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!

A NEW (to me) Kennys Vargas card and a Rosie Relic Rainbow!

 

"2019 New Face" is an old friend for this blogger. Kennys Vargas spent last season trying to adjust to baseball in Japan, and had a rough time. He hit just 1 homer for the Chiba Lotte Marines, and was even sent down to their minor league affiliate for some time. The front of this card is super sparkly and shiny in the light.

Here's the back - I think all those Cs and Ds might be letter grades for his various skills... ouch. This year, Vargas was poised to be that 26th or 28th man at the end of the bench for the Tigers and his former manager Ron Gardenhire, but he didn't make the squad out of spring training. COVID wrecked any chance for him to impress in AAA action, and he was left of the alternate site squad as well. Hard to know at this point where he will land, but I expect him to play in the Puerto Rican winter league again this off season, and who knows?

These relics are from 2020 Series 1 - Eddie's base card was in Series 2, so I mostly ignored these relics until finding them more reasonably priced on eBay.

The gold is numbered to 50 - both the black border and gold border offerings seemed to be the plain gray swatch variety - I haven't seen any yet that were more colorful.

The red bordered parallel is /25, is probably 3X thick, and has a nice patch that incorporates part of the jersey with a letter on it. Not sure if there are more variations, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a 1/1 at the bottom of a warehouse somewhere. 

Do you have a player collection of a guy that's still active, but not in the major leagues? 

Thanks for reading!

Rosie Gets The Chrome-Plated Treament (Rosie Rainbow)

 

The ROSIE RAINBOW is now getting a nice Chrome finish! As a reminder, I am working on an Eddie Rosario 2020 Topps rainbow. He was in Opening Day, Series 2, Chrome, and several other smaller niche sets, one of which you'll see featured below.

Rosie is card #78 in the Chrome set, and here is the base, the refractor, the prism refractor, the X-Fractor, Negative, Sepia, Pink, Purple, and Blue Refactors. The Blue is the only serial numbered card on the page, limited to 250 copies.

Page two of Chrome gets a little spicier - these are all serial numbered. Green /99, Gold /50, and Orange /25. There's also a Green Wave, Gold Wave, Orange Wave, and Blue Wave, with the same print run as their non-wavy counterparts. I haven't seen them online yet, but in theory the /5 Red and Red Wave parallels could slide right in there. Still haven't seen a Chrome printing plate for Rosie, either.

And here's that "other" niche set I mentioned earlier - the Ben Baller Chrome set. I have found the Base, Blue, Green, and Gold. There should be an Orange, Red, and Superfractor out there somewhere, but I would not be surprised if I miss out on those.

Chrome "Sapphire" edition is out and sold out - there's a base Blue and at least two variations that I've seen so far (no Rosie's - yet.) And I suspect Topps will release a mini set again this year, which will again have a series of parallels to chase. 

How are your rainbows going out there? 

Stay safe and thanks for reading!

Rainbow Intensifies

Oh it's getting real now - The ROSIE RAINBOW is in full effect! For Opening Day, we've got base, Red Foil, Purple Foil, Blue Foil, and a printing plate! For Series 2, you can see the base card, the Minnesota Team Set parallel, then Gold, Rainbow Foil, and Gold Rainbow Foil.

The Gold is numbered to /2020 and here are the backs....

These all look pretty much the same, you can see the Team Set card stands out with the different number. 

Page 2 is a work in progress, but a lot of progress has been made! Here we get into the parallels.

Advanced Stats /300, Vintage Stock /99, Black /69.

Mother's Day /50 (missing!!), Photo Variation, Father's Day /50.

Independence Day /76, Camo (Memorial Day?) /25, and Walgreen's Yellow Parallel.

The Advanced stats parallel shows how Eddie has increased his barrels and his exit velocity every year, which explains in part how he had a career high in homers and RBI in 2019.

Last but not least there were these online exclusive 5X7s of the photo variation. The "base" is numbered to /49 and the "Gold" is numbered to /10.  I assume I missed out on a 1/1 in there too. 

So.... what's left? I have yet to see a listing (active or sold) for the Mother's Day Parallel, even though I've seen plenty for other players in Series 2. I know that Eddie was excluded from the "Clear" /10 acetate parallel, which is a mixed blessing. I would have loved to add that to the rainbow, but part of me is relieved I don't have to pay for one! So all it will take to complete the rainbow is to find the Mother's Day parallel (and maybe find another printing plate). 

Topps Chrome has to be coming out eventually, and I bet there will be another round of Topps mini this year and that will have a bunch of parallels, too. 

How are everyone else's rainbows doing? I know gcrl is working on Kiké Hernandez, and Tom is working on a Vogelmonster Rainbow - anyone else?

2020 ROSIE RAINBOW - "Blue Plate Special"

 This year, I am chasing a ROSIE RAINBOW so buckle up! 

Here's my progress to date: 

Series 2 came out late last week, and I've already won an auction for a Twins Team break - I should be all set on the base card, and I picked up the father's day parallel for a good price, but I will be hunting for more! In the meantime I made one more Opening Day addition . . . 

I wasn't really expecting to get my hands on a printing plate, but I was definitely going to make an effort to grab one if the opportunity arose. I wouldn't say this was a steal, but I justified it by thinking it will be the only printing plate I add for the rainbow.  

Every rainbow is unique, this one is one-of-a-kind! If you pull any Rosario parallels in your series 2, let me know, I will be happy to try to find something you'll like in exchange for it. Especially the /10 Acetate card. I'm still chasing that for my 2015 Kennys Vargas rainbow.... 

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?

Saturday would have been Card Show Day

Buckle up, this post is going to get Rosier. There was a card show scheduled today here in the Twin Cities, but it was cancelled (May show is still on for now, but I suspect that too will be cancelled). The local Card shops in town are basically doing online sales only right now, which I think is perfectly reasonable and smart. I have added a few things recently buying online as a replacement for the monthly show. This post is pretty close to what I might pick up at a show if I attended in person.

If you are already sick of my Rosie Rainbow ravings, please scroll on down to Ichiro and start there. 

The release date of Bowman was pushed back, which has me wondering if series 2 will also be delayed. I am stretching my Rosie Rainbow muscles early on Topps Heritage. Rosario is one of the Twins' short prints, that one actually ended up costing more than the purple refractor after shipping. Chrome refractor, Silver refractor, White refractor. There's a gold refractor I missed out on (didn't want to pay $130 for it), and there's probably a 1/1 and printing plates out there too. I might call this Rosie rainbow "complete"

Oh, except there's also an online exclusive 5x7 numbered to 10 that I found. Added that too!

Ok, this is as Rosie as it is going to get! Josh Donaldson signed with Minnesota in the off-season, and this is pushing me even closer towards the 1974 Topps set build. His Throwback Thursday online exclusive features the underrated design. Rosie also had a Topps OnDemand Black and White card, an UTZ card, and GQ came out this week somehow, so I found the Gold Chrome parallel of Rosie for that set.

Ok! Here is something different. Jim from cards as i see them posted this one a while back and I was happy to add Ichiro's "sunset" card to my collection. He was creating a backlog of them with his 2018 comeback with the Mariners, then the 2019 Tokyo series that opened the season. He's probably actually retired now for real. I wouldn't be opposed to another cameo in the future though! Let him play whenever he wants like Minnie Miñoso!

I saw this card on Twitter and immediately grabbed a copy on eBay. This is the Topps 75-76 Seattle Supersonics team card, complete with 747 jet (not supersonic) and coach Bill Russell (definitely super)!

Speaking of team cards, I'm still working on the 1959 Topps set, and I have just two team cards to go, Pittsburgh and the Yankees. I picked up this Cleveland card with a couple of All-Stars

Specifically these two All-Stars!

Then I watched about 10 different Mantle auctions for this card for three weeks, and ended up doing a Buy It Now anyway for the best possible deal I could find. Fortunately or unfortunately, I didn't win any of those auctions. Paid a little more than my highest bids were.

Willie Mays, widely regarded as one of the best to ever play the game, still criminally underrated and I picked this up for a fraction of what I spent to acquire Mickey Mantle. Not complaining, but that's messed up!

My favorite thing about these All-Star Cards are the cartoons on the back - Awesome! I think I prefer the back of Mazeroski's card to the front. I waited this long to get it just because I didn't like the photo selection. (similar to my 1961 Topps Killebrew holdout).

Go find the closest card shop (or your favorite one if you have options), find out if they sell online, and buy some cards from them if you have the means to do so this weekend! But above all, please take this thing seriously and stay safe. We'll all be back to the new normal eventually in the meantime everyone's health should be the number one concern.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

The Rosie Rainbow Quest Begins With "Opening Day"

Well well well - we might not have any baseball right now, but the thrill of the chase is still alive. This year, I am chasing a ROSIE RAINBOW so buckle up! Opening Day is a "budget" release, so the parallels don't get too crazy.

Here's a Red Foil parallel - "March 26, 2020" hey, there's an uncorrected error! (wail)

A Purple Parallel from Meijer.

The "official" Blue "Opening Day" parallel, which has a reported print run of 2020 copies.

It's not numbered, though, so we'll just have to take Topps' word for it!

Here's the rainbow so far! 2020 Topps series 2 is still currently scheduled to be released in June, I will be hunting all those pesky parallels, including the clear/acetate parallel numbered to just 10 copies!

Of course you may recall as regular readers of the blog my "White Whale" is a Clear Parallel of Kennys Vargas from 2015. That ship has sailed most likely, to mix a metaphor or two. But I did find this fun 5x7 of Vargas that was an online exclusive in 2015. This was part of a Twins team set, but I just grabbed the single off eBay for a few bucks.