The Obligatory 2013 Topps Post

"Oh what's that, 2013 Topps is out, why didn't anyone say anything about this?"

My excitement for the opening day of the 2013 baseball card season is pretty low, mostly because living in the middle of nowhere I have no way of getting my hands on any for a while, and in joining a group break I will wait for that before deciding on buying any more, but I will take time to share some thoughts on what I have seen so far. I love the design of the base cards, using the hat logo instead of the primary logo is a really nice move, as is the team color in the infield portion of the design. The photography is also very impressive in this set, Topps chose some really nice photos and did a good job with oddball things like retro jerseys and celebration shots. The design also leds itself well to parallels with the Emerald and Black borders looking really good, and as a Rockies fan I am going to try and track down some Toyz-r-us purple borders.

Now on the the bad, the pink and camo borders look bad, the camo might be ok with the classic green camo, but the desert camo is pretty boring. As a Rockies fan, player selection has always been a problem for me, and the Rockies getting 6 cards in pretty lame, but not as bad as the Astros with 5 and the Twins with 4. Seriously, in a 330 card set, there are only 4 twins cards? I am also not a fan of the 1972 design or "mini's" that don't fit into any pages I know of, so those are a write off for me and the rest of the inserts don't so much for me either.

Overall, Topps did a really good job with this set, most of my negatives are of the personal preference kind and not serious issues.

1971 Topps Variations: Dick Bosman #60

No Black Line

The main reason for starting this blog was to document as much info on 1971 Topps baseball variations as I could find, but it's been something that I have set to the side recently despite being close to posting all the ones I know of. I usually try to avoid vintage in rough shape, but the Bosman to the right was the only one I could find without the black line on the glove hand side near his head. This is another case of variation vs. print error, it could be either depending on your point of view, either way, it's a good excuse to post a card where the player dots his "i" with a star.

Contest Winnings

Just getting around to post a mystery package that came in the mail, and judging by the address must be contest winnings from the "card back contest" over at Cardboard Heaven. Pretty nice bunch of cards with a my first Tulowitzki relic showing a little bit of a pinstripe. Gypsy Queens are always appreciated are here, but even more so when it's an photo variant I need, and this Votto brings me up to 38 of 50. Among the Rockies we have a Cargo mini and blue framed out of 599, some serial numbered Helton cards, a high ranking prospect in Trevor Story and a gorgeous Wal-Mart Black Eric Young, Jr.
Thanks for the cards!

Acetate Appreciation: 2000 Stadium Club Chrome Eyes of the Game

A 10 card insert set from 2000 Stadium Club Chrome with cards inserted at a rate of 1:16, and paralleled with a Refactor set found at a rate of 1:80 packs.These are actually pretty nice looking cards, as with a lot of acetate the scans don't do them justice. The card is mostly clear including most of the player close-up.

The 1999-2000 hockey, 1999-2000 basketball and 1999 Football Stadium Chrome set also had acetate insert called "Eyes of the Game" but featured different designs.

First Trade of 2013

The first trade of 2013 comes through Zistle.com, a nice size package of cards from the wantlist. A couple new cards for the Rockies pitchers batting collection, but the real highlight was the catchers, a Chris Iannetta and Jayhawk Owens for Rockies, and a couple Buster Posey cards, including a Bowman rookie and 2 more Triple Play puzzle pieces giving me 3 out of 9. The Jimmie Foxx with the old school mask close up and team listed as the Easton Farmers is a new favorite will go in the front of the catcher binder. Finished of by some 1995 Upper Deck, which is my favorite 90's set after 92 Pinnacle and one single 2011 Gypsy Queen closer to the set, and one football card, a 2012 Prestige DeAngelo Hall.

Acetate Appreciation: 1996 Fleer Ultra Season Crowns

Season Crowns were a 10 card insert set in 1996 Fleer Ultra, the regular cards were 1:10 packs and the Gold Medallion inserted at a rate of 1:100 with a different logo at the top. A weird design that looks more like a die-cut than an acetate. The yellowish tinge that fades towards the top makes the card look old, and not vintage old, just old old. The cards are also very thin and flimsy, with all these things this is one of the weakest acetate sets in my collection.

Jhoulys Chacin Quadfecta

A part of the COMC black friday mailday, I don't usually collect printing plates, but on finding a Jhoulys Chacin plate from 2012 Topps Chrome for $5, I jumped on it. This goes along with the 2012 Golden Moments jersey, 2009 Signature Stars autograph and 2009 Topps Update rookie card.

Chacin has quietly had a solid start to his career, despite a hard luck 23-31 career record, he comes into 2013 with a 3.68 career ERA, pretty damn good for someone who has been with Colorado his whole career. If he can fully recover from an injury plagued 2012 and get his walk rate down he should be the reliable starter we thought we were getting after he went 18-3 with a 2.03 ERA in 2008 as a minor leaguer.

Acetate Appreciation: 2003 Studio Stars

Stars was a 50 card insert set from the 2003 Donruss Studio product, with the regular Stars cards inserted at a rate of 1:5 packs, the Gold parallels numbered to 100 and the Platinum parallel numbered to 25. The card is mostly clear and is design to look like credit card with the rounded corners and the strip at the top. With the card being almost all clear there is little room for information and only one stat is listed on each card. The card number is tucked away at the top of the S on the back and is easy to miss. A very simple design and while the credit card look might be a little cheezy, it makes for something different.

In Person Autos: 4 Blue Jays

Four new autographs to add to the collection, the Blue Jays are currently sending players across Canada and stopped in Saskatoon to sign autographs before the Blades played the Red Deer Rebels. J.P Arencibia, Colby Rasmus, Drew Hutchison and Anthony Gose were there, and after waiting for over an hour I got 4 cards signed and the GF got her jersey signed. Even though I am not really a Jays fan it was very cool to see MLB players in Saskatchewan, and the Blades sold way more tickets than they usually do. A really nice move by the Blue Jays organization and a good way to drum up support for team going into 2013.

The National Post has some nice photo's of a stop at a curling club here.

COMC Black Friday Order Part III: Rockies

On to the Rockies portion of the COMC order, leading it off with a 2008 Finest Jeff Francis, so far this is one of two Rockies card I have found to show the World Series patch on the jersey making this photo from Game 1 of the 2007 World Series. More cards for the recently traded Alex White collection, I expected big things from him as a Rockie no such luck there as he was just traded to the Astros. I usually don't collection jersey cards, but I needed a Pomeranz, the Nolan Arenado was more for the auto and the Iannetta was more for the fu manchu. Finished up with a Charlie Hayes card with his football style mask, a Scott Elarton for "One of every Rockie", a Pomeranz Platinum National promo numbered to 499 and a couple Andres Galarraga cards printed on wood.

Acetate Appreciation: 1998 E-X2001

A Fleer/Skybox line that would be renamed to E-X Century in 1999 and then just E-X from 2000-2004. 1998 E-X2001 was a 100 card set comprised mostly of veterans, with not a single rookie card in it. To me, this one of the better looking acetate designs and find it kind of disappointing the set is only 100 cards. The same design was also used for 1998 NFL and 1997-98 NBA products. The "Essential Credentials Now" parallel set is serial numbered to the card number, meaning card number 1 is the set is numbered to 1 and card number 100 is number out of 100 and has a greenish yellow tint to the clear section. The "Essential Credentials Future" is the reverse with card number 100 numbered to 1 and card number 1 numbered out of 100 and has a reddish tint. Larry Walker is card number 79, so there are 79 "Essential Credentials Now" and 22 (101-79) "Essential Credentials Future"

Goals for 2013

I wasn't going to do a post on this, but reading a few other list got me thinking about what my goals are as far as collecting so here it is.

1. Keep the blog active, the minimum I have set for myself is 2 posts a week but I hope to stay more active than that.

2. Complete more trades, in little over a year I did 15 trades, so about one a month, not bad but a few more would be nice.

3. Finish the "One of every Rockie" collection. After a COMC purchase yesterday I am down to 9 players from 1993-2012. The remanining 9 are Gary Wayne, Aaron Ledesma, Ross Gload, Justin Speier, Chris Richard, Adam Melhuse, Edwin Bellorin, Rob Scahill and Thomas Field. The list will grow once the 2013 products come out but I want to focus on these ones first.

4. Complete a 2013 set, I will be buying 2 boxes of 2013 Gypsy Queen which should get me close to the base set leaving me to work on any short prints.

5. Complete 2 older sets, right now I am looking at 1992 Pinnacle and 2012 Gypsy Queen short prints, or at least all of them other than the Darvish.

6. Get my 2011 GQ set above 50%, right now I have 147 out of 350 (42%) including 33 of 50 short prints (66%).

7. Acquire at least one more 1977 Topps Mexican NFL Redskin, I am down to 7 for the team set with mostly expensive short prints left.

8. Get a TTM autograph, I was going to try this last past year, but the NHL lockout put this on hold, I will try a few over the year and see what happens.

9. Get an in person auto, more on this next week hopefully.

10. See a pro baseball game, this might be a small goal for some, but with the closest MLB stadium over 850 miles and an international border away, it's a big deal for me. Any planned trips look like they will be to a minor league stadium so we will see what happens there.

11. Buy a box of cards other than Gypsy Queen, last year I was all set to buy a box of 2012 Update or Bowman Draft, but I blew my budget on two cards costing around $80 combined in Tim Thomas and Daniel Paille autographs.

12. Add to my Rockies autograph cards, Matt Holliday, Larry Walker and Andres Galarraga top this list.

The list ended up longer than I thought, so it seems like a worthwhile effort and if you made it this far into the post thanks for reading.

Zdeno Chara: Bruins Stanley Cup Auto

In honor of hockey being back here is another 2010-11 Stanley Cup Champion team autograph, this time the Captain from the 2006-07 Be A Player Signatures set. This one is a part of the COMC mail-day and was just waiting for a reason to be posted, with the NHL coming back now seemed like a good time for a hockey post.

One of the league's elite defense men, Chara won the 2009 Norris trophy and was a finalist in 2011 and 2012. In the Bruins Championship season he lead the NHL in regular season Plus/Minus with +33 and in playoff with a +16 rating.

Obsure Rockies Sportlots Order

Interrupting the COMC order posts is a Sportlots order that finally found it's way to my desk featuring guys you have never heard or probably didn't remember played for Colorado. Finding all these cards from one seller was nice as all 10, including an un-pictured Jose Contreras, were need for my main project and now bring me within 10 players (97% Complete) of completing the "One of every Rockie" collection. Ron Gant and Sandy Alomar, Jr. are the only real recognizable names, but some people may remember Curtis Goodwin and Dustan Mohr.

Acetate Appreciation: 2008 Stadium Club Beam Team

Here we have a 52 card insert set of acetate cards with sticker autographs and parallels in Black and White numbered to 99, Gold numbered to 50, Platinum numbered to 1 and 4 printing plates. The stained glass effect makes for a pretty interesting card and makes good use of the clear acetate material, but the parallels discard the multi-colors and really don't look as good. I am a pretty big fan of these and the scans really don't do the cards justice as they look really good when held up to the light. Another reason to miss Stadium Club.

COMC Black Friday Order Part II: Minis

The mini portion of my big COMC order, starting with my first Black Mini from 2011 Gypsy Queen, Jorge De La Rosa. A couple Mini's you don't see a lot of, a 2001 PS-206 Private Stock Jeff Cirillo and a 2000 PS-2000 Private Stock Larry Walker. A Black Border Ginter Pomeranz along with 3 different Gypsy Queen Pomeranz Minis. The big highlight for me was a last few cards to finish off the Rockies team set of 2012 GQ Black Minis, by far my favorite cards of 2012.