The Elusive Heritage

A bunch of Topps Heritage short prints from @scottcrawford.org including a couple for the Cardinals boxes. 

 

As anyone who attempts to build Topps Heritage sets year in and year out can attest, picking up those last 100 or so cards can be quite a shore. They look and feel like the regular base cards, for the most part, but they're a bit of a tougher pull at one in every 3 packs. If you crunch the numbers, I think you'll find that Heritage short prints are not nearly as scarce as their reputation holds. I blame Beckett for, at one point, pricing even the most fringe players who appear at the short end of the checklist at a starting rate of $5 a card, causing a whole generation of collectors to hoard these cards.

In any case, there was plenty of reason to get excited about adding a few dozen more SPs to my collection from Scott of I Need New Hobbies. This was easily the biggest number of these elusive cards to arrive in the mail in a single day for several years now.

Two of these cards will end up bypassing my set builds and head straight to the fancy Cardinals boxes. (Because they are scarce, you see!) This means that I'll need to track down a second 2013 Yadi Molina card, which makes me question why I insist on collecting this way.

For my 2010 set build is this pair of pitchers. These are the only cards in the lot that are easily distinguishable from their printed-in-regular-quantities counterparts without looking at the actual card numbers. The 2010 set has the short printed cards printed on bright white stock instead of the usual cardboard stock. (This was a reversal of the 2009 set, where the regular cards were on white and the SPs used a darker cardboard.)

Here's a four-pack from the 2011 set. I like this set a lot, even though I feel that it was the beginning of the seemingly unending string of boring head shots on Heritage cards throughout the 2010s. (I suppose you can't fault Topps for trying to be true to those original sets here.)

It's a pair of Joshes from the 2012 set. How many Joshes do you know? Is Joshes the right way to pluralize the name Josh? I seem to know a lot of Joshes.

It took me awhile to appreciate the 2013 Topps Heritage set because they were printed on a light stock and felt exactly like the Allen & Ginter cards they had been printing for years at this point. I know that the original 1964 set had lightly colored card backs, but it still seems like the black sheep of the 2010s Heritage sets to me.

Thanks to Scott, I added five cards to my 2014 set build, including another Yadi. It's unfortunate that he has to share with Ryan Braun here, but I already scanned this stuff and it's too late now.

A whopping nine cards received were from the 2015 Heritage set. A couple of these guys are actually still in the game. Off the top of my head, I know that Rodon (a rookie here) is in the Yankees rotation this season and Chris Sale is trying to make another go of it with Atlanta.

Here are three more from the 2016 set, including 2019 World Series champ (ugh) Michael A. Taylor.

Just a single card from the 2018 set made an appearance (and none from 2017) as I am pretty sure Scott was starting to tire of Topps and their shenanigans by this point.

Last up is a pair of grey-bordered cards from the 2019 Heritage set. I believe Yonder Alonso does work with the MLB Network these days.

Thanks again to Scott. And don't forget -- make sure you sign up for the not-actually-gambling-because-it's-free thing soon before Thursday's games tip off.

A Menagerie of Minis (and More)

Set needs and Cardinals needs in another @nightowlcards delivery. 

I think I've just about made it through July's trade packages to be featured here. The problem is that it's already November somehow. The year is pretty much almost over. I might have to do something I mostly try to avoid and double up on the trade posts (i.e. two packages, two traders, one post.) We'll see how that goes.

In the meantime, look at all of these glorious minis! You can click if you want to see them for real. These, of course, came from super blogger Hall of Famer Night Owl Cards. Most of the ones near the bottom feature the late lamented Old Planter on the back, whose likeness Topps apparently executed and didn't leave a trace of the body sometime back.

Night Owl sent other, larger Ginter set needs as well as this old need from the 2014 Topps Heritage set. I wonder if Topps Heritage 2065 will feature an Election Interference News Flashback card.

In the team collection department was this "cloth" sticker version of Paul Goldschmidt's 2019 Topps Heritage card. I put "cloth" in quotes because the material they use for these is even more suspicious (and possibly caustic?) than the original stuff. I feel like the original cloth sticker cards tend to turn weird colors over time, so it would be creepier if nothing at all happened to their 2019 counterparts.

Finally, here's a short printed Matt Carpenter, on top of the world. He was coming off of a monster second half in 2018 when this photo (presumably) was taken and signed a lucrative contract extension early this year. It did not go well for him in 2019 and it's felt like it's time to move on for awhile now. However, there's that pesky contract to be dealt with, and it's certainly possible Carpenter has some sort of bounceback year... right? Let's hope so.

The Elusive

Some hard to find items arrive in an envelope. 

It's a strange card collecting world that we live in when some of the toughest cards to nail down are ones you used to find on big box store shelves. Retail exclusive inserts, parallels, and what have you can be a bit of a burden to find soon after they are released to the wild, so it was very nice to snag a couple from Mark Kaz. There are no case breakers in the retail word (as far as I know...) so you're never likely to see a million copies of this kind of stuff on ebay. I've been a big fan of (some) of the retail inserts from a few of the somewhat recent Topps Heritage sets, so they are a part of my giant master want list.

From 2011 through 2014, there was a black bordered version of each of the cards also selected for Chrome-ification, all printed on the same stock as the regular Heritage cards from that year. This worked especially well in 2011 with a darker version of the wood grained borders, but I still like to try and get the black bordered cards from the next three years. In 2015, Topps went with some retail-only shiny foil (non-Chrome) parallel that was similar to what they've done with the past two flagship sets, but it doesn't interest me. I can't even recall what they might have done this year, maybe nothing?

Two more cards down, several million to go!

Are You Ready for the Playoffs?

What do you say, guys?

Sure am! But I've been getting roughed a little bit in September and I'm afraid Mike will chain me to the radiator again like he did last playoffs.

I am! But, ah, my thumb... maybe not so much.

Absolutely! By the way, don't tell anyone, but I just cut someone's brake line. You get to figure out who.

They said I was one of the best pitchers in the game. Then, they said my season was over. They said it will be a long road back. They said it will take hard work... long hours... dedication. Then, they said I play for the Marlins. They said I will never make the playoffs until I get away from this clown shoes franchise.

Dude, I'm dead. Leave me alone.

Thanks to Night Owl for the great Heritage cards (short prints!) and more!

A Brick of Heritage

Where do unwanted doubles go? To me, that's where.

The Topps Baseball Fanatic is one of those people as crazy as me that goes out and collects all of the Heritage every year. The thing is, for the past several years I've ended up with his (and others') hand-me-downs because I'm usually pretty slow out of the gate in collecting these sets. In any case, I know it's nice to have a place to stash your extras besides your own closet, so hopefully I've provided a good outlet for getting rid of junk over the years. Now, I should probably do something about my own junk...

The Fanatic sent over a brick's worth of cards from the most recent set, including Adam Wainwright #206 (for the collection - which means I still need a copy of his card for the set proper) and a guy by the name of Matt den Dekker. I didn't know such a player existed.

I'm usually shy about giving the Cubs any time on this blog, but Ernie is one of the all-time greats. Even though it's a totally made up design as far as I know, I am a fan of this year's Flashbacks look.

Since these cards came my way, I actually got my hands on a second Felix Hernandez SP from this set. Let me know if there's any interest out there, or for a big stack of Spring Cleaning Mariners for that matter.

The Topps Fanatic also sent over a couple of cards from last year's set. I'm now apparently finished with this set from 1 through 425, although I still need some inserts and a ton of SPs, of course. Of course.

Finally, let us not forget about good ol' 2007 Bowman Heritage, a set I've been working on somewhat in the background for years. I'll get it done one of these days. Joe Smith's so-called Rookie Card became my latest addition to this collection.

Completed

Still just a drop in the bucket.

Friday was payday, so I went out over the weekend to run some errands and came home with some cards. You know how this goes. One of the things I punked down some cash for was a 20 packs-for-$20 repack box, which is probably the best way to do repacks. (Stay far, far away from those shady little windowless boxes with a guaranteed hit and little else. That's how you get stuck with Leaf Pete Rose cards.) For possibly the first time in my life, I actually completed something with a card pulled from a pack. I'm now done with the 2014 Topps Heritage base set thanks to pulling a card of a duo of fairly anonymous pitchers, and now only have the myriad short prints, inserts and variations to chase down.

I did snag some Target-exclusive 2014 Heritage cards that I needed as well, but this Kershaw Opening Day Stars card from last year was probably my second favorite pull of the lot. I just really like these inserts and have only recently begun to realize that they're not the easiest things in the world to find for whatever reason.

If you've got any of these lenticular wonders from over the past several years collecting some dust in a corner somewhere, let me know. I did end up with a pile of doubles which I'll have to get rid of. This reminds me that I still have piles of team sorted cards still available of my doubles from sets that I collect if anyone wants them. Check out what teams are still left!

Purple Shiny Winners

Not pictured: Mickey Mouse ears

Congrats are due to Jim of The Phillies Room for being chosen as the winner of Friday's quick contest. The prize is 3 of the purple refractors that I pulled from a recently purchased $10 blaster of 2014 Topps Heritage. For the second year in a row, I ended up with a "hot box" containing a purple refractor in each pack, though none of the refractors fit into my collection. As for the 2014 Topps Heritage set proper, I wound up with a couple of inserts and a couple of SPs that I needed, and that's pretty much it. Let me know if you can help out with the set or are looking for anything (I have lots of doubles now.)

Once Jim makes his picks, the rest of these will be available for trades and the like.

The Chrome parallels must have a longer lead time for production because they'll often feature a player in their former (pre-Photoshop) uniform while the base card will be "updated".

So... I've run out of things to say. Enjoy the pictures.

Here's another guy, looking somewhere.

Hey... look at me. I like... baseball?

This is a reliever.

Geeked.

A Trade Post For No Reason

A fellow collector asks "do I need a reason??" The answer, of course, is no.

Jeff from 2x3 Heroes sent me an out of the blue stack of cards. He is one of the ones that I send out of the blue stack of cards to, so this seems appropriate. 2014 seems to be the year that Topps is paying tribute to the world's seemingly unlimited supply of 1989 Topps cards, but they rare seem to know how to replicate their own past designs. The die cut minis found in this year's base set are just plain weird looking (and have different border colors?) while the cards from Topps Archives have the player name left justified. Left justified! I know it's been awhile, but this is how you do 1989 Topps with a relatively short player name.

Jeff took down some numbers from my Heritage want list. I decided to scan Didi Gregorious, who both looks and sounds (as in his name) least like a Major League Baseball player. This is the fun side of having a lot of head shots in the Heritage set.

I know that lenticular style cards don't scan the best, but I was truly happy to receive this Greg Matthews card from the 1986 Sportflics Rookies set. This might be my favorite card of the whole package, but I'm at a loss as to how I can explain why. I guess Sportflics just remind me of the days when I couldn't justify buying a pack with only a few cards in it for significantly more than a garden variety Topps pack, although I'm pretty sure this particular card came from a year end factory set. Times have changed, but maybe they haven't changed all that much. After all, I use the same logic to pass on packs of Chrome this and Platinum that in the card aisle at Target all the time. 3 or 4 cards for $3 when you know they're just going to be Pirates and Red Sox cards is just not fun.

Here's a nice Tulo rookie for Erin's collection. I wonder if he'll stop getting injured all the time the moment the Rockies finally deal him away.

Membership has its privileges. Just ask Todd Zeile.

Too Many Cards To Scan!

This is how a good chunk of my 2014 Topps Heritage set came to be.

I probably didn't do a fantastic job showing just how many cards Howard sent to me, but just know that the two stacks of 2014 Topps Heritage cards represented here are just about a card's length tall. Base cards, inserts, Cardinals cards, and even the goofy box store blue Cano parallel that sits on top.

If you've got extra cards, go on over and check out Howard's "Wanted: Baseball Cards" want lists and help him out!

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some sorting to do, in between my panic sessions over the demise of the Cardinals starting rotation.

More Heritage, Finally?

Yeah, these aren't so bad.

It had been a good while since I'd busted open a blaster of anything, so a trip to the red bullseye store on Friday made sense to me. I had saved my coupon from an earlier box of something or other and was able to score one of these 2014 Topps Heritage boxes for less than $15. Not bad. Rather than scan a bunch of cards that I'm not trading anyway, I just thought I'd show off a few things that caught my interest.

Jon Jay has taken the early lead on the center field job that many were expecting Peter Bourjos to lock up. Bourjos can't hit but is very speedy with the glove. Jay can hit at times but his defense can leave something to be desired. Can't we just glue them together to make a Frankenplayer and call it good?

Here is my ("on average") one per box Target quasi-parallel. Kimbrel has struggled a bit this year for essentially the first time in his career.

Dodgers fans are hoping the Koufax/Kershaw comparisons end somewhere before Kershaw gets his career cut drastically short due to injury. I definitely dig the diamond design.

This card is more '60s than the '60s themselves.

Chrome cards are again a very difficult pull this year according to the odds, so this was nice to see. It's also up for grabs, as are virtually any of the Chrome cards from Heritage because I have to at least put some restraints on my collecting madness.

I was also suckered in to buying a blister pack, mostly due to not having seen what the exclusive inserts would look like. For $9.49, you get three packs and 3 of these black border Chrome-less Chrome inserts. Don't tell anyone I said this, but this design suits the Pirates well. I also snagged Francisco Liriano and non-Pirate Max Scherzer.

Here's another Chrome card. Two short prints came out of this blister as well, beating the odds.

Shockingly, in addition to the (1:31) Chrome pull, I also pulled a Chrome Refractor (1:49) of the one known as Aroldis. Crazy stuff. My bang-to-buck ratio was off the charts with this one. Like Desmond and Verlander, this is also up for grabs.

More '60s. Before the draft existed, I just assume that the Yankees got first crack at every single player and the rest of the teams had to line up for table scraps or something.

That was quite an ending! Here's one of the two cards I can somewhat bear to look at in the World Series subset.

I'll get to that want list eventually. I already have doubles, folks. Sad to say.