Topps Now Red Sox Team Set

The other day I wrapped up the last of the Topps Now Red Sox cards for the 2016 MLB season.  There was one more gimmick up Topps' sleeve that I fell for though, and that was the Topps Now team set...

They did one of these for each team that qualified for post-season play.  You'd get 15 cards featuring the team's top players from the 2016 season, and an additional bonus card for each post-season series your team managed to win.

With the Red Sox being swept out of the playoffs there were no bonus cards to be had, so it was just the standard 15-card team set for me.

Topps sold 612 Red Sox sets, so these aren't all that rare.  I have a feeling I'll be seeing them in dollar boxes at some point and kicking myself for this purchase.  Oh well, too late now!

Always happy to add a new Xander Bogaerts card to the collection!

Andrew Benintendi is one of two players on the checklist to get the "Call-Up" designation on his card.  I hope he can continue to grow and be a significant contributor in 2017.

Jackie Bradley Jr. had a solid 2016 campaign, setting new career highs in almost every single offensive statistical category.

To be honest, I never thought Hanley Ramirez would have the kind of year that he did.  If you had told me back in April that he'd put up an .866 OPS with 30 home runs and a career-high 111 RBI I would have called you crazy.

Sandy Leon was a very effective part-time backstop, hitting .310 with 17 doubles and 35 RBI despite appearing in less than half the team's games.

It kind of bothers me that the write-up on the back of every single card ends in "helped the Red Sox [them] clinch the AL East Division title":

Pretty lazy job by Topps there if you ask me.

Here's the other "Call-Up" card, Yoan Moncada.  He didn't look great this year, but it's much too early to predict how he'll pan out in the long run.  He'll be one of the more interesting players to watch in Spring Training next year for sure.

I'm about the ten thousandth Red Sox fan to say this, but after watching the 2016 post-season you can't help but wonder if the team made the wrong call in letting Jon Lester go and signing David Price as their ace.

Steven Wright was a very under-rated starter, at least for the first half of the season.  I don't have too many cards of the knuckle-baller so I'm glad he was included here.

Your 2016 AL Cy Young winner Rick Porcello!  You can put Rick in the same category as Hanley Ramirez; players who far exceeded expectations in 2016.

Here's a guy I was not terribly impressed with.  Pomeranz just doesn't do it for me.

Last card in the set, sometimes-erratic closer Craig Kimbrel.

So there you have it.  Now I can say with complete honesty that I've shown all of my Topps Now cards for the year.  When I think of all the cool cards I could have picked up on COMC this weekend for the same $49 I dropped on this set, it makes me want to cry.  Oh well, lesson learned for next season!

Anyone else pick up a Topps Now team set?

Buyback Franken-set: Oldies But Goodies

I've got ten more buybacks queued up for today's post.  These are some that I've actually had kicking around for a while now, from the days before I even decided to form the franken-set in fact.  Time to absorb them into the mix and see how they fare...

1977 Topps #647 - Montreal Expos Team

First up is this great Expos team card buyback featuring the legendary Dick Williams.  This one came my way as part of a small Sportlots order.  I have no idea where this photograph was taken, but I'm intrigued.  At #647 this card has no current competition, and it's one of the highest numbered cards in the binder at this point in time.

1976 Topps #582 - Mike Kekich

I pulled this Mike Kekich buyback from the lone box of 2015 Topps Update I picked up last year.  Any time I see Kekich's name I'm reminded of the wife/family swap that took place with teammate Fritz Peterson.  Crazy stuff.  Mike here makes the cut uncontested, and we're two for two to start today's post!

1966 Topps #342 - Bob Humphreys

The next pair came from Tim at I Love the Smell of Cardboard in the Morning.  Hat-less portrait shots are probably my biggest pet peeve when it comes to '60s cardboard.  Bob makes the cut for now, but for the sole reason that I don't have another #342 buyback yet.  His spot in the franken-set is tenuous to say the least...

1966 Topps #253 - Don Wert

Tim also sent along this nice Don Wert in the same package back at the very beginning of this year.  I like this one a good deal more than the Bob Humphreys.  Not only because Don is wearing proper head attire, but because I've always been intrigued by the background of this photograph.  Don here has some competition as far as the franken-set goes...

If I were judging solely based on condition Wert would be in, and Mueller would be out.  I have precious few '58s in the franken-set so far though, and I'm fascinated by the life this Don Mueller card must have led before it found itself back in Topps' hands to be stamped.

Sorry Don.

1979 Topps #618 - Jerry Remy

Next up, a pair of '79 Red Sox buybacks from 2014 Topps that I scored off of Sportlots well over a year ago now.  This was back at a time when I could find dozens and dozens of buybacks I was interested in for a buck or less, but these days the inventory on both Sportlots and COMC has been picked somewhat clean.  Glad I grabbed this Jerry Remy when I did, and he's in at #618!

1979 Topps #480 - Fred Lynn

Pairing nicely with the Rem-Dog is this Fred Lynn, which is to this day still the only Lynn buyback I've landed.  Just like his teammate Jerry Remy, Fred makes the franken-set easily.

1977 Topps #425 - Joe Torre

This Joe Torre came from the same Sportlots lot as the Expos team card I led off with.  The slugging first baseman and future manager is in at card 425!  A nice enough card, but I have an even better Torre buyback sitting in my "to be posted" stack for another day.

1976 Topps #415 - Vada Pinson

This '76 Vada Pinson came from the same seller as the Expos team and Joe Torre cards.  Unlike those two however, Vada doesn't get a free pass.  In fact he's the second card in this post to have to face off against a '58 Topps card:

If I chose to side with that last beat-to-hell '58 then I'm certainly going to go with this one, which I recently plucked from the dollar box at my LCS.

Adios Vada!

1979 Topps #446 - Jim Lonborg

Here's Jim Lonborg's final Topps release.  While there's nothing inherently wrong about this card, Jim just doesn't look right to me in anything but a Red Sox uniform.  Aside from that, there's a card standing in Lonborg's way if he hopes to make the franken-set...

Hmm...not an easy call...

...but at the end of the day I'd just rather have Jim represented with the Red Sox if and when he does make the franken-set.  Jerry Reuss prevails!

1965 Topps #147 - Dennis Bennett

Last card for today, a confused-looking Dennis Bennett courtesy of 1965 Topps (then 2014 Topps!).  As a Red Sox buyback this one should carry some extra weight, but then again there's that whole thing I mentioned about hat-less players on my baseball cards.  Slot 147 is already occupied as well, by this Heritage Lum Harris buyback:

The buyback stamp is fading a bit here (I hope this isn't a sign of things to come for my other buybacks), and there also appears to be some kind of mold or strange growth occurring just above it.  Lum's at least wearing a cap though, and I'm an admitted sucker for manager cards too.

As much as it pains me to say it, the Red Sox buyback loses out this time around.  This is the second Sox buyback that I've relegated to the franken-set rejects box so far.  Oh well...

The six new additions from this small batch pushed me over the 200 unique cards threshold for the franken-set at long last.  300, here I come!

Franken-set Progress:  202/792 (26%)

My Rarest Gretzky

I'm not the player collector type for the most part, but despite that I have amassed a decent collection of Wayne Gretzky cards over the years.  I don't have any autographs or anything truly fancy, just a bunch of cards in the $5-or-less range for the most part.  The one notable card I do own would be his Topps rookie, which is one of the cornerstones of my hockey card collection, period.

Recently though, I was able to land what is undoubtedly my rarest Gretzky card to date.  Behold!

A junk wax '90-91 Upper Deck card?  Well, sort of.  This is a 25th Anniversary Buyback from 2014-15 Upper Deck.  Each one of these was stamped with a foil marking, which you can see just to the left of Wayne's shoulder here.  They are also hand-numbered out of /25.  This was actually the second time Upper Deck issued buybacks of the '90-91 release, as they did a 20th Anniversary version in the 2010-11 flagship set (those were not serial-numbered).

I've mostly stuck with Topps baseball when it comes to buybacks, but this card of The Great One proved too tempting to resist.  I watched it listed at $30 for a couple of weeks, too rich for my blood.  When it didn't sell the owner listed it again at $25, and again it went untouched.  A third attempt saw the card listed at $20, honestly a very fair price given what I've seen these go for (and the fact that this is the greatest hockey player of all-time we're talking about here).  The seller must have been pretty frustrated at this point, because the next day it went up for the paltry sum of $12.50.  I couldn't purchase it fast enough!

The best part was I had just gotten an email a couple of days earlier with a $10 coupon for achieving a positive feedback rating of 1,500, so that all but eliminated the cost of the card.

So there's the story of how I grabbed a Wayne Gretzky #'d to 25 for all of $2 out of pocket.  I have fond memories of this set from my youth, and how can you not love a card featuring the best hockey player ever to lace up skates rocking that sweet Campbell Conference All-Star sweater?

While it might not be an appealing card to some, I'd have to say this was one of my most satisfying pick-ups of 2016!