Seeking Redemption 19: A Framed Mini with No Frame

Way back in early November of 2013 I won a box of 2013 Topps Archives Baseball cards at my local card shop's anniversary party. In that box I pulled a redemption card for a 2013 Topps Archives Framed 1973 Mini Auto of Frank Robinson. Yesterday it was finally delivered to my house, after nearly three years of waiting.

In the envelope was that letter, letting me know that Topps would not be putting frames on the Frank Robinson Framed Mini Auto, so I shouldn't be expecting that. They also let me know that they were including a bonus card because I had waited so long on this redemption.

Here's what the card looks like. It's pretty cool, I guess, although Robinson kind of ran out of room there at the end of his signature. The card is hand-numbered # 24 / 25. It's a weird size, too. It's smaller than a regular mini card, but bigger than a tobacco-size mini. I think this card would look a lot nicer in a frame. I feel like I should devote more words to this card since I waited so long for it, but I don't really have much else to say. I do like the 1973 Topps card design. At one point I started a 1973 Topps set build, but didn't get much further than buying one card lot before I moved on to other things.

Here is the bonus card that Topps included in the envelope. It's a relic card of Carlos Gonzalez from 2014 Topps Mini Baseball. It's an okay card, and the relic swatch at least has a pinstripe in it to keep it from being another plain white piece of cloth.

So that's the end of that redemption journey. I've currently only got one redemption outstanding now, a Kawhi Leonard autograph from Panini that I've had in the system for nearly three years now. The card was actually made a couple of months ago, but I guess they only sent some of them out. I wasn't one of the lucky few who received their copy of the card.

Seeking Redemption 15: The Replacement

edit 3/5/2016: Topps has resolved this issue to my satisfaction. You can read about it here.

Way back in 2013 or maybe early 2014 I pulled a redemption card from 2013 Topps Archives for a Real Heavy Metal Autograph of Winger/Whitesnake guitarist Reb Beach. These were different from the regular Heavy Metal autographs in that the cards were to be made of metal and limited to a print run of 25 copies. So, a pretty cool card. After a couple of years of waiting I decided that the card probably wasn't going to be made, so I requested a replacement from Topps through their customer service e-mail address. That led to a ticket being opened and they came back with a valuation of $20-25 on the card. They won't tell you which card they are sending as a replacement, just that it will come from the same sport as the original redemption. I accepted the $20-25 value and this is what I got in my envelope from Topps:

It's a 2013 Topps Archives Fan Favorite autograph of Bob Welch. I don't have anything against Mr. Welch, but since November this card has sold 8 times on eBay for an average of about $10.80. That is significantly less than the value Topps quoted me, and this card just plain doesn't match up. Topps made it pretty easy for me to compare the two cards because they both hail from the same product. Going back to the pack odds in 2013 Archives, the Fan Favorites Autographs were a 1:14 pack pull while the Real Heavy Metal Autographs fell at 1:2,250 pack odds.

In the end it is just cardboard and ink (or Real Heavy Metal and ink), but I can't help being disappointed that Topps replaced a pretty rare and cool hit with the most basic hit in the product. I wasn't expecting the moon, but I was hoping for something in the same realm of rarity as the card I pulled the redemption for.

What eBay Hath Wrought 54: 2013 Topps Archives 1972 Basketball Design

I actually don't remember where these came from, but I think I must have got them from eBay. If they came from COMC I would have a pile of other cards to go with them. I guess they could have come from Sportlots, but I'm going to say they came from eBay.

The 1972 Basketball design insert from 2013 Topps Archives is one of the better-looking cards out there, in my opinion. Of course, the Mini Tallboys from the same product have a very similar theme, with brightly-colored solid backgrounds, and I like those very much too.

Tony Gwynn has a nice card here, showing off some brown pinstripes. As far as awesomely horrible uniforms go, this Padres gear is pretty good.

But Dave Winfield's uniform has got Tony Gwynn beat in the ugly uniform department. These Padres uniforms are right up there with the Astros' Rainbows, with both getting top seeds from different regions in the Awesomely Awful Uniform Madness bracket, which is not a real thing (that I know of) but probably should be. The gold chain, sketchy facial hair, and Flying Banana Wedge cap really help to finish off the look.

And then we have CC Sabathia, who sadly wishes that his uniform had made the Big Dance, but instead gets relegated to the dark reaches of an invitation to the NIT-equivalent of Athletic Garb Competitions.

Of course, the millions-strong fanbase of Yankees pinstripes would never let these iconic colors stoop so low as to play in a low-end tournament like that, so they will bribe the selection committee and the Yankees will get a token 5-seed, beat an overmatched first-round opponent who is just happy to be there, and make a token appearance in the Round of 32.

That is a nice color of blue in the background of Sabathia's card, though. With these three additions to my collection, the Want List for the 1972 Design cards is cut in half. I just need Johnny Bench, Jason Heyward, and Mike Trout to complete this particular insert set.

What eBay Hath Wrought 45: Final Card in 2013 Archives Gold

This was the last card I needed to complete my Gold parallel set of 2013 Topps Archives. It is numbered # 059 / 199. This set was a pain in the butt to complete. I don't know if the set was worth the cost it took to put it together, but it sure does look good in the binder pages. I wonder how many of the 199 potential complete sets have been put together? I saw a pretty big lot on eBay a while back, but I can't imagine the number of sets out there that have been put together is higher than 5 or 10. I guess Griffey is a pretty good card to finish the set out with.

Check Out My Cards 4: I Got it at Sportlots 4: What eBay Hath Wrought 41: Making My Own Box of 2013 Topps Archives

I wanted to make some progress on my 2013 Topps Archives set, but I am so close to being finished with it that buying packs was a sure way to get a bunch of duplicates. So I decided that instead of buying a box of cards, I would take the cost of a box and see what I could get from the set with that money.

My first step was to get the last few short-printed base cards that I needed. These things are a pain in the butt, and now I don't have to worry about collecting them anymore. I think these might have come from Sportlots, but I don't remember anymore.

I also grabbed a couple of these colored acetate stained-glass Gallery of Heroes inserts. Yogi Berra and Willie Mays were pretty affordable at the time, so I added them to my cart. I sure like this insert set.

Three of the 1972 Basketball design insert set got knocked off of my Want List. I got Yu Darvish, Tom Seaver, and Willie McCovey. Kind of like the Mini Tall-Boy inserts, these are very minimalist in design and I think they're great. I think most of these and the Gallery of Heroes cards above were found on COMC.

Stadium Club Triumvirate was the most costly set from this purchase, mostly because of Machado and Trout. I got these guys on eBay because they were a little cheaper there than on COMC or Sportlots.

Rounding out my custom box of cards are Cole Hamels, Adam Jones, and Alex Roid-riguez. When I put them all together, the team name spelled out behind them is Priolers, which is probably what I will name my next child.

With this approach I was able to whittle 14 cards off of my want list, which is far better than I would have done buying a Hobby Box. Most of these inserts fall one or two per box, if that, so chances are good that a box of cards would only yield one or two of my needs, although there is also the chance that it could contain a nice big-money type card. I am pretty happy with this approach, though. I only need 18 more cards until I declare this set completed.

At the Trade Deadline 15: Sportscards From The Dollar Store

I completed a trade with Sportscards From The Dollar Store. Actually, as of my typing this out on the 19th of January, he has completed the trade. I have been unable to get to the post office during business hours so that I can send his package to the Great White North. The big hits here were some cards from Topps Archives, both 2012 and 2013, especially the Ken Griffey Jr. 1972 Basketball design from 2013 Archives. He also included a Nolan Ryan Colgan's Chips insert from 2013 Panini Cooperstown. In researching it, I found that Ryan has two different Chips in the set, one smiling and one scowling. I wonder if they line up well enough that you could make a .gif of them switching back and forth between Happy Nolan and Mad Nolan?

Next up are a couple of cards of a quarterback with as many playoff victories as Tony Romo. That's right, Tim Tebow. I enjoy reminding the Cowboys fan at my office about that little nugget there. I hope that Romo never wins another playoff game so I can always have that little bit of trivia at my disposal. I can't say that I like the Jets or the Patriots at all, but Tebow did spend some time at each of those places. He may not be a great quarterback and his constant preaching might get a little bothersome, but that stretch of games he started for Denver was a pretty exciting time. I hope he does well in his new job as a college football analyst.

The package included a number of Mariners old and new. Is it just me, or is Alvin Davis wielding a comically large bat?

The football cards included a number of Denver Broncos, who you may have heard are going to be in this year's Super Bowl against the Seattle Seahawks. I like both teams, but I was a Denver fan about a dozen years before I started liking the Seahawks, so I hope Denver can find a way to win it this year. I hope Marshawn Lynch and Russell Wilson have a good game, and I hope that Richard Sherman gets burned on whatever happens to be the key play of the game. His post-game antics after the victory over the 49ers were ridiculous.

Ryan Clady played his college ball for the local Broncos of Boise State University. I am not a BSU fan, although I do have a couple semesters worth of credits at that institution. My loyalties lie with the miserable Vandals of the University of Idaho, so I just pretend the college football season doesn't exist. Knowshon Moreno has had quite a year this year, and Champ Bailey is one of the great long-term Broncos. Jay Cutler probably gets a worse rap than he deserves, but the guy's face just always looks surly and petulant. You can't help but feel like he's a whiner. 

A batch of Houston Rockets added to my collection of cards from my original favorite sports franchise. Tracy McGrady had a lot of promise, but it seemed like the Rockets could never really put everything together in the years that he and Yao Ming anchored the team, and then injuries put an end to that pairing altogether. That Olajuwon in the top row is new to me. I heard a lot of trade rumors surrounding Omer Asik a while back, but it seems like he might stick around. Otis Thorpe was a key member of the Rockets' first Championship team, and Sam Cassell was one of the more visible members of the team during both Championship runs. He also won a title with Boston in 2008, thirteen years after playing on the 1995 Rockets. That's a long spread between titles. I wonder if anyone else has ever won a second title with such a long span in between?

This Team Leaders card gains the honorary vintage title as it is probably the oldest basketball card I own.

The common theme shared by these hockey cards is facial hair. There are a lot of mustaches on display, and one particularly thick beard. I have to admit that I don't know much at all about hockey. I just never got hooked into it like I did the other sports. The cards are visually interesting, though.

I really appreciate the trade. I have a return package all ready to go, and I plan to hit the post office soon to send it.

What eBay Hath Wrought 31: Shelby Miller and Dylan Bundy

It feels like forever since these arrived in the mail, so it has probably been a month at least. A couple of sellers put up a bunch of auctions for 2013 Topps Archives Gold parallels all at once, and for whatever reason the auctions featured most of the cards I still needed for my set, maybe 5 or 6 of them. I put in bids for all of them up to the going rate on sites like Sportlots and COMC. Several of the cards went above those prices, so I didn't win them. The Dylan Bundy card stayed pretty low, so I got it for about half the price you usually see on it.

Shelby Miller went right up to my limit, and I found myself kind of hoping someone would come in at the last minute and bump it over the top so that I could wait and look for a better deal. It didn't happen, so I wound up buying it for something like 95% of the going asking price for it. I am now down to 4 remaining cards on my want list. I kind of wish I could go back to the days when I had 15% of the set complete, and I could knock off huge chunks of the checklist for a couple of dollars per card.

What eBay Hath Wrought 29, Rainbow in the Dark 5: Addition to the R.A. Dickey Bowman Rainbow and Some Other eBay Stuff

Over the last couple of weeks I have added a few cards to my collection and instead of giving them individual posts of their own I thought I would just shotgun them all into this one post. The common thread among these cards is that they all came from eBay. First up is another addition to my R.A. Dickey 2013 Bowman rainbow. This is the Bowman Chrome Black Refractor, numbered # 05 / 15. I am running out of cards in this rainbow that are feasible for me to acquire, but I will be keeping an eye out for others just in case.

It is hard to nail down an 'expected' price for any given card, as it seems like the range can be quite large depending on how many copies of it have popped up recently, what new sets have come out, when the auction ends, and any number of other factors. I think I paid more for this than I did for the Topps Chrome Atomic Refractor that was numbered out of # / 10. Josh Reddick has two Atomic Refractors on eBay at the moment, but both of them are priced exorbitantly. One is over double what I paid for the Atomic Dickey, and one is about quadruple. I want the card, but not for that price.

Some Reddick cards that I was able to add to my Reddick Topps Super-Rainbow hail from the Topps Mini set. I wasn't able to pull any of his colored parallels from the boxes I opened, but I was able to get the Gold and Pink parallels from eBay, numbered out of # / 62 and # / 25, respectively. I usually don't type these posts up at home, so I don't know the actual numbers on these cards. That pink and green is pretty garish. I love it.

I also added a couple more of the 2013 Topps Archives Gold cards to my set. With a couple more that are pending shipping, I am just four away from having the whole set. I don't really know what to say about these cards anymore. I think Musial completed the 50-card subset in the 1990 Topps design. The other three designs still have at least one card that I'm missing.

Joey Votto is pretty happy on this card. The Archives set seems to have a lot of happy dudes in it, so that's pretty cool. I've still got to get Manny Machado, Ken Griffey Jr., Robin Yount, and Ryne Sandberg to complete my set. Someone commented on here a while back offering the Sandberg for trade, and I will need to get back to them on that. I have been buried under a mountain of schoolwork and life stuff lately, so I have not made the time to stay up on blog comments and e-mails like I should.

Pack of the Day 46: 2013 Topps Archives Hobby Box

I am getting close to finishing my posts on the stuff I got at the 20th Anniversary Party at my local card shop. This box of 2013 Topps Archives was one of the two boxes I won in the drawings for prizes. In my chase to get a full set of the Gold parallels and most of the other insert sets I have accumulated quite a few base cards. I know I have one full base set, and there is probably at least one more in my card boxes. I didn't think I should go without posting a scan of some base cards, though, so I flipped through the stack and picked one of my favorites from each design in the set.

Mini Tall-Boys - 5 - Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Dylan Bundy, Robinson Cano, Roberto Clemente

These were all doubles for me. I do like this set design, but they are a pain to store in card pages. I haven't found any pages designed specifically to hold this size of card.

Fan Favorites Short-Print Base Cards - 6 - Fred McGriff, Kent Hrbek, Tim Salmon, Paul Blair, Charlie Hough, Otis Nixon

I am pretty sure the McGriff and Hrbek were new ones for me, but the others were all doubles or triples. I may have four or five of the Otis Nixon cards now. I guess 2 out of 6 isn't too bad, but these short-prints are a pain to collect. I am down to needing just five more of them to complete that part of the set.

1969 4-in-1 Stickers - 3 - Williams/Robinson/Yastrzemski/Cabrera, Cobb/Mays/Griffey Jr./Trout, Baylor/Parker/Davis/Strawberry

I think these were all doubles as well. 

1983 All-Stars - 6 - Bryce Harper, Jim Rice, Giancarlo Stanton, Fred Lynn, Pedro Guerrero, Leon Durham

These were all doubles for me, too. It is a little disappointing that Topps reuses so many photos, even within a set. Fred Lynn is the offender in this case. His SP base card uses the same picture, if I am remembering right.

1972 Basketball Design - 1 - Willie Stargell

I think I had at least two of these already. This is one of the insert sets I haven't yet completed from 2013 Archives. It is a bear to get them out of packs, and their prices on the secondary market are a little higher than I'd like to pay.

1998 Stadium Club Triumvirate Design - 1 - Josh Hamilton

This is another of the insert sets that I haven't been able to complete yet. Hamilton was one of the cards I needed for the set, so this was a decent pull for me. Only 16 more to go!

Gold Parallel # / 199 - 2 - Will Middlebrooks # 060 / 199, Wade Miley # 128 / 199

These were both doubles for me, although any Gold cards I happen to pull are extremely likely to be doubles. I only need 6 more out of the 200-card set. I may have a lead on one of those six if I make some time to respond to my e-mails and blog comments, but the other five continue to elude me.

Fan Favorites Autographs - 1 - Hubie Brooks

I've put together a few of these autographs, but I am not going to pursue all of them. Relic and autograph inserts don't usually make the cut for me when working on completing a set. I don't have any real attachment to the Brooks, but I like the execution on these autographs, with them being on-card in nice blue Sharpie. Brooks kind of went out of his way to avoid the whited-out portion of the card where his signature was supposed to go.

Framed 1973 Mini Auto # / 25 Redemption - 1 - Frank Robinson

Well, this is a pretty decent card to get out of a box of Archives, assuming Topps is able to service the redemptions. A few searches of eBay seem to suggest that none of these cards have actually made it out into the world, so it remains to be seen what they will actually look like.

The promotional material from Topps has the cards looking something like this:

I guess we'll see whenever Topps decides to ship the card out. I am sure that when it arrives there will be a blog post all about it.

Overall this wasn't too bad for a 'free' box of cards. It wasn't really as free as I'd like to think, as you had to buy stuff in order to get tickets for the drawing, but I left with two boxes of cards more than I bought, so these were free enough, I suppose. It will be nice if I can finish this set in time to start working on 2014 Archives.

What eBay Hath Wrought 27: Homer and the Heavy Hitters

It's been a long time since these arrived, but I was able to get a few more of the cards I needed for the 2013 Topps Archives Gold parallel set. Homer Bailey was one of them; but he isn't one of the key big-money cards in the set. Mike Trout I got a pretty good deal on if I recall correctly, and I am pretty sure I also got Jeter and Rivera at well below the going rate for their cards.

I am now at a bit of a sticking point, with 8 cards left to finish the set. Manny Machado, Shelby Miller, and Dylan Bundy are all priced around the internet at ridiculous levels. Ryne Sandberg, Ken Griffey Jr., Joey Votto, Robin Yount, and Stan Musial are all out there too, but I just can't stomach the going rate for them, either. They aren't quite as bad, though. I could probably bag all five of them for the price of one Machado.

Check Out My Cards 1: First Order from COMC

I made an order with COMC after going back and forth on it for a couple of months. The flat-rate shipping is nice, but it seems like the commission and fee structure of the site inflates prices. There are still deals to be had, though, and there is plenty of selection. The first block of cards in my order were some of the cards I need to finish my 2013 Archives Gold parallel set. I am down to needing just 9 cards to complete the 200-card set, but the ones that are left can be pretty pricey on the secondary market.

Joe Morgan is one of my favorite card out of this bunch, probably because he looks happy in his picture. The cards came well-packed with penny sleeves, some toploaders (you have to pay 20 cents per toploader and you can select whether or not to use a toploader for each individual card), and neatly placed in team bags. 

I don't know if there was a glitch or if I ordered while half asleep, but a couple of cards I was certain I had ordered weren't on the final invoice and a couple of cards I am pretty sure I didn't order wound up on my order. One of the ones I am sure I didn't order because I already had a copy was Brian McCann. Boo!

Paul Molitor is another favorite from this batch. He was one of the first TTM autographs I got when I was a kid, signing his 1990 Topps card for me. I also like that Brewers cap he's wearing.

It's strange which cards from a set seem impossible to find. The only card I haven't seen up for sale anywhere so far is Ryan Zimmerman. Why would that be the one card that is impossible to find? There are other cards in the set that I haven't picked up because of the ludicrous asking prices, but Ryan Zimmerman seems to be hiding out.

I also picked up some inserts that I needed from the 2013 Archives set. I got a couple of Yankee All-Stars, a 4-in-1 sticker featuring famous catchers, and a 1972 Basketball of Reggie Jackson that is nice and colorful.

I also picked up a couple of White Sox Triumvirate cards that fit together and some of the final Mini Tall Boys I didn't have yet. I love the colored backgrounds on those things.

I've been working on a couple of rainbow projects, and these Josh Reddick cards are going toward that goal. I don't know that I will heavily pursue some of the rarer cards in the rainbows, like Superfractors, but anything I can get for a couple of dollars will definitely fit in. I've been making some good progress and the projects should be ready to post at some point in the relatively near future.

And finally I picked up a few more of the Opening Day parallels for that set. There are still plenty more to go in this set, but I picked up whatever was on my want list that was listed on COMC for under a dollar. There isn't much else to say about them. They are sparkly and blue, and they look pretty good in a binder.

In all I think I did all right with this order. The prices tend to be higher on COMC than on other sites, but if you shop around and have some patience you can get some decent deals. They do a good job of packaging their cards. I keep a spreadsheet of some of the key cards I need, and I go to the different sites (eBay, Sportlots, COMC, Just Commons) and compare prices every so often because things fluctuate so much that it can be useful to recognize when a card goes up on a site at a reduced price relative to other sites.