Large Mac and Other Stars

The latest and greatest group break Cardinals.

 

One of the packages I've yet to sort from this year was a rare all-Cardinals selection. These cards were from group breaks hosted by Nachos Grande, mainly featuring products released late last year on into the early parts of this year. A lot of these cards are from sets that have been shown off to death in various corners of the internet, so I'm going skim and try to just show some of the best of the best.

I really had no interest in the first two Topps Chrome Platinum Anniversary sets, although the Cardinals cards will always have places in my binders. The first set just seemed like the millionth excuse to pay tribute to the iconic 1952 design, which was a bit boring to me. The second set? Well, it truly looks like it's powered by AI. Fortunately, the most recent edition (2023, but released this year) seems to have done away with the uncanny valley filter most of these '22s had on them, but I still haven't picked up any for myself. Goldie checks in here on a "rose gold" numbered parallel.

Ooh, here are some Tiny Little Diamonds (or whatever Topps calls them.) I was initially excited to finally get my hands on a Cardinals Packy Naughton card as he was featured prominently in the bullpen for a bit, but he hasn't been heard from at the big league level since an injury derailed his 2023 campaign.

There must have been some earlier Donruss Optic sets included, because I landed some interesting colored parallels. This Yadi card from 2021 is numbered to 199.

Dakota Hudson spent his whole career with St. Louis until he switched teams this past offseason, where he's learning the true horrors of being a Colorado Rockies starter. This is some sort of "purple stars" parallel. It's very dreamy.

There were a ton of 2023 Stadium Club parallels, but as I was saying, you've all seen these photos quite a few times by now.

I was very excited about these 2023 Topps Archives inserts featuring some Cardinals legends in their final seasons.

Apparently these are based on the 1954 Tarzan 3-D design. I wouldn't mind a whole set of these, even though they are just printed on regular Heritage-style card stock. It looks like they did attempt a 3D effect at least on this card, as the background shows all the expected signs of double-layering.

What I did not expect out of a 2023 Panini product was a Mark McGwire autograph! Sure, Large Mac only signed a sticker, and these stickers have probably been sitting around the Panini vaults for some time, but I certainly can't say I have a ton of his autographs in my collection.

Last, but certainly not least, came this Fan Favorites autograph of good ol' Simba. I feel very fortunate to have seen Ted Simmons along with a number of other Cardinals legends at a game I attended in person. With the passing of what feels like an entire generation of great players over the past five years or so (R.I.P. Willie Mays), I feel that much more fortunate for the ones that we still have around.

Three Yadis and a New Contest

A new contest is upon us, and this one is easy to enter!

 

To go alongside the annual March Radness contest, I promised a quick and easy one for anyone who didn't have the time or patience to fill out a bracket. And even if you did fill out a bracket, stay tuned for the end of this post (or skip to the end if you don't like a certain legendary Cardinals catcher.)

Today's cards are from Cardpocalypse, and all three of them are Yadier Molina cards that I've never seen before. (This was a big reminder that I need to reach out to Tim and send him some stuff soon. He's probably really excited that NC State is in the Final Four in both the men's and women's tourneys.) 

Along with the numbered jersey card from the 2019 Topps set came a pair of Stadium Club parallels. The 2019 Chrome parallel above is actually a refractor, but I don't have the kind of scanner that can easily show the difference between refractors and otherwise.

The last Yadi of the trio is this rare Rainbow Foil parallel from 2017, which is numbered to just 25. (It's actually 25/25!) These are terrific editions to my still growing Yadi collection. Between Erin and I, there are quite a few cards of his in our house.

And now... the contest! This is for anyone to join, whether or not you filled out a bracket this year and are participating in March Radness or not. Simply comment below with the NCAA men's team that you think will win it all on Monday night, and tell me how many points that team will score.

• A valid entry example: NC State, 99
• As a reminder, Saturday's games are UConn vs. Alabama, and NC State vs. Purdue. You'll need to pick one of those teams.
• Deadline to enter is Saturday 3:09 PM PDT (6:09 PM EDT)
• If you're unable to comment here for any reason (sometimes Google can be a jerk), feel free to reach out to me via e-mail or direct message somewhere and I'll add your prediction here.
• The winner must pick the winning team and having the closest total number of points scored by that team in the championship game. If no one picks the winning team, I will choose whoever picked the closest score regardless of which team was chosen.
• The winner will get some sort of unopened 2024 baseball pack/box (up to $12.99 in value).
• You can only enter once, so make it a good guess!

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.

In da Club(house)

 

Another big batch of Cardinals cards from @flywheels Affordable Group Breaks. 

 

While the Cardinals season continues to circle the drain, I have continued to focus on piecing together my card collection, even though baseball as a whole hasn't been all that fun for me of late. In April, I had another bunch of cards from Colbey shipped my way, and there were lots of goodies to behold!

A number of Panini products were involved, including the always flashy Prizm set. Certain configurations (Quick Pitch?) have these numbered "donut" parallels, and I was fortunate enough to land a couple of them.

Donruss Optic, of course, has all kinds of colored parallels including this blue Goldy numbered to 149.

More numbered Goldy! Goldy Donut Goodness. This is numbered to 199.

Panini's Mosaic set is sort of a knockoff Prizm set. The International Men of Mastery set has the player's national flag in the background and this is a "mosaic" parallel of the regular insert.

Colbey likes to open a lot of older stuff (how else can you consistently keep it "Affordable"?) which resulted me in picking up a couple of these fancy looking base cards from the 1997 Flair Showcase set.

More logoless Panini stuff here. Dylan Carlson has a billion cards on the market for someone who has only been in the league since the pandemic-shortened season.

Speaking of players who have a billion cards, I snagged a couple of J.D. Drew insert cards from the 1999 Pacific set.

I'm definitely grateful for breakers like Colbey, because not many people out there will go near Pacific stuff. How else would I get a cool die cut crown card like this?

The latest and greatest at the time was the 2022 Stadium Club Chrome set. I never managed to find any at retail, but I think there's only 3 cards per pack, so it was probably out of my price range anyway.

I ended up with at least a half dozen base card needs, but my favorite was this Albert Pujols card from his infamous pitching appearance last season. Last season was so fun! This season... yeesh!

Spring PWE Round-Up

 Wrapping up 2022 with some sports cards from @Thorzul @OYERecs and more. 

 

It's fully springtime, but we're taking a look back at a few Plain White Envelopes that arrived at the end of last year.

First up are my returns from the annual Trade Me Anything affair from Death Stare Cards. I always look forward to this event where Thorzul opens a hobby box of Topps Update and trades off anything most anything not needed for his base set build.

This year's offering came up big in the Cardinals department, with a red jersey swatch of the reigning NL MVP and a short printed card of a Hall of Famer. These were definitely better cards than anything I personally picked up from my own experiences with 2022 Topps Update.

The second offering came from Dawg Day Cards. Angus, as many of you know, has sent a number of interesting cards my way over the years and this was no exception. Ifo Ekpre-Olomu is one of my all-time favorite Ducks football players, so it was great to add another signed card of his to my collection. I'm not really sure what jersey he is wearing here -- perhaps it's some sort of All-Star game thing?

If you're a fan of oddball cards and/or food issues, you're probably well aware of Post cereal cards by now. Did you know that there were separate Post sets issued just for the country of Canada? This is something I wasn't aware of myself until I started exploring the depths of the TCDB lists of sets. As usual with MLBPA licensed stuff, you get no logos with these cards.

Angus also sent along a nice six-pack of Panini stickers. These will head to my Cardinals albums, unstuck.

Last up is a couple of goodies from reader Neil. In 2015, Panini confusingly released a set called Elite and also included Elite inserts in their Donruss set with the exact same design. I believe this is from the regular Elite set.

Even with his retirement, I'm still able to keep with the tradition of ending many of my posts with a Yadi card. In this case, it's a fancy Tier One card of the Cardinals legend from 2019.

Neil operates a record label called Open Your Ears Records. Definitely check them out if you're into, you know, music and such!

Contest Winners and Cards from Oren

 

If you won something, say something! 

 

As of Monday, another college basketball season is in the books. That also concludes contest season here at Cards on Cards. Here is your big list of winners:

• 1st Place: bivlo (blitmeat)
• 2nd Place: rl16
• 3rd Place (tie): mds2942 (Chaos is a Bracket) and AngelsInOrder
• WoRsT pLaCe: mintxcore and josh.worley (Worley360)
• Championship Game Prediction: Brandon L (UConn 75, SDSU 62 - actual score UConn 76, SDSU 59)

If you are one of the winners (or "winners"), please get in touch with me as soon as possible so I can get your address and discuss your prize(s).

Meanwhile, here's another lovely batch of Cardinals cards from reader Oren. I was able to increase my Topps gold (the real gold) collection by a couple of notches with this package I got back in December.

Jack Flaherty has kept his ERA down over his first two (healthy, we presume) starts of the 2023 season, but he's been walking dudes at an alarming rate. Hopefully that doesn't become a thing.

Along with the tidy J.D. Drew autograph card is this striking blue insert from the 1999 Fleer Mystique set. I like it a lot.

More gold! Mooooore gooooold!

Tim Cooney made it to the big club in 2015, but my memory of this has more to do with remembering he has a card in Topps Update that year than of any recollection of seeing him on the field. Memory is weird that way.

Is this still the Players Weekend logo? Was it ever?

This insert from last year's Topps Chrome set leans a little too close to "Ben Baller" territory for me. It's always nice to get another Yadi insert card, though.

Last, but certainly not least, is this fancy encased Alex Reyes auto-patch card from the 2017 Panini National Treasures set. I wonder if Panini will continue to make sets like this in the future as they only have retired players and (apparently) minor leaguers to draw from now.

Thanks again to Oren and everyone who participated in my contests this year!