A Box That Rocks

An assist from @INeedNewHobbies turns Goodwill finds into cardboard gold. 

I was able to turn a couple of separate Goodwill purchases last year into productive trades, the largest of which was worked out with I Need New Hobbies. A box showed up at Cards on Cards central that was chock full of baseball (and football) goodness, with a sprinkling of hoops thrown in. It can be a bit intimidating to select cards to scan and post about when getting such a large assortment of cards at once, but I managed to pick a few choice cards for the cut.

With a product that features choice samples of player worn memorabilia (it's even in the brand name!), it's easy to overlook the base cards and parallels of said base cards. For all of the different things I've seen written about Topps Triple Threads over the years (a lot of it is pretty negative), the base design gets lost in the shuffle. I usually like it. These two cards from 2010 are no exception.

A non-Cardinal Jim Edmonds card was added to my collection. Before Jimmy became an MVP threat in St. Louis, he was starting to put up pretty good numbers in Anaheim. Now he's one of the stable of rotating commentators on Cardinals TV broadcasts.

Scott found a ton of weird 1997 Donruss Limited parallels to send me, including this Brian Jordan card (not pictured: Jose Guillen). Normally, the "Limited Exposure" parallels would have a shiny refractor-like finish, but they apparently forgot (?) to do this on a certain grouping of these.

Another (former?) Cardinals commentator here in a 1975 Mad Hungarian card. Al might be retired from the game broadcasts, although I hear he pops up in the studio from time to time. I don't live in the Cardinals broadcast area, so I have to rely on MLB.TV and no actual local programming.

I was just mentioning my love for framed cards the other day to Erin, so it was fun to rediscover this card from the 2003 Donruss Diamond Kings set when I was choosing what to scan. If Topps is going to do any more "art" cards, they really need to consider contacting the guys who used to work for Donruss way back when.

Here's a much younger Albert Pujols in a bit of an unfamiliar position on a card -- baserunning.

As I talk about things I love again for the millionth time, have I mentioned lately how much I love the Fleer/Flair "Greats of the Game" cards? If I could go back in card collecting time (or suddenly become wealthy), it would be really fun to explore these sets that used to heavily feature retired players.

You can't really read the name so well, but this was another great get -- a Kolten Wong rookie refractor. Well, technically it's a "1st Bowman Card", although technically it isn't even that. He was featured as a Team USA member on a previous year's card.

Basketball time! Petteri Koponen was acquired by then-GM Kevin Pritchard during the 2007 NBA Draft (the Oden Draft), but never came over. He's only 31 now and was last seen playing for Bayern Munich (the hoops team?!) according to the always interesting Wikipedia.

Shiny Sheed!

A ton of Eagles cards were also included, several of which were 2008 Topps featuring weird uniforms that all looked like this. I'm guessing this was some sort of throwback they wore in a game back then, but I suppose it also could be a parallel? There isn't a whole lot happening on the field behind Westbrook there, which makes me wonder if this was even from a real game.

DeSean Jackson is back with Philly, which I have mixed feelings about. I wasn't a fan of his at Cal, and I'll never forget his splashy debut with the Eagles where he dropped the ball in celebration prior to entering the end zone on a would-be touchdown, a classic bonehead move. Hopefully he's less of a bonehead now?

Speaking of boneheads... well, this is an interesting insert design from the 2001 Topps Heritage set. I actually really liked McNabb as a player, but he has not impressed me in his post-playing days.

Ahhhhh yes. Action Packed... classic Eagles uniform... Randall! It's tough to get any better than this.

Did anyone ever get these cards signed? I feel like that white space is such a waste of an opportunity.

More #12. This is a wild, shiny Topps insert that makes it look like Cunningham is busting out of some kind of rainstorm.

The pièce de résistance, however, was this Big Mac gold thing. I am not entirely sure what to do with it, so it might end up on the wall near or between some of my unopened Starting Lineup figures for now.

Thanks again to Scott for this huge exchange of cards and such!