#MyCardMonday

There are not many Ray Lankford cards floating around that I need for my collection, but every once in awhile I run into one.  We are not counting printing plates, there were not very many back in the late 1990s, but mainly low serial numbered cards and parallels.  This week I was able to add a parallel of a card of a cool 1990s insert card......

I have the green version, numbered out of 250, in my collection already.  Some readers might remember that I actually lost out on the red version when the auction for the card ended at $172.50  That card is out of 25 and it features Ray Lankford, not a Hall of Famer, for $172.50  

Luckily the purple version sold for well short of $172.50 and I was able to win the auction on Ebay. The card is numbered to 100 and fills in one of the remaining holes in my Ray Lankford collection.  

I am just hoping another copy of the red Crusade card comes up for auction, or for sale, and not many people take interest or note in the card.  

I Lost Ray, But I Got...Part 4

I recently lost out on a Ray Lankford card that I really really needed for my collection.  Lost would be an understatement.  The card ended up going for more than $180.  Considerably more than my price range for buying the card.

Luckily the seller had a few nice other cards that were also up for sale.  All of the cards I ended up with were less than $5 and could be argued, by some collectors, as better players than Ray Lankford.  Of course, I love Ray.  He was awesome, but some of the other cards were really nice.  So far I have shown off a Juan Encarnacion (member of the 2006 World Champion Cardinals), a Matt Morris (member of the 2004 National League Champions), and a Fernando Tatis (ummm....Two Grand Slams in an inning).  I will post three more cards today which are really nice late 90s insert cards.  First up, the only non-Cardinal of the group.....

I understand that Giambi is caught up in the whole steroid thing, but he was still a good player during the late 90s and early 2000s.  He also managed to bounce back from everything, stick around the league for awhile, and serve as a pretty good role player for the Rockies and Indians.  I even saw recently that he is still putting himself out on the market and willing to still continue his career.  Next.

Scott Rolen was a great player for the Cardinals who had a not so great ending to his career on the team.  The former Phillie, Cardinal, Blue Jay, and Red ended his career with more than 2000 hits, 300 home runs, and ranks as the 10th best third baseman in baseball history according to JAWS.  As a Cardinals fan, he was one of my favorite players on the 2004, 2005, and 2006 Cardinals teams that produced a World Series title, a National League Championship, and three National League Central Championships.  One of the favorite Rolen moments was his Game 7 home run off of Roger Clemens in 2004.  

Final card belongs to another mid 2000s Cardinals great, but pictured as an Angel.  Last card for this evening belongs to none other than Mr. Jimmy Ballgame.  

Big fan of Jimmy Ballgame and was excited to get a really cool late 90s insert of him.  This card is a subset of the regular Donruss Crusude cards.  The print runs run the same as the regular Crusade cards with two sets of the cards, a green set numbered out 250 and a red numbered out of 25.  Edmonds played on all of the same teams that Rolen played on and was eventually traded to the Padres for future Postseason Cardinals hero David Freese.  Before he left Edmonds hit one his own important postseason home runs.  

I Lost Ray, but I got...Part 3

To summarize Parts 1 and 2.  I lost a Ray Lankford card on Ebay.  It sold for a lot.

I still ended up picking up a bunch of Donruss Crusade cards from the same seller, all but one cost me less than $5.  So, far I have shown off a nice Juan Encarnacion and Fernando Tatis.  Both nice additions to collections and both former Cardinals.  Today, I have a player actually pictured in a Cardinals uniform.

This is actually my second copy of this card, but the Crusade cards are nice, and for less than $5, I am happy to have two copies. Morris was one of the better pitchers on the Cardinals in the late 90s.  While the Cardinals teams from that era were brimming with offensive fire power, the rotation was headlined by Morris, the two Benes brothers, and Donovon Osborne.  There was also Kent Merker, Manny Aybar, Kent Bottenfield, and Mark Petkovsek.  Needless to say, the Cardinals did not make an postseason appearances with that rotation.

Talk amongst yourselves: Alan Benes would have been better than Matt Morris.

Morris actually ended up being a solid starter for the Cardinals and even had a few memorable seasons that few people seem to remember.  Most notable was his 22-8 season in 2001 where he finished 3rd in the Cy Young voting.  After that season, Morris slowly started to slide and left the team after the 2005 season for the Giants.  He ended his career as a Pirate.

I Lost Ray, but I got.....Part 2

Not to rehash, but I lost a Ray Lankford card last week in a big way.....

Yes, that is a really ridiculous price for a Ray Lankford card.  Luckily the seller had some other great items listed and I was able to snag a few other cool cards, all but one cost me less than $5, and I will be sharing them all week.  Last weekend I shared the first card out of the lot, which was a copy of the Juan Encarnacion Donruss Crusade card.  Really nice.  Next up.....

Another Donruss Crusade card, they all are, featuring former Cardinals player Fernando Tatis.  He played for the Cardinals for half of the 1998 season, but started the year play for the Texas Rangers, and was traded to the Cardinals for Royce Clayton and Todd Stottlemyre.  I have always been a pretty big fan of Fernando and have enjoyed his Twitter page over the last year, but recently saw that his account on was actually fake.

I was crushed and a little bit disappointed, but this happens in the world of social media.  I still Fernando, his time on the Cardinals, and still enjoy his cards.  In fact, I feel kind of bad that someone took his name and used as their own for the past year.  They had quite a following.  I will have to post more Fernando cards to make up for his absence on the web.

I Lost Ray, But I Got.... Part 1

Last week I shared the bidding insanity that I ran into in trying to win a copy of a Ray Lankford card from the 1998 Donruss Crusade set.  I was completely crushed that the card went far beyond my spending limit and was lost.  This was just way too ridiculous...

There did not seem to be much of a positive take away in the immediate moments after being completely outspent on a card that I really wanted to add to my collection.  However, I clicked on the Ebay seller profile, checked out the seller's other items, and found some really cool items floating around for not so much money.  In fact, I ended up buying six of his items, and five of them cost me less than $5.  I will share them all this week.  First up:

Like many sellers on Ebay, this person had a bunch of similar cards up for sale.  This guy had a whole slew of 1998 Donruss Crusade cards.  This card is a green version which is serial numbered out of 250.  $5 might seem like a lot for a Juan Encarnacion card that is serial numbered out of 250, but this set is extremely popular with collectors and the cards can drift high (see the Ray Lankford picture above).  Back of the card below....

  

Encarnacion does have a Cardinals connection that many people may not remember.  He was a member of the 2006 World Series Championship team, but had his time diminish towards the end of the year after the Cardinals brought up Chris Duncan and signed cast off Preston Wilson.  Sprinkle in a few innings of So Taguchi defense and you have a guy that some people forget.  Encarnacion missed the beginning of the 2007 season, but returned to play 78 games before his career ended after he was hit in the eye while standing in the on-deck circle. 

Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Lose, Sometimes It Rains Part 3

One of my primary player collections is former Cardinals outfielder Ray Lankford.  I have shared my love of Lankford cards on this blog before and am always on the lookout for new cards.  The problem is that after twenty some years of collecting a minor star I am at a point where I am mainly looking for things like printing plates and parallels with extremely low print runs.  Printing plates and low prints runs are usually pricey gets, but one of the great parts of collecting a player like Ray Lankford is that I have never spent more than 50 to add a card of his to my collection.  Ever.

The highest I ever went on a card of his was $43 for a copy of his Essential Credentials card from the 1998 Skybox EX-2001 set.

This set is highly collected and the Essential Credentials parallels often sell pretty high.  A star player out of the set might easily reach triple digits in price and could go for multiple hundreds.  It's just the price you sometimes pay if you want to collect a specific player.

Have you ever asked yourself where your line is on a single card of your favorite player?  Being a Ray Lankford fan, I really never thought I would have to answer that question until this week when a copy of his 1998 Donruss Crusade came up for auction on Ebay.  There are two copies of the Crusade cards, the green copies numbered to 100 and the red copies numbered to 25.  I already have the green copy.

Which left the red copy.  I always watch cards on Ebay and then bid at the last minute.  No need to bid five days ahead of time.  Many theories on this, but that's for a different post.  The seller of the card had several Crusade cards up for auction and the pricing quickly escalated with the Lankford card.  The morning of the end of the auction the card was sitting in the high 30s.  I was more than willing to go into the forties and even push it into the 50s if I needed to go there.

I came home from work, ate dinner, and checked the auction.  I was crushed....

Fifty dollars for a Lankford card?  Sure.  I think I could have convinced myself to go higher still, but I could not look at the screen and honestly justify spending $172 on a Ray Lankford card.  The card ended up at $182.  Needless to say, I did not put in the winning bid.  I am sure at some point another copy of this card while pop up and I will have a chance to add it to my collection.  Hopefully for less than $182.  In the meanwhile, I picked up some other cool Crusade cards.

1998 Donruss Crusade Alan Benes

Long ago in the 1990's card companies started making parallel cards.  Most sets by the late 90s had at least one such insert set.  Notice I said one parallel set and not the five or six that often appear in the sets of today.  Last week's Topps release of Gypsy Queen contained at least that many if not more.  Sure, the numbers on the backs of the cards today actually appear to be smaller and many of the parallel sets frequently run a one out of one and several other versions up to 100.  At the end of the day, there are plenty of collectors chasing the modern parallel sets, but when you look at the price of some of the parallels on Ebay and COMC some are disappointed at the return on their cards that are limited.  I attribute the low prices on parallels to the fact that multiple parallel sets actually mean that the number of parallels available on the secondary market is higher than in the past.

One of my favorite parallel, or chase sets of all-time is the Donruss Crusade set.  Specifically the 1998 version.  Last week I had the chance to add a nice Alan Benes card from this set which helped me close out my Cardinals set I was putting together over the past few months.

1998 Donruss Crusade Alan Benes

I paid less than $5 to buy this card and have it shipped to me on Ebay, but always enjoy closing out a set I am trying to put together.  While I was assembling the set it was clear that some of the high end players featured in this set, which again is printed to /250 or /100 for the purple version, carry far more value than the parallel cards of today.  A parallel print run card of a star player with that print run would be easy to find for less than $5.  However, the star players and high grade cards in set frequently sell for more than $50.  For example, three cards from this set that I looked into were a Cal Ripken, Bernie Williams, and Randy Johnson.  All three cards ended north of $50.  Imagine if you could sell you cards with a print run of 100 or 250 for that much.  

First Player Collection

It has been a crazy week and I have not had much time for cards this week, but I am through one crazy week at work and ready for some down time.  I am going to start my weekend with my original player collection: Ray Lankford.  Mark McGwire once said that he was the best protection that he ever had in the lineup.  He actually hit fourth behind McGwire during most of the 1998 season.  I would like to think that my Ray Lankford collection started way back in 1991 when I spent my Sunday afternoons watching the Cardinals in old Busch Stadium with my father where I witnessed Ray Lankford, as a rookie, hit for the cycle.  Still have my scorecard.  Six years later I took up collecting Ray Lankford cards.  Fifteen years later I have hundreds of Ray Lankford cards and am always on the lookout for rare cards.  It's a fun collection still since he played a long time ago and the majority of his cards were made in an era when there were few parallels and printing plates.    For this blog entry I have selected my ten favorite Ray Lankford cards.

1.  1998 Skybox EX-2001 Essential Credentials 50/52

2.  1998 Donruss Crusade 75/250

3.1999 SP Signature Autograph 

4. 1998 SP Chirography Autograph

5.  Fleer Gamers Lumber Ray Lankford Bat Card

1999 Skybox EX-Century Essential Credentials 38/75

1999 Flair Showcase Legacy Collection 58/99

1999 Fleer Ultra Platinum Medallion 55/99

1999 Pacific Crown Royale Red 69/99

I have also included the 1991 box score from the September 15th Mets-Cardinals game.  You will also note that Rheal Cormier pitched the game of his life that afternoon.  

Ray Lankford Cycle Game