I knew this was something different as soon as I picked it up. The photo is fantastic, as you'd expect from a Stadium Club card. But this one is at probably twice as thick as a typical card. Turns out, it's a "Royal Gold" parallel from 2003 Stadium Club. These particular parallels fell one per pack, if BaseballCardPedia.com is to be believed. I don't usually care for parallels were the only difference is the color of the foil. But the thicker card stock used here really does make it feel like a premium product. And when it's combined with a full-bleed, colorful photo, it makes for a very nice card. Here's hoping I stumbled across a few more of these guys in the future.
The Pat Burrell was one of 50 or so cards I pulled from the dime boxes this weekend.
The last time I was at the card show, the one card that really stood out to me was one of these Dick Perez sketch cards from 2007 Allen & Ginter. I found even more this time around, including this one of Roy Halladay. "Doc" is probably one of the two or three greatest Blue Jays of all time (along with Roberto Alomar and Dave Stieb, who will see a little bit later in this episode.).
I found 11 of these sketch cards in all. (The only one not pictured is Tampa's Delmon Young). There are 30 cards total in this insert set, so I'm nearly halfway there after two trips.
I recently discovered the fantastic baseball card blog Dime Boxes, which has a fantastic series called "Into the Sunset," which focuses on the final base cards of players who retire. I'd never thought about it before, but the author of the blog is right: These cards really should be as hallowed as rookie cards. I found a couple of cool farewell cards while flipping through the boxes, including Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith and Hall of Very Gooder Jeff Bagwell.
And here's what really makes for a good sunset card: Full career stats.
I think these two cards, of a pair of former Toronto Blue Jay greats, are sunset cards too, although neither is a particularly good one. McGriff played part of one more season, appearing in 27 games in 2004 with the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays, so this 2004 Topps card doesn't include his full career stats. But I can't seem to find any base cards for the Crime Dog in 2005 sets, so I think this is it. Unless a Donruss Diamond Kings card counts? The 2014 Bowman of Doc notes that he retired in December 2013. But the back doesn't include full career stats, so it isn't quite as satisfying as a true sunset card. (The cards aren't this badly cut, my scanner just has a hard time with white borders sometimes.)
As much as I like the concept of sunset cards, I still like a rookie card even more. One of my favorite finds this weekend was this 2006 Topps Update of Canadian catcher (and new Jay!) Russell Martin.
A few more rookie cards. I really liked Colby when he was with Toronto, and I was sad to see him go this winter, even if he was maddeningly inconsistent. That's a great rookie card, though, with a bright blue (presumably spring) sky behind him. With the 1989 Fleer, I think I now have all of Randy Johnson's rookie cards. Technically, the Aaron Sanchez is a pre-rookie card, since he didn't make his big league debut until this year. But he's one of the most promising prospects in the Blue Jays system. I'm going to be honest: I bought the Andrus by mistake. Still, any A&G rookie is a nice card in my book. Google tells me he had a bit of a rough season last year. Here's hoping he bounce backs, since I guess I'm now a fan.
One thing I don't do enough of is show the backs of cards. This one stood out to me, because I can't recall ever seeing card that simply says "No MLB Experience" and leaves basically half of the back blank. I'm guessing it happens more often than I realize, though.
If you're a Blue Jay fan, you probably know that Jose Reyes is the most likeable guy on the team. Seriously, it is impossible not to love the guy. He's always smiling and laughing. I was sort of hoping when I grabbed this 2003 Upper Deck issue that it was a Reyes rookie. But it turns out that Bowman and Topps Finest both had him in their 2002 sets. But I'll happily settle for his first Upper Deck card. The photo is so great that I would have bought this card no matter what year it was.
Here are a few random baseball cards a pulled. A Pudge Rodriguez not-really-a-rookie from the 1992 Fleer Ultra set I really like. Albert Pujuols and the Topps Rookie Cup. An Ichiro from 2005 Skybox Autographics that I just really liked. (and secretly hoped that the autograph was real. It's not.) A refractor insert of Russell Martin from 2007 Topps Finest. A 1991 Fleer Jose Canseco/Lightning God that my 12-year-old self would have died for. A second-year Robbie Alomar from 1989 Donruss. And a 1983 Topps card featuring two of the greatest lead-off hitters of all time, one of whom is in the Hall of Fame and the other of whom should be.
Continuing with random baseball, three Allen & Ginter inserts -- including Canadian Joey Votto and the always fun-to-find Ken Griffey Jr.
Rounding out the baseball portion of this dollar-box dive, we have A&G appearances from 2007, 2009 and 2010; an early Roy Halladay; a mid-80's Dave Stieb; a fantastically garish 1994 Fleer Ultra insert of Robbie Alomar; and, the best of the lot, a 1995 Donruss Studio Gold credit card of Carlos Delgado.
Let's get one thing straight: The credit card design is straight up awesome.
Hockey is much harder to come by at the Orlando card show, but I did find a few, including two additions to the Steve Yzerman collection:
Here was my best hockey find, though. A rookie card of future Hall of Fame goalie Henrik Lundqvist. This 2005-06 Parkhurst issue isn't the most valuable of King Henrik's rookies. But still, it cost 10 cents.
A few more hockey rookies, including two from the iconic 1990-91 Upper Deck set that my scanner refuses to properly scan. The Cam Ward is from the same set as the Lundqvist. And I'll buy any Young Gun for a dime, even if it is another over-hyped, failed Toronto prospect.
Finally, a few more random hockey cards, including two more from the 1990-91 Upper Deck set -- Mario and a second-year Joe Sakic. I still get a little rush of excitement every time I come across an Eric Lindros card, a legacy of collecting hockey cards in the early 1990's. One can really never have enough Pavel Bure-in-roller-blades cards. The Martin Brodeur is an emerald paralle, while the Olaf Kolzig is from 1998-1999 Topps and makes me think that 2013-2014 Score might have done a little bit of plagiarizing when designing their gold parallels. Ron Tugnutt has always been a personal favorite of mine -- I still remember the came where he stopped something like 63 shots for a horrendous Quebec Nordiques team. And we end this post with an insert from the 1992-93 Fleer Ultra set that I will hand-collate someday.
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