New Year, Old Cards

A big bunch of cards to peruse.

I think I've hit a first here at the blog where I busted on past Blogger's built-in character limit for tags. I like to tag each individual player whenever I show off a card that's notable (typically anything serial-numbered, signed or containing a memorabilia piece of some sort), but there was no way to do that with this bunch of cards from buckstorecards that I received back in September unless I broke this up into several posts, which isn't something I typically do. As daunting as it was to post about this massive, impressive batch, it would have been even more unwieldy to deal with it in multiple parts.

Off we go, sans tags for the Ducks cards (the bulk of these)...

I don't recall "PRESS PROOF" actually being stamped on any other so-called "press proof" parallels from Panini that I've seen before. Tots is still a free agent somehow. I wouldn't mind seeing him come back to St. Louis to be in the outfield mix.

Nick Foles cards are always going to be welcome in my collection, as he helped the Eagles to their first Super Bowl title.

Much more after the jump!

Minis for Days

So... many... minis... 

The master of minis himself, Night Owl Cards, unloaded a huge lot of minis (and more!) on this unsuspecting part time blogger last month. I do seem to recall reading a post awhile back (possibly this one?) where Night Owl detailed the need to offload a bunch of these cards. Despite my reservations about collecting this year's Allen & Ginter set (I can't do this forever, can I?), I am definitely a super willing recipient of minis of sets past.

This is a lot of minis, folks. This means I'm probably going to have to pony up for some more 15 pocket Ultra Pro pages, and carefully thumb in and out some tiny cards into their plastic shields. Fun times ahead!

This curious group of six is headed for a different set of binders, of course. Only of these guys is a current Cardinal, and though it seems like just yesterday that Yadi was a 22 year old with a rocket arm that couldn't hit his way out of a wet paper bag... well... it's not 2004 anymore, I guess. That is sad news for all of us.

Other, non-mini Cardinals were included as well. Peter Bourjos popped up on my television in a Rays uniform the other day. Good for him.

I feel bad for Aledmys Diaz, an All-Star just barely more than a year ago. He's been uprooted by Paul DeJong, most likely permanently.

(Not So) Smokin' Joe is in a three-way tie for third place as the oldest card in my collection. I love these. I have no Topps cards prior to 1956 for some dumb reason.

Finally, Night Owl sent over a few needs from the 2017 Topps Heritage set. Here's the world's first mouse... I guess? This is definitely the best News Flashbacks card I've seen in awhile. This looks more like some sort of crazy device that would be used in a lab rat test maze.

Thanks again to Night Owl, and all of the other kind people who have traded with me over the years that make this place possible. And Blogger Google, I guess.

Thorzul Group Break Results

Any time you wind up with a serial numbered Chuck Finley card, things are golden.

Late in the spring, Thorzul held a group break where he divvied up a bit lot of craziness that he purchased online. I haven't participated in many group breaks lately (too many Cardinals fans and not enough money to go around, I guess) but Thorzul knows what he's doing and I happened to read about it at the right time. The Cards cards did not disappoint. I'm just showing a few of them.

Would it have been so crazy for Topps to actually use a border color that was generally well received as their base color? I know, I know, that would open up the doors to the concept of white parallels inserted into retail packs, but that's a fair trade-off. I'm sick of white bordered cards. Really sick.

I've been slowly cataloging my Waino collection and am pretty happy with the way things are turning out. Once I finish his cards off on Zistle in the next day or so, I will have all of my PCs online, scanned (if necessary) and up-to-date. How's that for efficiency? If you're bored and you have cards, I strongly suggest you check out any of the links at the side to see if I need any of those cards that you are hanging on to for no reason.

This might be the juiciest card in the lot as Yadi cards can be pretty pricey these days. Alas, it's going to Erin's collection and I'll have to go find my own someday. This is a photo variation of Molina's All-Star card from last year's Update set.

Finally, a pair of 2014 Gypsy Queen jersey cards were found among the assortment. I don't really understand why Topps has felt the need to do both framed and full memorabilia cards. This is happening more and more in A&G now as I've heard. The framed cards look nice. If you're going to bother making them, just roll with that.

Both of these jersey cards feature new Cardinals acquisitions, which means that the mystery piece of memorabilia has nothing to do with St. Louis. That's okay, though. As long as they didn't come from some shirt hanging up in a mall store, I suppose...