If you're reading this blog, I expect you would enjoy pawing through a completely random box of mostly recent Baseball Cards, too. It's fun. Let's take a look at what I found, again:
Why I selected it: One of my favorite Topps products is any kind of Baseball Picture Sticker, though this one is technically a 1974 Topps Baseball Stamps re-enactment. If you hurry you can probably still buy the color border parallel version for cheaps in the $2 box. Those are strictly Limited Edition and you wouldn't want to miss getting in on the ground floor.
I might have initially set this one in my keeper pile that one morning because Oneil Cruz caught my eye; I have a small Oneil Cruz collection going because I a) root for the Pirates, and b) his tall lanky frame makes for memorable Baseball Cards. Perhaps he is not quite as good as another tall lanky Shortstop who plays a little further down the Ohio River, but there is still a (now probably small) chance Oneil's career turns out to be more solid than Elly's.
But I have another small Pirates Player Collection that means quite a bit more to me, which is for "Pops" up there on the top right of this 4-way sticker, or stamp, or
However this wonderful little Topps Baseball image product is not destined for the Oneil Cruz pile, nor the Willie Stargell pile. That's because this is what I do with Baseball Picture Stickers:
Stickers are meant to be stuck on things, correct?
(My first Tigers binder).
The Pops stamp-sticker will look extra nice next to this sticker, the next time ground is broken on another newly promoted Baseball Card binder needing a little decoration -
(from back-in-the-day, not the $1 box)
Why I selected these: I love this little 2021 Opening Day insert set more every time I see a new card from it. How could you not like that Killebrew card? Sunniest card ever? I know very little about Harmon Killebrew and have equally little interest in the history of the 1960s Minnesota Twins. But, still.
This collection is chugging right along now.
Why I selected these: I am gearing up (read: still looking forward) to finally complete the 2015 Topps Baseball Set, including the Update portion, as it is a wonderfully colorful set I very much like. I call it the "Final Countdown" set because part of the graphics remind me somehow of this fun now old movie by that name which stars the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Nimitz. Really.
When I complete that set I will also be keeping a run of the RC cards from it in the Rookie Card binder, so for each and every RC logo in the set, or even just a "First Topps Card," I will need 2 copies of each card. I don't have mass quantities of duplicates from the three 2015 series, so I figure I will need a whole lot of those durn RC logo cards that everyone hoards and charges a premium for.
And at one time, Noah Syndergaard and Javier Baez had very bright looking futures and were uber-popular players in major Baseball markets, which are also big-time Baseball Card markets. So their RCs were probably selling > $1. Thus, just in case, they went in the 79¢ pile that day with these other treasures.
However an advantage of completing sets a decade after they are issued is that, sometimes, for some players, the prices of their cards go back down. Card collectors obsessed with the potential future value of each and every Baseball Card make sure of that, though it takes much longer on limited edition cards people purchased as investments, not enjoyments. And that means in this case, I wasted a couple quarters. These 2 cards have even made it all the way back down to the rock bottom 20¢ level on Sportlots, turns out. Oops.
But then the flip-side of that is the only-lukewarm-when-issued Rookie Card cards may now have become Superstars with Player Collectors hiding behind every tree and essentially permanently escalating prices even for the weird 3rd year Panini parallels no one really wants. Mike Trout cards were like that for a long time; now Ohtani & Judge are like that. Snooze — lose.
If you haven't shopped on Sportlots lately, you might be pleased to hear that they have improved their interface some over the past year, and searching and order assembling have gone up a good bit in ease-of-use, in my opinion. There are a whole lot of cards and checklists for which their dealer's prices (many just-move-these-cards-already pros) are far more competitive than COMC (many amateurs, many devious pros), even this past wonderful week of Black Friday discounts on COMC. Going forward, some advance planning and then checklist-filling via Sportlots looks likely to be quite a bit cheaper than COMC, I think. But this amateur is by no means wanting to become a Sportlots dealer; COMC is by far the better option for selling off a few lucky pulls that don't fit your collection anyway.
Anyhowz, on those two cards, the LCS won a tiny victory although one they would be completely unaware of anywayz.
Why I selected it: This card lead off for one of my most pleasing recent Nifty Nine assemblages, which I completed last winter. But because this card is now safely bindered away on one page, I needed another copy of it for my 2012 Tigers Topps Baseball Team Set. I like it when Miggy goes "oooohhhhh," too.
Why I selected it: Warm-up shirt = Photo Variation. So, a quick easy future flip for COMC credit. You win some, you lose some and maybe I'm back to even on those 2015 RCs courtesy of this card.
This (2022 Update) is probably the last Topps Baseball series released with nice/cheap/easy Short Prints to obtain, as Topps finally figured out they could just make a Photo Variation for every single card, then lower the print run of each of them dramatically compared to the 15+ years they had been making Photo Variations in the Topps Baseball (and basically every other) set. This makes the SPs (now called "Golden Mirrors") more valuable, and everyone likes that, right? Nope.
At this point I don't even want to see what Photo Variations look like, as the only possible result of that would be adding more dollars to the cost of my Baseball Card Wish List.
The one small upside to this new-boss-kinda-same-as-the-old-boss deal on these is the Golden Mirrors are clearly identified on the back, so I no longer have to scroll through images of all the many Photo Variations I will never own, just in case I do already own just one. Probably, lots of the Golden Mirrors would fit well into my weird little Nifty Nine assemblages. Sigh. Topps is just so good at taking the fun right out of this Hobby sometimes.
Why I selected it: This is a Very Good+ Baseball Card, but not quite as great as it could be with a little more effort on the photo and icon placement. It is however uncanny how well the two bonus icons fit in that weird space on the bottom right this design creates.
Much like some of the above cards, I need multiple copies of this one for the RC collection, as well as the Topps Rookie Cup collection. MH the 2nd might or might not have expensive Rookie Card cards in the future, but I don't really care if I gave up too many quarters. I want my LCS to live long, and prosper.
Why I selected it: Back in 2020 when there was a "Turkey Red" card in every single pack of Topps Baseball, I initially quite liked them. Until I discovered the backgrounds were all fake, and repeated often, too. This 2010 effort using that old-time design is not called a "Turkey Red" and I don't know if it is an official accurate design depiction from ancient Baseball Card history, nor do I really care. And, yeah, these too were probably made by just dropping an image on a fake photo-esque backdrop that gets repeated for other players. But when you only have one card from the checklist, that no longer matters.
I do like this style of card and might look into the real historical deal with these some day, after I win the Lottery by hitting the Rookie of the Year Superfractor Auto card. It will look good placed right next to that Kaline RC reprint I probably purchased the same day, seen here a few posts back now.
But most likely I also snagged this one because yeah, I read the back:
I had learned that factoid about Mr. Tiger never playing in the Minor Leagues, maybe more than once, but always forgot about it. Quite a dramatic little Baseball tidbit really; one instantly wonders who was the last such player to have such an amazing start to a pro career. So I made sure to never forget all this cool stuff by buying this Base Ball Athlete Picture Card from my friends over dere in Brooklyn. I do get confused sometimes about just where Topps lives, having never been a New Yorker despite kinda desiring that at times in my life. Another nice touch of charm to this particular card.
Bonus Round
Why I selected it: I don't normally collect Bowman cards; there are just wayyyy too dang many Topps cards already. Despite that I actually have a small odd collection of Gold Bowman cards that flows only out of this Dollar, and sometimes 50¢ boxes down at my LCS. Those should appear in this blog series soon enough, I keep expecting.
Anyhow I bought this card last winter not just because it is another Tigers card to own. I wanted a Craig Monroe card specifically because he had become a key member of their broadcast team over the last several years, mostly on TV, but sometimes also on radio. I do prefer ex-players on my broadcasts. So I envisioned some sort of page of cards just of their broadcasters, and this seems to be the grandfather of the parallelogram fad in 2020s Topps sets.
But then one day in June, 2024, his nascent career as a broadcaster came to a sudden, surprising, and probably permanent end. Allegations of improper behavior (think Wander Franco -like) while he was a guest of a host family during his Minor League career (nearly 20 years ago) had surfaced, publicly. And that was the last ever heard of Craig Monroe. You win some, you lose some.
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