Venerable Old Card Part 18

This week I am going to skip by the card aisle and make more of a toy post, or at least it feels that way to me.  What is the oddest sports cards that are in your collection?  Sometime ago, like the early 2000s, I picked up a copy of a 1997 Topps Pro Shooters Ron Gant marble.  It was cheap, weird looking, and the seller swore it was super rare.  Here is a look at the Gant:

I think it sat in a box for about a year before I discovered that there was a Ray Lankford in this set and could not find it anywhere with good reason.  After checking into the set a bit it turns out that the Topps ProShooters set was a test issue that was released a few places, supposedly Canada and the northeast US.  You can find them every once in awhile on Ebay, but they can be rather pricey.  

There are actually three Cardinals in the ProShooters set.  Outside of Gant and Lankford, there is also a Brian Jordan marble.  I managed to pick up a copy of the Brian Jordan about six or seven years ago on Ebay.  It was selling for right around $20.  Not a bad price for one of his rarer cards, err, marble.  Here is the Jordan.....

Which left me with just the Ray Lankford.  I have seen several pop up over the past few years, but they have always been fairly pricey.  While I really like Lankford, and do as much as possible to collect as many of his cards as possible, I will not break the bank for things.  Last year I ran into an Ebay auction for one of those old Donruss Crusade cards and it nearly ended up at $200.  Too much for a Lankford.  

So, a week or two ago I finally find one for a reasonable price and even got the seller to know it down a bit more with a Best Offer.  It feels good to add this card, or marble, to my collection....

Definitely one of the more challenging Lankford's I have tracked down, both due to price and scarcity.  I am also happy to pull together the Cardinals team set out of this product.  While I am sure that someone out there has managed to put together the entire set of ProShooters marbles, it can't be that many, I am really proud of assembling a team set.  

and a little bonus for this week....

I don't go out of my way to collect oddballs, but outside of the ProShooters marbles that I just highlighted in this post, I have one other really cool test issue card from back in the day....

This is from the 1971 Topps Greatest Moments baseball card set.  It too was a test release by Topps and the cards carry a pretty hefty price tag for the most part.  I had a very generous individual give me this Nate Colbert card as a gift.  If I collected this set I would probably target the Cardinals cards, but Nate Colbert is from St. Louis, so this is still a really sweet card.