Futures Game

Here are two cool Cardinal relics from 2010 Pro Debut. I like that these cards are numbered and have giant jerseys on them. I think these will be perfect for autographs at the next Cardinals Winter Warm Up.

Eduardo Sanchez 187 of 299 – Sanchez made a splash earlier this year out of the bullpen but has been out with shoulder problems for the last two months.


Francisco Samuel Gold 25 of 25 – Samuel is supposed to be our closer in a couple of years but has been passed by Fernando Salas, Lance Lynn and Sanchez.


Let’s just hope they can give us what this guy has since 2006. Get well Waino!!!

Hey Yadi, Yadi–Seeing Double

Yadi looks like he just picked off someone at first base again!

2010 Bowman Gold and Blue. The blue is numbered 435 of 520 and is close to the light blue the Cardinals used to wear.


I’m looking for other color versions of this card and have plenty to trade!

Lucky Pack Break

Our favorite hobby shop moved last week but my dad took me to the new location yesterday for supplies and a few packs. He didn't have as many packs but I picked up a 2011 Topps Pro Debut, a 2011 Bowman,  and a 2010 Upper Deck Series 1. The new location is also close to a coin shop that sells cards so we stopped there on the way home. The owner is nice and discounts older packs. I got a 2009 Piece of History, a 2009 Icons, and a 2009 Goudey.

Here's the pack break:

An Awesome T206 Leftover

Our local card shop is downsizing. They are not closing, just moving to a smaller space. He marked down the last packs of T206 to $2.50 so we bought two packs last week. Isaac pulled this one out of the second pack!


As always, its up for trade for similar Cardinals’.

A Unique Mini Book Relic!

Here’s one we’ve never seen before. I took Isaac to an out of the way hobby shop over the weekend and ended up buying a few packs for him, two of which were of last year’s T206. The first pack was uneventful but the second pack had a giant gap between the top and bottom cards which turned out to be this:



Pretty cool mini-book dual relic card numbered to 99, especially since Hamilton has a few pages in Isaac’s favorite player binder. But it gets better:



The Pence bat is pretty blah but how about that Hamilton swatch? We weren’t sure what it was but figured out pretty quickly that it’s the lower label on the front of Hamilton’s jersey. Isaac thinks it might be worth more than a typical mini book relic from this set (about $20 based on recent ebay transactions) because it’s more unique than a plain jersey swatch. If he’s right, he’s thinking about flipping it – if not, it already has a spot with his other favorite player cards.

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!

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.

 
 

1968 Springfield Cardinals

I bought a 2010 Springfield Cardinals team set for Isaac at the Winter Warm Up in case he wanted to get autos of some of the AA prospects. As you can see, the team set is a nice interpretation of the 1968 Topps design. The team circle has been appropriated with a dedication to Stan the Man… you really have to look for the “Springfield Cardinals” in that logo.
While you’ve already seen a few of the AA Cardinal Prospects in our Winter Warm Up posts, I thought I’d post a card of a non-prospect featured in this set… El Presidente!

While we’re at it, here are a few of the ‘68 Cardinals we have. In this case, few = almost all. Have other 68’s for trade if anyone has spare Cardinals of that vintage though.

Hot Packs and Card Shops

We interrupt the Winter Warm Up post this semi-interesting story from a LCS this week. I stopped by the LCS to pick up supplies and ended up getting a few 2010 Series 2 packs for Isaac. I also asked if they had any packs of 2010 Chrome as Ike likes the shininess. The owner cracked open a fresh box and with a wry, knowing look reached into the middle of one of the four stacks and handed me two packs. He said something about how he thought my son would really like those packs as I paid up.

My first thought was… wow that was a bit strange. My second thought was… I wonder if he just gave me a pack with an autograph? Sure enough, one of those packs had a rookie auto card of Wade Davis.

I got to thinking about this and how easily he could have given me two packs from the top of the box and kept the hot pack for himself… or all the hot packs from all the boxes for that matter. But then I got to thinking about all the nice hits Isaac has pulled out of packs from this guys shop. I remembered how he usually shuffled packs as soon as he opened a fresh box to confuse pack searchers. I thought about his “NO PACK SEARCHING!!!” signs on his counter. And I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

Heck, Isaac and I were in his shop two weeks ago to buy supplies (SWMBO demanded card clean up in Ike’s room) and Isaac was adamant on buying the last, lone pack of Goudey on the counter. A pack that had been sitting there for the better part of 8 – 9 months (maybe longer if you had the time and inclination to carbon-date dust). A pack that I and about every other customer passed over thinking there was no way the last pack of a dealer box could possibly have anything interesting (aside from Cardinals of course). A pack that only an unjaded, innocent kid might want. A pack that ended up having a Yankee autograph… but more on that card later.

Winter Warm Up 2011–Day 2 (The Packs)

My dad let me get more packs to open while standing in line and a few packs to open during dinner that night. The Cardinals had a souvenir booth and had packs on sale. Dad said they were expensive (Dad: Didn't realize they were selling all packs for $2 and $3 instead of the 500000% markup on the stadium price tags.)and were retail packs so I probably wouldn’t be as lucky as the day before. He was so wrong!
From the Retail Packs during the day. They also had 2009 Cereal Boxes for $6! We bought the last one but didn’t get much. The X packs were cool – a Peavy jersey card and some cards for my favorite players binder.

And back to the Hobby Packs at night. Two autos from the Astros and Cubs. Boo!

Winter Warm Up 2011–Day 1 (The Packs)

During our morning break we went to the vendor room and bought some cards for autographs and 8 packs to open while waiting in line. I got some Cardinals and lots of cool cards. Here are the cool cards.

Topps Attax Prizes

I took Isaac to the local Toys ‘R’ Us last month for a Topps Attax game day. The turn out was sparse but it gave Isaac had a chance to play the game with other kids and they even gave a way free starter packs. Kids had their choice of the Ruth pack or the Mantle pack.

We left after 45 minutes but not before checking out the small card island. After much deliberation, Isaac decided on a rack pack of 2010 Heritage. After even more consideration, he finally picked which pack we were going to buy.

The kid has a gift. He opened the pack on the drive home and pulled this:

Nothing major… but he has a knack of usually getting something cool from his packs. Now, if only that could somehow transfer to the box breaks we’ve been signing up for lately…

More 2010 Topps Game Inserts

Picked a few of these up in trades, some in random retail packs. We’re keeping the Cardinals. All others available for trade if anyone is interested. Just leave a comment. We’re still looking for the Pujols card in this set.

Topps Million: 1973 Norm Cash

Red Back / Blue Back Retros

Love the Topps 2010 Red & Blue Back retail inserts this year and have picked up a few recent retros of the same lineage… ok two. I’m looking at the 1951 checklist to see if I can put together a Cardinal team set for a reasonable sum. We’ll see….

1968 Orlando Cepeda Game Insert

2005 Albert Pujols Bowman Heritage Mini

2010 Stan Musial Wal-mart Blue Back Insert

The non-Cardinals 2010 inserts. These are up for trade for the Dizzy Dean, Rogers Hornsby, George Sisler, or Albert Pujols inserts.