Monday, May 3, 2010

The Why of Cy / Fun With Topps Million

I'm a little late to this party - what else is new? - but I received a package the other day from our good friends at The Topps Company. As you may recall, the second code that I entered into the fancy machine turned up all gold bars as I received a virtual Luis Aparicio 2002 Topps Archives Reserve Refractor Autograph From The Future. Well, something like that, anyway. (By the way, why does no one want to trade me for my 1991 Roy Smith? I see all of the trade offers that other bloggers have received and I feel like Roy is a bit jealous... or at least I am.) I realized that there was a price to be paid for "winning" these cards as each one would cost you a few bucks in shipping fees, which I think is why it took me so long to request delivery for the Aparicio. I never thought that a few measly dollars would prevent me from getting a fancy autographed card of a Hall of Famer, but it just sounded like a minor nuisance that I would eventually deal with. As it turns out, however, I went to the site and Topps was pretty much begging me to take the card of their hands for free. I actually thought that maybe I had done something wrong or that there was something wrong with the website when I requested delivery of the card, because they never asked for any payment information. I then read the fine print and realized that certain "valuable" cards would be shipped free of charge with tracking info on Topps' dime.

Tell me, though, how does this make sense? My Aparicio card is shipped to me for free, yet what incentive would I or anyone else possibly have for requesting a 1991 Roy Smith for close to $3? I thought the object was to give away cards. It's not like there's a shortage of 1991 Topps cards in this country or anything. There's actually a reasonably good chance that I could get an entire set of 1991 Topps for a few bucks if I tried hard enough.

Please don't send me a bunch of Roy Smith cards...

Moving along, I did plunk down $10 for a Topps cereal box over the weekend. It was my first cereal box from this set after picking up a few from last year's. I've actually already managed to get every Cardinals base card from the set and am just missing a number of Cardinals inserts for the team collection. I do need a ton of the Turkey Red inserts, though, and figured I'd take a shot at a Pujols refractor thing. As you can plainly see, however, I got stuck with Cy Young. Again. This makes 3 Cy Young refractors out of, I believe, 4 cereal boxes purchased from the past two years. (The other one was a Roberto Clemente.) Nobody needs 3 different Cy Young refractors unless you are the sort that has a Cleveland Naps pennant hanging above your fireplace. Can I trade these in for something else? Anyone?

Buying the cereal box also guaranteed me of receiving another code card, my first since the initial post a few months ago oddly enough. Everything shown as redeemed recently on the main page was a vintage card, so I figured I was relatively safe from receiving another Roy Smith card. I ended up with this Dodgers pitcher from the late '60s. I was hoping that this would be on Night Owl's wantlist, but I have no such luck. Hopefully it will draw more interest than good ol' Roy.

1 comment :

  1. Sir, I'll be sending you an email. I've got 10 2010 Turkey Reds you need plus a couple of other items. I'd be happy to help you with your Cy Young problem.

    ReplyDelete

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