A Bounty of Birds

A whole lot of Cardinals from @beardedmahmood including a couple of personal faves. 

 

Back in March, I had some cards listed on Crackin' Wax and ended up working out a deal with a member of the community. I sent out my stash of Red Sox stuff and received a really nice bunch of Cardinals needs in return. These represent just a portion of what I ended up with.

Panini's silver Prizm parallels are a tough find and always look nice, even with the lack of logos. Will there be another, final (?) Prizm baseball set this season? Last season's basketball set still hasn't come out yet.

I wasn't as big on the Stadium Club design last year as in some years, but the Chrome (and refractor) versions still look nice. Let's hope DeJong figures something out in Memphis this season, although it's looking pretty bleak.

Here is the gem of the bunch. Anyone who has followed the blog over the years probably has seen me gushing over the old Topps Black bordered parallels. To get one of one of my favorite players is a huge plus.

Speaking of wishing that card things were the way they were, but now they're something else, I always love these framed Diamond Kings cards. Unfortunately, Panini's take on this set falls short, but they are operating with one hand tied behind their back without the MLB license.

Topps brought back the "1st Edition" concept a couple of years ago with their online-only exclusives. The 1st Edition cards from the mid-'00s seem to be fairly obscure. If you can't spot it, the logo is in the top left below the frame.

Another favorite card thing of mine, for reasons I can't quite explain, are the Panini Donruss Independence Day parallels. I have a very small collection of these from the past few years in a box, but this one is heading to the Cardinals binders.

I liked 1993 Topps (though not as much as 1993 Upper Deck.) I wasn't wild about those Black Gold inserts, though. I feel like I'm in the minority on this. That doesn't make this a bad design to bring back as a one-off, though. At least it's not another take on 1987.

Here's another example of old Donruss being better than new Donruss.

In case you couldn't figure out that these 2003 Bowman Heritage cards are in fact parallels, they made them thicker than the base, gave them a full black border and added a facsimile signature. I wish most parallels were this obvious.

Would Nolan Arenado make the list of Most Elegant Players in MLB? What would that list even look like? I guess Panini took its shot. This is kind of an interesting card that looks a bit like those expensive "color splash" inserts they've made recently for other sports.

To round out this excellent collection of Cards cards, here's a few Ginter minis. Two guys have bats, and two don't.