Acetate Awesomeness

There are several new parallels in the 2014 Topps set.  It's easy to get pulled in too many directions at the beginning of the baseball card season, but I quickly decided that adding a copy of one of the Acetate parallels was a priority.  The cards are numbered to just 10 printed copies and they are very popular.  Both factors has made the cards very pricey.  Add in the fact that there have been few Cardinals or Rays available on Ebay, or other trade and secondary market sites, and I had to really look to find a copy of one of these cards. 

Luckily I had a few Ebay bucks, also won a dispute against a seller who never sent me a card, and I had enough to place a bid on a copy of a former Cardinals pitcher and member of the 2011 World Series team. 

2013 Topps Acetate Kyle Lohse 10/10

The picture does not even do this card justice.  It's easily one of the best parallels that Topps has ever come up with.  I am not sure what rainbow collectors are going to do with these, but I they can have all of the pink and red and black cards if I can find a few more of these.  Even the backs of the cards are cool. 

In many ways these cards remind me a lot of the original EX cards that Fleer put out in the late 90s.  In particular the 1997 set.  The 1998 and 1999 were more transparent than translucent.  Normally I just scan the cards and do not post pictures holding cards or quick pictures using my camera, but it's the best way to show off a little more of this card. 

 

You can see the light going through the card when it is held up upside the scanner.  Very impressive card overall and I will definitely be finding a few more of these cards this year.  Hopefully I can manage a few Cardinals or Rays.  

2014 Topps Jumbo Break-Base Set and Parallels

One of my measuring sticks of a successful Jumbo Box is the percentage of set completed.  Some people like to measure the doubles in the box, but that is really disingenuous to think that the dupe rate is going to be low when you are opening a box of 500 cards for a 331 card set.  Get real.  So, I sat yesterday afternoon and assembled my Series 1 set and came up with 327 of the 330 cards.  That's slightly over 99% of the set.  Yes, I do have a big stack of doubles.  Luckily, I had walked to Target and picked up a few rack packs on Tuesday.  I manged to land the three missing cards: Elivs Andrus, Martin Perez, and Jason Grilli.  

Looking for a reason to put together the 2014 Topps Set?  I have got five reasons:


1. Red Parallels

There are a bunch of different parallels like normal.  Camo, Pink, Green, Yellow, and these.  I like red.  Cardinals and NC State.  SEMO too (look that one up).  These are like the Emerald Green cards of last year, so I will have to put together a set of Cardinals for this parallel set.  They are not serial numbered and seem pretty reasonable on Ebay.  I landed this Mariano, so that's going to look good with my Cardinals set.  By the way, I got one card out of the Cardianls set done.

I like any Cardinals card with the retired numbers in the background too.  Wonder if Matt Holliday caught this flyball?

2.  Final Regular Cards For Helton and Rivera 

I am sure that Topps will put Helton and Rivera in plenty of sets in the near future, but it's sad to see them make their final regular card appearance.  Both players have been great for the past twenty years or so and have been regulars in baseball card sets throughout that time.  If I have more time to flip through the cards I am sure I can probably find more players making their final appearance too.  Dawg, where's Lance Berkman?

3.  There's No AIRBRUSHING!

You want players in old uniforms?  You got it.  Thank you Topps for not airbrushing players into their new jerseys.  Peralta is still a Tiger.  McCann is still a Brave.  Both cards look fine.

4.  Throwback Uniforms

 

Lots of cool old uniforms in the set.  Reds, A's, Brewers, and many others.  Always like to see some of these in every set.  Topps has been putting plenty of these cards in sets recently and this year's Topps I is no different.  

 

5. Coco Crisp's Hair

 

Kind of a throwback to the seventies.  Where's Oscar Gamble?  

The Curious Case of Kyle Lohse

Collectors love when new players join their favorite teams and are often excited about jumping out and finding some cards of their team's newest player.  Yesterday, I got hit up by a Brewers fan five minutes about the news broke that Kyle Lohse had signed a three contract with the team asking for the low down on collecting Lohse cards.  What autographs are out there?  Relics cards?  Key rookie cards?  The usual set of questions.  Lohse has been on the Cardinals for the past five seasons and I usually do not hesitate in picking up something for every Cardinals player.  Except Kyle Lohse.

Nothing against Kyle Lohse, but I literally have no cool Kyle Lohse cards.  In fact, you do not own any either.  I promise you there is no need to look unless you own a printing plate of his Topps card.  Kyle Lohse is the most uninteresting man to collect.  Kyle Lohse has zero autographs.  Kyle Lohse has zero relic cards.  He does have four or five rookie cards from 2001 sets, but all of them can be found for less than $5.  He usually makes an appearance in the Topps base set every year, so I figure there is at least a handful of printing plates floating around.  However, looking around at completed items most appear to fall south of $20.

So, how rare is it that a player can hang out in the Majors for ten years and not appear on a single relic or autograph card?  I did a little checking on Baseball Reference yesterday and actually found that there are zero starters in the National League last year that did not have a relic or jersey card.  If that is expanded out to position players you can add names to that list, but not many.  For example, just looking at the Cardinals players from last year only Matt Carpenter and Tony Cruz fit in the same category as Lohse of not having a relic or autograph.  However, both of those players are backups and have had limited time on the team.

There are others scattered about that I am not going to track down, but in today's age of baseball cards Kyle Lohse is a rarity.  One interesting card of note for Lohse collectors and Brewers fans trying to pick up a Lohse card or two for their collections is his appearance in the 2009 Topps Ticket To Stardom set.  The set was based on ticket stubs and the tank is surprisingly dry on these cards on Ebay and COMC.  If a ticket stub is a relic then this is your best hope.

2009 Topps Ticket To Stardom Kyle Lohse Ticket Stub

 

I will add that I actually keep my eyes out for copies of this card and I do not think one has been posted on Ebay or COMC for at least a year.  There are only 110 copies of the card too, which makes me think that most of these cards are in collections and are probably the de facto Lohse relic for many Cardinals fans who have attempted to assemble a collection of his cards.  I am not sure what Beckett lists this card for in their pricing guide, but I bet if you put one up for auction you could toss the price guide out the window.

Two more Trades

I picked up a pair of Cardinals and Rays cards this week in two separate trades that I was pretty excited about completing.  The first trade I made with Joshy on Facebook.  I've actually made several trades with him over the past month since I started my blog.  He's got his own trade group on Facebook, with some real solid traders, and he's always in the market for Red Sox cards.  You can find him in some other trade groups too, but he posts heavily in his own group and always has something for everyone.  This week I picked up three cards from him: a 2011 Triple Threads David Price Jersey, a 2011 Topps Allen & Ginter Joe Maddon Jersey, and a 2005 Donruss Diamond Kings Lou Brock Bat card.  

2005 Donruss Diamond Kings Lou Brock Bat Card 57/100

2011 Topps Allen & Ginter Joe Maddon Jersey Card 

2011 Topps Triple Threads David Price Jersey 12/27

Last card of the night was a cheap trade from a dealer in Iowa, but I was extremely happy about finding a copy of this 2009 Topps Ticket To Stardom Kyle Lohse Ticket Stub.  This set was a little bit different when it was released a few years back, but I thought it was a cool concept.  The set focused on ticket stubs and featured player autographs and relics attached to a ticket stub of a game where the player had starred.  Some of the cards only featured a ticket stub.  Lohse has no relics cards and no certified autographs, but was a key part of last year's Cardinals championship team.  I guess this card is as close to a certified anything of Lohse that I am going to find.  

2009 Topps Ticket To Stardom Kyle Lohse Ticket Stub 107/100