Farewell, Marp

One of the best parts of teaching at a year-round school is the fall break.  Three weeks off work at the beginning of October are good for so many reasons.  The weather cools down, baseball usually reaches the Postseason, and I get to take in a college football game along at some point.  I also enjoy working on my cards during fall break.  

I have sorted a few cards this week.  

Along the way, I ran into a stack of Matt Carpenter autographs in one of my boxes during the past weekend.  I ended up taking a decent amount of time to flip through the cards.  There is not a post where I officially declare myself a collector of Matt Carpenter cards, but I have ended up with quite a few during the last decade he has played for the Cardinals.  It was an impressive stack.  

I also looked back through the cards of Matt Carpenter I posted here too.  

If you are not aware, this year is Matt Carpenter's (Marp) last year with the Cardinals.  I guess he could end up playing somewhere else next year, but I doubt that will happen.  At one point, Carpenter was an All-Star caliber player.  The last three years, he has been an overpaid, under-performing member of the team.  It's not really Marp's fault he is overpaid, I wouldn't turn down $20 million dollars either.  I can't be too upset at the decline in his play either.  He's in his mid-to-late 30s.  

It happens.  

Anyway, while I frequently complain about Carpenter's large quantity of strikeouts and questionable ability to throw the ball across the infield on social media, I really have enjoyed collecting his cards over the years.  I would not say that I am a Matt Carpenter collector, but it seems that I have ended up with a large number of his cards.  I thought it would be fun to take a few minutes to reminisce about a few from the stack (and old blog posts) that have a good story.  

First, the Matt Carpenter autograph from the 2013 Gypsy Queen set.  

Have you read any of the posts the past two years where I complained about the lack of Jake Cronenworth cards, but then they transitioned over to complaining about the cost of Jake Cronenworth cards?  Similar to Jake Cronenworth, Marp played college baseball and spent a fair amount of time in the Minors.  He first appeared for the Cardinals in 2011, just a cup of coffee, but was heavily used as a utility player during the 2012 season.  

Did anyone make a Matt Carpenter card?

Just like Jake Cronenworth, the answer is no.  

In 2013, Topps finally got around to putting Marp in a few sets.  Emphasis on few.  The best card they produced was an autograph in the Gypsy Queen set.  Pictured above.  Unlike the Cronenworth cards, I caved to the pressure and bought one of these overpriced Marp cards.  However, Cronenworth, a 27 year-old second-year player has $50 autographs, Marp was a 27 year-old second year player who had $30 autographs.  

I regret nothing.  

Next is a Prizm autograph that is no longer in my collection for good reason. 

I do not talk specifics of my job on here, so I will be slightly vague.  If you have have taught, you will probably understand this better.  I had a student a few years back who was "that kid" in terms of behavior.  Definitely a challenge for me at times, but we both loved baseball.  He used to bring his glove to school and we'd play catch at recess, somedays wiffleball or kickball.  Anything to build rapport.  

After teaching this student for a year, I got moved up a grade level.  He ended up in my class for a second year.  Due to circumstance outside of school, he had a tougher time during the second year.  I used to let him pick out a few friends and let them eat lunch in my classroom as an incentive every week.  At the end of the school year, he struggled with the idea of transitioning to a new school and some changes that were going on elsewhere.  In an effort to make the end of the year positive, he agreed to work towards a Matt Carpenter autograph.  The end of the year was good.  

I hope he still has it.  

Two more.  

Do you ever have a bad parenting moment?  

Well, let me tell you about this Five Star Matt Carpenter autograph.  The gold ink on top of the black card is beautiful.  However, there is a better story here outside of aesthetics.  I was off-school for half-a-day to take my very small daughter to a check-up.  She was under a year old.  My wife and I, she is also a teacher, alternate off days for kids appointments and sick days.  The pediatrician we use is literally 5 minutes from my house.  I could walk there on a nice day.  

Did I take a diaper bag?  No, it's 5 minutes from my house.  

Did I bring a bottle or any food?  No, it's 5 minutes from my house.  

Here is where I went wrong.  The appointment ended and little one has completed dozed off while I was talking to the doctor and paying the bill at the front desk.  Afternoon nap.  I put her in the car.  I am a big fan of trying to squeeze as much into days off as possible.  My children slept great in cars, so I put her in the backseat and decided to go pick up a box of cards from the one of the many card stores we've had in Raleigh.  

I get to the store and take my daughter into the store.  She is still sleeping in her car seat.  I buy the box.  I also bought this single Matt Carpenter autographed card.  I am talking to the guy in the store when my daughter starts to stir.  She wasn't too happy.  That's when the gas started and I realized I did not have her bag.  Gassy babies don't stay gassy long.  I picked her up, the cards too, and ran out to my car.  About half-way home, from both the sounds and odor coming from the back seat, she had filled her diaper.  Every light was red on the way home and she screamed for the last 10 minutes of the drive.    

We got home.  

I changed her.  

I think it took me almost an hour to get her back to sleep for her nap.  

I never forgot her diaper bag again.  

Last one.  

I have lived in Durham or Raleigh (Raleigh-Durham is an airport) since the fall of 2005.  There have been some long stretches of time where the area has not had a card shop or not had a quality card shop.  We actually just got a new card shop recently.  I am reserving judgement for the moment.  By far, the best card shop we had was open during 2013 through 2015.  It was called Big D's Card shop.  I got so many great cards for my collection from that store.  

The last card I got at the store?  

This Matt Carpenter Postseason relic/autograph.  

I miss that place.  

I am sure that I will also miss Matt Carpenter at some point too.  Maybe not right now, while all those strikeouts are fresh in my memory, but there were some good games and great moments during Marp's time with the Cardinals.  Those at-bats in the Postseason against Clayton Kershaw are going to be at the top of the list.  

It was a good ride.  

Farewell, Marp.  

A Trip To The Co-Op

Everyone has written up something about their 2017 cards.  I am slowing down a bit this year, so I am doing a little more picking and choosing of sets to collect.  I set out recently to my local card, The Trading Card Co-Op to check out two different products.  In past years I have really enjoyed opening boxes of Heritage and Gypsy Queen, so they seemed like something good to work on.  I'd like to think of them as kind of staple products, or sets that are long running that I have been opening since whenever they started..... Beyond Gypsy Queen and Heritage, I also picked up a single card which fit nicely into my card collection.

New single card.

Love the black card with the gold signature and gold foil.  I am a little depressed about the Cardinals at the moment, so I am just going to leave this card here and move on to my Heritage box.  

The 1968 set is not my favorite, but it's not terrible.  I have always heard it described as the "burlap sack" set.  Good description, but I have always felt that was kind of a negative and I don't really see this set as one that I would run away from.  Besides, my box was pretty sweet.  The card above is a mini and the card below is a mini.

I think mini cards are supposed to be one per box, but mine had two.  Beating the odds is always good.  I also got a chrome Rizzo card.  Another good name to go along with the Posey and Machado.

I had one of cool parallel card which I did not scan because I did not find it until I started sorting out my cards into making my set.  One of those things you miss the first time around because it just doesn't stand out.  The other card was a grey back card which I believe are limited to just 10 copies.  All sounds good, but the card is the Rockies team card.  Not the best, but I am sure I can trade somewhere, or something like that.

On to the autograph.  I cannot complain about this one at all either.....

I actually spent the last few days watching the Cardinals play the Yankees, don't mention the outcomes, but Judge seems to be a really impressive player.  I am going to file this card away in a box and revisit it in the future.  Hopefully Aaron Judge has a nice career, if not I will look back and remember when I could have sold this card for more than $50, but now it's under $5 on COMC.....I like my chances of it staying pretty high.

Shall we Gypsy Queen?  I am going to do this one quickly.  My two autographs....

two pretty good young players.  The Severino is serial numbered to 150.  The Piscotty is not numbered, but it is always nice to pull an autograph that fits into my collection out of a box of cards.  A few other hits, not showing them all.  

My best non-autographed card, might be even better than my autographs, is a Manny Machado throwback variation.  The card is also missing the his position above his name, so this is a short print within a short print.  Way too over complicate things Topps.  Still a cool card.  

I pulled three other color variations out of the Gypsy Queen box.  The Car-Go card is a black and white variation and serial numbered out 50, Dozier and Judge are both purple and serial numbered out of 250.  

I also pulled a couple of cards with no name on the front and a few others with out the player's position above their name.  It seems like you get a couple of these per box based on what I have seen out of other people's pictures around Twitter and Instagram.  

Overall, I am happy to have finally picked up boxes of these two products.  I pulled some really cool cards out of the boxes and also am enjoying the new Matt Carpenter autograph.  Overall, a good day at the local card shop.  

Things I Am Sorting....Part 1

Again, I have been back a week and in case you have not been following along, I am spending more time working on the cards that are already here in my collection.  In my quest to reorganize my cards from team boxes into sets, I figured it might be cool to share some of the cards that I am sorting out.  Always fun to look back at what you picked up out of a wax box, or from your local card shop, long ago.

While I said there was less focus on new things not coming in immediately, I am going to set that aside for tonight's post.  Today, I am going share a few things that have recently been added to my collection, but they are still here inside of my house taking up space and time.

So, let's start with the easy stuff.  I have spent some time this week straighten out my autographs.  I added a few new autographs from some of the early Topps releases and never filed them away into my boxes.  Some of them I pulled myself out of boxes, but I have been trying to fill in holes by trading and buying too.  I have actually only worked on Topps Series 1, Heritage, and Gypsy Queen.  Still, there have been other products released by Topps and Panini recently.  Not bothering with packs.  Here are two Cardinal additions:

The Carpenter card is from Topps Museum Collection.  Museum has been around for a few years and is always loaded with sticker autographs.  There are some Cardinals and Rays in this product, but stickers...... I found this Matt Carpenter autograph on Twitter on a picture posted by Brent and Becca.  They are case breakers in Arkansas, fun to follow when new cards come out, and sometimes you pick off cards before they list them on Ebay.  That's how Matt Carpenter ended up in my collection.

I also picked up an Ozzie Smith autograph from Legacies.  Nice card, nice signature.  It's Ozzie.  There are other autographs too, but I am not posting all of them.  Check out my Instagram for more of these types of cards and a picture of a street named Cypress Hill that I drove down last week.  Sorry, no B Real or Sen Dog.

On to the real challenge.  I have been spending a lot of time the past few weeks working on some early and mid 1980s sets.  Next week I am hoping to spend time working on some 1986 and 1987 sets, but this week I am skipping the eighties to work on this year's Gypsy Queen cards.  They came out a few weeks ago......

The design is alright this year.  Not sure about the red letters on the bottom of the card.  I am saying that and I love the color red.  The trim is kind of an orange color, which looks nice with the tanish/brownish card color, but then the red is just too much.  I am in really good shape with the base set and have a good start on the minis.  The other cool thing that I found while sorting out my Gypsy Queen cards was a variation of Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant.

Pretty cool pull.  I am not sure what the odds are exactly on pulling the full sized variation card, but I am pretty happy to land the card.  Enough with new cards, next week I am going to post some nice 1980s cards.

Those Other Ginter Cards Part 1

A while back Topps started selling an anniversary version of the Allen & Ginter cards with black backgrounds instead of the usual white.  The black background cards were celebrating the tenth anniversary of the product.  The boxes were not prohibitively expensive, but sometimes I get really tired of the whole rehash thing, such as making the cards a different color, adding chrome to the cards.  Sometimes I will dabble into those products, but I usual limit myself by just picking up some interesting singles, or not opening a box and buying the base set.

The set has kind of grown on me over time.  A few of the card groups I am in on Facebook had collectors post pictures of cards from the set.  Very nice.  While I am not going to assemble a set in this case, I am going to put together a nice group of Cardinals, Rays, and former Durham Bulls.  I started by picking up four of the cards pretty cheap off of COMC.

Obviously a good start to the assembling the Cardinals and Rays portion of the full size set.  Still plenty of cards still left to find, especially considering I still haven't touched the minis.  The Cardinals team set looks like it has 14 cards, leaving me 10 short.  The Rays team set has only 5, so 4 away from finishing.  I am going to have to sort through the big list to track down all of the Durham Bulls, but all five Rays cards would also fit into that category too.  

Hugs and Marp Five Star

Five Star is always one of the better Topps autograph products every year.  I will never open the boxes myself, but after they have been floating around for awhile I am always willing to add a few of the premium autograph cards into my collection.  So, I went out looking for the usual assortment of Cardinals, Rays, and former Durham Bulls (see Rays).  There are a few Rays, a few former Durham Bulls, but I went with the Cardinals cards first and ended up with another card too.

First, the Cardinals autograph.  Topps has been really repetitive with the Cardinals the past two years.  The same players over and over again.  Makes it hard to get too excited about finding new cards.  While I have added a bunch of Matt Carpenter cards over the past two years, I really like Marp.  I am not sure if he is quite in the category of "there can never be too many cards", but he's really close to that level.  Here is his Five Star autograph.....

Some of the early Five Star designs had dark backgrounds.  I really like the lighter background and team logo in the background.  This card looks nice with the signature on the front.  In fact, I liked the looks of it enough to add a second Five Star autograph from the same seller.  I like saving money on shipping.  

I have had a bunch of different Freddie Freeman cards over the years and I always seem to end up trading them to people.  So many Braves fans, or one Braves fan I always trade with?  I go with the latter.  Anyway, maybe I will hold onto this one.  I think in the back of my mind I was hoping the Cardinals would trade for him when I bought this card.  Perhaps Freeman and Marp could hug at the end of every Cardinals win.  I would like to see that.

Triple Threads Marp

There are a bunch of 2015 baseball card products I still have not touched yet this year in this blog space.  Currently there is a stack of cards sitting on the coffee table in my baseball card room that have been scanned, but not cropped or edited, and are waiting to be posted here.  Triple Threads, Supreme, Topps Tek, USA Baseball cards....there all here waiting to see the light of day.

So, where to start to clear the backlog?  I do not have a ton of time this evening so I am going to go with something simple.  One Triple Threads card.

I like Triple Threads.  I always pick up a bunch of them every year and always enjoy the product.  My focus in collecting the set is always around former Durham Bulls, usually Rays players, and a bunch of Cardinals players.  So, I am going to start off my Triple Threads collection this year with a Matt Carpenter card.  Here's a look........

I love the look of this year's Triple Threads cards.  This Matt Carpenter card is a sticker autograph, but it's still a very clean looking card.  The sticker is not very noticeable and well blended in with the gray background.  The bat relic is pretty nice looking too.  More Triple Threads post will be on the way.....

#MyCardMonday

We are now a month into the baseball season and the year is looking good for both the Cardinals and the Durham Bulls.  I use the #MyCardMonday posts to frequently highlight a player or card from those two teams and this week is going to be no different.  I spent my Sunday afternoon flipping back and forth between the Durham Bulls/Pawtucket game and the Cardinals/Pirates game.  It was fun to see both games, but after watching the games the choice for this week's #MyCardMonday was really a no brainer.

Carpenter seems to be on track for an MVP season with an OPS+ of 191 with 18 extra base hits in 23 games.  Those 18 extra base hits include 14 doubles, 1 triple, and 3 home runs.  Carpenter is currently on pace for a ridiculous 125 doubles this season which would smash the single season record held by 1930s Red Sox outfielder Earl Webb who hit 67 in 1931.  There is even a Carpenter doubles tracker floating around on Twitter showing Carpenter's pace along with Earl Webb and Joe Medwick.  Medwick holds the Cardinals team record with 64 two baggers in 1936.  

I am not sure what the numbers on this graph stand for, I might be doubting it's accuracy, but it's going to be a fun race to follow throughout the season.  Carpenter ended the 2013 season with 55 doubles, so he has certainly been in the neighborhood of the record in prior years.  Maybe I need to make an accurate graph of the doubles race.  Hmmm....

Marp Triple Threads

It's been a slow start to the 2015 card year, but I will have some Gypsy Queen to post later this week. I am hoping that it's as cool as it was last year.  In the meantime, I went ahead and found a card from last year's Triple Threads to fill in a hole in my collection.  Here's a look at the new card....

I found this card in a Cardinals trade room on Facebook and was happy to take it off of another collectors hands.  I picked up a few Matt Carpenter cards last summer, but missed out on one of these cards.  Carpenter is one of my favorite Cardinals players at the moment.

Seriously, Last Trip To Big D's

My Saturday started with a trip into my local mechanic after my engine light popped on during my drive home Friday evening.  A gas cap later I had a lot more time on my hands Saturday afternoon than I had anticipated.  What to do?  Well, Jimmy from Big D's started sending me a few pictures of cards that collectors had landed out of 2015 Topps boxes.  I was happy with my box, but apparently there were some other Cardinals hits hanging out in some of the other boxes in the store.

These were really nice cards, so I decided to take my car, with it's new gas cap up to Big D's for one last time.  Seriously.  So, here's what I ended up adding to my collection while I was in the store:

This card was picked up by another customer at Big D's who found it at a Flea Market in Raleigh.  Being the resident Cardinals fan at Big D's the guy asked Jimmy if I would be interested in this card.  Of course I was interested.  I have always loved these Postseason cards and thought this patch piece looked really cool.  I was trying to figure out what part of the Cardinals logo this piece came from, but I cannot quite put my fingers on it.  As nice as this card is this is the second best Cardinals card I picked up Saturday.  

This card is just awesome.  Alan, an Orioles collector, pulled it from a box of 2015 Topps, along with a cool looking Pujols coin card.  After talking it over for awhile we agreed to a trade that landed me this cool Carpenter and another Cardinals autograph which is en route, for a Ripken autograph.  You have to give up something, and while the price was high, I am ecstatic to have landed this Carpenter Postseason autograph.  Probably the best Cardinals card I have out of this long running insert set from Topps base sets.  

2015 Topps Jumbo Box

This feels like the official start of the 2015 card year.  I picked up a jumbo box of the new Topps base set after school one day this week at my favorite local card shop Big D's Sports Cards.  I had a great time opening the box and talking cards and baseball with the owner of the store Jimmy.  So here's a look at my box and my take, with a little bit more detail than the other day, on the 2015 Topps base set.

After spending two days looking at these cards I have decided that I am going to like the design of the 2015 Topps base set.  It is a little bit busy at the bottom of the card between the bottom and the patterns, but at least Topps has gotten away from the white bordered cards that they have put out the last six or seven years straight.  It had gotten a little bit monotonous and I am happy to see Topps roll the dice a little bit and try something different.  I think the design could have been improved a little bit if they had toned down the colors a little bit.  The parallels are monochromatic and look even better than the base cards.

I especially love the gold parallel cards.  These are really sharp, but then again any of the colored parallel cards look nice with the simplified color scheme.  This Hamilton looks cool.  Is that iced camouflage?  I'm not sure, but it's serial numbered to 99 and looks really nice.

Another oddity of the 2015 Topps cards is the combination of the Future Stars tag at the top of the card along with the Rookie Card.  Have these two Topps hallmark logos ever appeared on the same cards before this year?  I could not think of one, but then again I did not go research it either.  Why does Even Gattis have a Futures Stars logo anyway?  He has been in the league for a few years now.  On to some hit cards.....

My relic cards.  What do you want out of a relic card out of a Topps base set?  Carlos Gomez is fine for a hit out of this box.  I could have done better, but the relics out of the base set all end up selling for less than $5 at some point anyway right?  Gomez is a good player and I am not sure that I have a relic card of him.  Welcome to the relics box Carlos.  

Definitely not a keeper here, but still a really cool pull out of a box of base box of Topps.  I am not going to sell or trade this Baez card simply because he is a Cub, but because I am not sold on him being an impact player.  Something about him reminds me a little bit of Dan Uggla.  Plays second base, hits .190, strikes out two or three times a game....Moving on.....

This was my manu card out of my jumbo box.   These seem like they are pretty nice, but I am starting to wonder if the manu card is getting a little bit stale.  I saw a couple of manu cards on Ebay and on trade sites that had the Future Star logo on them that looked really nice.  Topps did a logo man manu card a few years ago.  These kind of seem like a rehash.  

My favorite insert set out of the set was the Gallery of Greats.  These are a knock off from the late 90s/early 2000s Topps Gallery product.  These looked nice back then and they still look good today.  I pulled this nice Kershaw and also landed a Hanley Ramirez.  I am going to have to pick up the rest of these at some point this spring.  By far the nicest looking insert.

I also liked these defense insert cards.  How many Colby Rasmus insert cards have been made?  I am not sure there have been many, but I really like defensive sets.  There are always some sort of insert like this in Gypsy Queen and am happy to see it in the base Topps set.   One more like.....

I liked both of these cards and I am pretty sure that I have copies of both of hanging out in a box somewhere.  Old cards are always cool, and while I like for Topps to go out on a limb sometimes, they are a tradition rich company.  It's nice to see some of these classic cards, and cool names, reappear in modern products.  

Last insert set for the moment.  There was a ton of hype around these First Pitch cards.  I honestly do not get it.  What am I missing here?  Sure there is 50 Cent, but I am not sure I really care about half the people in this set.  There is this soccer guy?  There is Macklamore, some gymnast, and maybe Eddie Vedder?  I am just not excited about these.  Sorry.  

Marp in a Minute or Five.

It has been a really busy day and tomorrow is going to be just as busy.  Saturday looks at this point though.  There is nothing on my calendar, no report cards to type up, or any school work that needs attention.  So, my usual Friday Five posts, which are some of my favorites to research and type, are going to be delayed this week until Saturday.  I am still calling them Friday Five posts and they involve both Greg Luzinski and Rusty Staub this week.  What could the category be?  Come back tomorrow.  

I am at a breaking point currently with my work, so here is an autograph I picked up last week from the Topps Supreme set.

The Supreme product was only released in Asian markets and was still pretty popular in the US.  I picked up a copy of the Chris Archer autograph and had a few other cards from the set I considered.  This year's version of Supreme was released in the US and has been a huge hit with collectors.  I have added a few cards, but I am not a huge fan of the sticker autographs that Topps used for this set.  This is supposed to be a high end product?  Hmmm.  Anyway, cannot go wrong with a cool Matt Carpenter autograph.  This card is limited to just 35 copies.

Enjoy your Friday!  

A Double Hit of Mr. Double

I picked up a pair of Shelby Miller autographs last weekend and duplicated the feat with a pair of Matt Carpenter bat relic cards too.  The pair of bat relics come from the 2014 Topps Series 2 set and is one of the first relics of the Cardinals infielder.  Up until this year the 2013 All-Star had only one autographed card.  This year he has picked up the pace on signing certified autographs and has also finally has a few relics cards too.  I believe that this is his third.

Carp can also be found in last year's Topps Update as an All-Star jersey and also in as a jersey card in this year's Topps set.  I am still working on the jersey card, but plan on adding the card soon.  I am a big fan of Mr. Double.  Let's revisit the time he broke Clayton Kershaw.  

New Marp Autograph

Panini makes a mean baseball cards some days and I kind of wish they had their license so collectors could enjoy their products without all the silliness of airbrushed over logos.  Sometimes they can still pull off a great design and make a cool card without showing a team's logo.  I was excited to see that Panini included Matt Carpenter on their Prizm checklist, but was worried about the overall appearance of the card.  Sure, I was probably going to find away to add the Carpenter autograph to my collection regardless of appearance, but Panini did a great job with this card.  

A little bit of glare on the picture, sorry, but my new computer will be here later this week.  Basically, Panini avoided the logos and airbrushing issues with this Carpenter card by posting a picture of him from behind while he is batting.  I love the white space for the signature and actually really like the design of the card.  Yes, it's very modern and metal looking, but that's not all bad.  We do not get that too much these days with Topps putting out a lot of retro looking cards sets and designs.  

This is just Carpenter's second certified autograph and the pricing on the card has generally put it around $20-$25 for the base version, which is the one I picked up, but the colored parallels can run more.  I actually really like the silver on the base autograph and think some of the colored versions are a bit much.  I had a chance at picking up a purplish/pink variation of this card on Ebay for a little more than $20 last week.  The card had a serial number on it, mine does not, but this base autograph version just struck me right.  

More Marp

It's a shame that Matt Carpenter only has one certified autographed card.  I made it a point to pick one up last year when he signed for the Topps Gypsy Queen set.  At the time of the autograph's issue the Carpenter was a former utility player trying to make the transition to everyday second baseman for the Cardinals.  While the card was initially popular, the value of the card sunk gradually as the summer progressed.  However, towards the end of last season's card calendar, the value of the Carpenter cards picked back up after no other autographed cards hit the market.

Carpenter also had a few nice moments during the second half of last season including an All-Star Game appearance and that at-bat when he broke Clayton Kerhsaw. 

Kershaw had a rough rest of that inning and Puig threw the ball all over the yard.  He was just having fun.  Needless to say, like other Cardinals fans, I am a pretty big fan of Matt Carpenter.  I had a chance to pick up another copy of the Gypsy Queen autograph this past weekend and managed to snag a copy in exchange for a copy of an Andre Dawson autograph (Expos card) and a pair of relics.  

2014 Donruss Box

I have been a little intrigued over the past week or so by some of the posts other bloggers and collectors have made about the 2014 Donruss set.  The design of the set and different card elements within the set are very reminiscent of the old 1980s Donruss set.  The only real draw back is the whole Panini thing.   It's not a state secret that I am not a huge fan of the Panini, non-licensed, card releases.  Well, I decided to go for it and picked up a box of 2014 Donruss from Big D's Card Shop in Raleigh.  Here's a break down of the cards:

The base set of the 2014 Donruss cards have a white border which was common on the earlier 80s Donruss sets.  The logo at the top is also an older design of the Donruss logo.  The colored lines on the logo are new, but the card has a good early 80s feel to the card design.  The baseball design on the side of the card is almost identical to the 1987 Donruss cards.  

Many of the elements from the back of the old Donruss cards are also visible on this new relaunch.  Not perfect, but close.  The number in the corner in a baseball, the full name, and blurb at the bottom are all consistent with the 1980's Donruss cards, but the stat box used to show five years of stats, not just one, and the player's contract information was posted in between the stats and the blurb on the bottom of the card.

The 2014 Donruss set is a 200 card set and the box was really well collated.  I did not complete the whole set, but some of that had to do with short printing.  Really I had very few dupes out of my box and could easily spend a small amount of time on Ebay or COMC and have the rest of the set finished quickly.  The biggest pieces missing from my set come from the first 30 cards which are the Diamond Kings cards.  Just like old times....

These look a lot like the original Diamond Kings cards.  I am not sure if the Diamond Kings cards are advirtsed as a short print, but I only pulled five of them, plus a jumbo Diamond King.  The other cards at the beginning of all the Donruss sets?  Don't scroll down...

The Rated Rookie.  There is a good mix of prospects in this set and these cards seem like they might also be slightly short printed.  Some of the pictures seem like they might be Minor League pictures too which is totally cool in my book.  I am taking this Billy Hamilton card as a picture from the Louisville Bats.  Way cool.  There are also is a picture of Chris Archer wearing a Durham Bulls uniform.

Overall the 2014 Donruss base set is excellent.  If you did not collect baseball cards during the 1980s this set may not be for you, but the good vibes generated from cards is well worth the price of the box of cards.  Yes, I bash Panini for not using logos, but I was not even looking at that while I was opening these cards up out of these packs.  I saw that Adam Dunn card and thought about him oleing some ground balls at first base.....

and not the fact that I could not see the White Sox logo on the front of his jersey.  Of course there is so much more to the 2014 Donruss set than just the base set.  Let's look at some more cards.

There are Rookie cards.  The Rookie insert kind of look like the 1988 Donruss cards, but that's a stripe and not a plaid design.  I love the Beckham card on the right.  Durham Bulls uni?  I vote yes.  Again, these cards were a part of the early Donruss years right down to the little logo in the corner.  

There are some elite themed insert sets complete with serial numbers.  A classic of the early 1990s.  The scanner did not do these cards enough justice.  The have a cool foil finish.  Both sets are serial numbered out of 999.  I believe that there are autographed versions of these cards.  

There are also the usual jersey cards.  The Moore card is cool.  I am not sure about Jordan Lyles, but why not.  It's got a pinstripe.  There are also some cool autographs...

Really like the Gausman autograph.  He seems like a really good pitcher and the Cobra is also cool to land.  There are a few Donruss autographs that I will have to chase down now that I have opened my box.  Namely, Kolten Wong.  

The set is not a complete throwback to the 1980s and 1990s Donruss sets.  Panini also borrowed a few elements from the first Donruss relaunch which took place in 2001.  The cards were definitely a 2000s set with autographs, serial numbers, and a lot of foil and gloss.  Here are two cards that fit the 2000s Donruss mold:

The Press Proof cards actually started in the late 90s, but they became really prevalent in the early 2000s.  Pinnacle used the Press Proof concept across their card brands beyond Donruss which made the concept get old really fast.  Search out Press Proof on Ebay and your screen will be littered with a rainbow of different colored Press Proofs from Donruss, Donruss Elite, Leaf, Leaf Certified, Leaf Cuts, Playoff, Playoff Prestige, etc, etc, etc, etc.  

Panini also used the Stat Line cards.  Slightly cooler than the Press Proof cards, but still a product of the 2000s Donruss relaunch.  Player collectors really like these cards, I have dozens of these for Ray Lankford, and they create a good chase.