The Finer Things Club

One of my favorite episode of the office is when Pam, Toby, and Oscar form "The Finer Things Club" to discuss a book they are reading. The club becomes the envy to many in the office, with Andy and Jim trying to join, while others disrupt the civilized conversation.

At one point, I'd say Topps Finest was the most exclusive club Topps ran. But now, not so much. Finest usually comes out each year without much fanfare. I guess it's old news now. I don't think I've ever even opened a pack, let alone seen one in real life. It's probably online exclusive now by now, or something. I don't know.

But TCDB has been a great resource to pick up some Finest singles. It really is a great place to trade, if that's your sort of thing.

The first single I received was this DJ LeMahieu. The design is familiar, as it's the famous 1993 Finest All-Star. I can't not think of Don Mattingly when I see this. This card was from the Finest Flashbacks set, which was an exclusive box Topps sold online, with a limit per customer. The re-sale value of the boxes was very high, I believe. In fact, I have one of the Ben Baller Chrome boxes coming this weekend, and I plan to never open it. So if you're looking for one, Ive got a deal for you...

Here is what the 2020 Finest base set looks like. This is your run-of-the-mill Finest set, unrelated to the Flashbacks set. It's fine. Very Finest. If you told me this was 2017 Finest, I would have believed you. They all blend together a bit now...as do A&G...as do Stadium Club...as do Donruss...as do Gypsy Queen.

These also made their way to me via TCDB.

I still like Finest. But it definitely doesn't reek of being the most exclusive offering anymore. Maybe that'll change again one day.

Calling it. My card of the year.

It's early and there are approximately 300 2020 issues yet to be released. But I'm calling it early. My card of the year is this:

This is a 2020 Topps Finest The Man insert card of Gleyber Torres. It's not a rare card, except for the fact that it comes from Finest and I still don't understand where people find Finest. So in that sense, it's rare to me. All 2020 cards are rare.

From the 1998 design, with vibrant background colors and an ESPN2-like "The Man" graphic, to Gleyber's too cool for school pose after likely hitting a homer (something he did 38 times last year), this card really does it for me on so many levels.

If swagger had a card, this would be it.

It's not perfect. It's a reprint. Gleyber is covering up some of the graphic. And the Finest logo is oddly placed directly over his foot, although that is where the logo originally fell.

It's a little silly of me to pick a reprint production for my card of the year. We've seen this design before, 22 years ago. And we're all sick of seeing Topps reboot designs. But I'd rather see a design like this come back to life than another Topps base issue where we're celebrating...some arbitrary anniversary, as Dan Good touched on in his recent card chat piece.

Maybe a card will come along and knock this one off its perch for me. I'll keep an open mind. But for now, it's going to be hard to beat this card.

Plus, if I had to describe Gleyber, "The Man" would certainly do it.

Blue Chips

No, I'm not talking about this when I say Blue Chips, although it was a great movie and a very awesome card set.

I'm talking about Topps Finest Blue Chips. I never had any of the originals back from 1997 - they were one of those fancy sets I saw images of in Beckett, but never would be able to add to my collection.

As part of 2019 Finest, Topps rolled Blue Chips back out, and I sprung for the Gleyber Torres:

Beautiful card.

Napkin Doon and I were just chatting the other day on how Gleyber Torres seems a bit underpriced right now. In the world of young players like Acuna and Vlad Jr and Wander Franco, Gleyber seems a little forgotten as an "older player." And by older, he's 22. 22! And hitting .295 and is on pace for 35-40 HRs as a middle infielder...who is 22!

I'm not quite sure what it is. He's still collectible and I wouldn't say his cards are cheap, but on his own team falls second to Judge, and perhaps the fact that he isn't as homegrown of a Yankee holds some back since he was acquired in a trade. Or the fact that his name is Gleyber, which is pretty unusual sounding? I don't know. All I know is he's a star, he's getting better, and he's twenty-freakin-two.

Regardless, his RCs are very affordable right now, as are sweet cards like this. And he deserves to be an elite player in this hobby, just as he is on the field.

Who you callin' a Squirt?

Matt from Doc Holoday is one of the best blogging dudes out there.

First off, his customs are true works of art...even when they have Red Sox players on them.

Some of my best blogging buddies are Red Sox fans, so it just goes to show what a great group of collectors we've got around these parts. Matt is no exception, and this trade package meant a lot because I know he's been dealing with a lot since late summer when Hurricane Harvey affected him and millions others in Texas and the southeastern US.

Matt sent me a message that I had 2 lbs of Yankees headed by way, and right away I was greeted with a card I had always wanted:

Squirt! I love this card. And I love squirt. Full disclosure - on New Year's Eve this past year I was shopping for food to make that night, and wandered down the soda aisle and my eyes immediately went to Squirt. The colors are so catchy! I bought a 2 liter and drank the whole thing that day. It's delicious! And I'm really happy to have this card.

He wasn't joking about the 2 lbs of cards either. Holy moly was their great stuff, including this Dellin Betances holiday relic.

And some really, really shiny Yankees. I don't know much about Topps Finest these days other than knowing the Refractors still look awesome.

Roger Clemens was represented well in this box. I really like the Double Play insert with Greg Maddux on the flip side.

Derek Jeter cards are always welcome in my collection:

At the time, this was probably a stretch. Now, even more so! Ruben Rivera sharing a card with The Big Hurt? Not a great look.

Oddballs besides the Squirt Reggie were found too. Sweet Woolworth card of Mattingly!

I keep saying it, but Severino is criminally under-priced right now.

Some nice cards of Yankees legends from some newer products - Reggie, Gehrig, and The Mick finding his way into Donruss.

I had no idea that Steve Sax's brother, Dave Sax, played in the majors!

Two trippy ARods. The old Fleer Ultra inserts really hold up today. This was a Diamond Mine insert.

Big Mike /499! Good luck in Minnesota, my friend.

Look how young Jorge looks! I collected a ton of Collector's Choice growing up, but I don't think I have this card. The base card designs were always pretty tastefully done.

Trust me, there were many, many more great cards. Matt, I really appreciate you thinking of me. Keep up the amazing work with the customs!

Blockbuster Move! Yankees get Henderson!

One unexpectedly fun part of the tall task at better organizing my collection is coming across cards I either forgot I had or had no recollection of having to begin with.

I feel like that's sort of the problem, actually. I have so much I don't even know what I have. While fun to stumble upon old new cards, I should have a better grasp and not be surprised by what I resides in the depths of my collection.

Tucked away in some shoe box (literally a Nike shoe box) with a bunch of Danny Tartabull cards was a team bag with two Rickey Henderson cards.

The first was a manurelic from 2012 Topps Update Blockbusters. I actually liked this insert set as a whole, especially the Ichiro card. I do have conscious memories of Henderson as a Yankees player. I would have been ages 2-6 while he was in Pinstripes, so I assume I remember him in 1988 and 1989 as a 5 and 6 year old at the tail-end of his Yankee career. Of course, he would go on to play 16 more years!

Simply put, he was a beast in NY, as he was most other places. The Yankees had him for his theoretical prime years from age 26-30. In that first year in NY, he hit .314 with 24 HRs, a .419 OBP, and 80 steals. He put up a 9.9 WAR! I'd say that's a blockbuster move that worked out well. Sadly (for me), his teams in NY went no where and he didn't appear in one playoff game for the Yankees.

The second card is pretty cool from the amazing inaugural Topps Finest set. I think it's only right that Rickey was an A while this set was featured.

I'm sure I'll find even more treasures as I continue my quest for organization.

Simply the Finest

1993 Toops Finest.

I remember drooling over these cards as a youngster. I thumbed through magazines and looked at pictures of them, or looked at them behind the glass at my local shop. Those cards were not for me. I wanted them, but they were out of my league.

In 1994, I bought a grab bag at a card show with a '94 Finest Tom Glavine on top. I knew it wasn't 1993 Finest, but this is as close as I was going to come.

Years later, I did end up with that elusive 1993 Finest Mattingly. However, I eventually sent it elsewhere to a collector who would have valued it more than me. No regrets!

Well, thanks to Chris at The Collector, the 1993 Finest Mattingly once again sits in my collection.

Christ reached out a while back mentioning that he had the card, and I was excited to take it off his hands. He was also kind enough to send me a few other Yankees, including an equally cool Jorge Posada Bowman's Best RC. This too, was one of those shiny sets that always stood out.

There were also a few nice prospect cards to round out the package. While I was excited to get them (especially Kaprielian), those cards just don't move me the way these two legendary sets from the '90s do.

Thanks, Chris!

The edge of confusion

I am pretty notorious for buying cards without looking very closely at them. Then, they arrive, and I tend to have a "huh, didn't know that" moment when I look at the card. I blame it on the eBay app. It's so easy to just quickly look at something and place a bid without thinking about it or properly examining an item.

Case in point. This beautiful 1999 Tino Martinez Topps Finest Gold Refractor came. This beauty is numbered to just 100. It's really well done. The protective coating is weird, but the gold is stunning. I took it out of the case to scan and examine it, but it wouldn't budge from the penny sleeve.

Look closer. Look at the edges of the card. For some reason, the edges are perforated. And it's not just any perforation. We're not talking SI for Kids cards. These are like the teeth of a freakin' piranha, digging into the flesh of the penny sleeve. It was nearly impossible to get this free from the sleeve, let alone get it back in. I definitely did some damage to the edges in the process.

I probably still would have bought the card had I known about the edges. It was a PC need. I just know that my attention to detail needs - errr, attention - and hopefully I can use this as a reminder to bid a bit more carefully.

Making my 11-year-old self proud

When I was a kid, I constantly scanned the pages of Beckett and Tuff Stuff, feasting my eyes on cards I couldn't have. Sometimes, it was vintage, like 1972 Topps, which seemed like cards that were so old I would never own them. In fact, I remember being in 8th grade when I bought a lot of Yanks, and was floored when a 1972 Topps Mel Stottlemyre was included.

Beyond the vintage were shiny, beautiful cards that just weren't available at CVS or Revco, where I got my cards. Once in awhile I'd go to a local card shop and blow some money from shoveling snow, but I almost always bought several packs as opposed to spending my money on a higher end pack or single card. I'd always glance at the display case, looking at the shiny cards that belonged behind glass or in the pages of the monthly magazine. Those weren't for me. I was buying packs of Collector's Choice and Hoops, and if I splurged, Fleer Ultra. I don't think I even knew Topps Finest was its own set that came in its own expensive packs. I just wondered why they never fell out of my regular Topps packs.

We were a very blue collar, middle class family. I never had the new Jordan or Penny Hardaway or Griffey sneakers, even though I spent hours looking at them in Eastbay catalogues. Cards were like that too. I could have the affordable ones, but just not the ones behind the glass. It was better than nothing.

It has stuck with me to this day, and is part of the reason I love '90s cards so much. They represent the cards that are ingrained in my head. The cards I put on pedestals on that I saw in the magazine pages. Now, with the magic of the internet, and the fact that I have a little money in my pocket, I can now have many of those cards I wanted. In fact, I can have them for a fraction of the price, because they aren't too pricey 20 years later.

Take this card, for example:

Man, I remember seeing this set. The neon. The cardstock. The futuristic look. This card was probably $10 or $12 back when it was out. Barley won an MVP that year. Fast forward to 2016, it was basically a throw-in for me on a recent COMC order. Seriously, it was probably a quarter or something.

And the thing is, I have no use for this card. At all. I'll probably put it in my kid's HOF binder. It was just the fact that I can now own something that I never dreamed of when I was a kid. It's very superficial and pretty stupid of me, but I felt like I needed a card like that to help bring some peace of mind to my 11-year-old self.

I then snagged a Refractor, because, why not? Again, it cost mere cents. But a 1993-94 Finest Refractor?! In my possession? I had to. I picked Seikaly since he is a Syracuse guy. But seriously?! A Refractor. From 1993-94. That's big.

While I can't quite pony up for a baseball Refractor from 1993, I did pick up a couple base cards.

Now, where can I buy a pair of 1997 Air Max Griffey sneakers?

Robert went to the #NSCCShow!

If you follow his blog, you know that Robert of $30 A Week (not Day) Habit attended The National. Besides picking up cards for himself, Robert kept in mind his fellow collectors who were not as fortunate to attend. Luckily, I was one of those collectors.

Robert sent me five really nice cards, along with a note that said, "You may not have gone to the National, but a piece of the National has come to you." So awesome!

First, a Tino! I admit, I do have this one, but a 1994 Finest is always welcome.It's cool to me that when someone comes across a Tino, they associate him with me.

Two really nice relics that I didn't have. Brett Gardner is having a terrific year and is making his contract look like a better deal by the day. Back in 2011 I tried to put this Topps 60 Yankees relic team set together. It's still on my wantlist, so I'll keep trying. And Cano...well, I miss him. But hey, at least he still looks like a Yankee on 2104 Heritage Clubhouse Collection cards.

Finally, two 2013 Topps Gold cards. I love the Mo. I can never get enough Rivera tribute cards. And CC! He was dominant in the 2012 ALDS...man, that feels like forever ago.

 

Robert, thank you so much for thinking of me!