Fixin a Hole (in my set build)

Oh don't mind me, just trying to finish last year's Heritage set. What's taking so long, you may rightly ask?

Elvis has entered the building, but he is part of a large group of MLB players that are found only in the artificially rare "SP" series that makes up cards 401-500 in the set.

I've been not so patiently waiting for the price to come down on these short printed cards. While I was waiting, Topps released an extension to the 500 card set, as it has done for several years, which they call the "High Numbers" set. I was ready for this! I pre-ordered a hobby box of the stuff way back in 2020, so I would receive the cards promptly in early 2021. Ernie Banks has an insert set in the High Numbers section of this mammoth set. Just found one in the box.

There's a 1971 World Series highlights subset, Award Winners, and Now & Then, which is a common Heritage insert set.

The "Hits" were a pair of plain white fabric swatches. I've pulled Hoskins before in something else, can't recall the product but I sent that away some time ago.

Freddie Galvis was in the box as well. I added the Adam Eaton (Springfield, OH represent!) and the Eddie Rosario as eBay singles. 

 

 

The box topper was pretty sweet, if difficult to store. Greatest Moments was a similarly oversized offering back in the day, and it's always a welcome sight to add a super prospect like Luis Robert.

The one oddity? Well, if you notice Freddy Galvis is both a SP from the regular set AND a High Number card. I believe there are a couple more examples of this, but another indication of the sloppy and/or indifferent quality control at Topps. One of those cards could have been a missing player. Then again, with 725 cards, there's plenty of roster spots!

Have you attempted to complete one of these Heritage sets? Are you working on 2021 right now? 

Thanks for reading!

The Joy of A Completed (Base) Set (and bonus Vintage Bonanzas!)

There it is - card # 333 was the last one I needed for the base set (cards 1-400) of the 2020 Topps Heritage Set. I still have a long way to go to get all those Short Prints from 401 - 500, but it still felt good to get that all done.

I definitely could not have done it so quickly without the help of several traders reaching out to me. In particular, the last few cards were knocked out by a collector and blog reader Mark from Oregon. Not only did he get me most of the way to completing the base set. . .

He's also sent me several short prints, and that alone would have been a very generous trade. But just like last time, Mark didn't stop there.

I'm still keeping my options open, but every time I look at the 1974 set, I like it a little more. I am leaning towards this one for my next vintage set build - still gotta finish '59, but hey, no reason to not multi-task.

1973 has some bright spots too, even though the colors never seem as bright as the two next Topps designs. Always been a big fan of the horizontal cards from this set.

The 1972 set is another fun one, the "In Action" series has a lot of great variety.

Goodness - I did sent some cards back to Mark, but after going through these, I feel like I need to send some more! Love that Gene Baker card.

The Moose! This whole mailer was one pleasant surprise after another, and it hit a bunch of different collecting goals. Thanks so much Mark! I will try to keep the line moving with some fun cards heading back your way.

Paging Dr. Setbuilder . . .

First things first - a big thank you goes out to Mark, gcrl, Night Owl, Nick, and Jeff for getting me this far in my Topps Heritage set build. I just have a small handful left to go of the base cards and then I'll have an uphill battle from there to tackle the remaining Short Prints. I have enough stacked up now, though, that I'm willing to start putting cards into pages.

Someone smarter than me once wrote on their blog that the Topps set has traditionally been the story of the past season. I decided to take that to heart here - page 1 in the binder will be the World Series cards, which thankfully consist of exactly 9 cards. Then I have the league leader cards... of which there are 12.

Rather than having a page that is mostly empty, I decided to use this real estate for those annoying cards that belong to multiple teams, and then a sampling of the inserts. I'm not going for a master set, so I feel ok about this, at least for now.

For the individual teams, I am taking the approach of having the first page as the most common or "ideal" batting order, but you'll see the glaring omission  here... Josh Donaldson! With the Nationals it's Anthony Rendon that's missing, but I worked around that by including Ryan Zimmerman at third and Matt Adams at first. The other problem? No Howie Kendrick, and no Brian Dozier... Hopefully I'll be able to make this work by combining the Heritage set with the "High Number" (effectively a Heritage Series 2) that comes out later this year.

What's your strategy for displaying complete sets? 

A Proud Heritage of Trading Cards

The 2020 Topps Heritage set build continues! Thanks to Mark from Oregon, who reached out to me on the blog and offered up a big stack of cards to me. I sent some Bay Area (SF and OAK) cards his way and I've been able to cross off several cards from my want list, which is currently up to date.

I'm really digging this year's set, I will be getting these into a binder sooner than later. I think I will sort them by team and do the whole page 1 is the starting nine, page 2 is the rotation and bullpen, page 3+ is the bench, rookies, trades, etc.

Mark also sent a big surprise! In addition to the 2020 Heritage, he also included a similarly sized stack of o.g. 1971 Topps!

You can Chuck the Manuel in as well. Thanks again Mark!

Tom from Waiting 'til Next Year sent me what I hope is a duplicate of the Vogelmonster as he is one of those elusive Short Prints! Love the cell tower in the background, which feels like a vintage cards with radio towers in the background.

Not a trade, this was an eBay victory of Eddie Rosario's Gold chrome parallel, numbered to just 5 copies. I lost an auction yesterday for a 1/1 Black Opening Day Parallel, but maybe I can get the rest?

Quite Possibly The Worst Collecting Idea I've Ever Had

2020 Topps Heritage has been out for a while now - I've been buying up hanger boxes when I can. I noticed that I had accumulated quite a few of the base cards, and thought to myself "I should build this set." This is quite possibly the worst idea I've ever had.

Let's start with the bad news. There are 99 base card short prints (cards 401 to 500) and I have, let's see, 8 so far (not counting Eddie Rosario). So I would need to add 91 more short prints to call this a complete set.

SHORT PRINT (HAVE) - 416, 434, 464, 465, 482, 485, 486, 489

The good news? I am about 50% done with the set including those missing short prints. I also have a little bit to trade, about 65 base cards 1-400, and some inserts.

FOR TRADE: 2, 6, 14, 15, 19, 22, 35, 46,  57, 68, 75, 78, 81, 91, 92, 94, 110, 112, 122, 123, 132, 134, 138, 150, 154, 173, 174, 187, 191, 195, 198 (x2), 207, 213,  214, 218, 226 ,227, 242, 253 (x2), 257, 259, 271, 272, 273, 278, 279, 290, 305, 308, 326, 329, 338, 346, 360, 372, 374, 380, 385, 390, 400

Every card pictured in this post is tradeable for Heritage needs. I'll offer the inserts 1 to 1 for a Short Print, or I am willing to offer 1 insert plus something else for 1 SP. Willing to listen to offers.

These last 4 were the least common out of everything I opened, so I would ask for 2 SPs for a Bazooka insert, and I don't know what for Brantley, numbered to 100. If there is a good offer of a good quantity of wants, I would be happy to make that trade.

WANTLIST (Cards 1-400):
5, 7, 8, 13,  38, 44, 49, 52, 55, 56, 61, 64, 65, 69, 71, 72, 73, 74, 76, 82, 89, 95, 102, 104, 105, 108, 113, 115, 117,  120, 137, 141, 145, 151, 152, 153,  159, 160, 167, 177, 178, 180, 183, 194, 199, 200, 205, 206, 209, 212, 216, 220, 223, 224, 229, 231, 233, 237, 241, 248, 256, 263, 264, 269, 274, 277, 281, 285, 287, 289, 291, 294, 297, 302, 309, 310, 313, 315, 317, 320, 322, 323, 325, 327, 330, 333, 334, 337, 342, 343, 344, 347, 348, 350, 352, 353, 355, 356, 359, 362, 365, 366, 370, 373, 375, 376, 377, 378, 379, 388, 389

So, if you can help me out I'd love to hear it. I have added these same lists to a separate page on the blog that will (hopefully) stay up to date as the trades (hopefully) start rolling in. I have also updated my meager Trading Card Database info to include the haves, trades, and wants specifically for 2020 heritage. I may never catch up on there with the rest of my collection, but at least I can say I did that much. My name on there is mpls_collector.

Little Big League - Rosie Rainbow style

Thanks to the tip from Top, I found out there was another 5x7 of Eddie from the Topps Heritage design, numbered to 49 copies, that will hang out with my Gold version /10.

This one I already knew about, the "mini" versions are all numbered to 100 copies.

For scale, here's the Big guy, the Little guy and the standard sized guy. The mini came in a holder that was labeled "Biggio" - that is going to bug me...

Ah, that's better. (Thanks again to Jon for having this one available for one of his free Fridays)

Last but not least I am never going to run out of Kennys Vargas items to chase, it seems - I had seen this on eBay for a long time, I finally gave in and bought it. This is a pocket schedule from the Single A Fort Myers Miracle, the Twins' affiliate in their spring training home of Ft. Myers, FL. This schedule even sports a signature from Lil Papi. ( I don't think anyone calls him Lil Papi anymore.. maybe David Ortiz? ).

Thanks for reading!

Free Stuff Friday #8 Hindsight is 2020

Here's some 2013 Topps to get us started - claim one or claim them all!

Parallels - Girardi Gold, Tyler Foil, Ranger rookies Walgreen's yellow, Sheffield Stadium Club Chrome.

Inserts - 2019 update Bench, 2020 Opening Day mascot, 2020 Matt Olson, 2019 Will Clark.

Speaking of 2020, there was comment about seeing more of the 2020 products, so here is a trio from Series 1, Heritage, and Opening Day!

Here's another page of hockey for anyone interested. . .

Get it? 2020? Hindsight? Eh, these guys all wear glasses. Dizzy Trout is a 1991 reprint of the 1953 set, the 2 from 1970 are from 1970. . .

If we haven't traded before (or if it's been a long time), please send me your address! I still have a few small piles of cards that are claimed but I don't know where to send them!