2012 Topps Archives Blaster

I keep reading about 2012 Topps Archives baseball on other blogs, but I have yet to really see many of the cards.  While I was in Target today I decided to grab a blaster to see what all the fuss is about.

8 packs for $19.99, your standard blaster fare.  According to the box I can look for Fan Favorites Autographs.  I'll look, but I don't think I'll find any.

Each pack contains 8 cards.  I'm not going to scan and post every individual card from the blaster, so instead I'll give you a basic breakdown of the set and then get into some of my favorite cards.  The base set checklist stands at 240 cards...

Cards 1-50 are done in the 1954 Topps design.  So that's what a '54 Topps Mantle would have looked like I guess.  Something tells me that photo is from a lot later than 1954.

Cards 51-100 use the 1971 Topps design.

Cards 101-150 pay homage to 1980 Topps.

Cards 151-200 are done in the 1984 Topps design.

Cards 201-240 are short printed, falling at 1:4 packs.  The short prints use the design from a variety of Topps sets.

In terms of inserts/parallels, here are some of the less interesting pulls from my box...

I believe this Pujols card is officially dubbed a "Gold Rainbow Foilboard" parallel.  Whatever.

There's a 10-card insert set done in the style of the 1958 Topps combo cards.  I would have preferred almost any of the other 9 cards on the checklist over this one...

I pulled one 1968 Topps 3D insert, and again it's probably the one card I'd want least from the 15-card set.  I'm a sucker for 3D cards though and I do like how these look.

My '67 Topps Sticker insert was Derek Jeter.  Anyone have an Adrian Gonzalez or Carl Yastrzemski they'd part with for Derek?

There are 50 Reprint inserts, seeded at 1:4 packs.  They're all stamped with the Topps Archives foil logo.

Nothing all that exciting up until this point, but I actually did find the box to be a pretty entertaining rip.  Here are my top 8 cards from the blaster...

#8 - Derek Jeter base card - Just a good example of the base set done right.

#7 - Ty Cobb base card - When I first saw this one in the pack, I thought it looked awfully familiar.  Well, I found out I had pulled nearly the same card a while back from a 2010 Topps Update Series pack:

I think I like this one better actually...

#6 - Tom Seaver reprint - Here's my other reprint from the box.

#5 - Darryl Strawberry base card - Strawberry was the man in the '80s.  This has to be one of the nicer looking base cards in the set.

#4 - Willie Mays SP - Willie was by far the better of my two short prints.

#3 - Roberto Clemente base card - Clemente's is my single favorite base card from this box.  I don't think you can possibly be disappointed in adding a new Clemente to your collection, vintage or modern.

#2 - Gary Carter 1977 Cloth Sticker - There are 25 of these in all, and if I could hand pick one this would be near the top of the list.

I especially enjoyed pulling this one because Carter's 1977 Topps card has been a longtime favorite of mine.

Finally, my single favorite card from the blaster...

#1 - Carl Yastrzemski 1969 Topps Deckle Edge - This card is absolutely awesome.  In looking over the checklist, there's not another Deckle Edge insert I'd have taken over this one.

That was a decent blaster I have to say.  I ended up with 54 of the 200 base cards in the short set, 2 short prints, 1 parallel and 7 inserts.  I'd be willing to trade away the Pujols parallel, the Sandberg/Castro insert, the Sabathia insert, and/or the Jeter insert.  If you're interested, leave a comment and I'll set them to the side...

New Gretzky

I'm on the road for work and don't have time for a lengthy post.  So, here's one from the draft folder featuring a half dozen Wayne Gretzky cards, all picked up in the past three months or so...

1984-85 Topps.  This one spent a good long time on the want list.  Feels good to finally cross it off.

Sweet Jesus, look at those stats.

1994-95 Upper Deck SP.  The regular version of this card was in yesterday's post, here's the die-cut parallel.

1991-92 O-Pee-Chee.  I actually pulled this from a pack a few weeks ago.  Went into a hobby shop to pick up supplies and they had '91-92 O-Pee-Chee wax packs for fifty cents each.  I bought two and this Gretzky was the best card to come out of either.

1994-95 Donruss Elite Series Insert.  This card is a recent eBay win.  I think these inserts look great and would like to track down all ten at some point.  I've already got Pavel Bure, and now Gretzky.

The back has a small photo and write-up about how Wayne had at the time just recently become the NHL's all-time goal scoring leader.

1991-92 Upper Deck.

1986-87 Topps.  One of the final missing cards from my '80s Topps hockey collection.  I've grown to love the '86-87 set, and I think this card looks better than the '85-86 I led off this post with.  If you search around a bit this card can be had in mint condition for under $10 shipped.  Not a bad choice if you're looking to add a cheap, older Gretzky card to your collection.

I'll be back with more substance this weekend...

Grab Bag - The Great One, The Hit King and a 50-Goal Scorer Auto

Here's another few cards pulled from the "grab bag"...

That's right, a basketball card here on Shoebox Legends.  True, most of what I buy is either hockey or baseball.  At the same time, I think spontaneity, variety and flexibility are some of the best aspects of collecting, so I'm not afraid to branch out from time to time when I see something that intrigues me.  This 1970-71 Topps Barry Clemens card is one such example.  I'm a sucker for tall boy cards of any kind, and I really liked the retro look of this card when I saw it.

I picked this one up at least two years ago at a local hobby shop, and it sat with some other cards on a ledge in my basement from that day on, until I threw it into the grab bag recently.  Never heard of Barry but it looks like he enjoyed a decent 11-year career, during which he played for 5 NBA franchises and recorded 5,000+ career points and 2,500+ career rebounds.

As you can see, this card isn't exactly in mint condition, with a dinged corner and a surface crease on the back, but those are the only real flaws.  Besides, I think I paid $1, and it's got a cartoon!

Next up is the Gretzky base card from the 1994-95 Upper Deck SP set.  Classic case of bad organization here.  I've been accumulating the 1994-95 SP set for a couple of years now and am pretty close to finishing it off.  I picked up this Gretzky at the local hobby shop at least 6 months ago, but totally forgot about it until now.  This was a pleasant surprise, as Wayne was the last big name I really needed for my set.  11 cards to go and I can mark this one complete...

A different photo on the back, how refreshing.

This '88-89 O-Pee-Chee Adam Oates is in great condition, but I've already got one for my set, so this one's destined for the doubles box and is up for trade if anyone's interested.

Here's my favorite card from this bunch, a 2011-12 Certified Throwback Threads Auto of Guy Chouinard.  I don't collect this set, I don't collect this team, and I don't collect this player.  The thing is, I won this for .99 cents plus a couple bucks for shipping.  I just couldn't pass it up at that price.  Besides being a nice looking card, and besides being an on-card auto, there was another reason I wanted this one...

Here's card #1 from the 1979-80 Topps hockey set, depicting the '78-79 season's top goal scorers.  Three Hall-of-Famers.  Three household names that the average hockey fan should recognize.  Three players who all tallied 50 or more goals in '78-79.  But there was a fourth 50-goal scorer that year...

Guy Chouinard of the Atlanta Flames.

Of course Panini recycles the photo from the front on the back, but I still like the card.  As you can see it's serial numbered to 100.

Finally, we have a 1978 Topps Pete Rose Record Breaker card.  Pete here came from the same hobby shop as the Gretzky card above, from the dollar bin.  I was unsure when I bought it, but it turns out I've already got this card.

Off to the trading block for Charlie Hustle.  More cards from the grab bag coming soon...

1953 Topps Project - Carl Scheib

Another week, another card towards my 1953 Topps set.  Today's card is #57 in the set, Carl Scheib of the Philadelphia Athletics...

How great is that old Philadelphia Athletics elephant logo?  I don't have too much to say about Carl here.  He played 11 seasons in the Majors (1943-1954, did not appear in 1946), and was a member of the Philadelphia Athletics for all but the final 3 games of his career (in which he appeared as a St. Louis Cardinal).

Scheib never won any awards as a pitcher, was never an All-Star, and never won a World Series.  He was pretty decent at the plate though, and was used many times as a pinch hitter.  In 1948 Carl started 24 games as a pitcher, but also spent some time patrolling the outfield for the A's.  In 104 at bats that year, he stroked 31 hits for a .298 average, clubbed 2 home runs and drove in 21.  He had another good season at the plate in 1951, accumulating 21 hits in 53 at bats for an impressive .396 average, again hitting 2 home runs.  All told, in 468 career at bats he hit .250 with 14 doubles, 6 triples, 5 home runs and 59 RBI.

One interesting fact about Carl, which the card back refers to, is the fact that he debuted with Philadelphia in 1943 at age 16!  Think about what you were up to at 16 years of age...pretty impressive.

Set Progress:  44 of 274 (16%)

Collecting Whalers - A Couple of '70s Essentials

When I got back into sports card collecting in 2007, there were a few key Whalers cards that I knew I really wanted to track down.  Two of the most wanted were a couple of team cards from the 1970s.  Well, it only took me five years or so, but I am excited to have them both in the collection at long last.

The first card is this New England Whalers team logo insert from 1972-73 O-Pee-Chee.  I actually used one of these inserts, the WHA league logo card, for my WHA Card of the Month post this past March.  These inserts are relatively difficult to come by and draw plenty of bids whenever they crop up on eBay.  In fact, examples of this particular card in good condition regularly go for $50 +.  This was undoubtedly one of the toughest Whalers cards I've had to track down to date.

The card itself looks great in my biased opinion.  I've always liked the New England Whalers' logo.  The ring of rope around the outside edge is a very fitting maritime element, and can you think of another logo that features a harpoon gun?  I didn't think so!  Another thing that makes this card great is that it was released during the WHA's inaugural '72-73 season, and the Whalers were actually champions of the new league that very first year (the only championship of any kind for the franchise before it moved to Carolina in the mid-'90s).

The other card I was excited to acquire was this 1979-80 O-Pee-Chee NHL entry checklist.  As everyone knows, when the WHA folded after the '78-79 season four of its franchises merged into the NHL.  In the '79-80 Topps hockey set all four franchises are represented on a single card.  In the O-Pee-Chee set though, each team received its own card on the checklist.

I snagged this one for just a couple bucks on Check Out My Cards this past fall.  It may not be as nice looking as the New England logo, but the Hartford Whalers logo isn't too shabby either.  In fact, for a simple design it's pretty genius.  I'm sure there are people who have looked at it more than once and not even realized that the white space in between the green 'W' and the blue whale's tail actually forms an 'H' for Hartford.  For the longest time I was just as ignorant about the Milwaukee Brewers logo with the baseball inside the glove.  I must have looked at that logo 1,000 times as a kid and never realized that the glove itself is actually comprised of the letters 'M' (fingers) and 'B' (thumb and palm).

So there you go, a couple of Whalers team cards.  Are there are any team logos that you've just overlooked certain elements on?  If so I'd like to hear about it in the comments!

Grab Bag - Hockey Refractors and Clark Relics

A week or two ago I found myself in a situation that may be familiar to some of you.  We were having some friends over for a party and I had quite a few stacks of cards laying around the house that needed to disappear.  I try to keep my collection contained within my office/card room but somehow these little pieces of cardboard end up migrating around from time to time.  Anyway, I was pressed for time and quite a few miscellaneous stacks ended up getting put in a small paper shopping bag in my office during the cleanup effort.

Some of these cards were recent purchases, some older stacks of cards that I haven't looked through in forever.  There are cards from the local hobby shop, trades, group breaks, retail purchases, eBay purchases...you name it.  Honestly I don't even know what made it into the bag for the most part.  Now that things have quieted down a bit, and I've got a vacation from work looming on the horizon, I am going to start getting through these cards, cataloging and organizing them.  There are probably 150-200 cards in the bag, far too many for one post, but I came up with an easy way to show some of them here.

As a kid, one of my favorite parts of a trip to the hobby shop was the grab bag.  You know, the brown cardboard bag taped shut and sold for just $1 or $2, filled with a few dozen cards that "could be anything!", but usually ended up being a bunch of '80s commons or some junk wax packs.  I don't recall ever pulling anything fantastic from one, but I guess I was a sucker for the intrigue of not knowing what awaited me inside.  Since I enjoyed these surprise packages so much, I figured the grab bag approach would be a good way to post some of these cards from my cleanup.  For each post I'll just grab a small handful of cards from the bag and throw them up here on the blog.  Here are 5 random choices to start things off...

First up is a 1994-95 Topps Finest refractor of Wade Redden.  A few years ago I picked up a single wax box of '94-95 Finest hockey.  I certainly could have done a little better with my refractor.  Wade did enjoy a decent career, but there are just so many better names on the checklist for this set.  I don't recall whether or not this was the only refractor I pulled in my box.

Like the early Topps Finest baseball refractors, there is no marking on the back of these to actually confirm that this is a refractor parallel, but it's very easy to tell in the right light.

Here's another Finest refractor, Chris Terreri from the '95-96 set.  I picked up a '95-96 Finest wax box right around the same time as my '94-95 box.  I ended up liking the '95-96 set a bit more, although they did this annoying thing with the checklist where they broke it down into bronze, silver and gold cards, with gold falling at just one per box.  End result is a set that's very tough to complete.  Chris here is a bronze refractor...

The refractors were also clearly labeled on the card backs in the '95-96 set, right above the card number.  You can get a sense of what I'm referring to with the complicated checklist on the back here too.  Is there a need for a "theme" number to go along with card number?  I don't think so.  Here's another refractor from that same box...

This is my personal favorite refractor out of what I landed in the two boxes.  Really nice looking card and Potvin was one of those players I was happy to pull back in the day.

For some reason, even though Potvin's card is identical to Terreri's, both are bronze refractors with the "Defenders" theme, his "theme" is listed as D32, whereas Terreri's was D25.  What does this mean?  I have no idea.  I guess I didn't read the wrapper closely enough.

Now for a couple of baseball cards.  The two that I grabbed both happened to be relic cards of Will Clark.

This one's from the 2005 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Classic set.  I am pretty sure this was an eBay win from literally years ago.  Not a bad card but not particularly exciting.  I probably only bid because it was dirt cheap.

The back of the card clearly states that this is a piece of jersey worn by Will in an actual MLB game.  I hate to nit-pick, but it specifies that it was worn during his time with the Giants, yet Will is depicted with the Rangers on the card.  Oh well.

Finally, we have another relic card of Clark, this time featured with the Giants, from the 2005 SP Authentic set.  I think this one looks nicer, and it's serial numbered to 199.

This card, unlike the one above, actually gets it right in that Clark's depicted with San Francisco and the jersey swatch was used in a Giants game as well.

So there you go, 5 random cards from the bag in my closet.  Do any of you gravitate towards the grab bag?  I guess maybe retail repack packs are pretty much the same thing nowadays...

1953 Topps Project - Hank Thompson

One of the very first projects I began when I started this blog back in January of 2008 was to collect the 1953 Topps baseball set.  By the end of that first year, I had posted 33 cards from the set including my 3 best cards...

...Yankees' shortstop Phil Rizzuto...

...Hall-of-Fame lefty Warren Spahn...

...and the iconic Satchell Paige card, which to this day is one of my most prized sports cards.  After that fast start though, things definitely died down.  I posted just 4 of these in 2009, another 5 in 2010, and then none since.  I've still picked up a card or two towards the set from time to time, but the posts stopped 42 cards in, back in the summer of 2010.

Now that my pursuit of the '80s Topps hockey run is nearing the end, I've turned my focus back to working away at this classic baseball set.  I've picked up a handful of '53s over the last couple of months alone, including a couple of key cards, so it's high time I got back into the swing of things here.

Today's card is #20 in the set, Henry Thompson of the New York Giants.

Hank played his first professional season in 1943 at age 17, for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League.  In 1944 he was drafted into the Army, and fought for a couple of years in World War II as a machine gunner.  He returned to the Monarchs after being discharged from the military in the summer of 1946.

Hank's first big league experience would come in 1947, the same year that Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier and appeared with the Brooklyn Dodgers to begin the season.  On July 17th, 1947, just a couple of months after Jackie's first game, Hank took the field for the St. Louis Browns.  He was the first African American to play for the Browns organization, and was one of the first African Americans to appear in an MLB game period.  Unfortunately, his numbers were not that great, and after hitting just .256 with 5 RBI over 27 games he was cut by the team.  Thompson returned to the Monarchs, but not for long.

On July 4th, 1949 Hank was called up to the New York Giants.  A few days later, on July 8th, he and Monte Irvin debuted for the club, and together they became the first African American players to appear for the Giants.  Since he had played with the Browns a couple of years prior, Thompson actually became the first African American to play in both the American and National Leagues.  He would go on to appear in over 900 career games over the span of 8 seasons with New York.

This particular card is especially cool, because 1953 was arguably the best single season of Hank's career.  He hit .302 (the only time he would top the .300 mark in a season), belted 24 home runs and 74 RBI, and recorded an impressive .567 slugging percentage that year.

Sadly, Thompson did not live a long life after his baseball days were behind him.  He was convicted of armed robbery in the early '60s and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.  He was paroled after just four years, but died in September of 1969 after suffering a seizure.  He was just 43 years old.

Set Progress:  43 of 274 (16%)

The Ultimate Hockey Card Set - Card #53

I can't believe it's been nearly two weeks since my last post.  Things have been a little hectic around here lately, but despite the lack of posting I've still been reading all of the other great sports card blogs out there, and have picked up plenty of new cardboard recently as well.  I'll try to get back into the swing of things here with another selection for The Ultimate Hockey Card Set.  Today we'll choose card #53 for the franken-set.  First, let's take a look at a few card #53s from my collection that did not make the cut...
 

I've mentioned quite a few times before that I have a soft spot for '89-90 Topps/O-Pee-Chee.  It was the very first set that I collected as a kid, in fact I still have my original white 3-ring binder with all the cards sorted out by team.  Unfortunately for Guy here, there were just too many better #53s in my monster boxes.  Besides, I just selected the Sakic rookie from '89-90 Topps in my last Ultimate Hockey Card Set post.

Card #53 in the inaugural Upper Deck flagship set belongs to Dale Hawerchuk.  This card got some consideration for a number of reasons.  First of all, I definitely want to include a '90-91 Upper Deck card at some point because it was a pretty ground-breaking set at the time.  Secondly, I would like to cover as many teams as possible in the set and I haven't yet chosen a Winnipeg Jet.  Finally, Dale Hawerchuk is a Hall-of-Famer and is probably worthy of inclusion in the set as well.  Despite all of these facts though, this card just comes up short.

I have quite a few #53s that feature teams of the past, like this 1981-82 Topps Whalers team leaders card...

...or this 1977-78 O-Pee-Chee WHA card featuring Dennis Sobchuk of the Cincinnati Stingers.  Man those old WHA logos are great.

I really enjoyed hand-collating the 2008-09 Upper Deck Masterpieces set a few years ago, and it's got a pretty strong #53 on the checklist in the form of Guy Lafleur.  Guy is certainly worthy of inclusion, but I'm confident I can find a better Lafleur card than this in my collection.

This shiny Sergei Fedorov is card #53 in the 2001-02 Topps Chrome set.  I'm a big Fedorov guy but today is not his day...

Now we get down to the final three.  Capturing the bronze is this Ron Francis base card from Upper Deck The Cup.  Certainly one of my thickest cards, but not as nice as the two cards that beat it out.  Besides, I already selected Francis' O-Pee-Chee rookie for this set.

The runner-up is Wayne Gretzky's base card from the 1987-88 Topps set.  I've got the O-Pee-Chee version as well, and it's certainly a nice looking card.  I'm sure at least one or two more Gretzky's will be selected for this set eventually, but today Wayne has been beaten out by a card that's just plain better than this one.  Here's your winner, card #53 in The Ultimate Hockey Card Set:

1986-87 Topps - #53 - Patrick Roy (RC)

This card was one of the top additions to my collection over the past winter.  Patrick Roy's rookie is one of those cards that I've always coveted, even more so in the past couple of years since I decided to focus heavily on completing the run of Topps hockey sets from '79-80 through '89-90.  When I had a little extra tax money in my pocket a few months ago, and found this one at a price I was satisfied with, I finally pulled the trigger.

Roy was one of the best (arguably the best) goalies to ever put on pads, and the rookie card of the Hall-of-Famer and Stanley Cup champion is one of the more instantly recognizable hockey cards out there.  I can't think of another card #53 that could supplant this one, can you?

The Ultimate Hockey Card Set, now at 15 cards and counting, can be seen here...