Love In The Time of Corona.

       Last Monday morning, I went to Costco and Target and it was a very quiet, uneventful trip.  Little did I know that in the next few days, going to the store would become something like a cross between old Woody Woodpecker cartoons where the women kill each other, bridal day at Filene's Basement, and the Road Warrior.  Lucky for me, I am a slight hoarder at all times and don't need soap, sanitizer, or toilet paper any time soon.  Also, I did stop in the card aisle in Target and grabbed some Heritage packs (they had no blasters) and impulsively grabbed a blaster of Star Wars Skywalker Saga cards while looking in vain for Heritage blasters.  This would prove very fortunate and unfortunate but not in the way I thought.  Kind of like how most of our weeks went.

I rarely buy single retail packs of baseball cards because I find all you ever get are base cards and maybe an odd parallel but very rarely do you ever get something of substance.  I figured since all I wanted was some examples of the Heritage, I would just grab 6 packs and go about my business.  These might have been the luckiest six packs of retail cards I ever bought.

One thing I collect in totality is Topps rookie all stars.  I love me some fancy trophies on my baseball cards and I got five of them in these six packs, including two short prints.  The two short prints I got were Pete Alonso and Vlad Guerrero Jr., the two cards I figured I'd have to pay through the nose for on eBay if I ever wanted them, and here I got them in back to back retail packs.

I even got one of the two Alonso league leader cards and three of the postseason cards.  And we are just getting started.

I got five inserts.  That's practically one per pack but it didn't quite come out that way because I got two Tom Seaver Flashbacks stuck together in one pack.  I also got another Flashbacks insert, Rod Carew, and two Then and Now cards - one of them also with Tom Seaver.  Look him up, kids, he was pretty good.  I did get one other base double in the five packs - it was Michael Conforto, a Mets player.  This never happens.  I always get doubles of San Diego Padres or Milwaukee Brewers.

There was one other Met and one other league leader card.  Not too shabby. 

I am pretty sure the 1971 set is in my top five all time designs and the Topps people really nailed the look of it.  The colors, the lower case ee cummings style names, and the random action photos - which were new in '71 - are all here.  Even the random rookie cards and odd position designations are here.  I didn't scan the backs but the backs all look right with the head photos and esoteric write ups. They even have SSPs of the OPC backs, which are some of my favorite OPC variations.  Alas, I did not get one of those.

I also love poses where the hitters are swinging and pointing the bat at your face, I got three of them in three different styles.  I saw that the Alvarez/Aquino rookie card is hot.  I am not one for hot rookies, so if anyone wants to trade for this thing, let me know.

This is the page I ended up piecing together from the five packs, I think it looks great.

I went with just about all posed shots but got a variety and the one action shot is decidedly inactive (I picked a Luke Voit action shot for the vertical example, that's on the back, the back I didn't scan).  I chose a few teams that didn't exist in 1971 just for a little timely juxtaposition.  I was thrilled with my choice to lower myself to retail packs.  I know it will never turn out this good again.  If anyone is putting the set together and has a wantlist, drop me a line and I'll see what I can fill before these go to ebay or Listia.

On the other hand, the Star Wars cards were...underwhelming.  The blaster had 10 packs and 60 cards but no indication on the outside what they looked like; this seems to be on purpose.  The design is very staid.  I prefer a little color and whimsy in my Star Wars cards and all I got here is some stars from a NASA chart or something off of a Battlestar Galactica poster. 

The photos and subjects seem to cover all eight movies, I assume this set was leading into the ninth.  All the cards are vertical and none of the captions are puns or anything.  I am falling asleep just looking at them.

I scanned a second group to continue the monotony.  Not even Natalie Portman can make these more exciting.

Though I gotta say, I do love that middle card, it is a great shot from the climax of the Force Awakens.  Lightsabers and snow, more of that please.  One out of 60 is a very bad ratio.

Each pack had a parallel base card where, oooo pinch me, they changed the color of the thrilling border to a rusty orange or a royal blue.  I suppose the blue is a slight improvement but I got two of those and eight of the rusty orange.

Seriously, the write ups on the front and backs of these cards is more boring than my write up here.

Each pack also had an insert.  These were at least a little more interesting, if slightly repetitive.

Five of them were from the Path of the Jedi set, which were almost exactly the same as the style and substance of the base cards.  I do like that Han Solo card because the highlight of the seventh movie to me was the fact that Harrison Ford didn't mail in his performance as he has in a few of the other movies he's done in his old age (I'm looking at you, Indiana Jones 4 and Blade Runner 2049). So that's 2 out of 60.

The blaster's special insert was a manu-patch and I got A Princess Leia.  I actually have a use for that card so it is staying in my collection.  I might cobble a page of these together but it will hardly find a place of honor in my Star Wars book. 

That was the other Path of the Jedi card, which looks like the other one on the other page.  The best looking card in the whole blaster was the advertisement card with that borderless shot from the first movie.  If anyone wants to use that 10% off code, be my guest.  It really had been an odd week indeed.

Blizzard Blaster Box.

       I saw earlier in the week that it was going to snow today. Then as the days went by, the forecast got more and more dire and while it is not exactly Snowmageddon '17 out there, it is pretty bad.  In a rare case of thinking ahead, I stopped at Target yesterday early in the afternoon before the full French Toast Alert System panic set in and grabbed a box of the newly released 2017 Topps cards.  So now that I am housebound until the storm passes, let's take a look at what the flagship is giving us this year.

I wasn't posting last year when the 2016 stuff came out but I did see that the design was not at all lauded.  Pity because I kinda liked it.  I like the full bleed, I liked the photography, I liked the homage to 1988 and 1966 in the diagonal stripe. Yes, the white misty bits were distracting, but Topps made up for it, in my opinion, with the Snowflake release late in the year.  I am not sure if Topps was making up for a mistake or mocking itself, but it was a nice little quirk on the holiday design that helped out the one flaw in the original.  This is what we have this year:

I haven't really read up on this yet but I have a feeling this is going to be slammed as well.  I like the big photos and I like the layered look but the busy lines and the awkwardly angled logos are bound to bring out the haters.  I like that Topps once again showed some restraint on the foil usage only going with the Topps logos itself.  The only thing I really don't like is the font - it is too modern looking and bound to look dated in a few years.  Topps is also trying to get away from the glut of 3/4 action photos that ruined the 2015 set and while they are obviously there, the majority of the pictures look sharp and well chosen for the most part. 

This is the 'Salute' insert series, which includes a number of ideas: Jackie Robinson Day, Throwback Jerseys, and the Legends.  I am going to throw this out there right away though: isn't this a much better and cleaner looking design than the base card?  It is less awkward, less likely to look dated in 5-10 years, and very easy on the eye.  Really, I think they should have considered swapping out the Salute insert design with the base design.

Also, why are there players on the Jackie Robinson Day cards where you can't see them in their #42 jerseys?  Doesn't that kinda defeat the purpose?  Legends is self explanatory, it is yet another excuse to shove in some old time players but at least the two I got here are different photos than the usual ones they use for Palmer or Koufax. Throwback Jerseys is an excellent theme for an insert set as long as you don't put the throwback jersey photos in the base series.  From what I have seen, this is not the case.  Oh well, they tried.  That last Stanton card is one of the foil parallels and you know how I like the shiny.

Here are the Mets players I got, all four of them out of 100 cards in the blaster. I must have gotten 9 or 10 Pirates and somewhere in Pittsburgh there is a dude with a shit load of Mets angry at the collation gods.  Such is life.  The Nolan Ryan is a reprint with an ad on the back for Bunt and Topps Now.  I am not 100% sure what that card is supposed to be, but hey, I'll take it.

Topps also made the choice to go with single League Leader cards rather than combo cards. I don't like this as I like multi-star cards and we get all the All Star and Home Run Derby cards in the Update set to highlight single players to give them multiple cards.  I hope this is just a one year detour.  I also didn't get any All Star Rookie Cup players.  Send me yours. 

While the photography on the vertical cards is okay, Topps seems to have gone out of its way to choose dynamic shots for the horizontal ones - plays at the plate, diving fielders, full wind-ups and follow-throughs, etc.  I also find the design less distracting sideways; maybe they should have done the whole set this way? These are some good looking cards...

One last complaint about Topps' tone deafness sometimes.  That combo card is called B'more Boppers.  I have never heard Baltimore called B'more ever really but they could have amused many in and out of Charm City by calling it Balmer Boppers. Anyone in Merlin wanna dispute my thinking here?

Topps has a 30th anniversary insert for the 1987 set.  Topps seems to use this design a lot but I am not certain there is some kind of universal love for it. Or is this a new 30-year flashback thing they are going to do with sets?  This one has me perplexed.

One thing I will say is that Topps got the look of those 1987 backs correct. The right font, the right kind of write-ups.  But the deciding fatal flaw of the these and the flagship base cards is right there to see.  I hope you folks missed Donruss cards that much because they're back and their 'recent major league stats' are haunting the back of Topps.  This is would be a poor choice for some one-shot release in early June and it is inexcusable on the regular set.  These are the cards of record, they should have full major league stats.  It's a shame too, because the colors and design of the backs are legible and aesthetically pleasing.  Leave the uniform, half stat nonsense for the Lineage or Top-Tens of the world.  And the less said about the amount of space devoted to the Twitter addresses, the better.

Here are the other inserts and parallels that were in my box. Some new things and traditional favorites are here:

The Bowman Then and Now cards are almost like advertisements.  I am not a fan.  The Five Tool cards, however, are the right kind of busy and colorful with a sturdy baseball-related premise.  This is what an insert card should be. The Award Winners cards devote entirely too much space to the team name, and I guess that Topps got tired of giving Rawlings free advertising because they are just calling them 'Fielding Awards' which looks terrible. I am a huge fan of the First Pitch set and I am glad they are back.  I will be completing a page of them as I have the last couple years so if you need to get rid of yours, you know where to send them.  Last and least is the venerable Gold Parallel which I could hardly tell was a gold parallel. They probably should have retired these by now.  Do we really need rainbow foil and gold numbered parallels (much less all the other colors)? 

I was promised a Jackie Robinson Day manu-patch card and I pulled Madison Bumgarner (clearly not showing he is wearing #42).  If Night Owl has taught me anything over the years, it is no one wants to have Giants on their Dodger cards or Dodgers on their Giants cards.  They are the two great tastes that DON'T taste great together. 

If there is any card you have seen (including this one) that you would like to trade for or if you have a want list of base cards, feel free to email me or comment here and I am sure we can work something out.  Otherwise most of these are destined for eBay or Listia after I make a page, separate the Mets, and decide if there are any specific insert pages I want to make.  Now I have to go shovel and daydream about using those coupons in the warmth of spring.

Coupons.

       I was at Target today shopping for birthday cards, Easter ephemera, and deodorant when the siren song of the card section drew me in.  This is what I picked up...

Why?  Coupons!  I had totally forgot I had these little coupon books that came in the 2014 Topps blasters I opened at the beginning of February. But there they were in my little coupon pouch.  There was one for $5 off a Heritage blaster and $1 off three pack of Opening day.  There was also one for $1 off two packs of Gypsy Queen, but GQ is new product so of course my Target didn't have any...*eye roll*  I am a sucker for a bargain so I got these almost in spite of myself.

I got these packs of Opening day for basically 66 cents a piece, a price I haven't paid for a pack of cards at a store since I was a kid no doubt; let's take a look at what was in there.

They put an insert in each pack of Opening Day now.  I really like those blue parallels (I see a page build in my future).  They are not quite as glittery as last year but they are a little more shiny.  The 3D stars are nifty and very busy.  I know these cards are aimed at the kiddies and my inner 7 year old approves.  Adult Max thinks the grey is too washed out, though.

I covered the Heritage pretty comprehensibly already and I also decided not to build the set, even though I adore the design and Topps did a really good job on this year's set.  I will breakdown a selection of the cards I pulled:

I like that Topps used head shots similar to the ones from the original set.  One thing you won't see on those cards from 1965 are things like the mohawk on Didi up there or the bald head and psychotic grin of Cody Ross there.  I am a little puzzled why Adam Jones is so sad on his card - smile dude, you are an above average major league outfielder.  I bought this blaster wearing my Sox hat with a thick beard leftover from winter...dear lord, I am Mike Napoli's doppelganger!  Aaron Hill is pictured holding up his Aaron Hill model bat, that seems more like a 90's Pinnacle photo than a contemporary Topps shot.  Poor Hiroki and Albert were captured making as goofy a face as you can make without knowing someone is taking your picture.  And finally, those Houston Astros cards show that they followed the '65 oddity of having both "Houston" and "Astros" on the fronts of the cards.  Also, Max Stassi is very tastefully named.  If anyone needs any of these singles for their set, please let me know.

It was a pretty good box for inserts too:

I gushed over the idea of the 1st Draft set when I initially wrote about this set and then I found out there are only 5 cards in the whole thing.  I got that same Graig Nettles in my hobby box.  This seems like a missed opportunity.  The red Target parallel looks wonderful with a Red Sox subject, I must say.  I also pulled a game used jersey of Buster Posey and a mini of Hunter Pence, both of which are very high ratio pulls.  Those are destined for ebay unless there is a Giants fan out there who wants to trade.  Lastly, I am showing the backs of two different players.  The Roy Halladay there is now something of a final tribute as he retired before the season, so that is his entire major league record.  I also have Alex Rodiguez's card back there too.  Will those be his final major league statistics?  Will any team ever take a chance on him again if/when he comes back next year?  The whole A-Rod thing makes me very sad. 

***

Oh, and I have leftover coupons I am not planning on using.  I still have one each of the $5 off a Heritage blaster and the $1 off three packs of Opening day.  I also have the two $1 off two packs of Gyspy Queen which I now plan on not using at all.  They are all good until the beginning of June.  If anyone would like any or all of these, drop me a line and I will send them to you.  Hey, money is money.  Eight bucks is eight bucks.

Tease and Re-Tease.

     Thursdays always bring me the same errands and appointments, I am kind of a creature of habit that way.  I like to have one day a week where I bang out the nonsense chores and I have found it is infinitely easier to do it on a weekday rather than a weekend.  I usually try to interject some fun into the slog of doctors and pharmacies and supermarkets, so I always stop in the card aisle of Target when my day finds me there.  I had seen on some other blogs that Heritage packs had been spotted in retail settings so today I made sure I got to the right spot.  Alas, it was not to be.  Two Targets, zero packs of Heritage found.  But there was a fine consolation prize...

A discounted Pete Rose The Living Legend blaster.  I have seen this product in a few different places and think I bought a single pack of it at one point during a former trip to Target.  I had even seen it in this cheap form amongst the blogs, but I had never come across this kind of autograph-promising blaster.  I decided to take my chances, because really, what are the odds Leaf would ever properly fill a redemption card from this product?  I tore it open and boom!

I got an autograph right in the box, just like it said.  It was even already nestled in a top loader.  So that's a pretty good trip, I got me a Pete Rose autograph for $13.  It is a halfway decent picture on the card - though it is a sticker - and in my estimation there is even a 50% chance he signed it himself and not some assistant or his crazy Asian girlfriend.  The other 60 cards in the box are mostly filler, though I am sure I will make a page out of them.  The real interesting ones are pictures of Pete in an Expos uniform or highlighting his horrible haircut and/or fashion choices.  The man was one of the highest paid players in the league during the 70's, you'd think he could get someone to do better by him, look wise. 

That blaster was the only card related thing I bought at either Target today, a rare display of restraint by yours truly.  But then I was driving home and I felt empty and unfulfilled.  What I really wanted was Heritage and a Pete Rose autograph, no matter how cool, was not going to cut it.  So while I was trapped in traffic at the 4 and 17 interchange, I darted up route 4 instead of heading up 17 and made a beeline to the one store I knew would have Heritage, a hobby shop.

So this evening I will chill out with some terrible TV and tear this bad boy open, my first hobby box of Heritage in 6 years. Some Thursdays, I will not be denied. 

Wave of the Present.

       So as promised in my last post/tease, I cracked open some brandy dandy new 2014 Topps in the form of two blasters and two Target jumbo peg hanger packs.  These are the fruits of those delightful labors.

These nine will be immortalized as the 2014 Topps page (until I decide to change it).  Topps has stepped up its photo game since the disasters of 2008/2009.  They are crisp and clean and there is a great variety of shots.  This is by the far the strongest element of the flagship set this time around.  The design is a step down from last year's minimalist piece of perfection.  I can describe it as sort of like the 2005 Topps and 1984 Donruss designs had a May/December love child.  I find the team logo and the team name on the right side redundant - one or the other would have been enough - but the nice little wave with the name and position is pretty cool.  In fact, that little wave reminds me of this gem and if Night Owl needs a suggestion for a name, Catch the Wave seems pretty appropriate. 

Here are the Mets I pulled.  Topps really liked those new blue jerseys, huh?

I am sure Matt Harvey will look back on the face he is making on this card with great fondness.  There were probably 10,000,000 photos of Matt Harvey taken last year and that is the one they went with?  On the other hand, there is some nice action on the Turner and Lagares cards.  I'll need to add the other Mets to my want list.

Some other base cards of note that are staying in the collection:

Of course the all star rookies must stay.  The Wil Myers photo is nicely cropped with his trophy.  I only wish he could afford the extra L and E for his name.  The World Series cards make me quite happy this time around since my baseball mistress won it all last year.  Napoli's beard deserves its own card.  I really liked the two photos on the Chapman and the Cespedes, it is just coincidence they are both Cuban.  Those 1969 A's throwback uniforms are magnificent.

My blasters promised manu-patch cards and this is what I got:

Too bad Prince got traded from the Tigers because that patch is amazing.  A Detroit fan could not be taken to task if they decided to just cut that card into a square to highlight that patch.  Pity the Miggy patch has the classic D and not this.  That Bryce Harper is nice, though it is destined for eBay unless someone has to have it.

Also here is the coupon book from the blaster.  These are very useful coupons for the Target card aisle shopper:
$5 off a 2014 Heritage value box
$1 off three packs of Opening Day
$1 off two packs of Gypsy Queen
$1 off two packs of MLB Chipz (the only one I probably won't use)
$1 off an Archives jumbo pack
$5 off a Topps series 2 value box.

The coupons are dated to coincided to a 2 month window when the products are released.  I like the inclusion of this, my being a cheap bastar...I mean a frugal sort, I never look down upon using a coupon. 

Inserts?  Oh yeah, we got your inserts.  This year's theme is The Future is Now:

These are sort of painted/graphic art photos with of all things lens flares involved.  JJ Abrams approves these cards.

I am not sure why Topps feels the need to have theme, but here are some more inserts following the "theme":

The top six cards are called Upper Class and they are nice enough, I guess.  They cover the rookie class of each year and highlight the best of the bunch.  Yankees fans can wallow in seeing Cano in the pinstripes one last time.  The bottom three cards are from a set called 50 Years of the Draft and in a stroke of luck I got not one but two Derek Jeter cards.  Joy.

I am greatly disappointed that the All Star Rookie Cup inserts are hobby only.  I will have to pick these up on ebay I suppose.  Must. Have. Trophy. Cards.  (If you have these to trade, you know what to do...)

Since Topps has decided to constantly shove minis down our throats, this is what we got this time around:

These aren't just minis, they are die cut minis based on the 1989 design which I guess kind of reflects this year's base design.  I am personally minied out and all these do is remind me of these.  Underwhelming, to say the least.

Lastly, Topps pulled out the old 1983 Super Veteran idea and made it as bland and boring as they possibly could:

Also there you see the 14th year of the numbered gold parallel which would be fine if they didn't make any other parallels...and oh boy, are there parallels.

In the jumbo peg boxes were yellow parallels:

The one thing I can say about these is I am glad that they have taken the celebration photos out of the super short print realm and made them base cards.  And no, I didn't get any super duper short prints in these boxes, not that I care much.

Topps also has these Power Player parallels, which are plain parallels with no foil:

They have codes on the back and I have no clue if this is a game or a contest or whatever Topps has been doing the last few years.  If anyone wants these codes, I happily will let you have them if you have the other Mets cards or something.

These are the shiny red hot foil parallels:

I think I preferred last year's shiny green ones. 

These being Target boxes, there were also red Target exclusive cards.

They also do blue for Walmart and purple for Toys R Us.  Since I don't shop in Walmart at all and have no need to ever go into TrU, I only ever see get these in packs.  I like the bold red border, it doesn't really clash with too many teams - though the Royals and Brewers come close - and for teams like the Phillies, Nationals, and Red Sox, they look great.  And for the A's, they of course become accidentally Christmas themed.  

My only issue with all these parallels?  Well, look:

In two blasters and two jumbo packs, I got 40 of them.  Forty!  Three each in the jumbos and two in each pack of the blasters and that is way way waaaaaay too many.  Unless this is unusual and I just have a shit load of them.   Not shown are the camo, black, pink, clear(!), platinum, and the printing plates.  You can make a rainbow page with just the flagship set now.  I would rather have more base cards.

Speaking of base cards, lets get back to them:

Like I said, there is some great photography going on in this set.  I also like that the design works well both horizontally and vertically; this is not always the case.  The backs are decent and include for the first time WAR, which is appreciated (though they do not say which version they are going with).  It is also pretty nifty that they tied in the wave element from the front to the back.  They also have a little blurb from everyone's rookie year since, hey, everyone was a rookie once.

So. More themes.  More parallels.  More minis.  Topps seems stuck in a rut.  The look on Mike Trout's face kind of covers my overall feelings about all this - "meh" with a touch of dread and disgust.  There has to be a reason for all this stagnation and a lack of innovation and in fact, it is right there on the wrapper if you look closely...

Enhance!

Yup, there's you're problem.

Football '13 Week 8: Complete Set Sunday - 2010 Upper Deck New Orleans Saints Super Bowl Champions.

       This week I am bringing back one of my few recurring topics.  A little while ago, after my trip to New Orleans, I decided to augment my Saints collection to fill in a few holes. While I was there I found out there was a commemorative set from the Super Bowl win that I did not have.  I went on to eBay and  got into a bidding war for this 2010 Upper Deck New Orleans Saints Super Bowl Champions set.  Turns out, this is a pretty rare set.  I mean, some of these kinds of sets are still on the shelves today from 5+ years ago.  But of course, for my favorite team, it is rare and hard to get.  Well, I didn't win that one from the bidding war and believe me, we took the closing bid far over the actual retail price.  My collection would not stand for this, so I found another one with an even more ridiculous Buy It Now price.  Luckily, it also had a Make An Offer, so I did.  Sadly, this also turned into a nasty bit of negotiating, but after a bit of back and forth we agreed on an exorbitant price.  Dammit thought, it is all mine so lets take a look.

The design integrates the bright bright orange and blue of the Super Bowl XLIV logo, which is a jarring contrast to the black and gold of the Who Dats.

The font for the player name is really tiny, but believe me, they included a lot of the players from the 2009 roster/

They certainly got a lot of nice action shots.

Did you know that technically, Scott Fujita is the first Japanese-American to play in the NFL?  You can look it up.

OK, enough of those garish fronts, let's see the backs...

Whoa, just as bright.  Nice mirror reflection of the picture on front, though.

The page placement splits the regular season highlights and the post-season highlights quite nicely.  I still have the call from the Porter interception on my ipod and smile every time it comes on.  A sad oversight is the lack of a card for the onside kick from the start of the second half of the Super Bowl. Still the ballsiest call I have ever seen (especially since it worked).

The only other drawback?  50 card set...leftover spaces...nooooooooooooooo!

The set also came with an oversized card.  I have left it in the little cellophane sleeve just because. 

I watched this Super Bowl up in Boston with my usual party crew.  Oddly enough, I had won the lottery for season ticket holders for the chance to buy tickets for Miami but I would have had to get a certified check in person to Metairie LA on a Tuesday morning.  It just wasn't gonna happen.  It's just as well. 

One last thing.  The set came nicely packed and padded in bubble wrap and still got crushed by the USPS.  Look at that box:

Luckily, the cards inside were safe.  Stupid post office.