bryant is represented here on the always classy Flair card.

Father of Klay and Laker-identifier. Thompson had the misfortune of not being big enough as the ideal NBA center in his day, and also had to follow in the footsteps of broken Bill Walton. His crossover into Lakers territory was never forgiven in my household, though.

No lengthy Blazers post here is complete without a Sabas card.

Time is running out!

With another NBA Draft in the books, Biggie Swanigan is going to have his work cut out for him if he wants to carve out a role with next season's Blazers.

And speaking of future Blazers, Gary Trent's son -- a star at Duke they call Gary Trent Jr. -- was acquired by Portland after he was drafted in the second round. It would be fun to see him earn a meaningful spot on the team, if anything for nostalgic purposes.

CardConNW '18: Hogs

Football dudes from a football fan. 

Previously on Cards on Cards...
And before that...
And even before that... 

Before I get into it, I wanted to give a little update on the big 10th Anniversary group break. I have started shipping stuff. As of tonight, I have packed up two of the bundles. It's going to take a bit of time (and money) to get it all out, but you can check in with the original post to find out if your stuff has shipped. I'll keep it updated.

And now, we reach the conclusion of the CardConNW '18 series with Ken's stuff. Ken is a fan of the Washington football team, a rival to my favorite Eagles, and runs Cardboard Hogs. I'm having my own internal dilemma right now in deciding if I even want to watch the NFL this coming season because of all of the... unpleasantness... but it was great to get these Eagles (reigning champs!) cards. I imagine it was just as great to get these out of Ken's house as well.

Here's rookie year (and Super Bowl champ!) Zach Ertz on a card paying tribute to the classic 1989 Score design. Football card fans, I have a question for you. Is this a classic design because it looks great, or is it just because it was printed in relatively low quantities for the time?

I was going to feel bad for not having any idea who this is, but it appears that he didn't play a down in a regular season game. This Magic set was pretty great. McNutt's actual autograph is maybe not so great.

Speaking of tributes, here's a Topps Archives card in the style of 1985 Topps. I know my '80s Topps designs!

Ahh, a baseball card slipped in here. I was psyched to get this Paul DeJong Silver Pack promo card, especially since someone has been trying (and failing) to get a ridiculous amount of currency for this on Listia all year now.

LaMichael James cards are always welcome here, especially special ones like this. He was, after all, one of the greatest backs the Pac-12 has ever seen -- let alone one of the Oregon greats.

Another rookie year card of LMJ. This is numbered to 50 and signed. It does look like James could have fit 3 separate signatures on the sticker, though.

All the Series 2 Cardinals

It's a #CrackinWaxMailday with a case-load full of Cardinals from @CrackinWax to pore over. 

Occasionally it pays to think ahead. Since I've stopped buying the Topps flagship product in recent years, collecting the Cardinals stuff from these sets (still a priority) can become a bit of an afterthought. This is one of those rare times that I planned things out in advance, as I bought into a case break over at Crackin' Wax. I think I did pretty well for myself.

Of course, there are base cards. Many, many base cards. I believe I ended up with eleven total team sets. Fortunately, I should be able to dump a few of these on Listia, but if anyone here is interested in one, let me know. I do still need two cards from the (neglected) Series 1 team sets, plus a whole lot of inserts and special stuff.

This time around, there's only one player in the mix that's no longer with the team. We'll get to him in a moment. We also get a team card, some rookies and a rare Greg Garcia card. Seriously rare. This is his fifth season with the big league club and it's just his first Topps card. He also appeared in Bowman products in 2010.

Alex Mejia saw a bit of action late last year, but he's off the 40-man roster and back in the minors with the Cardinals organization. These are his rainbow foil and gold parallels.

It's an SP! I didn't know they were putting "legend" SPs into this set, so this was a nice surprise.

I still need a bunch of the "Topps Salute" cards from Series 1. In fact, I think this might be my first look at this design.

Carlos Martinez was well-represented, with his rainbow foil and vintage stock (numbered to 99!) parallels. The vintage stock card might be my favorite of the whole break. I wish the whole set could be like these. Only, you know, not so rare.

Paul DeJong should be back soon. Hopefully! This whole season feels like it's teetering on the brink of disaster.

Jack Flaherty has looked really good at times. The rotation appears to be pretty set for the future, at least, if the club doesn't end up making any significant moves.

Rainbow and gold Cafecito.

Here's the rainbow Matt Carpenter version.

Today's game seems to be steering back to homers! homers! HOMERS! This card just seems appropriate all of a sudden.

The tribute to the 1983 set continues with these All-Star inserts. I love new Ozzie cards!

Speaking of which, this is super awesome. I have one of these warm-ups (#1, of course) in my closet that I break out for special occasions.

This one had me stumped for a bit, because it's from the "silver pack" promotion. In Series 1, each of these had some fancy pattern on the card. Oh well, so much for continuity!

Great shot of Tommy Pham up against the Wrigley Field ivy. As much as I dislike the Cubs, every good outfield needs a photo like this on a card.

This is my first, er, negative photo parallel. I know these are hobby only, but I don't remember how rare they are.

This is another SP. This time, it's a photo variation.

Here's a Topps Salute card of Tommy Pham in his "Players Weekend" jersey. I feel like this was so hyped last season that it's probably coming back this season.

My collection is sagging under the weight of all of the different Pujols cards that I own, and Topps keeps finding ways to print them up in his old uniform.

I don't "PC" this guy, but I think he's up to #2 or #3 in total unique cards owned in my collection. Yikes.

Are these photos from the actual game they are commemorating? Of course they aren't.

The Pujols parade is over, and there's a new Sherriff in town. And that's the last time I ever make a Ryan Sherriff joke.

As mentioned earlier, Breyvic Valera is the lone Cardinal no longer with the organization that's in the base set. He was flipped to the Dodgers in a roster space crunch move right at the start of the season. Once again, these are the rainbow and gold versions, respectively.

At 15 seasons in the league, Yadi might just be a little tired of posing for dorky photos.

I also snagged Molina's gold parallel. I miss the old gold parallels, as I pretty much say every year now.

Apparently there was only one autograph pulled in the whole case (what?!), but I was lucky enough to snag two game used memorabilia cards. Here's DeJong in his former uniform number, which now belongs once again to Jose Oquendo.

And this is a black parallel (check the serial number!) of a Luke Weaver jersey card. Because everything needs parallels.

Feel free to hit me up if you have any 2018 Topps Cardinals stuff not pictured here. The want list will be updated shortly.