13 September 2016

Topps NOW Ichiro

I've been thinking about doing another Sketch Card Week, but I've got a lot of cool stuff in-hand or arriving in the mail this week, and I don't want to hold off on those posts just so I can do Sketch Card Week. By the time I get everything posted, though, I might have to extend Sketch Card Week to something like Sketch Card Fortnight. I guess I could go with something generic like Sketch Card Mania! or Sketch Card SummerSlam! or Sketchy-Looking Underpass!

Anyway, I've seen quite a few bloggers posting these Topps NOW Ichiro cards, and I also picked up a couple of them. I like the Topps NOW program, but I am not going to buy a card for every walk-off win, every Gary Sanchez hit (or near-hit), or every almost no-hitter. I try to pick up cards for big historical milestones and a card here and there for players I like a lot.


I thought Ichiro getting to the 4,257 hit mark was a pretty good milestone, although Pete Rose wasn't too happy about the publicity he got for it, claiming that they are trying to make Rose into the Hit Queen. I think I might have bought this from the Topps website, as there were (unfounded) rumors that random autographs might be distributed among the print run.


A couple of months later Ichiro made it to 3,000 MLB hits and Topps released another card for that milestone, a two-sided piece with several images from the game. Pretty cool stuff. Lately Topps has milked the Ichiro cash cow a few times, releasing new NOW cards each time he passes another person on the MLB hit list. They also cashed in pretty heavily on relic NOW cards featuring pieces of a base from the 3,000-hit game. The 1/1 went for $999.99 and there were also #/10, #/25, #/49, and #/99 versions of the relic card that sold from $179.99 for the #/99 up to $599.99 for the #/10 version. They sold out pretty quickly, too, so there are people with money out there just loving this Topps NOW stuff. I am content with my couple of base cards celebrating the major milestones. I bought this one on eBay, because the release of the relic card pretty much guaranteed that autographs weren't forthcoming.

4 comments:

  1. I really have a huge problem with them creating the numbered versions of these print to demand cards, and I read that Panini is doing it with their Panini Instant football cards. Sigh.

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    1. Well, someone is buying them. From what I've read, the Panini ones aren't as popular. I guess NFL and NBA collectors are a different crowd, or Panini just doesn't have the social media presence that Topps does. Topps is basically printing money with each card they release, so I don't see them stopping any time soon. I did see one of the big Topps NOW resellers trying to get out from under his inventory on the Blowout forums, though, to the tune of $34k. That's a lot of dough!

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  2. I was happy that they made an Ichiro/Clemente card when he passed him in hits. One of my favorites out of the Pirates NOW cards.

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    1. I think they are cool cards; I just have to draw the line somewhere. It probably would have been smarter to buy into all the Ichiro cards than to do what I did, which is get the key Ichiro cards and go all in on the Bartolo Colon stuff like the walk he drew and his multi-hit game.

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