What eBay Hath Wrought 48: 2014 Topps Josh Reddick SP Photo Variation

I am slowly attacking the large pile of mail I had waiting for me after a month away from home. In all the stack yielded 19 posts worth of scans, so I will be spacing them out over at least the next month or so. I don't want to run them all consecutively as that will cause my blog to be perpetually months behind real-time, so I will jump back and forth between February's piled-up mail and whatever new comes to me during the month of March.

There was a card show yesterday that I considered going to, but by the time I got up and got going I just didn't feel like making the trek over to Boise. I didn't really want to go in there without a plan of action, and I wanted to get caught up on scanning all of the stuff I had backed up on my table.

I hadn't planned on doing much with 2014 Topps Series 1, as the two player collections I've been focusing on the most, R.A. Dickey and Josh Reddick, weren't on the initial checklist and didn't have any inserts either. I still won't be doing much with the set aside from building the base set and probably collecting the '89 Minis, but Josh Reddick got one of the short-printed variations and I had to get that. The number on the card is # 416, which is not encompassed by the numbering of the regular Series 1 checklist. He will probably get a base card in Series 2, and it will probably be # 416 on that checklist.

This card has quite a bit going on in the picture. There is plenty of advertising in the background, in the form of stadium signage. Reddick is sporting a beard, swim goggles, a tattoo, a postseason t-shirt, and a football helmet in one hand. He also appears to have spilled that beverage tucked under his arm all over his shirt and hair. There is also a nice cameo by a photographer sitting in the grass taking pictures. My only complaint about this card is that the football helmet is mostly covered up buy the A's logo and the card border, and that Josh's presumably pointing finger is cropped out at the top of the frame.