Zistle Trade #21

This trade was proposed through Zistle, but was with a fellow blogger, Mark Kaz, of This Way to the Clubhouse. Here's his post on my half (or I guess it's now his half) of the trade.

I put a lot of cards on my wantlist. I probably shouldn't do that, because I'll never acquire all of them unless I come into enough money to buy them all, and also enough money to quit my job to focus on tracking them all down full time. But at least it gives traders a wide swath the choose from in order to snag some of my duplicates. This small trade covered some set fillers and some Cardinals-specific wants as well.

1986 Topps Traded #82T Jose Oquendo
1990 K-Mart #12 Joe Magrane
2011 Topps Opening Day - Superstar Celebrations #SC-12 Matt Garza
2012 Topps Update #US185 Donovan Solano
2012 Topps Update #US285 Ian Kinsler
2012 Topps Update #US319 A.J. Pollock RC
2012 Topps Update #US322 Jordan Danks RC
2012 Topps Archives #134 Chris Carpenter
2012 Topps Opening Day - Elite Skills #ES-2 Alex Gordon

The old cards in the trade were a 1986 Topps Traded of Jose Oquendo, the secret weapon, who also played for Mark's New York Mets. The regular 1986 cards seem fairly easy to come by, but the traded sets, as usual, are a bit less common to find. The only other card from that set on my wantlist is Todd Worrell, though a quick look tells me I never went through and exhaustively added all the Cardinals. That would cover the two in uniform, but I collect all Cardinals in any uniform, so I'll be adding Will Clark, Dane Iorg, Joaquin Andujar, and more to my want list. You can see how it balloons so easily.

The full 33-card 1990 K-Mart set is on my want list, and Joe Magrane leaves me with 12 cards to go. I'll bet Nolan Ryan is the last one I'm able to acquire.

Opening Day is a set so cheap that I often decide I'm going to try to acquire every insert among the more common sets, basically everything but autographs/relics/printing plates, and the Alex Gordon and sideways Matt Garza cards are two of those inserts from 2011 and 2012.

I think I completed 2010, 2011, and 2013 Update, but never 2012 for some reason. But, I'm now 4 cards closer on that quest, too.

Finally there's Chris Carpenter from 2012 Archives. I really haven't jumped into Archives with both feet, but I do like getting the Cardinals from the sets. It's a level of restraint rarely seen from me when making my want lists.

Thanks for the trade, Mark! You knocked 9 cards off my want list, but thanks to the attention I paid to 1986 Topps traded, I added 12 more to it.

Zistle Trade #15

This was another trade where I only had to send one card to my trading partner, but at least it was a 2011 Heritage SP this time. I'd say it balanced these well enough.

2012 Opening Day - Fantasy Squad #FS-13 Victor Martinez
1992 Topps - Gold #151 Jeff Hamilton
2011 Topps - Kimball Champions #KC-24 Josh Johnson
2011 Opening Day - Superstar Celebrations #SC-10 Carlos Pena

1992 was when I first started collecting cards, so the first current-year packs I bought were 1992 Topps. The Gold parallel set has been one of my biggest wants ever since then. I felt like I had a lot of them many years ago, but my collection currently only has 12, now 13 with the addition of Jeff Hamilton. It's possible I believed 10 or so was a lot back then, and it's possible I'll unearth a box of cards somewhere with more Golds in it when helping my parents clean out their basement one of these days.

This trade was full of inserts, with a card from the 2011 Kimball Champions set I've been so enamored with, and two Opening Day inserts. Opening Day always seems like it'd be an easy set to complete a bunch of insert sets from, but so far I haven't bought any full boxes to try to do so the easy way. Instead I'll let them trickle in through the years in trades like this.

A Trade Post is in Order, Part II

[Part I]

Thanks to my obsessive need to scan and post every insert card I receive, I got an email from The Angels, In Order about the Tyler Chatwood in this contest win post.

Here's the next part of my trade.

2008 Upper Deck Documentary
#854 Chris Duncan

 The back of this card talks about Braden Looper, and doesn't even mention Chris Duncan. This is an odd, 4000+ card set.

2008 Upper Deck First Edition
#50 Adam Wainwright
#51 Joel Pineiro
#57 Rick Ankiel

2007 Upper Deck Future Stars
#88 Chris Carpenter
#89 Chris Duncan

 I've mentioned before I'm not sure why this is called Future Stars with Carpenter well-established by 2007. And Chris Duncan? He's been in local sports radio for a few years now.

2011 Opening Day - Mascots
#M-8 Dinger

Now we're on to the wantlist stuff. In 2011 I bought a lot of Opening Day since it's cheap, and I've decided to collect the set and the inserts. Here's the Rockies' slightly-too-cute mascot.

2011 Opening Day - Superstar Celebrations
#SC-5 Ubaldo Jiminez
#SC-11 Jimmy Rollins
#SC-17 Prince Fielder
#SC-9 Nick Markakis

Seeing these cards together gets me antsy for the end-of-season pennant races and the playoffs. When these celebrations seem to happen more often due to the heightened sense of urgency to win.

There's just one more chunk of this trade to go.

March Radness Win, Part I

I "won" a prize, in that I managed to have the worst bracket of all in Cards on Cards March Radness contest. I legitimately tried to win, in fact I didn't even realize there was this consolation prize until the contest was over, because I stopped scoreboard watching about 2 rounds into the tournament because I did so poorly to start off. The good thing about winning cards from a fellow Cardinals fan is that he can't resist dumping a whole bunch of his Cardinal duplicates on me, which I'm more than happy to take.

2010 Upper Deck
#460 Colby Rasmus
#465 Julio Lugo
#467 Adam Wainwright
#468 Brad Thompson
#473 Kyle Lohse
#474 Chris Carpenter
#475 Ryan Franklin

I just traded for Colby and Thompson in my last trade, which was in the mail the same time as this prize, but the rest put me 5 cards closer to completing the 2010 UD team set.

Coincidentally, part 2 of that trade also included some 2011 Opening Day, also seen here. There wasn't much overlap. Not that I'd complain about the overlap; I've found the best way to complete a set is usually to swap duplicates of that same set with someone else, so those would likely make a trade easier. Here's Yadi and some inserts.

2011 Topps Opening Day

#46 Yadier Molina
Presidential First Pitches #PFP-5 Richard Nixon
Stadium Lights #UL-5 Miguel Cabrera
Toppstown #TTOD-5 Jon Lester
Toppstown #TTOD-14 Brian Matusz

And all the base cards:
38 Mike Stanton
44 Omar Infante
46 Yadier Molina
68 Jeremy Jeffress
71 Jon Niese
101 Brian Wilson
138 Chris Young
144 Brett Gardner
150 Matt Cain
156 Ryan Zimmerman
164 Grady Sizemore
170 Logan Morrison
179 Prince Fielder
194 Delmon Young

There's a whole lot more to this trade package, but like I've said before, I just can't not tag a Cardinal or a set.

A Fantastic Trade, Part II

I always enjoyed using Roman Numerals, except VI sorts lexicographically after IX, which just messes everything up.

In case you missed Part I, go check it out.

It's always good to find a new trading partner, and I recently got an email from Fantastic Catch with an offer of a bunch of cards from my wantlists, and I was able to send him some stuff for his player PCs and set needs.  Of course as a fellow Cardinal fan, he sent so many he triggered my obsessive need to use up my all of my available tag space , so here's part 2 what I got in my 2-piece box:

2011 Opening Day - Superstar Celebrations #SC-21 Matt Holliday

Opening Day is a set I really like, and I've bought enough I've decided to collect the inserts too. I'm working on 2012 too, but I won't put up my wantlist until I've finished buying packs. From this 2011 set I also got:
SC-5 Ubaldo Jimenez
SC-17 Prince Fielder

2011 Opening Day - Mascots #M-23 Rangers Captain

And also:
M-6 Gapper (Reds)
M-24 Toronto Blue Jays
M-25 Screech (Nationals)

2011 Opening Day - Spot the Error #2 Jason Heyward

He also sent a good pile of base cards from my list, with no Cardinals, oddly enough:
3 Jon Lester
13 Carl Crawford
25 Johan Santana
35 Vladimir Guerrero
38 Mike Stanton
43 Jered Weaver
44 Omar Infante
54 Ian Stewart
57 Zack Greinke
61 Jason Bay
71 Jon Niese
91 Andres Torres
92 Nick Markakis
101 Brian Wilson
112 Andre Ethier
120 Roy Halladay
138 Chris Young
156 Ryan Zimmerman
165 Carlos Zambrano
170 Logan Morrison
192 Dustin Pedroia
194 Delmon Young
212 Vernon Wells

I guess I had a lot less of that set than I realized.

2011 Lineage #12 Elvis Andrus

There was just a single 2011 Lineage card, but this is another set I'm working to complete. A lot of people kind of trash-talked it last year, but I liked it; I'm not sure why.

2010 Topps Update - Vintage Legends #VLC-30 George Sisler

2010 Topps Update #TR128 Chris Carpenter

2010 Update was what really brought me back into collecting, and I have a ton of extra base cards, so it's nice to a few inserts, since I definitely won't be buying any more packs of it.

2008 Upper Deck First Edition Update - Star Quest Common #SQ-32 Albert Pujols

Good old UDFEU for short.

Thanks again for the trade, and go check out Fantastic Catch if you're not following it yet.