Diamond Card - 1987 Secret Weapon

Our third code card (it was a  Pujols code card) is for...

The Secret Weapon!!!

Second Diamond Card - 1976 John Hale

Don't know who he is either...

First Diamond Code - 1980 Mike Barlow

First Diamond Code Card is for Mike Barlow. I have no idea who he is.

50% Off Topps Online Gift Cards!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok folks, Ikes Dad here with a deal you can't refuse... if you don't mind buying retail from Topps directly.

If so, get thee to FanIQ Deals for their 50% Off Topps Trading Cards special!!! For $20, you get a $40 e-gift card from Topps which expire Feb 12, 2012. Limit of 3 per person so $60 for $120 worth of cards. Just in time for Gypsy Queen, Heritage, Series 2 baseball.

Here's what's available in the Topps Online Baseball Store.

2010 Ron Teasley Allen & Ginter Autograph

Catching up on the backlog of group break cards Isaac and I were fortunate enough to participate in over the last year or so. This one is an excellent autograph of Negro Leaguer Ron Teasley from the 2010 A&G set. This one was from a Carl Crawford Cards break from last summer. Good stuff!



Read more about Teasley and his career at the Negro League Baseball eMuseum.

For Berra and Guidry, It Happens Every Spring

 

Not a big Yankee fan but absolutely loved this story.

For Berra and Guidry, It Happens Every Spring - NYTimes.com

2009 Nick Markakis Upper Deck Ultimate Autograph

Here is another Nick Markakis card. It is my only Nick Markakis autograph and its even numbered 10 out of 39! I got this from a group break that my dad signed us up for last year.

2004 Bowman Heritage Box 2

My mom said my breathing sounds like Darth Vader.

2004 Bowman Heritage Box 1

Ikes first video box break. Should have made him make the bed first...

Ike's First Box Break?

Picked up two blasters of 2004 Bowman Heritage at the flea market today... CHEAP! Isaac wants to do a video box break. We'll see how the video looks but this may be his Internet debut! If not, we'll scan and post the  good ones.

Side By Side: Adam Wainwright

Bringing Side By Side back to keep things going until the season starts. Might as well start with Isaac’s favorite autograph from the 2011 Winter Warm Up. Here’s what we’ve got:
In person, on card:

2006 Topps Chrome Rookie Auto Sticker

2006 Topps Co-Signers Auto Sticker

2006 Upper Deck Special Something Or Other Auto Sticker

So what do you think? Wainwright definitely uses more room on the Relic card and the #50 inscription is nice too. The sticker autos, even though there is more room on them, seem rushed by comparison. They’re also eerily perfectly centered though!

2008 Joe Mather Bowman Blue Chrome

Joey Bombs was one of my favorite players when he was with the Cardinals. Hopefully he feels better this year and makes the Braves team. This is another card from a trade with Sewing Machine Guy. It is numbered 75 out of 99.

Valentines Day Packs

Mom and Dad gave me two jumbo packs for Valentines Day this year. I got a couple of Cardinals including a Stan Musial Lost Card that Dad forgot to scan for this post. Here are three of the cooler inserts.

Pack 1

Miguel Montero Cyan Printing Plate 1/1. The first printing plate and 1/1 card I’ve ever pulled out of a pack!

Geovany Soto Jersey. Ugh… another Cub relic. First Castro, now Soto. Its hard to make out in the picture but the jersey is actually dirty. Still pretty cool that there was a jersey and printing plate in the same pack though.

Pack 2

Clayton Kershaw Sparkle card. This is my first sparkle card.

These are up for trade for similar Cardinals or favorite players (Markakis, Roberts, Hamilton, Braun, Lincecum) printing plate, jersey or sparkle cards.

2008 Tim Lincecum Topps Chrome Brown Trading Card History

Tim Lincecum is another of my favorite players. I like him because he’s a great pitcher and he looks like a kid. My grandparents like him because he’s part Filipino… just like me. I got this card when I was a little kid and first started collecting baseball cards. I remember liking the Trading Card History cards that year and really liked this shiny chrome card. Its numbered 20 out of 100.

Dad – Jeez. I remember this design back from when I was a kid!

The Non-Blaster

Isaac is always checking out the card aisle at the big box store. If they don’t have any new packs or packs he needs to finish off sets he invariably focuses on blaster boxes. Specifically, the blasters that guarantee a relic card. I try to tell him a blaster for cards he doesn’t want (except for the random relic) just aren’t worth the trouble – its just $20 of junk he’s going to put straight into the trade or hospital boxes. That $20 would be better spent buying singles he actually wants or needs.

So… I decided to put my $20 where my mouth is and hit ebay to see what I could get for $20. I decided to only buy cards from a single seller to minimize shipping and handling which ended up being another $4.

I ended up with a good mix of Cardinals and Ike’s favorite players: 7 relics and one auto.
First, the favorite player – Grady Sizemore. 2004 UD USA Baseball Jersey numbered to 850, 2008 Sweet Spot Jersey, 2009 Topps Unique Jersey numbered to 275.


And now the Cardinals:
1999 Fleer Bob Forsch Auto, 2005 UD Origins Scott Rolen Jersey, 2007 Allen Ginter Scott Rolen Jersey, 2008 Donruss Ozzie Smith Jersey numbered to 99, 2010 Chicle Colby Rasmus Jersey

2007 Nick Markakis Orange Bowman

Nick Markakis is one of my favorite players. I have a Nick Markakis Orioles T-shirt that I want to wear to an Orioles game. We might go to a Braves – Orioles game in Atlanta this summer! I got this card in a trade with Sewing Machine Guy. I really like the orange background. I wish I had a Cardinals card in this color. This one is number 116 out of 250.

Ikes Cups

Thorzul showed us some Brewer’s cups and asked to see our cup collection. After all the awesome Cardinals he’s pulled in his box breaks for us we could not say no. These are all the big soda cups except for the 2008 treat cups.

2007 Cup Celebrating the 2006 World Series Champs

2008 Cup listing the NL Leading 10 World Series Championships

2008 Treat Cup

2009 Play Like A Cardinal Cup

2010 Fredbird Cup

The Straggler Goudey Graph

A few weeks ago I mentioned a pack of Goudey that Isaac really wanted but I tried to steer him elsewhere as it was the last pack on the counter and had been collecting dust for months. His persistence won out and wouldn’t you know it – he pulled a Phil Coke autograph. I actually missed it since I assumed it would just be a stack of base cards. Isaac had to get in my face and show me the signature. Funny kid. Guess I’ll never be able to talk him out of another pack!

I think he’ll trade this for a Cardinals Goudey autograph if anyone is interested.

The Latest Baseball Related Work from 20x200

I've mentioned 20x200 in the past as a great source for artwork in general but also for their excellent selection of baseball related prints and photos. Another was released this week entitled An Inability to Shake the Feeling of Running the Wrong Way into the Unknown, by Colin Blakely. The ball field is in Ann Arbor, MI - a town I haven't been to in 20 years (last time was to watch my Illini take on the Wolverines at the Big House). As always, there are various sizes to choose from and each is signed and numbered by the artist.

Mystery Vintage Cards

Here are the rest of the mysterious vintage Cardinals cards found in my laptop bag. There other five were Cardinals team cards. Let’s start at the most recent and go backwards…

1969 Lou Brock World Series Home Run

1967 Curt Flood

1961 Curt Flood

1960 Curt Flood

1959 Curt Flood

The Flood streak ends with a 1959 Ken Boyer

And the stack ends with a 1952 Enos Slaughter!

Not a bad haul for $11.53! I just wish I could remember where I got these so I can go back on my next trip for another raid.

Mystery Vintage Team Cards

Ever find a stack of cards and wonder where they came from? I found a dozen vintage Cardinal cards ranging from 1952 to 1969 in my laptop bag and can’t recall how, when or where they came from. Well, that’s not entirely true, they were in a snap case with a generic receipt totaling $11.53 and an April 2010 date. According to my expense reports, I was in Atlanta GA, Wilmington DE, Phoenix AZ and of course here in St. Louis that month.
Anyway, the stack had five Cardinals team cards…
1960

1961

1962

1964

1968

Merry Christmas! aka Double Heisey’s

I was lucky to get lots of packs and even some boxes for Christmas. My aunt and uncle gave me a rack pack of Topps Chrome and I got a Chris Heisey rookie autograph.

My mom and dad gave me a box of 2006 Ovation and I got a cool Chien Ming Wang autograph. I liked how he signed it in Chinese and not in English.

Santa gave me a jumbo box of 2010 Updates! Guess what I got? Yep – another Chris Heisey autograph!

To make up for it, I also got a cool Mel Ott black bat card.

I am keeping the Chien Ming Wang autograph. I liked the set and autograph so much my dad bought me two cheap boxes on ebay where I got a Ken Griffey Jr. autograph for the Winter Warm Up. I’d like to trade the Heisey autographs for similar Cardinals autographs. I’d also like to trade the Mel Ott for a Cardinals black bat card in case anyone has one.

Super Bowl Surprise: 2010 Topps Chrome

I originally bought this for Isaac's birthday in May but only realized over the weekend that the wrapper redemption expires in Feburary. So, I gave it to Isaac last night to slowly open while we watched the game. He had fun opening all the packs but I thought the results were fairly pedestrian.

These are all up for trade (Isaac is begging me to try to sell the Stanton on ebay). He's looking for Cardinals T206, Heritage, and Chicle chromes / colored refractors / autos in exchange. We'll probably go ahead and ebay the two autos if no one is interested.