Shiny Cardboard - Some Recent Pick-ups

It's time for another installment of Shiny Cardboard, featuring...you guessed it...shiny cardboard!  I've actually got a trifecta of flashy beauties today, all of which arrived in the mailbox sometime over the past couple of weeks...

First up, I really love these Stadium Club Rainbow Foilboard parallels.  Year in and year out, the Stadium Club brand has remained probably the one set on the baseball release calendar that interests me each summer.  Give me that same simplistic, full bleed design and those fantastic photographs, but on a bright, reflective, rainbow foil stock and I'm sold.  Just look at how this Edwin Encarnacion almost glows.  Awesome stuff.

These are actually really tough cards, serial numbered to just /25 each.  While this particular example isn't exactly one of the better cards in last year's set, I snagged it simply because of the really cheap price.  $2 Buy-It-Now with $1 shipping.  Sold!

Here's a look at the back.  The serial numbering is tough to make out, but it's at bottom center, just above all the legal fine print.  I think part of the reason it was available so cheaply maybe is that the seller listed it as an "Edwin Escobar" card?  Never heard of Mariners' power hitter Edwin Escobar before!

From an earlier Stadium Club release, here's another Rainbow Foilboard.  I like this one immensely more than the Encarnacion.  Honestly, you can't ask for a better photograph than that.  The retired stars are my absolute favorite Stadium Club cards, and this Whitey Ford is a prime example of why.

I love that the rainbow foil is not applied to the player on the card, which really creates a sort of 3-D effect in addition to all the brightness.  Here's a better look at how cool the card looks in hand with a pic snapped from my iPhone, though it's really tough to take photos without catching myself or the camera/background in the reflection due to the card's brightness:

Look at those colors in the skyline/scoreboard area.  Simply beautiful cards.  Believe it or not, this one didn't set me back a whole lot more than the Encarnacion, less than $6 anyway.  Amazingly, I benefited from two inaccurate auction descriptions for these parallels in a matter of days, as this one was listed as "Whitey Ford - New York Rangers".  Last time I checked, Whitey never played a game for the Blue Shirts!

This one's numbered to /25 as well, as they have been in I believe every Stadium Club release since the brand's re-inception in 2014.  Honestly this one is right up there in terms of my favorite Ford card.  I love it every bit as much as the couple of playing-era cards that I have of the Yankees hurler.

Last card for today, my latest 1999 Bowman's Best Refractor, and of the man who was my favorite baseball player at the time this set came out no less.  These look so amazing in hand, with the etching and blinding gold surface.  Numbered to just /400, there are 200 cards on the checklist; 100 established stars and 100 rookies.  I'm really only interested in the 100 established stars portion of the set honestly, and this is my third one now (Vlad Guerrero Performers and Todd Helton being the others).

At some point I'd like to get a copy without that printing line that you see going across the card through Nomah's legs, but with only 400 copies in existence I can't afford to be too picky at this point.  Besides, the card only cost me a couple bucks so it's a great placeholder at the very least.

Here's a look at the back, with the numbering being at the bottom of the color photograph there.

An impressive trio of shiny cards today if you ask me.  I'm always on the lookout for Stadium Club Rainbow Foil and '99 Bowman's Best Refractors, so I'm sure you'll see more from these releases on the blog at some point down the line.

Thanks as always for stopping by, and enjoy your weekend!