Cards from Oren

We've got jerseys! We've got signatures! We've got parallels! 

 

Reader Oren contacted me for the first time last year and we worked out a really nice trade. Oren was back for round 2 last fall with another generous batch of cards from the various sports that I collect. Let's take a look at some of those in no particular order. I'm going to drift from sport to sport here.

Carmelo Anthony's career as a Trail Blazer was brief, but thanks to Panini's parallel madness, he leaves a legacy of a ton of cards in the red and black. I have no problem with this really, but you would think that a player who was on the team for less than two full seasons wouldn't occupy such a large space in the binders.

I don't recall Earl Wolff's time with the Eagles, but after a few keyboard clicks it starts to make sense. His most significant playing time came in his rookie season, which was Chip Kelly's first with the team but also overlapped with Michael Vick's last season in Philly. I refused to watch any games with Vick on the field, so I might have just missed him.

Matt Holliday is one of the main players I collect, so it was great to see this All-Star jersey pop up. I don't have a lot of blue swatches in my collection, of course, so this is something a bit different. Holliday was set to be the Cardinals bench coach this year, but it was just announced today that he isn't going to be doing the job after all. Instead, Joe McEwing is joining the team.

Relative to my fairly small Eagles collection, I feel like I have a lot of Jordan Matthews cards. He left the team after a few seasons but came back during their Super Bowl run, which was fun.

Speaking of Super Bowl runs, do the Eagles have another one in them? If so, Kenneth Gainwell might have something to say about it. He's part of the Philadelphia backfield that includes 1000 yard club guy Miles Sanders and Boston Scott, who returned some kicks in that last big playoff run.

Mike Golic may best be known as a broadcaster these days, but he was a monster on the field in the '80s. I'm also not entirely convinced that he's not the same person as Jeff Garlin.

I bet you didn't think you were going to see two Nelson Agholor cards in today's post, did you? This rookie year card is an orange Chrome parallel.

Nolan Smith was a big star at Duke, but his skills did not translate to the pro game. At all. Fortunately, another rookie showed up in 2012-13 to take the point guard reigns for the next decade and beyond.

We end things on the best possible note with another Cardinals card. This is an always-appreciated gold parallel from the classic Gold Parallel Era of 2006 NLCS MVP Jeff Suppan. Nice!

Another Treasure Trove

Another fantastic assortment of eclectic Cardinals cards (and a few Blazers!) 

 

I've been doing this thing, whatever you want to call it, for more than a dozen years now. It's getting tough to pick out new titles for posts and new superlatives to describe bundles of cards. I try to switch up the verbiage every so often. It's the least I can do, especially when you're getting hammered with "trade post" this and "trade post" that.

This latest batch of truly exceptional cards came to the Pacific Northwest (which is not entirely on fire at this point) from Bob of The Best Bubble. Bob really likes his fun oddball cards and bubble gum-related photos, and I encourage you to send some stuff his way if you have anything like that. I often struggle to find things for collectors who have collections that extend beyond the tradition team, player or set territory, but I will try to find what I can.

Most of the cards in the package were of the Redbird variety, but there were a few nice Trail Blazers cards as well. For some reason I like these weird Donruss starburst green and yellow parallels (not the official name, of course.) They do clash with the Blazers color scheme quite a bit, but that's okay.

Inserts and numbered cards from the '00s are almost always a success with me, and this Timeless Treasures Scott Rolen card certainly fits that caterogry. I just wish they could have dedicated a little more retail space for the photo here.

Wacha Wacha Wacha! I've... got nothin'.

Bob sent some interesting unlicensed Todd Zeile cards that I'd never seen before. The prospect hype was pretty big with Zeile at the time, though not in the same category as Todd Van Poppel or Ben McDonald. These days, graded Bowman Zeile cards would be tearing up the online auctions before he ever played a meaningful game. Back in 1990, we got what they used to call "Broders". They would usually cost something like a dollar a pop.
 

Also in the package was a healthy chunk of the 1989 Star St. Petersburg Cardinals team set. I decided to pick this guy to scan, because he's kind of goofy looking. I think I might have seen him at one of my dad's company picnics back in the day.

Soup's on, Suppan! This is from the short-lived (?) Upper Deck Epic set.

Back to the Blazers here with a die cut Scottie Pippen insert. I think Pippen's cards got a bit of a bump over the summer from the whole Jordan documentary thing, but I doubt that did anything to his non-Bulls cards. That's okay, though. You can give them all to me. Except the Rockets ones. Nobody wants those.

This set is always one of the best examples of where to pick up a signed card on a budget. It's also a great example of how well autographs work on matte finish cards.

This one is even better looking than the plain white/grey look of that previous Leaf set. I think they may have even instructed the players to sign in a certain place on the card. What do you think? I am pretty certain this is my first signed card of Ray Lankford, one of the Cardinals biggest stars of the '90s. It was a nice little shock to see this one.

I always appreciate the vintage cards that come my way, no matter what the condition may be. I love how you can still see remants of his original Cincinnati cap behind the weird airbrushing there. Even weirder is the fact that Grammas didn't play in the majors with the Redlegs until after he was traded back to Cincinnati the year this card was issued. I'm not sure if this is some weird scouting photo or what, but he had already completed two seasons with St. Louis at this point. (Feel free to let me know if I'm missing something here.)

Before the Memphis Redbirds were the long term Cardinals AAA affiliate, there was the Louisville Redbirds. Unsurprisingly, the uniform is pretty similar to their then-parent club.

Here's another one of those numbered cards from that Epic set, this time featuring an even more familiar face in the former Cy Young Award winner Chris Carpenter.

Note to self: Chrome cards from this set do not scan all that well.

We finish things up with a couple of signed cards from Signature Rookies. I wonder how many signed cards Brian Barber himself owns.

The last one is another signed card. It's the lesser known Benes brother. If I had to sign 2100 cards, I would lose my mind. I don't know how these guys do it. (Of course, some of them don't... do it.) Was Brian Barber's playing career shortened because he signed nearly ten thousand cards and his hand nearly fell off?