I Got it at Sportlots 5: Many Additions to the 2013 Opening Day Blue Parallel Set

I was so happy to find that Sportlots sellers were asking relatively reasonable prices for the blue parallels from 2013 Topps Opening Day that I ordered a whole pile of them and now just need four more to finish the set. Here are a whole bunch of pictures of some of the cards I ordered.

I still think that this is a great-looking parallel. The blue color is really attractive, and I like that Topps kept the blue coloring to the border instead of coloring the whole background like they did for the Emerald cards in 2013 and the Red Hot cards in 2014.

The cards do curl a little bit over time. It's not as bad as Topps Chrome, but it is noticeable. It doesn't bother me much at all, but it makes for a good comment to fill the spaces between scans.

Given the price I paid for Dylan Bundy's card, he probably deserves his own scan. I'm not going to do that, though. When it comes to set completion, some guy you've never heard of is just as important as the hot rookie star.

Todd Frazier puffed up his lips and blew himself right out of alignment with the Cards (and Dodgers and Marlins) around him. I think he needs a few more logos and badges around him. Too bad he can't get an RC Shield to go along with his Rookie Cup, Foil Date, Topps logo, and Opening Day badge.

I don't even know. The puffed cheeks thing must be taught in the Reds clubhouse. I'm pretty sure Kyle Seager spent some time eating up games on at least one of my fantasy baseball teams last year. I don't know. It might have been Michael Brantley. Maybe both of them did. I do know that I want to play some Fantasy Baseball. I wonder if there would be interest in a blogger league of some kind?

Hanley Ramirez and Mariano Rivera get some pretty good shots in this set. I like photos featuring scuffed-up batting helmets.

Darwin Barney might get the 'Simon Says' award, because just about everybody in the background is copying his pose. Joey Votto needs to work on his cheek-puffing. He's trying, but maybe the manly muscles in his jaw are resisting his efforts. Just let it go, man. Those bloggers who make fun of your funny faces are just jealous.

And here's another Reds player. He's kind of poofing his cheeks out. I had a couple more scans, but I saved over them and didn't want to dig the cards out of the binder to run them back through. You'll just have to imagine an assortment of 2013 Topps cards with blue borders.

Away From Keyboard

I am going to be away from home for work for the next month and I don't know what the internet situation there will be, so I may or may not update the blog regularly between now and the second week of March. I have a couple of pre-scheduled posts set to run during that time, but if I don't respond to blog comments or trade e-mails, know that I am probably having a great time in Dallas, Texas.

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 18: Unexpected Cards from Nachos Grande

A little while ago I realized that after my latest batch of 2013 Topps Archives, I hadn't checked the duplicates against anyone else's want lists. There were a couple of cards that matched up with the needs of Chris from Nachos Grande. I already had his address, so I sent them away without consulting him first. I feel like I am always trying to catch up on the good karma that the world of card blogs sends my way. I've even been on the good end of a couple lopsided trades with Chris in the past few months, so I felt I owed him.

To make a long story even longer, he sent back a bunch of cards from 2012 and 2013 Archives that whacked some big chunks out of my want list. I just can't beat this guy. One of the cool things I've seen around is bloggers with their own trading cards that they send out with their packages. His is an Allen & Ginter's mini with a Munnatawket back, which I believe is seeded at 1:4 trade packages. 

And before I get into the rest of this post, he has hinted at a new group break that he is working on filling. So far he has only teased the contents of the break, but you should check it out.

There is also a charity break going on over at View from the Skybox. So far it has just hit the break-even point, and needs a few more boxes to fill so that it can generate a donation for the victims of Typhoon Haiyan. He has been offering up discounts on various teams and random team pairs to try to gain traction, so that is something to look into as well.

The first set that got hit was the 1977 Topps Cloth inserts from 2012 Topps Archives. Chris sent 3 cards, which cut my needs from that particular set in half. I hate the cloth texture on these cards and the scratchy sounds they make when I touch them, but I love filling those holes in my binder pages.

Keeping it in 2012, the package also included a 1969 Deckle Edge card of Ichiro. I like the variety of inserts that can be found in the Topps Archives sets. I just wish Topps wouldn't reuse the same designs over and over in the base set.

Next up are two of those dastardly short prints from the base set. I was finally able to finish off the 2013 short prints a little while ago, but the 2012 set still has a ways to go. These two cards will save me a lot of frustration down the road.

From 2013 Topps Archives, I got cards from two different insert sets. One is a retro-themed 1972 Basketball design card of Matt Kemp, and the other is a 1998 Stadium Club Triumvirate card of Mariano Rivera, straight out of the shiny gimmicky insert era. Both were much needed as I continue to pursue the last remaining cards from my 2013 Archives set.

Even the filler cards packed around the Archives stuff were great. They hail from a variety of sets and years, and feature a strong Mariners theme. I have a lot of nostalgia for the Collector's Choice brand, although when I was buying Collector's Choice off the shelf it was always basketball cards. The themes and the branding are largely the same.

This was an unexpected and very exciting package to find in the mailbox. Once again, I find myself owing a debt to the generosity of the blogging community.

Pack of the Day 63: 2012 Topps Archives Hobby Box

Some of my My Little Pony cash went into buying some cards from 2012, namely hobby boxes of 2012 Topps Series 1, 2012 Topps Update, and this box of 2012 Topps Archives. I also picked up some 2013 Topps Archives, but not in packs.

The base cards are all things we've seen before. As usual, I just picked out a few cards of players I like or cards with good photos. Werth and Motte get in because of their beards, Cal Ripken Jr. is here because he's the Iron Man, and Derek Holland is an occasionally-mustachioed and currently injured pitcher for the Texas Rangers. Apparently his nickname is 'Dutch Oven.'

I got six of the base set short-printed cards, and in a rare stroke of luck I actually needed 4 or 5 of them for my set. Usually I just wind up pulling six doubles and cursing my bad luck. There's a pretty decent mix of players and card designs here.

My Gold parallels scanned a very green color, but in real life they are a shiny gold color. I promise. Chapman and Posey are decent cards to pull, I guess, but I am not collecting the Gold parallels from this set. I would hope that I learned my lesson with the 2013 set. We'll see what the 2014 cards look like.

This 50-card Topps Reprints set is pretty cool, but it's seeded at about the same rate as the short-printed base cards and thus is a total bear to put together. Since my collecting days don't go back all that far, it is a good little history lesson covering some of the classic Topps cards. I got six in this box, three vertical and three horizontal.

These 1977 Cloth Stickers are not my favorite insert set. I have a weird complex about some textures, and the feel of these cards in-hand makes me shiver and gag a bit. It's just one of those things. I feel the same way about handling cotton balls and the like. I was only able to start wearing fleece clothing a few years ago. I think most of these four cards were doubles, so all of my discomfort didn't even get me closer to filling out my set.

These 1968 Topps 3D cards are pretty neat, although the scan of the Al Kaline there on the left makes me a little dizzy.

I think all three of these 1967 Stickers were doubles. The disembodied head design is a bit odd, and I think a different color would have made for a better background on the Maris card. 

The Evan Longoria Deckle Edge insert was a double, but I didn't have the Harmon Killebrew card yet. I've mentioned several times that his hometown is just down the road from me, kind of like that guy you know who only has five stories and loves to tell them every time you see him.

And last of all are the two Fan Favorite Autographs from the box. I got Luis Tiant and Dave Kingman. I don't have much opinion either way on these, but they are pretty nice-looking cards. I do like the Fan Favorite Autograph sets in both 2012 and 2013 Archives from a design perspective, even if many of the players fall outside my realm of awareness.

Overall this wasn't a life-changing box of cards for me. I would probably have been better off taking the approach I did with 2013 Archives, but of the sealed product I bought with my Pony Cash these were the most entertaining cards to open. More on all of that at a later date.

Pack of the Day 62: 2014 Topps Series 1 Hobby Box

I opened up a Hobby Box of 2014 Topps Series 1, and here's what I got:

Base Cards: I didn't keep track of the numbers. Actually, I remember counting them all out, but I lost track of that number somewhere. It was around 300 cards with no doubles.

I've done a few scans of some of my favorite photographs from the set. There is a lot of good stuff in this set, so I wound up with more scans than I usually do. Coco Crisp seems to be the hands-down favorite card of the set, with his Oscar Gamble-like hair. The A's throwback uniforms make a couple of appearances in the set, as modeled by Yoenis Cespedes. I love the expression on Alex Gordon's face. And Franklin Gutierrez shows off a nice little bit of effort on the front of his card.

Xander Bogaerts gets a little action shot on his card. Sogard's card actually gets included because of the flavor text on the back, which reveals that his teammates celebrate 'Nerd Power' every time he has a big hit in a game because of his glasses. Daniel Murphy gets included here because of the nice composition of his photo, with the Mets logo in the background forming a nice halo around his head. And Yunel Escobar apparently wants to fight the guy with the camera.

There are a few nice horizontal shots in the set, too. Ricky Nolasco shows off the latest fashion trend, wearing only one sleeve of his jacket. Joel Hanrahan gets a shot of him signing items for fans, Jayson Werth is looking for his card to spark a number of caption contests, and Todd Helton gets a nice little retirement celebration on his Season Highlights card.

Jason Heyward gets to show off his fielding skills, Brian Dozier gets a cold Gatorade shower, Sean Doolittle's homeless man look continues the A's run of good pictures in this set, and Anthony Gose wears a jacket while getting some batting practice.

Carlos Villanueva channels his inner old-timey villain, Mark DeRosa gets a little confused over which sport he plays, Shane Victorino elicits varying reactions from the crowd, Lonnie Chisenhall shows off a contender for the least flattering uniform of all time, Khris Davis makes such a painful play that he forgets how to spell his name properly, and Matt Holliday's card co-stars big faces on the wall.

The Future is Now - 9 - Shelby Miller, Shelby Miller, Jean Segura, Zack Wheeler, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Mike Trout, Manny Machado, Yasiel Puig, Bryce Harper

This is a decent-looking insert set, but I could probably do with a few less inserts and a few more base cards in my box. The checklist is meant to show off big moments from some of the up-and-coming stars of the game.

Upper Class - 9 - Freddie Freeman, Joey Votto, Justin Verlander, Yadier Molina, Randy Johnson, Jacoby Ellsbury, Gary Carter, Ryne Sandberg, Cal Ripken Jr.

This insert set seems to feature key rookies from a particular draft class. The back gives a little blurb about the guy pictured on the front and a list of other rookies in his class. I think Randy Johnson is my favorite card here.

Red Hot Foil Parallel aka Walls of Blood - 6 - Brayan Pena, Xander Bogaerts, Will Middlebrooks, Daniel Murphy, Clayton Richard, Mark Melancon

I read another blogger mention that he was going to call these the Wall of Blood parallel or some name to that effect. They scan a little more pink than they are in-hand, but they still are pretty pink in real life. I guess they're cool enough, but I am not going out of my way to chase them.

1989 Die-Cut Minis - 5 - Lee Smith, Roberto Clemente, Joey Votto, Andrew McCutchen, Bryce Harper

These cards are butt-ugly but I can't help liking them. I will probably try to put the set together at some point. I got a pretty good selection of players in this batch.

Gold Parallels - 4 - Will Middlebrooks, Rafael Betancourt, Danny Farquhar, Josh Fields

These are numbered out of # / 2014 and that's really all there is to say about them. I seem to be accumulating Will Middlebrooks parallels at an alarming rate. I don't think it will push me into starting a PC for him, though.

Power Players Code Cards - 3 - Nick Swisher, Zack Greinke, Jeff Samardzija

This is a partial parallel set of 110 cards. Each card has a code on the back that can be entered at the Power Players site. Topps will supposedly pick different players throughout the season as the Power Player of the week or some such, and anyone who has that player code activated will be entered in a drawing for autographs and special parallel cards. At the end of the season, people who have all 110 cards from Series 1 and all 110 cards from Series 2 will be entered in a drawing for 5 autographed sets of cards and/or the chance to be featured on a card. The set for Series 1 is split evenly into Hobby and Retail sets, so there are 55 cards that can only be found in Hobby Packs and 55 cards that can only be found in Retail packs. That makes the Retail cards a bit harder to track down. I got a nearly complete Hobby set somewhat rapidly on eBay, but the retails cards seem to come in much smaller lots. There aren't a lot of mass retail breakers out there, it seems.

I feel like a bit of a sucker for chasing this set. It would be pretty neat to get one of those autograph sets at the end of the season, though. At this moment I still need 2 Hobby cards and 32 of the Retail cards. I will probably be putting a list up on my Want List page. I would hope that most people are smarter than this, but there are several sellers on eBay who are listing cards as having unused codes, but also posting pictures of the backs of the cards. You can bet those codes won't be unused by the time the auction closes. Anyway, if you are not collecting these cards and have something from my list, feel free to hit me up for a trade. I may have something to send you in return.

50 Years of the Draft - 2 - Derek Jeter, Darryl Strawberry

Here's another insert set commemorating various draftees. Yay! I guess it is a decent design, but I don't think I will be collecting the set.

Before They Were Great - 2 - Nomar Garciaparra, Tom Glavine 

More of the same. Pictures of stars from early in their careers. I believe these were the ones printed on thicker cardstock.

SP Photo Variation - 1 - Adam Wainwright

This card features a lot of man-love in the form of a pending full-body hug.

Topps All Rookie Cup Team - 2 - Derek Jeter, Jim Rice

More stars as rookies.

Vintage Buybacks - 2 - 1977 Topps # 411 and 1968 Horace Clarke # 263

I guess Topps went out and raided some dime-boxes for the most roughed-up vintage cards they could find and stamped them with a foil 75th Anniversary stamp. Then they packed them in 2014 Topps packs. I think that the buyback concept is kind of cool, but I think I would prefer that Topps 1) leave the foil stamp off of the old cards and 2) maybe find some cards that aren't so abused. I know part of the draw of vintage can be cards with character, but to me it seems like Topps cheaped out on this concept.

These are some decent cards otherwise, I suppose, with both being manufactured before I was born. The 1968 card was printed when my parents were just six years old.

Manufactured Relic Thing - 1 - Clayton Kershaw

Topps promises a relic or autograph in every box, and I guess in their minds this qualifies as a relic. In my mind this is a stupid thick card that replaced eight base cards. There is not a relic here, as I doubt that Clayton Kershaw ever used this partial ring in a game or event. Granted, cloth or wood swatches from jerseys and bats are less exciting than they used to be, but they at least have some sort of connection to the player in question. This is not a relic. Maybe Topps was facing a shortage of game-used stuff or they are hoarding it all for the high-end stuff like Triple Threads and Museum Collection. Okay, I will stop my rant, but I maintain that I was shorted a relic or autograph in my box.

As far as overall impressions go, I am not incredibly impressed by the design of the cards, but the photography is a plus and I liked the inclusion of WAR in the stats on the back of the cards. The inserts are typical in that they follow some kind of theme and are largely non-essential. The minis seem to once again be the best insert in the set, with colored parallels aplenty for people to chase. There are also vintage cards with special foil stamps, an online game to play, photo variations that people either love or hate, and relics that aren't relics.

I may or may not be more negative that usual because of the result of the Super Bowl last night. While I am glad that Seattle got their title, I am not happy that it came against my Denver Broncos and I am especially not happy that the Broncos didn't put up a fight. That was a painful game from the very first snap, and it never was competitive. At no point did it seem that Denver even had a chance, and that kickoff return for a touchdown to start the 2nd half pretty much nailed it shut for the Seahawks. I really would like for Peyton Manning to get that one ring with the Broncos, but it seems like the window is closing for that to be a possibility. The team that showed up for the Super Bowl looked like the Keystone Cops, botching snaps, running into each other, dropping the ball, throwing silly interceptions, and going the wrong way.