Set Appreciation Post #15 - 2012 Bowman Platinum

It's been awhile since I have made a post about a set.  

I am kind of a softie for some of these products that came out around the time I started blogging.  Bowman Platinum has now been out for 10 years and has gone stale in recent editions.  I think the same can be said for other Bowman spin-off products that Topps created in the early 2010s.  Inception would be in that same boat. Started off great, but its fizzled in recent years.  

Let's go. 

 

Base Set 

The design on this set is decent.  I always worried that Topps would start blending the different Bowman product designs together and make them indistinguishable.  This design has some similarities to the first two Bowman Platinum sets, but I think it has a unique look compared to other Bowman products from 2012.  I like the frames around the picture and the player names.  The Bowman Platinum logo in the middle is not my favorite, but I guess it does make the set more identifiable.  

The majority of cards in this set have more of a blurred out background than the Pineda card.  Not sure why Topps left more of the picture visible on this card.  

The back of the card.  

There is a lot of other "stuff" on the back, which makes the area for stats and the write-up fairly small.  Topps still did a decent job here, especially with the write-up.  It's small, but I like the information that is provided on the cards.  I never love "busy" card backs that are cluttered with junk, but I do appreciate the large card number and player name at the top.  

Maybe I am just saying that because I was sorting out some 2021 Topps cards yesterday.  

Michael Pineda was a really big prospect in 2012.  He's had some decent seasons when he has stayed healthy, but his career highlight has to be the time he was using pine tar during a game and just slathered a bunch of it on this neck.  

This was a few years ago before the crack down on "sticky stuff"  

Pineda was ejected from the game.  

I'm Really Here For The Autographs 

The set design for the 2012 Bowman Platinum is decent, but I didn't buy these cards so I could get a Michael Pineda base card.  I bought these cards for the autographs.  Do people buy Bowman Platinum cards for another reason?  

Yes, the majority of autographs are on stickers, which kind of stinks for this product, but at least they are well blended in most cases.  There were plenty of former Durham Bulls players, some current at the time, who appeared on the autograph checklist.  That made me pretty excited to buy some of Bowman Platinum cards back in the day.    

I parsed it down to two favorite Durham Bulls autographs.  There are more.  

First up is outfielder Mikie Mahtook.  He is still in Triple-A with Charlotte at the moment, which is the White Sox affiliate.  While he has had some good years in the Minors, Mahtook has never been able to do much in the Majors.  Hence, a decade in Triple A.   He had a decent year with the Tigers in 2017, but nothing beyond that.  I think he is best known for losing a home run to a spectacular Alex Gordon catch, but not before high-fiving the first base coach.  

That Royals player in the background is awesome.  

Matt Moore was a great prospect coming up for the Rays and pitched really well in Durham.  In 2013, he won 17 games and finished in the Top 10 in Cy Young voting.  Two Tommy John surgeries later, Matt Moore is 2-4 this season with an ERA over 6 for the Phillies.  Still love his baseball cards.  One of those "what could have been" players. 

One last autograph that I picked up back in the day was a young Rockies third base prospect.

This has always been a nice card, but I was really happy to have it during the past year.  Saved me a little time, probably a little money too.  

Best Non-Cardinal/Non-Durham Bulls Card 

During the pandemic, I learned that people are also crazy for second year Mike Trout cards.  They are actually expensive in some cases.  Pretty wild.  When did this happen?  I feel like I need to put all of my early Mike Trout cards into sleeves and top loaders.  I don't really collect Mike Trout cards, but I have a ton of them from 2011 and 2012.  I could probably sell them all and pay off my car loan.  

This is a nice card, but it's my second best Bowman Platinum card of Mike Trout.  

This one is nice too.  

Best Durham Bulls Card

This was a really hard decision.  If I had to rank sets based on Durham Bulls content, this set would likely be a strong contender for the Top 10.  It's not just the cards, but also the names.  I loved the Bulls teams between the 2009 Triple A National Championship team and the 2013 International League Championship team.  Some of my favorite players.  

It's really hard to decide, so I am going to choose two cards.  

Hellickson is one of the most decorated Minor League pitchers in recent history.  He won the USA Today Minor League Player of the Year Award in 2010, International League Pitcher of the Year in 2010, Triple-A National Championship Game MVP in 2009, and was the starting pitcher in the 2010 Futures All-Star Game.  

In 2011, he pitched for the Rays.  Hellickson had a sub-3 ERA and won the American League Rookie of the Year.  Similar to Moore, Hellickson had a lot of arm problems and ended up being an end of rotation pitcher for a bunch of different teams.  

Next.  

Archer was on the Durham Bulls in 2012.  He's also from Raleigh, which makes him pretty popular in these parts.  This is actually from the short-printed prospects section of the set and would have been a favorite card of mine back in 2012.  Archer is still playing, but his career has really been set back by arm injuries.  Seems to be a theme here.  

In recent years, Archer has given the baseball world the fight between the Pirates and Reds where Yasiel Puig tried to fight the entire Pirates team.  Archer actually threw a pitch at Derek Dietrich, but somehow Puig was the angriest guy on the field.  I love Tucker Barnhardt holding on to Puig's shoe while he is trying to punch five different Pirates players at the same time.  

There are a bunch of people on the internet who love this picture and have turned it into art work.  

Wil Myers could have been a possible third, but he is on the Royals in this set.  Meh.  

Best Cardinals Card 

The Cardinals had a heavy presence in this set.  They were coming off a World Series win and had a lot of name prospects at this point.  Oscar Taveras, Carlos Martinez, and Matt Adams all had autographs in the set.  There were also cards of Matt Holliday, Lance Berkman, Allen Craig, and David Freese.  

I am going to choose none of those players and go with a role player from the 2011 World Series team instead.  Bench player the first half of the year, starter after the Cardinals ditched Colby Rasmus in the middle of the season.  

Underrated Cardinal, Jon Jay.  

Topps always made really good cards of Jon Jay early in his career.  The balanced it out by ignoring him the second half of his career.  

How Does It Compare? 

At the beginning of the post when I said, "I am kind of a softie for some of these products that came out when I first started blogging", what I meant to say is that I am a softie for the autographed cards.  I have done 14 of these posts over the last year, there is no way that a generic-looking Bowman spin off can be in the top half of the sets.

Right?  

What's it better than?  It's clearly not the worst set I have reviewed.  It's more exciting than the 2000 Topps set, but those cards are only interesting when compared to watching an episode of the Pat Boone show.  The 2000 UD Ionix set seems like a good neighborhood.  

The Ionix set had better inserts.  While the quantity of autographs offered by Upper Deck was smaller, the players were actual Major Leaguers.  I love Jon Jay and all the other Cardinals players mentioned as signers in the 2012 Bowman Platinum set, but was an autograph of Scott Rolen in Ionix.  There were also no sticker autographs.  

I am going to place this set 12 after Ionix, but before the boring 2000 Topps set.  

15. 2000 Pacific Paramount Update 

14. 2010 Topps USA Baseball  

13. 2000 Topps 

12. Bowman Platinum 

11. 2000 UD Ionix  

10. 2002 Bowman 

9. 1988 Donruss 

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 

Love That Instagram Account

Do I have social media accounts that I use in conjunction with my blog? 

Yes.  

Am I good at using social media accounts to promote your blog?  

No.  

It really boils down to a matter of consistency.  Blogging is not super high on the priority list of my life, so it usually happens late at night when I am trying to wind down, or early in the morning before other people in my house are up for the day. Don't get me wrong, I like doing this, but life has its priorities. I guess if I had more time for blogging, I would probably do a little better with posting links and picture are social media.  I am not much for self-promotion.  

I actually do a decent job of using Twitter.  I am there frequently, which is not true of other social media.  I talk about baseball cards on there, but I also know that I do not stay in my lane all the time.  Beyond baseball and baseball cards, I have also tweeted this past week about school calendars, people getting thrown out of my local grocery store, the number of miles I walked on Wednesday (it was 9), and how King George is the best character in Hamilton.  

Not always on brand.  I am also fine drifting onto other topics.    

This is the best King George song, if you want music for the rest of the post.  

On Facebook, I spend no time promoting my page.  I am almost sure I have been on the same number of likes for the past five or six years. The page is there. I will post links to whatever I write on here, but it does not go much beyond that.  I am not begging people to look at my page.  

I also have an Instagram page too, the feed is on the side of this blog, but I am not really good about posting pictures consistently.  Sounds like a theme of sorts.  I know a lot of collectors hang out there.  I try.  

Which reminds me, once I won an award for my Instagram account.  

Long ago, when I first started blogging, there were organized awards amongst card bloggers.  I got tagged in a tweet at some point saying that I got nominated for having "The Best Instagram Account".  I was a little surprised, and I am not sure what I did to even be considered.  I voted for myself.  Being me, I spent approximately zero tweets promoting people to vote for my account.  That's what I do, or what I don't do.  

The results?  

I am glad that every liked the 2014 version of my Instagram account and took time to vote for me.  I was more consistent about posting at that point, but still not great.  I was surprised to win to say the least.  

My social media accounts have won other things along the way beyond awards.  

A few years back I won a Joe Montana autographed 8x10.  Apparently, I just followed an account who was giving away an item that was pulled out of a Heroes of Sport box.  I did not even know what I had won until it showed up in my mailbox.  

In fact, I did not even know I followed this account.  I do not follow very many breakers, the ones I do are usually very deliberately picked.  Again, a little surprised to win something.  Especially because I did not retweet, favorite, or tag two friends.  None of that.  I am not a "retweet to win" type of person.  

Well....

Unless its basketball tickets.  I will retweet to win those.  

Which brings me to this past week.  

The last time I time I posted on Instagram was a roughly a month ago.  The post was a picture of a 1994 Upper Deck Bernard Gilkey card.  I also got a DM around the same time from some one offering to sell me an Austin Meadows autograph.  There are no Austin Meadows posts in the works.  

I had a notification on my Instagram account the other day.  I was half way debating whether or not it was worth my time to even look.  I eventually went and checked it out fully expecting it to be someone who looked at all my cards from five years ago and alternated the comments "want", "fs?", or "trade?"  Apparently, I followed some case breaker and won a baseball card.  It felt similar to the situation from above with Twitter.  I can be a little skeptical about dealing with people on Instagram.  Not my favorite place to buy, sell, and trade.  Free card sounded pretty low risk though.  

Here is what I got.....

I am not collecting Project 2020 Trout cards, but I do not turn down free.  In fact, now that we have finely reached the point where people aren't flipping the cards for huge amounts of money, or trading them for other really expensive cards (I regret nothing), these are a little bit more enjoyable to talk about with other collectors.  

Beyond not collecting Trout, I have also not done anything with the artist of this card, Jacob Rochester.  It looks like he does all types of art, but also makes music.  He describes himself as an artist's artists on the back of the card.  

I have never heard the term "artist's artist", but sure.  I am more a rapper's favorite rapper type of person.  

I am sure that I will enjoy the new card, and love that Instagram account.  

The Cost of Child Labor

My last two posts have focused on the sorting I have been working on over my summer break.  I mentioned in my first post that I have had some quality help out of my oldest, who is 9 years old.  Before this summer, he had a little interest in baseball, but it mainly revolved around going to Durham Bulls games. This summer the little man has become really good at sorting, and it has given him something to do while he is stuck home for summer break.  

Saying he just sorts the cards is probably not going far enough.  He also puts together all the boxes for the sets we are building, takes pictures of cards that we are listing for sale, and puts the completed sets away in the correct place after the cards are boxed up.  

There are days where we get a little less done, usually because he gets interested in a player or card set.  It's fun to have someone to talk cards with in the house. There are definitely sets and players that have caught his eye.  

So, last week I ended up paying for some for some of the extra help that I have had with the cards over the last few weeks.  He has liked some of the Topps Project 2020 cards that I have been picking up over the past few weeks.  With the prices continuing to drop, I picked up a Mike Trout as payment for all the help.   

I was not entirely sure of why he decided to pick this card, but after it arrived I got the full run down on why this is a great card. 

Beyond sorting cards, my son is also spent time this summer reading books.  Not any of the ones on the school district's summer reading program, more into the different baseball books that I have in my card room.  One of the books is Baseball Uniforms of the 20th Century, which goes all the way up to the Marlins and Rockies expansion.  It's out of print, but it's still easy enough to find online with book resellers.  I sort of wish they would do an update edition, but I also know there is a Hall of Fame related website with all the uniform information.  

He also likes several of the different ballpark and stadium books that I own, along with the SportsLogos website.  It's all sort of a normal pattern for him where he goes all in on a topic, and he does not forget things.  His rote memory is really good.  We have been through the same thing with dinosaurs, various animals, Presidents, Star Wars characters, Harry Pottter, and I am probably missing a few in there.  

That brings me back to the Trout.  

He likes Mike Trout as a player, so I thought maybe that was the lone reason.  

Nope.  

He actually liked the card because it has a lot of different uniform pieces and logos on it.  I was confused at first, but here is the run down.  

+There is a modern Angels logo in the top left corner, which is the Anaheim Angels version.  

+Trout is wearing a 1970s California Angels uniform.  

+The batting helmet in the picture has a capital A with the halo, so it is actually from the 1980s version of the California Angels.  

+The side script is something the artist made up.  

One Mike Trout card is a small price to pay for all the help and company with the cards.  I am also glad it fits with his reading interests right now.   

Got One Of Them Hot Boxes

I bought baseball cards at Target.  Not a real common occurrence, but I am usually at least willing to walk past the card aisle and see what is there.  I think about it for a few minutes. 

There is the "Remember you pulled an Al Kaline autograph out of a $20 box here once"

There is also the "Isn't this the store where some jerk slit the top of a pack of cards we bought?"

If I do decided to buy cards, I now make sure the packs are sealed, or the box is not wrapped in Glad Food Wrap or something.  

On with the story.  

Now, if you have never heard of a hot box, they are sort of a mythological creature in the world of baseball cards.  I liken the hot box to things like....

The chupacabra. 

The Loch Ness monster.  

Bigfoot.  

So, I start opening up my packs of Topps Heritage cards and I get a Chromium looking card of Aaron Judge.  I flip the card over, no serial number.  

Weird, but I am in the middle of opening up packs, so I just set it aside and open the pack.  I get another Chromium looking card of Jose Ramirez.  No serial number.  

At this point I am intrigued, but I am still not going to stop for two of these cards in two packs.  

Then the next pack started out with this card......

and ended with this card......

I knew something was up with the box of cards that I was opening.  I checked out a few different checklist type sites, you should read Cardboard Connections, and I found the answer was indeed something called a "Hot Box".  These aren't just Chromium cards, or Chrome, or whatever you want to call them.  They are some form of purple Chrome.  

I was stunned, so what did I end up?  This is great stuff for a retail box.  I mean, it's not Al Kaline, but for $20 at Target.....

All a very good haul, but I got one other card, which is going to go along way towards putting together this set.  

Hot Box!!!! 

Seriously, A $300 Tim Beckham Autograph.

At some point earlier this year I added a wanted list to the side of my blog.  Look over there to the right hand side of the blog and you will see it sitting there with some holes in it.  I have been able to add some of the cards on my list to my collection over the past year, but recently I have not kept up with the list.  Honestly, I am a little bit frustrated with a particular card on the list.  

The top card on my most wanted list is a Bowman Platinum Tim Beckham autograph.  It's a rather tough find, but then again it's Tim Beckham.  I like Tim Beckham.  He has spent a consider amount of time playing for the Durham Bulls and I have enjoyed watching him play.  His cards are fairly inexpensive and not too difficult to find.  

I understood that putting the Beckham card on the top of my list was a challenge, but it has turned out to be the exact opposite problem that I was expecting.  Beckham has a low print run of autographs in the Bowman Platinum set, so I figured finding the card would be the difficult part.  How much can it possibly cost?  It's Tim Beckham...

Well, the card has been on Ebay for awhile.  I have made offers, sent messages, and received nothing in return.  No: 

"Hey, this is my bottom line" 

or

"I could sell you the card for this much"

Nothing.  The problem with buying it as it is currently listed?   

You have to squint your eyes a bit, but that listing does say $299.99 for a Tim Beckham autograph.  I made my first offer on the card a few weeks back, then made a second, and a third today after hearing nothing from the seller after multiple attempts to contact them.  My third offer was the most insane price I have offered on a card in a long time, but sadly I knew that the seller would turn the offer down.  Sad, but someone would not take $50 for a Tim Beckham card.....

Crazy offer, crazier seller.  So, let's talk about unique cards for a minute.

I understand that a lot of collectors have cool, unique, low print run cards in their collection.  I have had some print plates and autographs of some really cool players during my time collecting baseball cards I have no problem cashing in on those cards.  I have a Mike Trout Finest autograph and would not hesitate to asking for a lot cash back for a card like this.....

Many of us also have cards that look really cool, and could be valuable, if they only had a different player on the front.  For example, I own this awesome Brett Wallace patch card from Topps Pro Debut.  It's an incredible patch piece......

No matter how cool the patch piece, or low serial number (it's print run is 5), it's still just a Brett Wallace card.  If a ever ran into a huge Brett Wallace fan, or someone who wanted the card, I can honestly say that I would guess the card is worth $30.  I wish it were something I could turn around for $300, but it is not.  

The moral of the story is this: If you have a low print run card that's autographed, or has a cool patch piece, be proud of your card.  However, if you are going to sell or trade the card keep in mind who is on the front and be realistic about what you are asking for your item.  We all want the most for the cards we are selling, or trading, but there comes a point where you are just being completely unrealistic.  

2015 Topps Heritage Part 1

I am going to break down my Topps Heritage boxes into two posts this weekend.  Even though my favorite local card shop closed recently, the shop owner Jimmy, is still helping all of us card collectors in central North Carolina with our wax.  I picked up two boxes of the popular annual Topps product which, this year, is based on the 1966 Topps set.  Here's a quick look at a base card......

More on the base set tomorrow morning.  I was happy that Topps returned to coding the backs of the Heritage set cards to help collectors pick out the different variations.  The bottom of the base cards feature the numbers 253 as the last three digits of the code.

I am going to focus on the variations and inserts that I landed in boxes in this post.  I pulled some nice cards and was happy with my boxes.  I would have loved to have landed an autograph, but the short prints and variations were really nice in my box.  Let's start out with the inserts, since they have been basically the same since the start of the Heritage product in 2001.  

The basic inserts in the Topps Heritage year in and year out are the Now & Then set, which features league leaders from the past year and design year, Flashbacks, which feature both sports and non-sports events from the design year, and the New Age Performers set, which features younger star players.  There are also Chrome cards this year.....

and there are also several different box toppers.  I pulled an original 1966 Topps card and one of these  mini card sheets....

My two relic pulls weren't bad.  I would have loved to have pulled an autograph, but two nice players here with the Wright having a centered pinstripe.  The Mauer also has a pinstripe, but it is way over on the very edge of the window on the card.  Now, my favorite parts, the short prints and variations.  

The high numbered cards, above 425, are short printed and seeded at about 1 in 3 packs.  There are a total of 75 short prints and I ended up with 19 different short prints in all.  The basic short prints have the 258 code at the end....

I pulled two variations on the short prints.  I pulled two of the action variations.  A Tanaka and a Puig....

and the code on the back of the action short prints....

Finally the best card of my box at the odds in 1 in 140 packs is this great looking Mike Trout Banner Swap short print.....