One Fine Topps Series Two Card

I have done nothing towards collecting the second series of this year's Topps set.  No packs, no single cards, absolutely nothing.  I did put together the first series and I also put together the 1983 Topps insert set.  The 83s are also in Series 2, but I do not think I am going to do anything with them at the moment.  Still enjoying the first set......

I finally found a Topps Series 2 card that caught my interest last week doing my usual scan of saved searches that I have on Ebay.  The card was initially a little more than what I would have wanted to pay, but luckily the seller had a "Best Offer" attached to the listing, and was actually willing to move the price closer to my comfort zone.  

The results......

I ended up with an acetate parallel of one of my favorite former Durham Bulls, and current Ray, pitcher Blake Snell.  I have tracked down several of these over the years since they first came out in 2014.  Mostly Cardinals and Rays.  

I like the front of this card, the serial number on the right side is a little hard to read, but the picture is nice.  These are still numbered out of ten.  The acetate cards have a different looking finish, not sure that it really comes out as well on this card.  Maybe it's the cards from this year, or maybe it's that this Snell card has a dark background.  

Flip the card over because......

this is one of the best parts of the acetate cards.  Again, I think the dark background of the card gets in the way of this card a bit.  The player is always black and white on these cards, and with a brighter background, that features really gives the back a little bit of pop.  Contrast is nice. 

Just a quick comparison to my favorite acetate card of all-time.....

Much brighter look, higher contrast.  

Still love the Snell card.  It's a tough find of one of my favorite players.  Topps cannot go around picking out photos based on how they will look when they make certain parallels of their base cards.  Snell is young, plenty of career left in front of him.  I am sure I will end up with another one of these at some point.  

In the meantime, this card is the finest Topps Series Two card in my collection.  Not even close.  

The Acetate Backstop

The last few years I have cut way back on the different parallel cards that I pick up in trades and purchase.  There are just so many of them and they run across almost every set.  It's numbs the mind somedays.  Instead I have tried to focus in on some specific parallel cards and try to limit them to Cardinals and former Durham Bulls players.  Sometimes current Durham Bulls players.

The main focus of my parallel purchases and trades have revolved around the acetate cards that Topps has put in their base sets the past three years.  The cards are serial numbered out of 10, so they can be expensive and difficult to track down, but they are worth it most of the time.

A few days back I found a former Durham Bulls player on an acetate parallel for the less than $5.  That's hard to beat.  It's also my first acetate card of the year.

Maile has actually spent a part of this year in Durham, but is currently up with the Rays.  He is a good defensive catcher and has done a lot to improve his hitting over the past two season with the Bulls.  This year he has already equaled his extra base hit total in Triple A from 2015, but has about 130 less plate appearances.  Given where the Rays are in the standings I am glad to see Maile get a chance to play at the Major League level during the second half of the season.  

It's an acetate, so we have to check out the back of the card.  One of the best parts of an acetate card.....

I am going to have to find a few of these before the end of the year.  Especially a Cardinals card.

Two Off the List.....

Two cards are coming off my Top 10 Wanted List tonight.  I started my list a few months back and it started off slowly.  I have mixed up the cards a bit, some simple targets and a few hard ones, and the pace of cards coming off the list has really picked up.  Tonight's two are one of each: One card that has been up for a few weeks and another that has been on the list since day 1.


Let's start off with the 10th Card on the list first....

I have already picked up all of the autographed copies of the Bowman Flashback cards, but still had one of the non-autographed cards to pick up.  I pulled a few out of packs and boxes and traded for a few of the others as a lot which left me with just this Baerga.  I ended up finding this in an envelope from Tim who writes the blog I Love the Smell of Cardboard in the Morning.  I am putting together a return envelope and I thank you for crossing a card off of my list.

Which brings me to the second card on my list which has been there since the first day it was posted a few months ago.....

Justin Ruggiano is one of my favorite all-time former Durham Bulls players.  I have a ton of his cards and enjoy collecting him.  Even that year he was on the Cubs.  I love the acetate cards and have been looking for an opportunity to add one of these cards of him and I finally found one last week on Ebay.  I probably slightly overpaid for the card, but knocked more than $40 off of the asking original asking price of $60.  It's an acetate, the first one on a 2015 card, so we have to look at the back of the card....

Just an awesome piece of cardboard.  Again, thank you to Tim from I Love the Smell of Cardboard and I will update my Want List with two new cards at some point this weekend.  

Trade with Michigan and Trumball

There are so many cards sitting on my desk at the moment that I need to catch up on during the next week.  Missing posts the first half of this week did not help, so let's get started.  I picked up these two cards in a trade from fellow blogger Matt over at Michigan and Trumball.  

First up in a new card from my favorite new Cardinals prospect, you might know him as Alex Reyes, I am going to just start call him Big Al.  This newest autograph of the Cardinals pitching prospect comes from the 2015 Bowman set and features a nice on-card signature.  Big Al is having a great summer, so hopefully Topps will throw out some more cards of this great prospect.  

This is a really cool card that I have had my eye on for awhile.   I picked up a whole bunch of the acetate cards last summer and now own about 7 or 8 of these cards with a whole bunch of them coming from the Rays and Cardinals.  Or players with connections to the Rays and Cardinals.  We also always have to look at the backs of these cards......

Love the reverse look on the back with the black and white player image.  Very nicely done by Topps.    Really enjoyed these cards and I am looking forward to a few more trades with Matt.  Be sure to check out his blog in the coming days to see what went back the other way.  

Trade with Chavez Ravining

I picked up a really sweet card this past week from Alex at Chavez Ravining.  He's obviously a huge Dodgers fan and has a great collection of over 200 Matt Kemp cards.  I helped him out with a great Matt Kemp autograph for his collection and picked up a really nice Oscar Taveras Acetate card from the Topps Update set in return.  Here's a look at my newest card:

 I have added a whole bunch of these cards to my collection this year and this card might be my favorite of the bunch.  It's numbered 2/10 and has all of the cool trappings of the Acetate cards which I have talked about numerous times this year.  This is the one of two Topps base cards of Oscar Taveras, so there is that too.    

I always have to post the back of the card when I pick up on Acetate too.  Love the mirrored look of the back and the fact that the card is translucent.  This is one the coolest parts of these cards which I hope Topps will bring back for 2015.  Here's a look at the translucentness..... (is that a word?)

2014 Topps Update Oscar Taveras Acetate 2/10 #Cardinals #OscarTaveras #OT18 #Topps

A photo posted by The Snorting Bull (@thesnortingbull) on Jan 10, 2015 at 5:40pm PST

Alex also add a stack full of extra cards into our trade.  My favorite extra card has to be this cool Topps Pro Debut Gold of Rays prospect Thomas Coyle.  The Rays second base prospect played for the Charlotte Crabs in the Florida State League (High A) last season, but had previously starred at the University of North Carolina.  

The card is numbered out of just 50.  He also threw in a whole gaggle of other Cardinals and Rays goodies which can be summarized in this short Vine.  

Overall, it was a great trade and I am really happy with my brand new Oscar Taveras card.  I still have a few other cool Kemp autographs hanging out, so I am looking forward to a few more trades with Alex.  Thank you again!  

Acetate Bulls

I started my Snorting Bull Awards for the 2014 cards the other day handing out my first bull statute to the Topps Acetate cards for being the best set of parallel cards made this year.  I have added a few over the year, but there are still a few more of them on my wish list.  The Cardinals acetate cards seem a little bit outrageous in price and probably out of reach.  The Rays cards, by contrast, are much more affordable and feature some of my favorite Durham Bulls players.  I have had my eye on this one for a long time........

Beckham was the former number one draft pick of the Rays and has been in Durham the past few years.  He is one of my favorite Bulls players to watch and I missed seeing him play most of this last year while he was on the DL with a torn ACL.  Beckham is on the team's 40 man roster and should compete for a roster spot with the rebuilding Rays.  If it does not work out, I will be alright with watch a few more games with Beckham roaming the infield in Durham.  

Snorting Bull Award: Best Parallel Set

The last two years I have dabbled in handing out awards on my blog.  Not much different then the Oscars or Emmys.  Just my opinion being stated with a few people telling me I am either awesome or an idiot because that's how awards roll.  This year I am stepping up my game a little bit more.  After looking back over the past two years one thing I have consistently missed is actually having a symbol to represent my award.  Neither the Emmys, nor the Oscars were holding a garage sale to unload extra statues, so I created my own electronic statue.  If you are the brand manager at a card company and you win one of these awards feel free to print out a copy of the picture below, remember it's a picture of a statue, and hang it on your cubicle wall.  Huge honor to win one of these.....

Snorting Bull Award: Best Parallel Set 

My awards are starting off with the no-brainers first.  In other words I have had my mind made up on these awards for weeks.  I also know that Bowman Draft has not been released yet, but I am willing to risk it because I doubt there is a parallel set this cool in that set.  I'd challenge someone to prove me wrong, but they will not do it.  

My parallel set of the year goes to the Acetate parallel in the Topps Series 1, Series 2, and Update sets.  As a collector, I had long ago tired of seeing all sorts of red and orange and pink and camo cards.  The acetate parallels were something completely different, and best of all, they were a challenge to add to your collection with a print run of just 10 cards.  My first copy of one of these cards landed in my collection back in February when I picked up a copy of the Kyle Lohse acetate out of Series 1.  Later that month I added this incredible looking Todd Helton card.......

This is Helton's last Topps base card as an active player, so I thought it would be a cool one to own.  The scan does not really do the card justice, but it has a smooth translucent finish and is serial numbered in small silver print on the bottom left corner just above the team logo.  For appearance sake, it very much looks like Helton's actual 2014 card, but the changes made to the front of the acetate parallels is very subtle.  The backs of the cards are really cool and make this a dynamic parallel set.  

The look like a reversed photo, which is an Upper Deck thing, but for these cards they work out really nicely with the translucent finish.  I love the contrast Topps provides from the picture with the black finish along the edges of the back and the black and white finish on the player photo against the colored background.  

Overall, this was an easy selection as the parallel set of the year.  As a collector I would personally love to see Topps scrap about half of their parallels and stick to design ideas like this which truly push their products as innovative and are a challenge for collectors to track down due to the fact that there are a very finite amount.  Parallels lose some of their luster when there are two dozen of them, half of which are numbered to /500 or /250 or come one per jumbo pack.  

My absolutely most favorite copy of an acetate card I picked up this year belongs to Cardinals outfielder Jon Jay.  Here is the original post and here is a picture for this post......

Tops always seems to get awesome photographs of Jon Jay.  Last year they had him crashing into a wall next to Tony LaRussa, this year they have this gem with Matt Holliday.  Really awesome card and great design by the folks at Topps.  

Acetate Jay

One of the most pleasant surprises this year for Cardinals fans has been the play of Jon Jay.  With a crowded outfield of Matt Holliday, Allen Craig, Peter Bourjos,and prosepcts Randall Grichuk, Oscr Taveras, and Stephen Piscotty in Triple A Memphis it seemed that Jay was the odd man out in the mix.  However, Allen Craig has struggled mightily against right handed pitching, Matt Holliday has seemingly lost his power, and Bourjos is leading the world in strikeout rate. 

Meanwhile Jay is posting a .288/.347/.376 line. Dig a little a deeper into the numbers and he's posting a .376 average against lefties with a .512 slugging percentage.  It seems that hitting left-handed pitching was always one of Jay's shortcomings, but this year.  His overall line is not that spectacular, but it's not a terrible line from a guy who was viewed by most fans, as an expendable extra.  Given the lack of production from the other outfielders it would seem that Jon Jay is going to be playing out the year in St. Louis. 

Having Jay in St. Louis this year has given me an extra summer to pick up a few more of his cards.  Jay does not have many autographs out this year, nor relic cards, but there are still some nice finds out there.  This last week I was able to pick up a copy of a really awesome Jon Jay card. 

Everyone who reads this blog regularly knows how much I have enjoyed the new Acetate parallels that Topps has put out this year.  Translucent cards with only a print run of ten copies, these cards are one of the best new wrinkles Topps has put into their flagship base set in a long time.  Here's a look at the copy of the Jon Jay version:

and you have to see the back on an Acetate parallel.  It's one of the best parts....

I also must say that this is the second year in a row that Topps has given Jon Jay a really cool card card.  Last year it was a picture of Jay crashing into the picture of Tony LaRussa and his retired number on the outfield wall of Busch Stadium.  This year you have a cool picture of Jay and his High Socks Sunday look giving a high five to left fielder Matt Holliday.  How does Jon Jay get cool cards?  Who takes these pictures?  Can they take pictures of all the players that Topps puts into their sets?  Probably wishful thinking...

An Acetate Archer

One of my favorite parts of the 2014 Topps set is the inclusion of the new acetate parallels.  The cards are serial numbered to just 10 and have a great look about them.  I picked up two of these cards from Series 1 and was eager to add a few more when Series 2 dropped a few weeks ago.  I originally had three targets on Ebay.  I missed two of my targets.  Tim Beckham:

I can blame this one on ADD.  I knew the cards was ending, I planned on bidding, and the price was obviously right.  What was I doing when this card went off?  Something other than bidding on this affordable card.  Bummer.  My other target was Jon Jay.  ADD?

Nope.  Just simply outbid on the item.  I tried hard, but it's hard to spend more than $25 on Jon Jay.  Especially when two other copies of the card are currently floating around on Ebay and are both under $10 at the moment.  Please don't bid me up!  Which left me with my third target.  Some say it's the charm.....

 
This is a great card and I am a huge fan of Chris Archer.  He's a former Durham Bull.  He's from Raleigh.  I met him last year at the USA Baseball complex in Cary, North Carolina.  He's an awesome hard throwing pitcher and I have added a lot of his cards over the last two or three years.  This Acetate card is a great addition.

My favorite part of the Acetate cards is the back.  I love the reverse picture and also really like the translucent look with the black frame.  I am not sure that the scan does this card enough justice.

2014 Topps Acetate Todd Helton

I have been keeping my eyes on the Acetate cards after landing my first copy of the new parallel set last week.  Kyle Lohse was a nice card, but I still figured I could probably do a little bit better.  My hopes were dashed a bit when players like Justin Upton had their cards reaching $80 or more.  There is an odd absence of Cardinals acetate cards floating around (Joe Kelly did cross $100) and the Rays cards have been ridiculous.  There is a copy of the Wil Myers card floating around for $125, but I am not going to pay that.  Apparently nobody else is either.

The Helton card caught my eye after it sat around $20 for a few days.  I was surprised, but I decided to follow the auction for the card on Ebay and was able to land this copy for $26.  Just as reference point, that's the same amount of money, or less, then the cards of Wily Peralta, Jim Adduci, Anthony Rizzo, Leonys Martin, and Dustin Ackley?

The card is just simply spectacular.  Really happy to land a parallel copy of the last Helton base card from Topps limited to just 10 copies for so little.  Here's the card:

The backs of the cards are cool too: