Check Out My Rockies

Another load of Rockies cards from COMC. While not being a fan of unlicensed cards, they usually have nice catcher cards as the equipment makes editing the photo unnecessary. This card of Wilin Rosario is instantly one of my favorite Rockies catchers cards.

The Eddie Butler autograph an on-card auto which is nice, but it is kind of an ugly card, but I got it for cheap and Butler has been the best pitcher in the Rockies system this season. The Ben Petrick is also on-card and a nice addition to the catcher collection.

More catchers with Rogelio Arias, a Charles Johnson bat card, and two more Ramon Hernandez cards for the rainbow attempt. Joe Kennedy set a then Rockies record with a 3.66 ERA in 2004 before sadly passing away in 2007. The Pomeranz is limited to 199 and this one is #1. The Helton is an acetate and will be in an upcoming acetate appreciation and the Gary Wayne was the second the last card I needed for the Rockies frankenset.

Johnny Estrada: Either the Coolest or Lamest Mem Card Ever.

A new addition to the collection that I am not quite sure what to think about. It's definitely not something you see very often, a relic card with pieces of game worn face mask, or what looks like small pieces of stainless steel rod. This seems to be more common in football cards, but is pretty unique for baseball. According to Beckett there are only 4 catcher mask relics, all from 2002 Absolute Memorabilia, a set know for doing different things with relic cards. Estrada is not a player I remember, but looking at bbref he was an All-Star, won the NL Slugger Silver and finished 18th in MVP voting as a catcher for the Braves in 2004.

Acetate Appreciation: 1998 Circa Thunder - Thunder Boomers

One of my favorite acetate cards comes from one of my least favorite sets, 1998 Circa Thunder. While the 1998 Thunder set has some of the ugliest base cards, the Thunder Boomers insert makes up for it. I am a sucker for wooden borders, so the broken wooden fence theme rates pretty high in my books, and the clouds fill the negative space nicely. The cartoony font fits with the design and makes for a really nice card. The 12 card checklist is pretty solid with the usual late 90's home run hitters such as Bonds, Piazza and McGwire.


Zistle Checklist Here

Things From Denver III: Rockies Repack

Wrapping up the stuff brought back from Colorado by my parents is a stack of Rockies cards bought at Coors Field. They were selling 50 packs of cards at the park and I ended up with two of them, and surprisingly I needed most of them. My favorite has to be the 1998 Metal Universe Larry Walker. It didn't scan worth a crap, but is really a thing of beauty with the comic book style drawing on shiny foilly stock with a flaming baseball and Walker's mullet flowing, mid 90's at its best. There was also some 1994 Flair, I collected some Flair hockey and was amazed at the cards coming in cardboard box packs, early attempts at high-end. Another set I collected hockey cards of was 1994 SP, a set I really like, but never had any Rockies until now. Overall a pretty nice repack with a nice mix of brands and years with very few cards I already had, nice addition to the collection.

Custom Card: 1991 Score Jonathan Gray

1991 Score was probably the first set I collected a large amount of cards of, most of the earlier sets in my old boxes are smaller piles, but 1991 Score if the first big stack. In tribute to 1991 Score here is a custom of 2013 3rd overall pick Jonathan Gray. Gray is arguably the most impressive pitching prospect with the highest ceiling in Rockies history. The scouting reports are enough to make a Rockies fan drool, especially after the Greg Reynolds disaster. After making his pro debut earlier this month, I would expect Gray to be heavily featured in the year end Bowman products.

2013 Topps Flagship Trade / Want List

2013 Topps Series 1, 2 and Update

  Updated Mar 26, 2015

Want List

Base: 507

Emerald: 337 Chris Iannetta, 375 Wilin Rosario, 532 Todd Helton

Chasing History Relics: CHR-TT Troy Tulowitzki Series 2 Bat Relic

Cut to the Chase: Carlos Gonzalez

Update 1971 Mini's: 1, 2, 7, 9, 12, 13, 14, 16, 19, 21, 24, 27, 28, 30, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 50

Trade List 

Base: 17, 39, 42, 78, 82, 83, 93, 103, 149, 168, 169, 170, 185, 186, 211, 214, 240, 265, 279, 290, 298, 302, 310, 340, 345, 347, 349, 353, 364, 367, 370, 380, 393, 400, 402, 411, 412, 423, 425, 428, 429, 434, 436, 438, 444, 455, 461, 471, 481, 488, 489, 490, 493, 498, 508, 524, 528, 535, 546, 550, 558, 560, 569, 575, 582, 591, 603, 617, 634, 642, 653, 659

Emerald: 24, 175, 409, 459, 530

Gold: 64, 33, 407, 471, 620, 659

Target Red: 186 Pacheco

1972 Mini: 84 Ryan Howard

Black: 521 Evan Scribner

Calling Cards: 9 R.A. Dickey

Chasing History: 15 Willie McCovey, 81 Cliff Lee, 91 Joey Votto,

Chasing History Silver Foil: 14 Lou Brock, 30 Adam Dunn, 47 Willie Mays, 51, Kipnis, 59 Fred Lynn, 74 Musial, 77 Clemente, 86 Roy Halladay, 87 Lance Lynn

Chasing History Relics: Phil Niekro (Series 2)

Chasing the Dream: 14 Pomeranz, 15 Niese

Making Their Mark: 9 Skaggs, 12 Zack Cozart, 20 Bundy, 24 Manny Machado

PWE From The Dollar Store

After PWEing away a few cards liberated from the closet at my parents house, Sportcards from the Dollars Store returned fire with a PWE in my direction. My collection of Bobby 3 Sticks cards is pretty small so this 2013 Score RG3 is much appreciated. Along for the ride we a few random Rockies and Bruins including Tim Thomas, who no matter how squirrelly he gets, still brought us a Cup and will be forever in my good books, as long as he doesn't sign with Montreal. What Bruins fan doesn't love Terry O'Reilly, a nice card of him sporting the 'C'. The highlight has to be childhood favorite Vladimir "Rosie" Ruzicka wearing a 75th anniversary jersey that I had completely forget the Bruins ever wore. Thanks for the cards.


   

 

2013 Topps Series 2 Box Break & Review

Kind of a weird box break as I didn't actually break this box myself. This box was won as part of Beckett's Box Busters Live after it was opened on a live stream. So a huge thanks to Beckett and Chris Olds for the cards. On to the review.

I used to hate Series 2, I hated that players that have spent the entire season with their new teams were still airbrushed, I hated that players that have moved on to new teams were still shown with their old ones, and I hated that a large part of the checklist has already been seen in either Opening Day or in the packaged "Team Sets". Of the 13 Rockies cards in Series 2, 12 are from the team set and 2 of these were also in Opening Day. The only new card is Ryan Wheeler, who is Photoshopped into a Rockies uniform. Chris Nelson is present in the Rockies set and hasn't been with the team since he was DFA'd on April 28th and has signed with and been cut by both the Yankees and Angels since then. Missing is Jon Garland who made the Opening Day rotation.

But those things don't really bother me anymore, I have come to terms with what Series 2 is. It is not an update to Series 1, it is Series 1: Part 2. As much as I would love a mid-season update set to bridge the gap between Series 1 and Update, which are released about 9 months apart, Series 2 is not that set. Once I came to that realization, I was at peace with Series 2.

What Series 2 does is continue on where Series 1 left off, with a solid base card design that is honestly one of my favorites of the last 20 years, and the photo selection makes for some great base cards. The parallels work very well with the design, even if some of the color choices are questionable. While I hate the 1972 Minis for both the awkward size and design, the rest of the inserts are great. The "Chasing it Down" inserts are gorgeous, as are "The Elite" on high end, thicker stock. The "WBC Stars" checklist is smaller than I would like, but the inclusion at all is appreciated.

I was also impressed at getting zero doubles in the box, leaving me very close to the base set. Overall, this product comes across as a quality release, and not just because these cards were free, but because it won me over as a former Series 2 hater.

Here is a breakdown of the box:

Base: 293 of 330 = 89% complete (No Doubles)
SP Photo Variants: 0
Black: 1 (521 Evan Scribner)
Gold: 5
Emerald: 5
Chase It Down: 4
Chasing History: 9
1972 Minis: 9
Making Their Mark: 6
WBC Stars: 5
The Elite: 2 (Babe Ruth, Joe Morgan)
Chasing History Relics: 1 (Phil Niekro)
Cut To The Chase Die Cut: 3

Things from Denver 2: 2013 Topps

Along with the Larry Walker bobble-head, there were some baseball cards in the care package from Denver. What I am guessing was a hanger pack of Topps Series 1 with a nice card I didn't even notice until entering it into Zistle. A jersey card of Curtis Granderson. A Will Middlebrooks gold card is probably the second best card in the lot. I avoided flagship this year to focus my budget on Gypsy Queen so this is a nice little sampler. More on 2013 later this week with a huge mailday.

Things From Denver: Part 1

My parents just got back from a trip to Denver and brought me a few things worth showing off that I will break up into a few posts. They were at the July 1st game honoring Larry Walker and each got a Rockies 20th Anniversary Bobble-Head, one for them and one for my collection. It was pretty fitting that the Walker Bobble-head was giving away on Canada Day.

4 Card Mailday

Just 4 cards from Sportlots, but three of them are from my most wanted list. Justin Speier and Chris Richard are pretty obscure guys for the "One of every Rockie" project, which will be down to just Aaron Ledesma once and incoming comc order arrives. Actually, Speier was a pretty valuable reliever, pitching in 177 games over three seasons with Colorado, going 12-5 with a 4.04 ERA and saving 9 games in 2003.

Rob Johnson played in parts of 2 games in 2003, the last year of the disaster that was the Steve Spurrier era. The shipping price jumped after 4 cards so finishing of the order is a random Sean Taylor I didn't have, from the 2007 Select set, produced by Score.