Tuesday, November 5, 2024

The most amusing release


I know, lots of people are skeptical of Update. I believe that traces to the heapin' helpins of what is most obviously straight up "filler." But in my opinion, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And other times, it routinely serves up the cards that amuse me the most — and that's something I treasure in my always treasured Baseball Cards. The ones I keep, anyway.

As for the card above, I'm not sure what to think of the decision this year to include Negro Leagues stats into MLB stats. I'm just not -that- deep into baseball history to form much of an opinion. That is a durn good Baseball Card though. It does make me wonder if there could be a few more of these in this set, but I doubt it, as this one is actually a checklist card. And it totally begs the question of why not, Topps, of truly digging into this concept with a little set of Baseball Cards to truly explore this whole concept?

I don't yet know if there might be more of these "MLB" cards in the set as I only picked up a couple "Hobby" packs of this so far - $6 a pop these days. It would cost a fair bit more than a Benjamin to assemble this, yes, base set via ripping so I know I will be instantaneously "completing" this one by simply purchasing it for a guesstimate of 40 bucks or so. The price of the lottery tickets that is a new release of Baseball Cards just continues to grow, and grow, and grow some more ... cuz did you hear - this thing has got Paul Skenes ROOKIE CARDS, c'mon down, gitchya some instant riches! My LCS in a town of 8,000 souls sold a full 12 cases of Hobby boxes already - Baseball Cards seem alive, and well, kinda. I even hit the player everyone wants in my very first pack:
So, close?

Which kinda amused me. I bet you, too, forgot that Yasmani Grandal escaped from the White Sox vortex this year and had a bit of a bounceback year in Pittsburgh, covering for the oh so slow development of 1/1 Henry Davis. Grandal is a Free Agent for 2025 so maybe he will have a new uniform on in '25 Update, the set of Back-Up Catchers and Relievers - which is a good thing. 

Because I do want to see the main contributors on my favorite teams, like this next guy. Even though I have heard the Brewers radio crew say his name a few dozen times over the last few seasons, I am still afraid to say his last name out loud, myself. Something Baseball Cards can't help me with. But now, I at least know what he looks like -
This card also amuses me because it is Sir Payamps True Rookie Card, unless you count a Panini "EEE" (Extra Elite Edition) card from a full 11 years ago. RC Logo? This is Topps Update, in a year (see: 2024 Heritage) where accuracy on Baseball Cards seems to have left the building. I have read an online acquaintance mention that small errors in Baseball Card construction are "part of the charm" which I mostly agree with though in 2024 Topps is pushing that potential boundary a wee bit. So, no RC logo for you, J. Payamps. Sorry. I have been waiting to see this particular card though, and that is something I do appreciate about Update, even without amusements.

And, how many baseball players have an 11 year gap between Baseball Cards? A record? Probably at least in this release, although I pulled a close contender from the very same pack we'll see here in a bit.

What is even more amusing to me is Payamps' route to The Show, which was a tortuous one. I would have never discovered this if I hadn't finally received a Baseball Card for him, as it left me with questions that could only be answered on https://www.baseball-reference.com. Check out this bit of his transaction history:

February 10, 2021: Selected off waivers by the Toronto Blue Jays from the Boston Red Sox.

February 22, 2021: Selected off waivers by the Boston Red Sox from the Toronto Blue Jays.

March 6, 2021: Selected off waivers by the Toronto Blue Jays from the Boston Red Sox.

I don't think Baseball Cards can quite handle this level of detail. I tried to count how many "systems" Payamps pinballed through on his way to The Show, but got a little overly confused in that there sequence.

Baseball Cards can, however, do a good job of showing off the sartorial choices in the sport. I submit these 2 pulls from one of these 2 packs for your consideration:

Not the best view of the Rockies' fantastic "City Connect" unis, something I hope to explore another night right here on this little blog, but I pulled these 2 cards sequentially and they instantly begged the question of why this team would wear any other uniform at all but those nifty new ones, full of memories for anyone who has lived in Colorado. Amusing.

Now I also know a major complaint about Update is the Rookie Debut cards. I, however, increasingly cut against the grain of disliking this concept as I like knowing that the picture on a Rookie Debut card is indeed from a player's Rookie Debut game. And sometimes, these cards then have an extra bit of gravitas that will make for an excellent entry in that player's Baseball Card oeuvre later on, should they have a long career. Sure, sometimes the RD is kinda boring. But, not always. This next card doesn't have the gravitas of the classic Mookie Betts RD card, but it does have enough that I looked up this player's stats -
I know, yawn, yawn, an extra card nobody "needs." And, actually, the opposite of amusing, but just a Baseball Card that I like. There are never many "On Deck" Baseball Cards.

So, zzzzz, didn't I hit any real "hits" in these packs? Nope. One of the packs was a dreaded "base pack" - a somewhat new thing in Topps Baseball Picture Card products, though also an old thing - a pack of Baseball Cards without any inserts, parallels, or Short Prints. I mean, a whole pack of Baseball Cards without any money in it. Can you imagine?

I can, though actually I do prefer seeing what the inserts are up to in every release. This is the only one I can show you:
This card does not amuse me in the goofy Topps way though it does interest me some in that it appears Topps did purchase a new look at Koufax' classic wind-up, and a bit of a better one than the similar image that has been used on many Koufax cards over the years. However I am not a Dodgers or Koufax collector so unless there are 8 more 50s/60s veterans in the 89 style cards this year to place together with this one, I probably won't hold this card in favor of 9 random contemporary players on a simple page of 89 style cards, a design I quite like.

There were a few more highlights in the 2 packs that also weren't amusing, but rather just solid Baseball Cards, including this true Highlight card -
Mic drop?

No, not yet, we've got yet more levitating bats to come. Just another smooth classic 2024 Topps Baseball Card. I am growing increasingly fond of road unis on Baseball Cards these days, when the team name is right there to accompany it. Particularly classic "Road Alternate" unis like Steel City's classic black uni, so much better than yer average Road Grey. 

But that's just a great Baseball Card, not an amusing one like Update often sends me. These 2 packs did deliver a pair of cards I have been waiting to see for some time. Pretty lucky from a simple purchase of 2 dozen brand new Baseball Cards.

The first of those 2 features a player that has been on some recent cards, including this year:
Which should satisfy my desire to finally receive a Baseball Card of this player, as with the Joel Payamps card. But that is Tyler Rogers' second Heritage card and yet it still doesn't supply me with what I have been looking for, even though it is technically an "action" image because it appears the photo was taken at a Major League Baseball game. (At night even, but really a neither-here-nor-there on that often delightful concept.)

All that's because Tyler Rogers deserves a true "In Action" Baseball Card, like this one -
Now that's how to Baseball Card

This is actually Tyler's second appearance in a Topps Baseball set as he first appeared on an insert rather than a base card, also quite unusual like several cards in these 2 quirky little packs. That insert in 2023 Series 2 name drops Adam Cimber, another "Submariner" who has served in various MLB bullpens for 7 seasons but has just 2 Topps Baseball cards to show for that (along with a small smattering in other products, tbh). So it goes for Relievers, who are generally only ever remembered for Losing baseball games - who wants a Baseball Card of that? I do.

So that there Tyler Rogers card fulfilled a several seasons running wish list entry, which amuses me in a good way. But not quite so much as this next card, which will go a long way towards assembling an amusing Nifty Nine of this player, who went 8 years between appearances in Topps Baseball despite being the GOAT Rookie Card (also naturally from an Update release) I never tire of being amused by:
The Ricky Williams of Major League Baseball also decided to put his athletic abilities back to use in professional sports and clawed his way back to The Show last year actually, but did not receive a Topps Baseball card for his efforts. Not even in 2024 Series One, or Two. But now, this has finally been rectified -
Mic drop, now?

Still, not yet. Singleton managed 355 AB this year and a quite respectable 103 OPS+, so perhaps there are more Baseball Cards in his future though at press time he is not signed anywhere for 2025. I do hope he generates more Baseball Picture Cards. Although Bat Flip cards amuse me and this one is the truest example of that in 3 levitating bat cards (I love these) in just 2 packs, that one wasn't quite the most memorable card in the 2 dozen examples I purchased - at 50¢ each...

That honor belongs to this next card, which I hope Nick @ Dime Boxes has seen by now. I mean I do want to get true "Sunset" cards with complete, final MLB stats for long-term players. But I have to wonder how many Sunset cards ... Never Happened ... and thus,
an Instant Classic







Thursday, September 5, 2024

Unlicensed Flashback


When I was a kid collecting sports cards, I loved Topps Baseball and Topps Football sets about equally. One of my biggest surprises upon discovering that lots of people liked to discuss sports cards on the Internet was a simple one: back in the 70s, Topps didn't have a license with the NFL to use their trademarked graphics, but they made sets of Football Cards, anyway.

How did I not ever understand this, back in my single digit years? The answer is simple, of course, and quite obvious: logos didn't matter. The player did. And unlicensed Topps Football was frequently a better look at that player than on TV even, given the naturally heavy use of helmet-less photos to easily avoid that tricky licensing issue.

Today I accidentally stumbled across a perfect brand new sports card product to relive this much simpler, and ultimately more rewarding and intuitive way to enjoy sports cards — 2024 Topps Composite.

I am so looking forward to seeing what all is in this product I will rip a pack and place each card directly on to the scanner so you can see it with me, almost live. 

That First Card up there is the perfect introduction to this concept and product. Everyone knows the team without any logo at all.

I confess that I am not familiar with Joe Thomas. I feel like I should be. Even deeper confession time: I don't even watch Football any more. I'll get back to that in a minute. Let's find out who Joe Thomas is -
Of course I knew from the uniform # that Joe Thomas was an offensive lineman. One with quite a pedigree. A Hall of Fame Outside Tackle - again, absolutely perfect First Card for a product, and now, a sport, I know almost nothing about.

Didn't I write that this is called Topps Composite? Yup. But that card says "Topps Finest." Nothing gets past my super sharp blog readers, I know. What's going on here?
That's not Topps Finest.

That's a set design I somewhat admire, but pretty much figured I would never own a card from due to the cost of the boxes and the ever always longer list of "singles" I would like to own before now suddenly owning a Troy Aikman Football Card I absolutely did not know I would so enjoy, back when I got up this morning. Topps Chrome Black, all up in my house. Cool.

And my deep bench of 1970s Football Card experience helped me instantly recognize the team here even before Aikman's name was revealed. I think there is something missing from that uniform, or multiple somethings; my brain is somehow filling them in automatically even though I am still forgetting what they are. I think there should be a star on the helmet, or something. Troy Aikman is a star. And that always makes for a good sports card. I wonder who he is looking downfield at?
Another super veteran announcer, good guess huhh.

& - Allen & Ginter Football? !!!
Lawd a Mercy

Collinsworth played for the Browns, too?
That can't be right.
Something is sideways in Denmark, me thinks.

This product is sneaking up on me every which way. I even wrote that 'downfield' bit before I knew what card was out there on the deep fly route. And, A&G isn't even mentioned on the box:
What year is this again? I mean, like, today.
Could you imagine needing a license to have a good flashback?
They usually make me a little woozy.

That "Spotless Spans" A&G card must be one of the inserts.

What will this thing cough up next?

I feel like I should know who all those QBs are, but, noob. Hit me, Topps:
Card #398

Wait. There's at least 398 cards of this stuff? Whoa.

This design I am familiar with - the final year of Gallery, a couple or three years back now. I mostly liked it at the time though was sad to see the pure illustration component of the product disappear. But a pleasing pure design; maybe slash based design is a good choice for Football Cards. I have no idea, since I haven't purchased a Football Card in 34-ish years. The mammoth-ness of the then new Pro Set Football Cards kinda wore me out back in the late 80s.

Here in the 21st Century, I have largely stopped watching Football. It's always on during one of 2 super busy periods of the year for me at work, and I would just rather be outside that time of year rather than watching Football in the daytime. The NBC Sunday Night Game occasionally still entertains me but so many hobbies, so little time. 

My biggest reason for hitting the snooze button Football though is the tragic fate of the players. You know of which I speak. And that is a big reason I put so much of my time into keeping up with the sport of Baseball instead. If I can overcome the thought of what is happening to each delicate brain inside its delicate bubble of fluid while the sport is played, it will be with Hockey players.

Lately my local NHL team has again become the "Dead Wings." That has curbed my enthusiasm for following that sport some. But here in the Mitten State, things are looking up, sports wise, as the local Football team almost made it to the Big Game in February even. I would have even seen the League Championship played for the first time in many, many years if I hadn't finally contracted Covid right then. I was looking forward to it. So I gots some catching up to do, with a couple sports. I might even buy a TV this coming winter, and watch them again, finally. I think I will be needing some more boxes of sports cards to go with.

It doesn't appear this will quite be the product for that. This product is all about warm fuzzies of past memories, sooo nice. I am a little verklempt that I have already reached the final card of 5 in each pack in the blaster I purchased at my LCS this afternoon. Let's take a look:
Announcer Hot Pack!

3 announcer cards in 5, & card #448 here...

270 announcer cards? That's like, a lot.

Howie Long was one of my favorite players on my favorite team. I still enjoy the rare moment when I do catch him on a TV screen, every third year or so. And now, I have his Football Card.

448 of these things? Lawd a Mercy. And, it comes in Pints? Yup, there are full-on Hobby Boxes of this stuff, my LCS reports though they currently were short on supply. I haven't even reached one of the designs promised on the box which I am quite looking forward to, that being Cosmic Chrome, another design I didn't expect to ever have a sports card from. 

I confess I would kinda prefer seeing the all time classic Raiders logo on there, somewhere, but, I never minded that all those decades ago when I got a real live Kenny Stabler Football Card so I probably shouldn't start now. Who knows what else is going to be in this crazy (good way) product. Surely Snake will be. There's only one way to find out...






Saturday, June 22, 2024

Fielder's Choice

 

I took a quick break from my ongoing 2024 Heritage collecting the other day, and picked up some of the brand new Series Two to check out. I was hypnotized, instantly, by that first card you see there.

I love the occasional card of a First Baseman about to catch the ball. The eye is completely drawn to the ball and the glove, and held there. Despite it being one of the most routine and common plays in Baseball, the impending culmination of the "play" — the glove closing around the ball — hasn't happened yet, and that always gives such a photograph an extra bit of dramatic tension.

For some time now I have been considering putting together a small mini-collection of this image. This card ices the decision, except for one small thing: horizontal. I don't think I have any other horizontal Baseball Cards with this image, or at least none are leaping quickly to mind. It seems such a common image that I probably do have one. But that would get me all the way to 2 whole ball-on-the-way-to-glove, horizontal-edition Baseball Cards. Even on the regular vertical image Baseball Cards I don't think I will have a full 9 of them, yet. So I have some more Baseball Card collecting in my future. :)

That was a nice card to open up Series Two for me. As I ripped a half-dozen packs (actual regular packs, purchased singly from a Hobby Box @ my LCS), I noticed the various Fielding cards were routinely catching my eye in this quite visually appealing set. I think the Topps Set Editor on this one really upped the game on the Fielding cards, which otherwise sometimes feel like a do-we-have-to? deal on their set inclusion. 

There were still plenty of the standard tropes, of course:

Ugghhh. The Tigers' latest Free Agent Albatross

Rojas is such a contrast with Baez right now. Acquired as back-up insurance, Rojas has rejuvenated his career just as the Dodgers need him. Another successful roster decision for their front office, who seemingly can do no wrong in these things, a near mirror opposite of Detroit decisions lately.

And how about those socks? There is a better cardboard look at those, but methinks Topps likes this new Team Socks trend:
The Neon is looking good here - reflecting in the sunglasses even. These socks also will need a better look on a future card but overall this is a nice late afternoon Baseball Card of Bichette playing the game hard. His cap is a bit of a mystery though - looks a bit green like perhaps one of those various Military Appreciation type days of some sort - except this should be a home game in Toronto where the apropos holiday is a different day than in the USA. But I'm not sure if I really just found my first green Jays cap, or the lighting is just odd, here. Will just need some more Toronto Blue Jays Baseball Cards I guess.

Cool socks, though, let's look good out there -
Hypnotized, again

Well I am now one card closer to the Nifty Nine of the-ball-on-the-way-to-glove, vertical-edition Baseball Cards. But this card has all kinds of cool things going on; I will need another copy for my page of the Ray sailing along on a Baseball Card and this is a great look at Tampa's special cap, as well as being a "Throwback" card of the Devil Rays uniform, though not the clearest such ever. The Ray on some socks, though? That too will make a great Baseball Card in some future pack.

I can't say I can recall a Baseball Card of a Shortstop about to catch the Baseball like that. A nice fresh SS image. Like, this one:
Wouldn't be a set of Topps Baseball cards any more without at least 2 or even 3 Pirates SS cards; 2024 features the full trifecta.

This new Liover Peguero card is one of those Baseball Cards where the action kind of narrates itself when you see it. A nice choice by Topps, as is this next card -
Can't say I can recall all that many Baseball Cards showing a Fielder in the "set position." This card makes me feel like I am watching a live Baseball game a fair bit more than the average Hitter hitting card. 

It wasn't even the only such card I found in my first half-dozen Series Two cards:
More cool socks. Another tense look at the game of Baseball, in progress. Though this card does have a slight recall of the GOAT RC that answers the question of just where all those Rookie Card cards come from, anyway. It's Okay, Topps, you really can move the RC logo around on the Baseball Card sometimes. We won't mind.

I am looking forward to see what else Topps decided for some 3B cards in 2024 Topps Baseball; these are making me look forward to getting more familiar with Series One, which has seen little sorting and reading time ever since both Heritage sets arrived. Should be an enjoyable few days later this summer, when the Complete Set appears and I can assemble a new Baseball Card binder.

2B did have some good representation in the little stack of cards, with a standard to start -

But more careful picture shopping was quickly discovered:
The casual/careful/deliberate hand toss, as opposed to a pure "throw" is more commonly done by a Pitcher fielding a grounder but regardless, this is a rarely cardboard captured bit of Baseball action.

Soon enough though, Topps quickly delivered another classic, usually one-per-set Fielding image -

Although I did not (yet) find any of the always very rare cards of a Pitcher doing a Fielding activity, the other defensive positions also seemed carefully chosen this year:

A Catcher still wearing the cap the way you expect to see a Catcher wearing the cap. Nice.


Whoever framed this one so well needs to teach the Heritage 'peep how to properly construct a horizontal Baseball Card, though I don't think there are many (any?) in late 70s Topps anyway. These have generally been poor in recent Heritage sets.

And that card has the most detailed image of a 21st Century Catcher's mitt that you might ever see.

The ultimate Fielding card is also a de rigueur part of any "action" set and one such also made it to my 20% sample size look at S2. I don't know why, but these cards are often from Cincinnati, and rarely disappoint:
Topps Baseball 2024















Sunday, June 9, 2024

Lots

Purchasing Baseball Cards should be lots of fun. You decide which Baseball Cards to collect, and at some point in between when they are somewhere between a few days to many, many decades old, you find them available to purchase at an agreeable price. You smile, some endorphins are released, and your individually curated collection of Baseball Cards is that much more pleasing.

Sometimes, however, purchasing Baseball Cards can be more like a chore. That is the position  I found myself in attempting to complete a set of Heritage 1975 Topps, man. The Minis.

The quest began pleasantly enough. Whenever I was between tasks at work or at home, I would simply pick up the surprisingly small device holding all human knowledge ever discovered, and ask it if any new copies of the Short Prints in 2024 Topps Heritage had been listed for sale, say in the last few minutes maybe? Often, there were.

I quickly bulked up my collection of the ugghhh, Short Prints to about 80% of the checklist. Prices were reasonable - so reasonable that I passed on any card offered for more than $5. At first, anyway.

An initial decision point became the uggghh, Short Prints offered in, yay, lots. These would be even cheaper, on a per-card basis. The catch was they would include some duplicates. I soon owned lots of them.

Duplicates, however, were agreeable to me as I had several dark clouds of pessimism hovering over me that second week of May. Surely these yay, cheap Short Prints wouldn't be somewhat not-intelligently sold so cheaply for very long. This is Heritage 1975 Topps, man. The Minis. Don't these sellers know what is going to happen to these cards? That fed my deeper fear - the supply of these would dry up, suddenly, when I still needed several cards, which would then be truly expensive.

The yay, lots, with duplicates held some bonuses though - to help alleviate my fear of reaching 80-ish cards and then needing lots & lots of $20 Baseball Cards, I figured owning several extras could eventually help me find those inevitable last few cards, via trade.

The other bonus was even more significant - finding lots with the Superstar cards on the checklist within, making the price of the expensive cards quite reasonable, as sellers hope the star card will help sell cards of players they doubt will sell that well. I had already seen that with my first lot which brought me the delightful Gunnar Henderson card for essentially less than $2.50 back in early May. As I write this in early June, that is now a $30 card, but that is jumping the story a little.

The lots coughed up the worrisome Mike Trout card, and the even more worrisome Shohei Ohtani Highlights (#7) card. This project was going along swimmingly. The lots are also how I ended up owning 11 copies of the #82 Nathan Eovaldi card seen way back up there at the top, even though only 3 copies had appeared in the boxes I opened. So many sellers didn't know that little checklist quirk in this year's Heritage. This was a very good sign.

The poor decisions by sellers seemed numerous, to me. Selling Baseball Cards online is clearly often a hectic activity. Mistakes were occasional. You want to game the keyword lexicon a little and label one of these uggghhh, Short Prints an "SSP" (double uggghhh Super Short Print) - & thus the hawks searching for the "SP" cards don't see your Newly Listed Baseball Card very quickly? I include SSP in my searches for this reason. Forget to include "SP" or "Short Print" in your individual card listings? I eventually remember to search for one player last name at a time.

If I had to/could do this project over (a very common desire amongst collectors), or wanted to purchase some other brand new checklist I fell in love with, as quickly and cheaply as possible ... well then I would simply create a set of searches for the product and card # and another of the product and player last name, and nothing else. Let the listing errors flow directly to: me. A pity no one ever misspells "Short Print," unlike "vairiation." 

All's fair in Baseball Cards. At all times I vividly recalled those $9.99 sales of the first uggghhh, Short Prints to be be listed — as I clicked Buy It, Now — always as fast as possible. That was the key to this - these Baseball Cards would never be this cheap, ever again. This has seemed completely obvious to me ever since the LCS where I purchased a box of regular Heritage told me they would have a case of this arriving in a few weeks. Heritage 1975 Topps, man. The Minis.

At some point right about a week into all this, several inflection points arrived, all right around the same time. By then I was keeping a running list of the < 10 singles I needed perfectly memorized, as I watched for each one amidst the still-steady arrival of Newly Listed and cheap, so not-so-ugghhh, Short Prints on the ole 'eBay.

This kept me examining the lots of cards that still appeared on offer. As the needs on a checklist becomes an ever smaller total, lots become more of a conundrum. There's that card I need - mixed in with 5 cards I don't need. Ugghhh. But when the 6 cards are priced at $30 and you feel they will each be worth $20, eventually, the Buy It, Now, button is still an easy decision.

Then an interesting online offer appeared, not on eBay — the almost complete contents of 3 boxes of Minis, for $125, or the price of 2.5 boxes of this product. Perhaps one of the color parallels had been "cherry picked" out of it, or 1 or 2 "key Rookie Cards," or maybe an autographed card. But all of the ugghhh, Short Prints and all of the inserts were still included, including this key card on the checklist:

However I already owned this card. On the other hand, I knew it was already occasionally selling for $50. If I valued the inserts and uggghhh, Short Prints @$10 each, I would have 12 of them for the price requested, plus 8 color parallels & > 100 base cards from the 101-500 checklist, while the real price would be $85 if I later realized even just a $40 sale of the Ohtani #7 card. Leaving me with eleven $10-$20 cards plus 25% of a, yes, base set and some random value on those ever so random parallels of the set that just doesn't really need parallels, 1975 Topps.

I pulled the trigger. Now I was buying cards I didn't really need, but still might be useful if finishing the set were to became difficult. A big part of my thinking right then was that the inserts would appreciate as fast as the uggghhh, Short Prints, as many collectors of Heritage in particular look to complete "Master Sets" of all the cards, including the inserts. So 6 more chips to use in future transactions seemed useful as I didn't yet have a copy of the Carlton Fisk Game 6 card, nor either copy of the 2 Bob Gibson Baseball Flashbacks cards I still greatly desired.

I have swung around to thinking that while Master Sets of this product will be done by collectors, those will be a little more uncommon as completing the #1-500 checklist is quickly becoming a > $1,000.00 challenge for anyone who tried to board the Heritage 1975 Topps, man, The Minis train too late. So I don't think the inserts will later hold the value that the Short Prints will, because completing the Short Prints is already such a costly goal.

I do think a fair amount of people will attempt this set. Some might be subtly drawn in by a quirk new to the Heritage 'brand' in these Minis - that's the now triple digit ( /265 ) availability of the Throwbacks, as compared to the usual low single digit ( /25 or /35 or so) print run of these cards in full-sized Heritage. Those, along with the now discontinued "Action" variations, brought the high-rollers to the Heritage brand. For me, that was always one of the big turn-offs to collecting a set of essentially pretty dull, card-after-card-the-same Baseball Cards - knowing that all the best looking cards in the product were only available for $100, $200, or even more, and would rarely ever be sold, anyway.

Now in these Minis, Throwbacks are just low two digit priced cards. That has probably made a lot of Heritage collectors happy, is my guess. But simultaneously, the historical scarcity of the Throwbacks compared to the casual, not-so-scarce supply of the uggghhh, Short Prints likely made some people chase the Throwbacks, and their less exciting cousins the Color Swap and the Image Variation (though some of these are quite excellent), first - before worrying about the #1-100 cards - which are almost as scarce as the variation cards in the /320 run for each.

But after completing a set of those nifty Throwbacks - who wouldn't want to move on from that to the full 500 card set? That's part of my thinking on the long-term price of these cards, just a random theory, but one that did inform some of my next decisions here.

Quite near the time I suddenly/casually became an investor in the Ohtani #7 card, I read a description of the fateful #407 card for Leody Taveras. Anyone interested in 2024 Heritage knows all about this card at this point, whether their interest is the full-sized card or the Mini. I already knew the wtf? checklist quirk, but hadn't looked into it yet. It's just an early career Baseball Card of an everyday MLB Centerfielder, unlikely to ever be an All-Star, and although it is a handsome, quite well color-coordinated Baseball Card it is just another uggghhh, Short Print, right? 

Nope. I read it described as "pesky" so I figured I should check into why someone would call it that. Turns out - it is the most expensive Short Print in Heritage this year. !!! Here in early June the full-size version is still selling for $20, each. It may not have been quite that high a month ago, but it was a surprising discovery to find it selling for so much.

The implications clicked in my head instantly. I needed to get one of the minis, ASAP. Whenever it was I discovered this, one was still available for $8 or $9, though that annoyed me as I mashed the button as it was well above my $5 price point for buying the low-numbered cards otherwise, outside of the star power cards. The craziness of this set never ceases to be an "smh" (@ myself) - annoyed about a single digit price for what is now a triple digit card.

I set a search just for the pesky #407, "Heritage Taveras," which is still coughing up Bowman Heritage singles from 15 years ago, but that's OK, just in case I miss one listed with any other possible quirk. Watching that search in particular quickly landed me a $13, second #407 — that I also didn't technically "need." I just, wanted it.

I can't really say which particular purchase marked the turning point in "collecting" this product, and one which has somewhat changed some of my future trajectories with Baseball Cards. I now owned "extra" copies of two of the most key cards in this whole set. I also owned, thanks to lot purchases, around 40 extra copies of the uggghhh, Short Prints while I now needed just a simple amount of them I could count on one hand.

What would I do, now? I recalled a phrase I would use having fun with my friends, seeing live music in large cities in my younger days, when I was more consistently near large cities:

Double Down

To use another vernacular, I would "go for two" as what's better than a set of Heritage 1975 Topps, man, The Minis? That's an easy one: two sets.

This has a lot of implications. So did the decision to keep purchasing the uggghhh, Short Prints. I now had 9 boxes worth of, yes, base set cards, i.e. > 900 regular print cards so one full set was nearly assured and probably 75% or more of a second. Reports on collation in these boxes were generally favorable though it turned out I only had 399 cards for the first set. Tracking down up to 100 of the regular minis for a second shouldn't be challenging, though one of them is that pesky Elly de la Cruz RC, uggghhh.

But the uggghhh, Short Prints would still require attention. My faith in trading did secure me a key single for the first set, and a pair of trades for the second one netted me 8 SPs in one trade and 3 SPs and that super cool Gibson insert in another. Another trader generously offered me 4 SPs just for 50 base cards to complete his 400 card set, but I accepted only one for the 40 cards I could help with. That was when SPs were still less than $10 cards but I was already quite sure of the outcome on these cards.

The required attention soon became different, however. < $5 SPs were very rarely found. And more significantly, they disappeared from ebay basically, instantly. By that I mean I would refresh a "Newly Listed" search, and have some luck as a new listing slowly loaded - but by the time I could mash that sweet BIN button - the card had already sold. Someone, or almost certainly, multiple someones, had reached all the same conclusions as I had about these cards, and was watching for new listings as intently as I was.

These competitors usually had a clear price point every day. For the middle weeks of May, most SPs listed for $10 or more did not sell, at least right away. But first anything at $6 went quickly. Then, $7. And so on. It wasn't hard to see how it worked - a couple sellers that had previously supplied me a card or 2 would have a fresh small batch available every 3 days or so. 

Baseball Cards are a business, after all, and that's how collections get completed. I ever so slowly realized: I was now in business. I have been in business for a long time, i.e. have been self-employed for a long portion of my life. But never before in the Baseball Card business. May is one of my busiest months - when you work with biological products, Biology (& Weather) run your schedule, not silly things like social interaction with your fellow Humans. I frequently work all-day, every-day, because the date on the calendar often determines results. Messing with Baseball Cards at all would just make that all last longer.

Whenever I had a spare moment pretty much from the end of the first week of May until, hmmm, right now I guess, I have been watching ebay listings about these cards. At this point it is just a habit, and a bit of curiosity as I continually need to learn more sales results to make best decisions on what to do with all these Minis. 

Soon, I became the one making mistakes, though most of them turned out OK. I didn't always check my remaining need list carefully; sometimes I was doing this in some parking lot somewhere. Several times I purchased regular sized Heritage cards, though that had a perfectly understandable reason - the Minis were priced essentially the same as their full-sized cousins in the low single digits, and I didn't notice the lack of the word Mini in the listing. Sometimes, that was the ebay algorithm deviously mixing in listings without the word Mini as I had typed/saved, with correct Mini listings above it and below it. This, I do not appreciate.

Several other times, 10 to be exact, and from 3 different sellers, I received full-sized cards that were clearly labeled "Mini" in the keywords and description, multiple times even. One seller claimed "I didn't even know there were minis in this product." Uhh-huhhh. Those created a mish-mash of Refunds, Returns, and Partial Returns, and p-i-t-a annoyance, which is the very last thing I want when I am busy "collecting" Baseball Cards.

Obviously I was no longer collecting Baseball Cards, I was dealing them. Eventually, anyway. The full-size cards I mistakenly bought or were given free by the (devious? over-worked?) sellers who just gave me a full refund, don't bother me - those will help me, going forward. However most of those incidents cost me some extra dollars as each card had to be purchased again, generally for $5 or more in additional expense each time as the prices of these cards kept accelerating so quickly.

I have "finished" both my first, and the second set of these, several different times, due to either my own purchase errors managing a spreadsheet of all the "incoming" cards, not always 100% accurately after a long work day, and those certain sellers, too.

I even joined a few online breaks, straight gambling on lucking into additional copies of certain cards. That was something I have never done before, and don't plan to ever try again. I am soooo looking forward to returning to my slow lane of occasionally spending a couple quarters on those delightful $0.00 value Baseball Cards.

I would say that using your spare bits of free time to look up Baseball Cards on ebay is on balance more rewarding than reading about some trial of some politician in New York City every day. However it is also a chore, particularly once you begin to suspect shenanigans by the sellers.

But the chore had to be completed, and as quickly as possible. Remember this card from my previous post, which was a key find luring me down this tumultuous path:

The caption was "$2" -- a copy of this card sold for $50 a couple nights ago.

Those sales are about a month apart. And a $50 price point on these is an outlier that is likely only going to happen when two people launch a bidding war. Most SPs are still selling on offer in the mid-teens to $20 as I write; but not always. Auctions can end with plenty of variability. A market feature known as volatility, of course. Never thought I would use that word in a sentence when it comes to Baseball Cards.

Now you probably have noticed I have been scanning all these uggghhh, Short Prints in toploaders. Seems prudent for $20 Baseball Cards.

Before I even saw my first of these Minis, I was content in knowing I had those now discontinued binder pages that could triumphantly display these purdy, but little, Baseball Cards. Those pages are still available, if you would like some, either a couple in trade for a couple pages that hold the "cigarette" size cards, or even as a full set of 55 pages needed for this set, though for those I still hope to find the last two 2011 Lineage Minis I still need, Reggie Jackson and Tom Seaver/Mets.

My extra Minis pages will be sold or traded eventually, because I won't need them. Those uggghhh, Short Prints will never be leaving their toploaders, most likely, even though that is not how I ever wish to collect Baseball Cards, given the prices. And plenty of collectors are suspicious of card binders, worrying that they might somehow damage their Baseball Cards, even when 99% of all Baseball Cards are essentially worthless. And so many of them, particularly sets of Heritage, will just end up in special little cardboard boxes often never again opened until the prep work for the Estate Sale, if even then. Sad.

Hopefully you noticed my aside about the accidentally acquired full sized SPs. I am still quite looking forward to completing a regulation set of 2024 Topps Heritage; along the way with those ever random "Lots" I already acquired the full size Mike Trout and the full size Ohtani Highlights SPs as essentially throw-ins by sellers selling them in pairs of each size, for lower than their current value anyway. I do have the SPs checklist memorized, and don't quite savor completing it a 3rd time. But I will have to do so because: I no longer plan to keep these fun little Minis.

Yep.

The card that first began this realization for me was this one, from my 3rd pack:


This is one of the most fun autographed cards I have ever "pulled," because of the great Baseball picture on it. At some point in May, however, I realized that overall, it would look even better on the full size version, which is exactly the same aside from the card dimensions.

And really, this is true of all the cards in this set, which after all is the set of Baseball Cards that probably most visually appeals to me of all the many Baseball Card designs I have contemplated throughout my life. The Minis are cool and all, but I have concluded that a binder full of their larger cousins will be more enjoyable to keep on my coffee table, some future day when I actually have a coffee table.

Almost all the way through this experience, dollars were on my mind. And that's not how I want to think about Baseball Cards. I was essentially "Prospecting," a concept known to all collectors, even though none of the cards I was purchasing individually were Rookie Cards. I was buying a card expecting it would be worth yet more, later. Which is a near-irresistible idea to oh so many human beings. I rarely dabble in the activity and a few super low leverage (as in, less than one whole dollar at a time) attempts have failed (card still worth 75¢) as often as they have modestly worked (card now worth $2).

But here I'm not gambling on an individual Rookie/player, I'm rolling the dice on 1975 Topps, man. The Minis.

However, I think I did pretty well, and an even better plan, with a few different necessary steps, began to come into focus as this "collecting" rolled along.

First, I will sell my 3 sealed boxes of these Minis. They are already worth about $150 as I type. That's each - a 300% price increase, in a month. Maybe I will carefully see if I can get a full $525, which is about what I paid for 9 boxes, making my 6 opened boxes free.

Next I am going to sell some singles. Those 2 Leody Taveras cards seen above are actually my 3rd and 4th copies, which I snagged for about $14 each (expensive at the time). I haven't kept detailed records of this whole affair, though I could total up all the spending, if I needed to, but I will probably be too lazy to "go there." That Mini card is now selling for $250. Those should cover everything spent on the first set.

I also straight invested, no air quotes, in extra copies of another card, #100. I noticed early on that it hardly ever sells and saw a request for two of them being needed to finish 2 sets. I expect a portion of them will be lost for quite some time in basically ignored small lots of those ever worthless "base" cards, sigh, as the sellers who just bought boxes of this to rip and sell singles from will likely have sorted the cards largely by looking for just the 2 digit cards to set aside, not any 3 digit cards. Some of those sellers even throw base cards in the trash as not worth their time to handle. The, ugghhh, Short Prints arrived in the same spot in every pack like the parallels & inserts - the last card in the pack - but that leaves 3 packs in the box without a "hit" card, further increasing the ease of missing the #100 card during sorting by all those sellers who had no idea how Heritage Short Prints work. Such as the many who have attempted to sell that #82 Eovaldi card way way back up at the top of this installment of the tale.

I don't know if that minor gamble on the #100 card will pay off much. I doubt it will cost me anything, anyway. Selling the Taveras cards, some #100s, and a handy stack of 3 dozen or so extra, no-uggghhh-now Short Prints will easily cover the costs of my first completed set of this, certainly. And, probably, much of the cost of the second one, also, which did require occasional double digit priced cards to complete, though not many.

At this time a full set of these cards has not yet sold on ebay, that I can see at least. So I am unsure of my final bottom line conclusion about this project. The two sets will be worth a fair bit more than I paid for them, I fully expect. After all these years of looking at cool Baseball Cards priced more than I could ever afford, I put all those sometimes mildly bitter lessons about the often rapid rise and fall of Baseball Card prices to use, to my advantage.

I will never forget parking in front of my LCS just before it opened, just to buy Baseball Cards - rather than concert tickets, frex. I never expected much of this experience to come along, so I have written out this too long tale for myself, for that distant day when I have forgotten how I have acquired that -one- binder of Topps Baseball Cards.

As I have been mostly enjoying these brand new 1975/2024 Baseball Cards, the original 75s are never far from my mind. Perhaps another recently acquired card helped lead me to the end of this project, one my LCS gave me last year for free when they let me salvage some originals from a largely otherwise superbly thrashed (i.e. quite un-sale-able) small lot of 75s that had arrived in a bulk purchase from a walk-in customer:
A card I was fascinated with as a youth, and of a man I occasionally enjoyed listening to on the radio, once the Internet delivered broadcasts of all 30 teams ot me, simultaneously, in the 21st century.

I still do not know if my childhood collection of 1975 Topps Baseball cards might be in the basement stuffed full of stuff at my parent's house. It's a Schröedinger set of cards at this point. I hope it is there, but I still do not relish the coming search for it, given that it will involve untangling my parents' lifetimes of acquiring their own treasured, or just seemingly useful possessions. 

But dealing with essentially dealing these 2024 Heritage Minis has taught me that I really don't have the patience for purchasing Baseball Cards, one at a time, while staring at a screen. I do that far too much, already. Staring at a screen that is. I want to spend my limited amount of free time with Baseball Cards curating the binders to flip through in years to come, and reading the backs of the cards — not endlessly haggling over a couple quarters or a couple dollars to buy each card that I desire, especially since I know there is still a fair amount of staring at a screen to purchase a Baseball Card in my future, anyway. I would surely enjoy using the positives of the Internet (i.e. you-all still reading this far) to meet collecting goals by trading Baseball Cards, but I am away from home so much that trading is rarely a viable option in my life.

I have purchased a set recently - for a whole $10 - and that is an ongoing, enjoyable project to handle, much more so than online shopping is. It will occasionally now be a preferred strategy for filling the binders I want on that coffee table; I have begun occasionally pricing a set of 1983 Topps, for example.

So at this point, I know what I am going to do with the likely "loot," i.e. the profits above costs from these Minis. It looks like I will eventually, in the months to come, cash these cards in and use the proceeds to finally, after a full 50 years of Life knowing the pleasures of Baseball Cards, obtain the one Baseball Card construct I have most wanted that entire time: a Complete Set of 1975 Topps Baseball Cards.