Surprise Visit from the DK

 

...no, not the Donkey Kong. 

 

A few months back, I got a surprise knock on the door from local area not-blogger The Diamond King, who dropped off an incredibly generous selection of Cardinals goodies. I had included my childhood (H)akeem Olajuwon rookie in a mailer sent his way sometime in the past year or so, but certainly wasn't expecting anything in return. We're lucky to have a semi-monthly card show in the area where I suspect at least some of these cards were procured from, and it reminds me that I wanted to make a concerted effort to go to more shows this year (I've already missed the first one.)

Heritage seems like it has such a high print run these days, so I'm always taken aback when I run across a variation like this B&W Arenado, as I never seem to pull stuff like this out of packs anymore. It seems increasingly likely that Arenado will be around for at least the first half of the year with St. Louis now, but I wonder if this card marks his final All-Star appearance with anyone.

The goofy, AI-"enhanced" 2022 Topps Chrome Platinum Anniversary whatever is the gift that keeps on giving, apparently. They really went nuts with the parallels on these. This one is numbered to just 25. Carlson still hasn't caught on with anyone for the coming season as far as I can tell.

Here's another one of the wacky parallels. This one with the free flowing hair of Ted Simmons is numbered to 75.

This Bud Smith card has an imprint with the National Sports Convention logo on it and is numbered 2 out of 5. Rare stuff here! I've always wondered how "official" some of the past cards with stamps from card conventions on them are, but they've mostly been treated as such by the major publications and databases I suppose.

Angel Rondon may have only had a cup of coffee with the Cardinals, but he still makes for a nice looking autographed card. Of course, almost anyone would look good on an Inception card like this.

Daniel Ponce de Leon was once seen as a key cog in the Cardinals stable of pitchers, but he had some tough breaks along the way including a much publicized scary head injury. When standing next to a comparable Topps high end card, Panini's unlicensed warts are pretty visible, though this does contain a nice chunky patch-looking thing in it.

We're back to the AI set here with a more normal parallel pattern. I think this is gold? This will look nice in my Waino collection and is numbered to just 50.

The red ice(?) sky on Lou Brock's card makes this one a bit apocalyptic looking. It's numbered to 100.

Last, but certainly not least, is this pretty slick looking bat card from the 2019 Topps Tier One set. I can't believe it's already been six years since the Cards brought in Goldy. I hope he does well with the Yankees. The Cardinals are really going to miss his defense at 1B more than anything at this point.

If you've got some time, I'd definitely suggest checking out The Diamond King's blog especially if it's been awhile. It looks like he's been generously giving out some impressive stuff, so I'm sure he'd love to get hooked up with something of his own interest.

Value Meal

The latest installment of the Nachos Grande Extra Value Meal Group Break Supreme. 

 

It's another day and it's another batch of group break cards from the Nachos Grande Discord break group. This batch of stuff mostly features cards from early in 2024 that you're probably sick of looking at by now, plus a couple of weirder sets from 2022. I'll keep this short and sweet, although you probably won't stop staring at that bizarre AI thing with Ted Simmons' name on it (numbered to 100!)

In 2022, Topps released Chrome Sonic, which I mistakenly thought was just another configuration of their regular Topps Chrome product, like Chrome Lite and what have you. I suppose that in some ways, it is. But this is technically a separate set in that all of the base cards are just slightly different than the base cards from the actual Topps Chrome set. Some of the cards find the Topps Chrome logo moved to the other side of the frame, but not all of them. The primary way to tell that these are Sonic (and not regular Chrome) is to go all the way to the fine print on the back and check the stupid "Code" printed in bold face.

This is a refractor Sonic card, which again only truly varies in the code number on the back. I also tend to get this set confused with Chrome Cosmic (or is that Cosmic Chrome), but that set is an entirely different thing with a different design. Did they continue this Sonic thing in 2023 or 2024? I have no idea and maybe don't want to know.

I haven't seen a lot of Bowman this year, but I'll occasionally spring for a blaster just to give myself some trade bait. People still like those Bowman 1sts, apparently. Travis Honeyman is no 1st, but he is a Honeyman (and also heavily Photoshopped.)

In case you haven't seen this year's Bowman design for some reason, here it is in a nutshell. Prospect card on the left, rookies/veterans design on the right. It's kind of a fun quasi-mirror image situation.

I did well in the Topps Heritage department, scoring a purple Chrome parallel of Jordan Walker. It's been a couple of years since I happened upon a purple hot box, despite my annual misguided attempts to build the set through retail boxes. (Don't ever buy retail if you're a serious set builder. That goes for all Topps products.)

I also landed a coveted short printed card of the ex-Cardinal Juan Yepez. Yepez hasn't quite turned into the latest in a long line of Cardinals outfielder castoffs to make it big with his new team, although he's also not really an outfielder. Still, a quick glance at his stats with the Nationals this year (Nats stats!) suggest that he's been a half-tick up from league average, which is more than he was contributing with the Redbirds.

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.

Temporary Title (or is it?)

 

A huge variety pack of Cardinals cards and card-like things. 

Coming up with a blog post title is not typically the easiest thing to do, and I often end up throwing a temporary title in while I work on the other aspects of the post, like the images and the words and what have you. For whatever reason, nothing was really speaking to me today even though this collection of Cardinals cards I received from Tracy's Box Breaks several months back was outstanding.

This Old Judge-inspired card from the 2005 Upper Deck Origins set is a really nice way to kick things off here. This is reminding me once again that I really need to get my hands on some real vintage cards sooner or later.

Cast aside by the Cardinals in the midst of last season when he couldn't hit his way out of a wet paper bag, Edmundo Sosa caught fire with the Phillies and ended up facing his old team in the abbreviated playoff series. This "orange ice" parallel is numbered to 299.

I know that a lot of people are down on vintage buyback cards, but I kind of dig them. I don't know that I would pay more than a buck for any particular one of these, but I enjoy getting them in the mail from time to time.

The Stadium Club would have never had me as a member back in the day, but I am glad to enjoy the perks of its membership from time to time.

Somewhat stunningly, this is actually the second copy I own of this Troy Glaus gold parallel from 2008. (There's only 75 copies in existence, supposedly.)

Panini's Cooperstown sets were a fun idea, and I wish they had stuck around longer. Mostly, I just want more round cards.

This is from one of those Topps online exclusive sets. Blake Jamieson designed this set and presumably drew the portraits of each player, modeled after the 1951 Topps sets, of course.

This is a "Fractal Materials" parallel. That makes it sound like there should be a lot more going on with this card other than it being super shiny/glossy.

Tracy included a couple of these metallic looking things that were modeled after the 1986 Topps set, still in their respective wrappers. I'm not sure of the story behind these, but they will settle nicely into my box of curios that don't easily fit into card binders.

Panini probably has a different name for these parallels besides "green ice", but that's what I'm going to call them for now. Now that the beleaguered card company has no active license with the MLB players association, I wonder what it would take to see Cooperstown make a comeback in the future?