More Jerseys and Autos from Oren

 

Reader Oren strikes again with an amazing collection of memorabilia cards and autographs. 

 

I'm not sure where he finds all of this great stuff, but I am always excited to put together a trade with Oren. This one even topped the last package! 

Andrew Knizner has had a really nice season as the #2 option at catcher with St. Louis, having found a bit of power that we hadn't really seen from him at the big league level.

For all of their shortcomings, Panini does put out some nice looking memorabilia cards from time to time. This dual relic from last year's Diamond Kings set is one of those, at least for me. It looks like last year might have been the last for the Diamond Kings set, as Panini really scaled back their baseball releases after losing their MLBPA license. Has anyone seen or heard of anything else coming out this year besides Donruss and Prizm? I think Diamond Kings would have been a much better fit for a bunch of retired players than Prizm was.

This time, Dylan Carlson shares the spotlight on a Panini jersey card with Alex Kirilloff. Time will tell whether either of these guys will ever fully live up to their earlier prospect hype.

This is probably my favorite of the whole lot. Whitey still has a nice signature for someone who turned 91 last year when the 2022 Topps Archives set was released.

Framed mini cards are best known as being an Allen & Ginter thing, but it's easy to forget that Topps was doing this before 2006 when the first modern A&G set came to be.

Speaking of Allen & Ginter, this card is very... white! I do prefer the mini memorabilia cards to these.

Yadi jersey cards are a bit tougher to come by than your average Cardinal, so I was pretty excited when this card popped out. They even did the rare thing where the jersey color matches the photo on the card.

This one doesn't have a memorabilia swatch or signature on it, but it's still a nice numbered Molina card.

There were also a few non-baseball cards included, like this dual jersey card of former Eagles starting RB Miles Sanders.

Zach Collins rocking a Panini headband?! I didn't know that I needed this, but I'm glad to have it!

The late Caleb Swanigan was part of the same draft as Zach Collins. Hoops autographs usually are on stickers, but they typically have a nice design and this is no exception.

Christmas in Februrary

Secret Santa stuff from @Fixxxer37 in the @CrackinWax holiday gift exchange. 

 

We've reached the point in the year where I start to wonder why I'm still talking about last year. One of the best things to wrap up 2021 was my participation in the annual Crackin' Wax gift exchange. I waited until Christmas Eve to open up my package as I was flying out of town the next day, and couldn't believe the motherload of cards that awaited me.

I stared at this one for a bit and thought that there had to be something different about it. I finally remembered that 2018 was the year that Allen & Ginter had put some glow-in-the-dark minis into the set (some sort of monsters theme?) If you look closely, there's a slight pattern in the background of the card that becomes more noticeable if you turn off the lights, as one would expect from a glowing thing. I had never seen one of these before, so it was cool to see.

 

I decided it was time to give on the scanner at this point. I tried scanning this card awhile back (for TCDB) but wasn't happy with the way it looked. I don't think I have the type of scanner that can accurately scan anything with some depth to it.

I've been a fan of the Archives Signature Series cards for awhile, but as I'm always at odds with myself over whether or not collecting autographs makes sense, I've never pulled the plug on buying any of them for myself. (The plug, it seems, has been pulled for me.)

Here's a few more "hit" cards. Walmart exclusives are always welcome because I don't really Walmart, and I've always loved Topps Heritage signed cards.

A large, large chunk of the holiday package was dedicated to my Topps Heritage want lists, and not the low-hanging fruit. These are stacks of inserts and short prints, those thorny thorns stuck in the side of everyone who collects these sets.

This was a very considerate lot of cards for my collection. I hope everyone else got something fun for Christmas -- assuming you can still remember what happened two months ago.

Crackin' Wax for the Holidays

A #CrackinWaxMailDay (times two) from @CrackinWax closes out December. 

 

In anticipation of the new 2020 Topps Holiday release, Crackin' Wax loaded up a week's worth of Topps Holiday breaks. Unfortunately, the new stuff has proven most difficult to find (thanks 2020, thanks flippers). Still, I bought into a couple of breaks for some of the older product.

I ended up knocking off another two needs for my team collection, including the Luke Weaver base card and this snowy Michael Wacha white jersey card. This is also known as a "picnic napkin" in the breaker lexicon. 

I also bought into one more break the following week, which would be my last for December. There was an underpriced slot available for Bowman Draft thanks to regressive pricing, where the first slot is sold for a much higher than average price and the remaining slots decrease in price until the break is sold out. It's an interesting idea that causes F5 keys to wear out and servers to explode, but it's all in the name of baseball cards, I suppose. I ended up with one more key need in this refractor version of Matthew Liberatore's Chrome card.

I never ended up with an autograph from this year's Bowman Draft, but I'm pretty well stocked in this set and probably don't need to buy anymore.

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?

Stats: Advanced Edition

Are you ready for these numbers?

Here's my most recent Listia pickup, and it's super ordinary looking on the face of it. I completely missed it, but in 2019 (at least) Topps extended their idea of card back variations containing advanced stats for players throughout the entire set.

Rather than choosing a handful of cards to create variations for, we get a serial numbered card with different stat categories for each card in the set. Well... maybe. I don't see how this would work for team cards, checklists, or even rookie cards unless they actually have these same stat categories for minor league numbers or did something totally different than usual with the backs. After a brief check of available card images on TCDB, I wasn't able to find any images for RC cards or other non-single player cards with typical backs.

All of this makes me wonder what the print runs were for the earlier stat back variations. I think I only have a couple of those.

Time to Let It Go

The season is over for the Cardinals, whether I like it or not. 

As a totally biased observer, sometimes it's hard for me to understand why there's little love for the Cardinals franchise these days from outside of the fanbase. But I do get it. People get sick of teams after they have a period of sustained success. While not yet mathematically eliminated from the NL Wild Card race, this will be the second straight year that St. Louis has missed the playoffs, reminiscent of the two seasons following their unlikely 2006 championship. Except, of course, that these last two seasons are not coming on the heels of a World Series ring, but a bitter defeat and early playoff exit at the hands of the Chicago Cubs. This is year six of the Mike Matheny regime, and it wasn't a good one.

Fortunately, I have some fantastic cards from... you guessed it... a Cubs fan to cheer me up. This is part two of the feast of cards set upon me by Jon of Community Gum. Let's look at a few things from the other side of the rivalry.

Here I am rediscovering 1987 Topps. I totally forgot about this set! It's been, what, five long years since Topps put miniature tributes to this set in with their flagship product? This is actually my first bronze foil version of the Rediscover Topps line, which I am told is actually their most common variant. (Hopefully I have the right color here. Sometimes it's hard to tell with foil stamping.)

Jon included a note with this one stating that it was a repack pull. I feel like J.D. Drew is in the upper echelon of what one can expect to pull from a repack. My guaranteed hit or whatever you want to call it is usually some swatch of WBC or Futures Game jersey from a guy who never made it to AAA. I've got nothing against those guys, of course, but when you don't even get a card of a guy wearing any MLB team's uniform, it's hard to get too excited about it.

You know what always cheers me up? Ozzie Smith! Or, more specifically, cards of his that I didn't yet own. I don't often get a chance to buy Topps Finest stuff, so this insert is extra nice. Most of my Finest purchases are base cards out of quarter boxes at card shows.

I really irrationally love Topps Tek (Hi Tek?) and all of its various incarnations. I think this might be only my second card from its recent revival. I think I am just a huge sucker for anything printed on clear acetate. I am the guy that I used to make fun of, folks.

2008 SPx is like the baseball card version of a fidget spinner. Or maybe disc golf? Has anyone tried tossing these cards around an open space? Do they have a boomerang effect?

I'm taking a brief detour here, but Erin's player collections often get a disproportionate amount of attention here at Cards on Cards. This is a fun shiny parallel of Tulo from the waning moments of his Rockies glory days.

I'm probably coming across as a lot more negative than I should considering that I'm poring over all of these terrific Cardinals cards, but I do want to reiterate that I still think Allen & Ginter's shift to full sized relics are a bit of a cop out. This is a nice design, clearly, but the framed relics were always one of my favorite things to look forward to about this set each year.

This card was printed seven years before I was born, but foil stamped just a couple of years ago. It's strange to think about. I need to track down an unstamped version of this card, actually.

There were a lot of Finest cards in this package. This is probably the centerpiece right here. Wong still hasn't put things together for a full season, but he's shown enough in streaks that I still remain hopeful about his career.

This is just a plain old refractor parallel of the same card. No big deal. I probably couldn't find this in the quarter boxes, to be honest.

Another helpful note was included with this Yadier Molina card, noting that it came from the All-Star team set. I only scanned the front to show how little there is to distinguish this from his regular flagship base card. They used to actually put NL or AL logos on these, but the only way to tell now by looking at the front is noticing that the Topps logo is not actually printed in foil. Still, I am super happy to get this card so I am no longer tempted to buy the whole stupid set just for Yadi.

Well, we'll see how much the world loves the Cubbies after they win their second straight ring next month.