12 February 2016

Wrapped in Plastic, It's Fantastic! 3

I hadn't planned on picking up anything from the 2015 Topps Archives Signature Series product, but as the cards started popping up on eBay I found that there were some items on the checklist that appealed to me. For this product Topps added foil stamps to buyback cards, had the baseball players autograph them, and then encased them in plastic slabs to sell in one-card boxes. I've already shown off a 1990 Topps Jim Abbott and a 1989 Topps Traded John Kruk card from the set, but there was one other name on the checklist that I wanted to chase down: Rollie Fingers.


My main problem was deciding which Rollie Fingers card to chase. I wanted one that showed his iconic mustache and I eventually settled on this 1981 Topps example. There is something odd going on with the 1981 Topps Rollie Fingers buybacks in this set. There are two different print runs, and I can't tell what differentiates them from each other. There are examples numbered # / 44 and examples # / 11. As far as I can tell they are the same cards, not reprints or O-Pee-Chee variations or anything like that. They are just the same card with different print runs. I put a lot of bids in on both types and eventually came away with one from the # / 11 print run, with this copy being # 06 / 11.


With the addition of this card I have acquired all the cards I set out to get from the 2015 Topps Archives Signature Series product. They make great additions to various parts of my collection. I think this was pretty neat as a one-shot product, but it has the potential to get stale unless each year has an entirely different checklist of players. I think that would be difficult to manage and it probably wouldn't be more than a couple of years before the pool of Hall of Famers and fan favorites got depleted to the point that Topps would be sorely tempted to reuse players. So I hope that Topps doesn't run this thing into the ground.

9 comments:

  1. Yeah, Topps has definitely been making me sick of buybucks these past couple years. That said, I've been fighting temptation to flush 60ish bucks on a box of this, hoping for something good like a Koufax, but knowing full well I'd get Greg Jefferies or someshit. Sweet, Rollie, though!

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    1. I thought about buying a box, but I just can't justify it. I got the three cards I wanted from the set for about the price of one box.

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  2. Great look and great signature. Gotta have a Rollie in your collection.

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    1. I am pretty happy with this one. There were a couple of others in the Rollie series that I was looking at, but this one was the best one at the right price.

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  3. I feel bad for the guys who broke cases of this stuff. I've been picking up a bunch of autographs from his product in the $5 to $8 range over the past month or so. I think it's awesome for us autograph collectors... and the idea of Topps issue certified on-card "buy back" cards has always been a winner in my book. But you're absolutely right... if they release this product again in the future, I hope they don't have the exact same guys sign.

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    1. Yeah, the folks who busted this must have almost universally taken a huge hit. I remember reading about a guy who busted a case of it and pulled almost entirely Ken Griffey Sr. autographs. That dude was just converting $60 into $10 over and over and over. It's a really cool product, but I don't see how Topps can do it again without completely changing the checklist and/or adjusting the amount of 'value' in each box.

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  4. Very nice Rollie! '81 T is one of my favorite designs and that's a great signature.

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    1. This was a good choice of card to use as a buyback.

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