Shiny Cardboard - MVP!

Well, I didn't mean to take a full week off from the blog there, but it's been a little hectic and that's just the way the cookie crumbled these past few days.  I've got a really significant pick-up to show off today though, making up for lost time.

This is actually a card that I picked up months back, but it just so happens to be an opportune time to showcase it.  Behold!

Years back I made the somewhat foolish decision to try to complete the 220-card 2011 Topps Chrome set in Atomic Refractor format.  Atomic Refractors (or "Cracked Ice" in the Panini World) are arguably my favorite shiny cards of all-time.  The Topps Chrome versions have typically been scarce over the years, often numbered to just /10.  In 2011 they were less rare, being numbered to /225, so I figured this would be the year to try to complete a set of them from.

Well, hindsight is 20/20 as they say, and it turns out this project is much more difficult than I anticipated.  Even cards with a couple hundred copies each in existence get pretty damn scarce ten years later.  Some of these may have been lost to time, others snatched up by player collectors, or forgotten about in private collections.  I was able to cruise through the first 150 cards or so, but then things sort of ground to a halt.  As I've closed in on 200 of them in recent years, one remaining name towered above the rest, and that was this Freddie Freeman rookie card.

I'd seen a few copies of this one sell for north of $100, which at the time I just wasn't willing to pay since I'm not a Freeman or Braves collector, and just wanted the card to complete my set quest.  After passing on those, I started to feel some regret as I'd go many months or longer between seeing a single copy available for sale.  This spring, the above copy triggered my saved eBay search at $70 Buy-It-Now.  I snatched it up before any other collector could beat me to it, and arguably the biggest remaining missing piece of my set fell into place!

Here's the back, you can see the serial-numbering along the bottom there in the center.  Obviously the attraction here is the brilliant, vibrant, shiny card front, but the 2011 release had a solid back design if I do say so myself.

The chase for this card was frustrating to say the least, but ultimately rewarding.  It definitely taught me that I'm not much of a set collector these days, and certainly not enough so to try anything in parallel format like this again.  I'm just glad I scooped it up when I did, because after his NL MVP win earlier this week this now appears to be closer to a $200 card on the open market.

With Freddie in the collection at last, I'm now up to 199 Atomic Refractors out of the 220 in this set.  I've got another cheap one I picked up on Sportlots on the way in the mail, so I'll be hitting the magic 200 number very soon.  The remaining cards are going to be brutal though.  How brutal?  Well, I placed what I thought was an absolute overkill bid on an Andrew McCutchen ($25) when it popped up a couple months after Freeman here, and lost...

I'm committed to getting there someday.  In the meantime, I'm enjoying the chase the best I can.  Thanks as always for stopping by, and enjoy your Sunday!

Shiny Cardboard - My Newest Bogaerts RC

Here's my latest Xander Bogaerts pick-up, a solid and long overdue addition to my one somewhat serious modern player collection...

This beauty is a Chrome Refractor parallel of Xander's 2014 Topps Heritage RC, on which he shares billing with Jonathan Schoop.  For some reason, Topps Heritage Refractors really pop to my eyes, even more so than the standard Topps Chrome Refractors.  I'm a huge fan of the Purple Refractors as well as these standard ones, which are serial-numbered (to /565 in this case). 

Lacking this card has felt like a somewhat significant hole in my Bogaerts collection for years now, and finally being able to nab one for just $12 and change earlier this year felt great.

 

This card is interesting too in that it's somewhat a "tale of two infielders".  While Bogaerts has remained with Boston and become one of the premier shortstops in all of baseball, Schoop has really bounced around.  After leaving Baltimore he's also had stints with Milwaukee, Minnesota, and the in this past season the Detroit Tigers.

That's a wrap for now, and I have to say my Bogaerts collection feels much more respectable with this card added to it.  Having recently crossed the 200-card threshold in that player collection, this card is a great way to begin the march to 300.

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

Shiny Cardboard - Bowman's Best Nomah!

Today was a crazy day with both work and personal stuff, so all I have time for posting this evening is a single shiny card.  It's the latest addition to my organized collection from a set that I became really attracted to in 2020, the 1999 Bowman's Best Refractors...

From the Best Performers subset, it's the great Nomar Garciaparra!  This guy was my favorite baseball player for quite a few years, and certainly was when this card was released (though I wasn't actively collecting at that time).  This will pair quite nicely with Garciaparra's base refractor that I showed off just last month.

Actually, I now have the base and Best Performers pair for Nomar, Vlad and Sammy Sosa, plus a base Todd Helton.  Given that these are relatively rare at 400 copies each, I'm pleased to have accumulated seven of them already.  I know I have at least a couple more in my to-be-posted box too, picked up before I went on a spending hiatus for the month of July.

Here's a look at the back, which I always show for these refractors, as it's a bit different than most card back designs.  I actually like the layout quite a bit, even if the serial-numbering is a bit tough to make out here.

Well, that's really all I have time for this evening.  I've got plenty of great cards, and plenty of great post ideas kicking around in my brain, but just suffering from a total lack of time tonight.

Hopefully tomorrow I find myself with more free/hobby time, and can cobble something a bit more elaborate together.  For tonight though, thanks for stopping by and checking out my shiny Nomar!

Shiny Cardboard - Bowman's Best Trout

It's time for another installment of Shiny Cardboard, featuring...you guessed it...shiny cardboard!  Tonight's card is a shiny Mike Trout that I picked up while sheltering in place these past few months...

This card is an insert from the 2018 Bowman's Best set, and pays homage to the 1998 Best Performers cards.  As usual, my scan does not do this card justice.  In hand, the entire background has a refractor effect and the card absolutely shines in the light.  There are atomic refractor versions of these that look pretty stunning, but this one's just the standard insert flavor.

I like the design, you can absolutely tell it's inspired by a 1990s set.  I don't really chase Mike Trout cards very often, but in this case I was a couple dollars short of reaching a threshold that I needed with an eBay seller to qualify for free shipping.  This card was available for just about the amount that I was short, almost to the dime, so it was basically a choice between paying for shipping or getting a sweet refractor-y Mike Trout card.  Easy call!

Here's a look at the back, kind of blah if you ask me, though I assume it stays relatively true to the original.  It's late and I'm too lazy to look that up right now.

So anyway, there you have it, my latest card of baseball's golden boy.  Beats paying for postage, for sure.

Thanks for stopping by, and I'll be back tomorrow to continue my streak of posting every day in July.  Have a great night!

Shiny Cardboard - The Other Half of the Vlad Equation

Happy Fourth of July to anyone reading this in the United States!

A few weeks back, I featured this sweet Vlad Guerrero refractor from the "Best Performers" subset of the 1999 Bowman's Best release:

Love this card, and it immediately became my new favorite Vlad.  It also made me very much want to track down the standard Guerrero refractor from the release so I could form a pair, as I recently did with Sammy Sosa.

Well...

 ...mission accomplished!  I've talked about these refractors a few times on the blog over the course of this summer, so I'll spare you that again here.  Suffice it to say a simply beautiful piece of cardboard that looks even better in hand.

Here's the back, serial numbering (to /400) is at the bottom of the color photograph there.

Just a quick and dirty single card post for today, but I'm now up to half a dozen of these refractors in total.  These two Guerreros are the only HOF cards from that small bunch, but I'll have at least one more guy from this set who's enshrined in Cooperstown to show off whenever my latest COMC order finally gets here.

Thanks for checking out my shiny cardboard.  I'll be back tomorrow with a Signature Sundays autograph post.  Until then, stay safe and enjoy your holiday weekend!

Shiny Cardboard - Slammin' Sammy Sosa

It's time for another installment of Shiny Cardboard, featuring...you guessed it...shiny cardboard!  Today we have a really shiny card featuring the man who was the man at least for a short while back in the late 1990s, Sammy Sosa!

Yep, it's my latest addition from the 1999 Bowman's Best set, refractor style!  I got turned onto these beauties from a YouTube video a couple of months back, and have been on the hunt for cheap examples since.  At 400 copies each, they're rare enough to be fun to hunt, but not so rare that they are impossibly frustrating to find out there.

I just started the 30 for 30 "Long Gone Summer" documentary yesterday, and while I only made it about 15 minutes in due to a work emergency I can't wait to get back to it.  The early portion that I saw largely focused on Mark McGwire, but I know Sammy Sosa is coming as well.

As for my stance on their historic home run race...let's just say that I personally feel that Roger Maris and Hank Aaron are the true single season and career home run kings.  With that being said, I've mellowed out a lot as I've gotten older, and guys like Sosa/McGwire/Bonds don't really bother me like they did 15-20 years ago.  Like it or not, tainted or not, this is what baseball revolved around for one summer there in the late '90s.  That home run race was historic, and as a high schooler at the time I absolutely remember seeing each highlight blast, and checking Sportscenter each morning that summer to see if anyone had clubbed one the night prior.

In retrospect, were we naive and did we have the wool pulled over our eyes as fans?  Sure, I'm not disputing that.  For better or worse though, that home run race happened, and so these days I actually want a couple of Sosa and McGwire cards in my collection just to remind me of that summer of my sophomore year in high school.

Here's the back, you can see the serial-numbering there at the bottom of the color photograph.

While I was at it though, and because it made perfect sense to pair them, I bid on and won an auction for Sammy's "Performers" subset refractor from this same release:

I think I like this one even better than the base card.  It looks absolutely amazing in hand, and the write-up on the back...

...is perfect, as it mentions Sosa's 66-HR campaign in 1998 specifically.  This one is serial-numbered to /400 as well, as all standard refractors are in this set.

With these two officially tallied, I'm now up to five of these refractors in my collection.  I've got a couple more inbound though, so you can expect to see this release featured in at least one or two more Shiny Cardboard posts at some point.

I don't think scans do these cards justice at all, so here's a pic I snapped with my phone to give you a better idea of just how well these guys catch the light.  Simply stunning.  The attention to detail is really noticeable, with Sammy's shoelaces even being painstakingly etched on the base refractor.

These are so much fun, and honestly other than a 1990 Topps buyback RC for my '90 buyback set, and maybe a copy of his '90 Leaf rookie, this is really all the Sammy that my little old collection needs.

Thanks as always for stopping by, and stay safe!

Shiny Cardboard - My New Favorite Vlad

If I were to make a formal list of things that draw me to sports card collecting in general or to picking up a particular card, there are a few obvious characteristics that would be near the top.  Vintage, buybacks, and of course shiny!

I was at an impressionable age when the first refractors and other truly shiny cards first burst onto the scene in the early '90s, and I've loved them ever since.  I'll be sharing some of my favorites old and new on the blog going forward under the aptly-named series of posts called "Shiny Cardboard".

Today's card is actually brand new to my collection even though it's over 20 years old now.  Just arrived in my mailbox this past week.  Check it out!

This beauty is a 1999 Bowman's Best Refractor.  I was not collecting cards in 1999, so I only learned about this release recently from a former card blogger that converted over to the YouTube platform.  The checklist is 200 cards deep, with the first 100 featuring established stars of the game, and the second 100 featuring rookies and promising youngsters.

This particular card is from the "Best Performers" subset that falls toward the end of the veterans and stars portion of the checklist, and features the player superimposed over a home base shape.  The standard cards have a diamond shape behind the subject.   I hope to show one of those off in a future post.

What an absolute stunner in terms of shininess level.  What I learned in the YouTube video about these refractors that makes them especially cool is the etching.  Look how Topps applied etching to the wrinkles in Vlad's uniform, and the lines on his belt and his helmet.  Even his batting shinguard has a little etching action going on!  Apparently Topps only really practiced this etching in a very limited number of sets for a year or two before giving up the practice entirely.  It's a shame, because wow does it make a huge difference in the visual appeal of the card.  It's pretty amazing to see how far things advanced in the hobby in the decade between 1989 Topps and this blinding sight!

It's a little hard to make out near Guerrero's mid-section, but these standard Refractors are serial-numbered to /400.  There is also an Atomic Refractor parallel numbered to just /100, which I've yet to see in hand.  I can't imagine it looks any nicer than this amazing card though!

Here's a look at it in its new home, a brand-spanking-new Ultra Pro One Touch holder.  Look at that guy glow!  It's almost hypnotic.  If you had to guess what I paid for this card on eBay what would you say?  $20?  $10, maybe?  How about $3.99 with free shipping!  I couldn't click Buy-It-Now fast enough.

So there you  have it, my new favorite Vladimir Guerrero card.  Thanks to Eric for teaching me about the set and these fantastic Refractors, and thanks to you for stopping by to read my ramblings about baseball cards.

Until next time, stay safe and be kind!