More Cards From the Barrel

I want to tip my hat to Card Barrel.

I managed to finish off a bunch of the 2020 cards I wanted along with a bunch of other stuff I found on there while I did some digging through the site.

I'll start with some Series 2 and Update. I got these for mere loose change. These aren't necessarily players I collect but I thought they were just neat cards. 

Obligatory Reds cards. The Reds were major players in the 2019-20 offseason signing people like Castellanos and Miley but so far this year have barely made a whisper this offseason. I got the Galvis and Mahle cards because I'm a sucker for throwback uniforms as well.

More Reds cards and a Ken Griffey Jr. Home Run Derby card. Pedro Strop qualifies as a "short term stop" card as he was a bust as a free agent signing and only pitched a grand total of four ... yes four ... innings for the Reds in 2020.

There wasn't a lot in A&G this year that really attracted me but I did find these four cards. I also need to look through the inserts sections on Card Barrel as I primarily went for base cards. Also, I couldn't pass up a Fred McGriff Blue Jays card.

Another thing that I really don't get with A&G is the celebrities. I don't know hardly any of the celebrities that A&G features in their sets but ... these are two I just absolutely had to have. 

I got back into hockey because of watching Doc Emrick and listening to him call hockey on NBC and NBC Sports. He's absolutely one of the best announcers of any sport I've ever heard. Call him the Vin Scully of hockey if you will. He retired from broadcasting after last season but still does voiceover work for NBC hockey. I got his autobiography for Christmas as well and I'm really looking forward to diving into that as soon as I can.

Speaking of books, I started to get into fiction writing because of R.L. Stine. I read the Goosebumps books as a kid but they never really made an impression on me. Then a few years ago, I watched the Goosebumps movie with Jack Black as R.L. Stine and wow ... that was a really fun and really good movie. The thing that inspired me in the movie to starting doing my own writing was the scene where he has to write the book as the movie continues to figure out the end. It's really a good movie and I highly recommend it ... and if I ever complete any fiction stuff I'll be sure to update everyone as well.

Here's a bunch of singles from Archives. I was honestly hoping to find a lot of cards from the 1974 design so was a little disappointed that I only liked the Willie McCovey card. However, I found several from the 2002 design that I liked so I guess that evens out. On the plus side as well, there's a Dennis Eckersley Red Sox card and a Joe Morgan Astros card so I was pretty happy about that. 

Some cards from Diamond Kings and Heritage Minors. Diamond Kings works really well with old time players who don't have logos on the uniforms like Shoeless Joe and Christy Mathewson. I don't collect a lot of minor league teams except for mainly the Dayton Dragons. However, it's kind of hit and miss when Topps includes the Dragons in their sets but when they do, I like to try to nab as many as possible. Plus these aren't your typical posed shots, their in-game photos which I prefer.

I picked out a bunch of random cards too ... well, because ... why not? The Negro Leagues don't have a lot of representation in my collection so I made sure to grab these from the 1983 Donruss Hall of Fame Heroes set. Satchel Paige gets a lot of representation in Topps sets but other players like Josh Gibson and James "Cool Papa" Bell unfortunately don't. I'm hoping that will change now that the Negro Leagues are considered part of the official MLB canon.

Some early 2000s Donruss Original goodies. These are cards I really need more of in my life. The 2000s are pretty much a collecting black hole for me and for some reason cards of that decade are super hard to come by in dime boxes or anything like that. I'll probably go back for more of these on my next order.

Here's the lone 2020 card I didn't cover earlier, this being a short-term stop card of Yasiel Puig who, as of this writing, has yet to resurface in the majors after splitting 2019 between the Reds and Indians.

Some oldies but definitely some goodies. I couldn't pass up an Andres Galarraga rookie card for mere pocket change. Nor could I pass up a 1971 Manny Mota card that's in very good shape for only a dollar. I've mentioned this in the past but I like the 1971 set so much that my goal is to get as many cards as I can afford from the set. I know I'll never have the money to complete it but I can definitely do the best I can.

I'm always one for a good deal on cheap relic cards and I just couldn't pass on these from 2020 Diamond Kings. Sure the Suarez is a little dinged up on the edge but that's fine with me.

I did a number on their $3 relic cards as well. Scrolling through there is like sifting through a virtual bargain bin, occasionally you'll come across something interesting. And that's exactly what happened when I stumbled across this Chuck Todd card from 2014 A&G. I thought, why not. Let's just grab a card of a TV news guy I like as we pretty much flipped between him and Steve Kornacki on Election Night last year. Topps totally needs to include Steve Kornacki in A&G by the way.

A large part of the $3 relic bin are these manu-relics, which I honestly don't mind all that much. I think they're honestly pretty neat and I'll probably go back and grab some more. It's hard to pick a favorite of these three but if I had to pick, I'd do with Paul Konerko since it shows him with the Dodgers.

So that closes out another order from Card Barrel and this was a super great birthday haul. I highly, highly recommend ordering from Card Barrel if you haven't already. The prices are great, the shipping is free with orders over $25, and there's new stuff added all the time.

 

Nick's Knick Knacks

I'm not sure what this 1970 Topps Mike Hershberger card did to warrant getting written on. Nor, am I sure who "Rick" is or what that phone number is for. What I am sure about is that this came in an envelope from Nick at Dime Boxes, who loaded me up with a bunch of cards. 

This all came about when he was looking for a home for the Aristides Aquino card below he'd pulled from Stadium Club.

He mentioned there was a little peeling at the bottom, which didn't really bother me at all. I just think this is a really cool card of one of the Reds young stars. Despite a really down season in 2020, he raked in 2019 when he was called up and hit 19 homers over the last 56 games of the season.

Did I mention it was also numbered 16/25? That's pretty cool! Hopefully Aquino can find his form again this upcoming season but we'll see.

Aquino wasn't the only autographed card that Nick included. Here's another one from Stadium Club of utility player Josh VanMeter, who was shipped to Arizona in a deadline deal last year for reliever extraordinare Archie Bradley, who only appeared in six games for the Reds and was then non-tendered this offseason.

Nick also threw in a pair of Expos cards. I love getting Expos cards from pretty much any era. 

Now for the meat of the envelope, lots of cards to fill out my Indians and Reds team binders. These were some 2020 issues I didn't know I needed until I saw them, although by the time the Clevinger card came out he was with the Padres.

A couple horizontal goodies. Bowman was never my thing as I'm not a prospector but I just love this shiny Bowman Chrome Tyler Freeman card (you'll see another card from this shortly.)

A few more cool cards. I'm writing this just days after the blockbuster deal that sent Francisco Lindor to the Mets. I'm sad to see Lindor leave Cleveland and I know the trade was purely for economic reasons but he was by far my favorite Indians player.

This may look like a 1975 Topps card but it's not!! It's actually a 1975 Topps mini (I think that's the right terminology)? It looks like a 75, smells like a 75 (no I didn't actually smell it), but is a touch smaller.

Anyway, Jim Perry was at the tail end of his career here and was only with the Indians for about a month or so before he was traded to the A's where he finished out his sunset season. The previous season, 1974, he paired up with his brother Gaylord to form a decent 1-2 punch in the Cleveland rotation for a club that finished 77-85. Fun fact, did you know that the Perry brothers accounted for 38 of the 77 wins for Cleveland that season? 

This was probably my favorite card of the package that Nick sent. I'm definitely gaining an appreciation for 1959 Topps and might consider picking up more players like Herb Score here. Upon looking up his info for this piece, I had no idea he was the 1955 Rookie of the Year and was a two-time All-Star. I think the coolest thing about this card though is the photo. It just has that 1950s "feel" to it and I can totally dig it.

Reds were also included starting with this trifecta of Nick Senzel cards. 

There were also a few vintage Reds with this 1961 Jim Brosnan, who pitched will enough in 1961 for the NL Champion "Ragamuffin Reds" to earn some MVP votes.

This is probably my second favorite card in the batch, a 1976 Hostess Tony Perez.

Can't go wrong with cards from Johnny Bench either. I think the Starting Lineup card might be a duplicate but I'll have to check my binder.

These 2020 cards filled in a bunch of holes as well and highlights the Reds significant additions from last offseason in Shogo Akiyama, Nicholas Castellanos, and Mike Moustakas. If you look at the Moustakas Archives card, I find it curious that Topps squeezed "Second Base/Third Base" as the position when they could've just as easily put "Infield". Also, there were come cool Bowman Chrome cards (see I told you those would come back).

This was another great package from Nick and I appreciate him sending all this my way. 

Roll Out the (Card) Barrel

The expression on Jose Rijo's face pretty much equals my expression when I received my first order from Card Barrel.

With with whole pandemic going on, I was having the itch to get some cards from 2020 so I could get caught up on what I missed out on while I was on my card hiatus. 

A while back, everyone was touting the Baseballcardstore.ca site so I looked there. I just couldn't get past how difficult the site was to use, so that wasn't for me. Then, I remembered that Dimebox Nick always mentioned the site Card Barrel. So I checked them out. 

And ... WOW!

Suffice to say they checked every box I was looking for ... good selection? Yes. Easy to use site? Yes. Low prices? Yes. Fast shipping? Yes. 

My goal was to put together and order over $25 to qualify for free shipping. I ended up spending more than that. Just over a week later my cards arrived and I was very happy with the end result.

The first thing I had to start digging for was 2020 Topps. I'm definitely more of a "visual buyer" meaning I have to see what the card looks like in order for me to determine if I want to buy it, that's the one downside to Card Barrel, there are no images. But, I figured out a way around that buy having COMC open in a separate window and once I saw a card I liked, I dropped it into my Card Barrel cart.

The prices on Card Barrel are very reasonable. Most of the 2020 singles I bought were less than a dollar a piece, with many of them hovering at around 20 to 30 cents each. For less than the cost of several hanger packs or even a blaster from Target, I managed to get a ton of 2020 Series 1 singles I wanted.

I tried to run the gamut of different things as you can tell by the previous scans. Yes, I went for the Reds cards but I also grabbed some of players I like, some throwback uniform cards, and just some generally fun cards.

Horizontal cards are always really cool. So cool, in fact, I made the collage of horizontal cards my new iPad background.

I tried to get a little bit from every 2020 set released so far. Opening Day cards are really my thing but I do dig the mascot cards and the "Opening Day" card of Great American Ball Park last year is just awesome.

When I placed my order a while back, Big League had just come out and Series 2 was on it's way. I nabbed a few Big League cards and I'm definitely planning on going back for more. The Mike Moustakas card is my first of him in a Reds uniform. I had to get the David Price Dodgers card as well. 

My main draw for wanting to buy cards was to pick up Heritage singles. I grabbed 15 Heritage singles I wanted, again for less than the price of a hobby pack.

Obligatory Reds cards. 

Here's a sunset card of C.C. Sabathia and Jurickson Profar sporting the new Padres threads.

Here's a number of Stadium Club singles from last year that I missed out on. I'm a sucker for old ballparks so my favorites of these are the Nolan Ryan and the Hank Aaron.

Last bit of the 2020 cards I ordered were a few singles from the Donruss release this year. I don't mind the design all that much but they just look "meh" without logos. The Rated Rookie cards are really nice though.

This years "throwback" design was the 1986 set. I'm guessing this will be a recurring trend in the Panini products, kind of like Donruss version of Heritage. These are fine and it's nice to see Kevin Mitchell on a 2020 card. But they're nothing like the real thing from 1986. 

Speaking of which ...

I loaded up on 1986 Donruss. Why 1986 Donruss you ask? I have no earthly idea. It was just one of those 80s sets that popped in my head when I was browsing around. I will never complain of getting an Andres Galarraga Rated Rookie card for less than a dollar.

Diamond Kings? Yes please.

Random cards of random guys. One of these days I'm planning on a Donruss appreciation post. Stay tuned for that.

Whenever I try a new card site, I always like to try out their vintage selection. I meant to order a bunch of Pilots cards but I mistakenly ordered this Jim Weaver card. 

The rest of the vintage cards I ordered were actually Pilots cards. I can cross these three off my want list. Skip Lockwood was the most expensive card in my order at $2.49. All four of these cards (including the Jim Weaver card) were categorized as EX/MT on the site and I have to say I was very impressed at the condition.

I didn't just cherry pick cards from sets. Oh no, I attacked my COMC watch list too. I found several cards from there on Card Barrel for a nominal fee, such as this Bronson Arroyo card.

And these "short term stop" cards of Eddie Mathews and Scott Williamson.

And Orioles cards of ... Chris Sabo? Gosh, he looks weird in any uniform other than a Reds uniform.

And here's the Jose Rijo card from the beginning again. This isn't quite his sunset card (that's in the 2003 Topps set) but it's close. Rijo retired for good after the 2002 season after making a triumphant return to the Reds after being out with shoulder injuries for six years. It was a bright spot on some otherwise dismal teams.

My card collection has a gaping hole in it from the late 90s up through 2012. I attacked some of that as well and went after some 2001 Topps. This is a set I always liked for the neat design both front and back (of which I forgot to scan). Of course I grabbed a few Reds cards.

And some former Reds with some very strange teams ... Eric Davis with the Cardinals? Joe Oliver with the Mariners? Willie Greene played for the Cubs?

More random cards of random guys. These are cards I just couldn't pass up at all.

Remember when the Devil Rays went out and tried to purchase their way to a title by signing heavy hitters like Greg Vaughn and Fred McGriff? Yeah, that didn't work out too well did it.

Ok, finally, I also got a few cards from the 2002 Upper Deck Vintage set. I haven't fully committed to putting this set together but I am grabbing cards from it when I can so I can eventually have a starter set for if/when I commit to it. I'm also going to put this into a blog post I'm planning about 1971 Topps and all the sets that have used that design since.

So, that's my first order from Card Barrel. I'm very, very pleased with how it turned out and I'll definitely be going back and ordering again here soon.