A Treasure Trove

 

A huge box of needs... I don't even know where to begin with this one. 

 

When I receive such a large box of cards I need at once, it can be very intimidating to try and post about it. Procrastination sets in. I try to post about everything more or less in the order that I receive it, however, which helps me avoid sitting too long on things. Unfortunately, I seem to have skipped over a huge box like the one I described from The Collective Mind and I intend to rectify this immediately. I swear that I wasn't avoiding these cards at all and I just happened to misread a date (off by a month or so). The sheer volume of cool numbered cards and other interesting things from the sweet spot of years that I wasn't in the game (mid-'90s to mid-'00s) made this one much more fruitful than most.

I ended up with seventeen scans here, selected "randomly". I should also point out right away that GCA knocked off another inch-or-so high stack of set needs to supplement this bounty, but I'm going to focus on the sweet, sweet Cardinals goodies here.

Press Proof! You know it's going to be good when it says "Press Proof". It's always kind of weird when a card company stamps something or other on a card and instantly makes it more valuable and sought after, but that's the industry that we live in.

Here's your regular reminder that foilboard cards don't scan well. If I ever get around to replacing my scanner (which, knock on wood, has served me without too much issue since early 2009), I'm going to ask the first salesperson on the floor if it scans foilboard baseball cards well. They'll probably call security.

This is a pretty goofy looking card of the MV3, but I cherish any time you get all three of them together on one card.

These weird Donruss Champions inserts always look like they forgot to finish the card, but there's a whole bunch of them which means there's a whole bunch of them that I still need. I'm glad that a subset of these were knocked off my needs list.

I never knew that Upper Deck had blue parallels of their base set at one point, so this was new to me.

More Mulder here. The Leaf Certified mirror parallels are well documented and sought after, although I don't think the market for Mark Mulder cards is too hot at the moment.

I've spilled a lot of words over my love for those mid-'00s Diamond Kings sets. I still love them. Once again, there are many, many parallels, like this Jason Marquis card that's numbered to just 25.

Alright, Press Proof again! Oh wait, I guess that's Studio Proof? GCA actually sent two versions of this card, one numbered to 25 and one to 100. They're nearly indistinguishable at first glance. Once has silver holo foil and the other has gold holo foil.

This was a bit of an anomaly as it falls outside of the 2000-2005 range. These seem to be a lot harder for me to track down than the other Diamond sparkly parallels from this 2011 Topps Lineage set.

This isn't a severe die cut card, but it's a die cut nonetheless. Any numbered Jim Edmonds card (to 150!) is a very welcome addition to my collection.

Given that only about 10% of the card space is actually dedicated to the player it supposedly features (Dennis Eckersley), I'm not sure how to feel about this one.

This is another thing that I didn't know existed. There has to be at least one of these moments in the baseball card world for me every single day, or at least for all of the days I actually pay attention to the internet. This is a chrome refractor style "retro" card of a rookie... ahhh... my head hurts too much to talk about this. On the back, it has the feel of those Target throwback parallel cards from 2009-2011, but on the front it's all about the shiny.

There were a number of these low numbered Studio Portraits cards in the package, all of which look really nice. It was really hard to figure out where each card fit into which set, but I'm hoping I put them all in the right place in my collection on TCDB.

This is simply another numbered parallel (to 100) of the recently passed legend Lou Brock. I wanted to create a whole post about Lou Brock, but I have a hard time speaking authoritatively about someone who played before my time. What I know of him is awe-inspiring, though.

Here's another one, which uses the same photo in black and white. Did they colorize the original photo or remove all of the color from it?

Here's one more Brock card, just because. I wish they would put another Lou Brock on the other half of the card. It could be like that two Spider-Mans (Spider-Men?) meme that's been going around for like a decade.

But wait... there's more!

GCA also dropped a Fleer Ultra Yadi rookie on me! Because of the weird background, it kind of looks like a gold parallel, but those are more clearly identified and die cut. I didn't have this card and was very excited to add it to my (small) collection of Yadier Molina rookie cards.

Thanks again to GCA! I hope everyone reading gets to experience the fun of getting a huge box of card needs in the mail soon.

So Many Cardinals

Another big variety bundle of things from @batcavelv brings the numbers closer to 20,000. 

I am approaching 20,000 unique Cardinals cards in my collection. This is a very cool but also very scary situation. My biggest concern right now is storage space, of course. I am worried that when I get through sorting all of the boxes of cards that I have added to my collection over the past couple of years, I'm going to need to add about eight to ten binders to my shelf.

My shelf has been out of room for years, you see.

The latest culprit is the always generous Tracy's Box Breaks, who regularly hosts extremely affordable and variety-packed box breaks. I hear that there's another one coming up shortly

This recent break included some 2019 Topps Total cards. Any chance to snag something from the usually eyeroll-inducing Topps On Demand group is something worth pouncing on, however. I added four of these cards to my collection, but I'm most excited for my first ever Tyler Webb card. This is fully in the spirit of the original Topps Total concept, spotlighting a relatively unknown reliever. I just wish there were stats on the back.

On the opposite end of the spectrum of notoriety is the legendary Dizzy Dean, on a 150 Years parallel of his 150 Greatest Seasons insert. It's numbered to 150, of course!

I've added a ton of minor league cards to my collection in the past year or so. Apparently, finally putting together that want list has really paid off. This trio of would-be Cardinals from the 2007 Just Rookie set doesn't completely fit in the "minor league" classification since the parent club team name is featured on the front, but these still look minor to me.

I've also added quite a few mid-'00s Donruss cards of late, and a lot of them look really nice. This one looks nice!

And then there's this... thing... which could only have come from the minds at Pacific. Still, I would overpay for a box of Pacific almost anything right now. 

Here's a young Cardinals hurler on one of those classy framed parallels from the 2019 Panini Diamond Kings set.

I always appreciate getting cards that are older than me, but it's even better when said card is of a Cardinals legend like Red here.

Lastly, I believe this Enos Slaughter card from 2018 increased my total Sport Kings collection by about 25%. You don't see these cards every day... or generally ever.

Up For Grabs Cardinalpalooza: Steve Carlton

Even today I'm still mildly surprised that Steve Carlton was ever a St. Louis Cardinal. I never think of him as such and I've seen very few photos of young Lefty wearing the Birds on the Bat. It's hard to think of the Brock-for-Broglio steal without proper perspective. After all, the Cardinals did let this Hall of Famer go for two years of a solid Rick Wise. I never knew much about him until this recent unearthing of an article showed that he is kind of a nut.

I have just a few Carlton-as-a-Card cards and you are welcome to any of them.

Your mom threw this out, probably.

I have always been a fan of these 1983 Topps Super Veteran cards. Topps did a good thing for two straight years when they issued a second card of certain players (in 1982 they were "In Action") before abandoning the idea. I wasn't smart enough to include this in my Cardinals collection back when I was a kid, but I am smarter than a kid now!

The list:

1983 Topps (Super Veteran) #71
2006 Fleer Greats of the Game #86
2009 Topps Legends of the Game Update #LGU13 [2 available]
2010 Topps The Cards Your Mom Threw Out #CMT-19

[updated 10/2/13]