1993 Topps Finest #118 Refractor

Card Review: 9.1  If your into price guides, this is probably the most valuable Wallach you'll find listed (a couple others aren't listed "due to scarcity").  20 years later these '93 Refractors still demand a premium.  Even I, a self professed hater of Topps Finest and the "premium" baseball card, can't deny that this is a pretty neat card.  The "refractor" element of it looks really cool.  The '94 and '95 Topps Finest refractors lacked this sort of shine.  Though the '03 and '05 refractors may be even more impressive than this one.  In any event, I only have one of this card and don't really anticipate having anymore in the near future.  Despite allegedly being extremely rare, I see this card show up for sale on a regular basis, but usually it's in the $50-$100 price range.  And for now, I'd much rather have the 500-1000 1987 Topps that that kind of money will buy than one of these.

Number of this card in my collection: 1

2014 update: n/a

2015 update: n/a

2016 update: n/a

2017 update: n/a

2018 update: n/a

2019 update: n/a

2020 update: n/a

2021 update: n/a

2022 update: n/a

2023 update: 2


BONUS POST

I've tempered my disdain for graded cards since their inception.  I can see their value as a safe guard against forgery when buying high dollar vintage cards online .  However, why anyone would pay to grade a card made in the last 30 years is beyond me.  This card came to me in a PSA case.  I only have a couple other cards that came in graded card cases, and I didn't bother to crack them.  But this Wallach needed to go into my binder where I keep one copy of all the different Wallach's.

So I took to youtube and watched a couple of instructional videos on how to open the case.  It looked very easy in the videos.  A couple of twist with a little screw driver and the case neatly popped into two pieces.  I didn't have that kind of luck, but I did free the card unscathed.

1995 Topps Finest #62 Refractor

Card Review 2.4  I find this card to be every bit as bland as it's '95 Finest base card counterpart.  I'd be lying if I said I didn't think some of the Topps Refractors were cool, some of them are very cool (though I'll never stop believing they're unnecessary gimmicks).  This just isn't one of the "cool" ones.  In '95 Topps covered all of these cards with a protective film, that consumers were to peel off once they bought the cards.  Pretty much nobody did, so everyone ended up with black lettering on the front of their cards.  You can see where the film on this one has started to bubble around Wallach's shoulder and neck.  I suspect if I peeled it off the card would look nicer, but I'm not inclined to do so.

*Update* It is believed that there were 550 copies printed of each refractor

Number of this card in my collection: 1

2014 update: n/a

2015 update: n/a

2016 update: n/a

2017 update: n/a

2018 update: n/a

2019 update: n/a

2020 update: n/a

2021 update: n/a

2022 update: n/a

2023 update: 8

2003 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites Refractor #12

Card Review: 9.4  I don't like the refractor as much as the base card.  That doesn't mean it's not awesome.  I used to find these refractor's a bit over the top, but as more and more crap has been produced by the card companies, these refractors don't seem as ridiculous, and look a lot better than a lot of the newer nonsense.  I don't know if Topps produced more of these or of the autographed variant, as the autographed variant isn't numbered.  I suspect there are fewer of these.  The autographed 2003 ATFF pops up on ebay with some regularity.  I've seen this card show up exactly four times, and have never passed on it.  I wouldn't be surprised if a good number of people tried to build a refractor set of these back in 2003, and they just aren't leaving personal collections.

Number of this card in my collection: 1 (out of 299 possible)
2013 update: 2
2014 update: 3
2015 update: 4

2005 Topps Rookie Cup Rookie Reprint Refractor #191

Card Review: 9.6  I really like this card.  It's the kind of treatment Wallach's iconic rookie deserves.  I figured the Chrome version only numbered to 25 had to be fanciest of these, but I was wrong.  This card also set a new high dollar mark for me as far as buying Wallach's goes.  $11.61 on ebay.

The reproduction of the '82 white border lends itself very well to the refractor treatment.  Of the five Wallach refractors, this one is the best looking by a wide margin.  It even scans better than the rest.  I've never collected an insert subset, or least not a modern one (I admit, I was a huge fan of some of Fleer's subsets in the 80's and early 90's like Pro-Visions and Headliners), but I'm half-way tempted to chase down more of these rookie reprint refractors.  I probably never will given they're priced like early 50's Topps, but who knows.  I'll add it to my list of things I might do.

Number of this card in my collection: 1 (14 more to go)

1994 Topps Finest #361 Refractor

 








Card Review: 6.5  It doesn't show up well in the scan, but this is in fact a refractor.  You can see the difference best on the sleeve of his throwing arm.  I guess I never understood the whole Topps Finest thing.  To me, these seem more akin to the Topps Coins than a Topps Baseball Card.  They never had much appeal to me, even at the time, I remember them being pretty popular (and crazy expensive), but I never felt like I was missing out on anything by not buying any.

These '94 Finest Refractor's are far cheaper than their '93 counterparts, but I've found they're also harder to come by.  I see '93 Refractor's pop up on ebay on a regular basis, the fact I only have one copy is a result of the price they demand (1 refractor for $30, or 300 80's Topps base cards is an easy choice for me).  These '94, and 95's as well, rarely show up in the ebay search feed.

Number of this card in my collection: 1
2013 update: 2
2014 update: n/a
2015 update: n/a
2016 update: n/a