Set Appreciation Post #17 - Topps Lineage

Topps Lineage is really an off-brand version of Topps Archives.

Yes, there are positives here, but I think there are limitations because of its format.  

Same general idea as far as the checklist goes, but rather than recycling a bunch of their former card designs, Topps used the same border for all the cards. Looks like something that was likely a rejected design for one of their base sets at some point.  

Here is the basic design.  

I like the photograph of Koufax, but there is just nothing really special or interesting about the design of this card. It's just not very good.  

Back of the card.  

No stats on the back. I actually like this idea for this type of set, especially given the way that Topps wrote these snippets. If you had to summarize the career of Sandy Koufax in two sentences, it would be difficult to do a better job than what is on the back of this card. The modern players are just as well done. 

The card backs are a positive for this set.  

Similar to the Koufax card, there are plenty of other older players throughout the set. 

Whoever made the set actually did a good job of picking out former players. Nice mix from all different areas. The older players, such as Tris Speaker, are generally colorized, but the card photos still look decent. The photography on the older players is another positive in Topps Lineage.  

I like that Lenny Harris makes an appearance on the Ryne Sandberg card. He's a first ballot guy if someone ever makes a Hall of Fame for utility and bench players. Also shout out to Topps for not using the cringeworthy Milwaukee Braves logo from the 1950s and 1960s, even if they used the cringeworthy Cleveland Indians logo on the modern players.  

Any set that has a subset of cards with Topps All-Star Rookie Trophies can't be all that bad, right?  

Favorite Cardinals card.  

Bob Gibson.  

Favorite former Durham Bulls card.  

Evan Longoria.  

Best non-Cardinal/non-Durham Bulls card.  

An aquward looking, 21 year-old Freddie Freeman.  

How many Braves players have baseball cards with this same pose at the Braves Spring Training Stadium?  

It's a lot.  

Topps Lineage is still not all sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows.  

There is still the ever-present horrible airbrushing. I picked out two different examples. The Adrian Beltre card is just incredibly bad. The Damon card is not quite as bad, but they airbrushed him out of a Tigers uniform, but left Jim Leyland in the background.  

If Jim Leyland were smoking in the background, I would forgive the bad airbrushing.  

Topps used the parallels from their flagship sets on the Lineage cards. A bunch of sparkles and colors that do not look very good with this card design.  

Sparkly Lou Gehrig?  

No.  

However, I do like the cloth cards based on the old Cloth Stickers. Topps had some cloth/silk parallels around in different products around this time. Good looking cards that they should consider bringing back.  

I have thought about finding all of the Cardinals and former Durham Bulls cloth sticker cards from this set, but that is somewhere way down on the list of things to do. 

Let's talk about another positive.  

The inserts are great, but similar to the Archives sets, the designs are all borrowed from older Topps products.  

There are the 2011 Rookies insert that is a copy of the 1980s Rack Pack All-Star cards.  

Hank Conger with a Hooters ad over his shoulder.  

There are 1975 Topps Minis. Miniature in real life, but not here because of the scan.  

There are also relic cards with the 1975 Topps Mini design. I am sure that there are a few floating around in one of my boxes of relics, but I am not going to go surfing for one at the moment.  

We also have the 1964 Topps Stand-Ups.  

Love the green and yellow backgrounds on these cards.  

There are also autographs. There were some decent current player autographs in this set. Early autographs of Stanton, Posey, and Freeman. I bought a box of Lineage while I was on vacation in St. Louis back in the day and ended up with a Charlie Morton autograph.  

Charlie is pretty old now, but he's had some good seasons along the way.  Solid autograph. 

The autographs of the older players are really nice. I have a few of the players who appeared for the Cardinals. I will go with Duke point guard, Dick Groat for this post.  

The 1952 Topps design has been completely overused at this point, but what are you going to do?  

HOW DOES IT COMPARE?

 Lineage is essentially a Topps Archives set. I like that they do not recycle former flagship set designs on the base cards. I think that is the biggest positive here, along with some of the autographs. There is nothing here that really stands out to me, so I am going to go with the bottom half of my rankings.

In my opinion, it is not as good as the first four sets in the bottom half of my Set Appreciation posts. So, that's below the Heritage Minors, Emotion XL, Donruss, and Bowman. I thought long and hard about how this set compares to the Ionix and Bowman Platinum set. I was tempted to put it behind both of those sets, but I think the autographs are the saving grace here. 

Yes, copying the design of the 1952 Topps set is slightly annoying, but they are good looking cards. I am ranking the Topps Lineage set 11th.  

16. 2000 Pacific Paramount Update 

15. 2010 Topps USA Baseball  

14. 2000 Topps 

13. Bowman Platinum 

12. 2000 UD Ionix

11. Topps Lineage   

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 

A Giant Project Update #9

I am inching closer to completing my 1964 Topps Giants set. I have a few more cards to post today, including another one of the really tough short-print. I thought I would finish this set quickly, which is not happening, but at least I still have some momentum going in tracking down these cards.  

First up.  

Roy McMillan looks really old in this picture, but he is only 34. I figured he was going to be 40.  However, he was at the end of his career.  If you have ever seen some of his other cards, much like Sparky Anderson, he just always looked old. McMillan was a long time Reds and Braves shortstop, one of the really great defensive players of the 1950s.  He made a few All-Star Games and also won a few Gold Gloves.  Not much of a hitter.  

The back of the card focuses on his standout defense. Many of these cards skew off onto player's Minor League careers, but the writer did a great job with this McMillan card to keep the focus on his fielding.  I like the action picture on the back. I wish I knew who the players was sliding into second base.  

Next up is Red Sox first baseman, Dick Stuart. This is a short-printed card in the set, but I did not think it was too tough to find.  

Dick Stuart could hit.  Dick Stuart could not field.  It's the best summation I can come up with for his career.  During his prime years with the Pirates and Red Sox, he hit 30 to 40 home runs per year. He also led all first baseman in errors almost every year he played. Red Sox pitcher Dick Raditz once suggested that he get a vanity license plate for his car that read "E-3".  

The back of the card starts out by mentioning a three home run game he had for the 1960 World Champion Pirates team. The author does manages to squeeze in a line about his Minor League career, which again is done throughout the set. That last line on the back is something. I am sure many pitchers on the Pirates and Red Sox would strongly disagree with that statement.  

Next up is a pretty good card.  

I like this portrait photo of Brooks Robinson, but it would have been nice to get something where he is fielding or standing with his glove. Although, he actually was a decent hitter at this point in his career.  Plus, the picture on the back of the card more than makes up for the photo on the front.  

Now, this is a great staged fielding photo. Outstanding. The write-up does not involve his Minor League career. Nice card, but let's get to the best card in the post.  

I will let the card do the talking here.  

The centering is off slightly going left-to-right and top-to-bottom, but the rest of the card is fairly clean. 

The back is a little yellow too, but this was a really tough card.

I know I stated in an earlier post that I thought the Mantle was going to be the biggest challenge in completing this set, but I think I completely underestimated this Koufax card. Again, it is short-printed and seems to be the toughest out of that group of cards.  

With the 4 new cards, I now have 33 out of the 60 cards needed to finish the set. I have two short-printed cards remaining with one of them being Willie Mays.  I am going to try to knock out a lot of the common cards over the next two months. More updates to come....

1 Gary Peters
2 Ken Johnson
3 Sandy Koufax SP
4 Bob Bailey
5 Milt Pappas
6 Ron Hunt
7 Whitey Ford
8 Roy McMillan
9 Rocky Colavito
10 Jim Bunning
11 Roberto Clemente
12 Al Kaline
13 Nellie Fox
14 Tony Gonzalez
15 Jim Gentile
16 Dean Chance
17 Dick Ellsworth
18 Jim Fregosi
19 Dick Groat
20 Chuck Hinton
21 Elston Howard
22 Dick Farrell
23 Albie Pearson
24 Frank Howard
25 Mickey Mantle
26 Joe Torre
27 Ed Brinkman
28 Bob Friend SP
29 Frank Robinson
30 Bill Freehan
31 Warren Spahn
32 Camilo Pascual
33 Pete Ward
34 Jim Maloney
35 Dave Wickersham
36 Johnny Callison
37 Juan Marichal
38 Harmon Killebrew
39 Luis Aparicio
40 Dick Radatz
41 Bob Gibson
42 Dick Stuart SP
43 Tommy Davis
44 Tony Oliva
45 Wayne Causey SP
46 Max Alvis
47 Galen Cisco SP
48 Carl Yastrzemski
49 Hank Aaron
50 Brooks Robinson
51 Willie Mays SP
52 Billy Williams
53 Juan Pizarro
54 Leon Wagner
55 Orlando Cepeda
56 Vada Pinson
57 Ken Boyer
58 Ron Santo
59 Johnny Romano
60 Bill Skowron SP

Slightly Let Down.

I was really excited earlier this year when Topps announced that they were putting out a set that was created with the owner of the Super 70s Sports Twitter account.  The Twitter account is sort of a cross between sports and pop culture with a heavy 1970s lean.  Sure, there is a little bit of 1960s and 1980s cross over in there from time to time, but the account generally does a good job of staying in its lane.  

For example........

Brilliant.  

I was hoping the set would be the Topps equivalent of the 2001 Upper Deck 1970s set.  If you collected cards at the time that set was released, you know that's a high bar to meet.  There were some really strong inserts, great names from the decade, and a solid autograph checklist.  I thought Topps was up for the challenge of matching cards like this one from the Upper Deck set.....

 

It took awhile for the box to show up, but last week it appeared in my mailbox.  I was excited to open the pack of cards.  It's one of the few current 2020 products that I have opened this year.  

The packaging inside the box was pretty nice.   

Now that I mentioned the Twitter account and the packaging, I am roughly 50% of the way through the highlights for this product.  The set has one major flaw.  Maybe I am being picky, but I am going to go ahead and borrow a meme from Mad Man and one of my current favorite sayings at work.  

Works great in 2020, usually more than once in a week.  

So, here is the problem.  Ohtani has nothing to do with the 1970s.  He wasn't even born in the 1970s.  Sandy Koufax did not pitch in the 1970s.  In fact, he retired in the middle of the 1960s.  It's not even like he pitched in the late 1960s.  I am not scanning on my cards from the box, they are on my Twitter if you really need to see them, but there were a lot of other non-1970s players.  

Not to keep harkening back the Upper Deck 1970s set either, but that product only had players from the 1970s, which is what made it a really great product.  I'd like to think there is still a market for that type of product 20 years later.  Has Topps looked around at who collects baseball cards nowadays?  There are a lot of people who would eat up a set filled with players from the 1970s.  

Here is the sad part.  

The 1970s cards that are in the set are really well done.  It's not like I am expecting a set of Hall of Famers.  J.R. Richard and Dave Kingman are definitely more in line with what I thought would be in pack of cards.  These are great cards.  The 1970s themed insert cards are even better.  I pulled three insert cards, one of which was an autograph, out of my box of 1970s Topps.

This card is a gem with Rich "Goose" Gossage wearing shorts for the White Sox.  

Lou Brock wearing sunglasses.  Yes, absolutely great 1970s card. 

This Gorman Thomas card is also awesome.  The mustache is magnificent, as is the long hair cover up his ears and the long side burns.  

I understand that I am being a little hard here.  There are truly some really great 1970s cards in this product.  If had to go back and keep my $20 and not order this box, I probably would have still picked up a few singles on Ebay or COMC at some point.  It's not a total disappointment, I just feel slightly let down.  

Not Really My Style, But Happy You Came Along

I have been working on the Project 2020 cards, mostly sticking with the Bob Gibson and Mark McGwire cards.  Not buying all of them, just sticking with the art work and artists that I enjoy.  Not really been into the "investment" resale and flip thing that has made them popular with some people.  I have posted a few of the cards here over the summer, but I am happy that the prices and insanity around Project 2020 has settled down.  

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the high prices for awhile.  I was able to trade out a Project 2020 Bob Gibson card for an actual Bob Gibson rookie card.  Not sure I could make that trade anymore, which is actually probably a good thing the baseball card hobby.  

Baseball cards are fun, not investments.  

The card that seems to have burst the Project 2020 price bubble was the Ken Griffey card by artist Keith Shore.  You could see it coming a mile away.  The card has an enormous print run.  I am certain there were people who bought hundreds hoping to flip them for a good margin of profit.  They're not quite free on Ebay, but selling at a large discount.  

I figure at this point, the card is at least notable, so I bought one off of Ebay.  I think of this Griffey like a prospect card that was expensive at some point, but is now selling for a dollar because the player has been stuck in A Ball for 6 years.  It felt like I was getting it for free, but not quite.  Some actual money was involved.  

The art is not really my style, but to each their own.  I am just happy this card came along to burst the bubble.  I am sure there are people who really like this card for the art.  The pirate hat people in background are pretty cool.  Seems to be a staple in this guy's art.  

After reading the artist bio on the back, I was curious about the designs he has created for the beer labels.  I had to go check them out.  Similar style art as the cards down to the people with the pirate hats, but it feels like it works better on cans and bottles than cardboard.  

The crashing prices and interest in the Project 2020 cards has helped me go back and add a few cards that I was not sure about at the time they were released, but since several of them are now selling for roughly half of what it would have cost me to originally purchase them, the decision is now much easier.  

The first card I picked up was a remake of the 1987 Topps Mark McGwire rookie card by Blake Jamieson.  One of the criticisms of the Mark McGwire cards in Project 2020 has been that Topps is using the 1987 Topps card with the A's rather than his 1985 Topps rookie card featuring him on the 1984 Olympic team.  

This card combined the two with the wood border from the 1987 card, and the picture of McGwire in a USA Baseball uniform from the 1985 rookie.  I still have issues with the card I will address in a second, but for a discounted price I was willing to add this card to my collection.  

Personally, I would have rather seen the 1985 Topps card used for this set for McGwire.  This seems like a solid attempt to marge the two cards.  My lone fault with this card is McGwire's uniform number.  The artist made McGwire with a 25 jersey, which he wore in both Oakland and St. Louis.  However, he did not wear that number while playing for USA Baseball.  

If you're a long time reader, you know the USA Baseball facility is a few minutes away from my house, and I usually go to games there during the summer.  There is a McGwire plaque inside the stadium that recognizes his play during the 1984 Olympics and commemorates his jersey number being retired a few years back.  I currently cannot find my picture of it.  

McGwire wore 41 while playing in the Olympics Games.  I know, it's a small detail.  I can be picky.  There actually is a card of a player wearing the uniform number 25 for the 1984 Olympic team if you flip through your 1985 Topps set.  That number belonged to......

long time Indians, Giants, and Dodgers outfielder Cory Snyder, who was a shortstop at BYU during college.  His jersey is not retired.  

Here is the back of the McGwire card.  

Blake Jamieson is one of the artists who seems to be a natural fit for the Project 2020 cards since he already did sports art.  I know I posted a card a few weeks back and mentioned that the artists gallery of work online was not kid/work friendly.  Blake Jamieson is fine.  Go ahead and look at his Instagram, nobody from HR will be talking to you.  

One last quick card.  

I believe this card was available the same day as the Griffey show above, or they were at least relatively close.  While I have stuck to McGwire and Gibson cards up to this point, this is the first card that I have bought of a non-Cardinal because of the art work.  

I own the McGwire card by this artist.  The majority of the card is made out of triangles.  The writing on the bottom is the most obvious set of triangles, but you can also find them on the portrait drawing of Koufax's face and hat, along with the picture on the side with him standing on the stairs.  

I also like the original card, but as a collector with a budget, it's not like I am going to be springing for 1 1955 Sandy Koufax card.  Go ahead and assume I won the lottery if the real version of this ever appears on my blog.  

Back of the card.  

Here is the full explanation of the artist and his style.  When I said triangles, I meant to say Pop and Cubism with a surrealist vision. 

Complete Set: 2013 Topps Gypsy Queen

At some point at the beginning of the year I made a promise to focus on and show more completed sets on this space.  I started off great with my pursuit of a few cards for my 1998 Topps Tek set, but quickly got stuck on a Jason Kendall card.  Funny how one card got me side-tracked, but I recently landed the card which quickly reminded me of my goal.  No ADD or anything to see here.  In the meantime, I have actually finished a few sets, but have not posted the results on here yet.  Today is my first, in what should be, a long line of posts this year showing off a completed set.

2013 Topps Gypsy Queen Adam Jones

This is actually the third completed set I have finished from the 2013 baseball card releases behind the Topps base set and Topps Heritage.  Gypsy Queen is a 330 card set with 250 base cards and 50 short prints.  There are variations among the base set cards, but I did not get into finding all of the variations and super short print variations.  Not this year.  I actually did not open a hobby box of Gypsy Queen, but started out with a pair of Blasters I bought myself for Easter and then traded for one large lot of cards and bought a few smaller lots.  In the end, it is a nice looking set and a welcome addition to my big closet of cards.  Here are a few highlights from the set:

2013 Topps Gypsy Queen Lou Gehrig Mini 

The mini cards have been a big hit for Topps over the years and the Gypsy Queen set is full of minis.  I did not actually complete all of the minis yet, so I do not truly have a master set, but I am not gaga over miniature cards.  I always like picking up a few of these for every set, but the only mini set I ever finish every year is the Topps base set minis.  There are a few other insert sets in Gypsy Queen that I like besides the minis.  

2013 Topps Gypsy Queen Sandy Koufax No-Hitters 

My favorite overall insert set in Gypsy Queen is the No-Hitters insert.  The cards have a nice design and they highlight different no-hitters thrown over the years by pitchers from yesteryear and current Major Leaguers.  The backs of the cards feature the details surrounding the no-hitters.  I was a little bit disappointed that the Jose Jimenez no-hitter against the Diamondbacks in 1999 was not featured, but Sandy Koufax is cool too.  I would also recommend the Glove Works, Collisions at the Plate, and Sliding Stars inserts sets too.  Really well done.  

So what's my favorite card from the entire Gypsy Queen set: 

2013 Topps Gypsy Queen Collisions At The Plate Yadier Molina 

This Yadier Molina card is really sweet and I was excited that Topps gave him an insert card.  Look around, they are seriously lacking.  Anyway, at first glance I thought this card might be from last season when Molina has quite the collision at the plate with the Pirates Josh Harrison.  However, that collision took place in Pittsburgh.  The card shows Molina wearing red catchers gear, which he wears at home, and the Pittsburgh player has a road uniform and is wearing the jersey number 19 and not Harrison's 5. After doing some research into the collisions of Yadier Molina I found this picture:  

The card fits the picture to a tee and actually took place during Molina's rookie season of 2005.  The Pirates player is current Cardinal (my least favorite one) Ty Wigginton who was tagged out on the play.  I am happy that Topps gave Molina an insert card, finally, and showed a cool play.  Glad a stumbled across this card and helped me finish up the Collisions at the Plate insert set.  

1998 Donruss Signature Sandy Koufax Autograph

I am always in the market to add a great Hall of Fame signature to my collection, while at the same time try to balance value and finding new autographs of players that I do not have in my collection.  Last spring I was able to pick up an autograph of Sandy Koufax for my collection.  At the time it was my second Koufax autograph and represented a significant upgrade over my other Koufax autograph which was a 1998 Donruss Signature.  I was able to trade this other Koufax autograph for a bundle of cards and fill in some other holes, needs, and wants in collection.

1998 Donruss Signature Significant Signatures Sandy Koufax Autograph

and we've come full circle in a little less than a year.  Why acquire another copy of this card?  One of the best things about the late 90s Donruss Signature Series cards is that they were completely overproduced.  Overproduction means that they often cannot be traded or sold for nearly as much as the depicted player's autograph may otherwise sell.  For example, this Koufax autograph has a print run of 2000.  Most recently issued Koufax autographs are print runs of 100 or less.  They both feature autographs of Sandy Koufax, but this card can be found a little more than $100 if you are patient and in the right place at the right time.  For collectors walking a line between owning great cards and staying within a budget, the Donruss Signature Series cards a great set to check out.

2012 Topps Tribute Sandy Koufax Jersey/Autograph

I am going to let the picture do most of the talking today.  Traded for this card at the end of last week.  This is the best card I have picked up this year.

2012 Topps Tribute Sandy Koufax Jersey/Autograph