tribute-iful cards that i hope to have received for free

i have been very good lately about buying cards using only funds that come from selling stuff on ebay or sportlots.   i've always been good about not using the plastic fantastic to fund my collecting, but these days i prefer to not raid the checking account, either.  my paypal balance is dwindling, however, so i need to get some more things sold.

one thing i have done to reduce the paypal account is purchase a couple of lots of topps tribute cards.  a total of 137 cards, to be exact, for a total cost (including shipping) of about $74.  these lots have included a fair number of dodgers (19 if we are really counting), a haloed don sutton and 3 steve garvey (as a freakin' friar) cards.  the other 114 cards are not of much use to me (actually, make that 113 as i sent a greg maddux card to the junior junkie in a trade).  those cards include many numbered parallels, and i will eventually re-sell most of them.  i'm wondering if i will be able to get all of my money back.

before i get into all of that, here are most of the cards that i am keeping.

from 2009 topps tribute, i have a steve garvey black (#/99) parallel

as well as a duke snider black parallel

and a pee wee reese black parallel

one of the lots also had the blue parallels (#/219) of garvey

and pee wee

this whole thing was borne out of a search for the two garvey parallels.  after watching a few auctions that featured the cards individually, i decided that it might pay off in the long run to buy them as part of lots.  and so i did.

there were regular ol' base versions of the duke

 pee wee

 roy campanella

 jackie robinson

johnny podres

 mike piazza

 manny ramirez

 clayton kershaw

 and don zimmer

in the lots as well.  look at that water cooler zimmer is using - it looks like a wine barrel.  the majority of the cards that i picked up were from 2009, which is probably my favorite tribute set this side of the initial 2001 release.  still, i picked up a couple of cards from the 2002 set, like gil hodges

 and don sutton

plus a bunch from the 2010 set.  here's campy

 manny

 pee wee

and jackie

and here's the lone 2011 topps tribute card in the bunch, a blue parallel of duke snider.

that's a really pretty card.  all of the tribute cards look nice to be honest, although the 2010 design is a bit busy for my taste.  it's too bad my scanner is so inconsistent with these cards.

some of those dodger cards might be doubles, so they may go back into the 'to sell' box. once i figure that out, my plan is to try to do a better job with the auction listing(s) and maybe make back all or at least the majority of my $74 investment.  it might sound like a longshot, but i have already got about $9 of it back thanks to just this one card

that would be a rogers hornsby 'no name on front' variation (or were they errors?).  i cleared about $9 after shipping and fees, so now i'm looking at around $65 to get into the black.  the seller of the lot that included this card did not mention the variation, so i was surprised to see it when the box arrived.

this is not the first time that i have tried flipping cards - i've done it several times, and i actually had a really nice (and somewhat heartbreaking) success about 12 years ago, but i'll save that for a different post.  most recently i wound up with a 1951 bowman carl furillo card for about $4 after re-selling the other 5 cards he came with when i bought him.

in the meantime, if anyone is looking for any 2009 topps tribute cards, let me know.  i am open to working out a trade before they hit the selling block.