Monday Morning Autograph - Brian Stokes

I own a couple of thousand autograph cards, the majority have never appeared on my blog. Here is a random autograph that I have never posted before:

Today:2007 UD Spectrum Brian Stokes 

Why do I own this card? 

Brian Stokes was a starting pitcher on the 2006 Durham Bulls. He went 7-7 with a 4.11 ERA in 23 starts with the Bulls. The Rays called up Stokes in September 2006, he made 4 starts with the team, and went 1-0 with an ERA of 4.88.  There were better players on the 2006 Bulls, but Stokes seemed like a solid pitcher and his cards were cheap.  

You might be thinking, he had an ERA over 4 in Triple A, that does not seem solid. 

It was the Devil Rays, not the Rays.  

When did I get this card? 

I guarantee you this was an EBay dumpster dive. The Rays were still a few years away from making the World Series and being considered good. When I first started collecting Durham Bulls players in 2006 and 2007, outside of Delmon Young and BJ Upton, the majority of prospect cards were just a few dollars.

Brian Stokes Career Teams In a Haiku 

Amateur Free Agent

P-Rays, Blaze, River Dogs, O-Rays

Bulls, Rays, Angels, Mets

I really hate when the only thing on the back of the card is a "Congratulations" form letter, unless it's from Richard McWilliam, then it's alright. As the kids would say, McWilliam is the "OG" of the Congratulations form letter. Plus, when you were opening packs of Upper Deck cards, anytime you saw that signature, you knew you were about to have your day made.  

Set Appreciation Post #21 - 2000 Pacific Aurora

Pacific Aurora has a mundane base set with a few incredible inserts, which makes it a pretty awesome product. You've got to take the boring with the exciting with this product.  

2000 Pacific Aurora was also the first card to feature a Hall of Famer in his new uniform and they did it in a creative way. Overall, this is one of the worst products that Pacific Trading cards made in the late 1990s and early 2000s and it is still probably middle of the pack in terms of overall quality. They were a high floor, high ceiling type of card company that is sadly lacking in the current baseball card market. 

I miss Pacific. 

Shall we look at the 2000 Autora set?  

Here is the base design......

Pacific started the Aurora product in 1998 and it basically had the same design concept all three years it was produced. Two photos on the front, one action and one posed, along with a solid colored background. The design in decent. I know the teal colored background is a little weird on this Darin Erstad card, but this is one of the few teams where that statement is true.

Pacific was consistent with their brands and the products tended to run true to that branding from year to year. While this is not the most exciting design concept, you knew exactly what you were getting when you bought these cards. The original Aurora was also a per-pack-insert product released in 1998 that was sold at retail stores. The 2000 set was a Hobby issued product with no per-pack insert guarantee.     

Back of the card. 

I like the sepia photo with the gold and maroon colored writing and trim. Really good look. The stats are basic, but the large photo and readable card numbers in the bottom right-hand corner more than make-up for anything left off the card by Pacific. Solid effort here. 

Let's get one highlight out of the way.  

Best Base Card 

The off-season proceeding the 2000 baseball season featured the high drama of Ken Griffey Jr. demanding a trade off the Mariners. He had a no-trade clause and was essentially only willing to accept a trade that put him on his hometown Cincinnati Reds. The trade ended up happening in early February after teams had made their way to Spring Training and the early 2000 baseball card products had already hit the shelves. 

Griffey getting traded to the Reds was huge news. The trade put the three best home runs hitters of the day, Griffey, McGwire, and Sosa, all in the same division for the foreseeable future, or Mark McGwire got gimpy knees in the middle of the 2000 season. Pacific capitalized on the excitement by producing the first Ken Griffey Jr. card with him in a Cincinnati uniform, making half his cards Mariners and the other half Reds. 

Great card, one of my favorite Griffey cards. 

On to the other things I cover in my set posts........

Favorite Cardinals Card 

It's really hard to pick out the "best" cards from this set. They are slightly devoid of personality, but I decided to go with Fernando Tatis. He had a short window of success with the Cardinals and 1999 was his best season. Fernando Sr. went 30 plus home runs, 30 plus doubles, 20 stolen bases, and nearly hit .300 come in with a .298 average. He also walked more than 80 times. It was a really unique stat line, especially for a third baseman and I love seeing those numbers on the back of the card.  

Favorite Former Durham Bulls Player 

McGriff played on the Durham Bulls at the end of his career in 2004. He's one of the few players who is smiling on his posed photograph for this set. I like the happy vibe on this card. I also like that you get McGriff's batting stance in the top right corner. He's got one of the more unique and identifiable stances from the 1990s.  

One more card and we will talk about inserts......

While the 2000 Pacific Aurora set did not have inserts in every pack, they did offer a parallel card per pack. The majority of parallel cards were pinstriped. I know there are people who enjoy these parallel cards, but I am not a huge fan. 

Perhaps if my favorite team wore pinstripes, I would feel differently. Looks kind of weird on a Cardinals card, but it makes sense and looks good on a Yankees card.......

Inserts 

Now we get to the good stuff with Pacific Aurora. The inserts.  

The most basic insert was the "Pennant Fever". When the Aurora product first started in 1998, these were the inserts that generally came as the per-pack. Pacific continued this insert again in 1999 and 2000. Based on the number in my collection, I would guess that a box typically came with 3 or 4 of these cards. The foil along the bottom of the card is nice, but this isn't even the close to the best thing in this set.  

Let's get serious.  

Pacific made some great cards involving nets in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Yes, nets. You'd think that might not work for baseball, but sounds like a great concept for a basketball insert. What has nets on a baseball diamond? Dugouts and foul poles. The good people at Pacific employed some creative people who made great cards like this Shawn Green, which is a Dugout Net card.....

It's not a game-used card or anything, just a die-cut card with the cut-out section being filled in with netting. I am not sure the scan does the card justice, but these are some of the best inserts from this era. The one draw back for these cards is that they were thicker and would chip along the bottom. Check out the white around the bottom of the net.  

Most of the cards in this insert set are available online for less than $5, which reminds me that I have not done a set project in a long time. More of these might be making an appearance in this space in the near future.  

Last one for this set.  

I love that Dugout set with the die-cut space for the netting, but the Styroteach insert with these batting helmets might be even better. These remind me of the Donruss Hard Hats inserts that came out in the mid 1990s. Just a really nice insert card, again I am not sure the scan does this justice. 

Unlike the Dugout set though, these are really pricy on Ebay and COMC. The cheapest cards are around $10 with many being closer to $30 or $40. Not sure I can put together this complete set those prices given the quantity of cards. For now, I am happy with this Barry Bonds card.  

So, how does the 2000 Pacific Aurora set rate?  

I think it's biggest positives are that it has great insert cards and a solid base set. Having the first Reds Griffey cards pumps up the nostalgia factor for me and I am sure others who collected during this time.  When you add in the fact that these were $60 a box for 24 packs, there is a lot of upside here. Obviously, the base card design could be much better, but it's also not horrible. Aurora also has a small checklist with only 150 cards. That means you're only getting 4 to 5 cards of your favorite team.  

I ended up giving the set three Wool E. Bulls for the checklist and set design, everything else was above average with the final rating coming in at 3 1/2 Wool E Bulls.  

You can still find boxes of these cards for less than $100 on Ebay, if you're interested. Given the recent interest in opening old packs of cards and boxes, that's not much of a mark up from the original price. 

Friday Five: Favorite Delmon Young Cards

I have been writing about the Durham Bulls a lot this past week, so I figured I would break out some Delmon Young cards, scan them, and write them into a post. Delmon was a top 5 prospect for several years in the early 2000s and was the star of the Durham Bulls when I moved to North Carolina.  

His most famous moment as a top prospect for the Durham Bulls was launching his bat at an umpire after striking out in a game against Jon Lester......

Delmon would later go on to disappoint Rays and Twins fans, before developing a reputation as a clutch Postseason player for the Tigers and Orioles. He was out of MLB in his early thirties, but continued to play baseball overseas in the Australian League.  

Sorry, no Australian baseball cards in this post, but these are my Top 5 Delmon Young cards......

5. 2007 Topps 52 Chrome Delmon Young 

Yes, it's a reprint or rehashed design from 1952 Topps, but it's a really good looking card.  This is also when we started getting the "official" rookie cards. This is an official rookie card, unlike the other cards on this list, which are all unofficial.  

4. 2007 Topps Finest Autographs Delmon Young 

Baseball cards do not usually reference too much on-field drama, but here we are with Delmon's 2007 Finest autograph. Notice the "Revenge is Sweet" footnote at the bottom of the card. The back has a short write-up about the "revenge", but they go a little soft. So, here is the story this card is supposed to tell:

The Rays called up Delmon Young at the end of August 2006. His first game is against the White Sox in Chicago. Ozzie Guillen thinks Delmon is an ass and has Freddy Garcia drill him in the back on the first pitch in his first career at-bat. A few innings later, Delmon hit a home run off of Freddy Garcia.  

Here is a snippet of the box score:

Here is a white card with a silver sticker. I cannot roll my eyes hard enough.  

3. 2006 TIAA-CREF Durham Bulls Delmon Young 

Yes, I do work in education and would love to hear about your TIAA-CREF retirement plans, provided I get a baseball card for listening to your sales pitch.......

TIAA-CREF guy: "Save some money or you'll be on food stamps when you retire"  

I enjoyed the sales pitch, but after actually getting the Delmon Young card in my hands and hearing about my future on food stamps, I remembered that there is a financial advisor guy who stops by my school. I am going to teach for 30 years, get a full pension and benefits from the State of North Carolina, and now I also have a TIAA-CREF Delmon Young card. 

You do not see this card very often. 

2. 2004 Bowman Sterling Delmon Young Bat/Autograph 

Delmon could always hit.  

Delmon could never catch the ball.  

This card used to be worth a bazillion dollars and it shows Delmon likely playing a routine fly ball into a double or triple, depending on the speed of the batter. When people who are getting into prospecting ask my strategy as a Minor League for getting good cards of big prospects, I think of this card and tell them to wait a decade. I am certain this card had a three digit value when he was on the Bulls in 2005 and 2006, but it was $10 when I bought it.  

1. 2003 Bowman Chrome Delmon Young Autograph 

One of the great "what could have been" cards from the early 2000s. If only Delmon had stayed on the field a little longer and treated the regular season with the same urgency he treated the Postseason. Maybe not thrown a bat at an umpire, or yelled a bunch of antisemitic stuff at some guy in New York.  

Missing My Favorite Upton, Carl Too.

Not Kate, nor Justin.

I have reached my fall break and have all sorts of fun activities planned for myself.  I am three days into break, I don't have to teach students again until October, and I am feeling really productive. I have been doing carpool for my middle schooler everyday, gone shoe shopping for my first-grader, planned and cooked every meal this week, folded laundry, and replaced the rollers on the upper rack of my dishwasher. 

I could post pictures of my food, but I am more proud of fixing the dishwasher.  

I am going to do some caulking and yard work the second half of this week.  

I have also been working on filling some holes in my old Durham Bulls cards. 

It's amazing how much cheaper cards of prospects are when you revisit them after the player has retired and the card is more than 15 years old. I don't know where to find pricing data from 2007, but B.J. Upton was a pretty popular prospect back in the day. Doubtful that an Upper Deck autograph numbered to 50 would for less than $10, but today......

Too good to pass up.  

I missed this card back in the day. Not only are there several B.J. Upton cards in the UD Black set, but it was also had Justin Upton autographs, who had been the first overall selection in the 2005. Both Upton brothers in one set. Sorry, Kate was not included. Also not sure if B.J./Melvin and Justin had dual autographs, but it seems like something Upper Deck would pull off.  

I miss the backs of the Upper Deck cards. 

The autographs were always upside down in the packs and the first thing you saw was that Richard McWilliam signature and the "Congratulations" banner across the top of the card. You knew you had found something good.  

Slightly less expensive, I also found a really cool Carl Crawford autograph out of the 2005 Fleer Patchworks set. Carl was in Durham before I moved to North Carolina, but helped lead the team to their first International League Championship.  He was the first star player the Durham Bulls had as a Triple A team.  

I have always dabbled in Carl Crawford autographs, but never outright collected them. Might start dabbling with his Rays cards a little bit more here in the near future. Not sure I can touch his Red Sox or Dodgers cards, but his early cards seem like they are fun.  

More early 2000s Durham Bulls tomorrow.  

It's Been A Minute

One of my favorite phrases in life.  

So much has happened over the past month and a half. Unfortunately, most of it involves me working, which nobody really wants to hear about. I am just going to skip ahead to the part where I talk about baseball cards and pretend that I still do this on a regular basis.  

I still have the time to purchase baseball cards, just not write about the baseball cards. I have narrowed this post down to 4 cards. There are some large stacks of cards sitting around my house at the moment and it's not because my wife repainted and refurnished my baseball card room in a day while I was at work.  

The stacks of cards are out of the frame, but I am actually going to make a post about the state and condition of my card room at the moment assuming I don't disappear for another six weeks.  

As I was saying, picking out just 4 cards was a bit of an accomplishment.  

The first three are all from the 2021 Topps Chrome Anniversary set.  Two former Durham Bulls players and a backup catcher for the Cardinals.  

First, former Durham Bulls player Greg Luzinski.  Great power hitter and a great signature too.  

Next up is Cardinals backup catcher Gene Tenace. Earlier in his career he was not a backup for the Oakland A's. Tenace was the 1972 World Series MVP. I do not have a Padres autograph of Tenace, but he was also a starting catcher in San Diego.  In 1980, Gene Tenace hit .222, but walked 30 more times than he struck out and had an on-base percentage of .399. 

Amazing. 

Last up on the Topps Chrome cards is former Durham Bulls player and current Minnesota Twins manager, Rocco Baldelli.  The green Rays jerseys were horrible.  

Last card is a Paul Goldschmidt autograph.  

He's been on the Cardinals a few years now, but I rarely buy any of his cards and I never post them when I do. Nothing too special, just usually cool looking parallels or base cards from when he played with the Diamondbacks. Nothing this nice.  

Dysfunctional and Talented

I spent a little bit of time last month working on my collection of 2006 Durham Bulls baseball cards.  That was the first full year that I lived in North Carolina.  It was easily one of the most talented Bulls team that I have seen.  High draft picks, Top 100 prospects, future Major League All-Stars, a World Series MVP, and plenty of other solid Major League players. 

The team was also easily one of the worst Bulls teams that I watched in terms of on-field play and their finish in the standings.  In the 15 years, I have been watching the Durham Bulls, it's the only one to finish in the bottom 5 teams in the International League.  

In spite of their lack of wins, the 2006 Durham Bulls is still a fun group of players to collect.  

You've probably seen a few of these guys.  

First up is a pair of B.J. Upton autographs.  Nothing too hard to find, not sure why I am only getting around to these two at this point.  

Above is a 2003 Topps autograph out of the base set.  The card below is from the 2005 Upper Deck Origins set.  Both on-card signatures.  These would have been pretty pricy back in the day.  Both cost me less than $5 combined.  

Next up is long-time Major League pitcher Jason Hammel.  He was a member of the 2016 World Series Championship team for the Cubs.  Hammel never appeared in a playoff game that season, but did win 15 during the regular season.  The 2016 Cubs actually had 3 former Durham Bulls players; Hammel, Mike Montgomery, and Ben Zobrist.  

Love this autograph.  

Next up is a pair of autographs from James Shields.  

Never a huge fan of Shields during his playing career, but I have grown to appreciate his time in Durham a little more since he retired.  He was a good player in Durham, just never understood the hype around him in the Majors.  Shields has a career Postseason ERA of almost 5.50.  Why is he nicknamed "Big Game"? 

 

Back to his time in Durham. Shields pitched the first home opener I ever attended for the Bulls in 2006.  He pitched 6 innings and did not give up an earned run.  The Rochester Red Wings did manage to score 3 unearned runs against Shields.  Upton hit a walk-off grand slam to win the game in the bottom of the 9th.  

I did not have a single Shields autograph in the collection.  At some point I owned one, but it appears I traded/gave it away at some point.  

Next up, Delmon Young.  

Only non-autograph in the post.  I don't really dig relic cards, but I liked the picture on this Bowman with Delmon standing in Comerica Park.  He never turned into the franchise player many thought he would be, but he had some great moments in his career, especially the Postseason, with the Tigers.  

Those green Devil Rays hats were terrible.    

Last Delmon autograph is a Topps Finest card.  I think I avoided all of the silver sticker autographs that I could back in the day.  Delmon has a ton of sticker autographs, so I usually stuck with the Upper Deck cards since the stickers were clear.  These are dirt cheap now.  

Last card.  

The 2006 International League MVP.  

Kevin Witt was a good prospect for the Blue Jays in the late 1990s.  They released him at some point and he bounced around between several teams before making his way to the Bulls in 2006.  He ended up hitting 36 home runs and driving in 99 runs in just 128 games.  Pretty good player, even if did not even amount to much in the Majors.  

I have several Witt autographs, but I never got around to adding this card.  He's not someone with a great signature, but this one is really weak.  The card only cost me $2 after shipping.  Not sure I can really complain at that price. 

Set Appreciation Post #11 - 1998 Topps Tek

The Topps Tek set with a grand total of 8,100 cards.  There are 90 cards, each with 90 different background patterns.  The idea is slightly absurd.  I know a lot of player collectors who love this set, not many set collectors though.  I collect Ray Lankford cards, he's in this set, but I do not own all 90 different variations of his cards.  It's not even really something I am working on anymore.  I tried, but it is not a very easy task.  

They don't really scan very well, but here are six of my seventy something Ray Lankford cards.  

This one is going to be quick.  

Base Card 

A little closer look at the patterns.  The cards are transparent and made out of an acetate material.  The action photo on the front of the cards is the same regardless of the pattern.  The pattern number is on the back of the card.  

The pattern number is on the bottom corner underneath the card number.  The card backs all have a portrait style color photo.  There are no stats on the back of the card, rather Topps put down the date they thought that the players should reach certain milestones.  Topps used a similar stats set up on an insert set in their Topps Laser product, but we will make fun of that set on a different day.  

The design on the front of the card is decent enough.  The design on the back is not great.  I feel like the second player photo on the back looks busy.  I also wish there the stats were a little different.  Again, Speculative stats are never great.  

No Inserts

Yep.  There are no insert sets in the 1998 Topps Tek set.  Makes collecting the set a little easier.  However, there Diffractor parallels, same idea as the refractor cards in every other Topps product.  Nobody knows how many Diffractor cards of each patterned card there are, but it is a small quantity.  

I have a few Lankfords.  If you have a favorite 1990s player in this set, they do pop up from time to time.  I didn't own any Lankford diffractors, but then managed to find three of them in roughly a year.  

I kind of like the idea of not having any inserts.  The Topps TEK set is geared towards player collectors, it's actually nice to just have the base cards with nothing else to find.  

Best Former Durham Bulls Player In The Set 

I like that there are some different players in this set.  Always nice to see new faces, especially in a set that was only 90 cards.  I decided to go with a player who did not get into many of the small sets from the late 1990s/early 2000s, but also a former player with a current connection to the Durham Bulls.  He's actually connected to the area in general.  

I decided to go with Quinton McCracken who was the Durham Bulls first base coach in 2019.  He also played for the Durham Bulls as a player in 2000.  Beyond his two appearances with the Bulls, McCracken is actually from Wilmington, North Carolina and played football and baseball at Duke.  Did Chipper Jones ever return a punt for a touchdown against Clemson?  How about Andruw Jones or David Justice?  No?  Quinton McCracken did.  

Best Cardinals Card 

Again, whoever made the checklist for Topps TEK did a great job.  There are three Cardinals players in this set.  The standard Cardinals who appeared in these late 1990s small sets were Mark McGwire, Ray Lankford, and then some combination of Ron Gant, Dennis Eckerlsey, or Andy Benes.  Every once in awhile, you got a Brian Jordan, like you get in this set.  

Obviously not on the same level as McGwire, not quite as good as Lankford, but he was a pretty big contributor for the 1990s Cardinals.  In his last three full seasons as a Cardinal (95, 96, and 98), he led the team twice in WAR and finished second the other time.  His career numbers are also better than both Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders.  

Best Non-Cardinals/Durham Bulls Card 

Topps TEK is a pretty unique set, so I am trying to pick a card here for a different reason.  

There were no update sets in the late 1990s, but you could usually find players in new uniforms as the season went along.  Topps TEK was a late fall release, so there were several players who were traded within the season.  

Gary Sheffield is a Dodger, but started the year as a Marlin.  

Mike Piazza is a Met, but started the year as a Dodger.  Also a stop off with the Marlins.  

Randy Johnson is an Astro, but started the year as a Mariner.  

There is one long-time Major Leaguer in this set who is in a rather odd looking uniform.  I love cards like the 1984 Fleer Update Pete Rose Expos card, or Rickey Henderson Mariner cards, etc, etc.    According to COMC, this is the only card this player had with this team during the 1998 calendar year, and only one of two dozen cards this player had with this team in all.  They have over 1,500 cards in stock of this player.  

Here is the card. 

Konerko played 2,200 games as a member of the White Sox and 28 games as a Red.  His lone 1998 card as a member of the Reds with this Topps TEK.  He had several Reds cards at the beginning of the 1999 card calendar, but was traded to the White Sox weeks after the end of the 1998 season. Most of his 1999 cards are with the White Sox.  I know he was also on the Dodgers for part of a season and had tons of cards made while he was in their Minor League system. 

How Does It Compare?  

On paper, this is a really great concept for a set.  My main criticism is the fact that it is actually pretty difficult to assemble the full run of 90 cards for a player.  Should it really take more than 20 years to assemble a set?  No.

The design is decent, but nothing spectacular.  The back is weird with the speculative stats too.  Give me some good old home runs or strikeouts.  If we are just strictly comparing it to other acetate card sets from this era, it's definitely behind the Skybox EX products.  

The two biggest positives are the checklist and the fact that the set is focused on collecting base cards and not not bogged down with inserts.  I love that Topps squeezed in some different players, star players in new uniforms during an era with no update sets, etc.  

It feels like it fits best in the middle of my list.  It obviously needs to be below the 2001 Fleer EX set.  I will also put it below the Mini League Leaders set, but above the burlap sack cards in the 2017 Heritage Minors.  

11. 2000 Pacific Paramount Update 

10. 2010 Topps USA Baseball  

9. 2000 UD Ionix  

8. 1995 Emotion XL 

7. 2017 Topps Heritage Minor League

6. 1998 Topps TEK 

5. 1986 Topps Mini League Leaders 

4. 2001 Fleer EX 

3. 1979 Kellogg's 

2. 2002 Topps Super Teams

1. 1983 Topps 

These Are All Devil Rays Cards, But....

I am still working on some Durham Bulls sets.  The last two weeks, I have been working on putting together a group of cards from the 1975 Topps Mini set featuring the players who appeared for the Durham Bulls.  I am going to walk and chew gum at the same time, and work a little bit on another group of Durham Bulls cards from a little bit newer set.  

All the cards in this post come from the 2006 Topps 52 set.  I know, Topps overuses old card designs, but this set has a good group of players from the 2006 Bulls team, which was the first one that I got to watch after moving to Durham.  All of the players in this post are pictured in a Devil Rays uniform, but all of them played the majority of the season with the Bulls.  

I think Delmon Young was in Durham the shortest time in 2006, but that was mainly because he was suspended for a huge chunk of the season.  

Since this is a modern set, there are some different challenges from the 1975 Topps Mini set.  The base cards are easy to find, but several of the cards have a red and black backs, along with one card that has an action shot variation.  Each card also has three Chrome parallels with one numbered to 1952, another numbered to 552, and the final numbered to 52.  

There is also an insert card of Elijah Dukes and Delmon Young, along with an autograph of pitcher Brian Stokes, so I am adding those to my checklist, which I broken into pieces throughout the post.  There are roughly 30 cards here, but I am treating the base cards and parallels like they are smaller sets.  I have not really touched the 2007 Topps 52 product, outside of a few Cardinals autographs, so I am starting from 0.  

Here is my first group of cards, starting with the base cards with red backs.  These are the most common cards in the set.  

There are seven total red backs, so this groups gets me about half way through this checklist. 

Base Set Cards - Red Card Backs

#53 - Shawn Riggans 

#65 - Elijah Dukes 

#70 - Delmon Young 

#80 - Andy Sonnanstine 

#81 - Brian Stokes 

#95 - Elijah Dukes 

#114 - Juan Salas 

The black backs are the most common parallel.  There are a bunch of these that are cheap on COMC, but I am a little reluctant to buy them at the moment.  I love cheap, but I have heard from several people that waiting times on COMC orders are currently several months.  

I will find them somewhere else.  In the meantime, I found Elijah Dukes.  

Only 5 cards in the black back parallels.  

Base Set Cards - Black Card Backs

#53 - Shawn Riggans 

#70 - Delmon Young 

#73 - Andy Sonnanstine 

#81 - Brian Stokes 

#95 - Elijah Dukes 

Last up are the Chrome parallels.  I feel like I actually got off to a good start with these. Of the 30 cards mentioned at the top of the post to finish all of the 2006 Durham Bulls players, half are Chrome parallels.  I picked up a pair of cards serial numbered to 1952 a pair to 552, and one card numbered to 52.  

The 1952 serial numbers first.  

The cards numbered to 552.  

Finally, one last card that is numbered to 52.  

These five cards get me roughly through one-third of the Chrome cards.  I was most worried about finding the Delmon Young serial numbered to 52, but that is one card that I have on the way.  He was high on the prospect list when this set was released, and I was worried they may all have disappeared into people's collections.  

Chrome Parallels 

#47 - Delmon Young - 1952

#47 - Delmon Young - 552 

#47 - Delmon Young - 52

#59 - Shawn Riggans - 1952

#59 - Shawn Riggans - 552 

#59 - Shawn Riggans - 52

#65 - Elijah Dukes - 1952

#65 - Elijah Dukes - 552 

#65 - Elijah Dukes - 52

#80 - Andy Sonnanstine - 1952

#80 - Andy Sonnanstine - 552 

#80 - Andy Sonnanstine - 52

#86 - Brian Stokes - 1952

#86 - Brian Stokes - 552 

#86 - Brian Stokes - 52

I also picked up one of the two insert cards from the set.   The other being an autograph, more on that in a minute.   

Dynamic Duos 

DD5 - Delmon Young/Elijah Dukes 

Base Set Cards - Action Variations

#70 - Delmon Young 

Topps 52 Signatures 

#BS - Brian Stokes 

After one post, I am at 10 out of 30 cards.  I do not think this is going to be very difficult to put together, but I am worried about whether the Brian Stokes autograph exists.  It's why I said there were roughly 30 cards in the set.  The Stokes was an exchange card, but it's not clear that he ever actually signed them.  I cannot find a single copy of the card anywhere on the internet.  However, Stokes was generally a really good signer during the mid 2000s.  He appeared in tons of different baseball card sets.  It's also hard for me to imagine he didn't sign them, since he autographed everything else around this time.