I have never had an easy time of "clearing the card desk." I have been hard at it lately, and for that I am thankful. I have a long ways to go, so I will keep stockpiling these posts, hopefully for your enjoyment, and definitely for mine.
Let's see what appears from the more mysterious, bottom of the stack today:
Why I selected it: The shades, man. This is a little known Check-Out-My-Badass-Shades-Man color match parallel. I would say it is every bit the equal to a super limited edition (but also super cheap) Topps Chrome Sapphire version of (possibly) this same card. Plus, those socks are cool, though you are probably still lost in those shades right now. And for another exception-proves-rule, that one cool sock perfectly fills up that space wasted by all those weird parallelograms, polygons, and triangles all over this card, which are especially prolific once the squashed Diamondbacks logo is added. So possibly I snagged this Series 2 card so I wouldn't forget those great socks on the regular base version, cuz I never seem to have as many Series 2 cards as I do of Series 1, and Update.
In-hand, this parallel has a remarkable 3D effect like you are probably familiar with from people using the 3D button on their phone just to take a picture of some boring object, just because they can. 3D lookin' cards, are good.
And, sometimes I dream of assembling not another All Parallel set, but a simple, single All Parallel page of the easy to obtain (read: cheap) versions from some sets. Looks like I am headed down that path with 2023 Topps even if I don't want a binder hogging Complete Set copy of it. There are no shortage of low leverage options on low leverage cards when it comes to 2023 Topps. Such is life in the "Junk Parallel" era. So now I have the /299 entry complete.
Why I selected it: I have begun a modest little Ohtani collection, of Shohei running the bases. This card won't qualify, because a Home Run trot is not "running." I quite like this card though, as I figure you most likely have an agreeable personality I would want to shoot the breeze with, if you smile during your Home Run trot, which you should.
But really I purchased this card because I always dutifully assemble a set of the usually 5 Checklist cards issued per Series in the Topps Baseball set, from time immemorial. I do this for a nice look at the "Highlights" from a given season, which the Checklist cards have been for a long time now. It's not always simple for Topps to assemble 15 card-worthy Highlights annually, so occasionally these "reach" a little bit. This one kinda trends that way, but overall not as bad as things like Yasiel Puig having a multi-Hit game, for example. So since I would need to buy one of these from someone, somewhere, it might as well be down at my LCS. And it ain't like Ohtani cards get cheaper as they age. So, trigger, pulled.
Why I selected it: Houston, we have a winner. That would be for the 1/year (no mas) 2023 Topps Chrome Prism refractor, Horizontal division entry. This is one of my favorite cards from 2023 Topps. Prisms seem the perfect way to forget about all the parallelograms, once the card is completely covered in uncountable quantities of them.
Why I selected it: I kinda forgot why. I don't collect Opening Day Blue parallels, per se, nor the Texas Rangers. I always like appearances by their red Home Alternate uniform though. Maybe that had something to do with it. Red, White, & Blue. Almost like their almost-Racing-Stripe, still-kinda-Pin-Stripe pants. Hmmm.
Why I selected it: Was 1981 Pete Rose's final All-Star game? I don't think so, but maybe. I do still need a few more Pete Rose cards to put a page in the binder for him. This edition with it's "candid" (read: unposed) photograph displays some great foreshadowing pathos of how his life would begin to change, for us, out in the public, later that decade. It will be a perfect addition to that page of Baseball Cards.
Why I selected it: Oops, I did it again. Meanwhile this scan deepens a small worry I have now: I have discovered the perfect kind of Baseball Card to collect, digitally, as in, on-screen only. I am afraid now that I will want to scan every "Rainbow Foil" card I currently have, which is way too many but also not quite terribly enough of them to resist that basic waste-of-time. Kinda.
I think now I have remembered why I picked up those two Adolis Garcia cards. As much as I routinely mock the concept of buying Baseball Cards solely for their potential future value, I do have to confess: I am unable to resist doing that every once in a very great while, too, when the inve$stment in question is just a few quarters. And that's probably what happened here. "Rookie Cup" parallels can be surprisingly valuable later in a player's career; something I learned from 2013 Topps card #27, when I needed to purchase colorful copies of it. That took forever to accomplish at a reasonable price.
So I have a feeling about Adolis Garcia, let's just say. He will be a Free Agent in a couple-three more years in there somewhere, and he hits a lot of dingers, some years. Now, where am I going to keep those 2 cards until he hits a bunch more dingers? Ai-yi-yi.
Why I selected it: Another Oops. This, is a "dup." I have even already posted it before, in this 'series' of blog archetype posts. So, at least I didn't have to scan it again. It won't hurt me to have a couple extra Riley Greene base Rookies laying around, in the years to come, I expect. Err, hope. Errr, expect.
Along the way to posting this one again I discovered a fun thing in our thankfully free-thanks-to-Google Blogger software. That is that we can add photos already part of a previous post in our blog, to a new post. So, what? Nothing important really, but when you attempt this option, Blogger begins dutifully loading thumbnails of every image you have ever included on your blog. This takes way too long to ever use one from the middle, or worse, end, of; in my case that is several thousand such images. But it is an enjoyable little thumbnail gallery to gaze upon as it steadily loads up.
Why I selected it: A perfect pair to the 1979 Pete Rose Record Breaker I posted recently and probably purchased on the same day.
Might be kind of nice to keep the 2 cards together. But the Racing Stripe page wants this one, too. But a lurking Hall of Famer and just more general Powder Blue goodness than one can shake a baseball bat at? This card has "Powder Blue Collection" written all over it.
Why I selected it: I love Willie Stargell. Simple as that.
A nicely off-centered 1980 Topps is fine by me. I like how the facsimile signature was placed with care, parallel with the team name design element, rather than automatically deposited on a certain coordinate on the card by the computer software, regardless of what's happening in the overall composition. Hand-made Baseball Cards are often superior to software-made Baseball Cards in this way.
Plus it's always nice to see a signature you can read.
Why I selected it: I like Baseball Cards photographed in basically completely wrong indoor spaces. They make me laugh. Particularly with what's happening on this card, where Anthony Reyes looks a little less-than-pleased about this. "You want to take my Baseball Card picture, right here?" Seems to be the obvious photo conclusion. Dressing the card up as the classy Gold parallel makes it that tiny bit more amusing. Sorry, Anthony.
Also, 2006 Topps is growing on me and I find it likely I will begin to increase my modest collection of it, once I get through so much decision making on so many other sets, first. So that might be a minute, or two. 2006 Topps are particularly good cards to include in pretty much any Player Collection, given the dramatic declaration at the top of the card. But then most player collectors collect pretty much every card ever issued for a player anyway.
Bonus Round
Why I selected it: This card will look great on a page of horizontal Miggy cards. I don't usually give "keeper" status to a card that doesn't show a player's face, even with an overall great Baseball photo effort. This late-era Upper Deck card solves that dilemma perfectly.
Extra Good Bonus Round
Why I selected it: Oooohhh, how I have been looking forward to scanning this one. In-scan just, meh, turns out. 3D cards are meant to be enjoyed, in-hand. Not, in-vault.
Topps routinely creates them now in limited edition, "online sales only" releases. Whereas formerly in the 21st they did so as part of Opening Day for a good run of years, and a pair of re-runs in Lineage and then its subsequent iteration as Archives.
None of those cards are worth hardly anything, despite many of them featuring Hall of Fame bound Superstars.
But slap an RC logo on one and limit production to just a thousand copies or whatever, and suddenly the money will roll right in.
Of course, I couldn't resist adding a 3D card to the Powder Blue Collection. Powder Blue Rookie Card cards are already the best-est, and this one is bester, even with all those parallelograms.
And should Alec Bohm hit a big peak in his imminently arriving peak career years, maybe my retirement is now all set? Isn't that what Baseball Cards are all about?
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